A Gaggle of Genres

One of the problems with generic roleplaying games is trying to work out quite what you can with them. The obvious answer is anything and everything, and whilst this is true, that might not be enough of an answer. Advice and tools which will help a Game Master do that anything and everything will always be useful. And whether it is GURPS, the HERO System, or Savage Worlds, there are a lot of supplements which address particular genres and settings. The Cypher System from Monte Cook Games is no exception. The Cypher System was introduced in 2013 with Numenera, the award-winning Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure in the very far future, which introduced new ideas in terms of roleplaying, such as player-facing mechanics and Game Master Intrusions, a new way of narratively increasing tension and awarding Experience Points. It also offered numerous options in terms of Player Characters, expressed in a way that clearly described what each did and which was also exciting. Since it first appeared, it has gone on to cover numerous different genres and even be used as the rules for roleplaying games based on a podcast or two. For example, High Noon at Midnight explores the Wild West, Neon Rain explores the Cyberpunk genre, and Stay Alive! dives into the horror genre. And this in addition to specific settings within these genres.

Expanded Worlds provides numerous options for Player Characters, an introduction to numerous genres, and a range of monsters, creatures, and NPCs that work with the previously explored genres. For Player Characters, there is a selection of new Descriptors and Foci. These fit the Cypher System’s means of defining a Player Character with the statement, “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” The noun is the Player Character’s Type, the adjective is a Descriptor which describes the character, and the verb is the Focus, or what the character does. For example, using the new Descriptors and Foci in Expanded Worlds enables player to create characters such as “I am a Meddlesome Adept who Changes Shape”, “I am Lawful Warrior who Collects Bounties”, “I am an Earnest Speaker who Governs”, and “I am a Chaotic Explorer who Drives Like a Maniac”. Several have extra details. For example, ‘Fell Through A Rabbit Hole’ has a ‘Nonsense’ table rolled on to create a random effect drawn from the surreal realm the character is connected to, such as ‘Unexpected Trapdoor’ or ‘Because I Said So’, that the player can then choose spend Intellect points to use. The Foci are a mix of the generic and the genre-specific. For example, ‘Descends from Nobility’, ‘Explores’, and ‘Figures Things Out’ veer towards the generic, useable in any setting, whilst ‘Hacks the Network’, ‘Is Haunted by Moths’, ‘Keeps a Magical Ally’, ‘Resides in Silicon’, and ‘Sailed Beneath the Jolly Roger’ have stronger or more specific requirement in terms of their setting and genre. The supplement does list the Foci by suggested genre. Nevertheless, there are a lot of Foci here and it is easy to go through them and package them into genres and settings of the Game Master’s own design.

Expanded Worlds explores seven genres across two chapters. The Fantastical Genres consist of ‘Post Apocalyptic’, ‘Mythological’, ‘Fairy Tale’, and ‘Childhood Adventure’, whilst the Gritty Genres consist of ‘Historical’, ‘Crime and Espionage’, and ‘Hard Science Fiction’. In each case, there is an overview of the genre, which includes suggestions as to what the players and Game Master might like to read or what, guidance on both creating and running the genre, followed by technical details that list threats, character types, Foci, and creatures all appropriate to the genre. Extras then add details specific to the genre. For the Post Apocalyptic genre this is a guide to scavenging, tables of junk and useful stuff, suggested artefacts like Enviroscanner and the Military Exoskeleton, and two Racial Descriptors in the form of the Morlock and Roach. For the Fairy Tale genre, it discusses the nature of Fairie, adds ‘Fairy Tale Wonders’ and ‘Fairy Artifact Quirk’ tables, and the Changeling Racial Descriptor. Notably, the ‘Childhood Adventure’ chapter gives an optional rule for playing young characters in the Cypher System without resorting to the Young Descriptor and so retaining flexibility in terms of options for the Player Characters. Of the four entries in the Fantastical Genres section, the ‘Mythological’ chapter feels just a bit too small, just not capable of handling its big subject. The inclusion of the Spear of Fate, Sword of Death, and Thunderbolt and Hellborn and Giant Racial Descriptors just hint at the possibility of the genre and really do leave the reader wanting more.

If the ‘Mythological’ chapter feels all too small for its subject matter, then too many of the entries in the ‘Gritty Genres’ section are all broad for what they are trying to cover. The ‘Historical’ genre chapter races through thousands of years of history in three pages and just cannot do it justice. The thumbnail descriptions of the different periods are just enough to intrigue the reader, but without helping in terms of what to read next or how to set adventures there. There is mention of some books, but simply not enough. Oddly, the ‘Crime and Espionage’ chapter works in one way, but not another, the problem being that it encompasses two different genres in one. What this means is that whilst all of the technical details—suggested character types, Foci, creatures and NPCs, and items—work with both genres, the advice does not as it means it is just too broad. Fortunately, the ‘Hard Science Fiction’ chapter more than makes up for deficiencies of the previous two chapters. Whether covering the effects of gravity on combat, survival in the vacuum of space, the unlikelihood of the Player Characters having their own spaceship, and so on, the advice here is to the point and useful.

For the Game Master, there is a selection of creatures and NPCs. Many of the creatures will work across more than one of the genres detailed in Expanded Worlds. For example, the Bogeyman and the Fairy can be used in the Fairy Tale and Childhood Adventure genres. Some genres are better supported than others. The ‘Mythological’ genre is particularly well supported with the Cambion, Cerberus, Hydra, Minotaur, Satyr, and Typhon, and similarly, the ‘Post Apocalyptic’ genre is solidly supported with the Abomination, Devolved, Fusion Hound, Gamma Worm, Glowing Roach, and Mad Creation. There are oddities though, such as the Killer Clown and the Night Gaunt, which seem to have wandered in from other genres. The most entertaining entries are the Erlking, an animated morass of woodland debris which loves to hunt and eat children, a former fairy noble stripped of his title and lands and exiled into the plant body, and the Shoe Thief, which hides under the bed and in other dark places in the home stealing single shoes and socks, pens and paperclips, gathering in groups and building up the courage to steal books, pets, and your little brother! The NPC descriptions are drier in comparison, serviceable and functional rather than inspiring.

Physically, Expanded Worlds is decently written and well written. The illustrations are excellent.

Expanded Worlds is hit and miss in terms of its content. Some of its genre write-ups are woefully underwritten because conceptually, there is too much to write about and not enough space to do it in, meaning that the book cannot do them justice. Indeed, it would take whole supplements the size of Expanded Worlds to do any one of its genres proper justice—and it has. Yet at their best, some of the write-ups do work as solid introductions to their respective genres and as introductions they are given good support in terms of playable, useful content. In that, the Fantastical Genres are better treated than the Gritty Genres, and both are given solid support by the Foci and Descriptors. Expanded Worlds is a good, but not perfect introduction to a variety of genres for the Cypher System.

[Free RPG Day 2020] The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl

 

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

The third offering from Renegade Game Studios is The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl, a quick-start for Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys. It presents a full scenario—with room for expansion and development by the Game Master, an explanation of the rules, and four pregenerated Player Characters, all designed to introduce both players and Game Master to the world of Overlight. This is a world of seven great continent, known as Shards, hanging in the sky under each other in a sky of limitless, unending light. These continents may shift horizontally, but never vertically, night only falling when one continent passes over another. Each continent is different, from the rocky towers and crumbling mesas across an expanse of blasted desert that is Nova, home to giant, sentient and meditative centipedes, called Novapendra, to Pyre, a landscape swathed in tundra and steppes, rarely lit beyond the fiery glow of its volcanos. They are home to numerous species, not just Humans or Haarkeen, but also Teryxians, the small, feathered reptilians of Quill, once emperors, but now renowned as academics and philosophers; the tribal, sometimes tree-like Banyan; and the eerily tall and thin, mask-wearing Aurumel of Veile, who aspire to build great things.

To a certain few, the brilliant, white light of the Overlight can split into a spectrum of different colours and Virtues—Compassion (green), Logic (blue), Might (red), Spirit (white), Vigor (orange), Wisdom (purple), and Will (yellow). So with ‘Root!’, a Banyan can encourage the vines and branches in his body to grow and grasp something—a person, an object, the ground—in a particularly tight grip or with ‘Speaker’s Fire’, an Embertongue can influence others in a soothing subtle fashion. The Overlight flows through and around everything, but those who can manipulate it are known as Skyborn and their powers of the Overlight as Chroma.

A character in Overlight and thus The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is defined by the seven Virtues—Compassion, Logic, Might, Spirit, Vigor, Wisdom, and Will. Most Virtues have Virtue has two or skills attached to it and both skills and Virtues are rated by die type. The exception is Spirit, which is just a pool of points for activating Chroma. Besides a name, a character will also be defined by his Folk—species and culture, core Virtue, a background, and wealth. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls a Test, which depending upon the circumstances can be a Skill Test, an Open test, a Wealth Test, or a Chroma Test. For any Test, the player rolls seven dice, usually consisting of three dice equal to the character’s skill, three equal to his Virtue, plus the Spirit die, which is always four-sided die. For example, a Banyari faced by an angry animal which he wants to calm down, his player would roll three ten-sided ice for his Compassion Virtue, three six-sided dice for his Beastways skill, plus the Spirit die. Results of six or more count as a success and at least two successes are required to succeed at a Test, though without any flourish. A roll of four—or Spirit Flare—on the Spirit die can add a further success. The type of dice rolled varies depending upon the type of Test, but all are built around a pool of seven dice. For example, Chroma Tests, used to active Chroma abilities, typically use a combination of two Virtues plus the Spirit die—and it is the result on the Spirit die which determines how many Spirit points activating the Chroma costs. If it is too many and the character is low on Spirit points, the character suffers a Shatter as the raw divinity of the Overlight powers through him. This can lead to strange side effects and once a character has suffered his third Shatter for a Chroma, he is burnt out and cannot use that Chroma again. Overall, the rules in The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl are succinctly described in just seven pages, including the skills list.

Four pre-generated characters are provided to play the scenario in The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl. They include a Banyari Rootlord capable of using the Overlight to photosynthesise healing, grasp others with its vines and branches, or lash out in a fury of red fists and spectral fire; a Pyroi Embertongue capable of making friends and influencing others, and creating fire; a Haarken Grifter capable of hearing conversations at a distance; and a Teryxian Tutor capable of issuing uncompromising commands. Every character comes with three or pages of backgrounds and stats.

The scenario in The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is the eponymous ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’. This is a four-act mystery and missing persons adventure, which offers a mix of horror and exploration as well combat and interaction. It takes place on the on the forested Shard of Banyan where the Player Characters come across The Aquila, a ship-beast known as a Chrysoara, stricken with a sickness, its crew dead from acts of self-inflicted violence. This may simply at random, or they may be going to the rescue of the crashed ship-beast, or they may look for a missing scholar, Zubidiah Molok, who may or not be known to one of the Player Characters, and who even be mentor to one of them. From clues aboard The Aquila, the Player Characters will learn that scholar has made a great discovery deep in the forest. Following these clues will lead the Player Characters into dangerous territory and reveal some of the secrets of Overlight’s past.

As a scenario, ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’ is okay. It presents some of the setting to Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys and it provides a good mix of action and investigation, interaction and exploration, combat and horror. Each of the four Player Characters should certainly have a chance to shine. However, because the setting for Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys, and thus, ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’, is different, this scenario is not going to be one that flows. There will be plenty of stops and starts along the way as the Game Master has to explain—if not the rules, for they are quite straightforward, then aspect after aspect of the setting. As a quick-start, The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl needs a cheat-sheet for it background more than it does for its mechanics. That said, from the information contained in its pages, the Game Master should be able to create one, just as she will be able to create the maps that would have been useful to frame and reference ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’. Of course, if she is doing that, then a handout or two would make the scenario a whole lot easier for both Game Master and her players.

Physically, The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is well presented. It is decently written, full colour, and comes with nice artwork. The lack of maps is an issue, but more of a problem is the fact that what is probably meant to be read aloud purple prose is not clearly marked as such and it feels like the author is repeating himself with every location description. This is frustrating experience for the Game Master trying to use the descriptions—both in the purple prose and the write-ups intended for her, because they look the same.

If a Game Master is already running an Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys campaign, then The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatll is likely easy enough to add to a campaign and it provides a decent enough scenario. For a group new to Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys, then The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is a decent introduction or a one-shot, although it needs a bit more work and a bit more of an explanation than it really should.

[Free RPG Day 2020] Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

The contribution to Free RPG Day 2020 from Fantasy Flight Games is Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas. This is a quick-start for use with Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, the roleplaying game based on the setting for Richard Garfield’s KeyForge: Call of the Archons, the world’s first Unique Deck Game. It uses the Genesys Narrative Dice System—first seen in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition—but ultimately derived from the original Doom and Descent board games. Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas comes with everything necessary to play—an explanation of the rules, four pregenerated characters, and an exciting, action-packed scenario for the Game Master to run. What it does not come with is dice and the fact that both the Genesys Narrative Dice System and Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible—and therefore Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas—use propriety dice is a problem. Not an insurmountable one, but a problem, nonetheless.

Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas opens with a rules summary. The core mechanic requires a player to roll a pool of dice to generate successes and should the roll generate enough successes, his character succeeds in the action being attempted. The complexity comes in the number of dice types and the number of symbols that the players need to keep track of. On the plus side, a player will be rolling Ability dice to represent his character’s innate ability and characteristics, Proficiency dice to represent his skill, and Boost dice to represent situational advantages such as time, assistance, and equipment. On the negative side, a player will be rolling Difficulty dice to represent the complexity of the task being undertaken, Challenge dice if it is a particularly difficult task, and Setback dice to represent hindrances such as poor lighting, difficult terrain, and lack of resources. Ability and Difficulty dice are eight-sided, Proficiency and Challenge dice are twelve-sided, and Boost and Setback dice are six-sided.

When rolling, a player wants to generate certain symbols, whilst generating as few as possible of certain others. Success symbols will go towards completing or carrying out the task involved, Advantage symbols grant a positive side effect, and Triumph symbols not only add Successes to the outcome, but indicate a spectacularly positive outcome or result. Failure symbols indicate that the character has not completed or carried out the task, and also cancel out Success symbols; Despair symbols count as Failure symbols indicate a spectacularly negative outcome or result, and cancel out Triumph symbols; and Threat symbols grant a negative side effect and cancel out Advantage symbols. Only Success and Failure results indicate whether or not a character has succeeded at an action—the effects of the Advantage, Triumph, Despair, and Threat symbols come into play regardless of whether the task was a success or not. Task difficulties range from one Difficulty die for easy tasks up to five for Formidable tasks, and in addition, certain abilities enable dice to be upgraded or downgrade, so an Ability die to a Proficiency die or a Challenge die down to a Difficulty die.

In general, the dice mechanics in the Genesys Narrative Dice System—and thus, Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas—are straightforward enough despite their complexity. They are perhaps a little fiddly to assemble and may well require a little adjusting to, especially when it comes to narrating the outcome of each dice roll.

Combat is more complex. Initiative is handled by a skill roll—using Cool or Vigilance, and attack difficulties by range and whether or not the combatants are engaged in melee combat. Damage is inflicted as either Strain, Wounds, or Critical Injuries. Strain represents mental and emotional stress, Wounds are physical damage, as are Critical Injuries, but they have a long effect that lasts until a Player Character receives medical treatment. When a Player Character suffers more Wounds than his Wound Threshold, he suffers a Critical Injury, and when he suffers Strain greater than his Strain Threshold, he is incapacitated. The various symbols on the dice can be spent in numerous ways in combat to achieve an array of effects. So a Triumph symbol or enough Advantage symbols could inflict a Critical Injury, allow a Player Character to perform an extra manoeuvre that round, and so on, whilst Threat and Failure symbols inflict Strain on a Player Character, three Threat symbols could be spent to knock a Player Character prone, and so on. Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas includes a table of options for spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair in combat, as well as a table of critical Injury results. It does not, however, include a table for spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair out of combat—a disappointing omission for anyone wanting to do a bit more with their character’s skills. That said, the Game Master should be able to adjust some of the options on the table to non-combat situations.

Lastly, the rules in Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas cover NPCs and Story points. Apart from nemesis-type NPCs, most NPCs treat any Strain they suffer as equal to Wounds, and Minions work together as a group. In Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, there are two pools of Story Points—one for the Player Characters, one for the GM. They can be used to upgrade a character’s dice pool or the difficulty of a skill check targeting a character—NPC or Player Character in either case, or to add an element or aspect to the ongoing story. The clever bit is that when a Story Point is spent, it does not leave the game, but is shifted over to the pool of Story Points. So if the Game Master spends a Story Point to increase the difficulty of a Player Character’s Perception check to determine the motives of an NPC, she withdraws it from her own Game Master pool of Story Points and adds it to the players’ pool of Story Points. As a game proceeds and Story Points are spent and move back and forth, it adds an elegant narrative flow to the mechanics and will often force the players to agonise whether they should spend a Story Point or not as they know it is going to benefit the Game Master and her NPCs before it comes back to them.

A character in Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible has six characteristics—Agility, Brawn, Cunning, Intellect, Presence, and Willpower, plus a range of skills from Charm, Computers, and Cool to Ranged (attacks), Skulduggery, and Vigilance, as well as range of special abilities. The four pregenerated Player Characters include a Saurian Crœniac with a Cybersensor Implant for better perception and a hacking rig; a Human Discoverer whose Zoomclaw is a rocket-propelled grappling hook that both climbing tool and weapon; a Spirit Arbitrator, an incorporeal being clad in containment armour who was exiled from his knightly order for bounding with a sentient sword called Vizer; and an Elf of the Shadowws whose faerie companions aid him in mechanical tasks and acts of skulduggery. All four Player Characters are nicely presented in a busy, but easy to access character sheet.

Each Player Character also has a way to use Æmber, the golden, glowing substance found only on the Crucible—the setting for Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible—which is often processed to perform a single, specific function, such as currency. In its raw state it can be used to do strange and wondrous things. For example, Saurian Crœniac uses it to fuel a hazard field which makes attacks against more difficult, the Human Discoverer to make attacks with Zoomclaw jet-propelled, and so on. These are all one-shot abilities until the characters can obtain some more raw Æmber.

The setting for ‘Maw of Abraxas’, the scenario in Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is Crucible, the ‘Impossible World’, a Jupiter-sized world made up of innumerable different zones, each a different environment or climate. In effect, it is a multiverse in one place, a multi-genre setting made up of multiple settings. In ‘Maw of Abraxas’, the Player Characters will see just a few of them—a glass jungle, a tightly regulated agrisector, a lake wrought with multiple storms, and the ancient ruins of a lost civilisation. In the scenario, the quartet of heroes have been asked by their boss, the tentacular Fixer, to recover the Cube of Realities, a weird artefact with the capability of warping the world around its user. He wants to ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the militant, xenophobic Martians already have it, but to prevent it being stolen or falling into the hands of their enemies have hidden it aboard a prototype saucer ship which even they cannot track or scan for! However, contact with the saucer has been lost, but fixer has learned that its designer created a device, the Vez Q-37 Scanulator, which can detect where the saucer is. So all the Player Characters have to do is steal the Vez Q-37 Scanulator from a Martian base and fight their way out, get across several sectors by Teleporter Cannon and then a couple more by whatever means necessary, find the lost saucer ship and grab the Cube of Realities. Easy, right? Of course not!

Consisting of just three acts, ‘Maw of Abraxas’ begins by dropping the Player Characters in media res and never lets up on the action or pacing. It should provide a session or so’s worth of play and comes with suggestions as to what each Player Character could do in a scene, and showcases a little of the diversity of the Crucible as a setting. The Player Characters all feel very different and the adventure should give them each a chance to shine.

Physically, Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is very nicely presented, in full vibrant colour. The artwork is excellent, if a little busy in places, and the book is well written and easy to understand.

The one downside to Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is that it uses the Genesys Narrative Dice System and that means using propriety dice. Now on the weekend of Free RPG Day 2020, the dice app for Genesys was available for free and that was very generous of the publisher. Of course, if a group is already playing Genesys or Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, and has either the dice or the app, then Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is easy enough to run and play, whether that is as extra scenario for an existing Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible campaign or as an introduction to the setting. If not, then Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is unplayable, which is a pity because it is a fun scenario, though of course, a Game Master might be inspired to get either dice or app after reading though it so that she can run the scenario.

That issue aside, Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is an entertaining and fun introduction to Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible. As a quick-start to both rules and setting, it is exactly the type of thing you want to pick up on Free RPG Day.

Free RPG Day 2019: Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold

Now in its twelfth year, Saturday, June 15th was Free RPG Day and with it came an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. The release for Free RPG Day 2019 from Green Ronin Publishing is Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold. As its title suggests, this is a quick-start for Modern AGE, a roleplaying game which updates the AGE System first seen in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5 to do gritty action, high adventure, urban fantasy, or dystopian future. Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold presents a slightly simplified version of the Modern AGE rules, a lengthy three part scenario which introduces a new setting for the Modern AGE rules, and five pre-generated characters, all of which comes in a forty page, full-colour booklet.

At the core of each character in Modern AGE are eight abilities—Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength, and Willpower. Each attribute is rated between -2 and 4, with 1 being the average. They will have ability focuses, areas of expertise such as Accuracy (Assault Rifles), Communication (Gambling), Intelligence (Occultism), Perception (Searching), and so on that add a +2 bonus to appropriate rolls. Characters can also know Weapon Groups, Talents, and Specialisations and these are worked into and explained in the five pre-generated characters, although they are not explained in Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold. This is intentional, since it is not designed to cover character creation, but rather showcase the mechanics and the new setting in play.

Mechanically, Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold uses the same basic mechanics as Modern AGE and Fantasy AGE as well as Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying before it. Known as the AGE System or Adventure Gaming Engine (AGE) System, this requires the use of just six-sided dice, both to handle actions as well as effect—such as damage, time taken, or to generate Stunt Points. To undertake an action, a player rolls three six-sided dice to beat a target, the average being eleven. To the roll a player also adds the appropriate Ability and if one applies, a +2 bonus for any Focus. For example, Trace needs to find the location of a gate to their next destination and believes that it can be found in the library of Cardinal House, home to the Sodality’s governing body on the Otherworld of Akavastu. The Game Master sets the target to eleven. Trace has an Intelligence of 3 and a Focus of Research, which gives him a bonus of +2, thus enabling to add five to the roll. Trace’s player rolls the dice and gets a result of 4, 4, and 2, for a total of 10—just not quite enough for Trace to succeed and find details of the location he is sure is noted in the records. Fortunately, with the addition of the appropriate Ability and Focus—Intelligence and Intelligence (Research)—the total is actually 14 and so Trace finds the information he needs.

Now of the three six-sided dice, one is a different colour to the other two. This is called the Stunt Die. Typically, it acts as an effect die, measuring how well a character does or how quickly an action takes, but in the basic rules, particularly in combat, the Stunt Die does much, much more. Whenever a player rolls doubles on two of the three six-sided dice and succeeds, he gets a number of points equal to the result of the Stunt Die to spend on Stunts, which come in four types—Combat, Exploration, Social, and Power. Thus, Knock Prone or Vicious Blow are Combat Stunts for use in melee or missile combat, Powerful Manifestation or Fast Use are Power Stunts when casting magic, Speed Demon or With a Flourish are Exploration Stunts for general actions, and Impress or Class Clown! are Social Stunts.

To continue the example, Trace’s player rolled 4, 4, and 2 on the successful research attempt. Since he rolled doubles, the Stunt Die is activated and as this was 2 result, Trace’s player has just two Stunt Points to spend. Looking at the Exploration Stunts, the most obvious option is ‘Speed Demon’ which cuts the time it takes to complete the test in half. The Game Master decides that as a consequence, Trace and his fellow team members will get to the gate before the main enemy operations team does, though they may be chased by a small band of scouts.

Overall, whatever the iteration of the AGE System, the mechanics are easy to grasp and easy to play, providing an enjoyably cinematic play experience via the rich choice of Stunts and Talents. Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold explains the mechanics in just ten pages, including the use of magic, serving either as a quick refresher for anyone familiar with the AGE System or as a solid introduction to the basics of the mechanics.

In addition, Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold also introduces a new setting for Modern AGE—The Metacosm of Threefold. The Earth is but one world in the Metacosm, all connected by a series of gates. The Earth is a tech-world, although its highest technology—experiments into time travel and the manipulation of parallel worlds—are controlled by a conspiracy of inhuman intelligences known as the Peridixion. Otherworlds vary widely, from worlds where islands float on endless seas to worlds ruled by Optimates, the demigod children of gods. Collectively they rule a Divine Empire, whilst another power, the Vitane, promotes peace and the dissemination of knowledge. The Sodality is an independent organisation of explorers, diplomats, and warriors. Beyond this, there is a third power, the Netherworlds, places of nightmares ruled by archdemons whose subjects are damned souls. Earth is the first layer in the Metacosm, the Otherworlds are the second, the Netherworlds the third, whilst the Divine Empire, the Vitane, and the Netherworlds are first, second, and third powers. Thus three layers, three powers, and a tripartite secret behind it all—hence Threefold.

Thus what you have in Threefold is a cross-parallel, planet-hopping setting which mixes genres. So technology and magic mix to varying degrees from parallel to parallel as do the genres, including fantasy, science fiction, conspiracy, cyberpunk, and more. Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold primarily showcases elements of these in the five pre-generated characters. So the five includes a bruiser with the ability to locate gates between worlds, an ex-combat medic, a broker and dealer also with the ability to locate gates between worlds, an investigator able to identify things not of the Earth who has been augmented with cybernetics for different skill foci, and an Arcanist who cast magic to access electronic devices, track people and objects, and if necessary blast them! All of them are decently done, though the ex-combat medic may feel somewhat mundane in comparison to the others. All though, begin the scenario with knowledge of the Macrocosm and the fact that there are more worlds than just the Earth. None of the characters have their age, appearance, or agenda predetermined and theirs are free to set these as they want.

The scenario in Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold is ‘Burning Brighter’. The player characters begin in New York City at the Blake Clinic, a free medical clinic that is also a front for Aethon, the Peridexion’s paramilitary and espionage arm. When a man suffering from strange symptoms is brought into reception and the clinic is attacked by offworld, hi-tech agents, then the player characters know that something is amiss. This is confirmed when they are recruited into a joint Peridexion-Vitane task force and informed that an agent has gone rogue and may well be spreading the disease that the man was suffering from. The player characters are tasked with tracking down and dealing with the damage that this agent has done—someone else will go after the agent.

Divided into three acts—plus prologue—‘Burning Brighter’ will take the player characters across multiple Otherworlds and along the way will encounter a mythical beast, an Optimate with a mythic backstory and a van, members of a warrior band, the Nighthost, invaders from the Netherworlds, and more, showcasing various parts of the setting, how its factions interact with each other, and how some technology might not work on every world. Along the way, the players  should get a chance to show off their characters’ talents and abilities, get used to the Modern AGE mechanics, and perhaps uncover a secret or two. The scenario does end with almost everything resolved, but there is room for the Game Master to develop further adventures once she has a copy of Modern AGE and the Threefold setting supplement.

Physically, Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold is very nicely presented with a bright, clean layout, full-colour painted artwork throughout, and decent writing. If there is an issue with physicality the quick-start it is that the cover is underwhelming and if there is an issue with Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold as a whole, it is that hilst the rules are easy to learn and impart, the same cannot be said of the background which conversely is potentially overwhelming for the players  should the Game Master attempt to impart it to them, Especially for a one-shot. That said, it might be helpful for the Game Master to put together a cheat-sheet for the background as well as the mechanics when preparing to run ‘Burning Brighter’.

Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold is easy to read, the rules are easy to learn, and the scenario, ‘Burning Brighter’—which feels like a  more fantastical version of the television series, Sliders—should provide two session’s worth of decent play. Overall, Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold is solid introduction to both Modern AGE and the Threefold setting.

—oOo—

Modern AGE Quickstart: Threefold will be available to download from the Green Ronin Publishing website from Monday, July 1st, 2019.

The Tools of FATE

The FATE System Toolkit is part of the sextet of books funded via Kickstarter for FATE Core, the newest version of Evil Hat Games’ ENNIE award winning light and cinematic generic RPG first seen in Spirit of the Century back in 2006. It began life as the guide to magic for FATE Core, but as the Kickstarter grew and grew, things kept getting added to it, many of which have nothing to do with magic. In each and every case, the FATE System Toolkit asks what the GM wants the new rule or approach to the rules to do and how it fits into the game. It never mandates that its solutions are how something should be done, but rather how the mechanics can be ‘hacked’ to get it done. As it states up front, the FATE System Toolkit is not ‘the’ toolkit for FATE Core, but ‘a’ toolkit for FATE Core. In other words, “Here is how you could do it” rather than “Here is how you should do it”.

In keeping with the Bronze Rule in FATE Core—that anything can be treated as a character—the first things that the FATE System Toolkit looks at are Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects underpin FATE Core and here we get a range of suggestions as what else they can do in addition to the options given in the main rulebook. This includes invoking them for effect rather than a bonus to a roll, such as a dwarf where he is underground and knows which way is North; detonating situation Aspects, that is going from ‘Weak Structural Integrity’ to ‘Collapsing Bridge’; representing quests as Aspects, for example, ‘Sabotage the Imperial Annihilation Station’; and making gear important by giving it Aspects, such as ‘Brutal Orc Cleaver’.  Skills are given a similar range of options, ranging from Professions as Skills or replacing Skills completely with adjectives that describe how a character does something, like Forceful, Graceful, Clever, or Resolute, to working into modes or bundles and even replacing them totally with Aspects. Modes package the skills into bundles for easy character generation and give bonuses to skills that duplicated between bundles. This is one of the options to replace FATE Core’s Skill Pyramid and enables a GM to design modes to fit particular genres or campaigns. Stunts receive a similar if much shorter treatment, including tying them to Aspects or gear rather than Skills, having pre-requisites—much like there was in Spirit of the Century, and so on.

The original way in which the hobby categorised characters is looked at in ‘The Big Game’ rather than campaigns as a whole. So we are shown a way to do Class and Race with Professions such as Fighter or Thief and Races like Elf or Orc. Both are packages that emulate an older style of game as much as FATE Core can. These come with an interesting side note that explains what we mean by Race in game terms. The new Origin Story method of character creation uses flashbacks rather than necessarily forging connections between the characters as per the FATE Core book whilst the Bronze Rule is applied to a scenario structure to use Aspects as the framework, a list of events leading to a crescendo that if reached means that the bad guys are winning! Special Circumstances covers particular situations, for chases which can be designed as challenges or contests and handling motivations and instincts in social interaction, whilst the section of Customized Tools is more a collection of odds and sods, from getting into the nitty gritty of Stress, Consequences,  Zones, and Refresh to creating your own FATE dice.

Given its original purpose, it is surprising that the FATE System Toolkit devotes less than half of its pages to its original purpose—magic. Even then it devotes more of those pages to examples than it does to discussing how to build magic systems for FATE Core. This starts out with what the magic system is designed to do and what its aims are before specifically looking at its tone, source, availability, cost, and limits. Once their ramifications are discussed, it looks at how magic can be modelled through the use of Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Over all, it does not amount to more than a few pages, but they are a thoughtful few pages, prompting the GM to think about his intended design.

So where the section is lengthy is in its examples—and really good examples they prove to be. Stormcallers power their ambitions by tapping into the five Great Storms raging at the heart of creation—Earthquake, Flood, Glacier, Inferno, and Thunder, whilst Storm Summoners conjure the elementals of these storms to do their bidding. Each example can be used independently, but they nicely go together with the Stormcallers being a development of the magic system in Evil Hat Games’ The Dresden Files RPG. Thematically, The Six Viziers is a ‘Great Steppes of Russia’ inspired system where the characters are marked with a tattoo of one of the great constellations—or Viziers—in the sky and are thus capable of great actions with their skills. In comparison, The Subtle Art opts for the understated effect, that is, the placing of temporary blessings and curses—or Aspects—upon a target. It has a much grittier feel than the other example systems. All of these magic systems are great, but the highlight is Voidcallers, essentially the black, black magic version of the Stormcallers. Instead of tapping into an elemental storm, a Voidcaller draws on the Void for aid and ‘great power’, but this comes with consequences—consequences of the GM’s choosing. This begs to be used as the basis for ‘things mankind is not meant to know’ campaign and as written does not necessarily come with tentacular trappings, but there is nothing to stop a GM from adding these if so desired. Accompanying each of the worked examples is a ‘30-Second Version’ that summarises the system in easy to digest thumbnail fashion. Very useful—and that is before you get to the full details which beg to developed into a fuller setting.

Rounding out the FATE System Toolkit is a set of subsystems, ones that enable the GM to take his game into different directions and enable him to do different things in his game. These include Kung Fu, Cyberware, Gadgets, Monsters, military Squads and Mass Battles, Swashbuckling Duels, Vehicles, Superheroics, and Horror games. Of these, Kung Fu has been more recently done for the Wuxia genre with the alternate takes given in Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade and Jadepunk: Tales of Kausao City. Military Squads and Mass Battles are handled as characters and character-versus-character—as per the Bronze Rule that turns everything into characters—just as you would expect, whilst the Monster rules  do a good job of handling Very Large Monsters across multiple zones. So good for fighting truly big dragons, kaijū, or monsters like those of the computer game, Shadow of the Colossus. The Duelling subsystem works in a similar fashion, enabling characters to swashbuckle back and forth across zones as well as giving advantage to the duellist who makes the best use of the terrain in each of the zones in addition to their opponent’s psychology. Both the Cyberware and Gadgets subsystems enable characters to build great devices, that is with advantages and weaknesses, whilst the Vehicles subsystem calls for the characters to emotionally invest in their joint-owned Mystery Van/Firefly class spaceship/Babylon 5.

Lastly, the FATE System Toolkit suggests ways in which FATE Core can do horror, a genre that it admits that it is ill equipped to handle. By turning up the Compels for an Oppressive Atmosphere, turning up the difficulty of any obstacles for Impossible Circumstances, and turning down player character resources—fate points, stress, and consequences—for Stark Desperation, the FATE System Toolkit shows how FATE Core could do horror, especially the more cosmic horror of Lovecraft’s works. These suggestions would also work nicely with the Voidcaller magic system given as an example earlier in the book.

Physically, the FATE System Toolkit is a sturdy hardback. It is well written, cleanly presented, and illustrated with some excellent artwork. This though, does not mean that it is without issue. Most RPGs involve one or more elements of the technical. Indeed the roleplaying game can be best described as ‘technical fiction’, their requiring technical information—or rules—to help the GM and his players participate in the fiction or setting. The FATE System Toolkit is more technical than fiction, which means that it is probably drier than most RPG supplements. Which does mean that FATE System Toolkit is not always the most engaging of reads and it explains why it took this reviewer more than one attempt to read through it, but to be fair, that is as much an issue with this reviewer as it is the book. In fact, it is probably more the former than the latter given that ideas in the FATE System Toolkit gives are imaginative and fun. There are, undeniably, great ideas in the FATE System Toolkit for adding this or that to a FATE Core game as well as, of course, for tinkering with different elements of said FATE Core game.

The rules and mechanics to almost every roleplaying game are written in stone. Their designers will doubtless note in the forward to said game that the game and thus the rules you have are now yours and can tinkered with or played the way that you want. Then they leave all of the effort making and implementing those changes up to you. Not so the designers of FATE Core. They give you a book that is entirely devoted to thinking about and implementing those changes to make FATE Core your game. Then they give you examples. Really good examples.

You never need anything more than FATE Core to run or create a FATE game, but the FATE System Toolkit may well be ever so useful when the GM and his players come to do so. The FATE System Toolkit is a thoughtful tinkerer’s guide to getting under the hood of FATE Core.

Free RPG Day: Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special

Saturday, June 17th was Free RPG Day—the tenth Free RPG Day and as was to be expected, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August—or even later, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera. Amongst the array each year there will always be one or more hotly anticipated title and one of these was the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – Quickstart and Adventure. This was joined by the first release for another old game, Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special.

Originally published in 1990 by West End Games, Torg was a cinematic multi-genre role-playing game in which the Earth was invaded by several different realities—or ‘cosms’—that mapped themselves onto our reality. Each cosm was essentially a different roleplaying genre, the Living Land being a Lost World-style jungle that covered much of the USA; Aysle, a magical low-tech world a la Dungeons & Dragons covering the United Kingdom; the Cyberpapacy of France combined cyberpunk with theocratic dystopia; Japan became Nippon Tech, an ultracapitalist nightmare society ruled by corporations; the New Nile Empire mixed Ancient Egypt with pulp action in North Africa; and Indonesia became Orrorsh, a  Gothic horror realm of the Victorian age. Each of these cosms had a High Lord who competed to dominate the others in the ‘Possibility Wars’, but as ‘Storm Knights’, the player characters not only remain resistant to the changes mapped by these cosms, but can go from one cosm to another unchanged. This allowed a mix of character types, so a stone age warrior-shaman from the Living Land could fight alongside a mage from Aysle, a hacker-priest from the Cyberpapacy, a martial artist from Nippon Tech, a consulting detective from Orrorsh, and a gadgeteer from the New Nile Empire and stand up against the High Lords in the desperate Possibility Wars. 

Initially well received, Torg gained its hardcore fans, but suffered from various issues as detailed here and it was out of print by 1996 and by 2006, the proposed second edition, Torg 2.0, had also not appeared. German publisher, Ulisses Spiele, best known for the leading German fantasy roleplaying game, The Dark Eye, has owned Torg since 2010, but it is only in 2017 that we are getting to see the second edition, known as Torg Eternity, with this Kickstarter campaign. Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special is an introduction to the new setting.

Unlike Torg, the setting for Torg Eternity is not of an Earth where the Storm Knights successfully defeated the High Lords, but one where the High Lords were far more successful in their desire to take the Earth and harvest its Possibilities. The ‘Core Earth’ of Torg Eternity is also more action orientated than our own and magic and miracles exist.

Torg Eternity uses similar mechanics to those used by Torg, what became known as Masterbook and would be subsequently used in West End Games’ own Science Fiction roleplaying game, Shatterzone, as well as a number of licensed properties, The World of Indiana Jones, The World of Necroscope, and The World of Tank Girl. In this system, a character’s attribute or attribute plus skill is compared against a Difficulty Number, the standard Difficulty Number being ten. To this is added a number generated on the Bonus Chart included at the bottom of each character sheet, which can range from -8 to +13 or more if a player rolls well. This is rolled on a twenty-sided die. The chart is very slightly slanted towards low or negative numbers, but if a player rolls a ten or a twenty on the die, he can keep rolling the die, adding up the numbers rolled to get a Die Total. The character’s  attribute or attribute plus skill plus the penalty or bonus generated on the Bonus Chart is the character’s Action Total. The Action Total is compared to the Difficulty Number to determine if the character is successful and then the Success Levels achieved. 

So for example, Tom is being chased by edeinos scouts—lizard warriors in the Living Land and having clambered out onto the fire escape decides to leap across the alley to the opposite fire escape. Tom has an attribute rating of seven for his Dexterity and a Maneuver skill rating of +2. This gives him a base Action Total of nine, but since the GM has set the the Difficulty Number at ten, Tom’s player needs to roll on the Bonus Chart. He rolls a twenty! This gives him a starting Die Total of +7, but since he has rolled twenty, he can roll again and add the total. He rolls two, which he adds to the twenty to get a Die Total of twenty-two and checking the Bonus Chart gives a bonus of +8 to add to the current Action Total, which is now seventeen. This is seven Success Levels above the Difficulty Number and gives Tom a Good result. 

The basic rules presented in the Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special cover actions, including interaction and physical attacks. The combat rules also cover options such as all-out attacks, combined actions, and so on. In addition, every Storm Knight have Possibilities, typically three per act of an adventure and these can be used to roll extra dice for an action and to negate Wounds and Shock suffered. One other aspect of the Torg Eternity that comes into play when a Mishap or one is rolled, is that any equipment being used which is not supported by the local reality loses its connection to its home cosm made possible by the Storm Knight and will not work until the connection can be made again.

The scenario in the Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special is ‘Invasion’. Designed to be played by up to six players plus the GM, it is set in New York on the very day that the ‘maelstrom bridge’ crashed onto the city and began turning both it and the rest of North America into the Living Land. It sees the Storm Knights—though they do not know it yet—try to get to a place of refuge away from the marauding dinosaurs and lizard warriors. Consisting of six relatively short scenes, it presents a solid showcase for the setting and its mechanics, but it is very action and combat orientated and not one of the scenes any interaction, at least in terms of the rules.

Besides the monsters, the scenario is supported by six sample characters. Including an academic, an executive, an athlete, a paramedic, a crook, and particularly up-to-date, a near celebrity, they represent a good mix of characters and Americans. Both they and the scenario is not quite ready to play though, as the sample characters do not come with their own character sheets and one will be needed to be filled in for each character. 

Physically, Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special is a slim, sixteen-page booklet. It is done in full colour, but is sparsely illustrated. The writing is pacey and a GM could prepare Invasion and have it ready to run in an hour. The adventure itself should be completed in a session.

Of course, Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special only covers a tiny fragment of the Torg Eternity setting, but the scenario drops the player characters into this setting and gets them up to speed quickly enough. The other issue is with the Torg Eternity mechanics, which are not quite straightforward and not quite intuitive, though they play reasonably enough.

Given that Torg Eternity encompasses a multiverse, the Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special really does only provide a taster of the Torg Eternity setting. It is enough of a taster for one session though and that is the point of the Torg Eternity Free RPG Day Special. 

Strange Ways

The universe is stranger than we think… Beneath our world and the rest of the natural universe is a sea of dark energy known as the ‘Strange’ that can be accessed, traversed, and sailed by those in the know who have the ‘Spark’. Dotted across this chaotic sea are any number of unique worlds, varying wildly in size and possessing their own laws of reality. These are ‘Recursions’, the closest of which, caught in the shoals around the Earth, are reflections of the human imagination, even of humanity’s fiction. Many of these Recursions can be accessed from the Earth and then from each other by those known as the ‘Quickened’. As ‘Recursors’, only they possess the ‘Spark’ necessary to make the Translation between Recursions and thus explore the Sumerian-influenced high fantasy that is Ardeyn or the advanced bio-tech dystopia of Ruk, walk the fog-bound streets of 1890s London in the Recursion known as 221b or confront the Cthulhu Mythos in Innsmouth, and more. There are adventures to had, discoveries to to made, and treasures to be found—not just gold or jewels, but powerful devices known as Cyphers that can bend reality on each of the Recursions. Yet there are dangers too—dragons and shoggoths, jabberwock and sarks, weird drugs and great artifacts, and worse—planetovores, great creatures or constructs that devour whole worlds. With the Strange open to the Quickened, Earth is vulnerable to attack by these creatures, and there are factions on Ardeyn, Ruk, and the Earth that would see the planet attacked and consumed by a planetovore. Equally there are many Quickened who would not see this happen.

This is the setting for The Strange, the second RPG to be published by Monte Cook Games, following on from the highly successful, award-winning Numenera. Released following a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Strange uses the same Cypher System mechanics as Numenera and shares some of the same concepts, but its genre and setting is radically different. For The Strange does not involve just the one genre or the one setting, but it is a multi-genre, world-hopping RPG in which the player characters can jump from one world or Recursion to another world or Recursion. Each time they jump, they not only change worlds or Recursions, but also bodies and powers. Further, they might change their gender, their species, and their genre, from modern day Earth to fantasy to Science Fiction to… Some of these Recursions are all original to The Strange, but others are derived from fiction, such as the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Lewis Carroll, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and others.

In Numenera, there are just three character types—Glaives, Nanos, or Jacks. Glaives are warriors, either wearing heavy armour and wielding heavy weaponry or relying light arms and armour to give them movement and agility. Nanos are sorcerers, capable of tapping into the Numenera to alter reality or learn more about it, wielding ‘Esoteries’ to command nano-spirits. Jacks are somewhere in between, being flexible in what they can do, capable of learning to fight, using ‘Esoteries’, and more. In The Strange, the three are replaced by Vectors, Paradoxes, and Spinners. Vectors are physical types, whether it is about combat, movement, or action; Paradoxes are scientists/sorcerers, who can use science, psionics, spells or similar to draw upon The Strange and alter reality; and Spinners are charismatic storytellers, persuaders, and dissemblers.

At their core, each character is defined by three stats—Might, Speed, and Intellect, and a descriptive sentence. This sentence has the structure of “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a descriptor, such as Clever or Intelligent, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, ‘I am a Tough Vector who is Licenced to Carry’, ‘I am an Intelligent Paradox who Solves Mysteries’, and ‘I am an Appealing Spinner who Works the System’. A player will also need to assign some points to the three Stats and choose some options in terms of Background—how the character became a Paradox, Spinner, or Vector—and select some skills from the Type. The choice of descriptor and the verb further defines and modifies the character, whilst the Background and the Connection help hook the character into the setting. Characters begin at Tier One and can advance as far as Tier Six, gaining skills and abilities along the way. The three sample characters attempt to showcase what the system can do. The Paradox is a native of Earth, the Spinner is from Ardeyn, and the Vector is a native of Ruk.

Huongsem Kim
‘I am a Clever Paradox Nano who Solves Mysteries’
Tier One Paradox
Might 08 (Edge 0)
Speed 10 (Edge 0)
Intellect 18 (Edge 1)
Effort 1

Cyphers (3): (Three Cyphers selected by the GM)
Revisions: Exception (1 Intellect), Premonition (2 Intellect), Investigator
Skills: Trained in the Strange, Train in Lies & Trickery, Trained in Mental Defence, Trained in Computer, Trained in Perception, Trained in Identifying & Assessing danger/lies/quality/importance/function/power, Practiced with light weapons
Equipment: Street clothes, light handgun, laptop computer, torch, utility knife, mobile phone, $500

Thre’un
‘I am an Appealing Spinner who Shepherds the Dead’
Tier One Spinner
Might 10 (Edge 0)
Speed 12 (Edge 1)
Intellect 14 (Edge 1)
Effort 1

Cyphers (2): (Two Cyphers selected by the GM)
Physical Skills: Trained in Persuasion, Trained in Pleasant Interaction, Trained to Resist Persuasion & Seduction Attempts, Practiced with light and medium weapons
Twists: Fast Talk (1 Intellect), Understanding (2 Intellect)
Equipment: Ardeyn clothing, light armour, quarterstaff, explorers, incense, 10 matchsticks, 400 crowns

Kishiev
“I am a Graceful Vector who Controls Infiltrates”
Tier One Vector
Might 12 (Edge 1)
Speed 14 (Edge 1)
Intellect 10 (Edge 0)
Effort 1

Cyphers (2): (Two Cyphers selected by the GM)
Moves: No Need for Weapons, Fleet of Foot
Skills: Trained in Unarmoured Speed Defence, Trained with Running, Trained with Climbing, Trained in Balance & Careful Movement, Trained in All Physical Performing Arts, Practiced with weapons
Equipment: Ruk Clothing, light armour, knife, light tools, umbilical, account with 50 bits

In comparison to Numenera, there are fewer options when it comes to a player choosing a Focus in The Strange. The problem is not only that there are fewer of them in The Strange, but they are divided between the different Recursions. What this means is that there are certain Foci that a Recursor from Earth cannot have until he Translates to a Recursion where said Focus appears. Until then, he is limited to those available on his home world or Recursion. For example, a character from Earth who is ‘...a Strange Paradox who Conducts Weird Science’ might Translate to Ruk where he becomes ‘...an Strange Paradox who Processes Information’. Now some of the Foci given are ‘Draggable’ in that when a character Translates, a Focus can go with him unchanged. He still has the choice to change his Focus if he wants to. As much as the idea of Translation and changing the Recursor when he goes from one Recursion to another fits the setting of The Strange, this limited number of Foci also restricts choice in terms of character design and in comparison with Numenera, where there were no limitations in terms of Foci choice, The Strange could really do with more Foci and thus with more choice. Now to an extent this is offset by the default set-up in The Strange where every player character begins the game aware of the Strange, Recursions, and the ability to Translate, and can thus choose freely from all of the Foci.

Mechanically, The Strange uses the single mechanic of the Cypher System—the roll of a single twenty-sided die against a Difficulty, ranging from zero up to ten. The actual Target Number is the value of the Difficulty multiplied by three, thus giving a range between three and thirty—any action with a Difficulty of zero is automatic. Modifiers, whether from favourable circumstances, skills, or good equipment, can decrease the Difficulty, whilst skills give bonuses to the roll. A character can also spend points from his Stat pools—on a one-to-one basis—to reduce the Difficulty, though a player should bear in mind that the Stat pools reflect his ability to act and take damage when attacked. The cost of spending points from a Stat pool is reduced by its associated Edge, as are the use of a Paradox’s Revisions, a Spinner’s Twists, and a Vector’s Moves. In some cases, this will reduce the cost to zero, thus reducing it to an innate action. For example, Huongsem has an Intellect Edge of 1, which reduces the cost of his Exception and Premonition Revisions. His Exception Revision costs one point from his Intellect pool to use, but his Intellect Edge is also one, so that reduces the cost to zero and means that he can do it instinctively. No effort is required. Whereas, his Premonition Revision costs two points from his Intellect pool, so he still needs to spend a point of Intellect to use it because his Edge reduces the cost by one. Results of nineteen indicate a success and a Minor Effect, which might be extra damage in combat or something listed for a character, such as ‘Hitting a Muscle’ for the ‘Carries a Quiver’, which inflicts Speed damage as well as ordinary damage. A roll of a natural twenty also inflicts extra damage as well as a Major Effect.

While the system is simple enough—even if the GM adds any of the given options—the radical, even elegant aspect to the Cypher System mechanics is that the GM never, ever rolls a die. So whilst a character rolls to attack as normal, when an opponent attacks him, the character rolls to avoid the attack. Essentially the mechanic focus of the game is always on the player characters and they are always the focus of the action and the story. At the same, the shift for the GM is on running and presenting the story, not the dice rolls, and as a development of this idea, player characters receive Experience Points in again, another radical fashion when compared to other RPGs. First and foremost, they are not earned for defeating opponents, overcoming challenges, and so on, but for finding interesting things and making discoveries. Secondly, a player character gains them when the GM ‘intrudes’ on the game in storytelling terms to present the character with a challenge or difficulty, such as his crossbow string snapping whilst in combat or the rope slipping whilst climbing. Accept this ‘Intrusion’ and the character earns two Experience Points, one of which he must give to another character. A player could reject this ‘Intrusion’, but that would cost him an Experience Point. If a character rolled a natural one at any time, the GM can give an ‘Intrusion’ that cannot be bought off. However it comes, a GM ‘Intrusion’ replaces the need for him to roll dice and encourages him to participate in the telling of the story.

In addition to their own abilities, the player characters in The Strange can find and use cyphers. They come in two types. Devices are simple items, commonly in the form of pills or grenades, such as a Curse Bringer, Monoblade, or Melt All, that have a one-time use and in each case grant a Recursor an amazing power—if only for that moment. Recursors are not expected to hold onto devices such as this for very long and can only carry a few anyway, but they are expected to use them at will. This is for two reasons. First, the GM will always let the player characters find more, and two, using cyphers gives a Recursor to shine and look great. More desirable are the artifacts, as they have greater endurance and more obvious application. For example, a Dragontongue Weapon or a Skill Bud. Unfortunately, artifacts have a depletion factor, a chance that they will cease to function. Artifacts are not always perfect and may have quirks that the GM can use as ‘Intrusions’. In the setting of The Strange, there are a number of Quickened who have learned to Translate and who go Recursion Mining for cyphers to bring back home.

A good proportion of The Strange is devoted to describing its background and setting. This begins by examining the mechanics of Translation and what is important here is that Translation takes time and effort—it is not instantaneous. Now it can be sped up and the process can be eased so though it is not as disorientating—and each player character Type can participate to ease and hasten the process, but it never takes less than ten minutes and it can be as long as four hours. Further, when Recursors first Translate to a Recursion, they always appear at a set location and later, if they Translate from a different location and then come back, they will always appear at the new location. This firmly places the emphasis in The Strange on adventuring and gaming on the various Recursions or in the Strange itself rather than on the act of Translation. There is little chance of there being a chase from one Recursion to another because of both the time delay and location limitations. Most of the time, Translation is an act of concentration, but there are gates and devices, often permanent ones, that connect Recursions and make Translating easy.

The description of the various Recursions begins with the Earth. Since it is our Earth, it really only looks at the Earth and its connections to The Strange, primarily the various agencies with an interest in these connections. The primary agency is The Estate, a private science foundation dedicated to protecting the Earth, exploring the Strange, and preventing the development of technology that might ping the Strange and attract the attention of a planetovore. The default set-up for The Strange has the player characters as agents of The Estate. Other agencies, like the government funded OSR (Office of Strategic Recursion) want to use the technologies and discoveries from other Recursions to weaponise them, whilst the September Group wants to to build advanced technology.

As well as the Strange itself—how to navigate it and what can be found there—the two Recursions that receive the most coverage are Ardeyn and Ruk. Formed from the prison of an evil god called Lotan the Sinner, Ardeyn is a world of mighty magics with a lengthy history. Lotan the Sinner’s gaolers numbered  the Maker, his Seven Incarnations, and their angelic qephilim servants, but since their fall long ago, Ardeyn has been without protection. In their stead, humans and fallen qephilim seek to protect the world against dragons, soulshorn, homunculi of the Betrayer, invaders from alternate recursions, demons of Lotan, and worse. Where Ardeyn is a fantasy world, Ruk is a Science Fiction Recursion. Located in the shoals of Earth, Ruk is a bio-tech, bio-punk near-dystopia, that although self-contained, is constantly expanding. Rife with factions, the not-quite human inhabitants of Ruk have lost their history and constantly search for what they call the True Code, the original basis for their race. The capital, Harmonious, is relatively safe, but beyond this floating city there are spore worms, venom troopers, free-roaming constructs from the Qinod Singularity, and glial storms. Where most of Ardeyn are not aware of Earth, it hangs faintly in the sky over Ruk and many of the inhabitants of Ruk see the future of Earth as being tied to that of Ruk. Other Recursions include Atom Nocturne, an anime-influenced world of youth and psychic superpowers; Catalyst, a post-singularity Recursion of runaway transformation; Crow Hollow, a world-tree home to anthropomorphic crows and ravens who run the Glittering Market; and more.

Both the Strange and all of the Recursions in The Strange are described in some detail and extensively supported with places, personalities, and possible adventure hooks. Indeed, both Ardeyn and Ruk could have RPG settings all of their very own. This is in addition the RPG’s bestiary and list of cyphers, the latter complementing the various artifact descriptions given for each Recursion. In the long term, the player characters have an interesting for the Strange—they can create a Recursion of their own. This requires a Starseed and no little effort, primarily in the form of Experience Points. This is an interesting option, but the rules for do feel slightly underwritten, but doubtless there will be a sourcebook devoted to this at some point.

As with Numenera, the GM advice in The Strange is well written and helpful. It includes sections on how to use the rules, building stories, and specifically running a game of The Strange. Together this covers things such as how to set task difficulty levels and using GM Intrusions properly, how to introduce the game and understanding the mechanics, challenging the player characters and how to involve characters from different Recursions. It is supported with a single adventure, ‘The Curious Case of Tom Mallard’, plus various adventure hooks. Like the RPG itself, the adventure assumes that the characters begin the game aware of the Strange.

Physically, The Strange is as well presented as Numenera. The writing is clear and the book is redolent with superb, full colour illustrations. It is also clearly laid out and organised. Yet at the same time, The Strange is messy. In a good way and a bad—which comes of it being a multi-genre, multi-world RPG. This means that the artwork has to depict a variety of things and styles; and it does that. The setting though, is not a coherent whole, but interconnected parts held together by a framework. This may make the RPG difficult to run at the outset—despite the good advice for the GM—because there are too many options and because The Strange has one singular flaw.

As an RPG, as The Strange has a flaw that hinders initial play, or at least anyone’s first approach to the game. Simply, it utterly lacks an ‘elevator pitch’, a simple statement that defines what the game is about and what the characters do. In comparison, Numenera did this—it had a whole chapter up front that told the GM and the player what the game was about. The Strange lacks this and in an RPG as conceptually complex as it, it seems like a very odd omission. In its stead there is a leaflet from The Estate, but it is not an adequate pitch for the game. Worse, it is not until fifty pages into The Strange that it is fully explained how a Recursor translates and switches to a new body—in the process becoming part of the new Recursion—rather than translating in whole. There are hints up until this point, but it seems odd not to have this vital piece of information up front, especially when the default set-up in The Strange is that the player characters will be aware of it from the start of a campaign. Similarly, it feels odd not to have a scenario in The Strange that introduces its setting and concepts, which might again have helped with this issue.

Despite the oddities of these omissions, The Strange is a well-produced, interesting RPG. Although there have been many RPGs that have done world-hopping, genre-hopping, and so on, like Tri Tac Games’ Fringeworthy, Chaosium, Inc.’s Worlds of Wonder, or West End Games’ TORG, but oddly the game that The Strange is closest too is TSR, Inc.’s 1993 Amazing Engine. In that RPG, a player created a core character and could take said core character from one game to another, from the alien-monster blast ‘em up of Bughunters to Tabloid!, a spoof comedy setting of sensationalist journalism. The process though, was between games/settings and not within the setting of the game itself, whereas it is within the setting of The Strange. The multiple settings also means that The Strange is also greatly expandable, with new Foci and Descriptors, new Recursions, and so on. This is in addition to expanding upon the Recursions given in The Strange. Similarly The Strange is also infinitely expandable with the GM’s own material, whether of his own creation or derived from his favourite fiction, film or television series, or even RPG. (It should be noted that the Recursions in The Strange based on other sources are all based on out of copyright intellectual properties.)

As a framework, The Strange is a rich, well realised RPG. It is not quite as accessible as it should be and not all of the settings are quite as rich as they would be if the game was just devoted to the one setting. Nevertheless, the settings are interesting, varied, and rife with gaming possibilities.