[Fanzine Focus XXX] Lichcraft

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Not every fanzine though, is dedicated to particular roleplaying games.

Lichcraft: An RPG About Trans Necromancers is an overtly political fanzine about a controversial or difficult or political subject (or all three)—depending upon your point of view. Published by Laurie O’Connel Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest #3, it is a dystopian satire upon (fifty) years of Conservative Party rule and access to life changing healthcare in the United Kingdom. It is a commentary upon the Conservative Party and its attitude to both the National Health Service and anyone who does not fit its white middle class ideals. It is also a game for two players which can be run as a multiplayer game and is intended to be quite light-hearted despite the seriousness of its underlying theme. The year is 2069 and the Conservatives have been in power for fifty years, and partially realised its dream of dismantling the NHS with huge cuts and sell-offs to its wealthy backers and as a result, the waiting list to access healthcare for the transgendered community is currently three centuries. So what is a trans person supposed to do? Scream and protest knowing they will be dead before receiving the healthcare they actually need or…? In the case of Lichcraft, it is taking up the study of necromancy in order to become a lich, achieve immortality, and so outlive—or rather, undead the waiting list.

Character creation in Lichcraft is simple. All it requires is that the character is transgendered and on the waiting list. After that, the player is free to decide, or they can roll on the small set of tables to determine their gender, politics, day job, and source of magic. They also assign the numbers one, two, or three to three stats—Strength, Sense, and Spells. Lastly, the character has a Health of five, although this can be lower if there are more players.

My name is Bella

I am 29 years old

I have known that I was trans since I was six

I am Non-Binary

I am a Communist

My hobby is Reading

My day job is Accountant

The source of my magic is Force of Will

Strength 1 Sense 2 Spells 3

Lichcraft is designed to be flexible in that it can be played with one player and one Game Master, one Game Master and several players, or two players without a Game Master. In fact, Lichcraft could just as easily be played by one person and written up as a journaling game. Either way, the aim is for the player to assemble the elements that they need for the ritual. These include a magic spell, some rare and valuable components, and a magically powerful place. These are determined randomly by the Game Master. For example, “The spell is scrawled on the back of envelope, hidden in a cluttered café, and guarded by vampires”,  “The components are in moss gathered from standing stones, hidden in the Houses of Parliament, and guarded by zombie Liz Truss”, and “The location for the ritual is the top of a corporate skyscraper, the catch is the strange weather phenomenon, and the locals are dangerous because they are giants”. Each of these three elements represents a challenge that the would be lich has to overcome to succeed and is done in a single scene each, so that a play through of Lichcraft should be three scenes only.

Within each scene it is the Game Master’s tasks to present obstacles derived from the prompts and objectives already created. If the Player Character needs to overcome an obstacle, then their player rolls a number of dice equal to the appropriate stat. More can be added if the Player Character’s hobby, politics, or other background elements are relevant. If the highest result on any die is a six, the Player Character succeeds and their player narrates the outcome. If three, four, or five, the Player Character succeeds, but may lose a point of Health or the stat being rolled. Lastly, on a one or two, the Player Character fails and something goes wrong. They will also learn a harsh lesson which they can learn from and bring into play later on to gain another die.

There is combat system as such, but the Player Character can lose points of both stats and Health. When all Health is lost, the Player Character is dead. Losing points in a stat represents loss of confidence and a wearing down of the will to succeed, making the challenge of the game more difficult to overcome. Alternatively, a player can decide that their character will make a sacrifice to continue on, whether that is a relationship, career, as sense of independence, and so on, in order to restore two points of Health or a stat. Once the Player Character has gathered everything necessary to perform the ritual, the player has a choice of a final encounter as one last challenge or skipping straight to the ritual. In order to complete the ritual, the rules pose some questions for the player and their character which push them to reflect upon what they have done in order to complete the ritual and how they feel now. Most are chosen by the player, but the Game Master also selects one too.

Lichcraft expands upon the core of the game—which is supported with a nicely done example of play—with multiplayer rules, with alternative settings for the Victorian era, the far future, and Ancient Rome, as well as one parodying a very far future British Science Fiction roleplaying and wargaming setting.

Physically, Lichcraft is a nicely presented. The best artwork is actually inside the front and back covers, and the writing is engaging.

Lichcraft is not about the processes and steps needed to gain gender recognition and the healthcare necessary to support that or the trans experience as it is lived of dealing with the NHS as such, whether that is in the early twenty-first century of today, or the future of the fanzine. Rather it is about overcoming those hurdles and the wait involved—especially the wait involved—in what is as ridiculous a method possible. In doing so, it is making its point in as equally a ridiculous manner possible, but letting the player—who need not be transgendered, because after all, this is a roleplaying game—roleplay that experience out and what it costs in a way that they can understand and appreciate. Ultimately, Lichcraft: An RPG About Trans Necromancers gets its message of frustration and the enormous obstacles which have to be overcome across in one single, entertaining session.

Judge Dredd V

Just as we wave goodbye to one roleplaying based on the Judge Dredd comic strip from the pages of 2000 AD, En Publishing’s Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD, we are surprised by the arrival of another—and this one is almost entirely different to all four of the Judge Dredd roleplaying games which have come before it. Announced at The Galaxy’s Greatest: 2000 AD at 45, the event to celebrate the long running comic’s sapphire anniversary, Dread: Dredd is a storytelling game rather than a traditional roleplaying game. Dread: Dredd is a storytelling game in which you do not take the roles of Judges enforcing the harsh laws of Mega-City One, but of those opposed to both the Judges and their strident legal enforcement. Previous roleplaying games based on Judge Dredd have presented options to play Perps and citizens rather than  Judges, but in Dread: Dredd players take the roles of activists and subversives campaigning for the restoration of democracy to Mega-City One. Dread: Dredd is a storytelling game with a physical component to its play requiring a Jenga Tower to play, and this is because it is based upon Dread, the roleplaying game of existential, psychological horror that was the Winner of the 2006 Gold ENNIE for Innovation.

Dread: Dredd is a one-shot storytelling game in which events of the scenario, ‘The Power of the Crowd’, are narrated and played out. In ‘The Power of the Crowd’, pro-democracy agitators have the direct chance to strike a blow for self-governance. They have gained possession of Walter, a former Justice Department droid and somewhat reluctant co-conspirator who has damaging information about the judges. This is information the public must hear. Working together, the democracy activists will ensure that the public hears it today at the opening game of the first Aeroball season in decades. This is such a big event that all of Mega-City One will be watching, and the judges will be unable to pre-emptively shutdown the broadcast for fear of citywide riots. It is the perfect opportunity. There is no better time like now, but there is one judge whose intervention will stop their efforts—Judge Dredd. He is inbound, there is forty-eight minutes until he arrives, and he is the law!

At the heart of Dread: Dredd—and the centre of the table—is the tower of blocks. In a standard game of Jenga this is stacked into one block, but in Dread: Dredd, it is divided into two. The taller of the two is the Justice Tower, the shorter the Liberty Tower. As the game proceeds, whenever a player wants his Democrat to undertake a task, he pulls out a block and adds it to the top of the tower it was pulled from. If he wants the action to be inspiring, dignified, go unnoticed, showy, done safely, or done quickly, he can pull out another block for each. If the block is removed and added to the top of the tower, he succeeds. However, if the player decides not to pull a block or begins to pull a block and then stops halfway through, the action fails. Worse, if the tower is knocked over as a result of the block being pulled, whether the Justice Tower or the Liberty Tower, the Democrat not only fails, but dies.

The Host—as the Game Master in Dread: Dredd is known—narrates the outcome of the pull of the block. If the attempt is a failure, especially if the tower falls and the Democrat dies, the Host has the scope for no little invention. If a Judge is present, then he executes the Democrat, if not, he dies in some other fashion. The setting of Judge Dredd is darkly satirical and the death of a Democrat should reflect that. When a tower falls, it is rebuilt and play continues. Even if a Democrat dies, he can continue to inspire his fellow subversives from beyond the Resyk Center (which also keeps a player in the game even if his Democrat is dead).

In Dread: Dredd, the players and their Democrats have three objectives. The first is get Walter the Wobot to spill the beans on-air before an audience of millions. The second is to build the Liberty Tower is taller than the Justice Tower. The third is to do both before the arrival of Judge Dredd.

The Democrats lose in Dread: Dredd and ‘The Power of the Crowd’ if they fail to achieve all three of their objectives before the arrival of Dredd. They also lose if they all die in the attempt, though as martyrs, they might inspire others to make an attempt to expose damaging information about the Judges.

Getting Walter the Wobot to reveal all is a storytelling objective and it is up to the Host to determine when exactly this happens. When a player pulls a block, it is added to the top of the tower it is pulled from, but the Democrats need to shift the blocks from the Justice Tower to the Liberty Tower to succeed and in this, they have several advantages in their elbow pads here. One is that they have Democratic and personal abilities that will help the players shift blocks. One is making their actions Inspiring and pulling out blocks and adding them to the Liberty Tower. Each Democratic has three abilities, a Dodge, Spend, and Stash ability, each different in flavour for the various Democrats. A Dodge ability enables a free pull, a Spend to use blocks from a player’s Reserve—each player begins with three—and place them on a tower, and Stash to store a newly pulled block in a player’s Reserve. Lastly, Dredd arrives in forty-eight minutes of game time, with every three minutes of actual time representing one of game time (so ‘The Power of the Crowd’ is actually intended to be played in two hours and twenty-four minutes), and the Host has a ‘Countdown And Encounter Track’ with which to tick off time and throw some challenges in the Democrats’ paths.

The five Democrats include ‘The Perp From The Judge’s Tree’, ‘The Psychic Celebrity With A Grudge’, ‘The Dilettante On A Mission’, ‘The Wheel-Ape’, and ‘The Gearhead With A Secret’. Each of the quintet includes their own Dodge, Spend, and Stash Abilities, and a set of questions about the Democrat’s background and subversively democratic actions. One issue here is that some of the Democrats do share the same questions. So they may not necessarily be quite as personal or individual as perhaps the designer intended.

For the Host, there is advice for running ‘The Power of the Crowd’ and Dread: Dredd, which is primarily to follow the players’ lead, how to handle the countdown, and roleplaying Walter the Wobot. There is a complete description of the Hellcat Memorial Stadium, inside and out (though no map), plus excerpts from 2000 AD depicting the Harlem Heroes and their power gear, Harlem Heroes Super Liner, and blueprints of Walter the Wobot to add extra detail and flavour.

Physically, Dread: Dredd is cleanly laid out, easy to read, and illustrated with a range of artwork taken from 2000 AD. This is drawn from all eras of the Judge Dredd comic strip as well as the Harlem Heroes, so it includes both black and white, and colour artwork, all crisply presented and showcasing just how good the artwork has been in the pages of 2000 AD over the course of forty-five years.

Dread: Dredd and ‘The Power of the Crowd’ works as both a one-shot and a convention scenario, though for the traditional four-hour slot for a convention, it does need extending in terms of time, and advice is included to that end. Dread: Dredd and ‘The Power of the Crowd’ provides a different perspective upon roleplaying in the world of Judge Dredd and the setting of Mega-City One, operating under the threat of arrest or even execution by the fascistic Judges, rather than being the bully boys handing out the justice. It makes for a tense, desperate situation, all exacerbated by the pulling blocks from the towers, which together gives Dread: Dredd a nervous physicality and a sense of Dredd/Dread.

Your Fault

Launched at UK Games Expo 2016 prior to a successful Kickstarter campaign, The Game of Blame: A Card Game About Shirking Your Duty is a card game of memory and card counting published by Warm Acre. Designed for between two and four players, it is a quick filler of game that is easy to learn, easy to play, and easy in terms of its theme. The players take the roles of courtiers at the court of a capricious, unpredictable, and fickle Queen who is ready to appoint and reappoint them to various positions at her court—and then mete out terrible punishments for those that disappoint her.

Game of Blame consists of fifty or so cards. Six of these are Role cards, Archbishop, General, Spymaster, Treasurer, Viceroy, and Wizard, each of which has its own colour. The bulk of the cards consist of Issues cards, such as ‘Another Holy War’, ‘Faulty Golems’, ‘Scandalous Gossip’, ‘The Treasury is Empty!’, ‘Vampire Rampage’, and ‘We’re Doomed!’. Each Issues card has one or two Seals on it and the colour of these Seals match the Role cards, denoting the responsibility of the Role for that Issues card. There are also Treason cards. These have no Seals on them, but can count as any Seal (so they are essentially wild cards).

The aim of The Game of Blame is end the game with the least number of Issues that match that match your Role. At game start, each player receives a Role card, which is placed in front of them, and three Issues cards, whilst a single Issues card is drawn and played face up to form the Blame pile.

On his turn, a player must play between zero and three cards on the Blame pile. As each Issues card is played, one of its Seals must match the colour of one of the Seals of the Issues card it is played onto. How cards played determines a player’s second action. If he played zero cards, he must draw three new Issues cards; if he played one, then he must draw one; if he played two, then he can swap any two Roles—this can be between himself and another player, between any two players, and one of the Role cards can be one not in play; and if he played three Issues, then he can Accuse someone!

To Accuse someone, a player chooses another player to blame and then together they compare the number of Seals in the Blame pile that match their current respective Roles. The player who has the most Seals in the Blame pile literally takes the Blame and adds the pile of cards to his hand. Everyone else, including the successful Accuser, can bury one of their Issues cards, including a Treason card, into a personal Secrets pile. All Issues in a Secrets pile are safe and do not play any further role in the game.

 This is the heart of The Game of Blame. The problem though, is that because Roles can swap from one turn to the next, remembering exactly what Issues and thus which Seals—and how many—are in the Blame pile, can be difficult to remember! This is intentionally made difficult because the players cannot look through the Blame pile. Plus having all of those Issues cards in your hand at game’s end is really bad, because the more Issues cards a player has in his hand that match his current Role card, the worse his fate is… Each matching Issues card is worth a point, Treason cards are worth six points! The player with the least number of Issues cards that match his current his current Role card in his hand, will win, but his fate is still down to the Queen’s temper…

The Game of Blame is deceptively simple and deceptively tactical. Counting the Issues as they go into the Blame pile is as important as knowing when to swap Roles—your own as well as anyone else’s. Getting this right means that you can avoid the Blame and place it on someone else! There is also room for some tactical play too, stacking the Blame pile with Issues of one colour, then switching Roles so that another player’s Role matches those Issues, just as much as there is for throwing back and forth the Accusations. Though the likelihood is that a game will involve more of the latter than the former.

The game’s advanced rules allow the Roles to do a whole more than just be swapped or matched. Each one has a special function, for example, the General has ‘Honour’ and cannot be Accused if he has no Secrets and the Wizard’s ‘Sorcery’ enables him to swap hands with another player instead of Roles when he plays two cards. These make the Roles ever so slightly more important and Kickstarter edition of the game adds a further handful of Role cards.

Physically, The Game of Blame is nicely presented. The cards all feel like medieval documents—though sadly, the body text on is faded and difficult to read when we really wanted to read it—and this adds much to the game’s theme. In fact, The Game of Blame would be bland without its fantasy theme—as light as it is—and with that theme, it actually encourages a little light roleplaying and table talk.

Lasting no longer than twenty minutes, The Game of Blame: A Card Game About Shirking Your Duty is a light and lightly themed game that works as a solid filler.

The US Election Game I

Like clockwork, the US Presidential Election rolls around every four years and with it, come a slew of US Presidential Election themed board and card games. Although strangely, they really only seem to appear in years where is the chance of switching from one party to the other, so Republican to Democrat or vice versa. So Z-Man Games’ 1960: The Making of the President was released in 2007 and followed by Campaign Manager 2008 in 2008. 2016 is no different with a half a Super Pac’s worth of games with a presidential theme coming our way in the run up to the US Election in November, most of them funded through popularity and pledges, just like the US Election itself. Of course, these games are funded via Kickstarter rather than through the ballot box. 

The first of these is The Contender: The Game of Presidential Debate. Funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign and published by The Contender, this is a social or party game in the mode of Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity. So it works by one player posing a question from a card to the other players, who will use their answer cards to supply answers to the questioning player who will select what he thinks is the most suitable answer from these cards. The person who played the selected card wins that round. Then the next player gets to pose the question whilst everyone else provides the answers, and so on. Play continues one of the players has won an agreed number of rounds.

Designed to be played by three or more players, aged eleven and older, The Contender uses this same mechanic, but with an extra twist that comes from its theme, that of US Presidential Debates. In The Contender, the game is played with Topic cards rather than question cards and Argument cards rather than answer cards. The player setting each Topic is the Moderator and the players making the Arguments are the Candidates. The Contender comes with forty Topic cards and some five hundred Argument cards. Each Topic card has a subject and a question intended to be read aloud to the Candidates, for example, ‘Guns – Candidate, the debate over the Second Amendment has only grown louder in the last five years. As president, do you intend to pull the trigger or dump ammo on the right to bear arms?’ or ‘Police Brutality – Candidate, law enforcement has come under fire as viral videos of alleged police misconduct make headlines. Do you believe our boys in blue are seeing red, or is the current outrage white-washing a complex issue?’ All of the Topic cards deal with contentious subjects.

The Argument cards are slightly more complex. They are divided into three types—Attack, Distract, Fact. Each gives a short phrase that can be used as an Argument and the source from which it is drawn. So the ‘You’re a national embarrassment.’ is from the Bill Clinton quote, “We can’t have any more instances like what happened when Mr. Bush went to Japan and the Japanese prime minister said he felt sympathy for our country.”; the Distract card, ‘I would like to be the first to say…’ is based on Jimmy Carter’s “Tonight I would like to be the first to say a few words about this most special office, the presidency of the United States.”; and the Fact card, ‘I’ve had actual responsibility’ is based on the Sarah Palin quote, “I guess a small-time mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”

At the start of the game each Candidate receives five Argument cards and the person with the most presidential hair is the first Moderator and poses the first Topic. Then going round the table each Candidate can respond with one, two, or three Argument cards. A Candidate does not have to play all three cards at once, but can choose to hold some for use later in the round, typically as a response to another another Candidate’s Argument. Once a Candidate has played three Argument cards though, his contribution towards the debate about the Topic card is over for that round.

For example, Dave, Debbie, and Louise are playing The Contender and it is Louise’s turn to be the Moderator. She turns to the others and says, “Christmas. Candidate, over 50 percent of the voters who describe themselves as Christian claim there is a culture war on Christmas. Do you believe the reason for the season is under fire? Or should those concerned realize there’s more than one way to deck the halls?”

Dave’s opening statement is, “I will not rest until all Americans have Christmas.” (Fact) to which Debbie responds, “Are you taking crazy pills?” (Attack) and “I will not support this boondoggle.” (Attack). Dave looks over at Debbie and raising his eyebrows, says, “Suck it up.” (Attack) “We have to strengthen Christmas.” (Fact). Debbie gets in one last comment, “You can’t even spell Christmas.” At which point each Candidate has played his or her three Argument cards and it is up to the Moderator to decide upon the winner, at least for this topic. Louise decides that Dave has made the most cogent argument and awards him the Topic card as a victory point.

At the end of each round, each Candidate draws back up to five Argument cards and the next player in turn becomes the Moderator. Play continues like this until the Candidate with most Topic cards wins. Or at least this is how I think that The Contender is played. The problem is not the basic structure of the game, but rather the use of the Argument cards. Does each Candidate read them out verbatim or can he adapt them? Neither is suggested. Nor is the use of the Attack, Distract, or Fact cards explained. The lack of an explanation does leave the rules open to interpretation, but coming up with your own explanation or interpretation should not really be much of an issue.

Physically, The Contender comes in the same style of box as Cards Against Humanity, but has an obviously American theming in terms of its graphical design. The cards themselves are sturdy enough, easy to read, and the quotes on the Argument cards are interesting to read.

In addition to its underwritten rules, the other issue with The Contender is its subject matter. The players have to be interested enough in the process of the US Presidential Election to want to play this game. Firstly, this makes it of limited interest outside of the USA; secondly, it makes it of limited interest to a younger audience—especially the suggested age of eleven plus; and thirdly, whilst the subjects presented on the Topic cards are rude or adult in nature, they are potentially controversial in nature. There may be some Topic cards that the Candidates do not want to debate. Whatever the players’ attitudes towards the subject on the Topic cards, The Contender is best played with an older audience and with more than just three players unless you want to play out the final US Presidential Debates.

Now despite its underwritten rules, The Contender is nicely themed game that does a bit more with the traditional Apples to Apples, using the Attack, Distract, and Fact Argument cards to help Candidates build their arguments in each round. There is also plenty of scope for the players to roleplay too, taking on a particular stance for one Topic, switching to another for the next Topic, and so on, whether playing it straight or for comedic effect. Ultimately, The Contender: The Game of Presidential Debate is a solidly themed party game that gets you ready for all of the hoopla of the US Presidential Elections.

Your Rokugani Primer

Emerald Empire is the second supplement to be released for Alderac Entertainment Group’s Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition Roleplaying Game. It replaces one of the most sought after supplements for the third edition of the RPG, also of the same name. What it sets out to provide is an extensive guide to Rokugan, the setting for Legends of the Five Rings, expanding upon the information given in the core rulebook. Over the course of eleven chapters and two appendices, it explores and details first Rokugan’s physical geography, and second, various aspects of Rokugani culture. These includes its customs and social structure, its politics and arts, how it maintains law and order, its religion, how it educates its people, its attitudes towards money and how it conducts commerce, how it goes to war, and its attitude towards and what it knows about the various Gaijin peoples beyond its borders. It not only goes into depth about these aspects with regard to Rokugan as a whole, but also Clan by Clan, including not only the eight major Clans, but also some of the minor ones too.

Essentially then, what we have in Emerald Empire is a series of lengthy essays. Just as with other supplements for Legends of the Five Rings, each chapter is preceded by a piece of short fiction that illuminates the contents to come. In this case, it follows the education of a student of Clan Scorpion at his dojo as he discusses each of the chapter’s subjects with his sensei. It is very enjoyable flavour text, and although what follows is more informative and much drier in tone, it is rarely less than useful. Alongside the main text, sidebars explore other aspects of a subject being discussed. For example, the section on law in Rokugan that discusses the usual Rokugani reliance upon testimony during criminal investigations is accompanied by a sidebar that examines the method of relying upon evidence employed by the Kitsuki family of the Dragon Clan. Throughout the volume, regular sections illuminate aspects of the Imperial Histories, such as how the first Emperor came to choose his wife, how the minor clan known as the Fox came into existence and who for example, has owned Ryoko Owari, the City of Lies, throughout its long history. Other sidebars provide adventure seeds – though these are few and far between; excerpts from noted works; monastic ranks; and many other elements of the setting.

For all of its background information, Emerald Empire does not ignore the mechanical aspects of Legends of the Five Rings. Rounding out most of the chapters are new mechanics to add to a GM’s game. These include new basic schools such as the Shinjo Bushi school for the family that once ruled the Unicorn Clan and the very practical Ikoma Lion’s Shadow Bushi school; new Advanced Schools like the Bushi Minor Clan Defender and the Courtier Imperial Scion; and Play-Aids such as tables that allow “Random Events at Court” or “Random Dojo Events” to be rolled for. Not all of these are new of course, but rather they are new for the Fourth Edition of Legends of the Five Rings.

Rounding out Emerald Empire is a pair of appendices. The first of these is an expanded glossary, one that replaces that included in the core rulebook. The second appendix provides a set of new rules for player characters taking on important stations such as Governor, Merchant Patron, or Warlord. Once a character has been appointed to one of these positions, he can begin to grow into the role and to call in favours and make improvements to all that comes with the new position. Thus, an Ambassador will gain Iron Will and be able to endure the turbulent arguments that go with court life, whilst a Governor can improve the Accommodations, Defences, Monuments, and other features of the area that he administers. In game terms, these improvements and advantages are known as Features and must be purchased using Duty Points granted by the new advantages, The World of the Daimyo and The Daimyo’s Path.

All six of these higher station roles are accompanied with new optional mechanics of their own. For example, the Court Battle System allows an Ambassador to engage in the battle of wits regularly engaged in at court, much like skirmish rules given the core rulebook. Similarly, a Keeper of the Temple can create new spells and kiho, Master Sensei can create new kata, and with the Army Battle System, a Warlord can command larger and larger units of troops, using them in conjunction with the Mass Combat rules in the core rulebook.

In places, these new rules do feel a little brief and also left undiscussed. There is certainly enough information for a GM to take this game to a new level, and he should be able to extract numerous roleplaying challenges from these rules. Yet, what advice there is, feels all too brief, and there is quite possibly a whole new supplement to be got out of this aspect of the game. As welcome as these new rules are, they do feel disappointingly slight when compared to the rest of the book, but then the rest of the book more than compensates for this relatively slight disappointment.

Physically, Emerald Empire is another stunning looking book, in keeping with the rest of the line. The layout is clean, tidy, and attractive, and the artwork, which is excellent throughout, never feels less than appropriate.

There is so much to be got out of Emerald Empire. Its pages flow with detail and flavour, and it does not matter in what period a GM’s game is set nor what the players prefer in terms of Clan, there will be something in the supplement of use to them. For example, adherents of the Mantis Clan will appreciate the chapter devoted to commerce, the Crane Clan the chapters on court and the arts, and the Crab and Lion Clans the chapter on war. It is also easy to extract details and bring them into a game. For example, in our Lion Clan game, I not only read up on the Clan’s birth customs, but also Crane marriage customs for a scenario I wrote. Each of these selections nicely complements the further content given in the game fourth supplement, Great Clans.

Emerald Empire is superb supplement. Its contents are incredibly useful and can add so much to a campaign. Whether that is in the form of an idea for a scenario or for a whole campaign, or in the form of a small detail that will help bring a game to life, the supplement is a wealth of information. It also helps with another aspect of the game, the fact that Legends of the Five Rings is a culture game, and the details contained in Emerald Empire do support this. This makes Emerald Empire, along with Enemies of the Empire, the two key supplements to purchase after Legends of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game. Above all, Emerald Empire brims with detail and flavour that will help a GM being Rokugan to life and give a player a greater knowledge into which immerse his character.

Retrospective: Suppressed Transmission

Of course, you know about the Suppressed Transmission?

If you do, then go make a cup of tea and put your feet up with a copy of Foucault’s Pendulum, you know the one with annotations from the Pope. In mean time, come a little closer and I will put you in the picture. Back in 1998, Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid magazine began publishing a series of columns by Ken Hite entitled Suppressed Transmission.

Following Lovecraft’s dictum that “…piecing together of associated knowledge” opens up “terrifying vistas of reality” each Suppressed Transmission is an essay that placed subjects as diverse as the Roswell landings – all six of them, Shakespeare as well as his plays, variations upon Spring Heeled Jack, Antarctic Space Nazis, and the many colours of the elixir vitae that is Cocoa-Cola under a lens that not only revealed Hite’s mind map, but also his reading habits of the then previous twenty years. With each essay he spins a web of horror, conspiracies, secret histories, alternate histories, and high weirdness that makes connections hither and thither. Hite’s aim is never to validate the pseudoscience, conspiracies, fallacies, and slapdash scholarship that he bases these essays on – and which I suspect he finds to be endearingly risible – but rather to give the reader concepts, ideas, and set-ups that he can base a whole game on.

For example, in “The Sky is Falling,” Hite goes from discussing what the 1908 Tunguska incident was and what it might have been – including the coming to Earth of a Colour Out of Space or the attempted summoning of Azathoth (really? Not seen that in a Call of Cthulhu adventure), to moving the incident to Moscow rather than Siberia and seeing what could happen. Which includes no World War I and a race to Mars between the Red Baron and Eddie Rickenbacker amongst other things… Elsewhere, Hite plays the Kevin Bacon game with Sir Francis Bacon rather the actor in “Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon,” explores what happened to Roanoke in “Croatoan or Bust: Finding the Lost Colony,” and gives us the A to Z of all things conspiratorial in “A Conspiratorial Alphabet,” all before leaving us with his “Top Ten Books for High Weirdness in Your Campaign.”

To date, of the three hundred written, Steve Jackson Games has only published the first sixty-eight in two volumes, Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast and Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast. Both books are now only available in PDF, but in each case they allow Hite to revisit and reorganise each of the first year’s columns and annotate and cross reference every one. Then apply an index, which means that can you look up something like H.P. Lovecraft (fifteen entries), penguins (four entries), or the Templars (also fifteen entries), just to see how Hite uses them and the places that he takes them to.

In their time, Hite’s columns were a constant draw to Pyramid magazine and ensured that readers would renew their subscriptions time and again. They were considered to be that good and many subscribers felt them to be the best articles to appear in the magazine. Even at their most basic, every Suppressed Transmission is immensely readable. At just three or four pages long, they are easy to read just about anywhere, and they are even just about the right length to read aloud. Their use though is as a veritable well spring of ideas.

Perhaps too many GURPS books are referenced, but most GURPS books are good reference guides too. Sometimes its feels as if Hite is channelling one too many Illuminati games, but then he is saving you an awful lot of research and entertaining you at the same time.

About as fruity a cabinet of cocktails of insanely weird ideas as any gaming reference work deserves to be, Suppressed Transmission never fails to be entertaining and interesting. It is a resource that should be on the shelf of any good referee and just be glad that Hite was channelling this insane weirdness so that you never had too.

Five Rings Get Their Fourth

The year 2010 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Legend of the Five Rings Collectable Card Game from Alderac Entertainment Group. To celebrate that fact, the publishers released a new, fourth edition of the roleplaying game based on the Collectable Card Game that was originally designed by John Wick in 1997, and to be honest, it was needed. Both the Legend of the Five Rings Third Edition and Legend of the Five Rings Third Edition Revised Edition had suffered from secondary mechanics that were too complex, from a lack of balance between the character types and their abilities, and physically, from the need for extensive errata. It was also tied to quite a tight timeline that meant that some of its background and its players options were different at different times during that timeline. The effort to rectify all of these issues has resulted in Legend of the Five Rings Fourth Edition.

Physically, the result is a quite lovely hard back with a nice simple cover and a clean layout inside with everything easy to find. The contents are also well organised, as in previous editions, into books or chapters that follow the game’s five rings theme. Thus the Book of Air details the setting; the Book of Earth the core rules and mechanics; character creation is covered in the Book of Fire; the Book of Water provides optional and more advanced elements that a GM can add to his game; while the Book of Void contains more background as well as advice for the GM. The artwork is excellent, split equally between ethereal pieces that capture the meditative tranquillity of life in the setting, and high action pieces that portray the harsh brutality of war and strife in the setting.

That setting is Rokugan, a land inspired primarily by feudal Japan but also by China and Korea. It is a land dominated by eight great and many minor Clans that vie for control and influence on the battlefield in Summer and at court during Winter, all the while still owing fealty to the Emperor. Below the Emperor are the samurai and below them, the many peasants that they govern. Samurai are what the players will roleplay in Legend of the Five Rings, but more specifically, they can play bushi, which are the warrior samurai that we think when we think of samurai; shugenja, priests who pray to the kami or spirits to cast spells; or courtiers, the politicians, civil servants, and diplomats of Rokugan who serve their clans’ needs at court. Whatever his role, a samurai adheres to the tenets of Bushido, though which tenet he favours will vary according to his clan.

The eight great clans vary quite widely, each having its own theme and attitude towards the other clans. No surprise there, since this is an update of a 1990s design. The Crab Clan use their strength to man the wall that protects the Empire from the Shadowlands, but are regarded as uncouth and ill mannered; Crane Clan are known as the Left Hand of the Emperor and are wealthy and influential politicians; The Dragon Clan remain aloof from most affairs in its mountain fast, but have sallied forth to aid the Empire several times; and the Lion Clan are the Right Hand of the Emperor, being devoted warriors. The Mantis Clan is the only clan to have been raised to major clan status and is known for its sailors; where the Lion Clan is known for its bushi, the Phoenix Clan is known for its shugenja; the Underhand of the Emperor are the Scorpion Clan, which revels in its villainous status and reputation; and lastly, the Unicorn Clan are Rokugan’s horsemen, who spent several centuries in the Gaijin lands to the West.

Characters inLegend of the Five Ringsare defined by the five attributes or Rings: Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Void. Apart from Void, each Ring is comprised of two traits. For example, the Water Ring is made up of Perception and Strength. The value of a Ring is equal to the lower of its two traits. For example, Nioko has Perception 3 and Strength 2, so her Water Ring would be 2, equal to her Strength. If she undertook regular exercise and spent the appropriate Experience Points, she could raise her Strength and thus her Water Ring to 3. A character will also be defined by various factors such as Glory, Honour, and Status, but primarily by her clan, her family and her school. Apart from the minor clans, each clan has several families, one bushi, one courtier, and one shugenja school, plus a more specialised school such as the Lion Clan’s Matsu Berserker School.

To create a character, a player selects a clan, a family, and a school. Both family and school grant a trait bonus each, while the school will teach the character a number of set skills plus the first of several techniques that enhance a character's abilities and reflect the school's teachings. At this point, a character will be like any samurai who has attended that particular school, but each player receives a number of points with which to customise the character. These can be spent to add advantages and disadvantages, and add and improve skills to personalise the character, whether that is making a samurai a better swordsman with Kenjitsu, adding a hobby skill like Poetry, or having him Haunted by an ancestor. Some skills, especially those that will find favour with players in other games such as Ninjitsu or Anatomy, are regarded as being dishonourable skills and a samurai will lose honour if he is seen using them.

The following three characters model the three character types in the game. Apart from equipment – and Legend of the Five Rings is not a game in which money matters very much, they are ready to play.

Tsuruchi Tsuru, Mantis Bushi
Air: 2 (Reflexes 3), Earth: 2 Fire: 2, Water: 3 Void: 2
Honour: 3.5, Status: 1.0, Glory: 1.0, Insight: 132
School/Rank: Tsuruchi Archer, Rank 1
Technique: Always Be Ready
Advantages: Absolute Direction, Daredevil, Touch of the Spirit Realm (Chikushudo)
Disadvantages: Phobia (Fire) 2, Sworn Enemy
Skills: Animal Handling 2, Athletics 2, Craft (Bowyer) 2, Battle 1, Defence 2, Etiquette 1, Hunting 2, Investigation 2, Kenjutsu 2, Kyujutsu (Yumi) 3, Medicine 1, Lore (Bushido) 1, Sailing 1

Yasuki Oguri, Crab Courtier
Air: 2 (Awareness 3), Earth: 2 Fire: 2 (Intelligence 3), Water: 2 (Perception 3) Void: 2
Honour: 2.5, Status: 1.0, Glory: 1.0, Insight: 118
School/Rank: Yasuki Courtier, Rank 1
Technique: The Way of the Carp
Advantages: Voice
Disadvantages: Bad Eyesight, True Love
Skills: Artisan: Poetry 1, Athletics 1, Commerce (Appraisal) 2, Courtier 2 (Manipulation), Defence 1, Etiquette (Bureaucracy) 3, Intimidation (Control) 1, Investigation (Notice) 1, Jiujutsu 1, Kenjutsu 1, Lore: Bushido 1, Sailing 1, Sincerity (Deceit) 2

Kitsu Rihito, Lion Shugenja
Air: 2 Earth: 2 Fire: 2 (Intelligence 3), Water: 3 Void: 2
Honour: 6.5, Status: 1.0, Glory: 1.0, Insight: 133
School/Rank: Kitsu Shugenja, Rank 1
Technique: Eyes of the Ancestors
Affinity/Deficiency: Water/Fire
Spells: Sense, Commune, Summon; Path to Inner Peace, Reflections of Pan Ku, Reversal of
Fortunes; To Seek the Truth, Yari of Air; Jade Strike
Advantages: Inner Gift (Lesser Prophecy), Precise Memory
Disadvantages: Doubt, Epilepsy, Haunted
Skills: Battle 1, Calligraphy (Cipher) 1, Defence 2, Divination (Astrology) 2, Games (Go) 1, Etiquette 1, Kenjutsu 2, Lore: History 1, Lore: Spirit Realms 2, Lore: Theology 2, Meditation 2, Spellcraft 3, Tea Ceremony 1, War Fan 2

For its mechanics, Legend of the Five Rings still uses the "Keep and Roll" system. For any action this has a character roll a number of ten sided dice, select the ones that he wants to use and then add them up. The number rolled is usually equal to the governing trait or Ring plus skill with the number kept being equal to the attribute or Ring, expressed as “xky,” where x is the number to roll and y the number to keep. For example, Tsuruchi Tsuru our Mantis Bushi above is out hunting when he is ambushed by a trio of Bakemono or goblins. He already has his Yumi or bow to hand and quickly notches an arrow as the creatures scamper towards him. He has to roll three dice for his Reflexes and three for his Kyujutsu skill, but can only keep the governing trait value or three for his Reflexes. This is expressed as 6k3.

The total rolled is compared to a TN or Target Number, which in the case of the Bakemono is 15. If Tsuru wants or needs to do something more than achieve this target, he can make Raises, adding five to the TN for each Raise declared before the roll. The limit on the number of Raises is a character’s Void Ring. In combat, Raises can add to the damage dice rolled or kept, depending on the number of Raises. If a character has an appropriate emphasis for a skill, he re-roll any ones rolled, and if just has the skill, then results of ten can be rolled again and added to the total. Tsuru thinks he has a good chance of hitting one of the goblins and declares two Raises, increasing the TN to 25. Rolling the dice, he gets 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10. Since he has the Yumi Emphasis, he re-roll the 1 and gets a 3. Of the six dice rolled, he selects the 7, 8, and 10, re-rolling the 10 to add another 10, followed by another 10 and lastly a 1 to get a total of 56. This is well above the TN of 25, but since he only declared two Raises, he does not get the benefit of that really high roll! The Raises gets him an extra die to keep for damage, which is determined by the type of bow and arrow used. His yumi gives three dice, the willow leaf arrow gives 2k2, to which is added the bonus keep die to give a total of 5k3. The result is 3, 4, 8, 8, and 9, of which he keeps the last three and adds for a total of 25! This is enough to skewer one of the charging goblins who flops to the ground. Now for the last two...

Of course this in combat where you want to roll as high possible. Would there be situations when you might want to keep the lowest dice rolls? Possibly, such as when you are in a duel to first blood and want to pull the blow rather than deliver a killing strike. Although the mechanics get a little more complex with the secondary rules, they are at their heart easy to grasp, and in combat, they enforce just how deadly Legend of the Five Rings can be.

Beyond the character section, the book presents one other “major” clan and several minor clans that can be included in a campaign. The Spider Clan has not been recognised as a major clan by Emperor and its members are reviled for their devotion to the fallen Kami, the dark lord Fu Leng. Most of the minor clans do not amount to more than a single family and associated school, most being allied to a major clan. What is interesting in the treatment of the minor clans is that some of those listed have since become part of major clans, such as the Tsuruchi family of the Mantis Clan which was once the Wasp Clan. This supports one of the changes to Legend of the Five Rings in the Fourth Edition – keeping the core rules timeline neutral. Also detailed are the Imperial families and ronin, though the latter are only given cursory detail. Anyone wanting to play a ronin will have to wait for Enemies of the Empire for further information. Other optional rules cover mass battles, complete opportunities for heroic action; clan ancestors that can guide a character; alternate progression paths and advanced schools for characters; crafting rules; and Kiho, the sometimes near superhuman abilities of the monks.

Unless he is running a very strange game, the rules for Maho and Shadowlands Taint are really for the GM’s eyes only. Maho is the dark magic employed by the Spider Clan and other creatures of the Shadowlands, while the insidious and corruptive Taint seeps directly out of Jigoku, the Realm of Evil. Both are powerful and seductive, and the more you subject yourself to both the more likely that Jigoku will tempt you with interesting powers and mutations.

More specifically for the GM is the Book of Void. Much of this chapter is given over to describing the geography of Rokugan itself, detailing the places marked on the map inside the front and back covers. Flipping back and forth between this section and the end of the book is a pain, but this is a good read, full of interesting little particulars. The rest of the chapter is devoted to actually running the game, and includes an excellent section on storytelling that highlights the differences between Western and Eastern heroic stories; looks at possible campaign times, such as the ever reliable Imperial Magistrate based campaign to a Bushido-orientated Band of Brothers style game; discusses how to run two player games – very useful in these difficult days of getting players together; and examines the thirty six plotlines used by some writers. These are supported with scenario seeds and plenty of good advice throughout. The bestiary itself is relatively short, no surprise given all of the possibilities and the lack of space in this core book.

Lastly there is the scenario, “Tournament of the Samurai,” a political and investigative affair set at a Winter Court. I am of two minds about this scenario, despite not having read it (and not wanting to read it since it might be run for me). In part I miss the original scenario from the game’s first edition, as that was a very good showcase of the game’s mechanics and setting. Yet that led off to the characters being appointed magistrates, and this scenario is more neutral in its conclusion. That said, something that shows off the setting’s political aspect and its very different approach to dispensing justice – Rokugan’s legal system favours testimony rather than evidence – is more than welcome.

So that is Legends of the Five Rings, but what are the changes between this the Fourth and the previous Third Edition? Thankfully these have been summarised at the book’s start for returning players and while my comments will be based upon that summary, they will be influenced by my own experience playing the game. The most notable are that skills have been streamlined, with Emphases no longer adding to a roll, but allowing rolls of one to be re-rolled. “Defence,” which allows spells to be cast and skills to be used in combat while still avoiding trying to be hit, and “Centre,” for preparing yourself for a duel have both been added to the Stances available in combat. Also, there are no Techniques that allow an extra attack per round, though some do change attacks from Complex to Simple Actions, allowing extra attacks to be made if desired. The main change though, lies in a general streamlining and balancing of the schools available to the characters. This has allowed the flavour of the school to be got to very quickly and very easily.

Legend of the Five Rings is a very different game compared to most available today. It is a “Culture” game, one that rewards the GM and his players immersing themselves in a setting that is unlike medieval fantasy. This is not a setting that favours the individual, a samurai being expected to put the Emperor and his clan before himself. This can be a challenge for anyone coming to Rokugan having been influenced by Hollywood, but if he can think outside of the western traditions, this a fascinating world. Above all, what Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition does is make both the game and Rokugan itself far more accessible. The rules have been made easier and in doing so, have allowed the setting to come to the fore.

Election Lite

I have always had an interest in American Presidential politics, usually fuelled by the excellent coverage we get on radio and television here in the U.K. (I doubt that the reverse is as true...), so when I was looking for something to read the other week, I picked up a copy of Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. My interest peaked, I have begun re-watching the first season of The West Wing as well, which leaves only my politics and my gaming itches to be combined. Not wanting to get out and take the two hours necessary to play, I decided against the otherwise excellent 1960: The Making of the President, instead opting for Campaign Manager 2008.

Both games are from Z-Man Games and both are designed by Christian Leonhard and Jason Matthews who have also designed the forthcoming Founding Fathers, a multi-player game about the writing of the United States Constitution from Jolly Roger Games, another game that I am looking forward to. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of parallels between 1960: The Making of the President and Campaign Manager 2008. Both are two-player card driven games that simulate a US election, the first between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy in 1960, the second between John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008. Both are built around capturing the States necessary to gain the Electoral Votes that will vault the candidate into the White Office, but while the first has the candidates battling for all fifty States, the second concentrates on just twenty key or “battleground” states. This is the main difference between the two games, but Campaign Manager 2008 is also a much shorter game, with less of an emphasis on historical detail and the issues it was fought over.

Also, in Campaign Manager 2008, the players do not take the roles of the candidates, but their campaign managers, constructing and using a deck of cards to gain Support or voters and swing the issues in each of the twenty States at stake. The cards represent the strategy and the resources each manager has at hand, and each will be able to use them again and again as they are drawn from a refreshed deck. What cards and thus what resources a manager has to hand will also rise and fall – going all out to win that all important State will mean burning through resources that he will have to garner later on, leaving his opponent to win other States...

Opening up the box finds some ninety Campaign Strategy cards, twenty Breaking News event cards, twenty Battleground State tiles, a Scoring Chart, twenty Scoring Tiles, twenty-four wooden Support Markers, four wood Issue Markers, a single Going Negative die, the Going Negative Chart, plus an eight page Rule Book. All of these components are done in full colour, either on good card stock or in solid wood.

The focus of the game, essentially the playing area, are the twenty Battleground State tiles, ten of them the key target States for Obama, ten of them for McCain. They are Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia for McCain, and Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin for Obama.

Each Battleground State tile is three-and-a-half by five inches and depicts the State itself broken down into its voting districts, plus its abbreviation and the number of Electoral Votes it possesses. At the top and bottom of the State is an identical row of circular spaces in three colours representing the Voters in the State. Red circles support McCain, Blue support Obama, while white circles represent Undecided Voters. The row at the top of the State reflect the opinions of the Voters on the Defence Issue and is next to the Defence Symbol (a tank), while the bottom reflects their opinion on the Economy, likewise next the Economy Symbol (the almighty Dollar). Between the Defence and Economy Symbol on the left hand side of the State runs a four-space Issue Track. Throughout the contest for each State, the importance of each issue will change, reflected by an Issue Marker which will point towards the Defence or the Economy Symbol. The Issue that the Issue Marker points towards is the Majority Issue, while the one it points away from is the Minority issue. On the right hand side of a Battleground State tile are two spaces for Demographic Groups. Throughout the game, a Key Demographic marker sits in one of these spaces to indicate that it is the current Key Demographic in that State. It is possible to target the current Key Demographic to sway the State’s Undecided Voters (represented by empty white Voter spaces).

Taking Florida as an example, it provides twenty seven Electoral Votes, and its Key Demographics are either Jewish Conservatives or Latinos. Along the top and bottom are five Voter spaces. Alongside the Defence Issue they break down as two Red (McCain), one Blue (Obama), and two White (Undecided), while alongside the Economy Issue they break down as two Red (McCain), two Blue (Obama), and one White (Undecided). In order to win a State, all of its Voters need must support his Candidate in the Majority Issue. In general, McCain is stronger on Defence issues, while Obama is stronger on the Economy.

In order to win a State, a Campaign Manager has to play Campaign Strategy cards gain both Voters and shift the Issue Marker to the Issue that has most Voters in. There are ninety of these cards, divided equally between the two campaign managers, with blue backs for the Democrats and Red for the Republicans. Each Campaign Strategy card lists its type, its title, and its game instructions, along with an appropriate photograph and some colour text, the latter a note to the campaign manager’s team. For example, “Judgement To Lead” is an “Advertising: Minority Issue” type card for Obama. In game terms it provides one Support (or a Voter) in the Minority Issue of a single State and shifts the Issue Tracker in that State one space towards its Minority Issue. The photograph shows Obama at a podium with the attached note, “We need to contrast McCain’s experience against BHO’s judgement.”

Some Campaign Strategy cards are marked with the symbol of a six-sided die. When this card is played it indicates that the campaign has gone Negative. The card in question is invariably highly effective, but playing it has consequences, providing a random benefit to a campaign manager’s opponent. The effect in question, including adding Support, shifting an Issue, or altering the Key Demographic in a State, as well as allowing the opposing campaign manager to draw extra cards is determined randomly by rolling the die against the Going Negative Chart.

There are also twenty Breaking News event cards, representing random events that come into play when a State is won and a new one enters play. Each of these comes into play once per game and usually applies to the new State, unless one campaign manager has a Media Support Campaign Strategy card in play, in which case he can control which State it affects. For example, the “Campaign Fatigue?” Breaking News – breaking on ZNN or Z-Man Network News, that is – forces the removal of all Support (Voter) markers from the affected State.

Lastly, there is the rule book itself. It is easy to read, explains everything clearly, and makes the game easy to both understand and teach.

Setting up the game is quick and easy. Each player chooses two Battleground State tiles and places them in the middle of table adding the Key Demographic and Issue Markers as indicated on each tile. Each campaign manager then drafts from the forty five Campaign Strategy cards that he has available to him, a deck of fifteen cards. This is the Campaign Deck that he will use throughout the game. From this Campaign Deck, he draws a starting hand of three cards. If neither player wants to go through the draft process or chose their initial Battleground States, then the game does come with quicker set up solution that also works for those new to the game. Fifteen of the Campaign Strategy cards for each candidate are marked with a star, as are two of the Battleground State tiles for each candidate – Florida, Michigan, Missouri, and New Jersey. Each candidate will play the game using these fifteen Campaign Strategy cards and start play using the two starred Battleground State tiles.

Once set up is done, for example, with the beginning States of Florida, Michigan, Missouri, and New Jersey, the campaign begins. On his turn, a campaign manager can undertake just one action. He can either play a Campaign Strategy card or he can draw one from his deck. He will need to do the latter because he will quickly use up the cards in his hand, the trick being to know when. Having more cards in your hand gives a campaign manager more options, allowing him to increase Support for his candidate in a particular State or to respond to his opponent’s activities. Fortunately, some Campaign Strategy cards allow an extra card to be drawn after it has been played, thus ensuring that a campaign manager has options in his hand. A campaign manager also has to be careful when to play Campaign Strategy cards that force him to Go Negative – as powerful as they are, and as useful as they are in grabbing that all important big State, they do have consequences.

Play continues until a State is won. Its winner gains its Electoral Votes which are marked with the Scoring Tile that corresponds to the State in question, the Scoring Tile being placed on the Scoring Chart. Essentially, the Scoring Chart looks like the kind of graphic you would find on television on its coverage of an election night. The Scoring Tiles do not quite fit on the Chart, but this is more a problem of the tags being left on each Tile after their having been punched out. To be fair, both players only need to know their positions relative to each other and what matters is who gains those all too important two-hundred-and-seventy Electoral Votes. This is how a Presidential Election and Campaign Manager 2008 are both won.

The winner of a State also gets to chose which new Battleground State is added to the fray. A Breaking News card is drawn and its effects are applied to the new State. Play continues as normal.

Play in Campaign Manager 2008 tends to ebb and flow. Not just in the way in which Campaign Strategy cards pass through each players’ hands, but the way in which momentum can be gained and lost as one campaign manager wins a State and is able to bring another of his target Battleground States. It also offers each player plenty of choice: what Campaign Strategy cards to draft, when to play or draw a card, which States to target or defend, and then which new State to bring out.

A game of Campaign Manager 2008 is supposed to last about forty five minutes, although we found that it generally lasts longer. Each of the games we have played has been very tight, invariably coming down to a single State that would win either candidate the Presidency. The wins have also been balanced between McCain and Obama, no candidate having a real advantage over the other. Thematically, Campaign Manager 2008 feels a little odd. It is strong in terms of handling an actual Presidential Election, but not that strong in terms of the 2008 US Election. What this means is that there is less opportunity or reason for “table talk,” to really bring out the personalities and issues of the campaign in roleplaying terms. Conversely, this means that the election’s politics do not get in the way of the game. Of course, this is not an issue with the longer, deeper 1960: The Making of the President.

From our plays, we were also unsure about the game’s card mechanics. They do add a strong resource management aspect to the game, their movement through a campaign manager’s hand representing the ebb and flow of resources and stratagems available, but we have been experimenting with being able to draw from all of a campaign manger’s Campaign Strategy cards, adding a draw phase at the end of a player’s turn. It makes for a faster game, but does mean that the ebb and flow feel of the game is reduced.

What Campaign Manager 2008 really offers is solid thoughtful play for two players in something longer than a filler game, but shorter than a bigger game. Its theme is strong enough that it really does feel as if you are battling out for the Presidential Election, but without the raucous nature and politics of the actual election and its issues getting in the way. The game play is simple, but the ideas underlying the game are complex and require the players to think about their decisions rather than rely on luck. If neither you nor your opponent has $2.4 billion between them, Campaign Manager 2008 is about the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to see if you can become the leader of the free world.

Who'd Be A Merchant Banker?

Best known for War on Terror, the boardgame, TerrorBull Games has followed up that controversial yet critically acclaimed combination of world politics with satire with another snarky poke at our contemporary international state. Not about its politics, but about its economic state as everyone from the banks down to the potential house buyer overextended themselves and so caused the world’s financial systems to wobble, wobble some more, and then collapse. Those institutions that managed not to collapse all too often went to their respective governments and asked for help in bailing them out, and in too many cases, the men at the top of those intuitions walked away with millions in their pockets. In the latest game from TerrorBull Games, you play one of those greedy fat cats.

Designed for two to four players aged twelve and up, Crunch: The Game For Utter Bankers is the game in which as banking executives they try to keep their bank afloat whilst embezzling their bank’s assets and paying themselves enormous bonuses. When the “Credit Crunch” comes all they have left to survive on is the use of government bailouts that might just extend the financial life of their banks. The object of the game though, is not to be running the last bank afloat, but to be the banker who has walked away from the Credit Crunch with the biggest personal fortune.

The game is divided into four colour-coded decks of cards. The first are the orange-backed Workforce Cards which represent a bank’s ability to process Debt. The type of Debt that they can process can be low (green), medium (orange), or high (red). Each Workforce Card has one number – in millions – indicating how much it costs to run per turn and another number to indicate how many Asset cards can be lent against that Workface Card. The higher the type of Debt that a Workforce can process, the greater the number of Assets it can hold onto.

The pink-backed Asset Cards make up the largest deck and can be played either as Asset Cards or as Action Cards, but not both. All are marked with a monetary value – again in millions – with some marked as being cash or gold, or shares in arms, oil, or reconstruction companies. Primarily, such Asset Cards are lent out as Debt on Workforce Cards, but they can also be kept in a player’s Bank – represented by his hand of cards, or stashed away in his personal fortune – the point of the game. If an Asset Card can be played as an Action Card, it has some extra text to indicate what it can do. For example, “Portfolio Shake-Up” allows a player to rearrange all of his Assets lent to his Workforce, “Hedgefund” lets a player bet his Assets to gain more, whilst “Government Investigation” lets you pat another player down looking for hidden Assets that have been stashed away.

The purple-backed Trust Cards represents the faith that the government and the public at large has in a Bank. They remain face down for most of the game, but can be turned over at any time – usually when the Bank is running short of Assets – to receive a Government Bailout Package represented by a number on the back, between two and five new Assets. At worst, this Bailout Package can be useless and offer “No Help!” whatsoever.

Lastly, the blue-packed Event Cards mainly provide a means to gain income, represented by Asset Cards paid out as interest on Debts held – the higher the risk, the greater the payoff. They also have other effects such as “Bonus Time,” which has all of the CEOs voting to reward themselves a bonus of extra Asset Cards; “Bad Debt,” which forces every CEO to discard an Asset; and “War,” which grants a CEO more Assets if he holds shares in arms, oil, or reconstruction companies. The Event Cards also includes the dreaded “Crunch” Card which forces every CEO to show that he can cover the Debts he has with the Assets held. One Event Card is drawn at the end of each player’s turn and it affects every player.

Game set up is simple. Each player receives one Workforce Card, placed face up on the table; a number of Trust Cards, placed face down on the table; and several Asset Cards, held in a player’s hand as his Bank. The number of Trust and Asset Cards vary according to the number of players – fewer players mean more of each. The top card from the Workforce deck is placed face up.

On his turn a player can do four things. First he manages his Workforce, either increasing it and so gaining both a Trust and a Workforce Card; liquidating it and so losing all Debts attached to the Workforce Card as well as losing a Trust Card; or doing nothing. Then he pays his Overheads, covering all of the Debt he has attached to his Workforce Cards with Asset Cards from his hand. Then he can loan out any remaining Asset Cards as he wants, placing them on his Workforce Cards as he chooses. Lastly he turns over a new Event Card, the details of which apply to every player.

In addition, a player has a number of options that he can do at any time. These include flipping Trust Cards to gain a Government Bailout and thus more Assets; swapping, lending, or selling Assets with another Bank; playing an Action Card; and Embezzling Assets. To Embezzle an Asset a player must get its card from his Bank – or hand – and hide it somewhere. If the Embezzler is caught in the act, then the Asset is returned to his hand and he loses a Trust Card. A successfully Embezzled Card is added to the player’s personal fortune and counts towards the winning conditions at game’s end.

Lastly, if a player is subject to Audit or a “Crunch” Event Card, he must show that he has enough Assets in his Bank to cover the Debt lent out on his Workforce. When this happens and player does not have enough Assets in his Bank he either goes Bankrupt or he goes to the Government for a Bailout. The latter involves a player turning over one or more of his Trust Cards, receiving the indicated number of Asset Cards until he can cover his Debt. Should a player have neither enough Asset Cards nor enough Trust Cards, then the Bank is Bankrupt, and the player is knocked out of the game. The failed Bank is then put up for auction by the remaining Banks.

Play continues until all but one Bank has failed. The CEO of this surviving Bank receives a bonus to his personal fortune with extra bonuses received for any Trust Cards still held, but he is not necessarily the game’s winner. The actual winner is the CEO who has managed to accrue the largest fortune, this fortune being a combination of bonuses awarded – for example, by the “Bonus Time” Event Card, and whatever Asset Cards a CEO has managed to embezzle.

There are a couple of odd rules about the game. The first is the means of determining the starting player – whoever is the richest goes first. Which is a bit of a rude question. The second is not really a rule, but a suggestion that the players all wear three piece suits just as a fat cat banker would, the reason being that it provides more sleeves and pockets into which Asset Cards can be embezzled. Even considering the fact that not everyone owns such apparel, embezzling cards and getting them into pockets with everyone else watching is actually pretty difficult.

Embezzling though, is not the only means to win the game, though a CEO could just go for broke, embezzling as many Assets as he can before his Bank goes bankrupt. Crunch can be won by remaining solvent and gaining bonuses in play and at game’s end as the surviving Bank, maintaining one balance between Assets lent out as Debt and those in the Bank and another balance between Assets in play and his greed and thus need to embezzle. This is not easy as the game is meant to emulate the spiral into bankruptcy that sees Asset after Asset pass through the hands of the CEO as he lends them as Debt, uses them to pay Overheads, and lastly, uses them to prove that he can cover those Debts, all the while hoping for interest payments that will help finance his Bank. Getting to the end does mean knocking other players out of the game and that is one unfortunate aspect to Crunch because it does leave any such players with nothing to do until the end. Even so, the game is more interesting when there are more players because more Event Cards are turned over and a CEO has to survive longer between the periods when he can act.

What is interesting about Crunch is that as each Bank overextends itself and spirals into inevitable collapse, it is possible to create a narrative that apes the story of the financial crisis of the past two years. For example, if a CEO decides to reduce his Workforce and so discard the Assets loaned on that card, he must also discard one of his Trust Cards as both government and the public loses faith in the Bank. The CEO could avoid this by playing the “Bury the Story” Asset/Action Card, but equally another player could counter this with the “Investigative Journalism” card. This gives you a story or narrative, and there are any number of Action Cards that interact during the game like this, all modelling the flux and flow of the financial events of recent times.

Physically, Crunch is a nicely done card game, the cartoon illustrations done in full colour with each sharply catching the flavour of the card it illustrates, usually to humorous effect. That said, some of the illustrations and thus the humour are slightly adult in nature, so Crunch might not be a game to play with a younger audience or at school. This is not say that the cards in question are anything more than mildly offensive, but in such situations, it would be better to remove the less tasteful cards in question. Slightly more problematic are the rules which are perhaps a little too concisely written for easy and quick understanding of how the game is played. This makes it a little difficult to impart the game to others because the game itself looks more complicated than it is. At least one good play through is required to understand how the game flows and plays.

What strikes you first about Crunch is its theme, which is very well done and to very humorous effect. It is not a design in which theme overly dominates as the game’s mechanics do support the theme very well. Coming a close second to the poking fun at our current fiscal state and how we—and the world—got into said state, Crunch: The Game For Utter Bankers also explains and illustrates how we got here, which is where it might have an educational use. The contemporary nature of the game and its knock-out style play may well mean that in the future it does not come off the gaming shelf all that often, but this does not mean that Crunch is a bad game. Crunch: The Game For Utter Bankers is a solid design, its satire is to the point, and its play perfectly illustrates its theme.