Solitaire: Tome of Terror: Transylvania

What marks Tome of Terror: Transylvania—as well as the rest of The StoryMaster’s Tales series—as being different is that it a solo adventure book best played by more than one player and that each and every scene in its story contains a QR code. Scan this and click on the link and the reader will automatically be taken to the narration for the location, which provides a description, some possible actions, and some suitably ominous music. It certainly ups the atmosphere as the stalwart heroes set out to investigate tales of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and other monsters in the lands of Transylvania and the castle itself. It consists of some fifty locations, comes with four pre-generated Investigators, a means for a player to create his own, maps—some blanks so that the adventures can be played again, a list of potential rewards, and its own neat twist on the dice on the page flipping mechanic. Tome of Terror: Transylvania is inspired by the classics of the genre such as Dracula and Frankenstein, as well as the Hammer Horror films, and so takes place sometime in the nineteenth century.

Published by StoryMaster’s Tales, Tome of Terror: Transylvania is intended to be played by between one and five players—preferably the latter—aged seven and over. Given its subject matter and the text-heavy format, with younger players, more mature players will be required to play alongside them, perhaps with an adult as StoryMaster. Thus, Tome of Terror: Transylvania can be played as a family game.

An Investigator in Tome of Terror: Transylvania has a Name, Occupation—either Author, Explorer, Priest, and Professor, and several attributes. These include Fighting Skill, Supernatural Insight, Fortune, Study Level, Reflex, Health, and LEU. Of these, LEU is a currency which can be spent during the Investigators’ enquires; Reflex is his dexterity; Study Level is his concentration and curiosity; Fortune his luck; Supernatural Sight his capacity to see and face the forces of the unnatural. Alternatively, a player can create his own. If he does so, he sets his Health at ten and Fortune at four, and then divides ten points between Fighting Skill, Supernatural Insight, Study Level, and Reflex. LEU is also randomly determined. He is also free to decide upon his Investigator’s Occupation rather than adhere to those of the given four. These four include a priest drawn to investigate the supernatural, an authoress in search of authentic background for her next novel, a professor in search of an old student—one Victor Frankenstein, and an explorer in search of the strange, the exotic, and adventure.

Mechanically, Tome of Terror: Transylvania uses a four-sided die and a six-sided die. It does not use a simple type of roll, varying depending upon the situation. Sometimes a player will be asked to roll equal to or under a given attribute on a six-sided die. Combat though, requires a player to roll a six-sided die and add his Fighting Skill, the aim to roll higher than the opposing roll made by the StoryMaster. Whomever loses the roll also loses a point of Health and if the latter is reduced to zero, the combatant is dead. Weapons add to a combatant’s Fighting Skill. When fighting against supernatural creatures, a player adds his Investigator’s Fighting Skill and Supernatural Insight to get his attack total. Group attacks, whether by the Investigators co-operating together or the Investigators and their companions, are done with everyone taking it in turns to attack. Lastly, if the Investigators want to flee a fight, then they can do so, but will lose a point of Health in the process. At other times, a four-sided die is rolled to determine a random outcome and Fortune can be gained and lost throughout the story. So simple enough, but not immediately obvious or easy to grasp, although it is clear that the author is trying to make Tome of Terror: Transylvania easy to run.

Alternatively, an eight-sided die and a ten-sided die can be used instead of the four-sided die and the six-sided die if the players want to make Tome of Terror: Transylvania more challenging. If the players lack dice, a player can instead flick through the pages with his thumb and when he stops at a page, the numbers on the dice immediately above where his thumb is on the page, those are his die results. There are seven combinations of four-sided dice and six-sided dice on each and every page, which provides numerous combinations and plenty of random results.

So how does Tome of Terror: Transylvania play? Although it can be played solo, it is really designed to be played by five participants, one of whom takes the role of the StoryMaster. Essentially then, he takes the role of the Game Master. The other players take the role of the Investigators. Then everyone picks a Tale from the four included in the book. These are ‘Horror of the Vampire’, ‘Mark of the Werewolf’, ‘Curse of Frankenstein’, and ‘Spirits of the Dead’. Each of these presents the players and their Investigators with an objective and a reward, and after this is read out, the story proper begins at the Tavern. Each of the fifty entries in Tome of Terror: Transylvania is several pages long, varying in length between two and six pages. Each has its own illustration, introduction in bold (which matches that of its narration) and then four options. For example, “Ask for something to drink”, “See what there is to eat”, “Talk to a local”, and “Search the tavern”. Each of the four entries is then greatly expanded depending upon what the Investigators are attempting to do. The players are free to choose which options they want, though no more than two options chosen per encounter. The combination of this and the multiple tales means that the Tome of Terror: Transylvania can be played more than once.

Of course, Tome of Terror: Transylvania is intended to be dramatic, and the author actually performs many of these tales as the StoryMaster. The StoryMaster in Tome of Terror: Transylvania is encouraged to make the ending of each tale as dramatic as possible, to put on a performance, and to be fair, a certain degree of performance is required, since there is a lot of text to go through and present.

Physically, Tome of Terror: Transylvania starts poorly, but gets better. The initial explanation and set-up, and the explanation of rules, could all be more clearly presented for ease of play. However, once the tale starts, the writing improves as the author is clearly enjoying himself. The artwork and the maps are all good, and like the writing, the layout of the various entries is far better than that of the first part of the book.

Mechanically, Tome of Terror: Transylvania is simple, but as simple as the rules are, they are also messy and could have been more consistent. Put that aside, they are simple enough to use and they are simple to impart to players not used to roleplaying. Where Tome of Terror: Transylvania shines is in the tales themselves and the exploration of Transylvania and the revelation of its horrors. Unlike other solo adventure books, Tome of Terror: Transylvania really deserves a participating audience and a Storymaster who can ham it up!

Anyworld, Anywhen, Anywhere

The Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System is a generic system designed to handle any genre and any setting using quick, dicepool mechanics and handfuls of six-sided dice. Published by Netherborn following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the complete rules to play the game all the way up to mass battle rules and miniature skirmish rules, along with rules for generating unique magical items and creatures and enemies. The core rules also come with six introductory adventures, one each for the zombie apocalypse, post-apocalypse, superhero, fantasy, space opera, and modern horror genres, as well as an omniversal setting that allow for Player Characters to visit any world. All packed into a one-hundred-and-eighty-page book. It is designed as a toolkit and as written, to support both player-driven and Game Master-driven play.

The Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System very quickly gets down to explaining its rules. A Player Character has six attributes—Strength, Toughness, Agility, Precision, Mind, and Spirit—which are rated between one and ten. If a player wants his character to undertake an action, he rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the attribute and each result of a four, five, or six is counted as a Success. Results of six explode and can be rolled again to possibly generate yet more Successes and even more sixes and more exploding dice… One of the dice is counted as the Fate die and is a different colour. If the result on the Fate die is a one, the outcome of the action is accompanied by a Setback, whilst if it is a six, it is a Critical Success. It is possible to succeed and still suffer a Setback or fail and roll a Critical result. A Critical Failure occurs when a Setback is rolled, and the result is failed. Advantage reduces the target number to be counted as a Success, whilst Disadvantage increases the target number. A player can also spend Edge to negate Disadvantage or gain Advantage, and also can expend Skill points to add a die to a roll. The number of Successes required for an action vary from a Target Number of one or Easy up to Epic or seven or more, with two being Routine and three being Challenging.

Combat—which Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System slides into without any demarcation—uses the same mechanics. The Target Number to hit an opponent is equal to his Evasion score, derived from his Agility attribute, a Player Character has a move action and an attack action per round, and initiative is determined with Agility tests. In Close Combat a defender can attempt a single Dodge and a single Counterattack. Strength or Precision is rolled depending upon the type of attack. Damage is a combination of the weapon’s base damage plus the extra Successes rolled beyond the Target Number. Armour reduces the Damage, and the remaining Damage value becomes a Target Number against which the defender’s player rolls his Toughness attribute. If successful, the defender shrugs off the damage, but if not, the defender’s player rolls three six-sided dice and deducts the Damage value from the result which is compared to the Damage Table. A critical hit reduces the roll of three six-sided dice to two six-sided dice, the results ranging from staggered or stunned all the way down to wounded or wounded. Wounds reduce a character’s Health Level (of which he has five) and injuries necessitate a roll on the Injury table for even greater effects. Rules also allow for stun damage, unarmed combat, two-weapon fighting, and more.

Madness is gained by failing Spirit checks following encounters with the horrific or the traumatic, including being in combat. Fail means gaining points of Madness and if a subsequent Spirit is failed against the points of Madness, the Player Character gains a mental trauma, rolled on the Trauma Table. Unless the Trauma is permanent, it can be overcome should the Player Character’s points of Madness are reduced to normal.

Character creation in Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System consists of choosing an array of values—Balanced, Mixed, or Specialist—to assign to attributes, and then selecting an Archetype. Each of the Archetypes—Gifted, Flexible, or Skilled—grants Experience Points to spend on Traits and Ability and Ability Upgrades, Gear Points (or GP) to spend on equipment, and both Skill and Edge points. A Player Character also has an ‘Essence’ which describes the core of the character, such as ‘Cybernetic Enforcer’ or ‘Wondering Swordsman’ (sic). Once per session, this can be used to gain Advantage on a check and is also used by the Game Master to award Experience Points. Similarly, a Player Character has a Flaw such as ‘Mean’ or ‘Outcast’, which can be triggered to add Disadvantage to a check once per session. This gains the Player Character an Experience Point.

Henry Brinded
Essence: Stalwart, But Nervous Classics Scholar
Flaw: Deafness
Archetype: Skilled
Strength 2 Toughness 3 Agility 3 Precision 3 Mind 5 Spirit 5
Traits: Expertise (Classics), Leadership, Skilled
Skill: 4
Edge: 3
Gear Points: 20

Traits are divided into Mental, Social, Speed, Brawn, Combat, Shooting, and Unique categories, and further divided into basic, advanced, and special traits in each category. For example, Insight is a basic Social Trait which grants a Player Character Advantage when his player rolls a Mind check to detect lies or read body language, whilst an Advanced Shooting Trait like Killshot grant all aimed attacks the Deadly quality which means that the attack deals a critical hit if the Fate die rolls a Success. Abilities push the Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System into the realms of the fantastic, with powers such as Bolt, Flight, Might, Morph, Phasing, and more, all the way up to Immortality and Impervious. In addition, each of the Abilities upgraded not once, but three times. Gear is purchased using Gear Points or ‘GP’. There is an emphasis in the Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System on arms and armour, and especially the qualities that either can have to give the wielder an advantage or extra bonus, all the way up to being sentient. There are a few limitations too, but not as many qualities. In general, there is the means here to create some individual weapons and armour, and so help make each Player Character different.

For example, Henry Brinded and his team have located a secret cult temple in Rome. As a result of the ensuing fight with the cultists, the temple is about to collapse, but Brinded knows he needs to study the invocation on the wall, an invocation to the abominable god the cultists worship. His player will be rolling five dice for his Mind attribute. The Game Master tells him that he needs to roll four Successes because the task is formidable due to the poor condition of the invocation. She also points out that the task is being done by torchlight and Brinded is in a hurry, so applies Disadvantage not once, but twice! So now Brinded’s player need to roll not four, five, or six to gain a Success, but a six only. However, Brinded has the Expertise Trait of Classics, so gains Advantage on translating the Latin of the invocation, reducing the number needed for a Success from six to five. His player spends a point of Edge to reduce it even further, back to four, five, and six, and then, because Brinded has the Skilled trait, adds two Skill dice to the roll instead of one. So now Brinded’s player is rolling seven dice and attempting to roll four, five, and six. He rolls two, three, five, five, five, and six, plus six on the Fate die. That is five Success, plus the critical result on the Fate die, which means that Brinded not only succeeds, but spots the intentional error in the invocation. Which means he will be better able to reverse the invocation and at the right time, cast it to dismiss the cult’s terrible mistress…

For the Game Master there is advice on handling challenges and NPCs, and preparing a game. This includes both one-shot and campaign games, and it shows how the Game Master can create random adventures or collaborate with her players to create a campaign setting. The advice is decent and supported with several introductory adventures, each one in a different genre and each one suitable for a one-shot or even a convention game. Each comes with a background, some points of interest, and in some cases one or more alternate ways of play It begins with ‘Diner-Bite’ in which the Player Characters stop at a diner whilst the USA is caught in the middle of chaos. This arrives at the diner in the form of on-the-run, undercover crooks, with a dead policeman in the bus who will soon turn into a zombie as will the poor little boy who looks sick, but whose family is hiding the cause of his sickness. The optional way to play is have one group take the roles of the crooks and another be the diner patrons. Typically, each of these six introductory adventures is two or three or so pages in length, presenting a decent outline and possibly a campaign starter. ‘Rise from Ruin’ is a post-apocalypse setting much like the Mad Max films, whilst ‘Fallen Heroes’ is a stand-up-knockdown confrontation with a supervillain who has captured the city’s premier superhero team. Of course, the Player Characters can come to their rescue or even play villains who want to take kill the superheroes themselves, or there could be one group of players roleplaying the supervillains whilst the other plays the superheroes. ‘Ghosts in the Flesh’ is a bloody horror romp a la Hammer Horror, whilst ‘The Thing in the Woods’ is a straightforward monster hunt in a fantasy setting. ‘Red Colossus’, the last scenario in the Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System is the Space Opera genre and the longest in the book. After being attacked by pirates, the Player Characters and their space freighter take refuge at the nearest mining base only to find it also threatened by the pirates and terrible outbreaks of radiation sickness.

Penultimately, the Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System includes a description of ‘The Outer Realm’, an in between network of routes and places between multiple worlds. Certain persons, known as Travellers, can detect the routes between places, whilst others, Shapers, can modify the reality around them. There is the chance that the Player Characters can become Travellers or Shapers, the latter gaining abilities such as teleport or telekinesis. The downside to the latter is that can become a Reaver, lusting for ever greater power and ability. Several strange locations are also detailed, and there is overall a weirdness and an unreality to the whole of this in-between place. Rounding out the volume is a bestiary and a set of ready-to-play characters, for use as examples, Player Characters, or NPCs.

Physically, the Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System is decently presented and illustrated, all in black and white. However, its organisation does hamper ready play even as the system is relatively straightforward and easy to understand. There is no index or even a glossary, and for actual ease of play, many of the roleplaying game’s tables could have been reprinted at the rear of the book instead of multiple blank character sheets. Similarly, an example of character creation, as well of actual play and the rules would all have been useful. In fact, all of these are inexcusable omissions by any standard, let alone those of modern roleplaying book design.

Overall, the Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System, issues with organisation aside, is straightforward and easy to run and play. The result is that Anyworld Tabletop Roleplaying System provides cinematic and pulp action style roleplaying across a variety of genres without getting too complex and by keeping play fairly fast with handfuls of six-sided dice.

Fears in the Forest

For fifteen years the Latterdyne estate has stood empty ever since the family, including two children, vanished without a trace. Behind its walls, the house has stood shuttered up against the elements whilst the surrounding grounds have been left unattended, long since overgrown and abandoned to grow wild, including extensive woods. To the locals, the estate and its mystery, the estate has become a looming presence down the lane as well as the source of much speculation. They say that the family suffered a great accident and subsequently vanished during a storm, but then no one really knows for certain, and so when the fate of the Latterdynes is discussed it is done in whispered speculation and rumour. Both are fuelled by stories of hikers and other travellers going missing on the estate. Some dismiss this as mere rumour or even embellishment to already idle speculation, but others will swear blind that such tales are true. True or not, the locals avoid the estate, though they all know of the broken wall which can be clambered over to gain easy access to the grounds. Now word of both ramblers having gone missing on the estate and the missing Latterdynes has reached the Society for Psychical Research, which has duly despatched a team to investigate the grounds of the Latterdyne estate.

This is the set-up for Sticks and Stones: A Story of Betrayal and Sorrow for the Locus Horror Tabletop Roleplaying Game. Published by CobblePath Games, this is the first scenario for Locus: A roleplaying game of personal horror, a horror roleplaying game in which the Player Characters bring as much horror to a location as they will encounter there. It is a roleplaying game about Broken Places, locations where the line between reality and the horror and emotional truth of a story has thinned to the point that they have become damaged or broken and transformed into something else. Each is or has a Genius Locus, that in becoming damaged or broken, is transformed into a Malus Locus, a bad place which feeds off negative energies and emotions. The Malus Locus draws in outsiders and residents alike, using reminders of their old wounds and bad memories to inflict fear, terror, and pain. It manifests Monsters which remind the victims trapped inside the Malus Locus of their dark secrets and feelings of guilt, and if the monster can kill them, they leave behind Echoes of their guilt that the Monster can feed off for years. Echoes are likely to be interpreted as ghosts, and when the Player Characters enter a Malus Locus, it may already be inhabited by Echoes.

A Malus Locus consists of a single location and is actually composed of layers. The location can be large or small, and might be a single house, a neighbourhood or housing block, an oil rig or space station, or even a whole town. The layers are Layers of Reality, each layer a reflection of the one above, the same but different, darker, weirder, scarier, and worse… The deeper the Player Characters venture into the Malus Locus, the further away from reality they move, the closer to the heart of the Malus Locus they get, the greater the manifestations and signs of the unreal and the Player Characters’ Haunts—or guilty secrets—appear, and the more openly the Monster will move against them. Each Layer is separate, but bleeds into the one above and the one below, though they become more and more distinct as the Player Character descends through them.

Sticks and Stones: A Story of Betrayal and Sorrow for the Locus Horror Tabletop Roleplaying Game presents one such Malus Locus, an area of woodland on the Latterdyne estate. Here the Society for Psychical Research investigators will find themselves caught between three locations in Latterdyne Dell, each connected by ever changing paths through the woods. As they explore these locations and are pulled down through the layers of the Malus Locus, the weather and the ground underfoot both worsen, the wind grows and carries strange voices, and something begins to stalk them… However, that something is not the only monster that the Player Characters will face in Sticks and Stones, as they bring their own monsters with them. Each of these four monsters is associated with the acts of betrayal committed by each of the pre-generated Player Characters, these acts and their associated monsters accentuating the horror in Sticks and Stones, making the horror all the more personal even as they confront the personification of the Malus Locus in the dell on the Latterdyne estate.

Although Sticks and Stones is intended to be played using pre-generated investigators, and to that end comes with its own quartet of partially pre-generated Player Characters. The four—the Custodian, the Dilettante, the Fabricator, and the Sleuth all have their own goals, base attributes, haunts, virtues, and more, including base backstories, virtues, and items. Each player is then free to assign further attribute points and answer some questions in order to customise the character to his liking. Notes are included should a player want to create a character of his own from scratch, but ideally, Sticks and Stones should be run and played using the given quartet.

As well as a starting script and a handout or two, Sticks and Stones comes with details of and clues for its primary mysteries—the fate of the Latterdynes and what is exactly going on in the Latterdyne Dell—and suggestions as to how the events of the scenario might play out… lastly, the scenario also includes the cards for its characters, items, and monsters. They are perhaps somewhat fuzzy and it would probably better for the Game Master to download and print them out. If there is perhaps an issue with the scenario, it is that the set-up of the scenario could have been stronger and easier to present to the players and their characters—essentially how they get involved. It is fine once they reach the Latterdyne estate, but the Game master will need to put something together herself.

Physically, Sticks and Stones is grey and dreary. That though is entirely keeping with the tone of the scenario and the terribly British weather that the Player Character will face as they delve deeper and deeper into the mysteries of what happened on the Latterdyne estate. Barring the cards for its characters, items, and monsters, Sticks and Stones is nicely illustrated with photographs that hint at the ombrophobic and the Xylophobic, imparting a sense of the unease which will grow and grow over the course of the scenario.

Sticks and Stones: A Story of Betrayal and Sorrow for the Locus Horror Tabletop Roleplaying Game contains everything necessary for the Player Characters to bring their own horrors to the woods and get lost in the horrors already there…