1996: Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

By 1996, the Roleplaying industry was in the doldrums. Primarily this was due to the effect of the first collectable card game, Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: the Gathering. Its popularity meant that the sales of other games, such as RPGs, suffered, whilst other publishers focused their attention of replicating the success of Magic: the Gathering instead of on either their existing games or on developing new games. Certainly the year 1995 will not be remembered for any RPG of note, but 1996 would be a whole other matter as would the years that followed in the lead up to the end of the millennium. Released at GenCon that year, Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game, the first RPG from Pinnacle Entertainment Group, heralded a renaissance in the hobby and the industry that would last until the release of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and into the d20 System bubble beyond.

Famously inspired by Brom’s cover for the then-unreleased Necropolis: Atlanta, a supplement for White Wolf Publishing’s Wraith: The Oblivion RPG, the setting for Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game combined two genres—horror with the wild west. Specifically it described an America in its centennial year, 1876, with the appearance and then spread of horrors at Gettysburg on July 3rd, 1863, having served to prolong the Civil War and permanently divide the United States of America into the United States of America and the Confederate States of America with great swathes of disputed territory between them. In the years since, evil has spread across and infected the land, literally altering it be a darker, twisted place; monsters and other things stalk the land, including hostile Indian spirits, undead gunslingers, and strange cults; and magic has returned, practised by the Blessed, Hucksters, and Shamans. The Blessed can call upon Miracles to do the work of the Lord, Shamans bargain with spirits for magical favours, whilst Hucksters have learned the real secrets of Hoyle’s Book of Games to cast ‘Hexes’ that they hide behind hands of playing cards. In the West, earthquakes shattered much of California, throwing much of it into the Pacific and in the process creating the badlands known as the ‘Great Maze’ and exposing rich seams of a mineral known as ‘ghost rock’. Despite the fact that it seems to moan when burnt, ‘ghost rock’ is used as a fuel to power a rash of amazing new gizmos—many of them designed by Mad Scientists, from gatling guns and steam wagons to rocket packs and elixirs of healing. The discovery ‘ghost rock’ also drives a race to connect the East to the West, both in the North and the South, in a series of ‘Great Rail Wars’. Meanwhile, Federally sanctioned Pinkerton agents and Texas Rangers now prowl these territories searching for the horrors that threaten ordinary folk and their respective governments alike.

Deadlands is a game with plenty of secrets, the most well-known being that a player character can return from the dead as one of the Harrowed. Difficult to kill and capable of developing unnatural powers, a Harrowed constantly fights with the evil spirit that reanimated him for possession of his undead body. This though only comes into play should a player character be killed and have the strength of will to return from the dead. More basic character options include Wild West standbys such as Bounty Hunters, Cowpokes, Gunslingers, Indian Braves, Marshals, Muckrakers, Prospectors, and Saloon Girls, whilst the ‘Weird West’ additions include the Huckster, the Blessed (those able to cast Miracles), the Shaman, and the Mad Scientist.

The character creation process in Deadlands is slightly complex. A character has ten Traits or attributes. His Corporeal Traits are Deftness, Nimbleness, Quickness, Strength, and Vigor, whilst his Mental Traits are Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts, and Spirit. Each Trait has an associated die type—four-sided, six-side, eight-sided, ten-sided, and twelve-sided, and a Co-ordination, an associated number, typically ranging between one and four. Combine the two and the player has a number of dice that he rolls when his character is undertaking an action, for example, three eight-sided dice if the character has a Deftness of 3d8 and wants to shoot at some varmint. In addition, a character has Aptitudes that represent skills, talents, and trades, such as Fannin’, Shootin’, Teamster, Trackin’, and so on. These are rated between one and five and use the same die type as Trait that the Aptitude is associated with. So the character with a Deftness of 3d8 uses eight-sided dice for all associated Aptitudes, for example, Shootin’ and Speed-Load.

To create a character, a player draws twelve cards from a standard deck of playing cards, discarding two. Any two cards can be discarded bar draws of two and Jokers. The former grants or penalises the character with the four-sided die type, whilst the Joker grants the character the twelve-sided die type and an obligatory dark backstory devised by the player and the Marshal together, although a Mysterious Past table is included in the book for the Marshal. The suit and number of each card determines the type and number of dice for each Trait. So for example, ‘4 of Diamonds’ gives a Trait of 2d6, whilst the ‘Jack of Spades’ gives a Trait of 4d8.  Once generated, a player assigns them as he likes. In addition, a number of secondary stats are derived from the various Traits, notably the number of points to assign to Aptitudes, from the character’s Knowledge, Smarts, and Cognition die types. A character can also have up ten points’ worth of Hindrances, the amount spent on Hindrances generating a corresponding amount with which to purchase Edges.

Our sample character is Sister Henrietta, an Amish girl whose family was slaughtered by a creature that she cannot recall. The only survivor, she was blamed for what had happened and driven out of her community. Now she travels the disputed territories preaching against and fighting evil when she finds it. She also preaches the word of God and regularly performs at Prayer Meetings all over the West.

Corporeal Traits
Deftness 4d10
Shootin’ 2, Speed-Load 2
Nimbleness 3d8
Climb 1, Dodge 2, Horse Ridin’ 1, Sneak 1
Quickness 4d4
Quick Draw 2
Strength 1d6
Vigor 3d6

Mental Traits
Cognition 4d8
Scrutinise 2, Search 1, 
Knowledge 1d10
Area Knowledge (Home County 2), Language (English 2, German 2), Profession (Theology 2)
Mien 2d8
Persuasion 2, Tale-Tellin’ 2
Smarts 1d6
Spirit 4d12
Faith 3, Guts 2

Wind 18

Hindrances
All Thumbs (2), Loyal (3), Self-Righteous (3)

Edges
Arcane Background (Blessed) (3), Brave (2), Light Sleeper (1), Reputation (1), The Voice (Soothing) (1)

Equipment
Double Action .45 Peacemaker revolver, fast-draw holster, box of ammunition, gun belt, speedloader, horse, saddle, saddlebags, $38

Miracles
Exorcism, Inspiration, Lay on Hands, Protection

To undertake an action in Deadlands, a player rolls the dice for the appropriate skill. For example, if Sister Henrietta has to shoot one of the Walkin’ Dead, she rolls her Deftness/Shootin’ Aptitude (2d10), whereas if she wants to work out if said Walkin’ Dead is using the possessed six shooter that she and her posse have been tracking, the Marshal—the term for the Game Master in Deadlands—might have her roll her Cognition/Shootin’ Aptitude (2d8). In either case, the player rolls the dice and counts the best result, attempting to beat a Target Number set by the Marshal, ranging from Foolproof (3) and Fair (5) up to Hard (9) and Incredible (11). Beat the target and the character succeeds, but by beating the Target Number by five, he can get a ‘Raise’, and by beating it by ten, he can get two ‘Raises’. Each Raise improves the success of the skill attempt. ‘Raises’ are made possible because dice in Deadlands explode and become Aces, enabling rerolls to increase the total.

Combat in Deadlands builds on these basic rules, but uses the deck of Playing Cards, known as the Action Deck, to determine initiative order and a Quickness roll by each participant to find out how many cards they draw and thus how many actions they have. Cards and thus Actions can be held until a player wants to act in a round, whilst Red Jokers enable a character to interrupt another character or NPC and Black Jokers force a character to discard his highest other card and a reshuffle of the Action Deck. Rules allow for Drawing a Bead, Fannin’, Shootin’ from the Hip, two-gun action, the Rifle-Spin, and so on. When a character takes a hit, he loses Wind, but can also suffer Wounds to various parts of his body.

Every character also starts each session with three Fate Chips. These come in three colours. White chips allow a character to roll an extra die on Trait or Aptitude checks, whilst Red chips let him add an extra die to the highest die rolled on a check at the cost of allowing the Marshal to draw a Fate Chip of his own. Blue Fate Chips act like Red chips, but without the benefit to the Marshal. Both White and Red Fate Chips are earned when a player does anything clever or when his Hindrances make his life difficult, but Red chips can also be handed out when a character finds important clues, defeats a minor opponent, and so on. Blue chips are handed out for exceptional roleplaying, discovering a critical clue, or for defeating a major villain. Fate Chips can also be converted into Bounty Points which can spent to improve a character’s Traits and Aptitudes.

Beyond these basic rules are the rules for the ‘Weird’ things that the characters can do in Deadlands as Hucksters, Blessed, Shaman, and Weird Scientists. In each case, the character makes the appropriate Aptitude roll—for each Hex for the Huckster, Faith for the Blessed, Tinkerin’ for Mad Scientists, and Ritual for Shaman, but after that, the mechanics work differently for each Arcane Background. Hucksters need to draw from the deck of Playing Cards and assemble Poker hands to improve spells—better Aptitude rolls provide more cards. For example, with a single Pair, the Huckster can use the Corporeal Tweak Hex improve a target’s physical Traits by a single step, that is from one die type to the next. Two Pairs grants two steps, a straight three steps, a Flush four steps, and so on. Similarly, once a Mad Scientist has concocted a theory and devised a blueprint, he draws cards and attempts to create Poker hands, with better hands not only indicating that he has successfully built it, but improved its reliability and build time. In comparison, the Blessed simply has to have his Faith roll beat the Target Number for each Miracle and a Shaman needs to perform Rituals that will generate sufficient Appeasement Points that will allow one of the spirits to grant the Shaman a favour.

Each of the different Arcane Backgrounds gets its own chapter in the rulebook and what is interesting about this is the placement of these chapters, along with one devoted to the Harrowed and another to Fear in Deadlands. They are in the middle section of the book labeled ‘No Man’s Land’, between ‘Posse Territory’ and ‘Marshal’s Territory’, for the players and the Marshal respectively. These two sections are specifically written for the players and the Marshal, and whilst the Marshal has to read all of the book, the players only need to read ‘Posse Territory’. It is only if he wants to play a character with an Arcane Background that a player needs to read the appropriate chapter in the ‘No Man’s Land’ section.

As well as learning how a Arcane Background works, a player will also discover the dangers inherent to casting Hexes and building weird devices. Whereas the Blessed are in danger of losing their faith and the Shaman can anger the spirits, the Huckster and the Mad Scientist are dealing with ‘dark’ powers and when such dealings go wrong, madness and insanity can ensue… Each chapter also explains the life of the Huckster, the Blessed, and so on, giving some nice cues as to how each fits into the divided America of 1876 and thus be roleplayed.

Further secrets are explored in the ‘Marshal’s Territory’ section. Primarily this concerns the background to the events leading up to 1863 and the forces behind it, the Reckoners, but it also details various Abominations that the Posse might encounter, such as Dust Devils, Gremlins, Hangin’ Judges, Night Haunts, Tumbleeds, and more. Beyond the secrets,  the ‘Marshal’s Territory’ includes tips and advice on running the game and structuring adventures; on the role of fear in the game—important because essentially, the Reckoners are trying to increase the levels of fear whilst the player characters or Posse are working to reduce it by defeating horrors; and on beyond fear, on handling dementia in the game.

Physically, it is surprising just how light Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game feels in the hand. In comparison with contemporary RPGs and their density in terms of content and page count, Deadlands is lighter in terms of background and content. This does not mean that the book omits anything needed to play the game, but rather that the book is economical with its content. It is also well written and the editing is good, but the artwork does leave something to be desired. The black and white illustrations are fine, even excellent in capturing the pulp horror of Deadlands, but the full colour artwork, though suitably lurid, is somewhat murky.

There is a great deal to like about Deadlands. It is an enticing setting with a combination of genres that made it a commercial and critical success. In particular, in 1997 it received the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game and for Best Graphic Presentation of a Role-playing Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1996. A second edition would follow in 1999 with adaptations written for Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS and Wizards of the Coast’s d20 System both being released in 2001. Two spinoff RPGs, Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: Lost Colony were released in 1998 and 2002 respectively, but neither were as successful. Several other games, such as the miniatures wargame, Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars and the Collectible Card Game, Doomtown would also be released, all based on the Deadlands setting.

Yet despite its popular and critical acclaim, Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game is not a perfect game. The problem lies with the mechanics, because as thematically appropriate as they feel, they are nevertheless often cumbersome and clunky, with dice and Playing Cards and three—sometimes four—different coloured Fate Chips. Indeed, having three types of Fate Chips just complicates the game, as does having a different ruleset for each of the four Arcane Backgrounds. Fundamentally though, there is a disconnect in the mechanics between a character’s Traits and Aptitudes since the two are never rolled together and Aptitudes have a more direct application in the game than Traits do. In fact beyond providing the die type for its associated Aptitudes, each Trait has relatively little effect on a character and thus even lesser effect on his Aptitudes. Instead Traits only really come into play when a character lacks an Aptitude, in which case the associated Trait is rolled and the result halved. At the same time, a character has too many Traits all doing variations upon the same thing. Thus Deftness, Nimbleness, and Quickness are all variations upon a character’s dexterity, whilst Cognition, Knowledge, and Mien are variations upon his intelligence.

Given these issues it is no wonder that Deadlands Reloaded, essentially the third edition of the game which would itself win the 2006 Origins Award for Roleplaying Game Supplement of the Year, would use the Savage Worlds system. This would be appropriate given that the Savage Worlds rules are actually derived from the mechanics used for Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars, the miniatures wargame about the construction of the transcontinental railways that also won the Origins Award for the Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures Rules of 1997. The result, was a slicker, faster, and slightly cinematic version of Deadlands with more options within its pages and more background and in the decade since its publication, various supplements including three campaigns—The Flood, The Last Sons, and Stone and a Hard Place.

Another issue with Deadlands is that it was never a living roleplaying game in that its background and timeline never really advanced. The second edition of Deadlands reset the game’s starting date to 1877, whilst Deadlands Reloaded reset it to 1879. The sequel RPGs, Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: Lost Colony, advanced the timeline into the near future and far future respectively. Deadlands: Noir, set in New Orleans in 1935 is a a more recent sequel. Nevertheless, between 1879 of Deadlands: Reloaded and the 1935 of Deadlands: Noir, the Marshal is on his own as what happens in North America. As to what happens in the rest of the world in the setting of Deadlands, the Marshal is given even less information. This leads to a more parochial issue—that Deadlands is a very American-set RPG which does not concern itself with the rest of the world. Now this is not really a design issue, but rather a desire to learn more about the setting in general and desire is actually given a nudge in the background given in the original rulebook, which mentions that as of 1871, Great Britain had it issues of its own in both Africa and India that prevented it becoming too involved in the ongoing American Civil War. Which begs the question, what were those issues?

Ultimately, there is the controversial question of how Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game deals with the issue of slavery, especially given that its Civil War is ongoing in 1876. It deals with it in a simple fashion, by having Confederate South abolish it as an institution in 1864, essentially to provide more manpower for the ongoing war with the northern states, to gain support from Great Britain, and negate the moral high ground held by the North over the issue. Further, the focus of the game is upon the ‘Weird West’ rather than the South and only in a later supplement, Back East: The South, do the game’s designers explore the issue, or rather the reasons for its abolition, in further detail. Essentially, the authors avoid the issue in Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game and that is understandable both because of the potential controversy in addressing the issue and because it is not what the RPG is about. This does not mean that the Marshal and his Posse cannot address the issue themselves, but in hindsight, perhaps Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game could have included a disclaimer about the subject of slavery as well as racism in the core rules, especially that it is possible to have both Black characters and White characters from the South in the game.

At the heart of the success of Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game is its superb melding of the horror and Wild West genres that make the game extremely easy to buy into, pick up, and play. This is despite the cumbersome nature of its rules—as thematically appropriate as they are. It is a formula that Pinnacle Entertainment Group would try and repeat with Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: Lost Colony, but not with the same success, at least not critically. As the original of this trilogy, Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game remains the most powerful and most accessible of the three.

A Traveller First

Traveller is the first and greatest of the Science Fiction settings for Roleplaying Games. It projects a future history across millennia and thousands upon thousands of systems and worlds, involving true heroes and villains, hundreds of sophonts—both major and minor, and deep, interesting secrets. Originally published in 1977, Traveller has passed through five editions and multiple rule systems, from Traveller and MegaTraveller to GURPS and the d20 System and back again to Traveller. The background is huge and has developed over the course of its forty year publishing history. Yet in that forty year history, what Traveller has never really had its fiction, certainly not in comparison to RPGs of its era, such as Dungeons & Dragons, Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, and even RuneQuest. All that changes with the first novel from Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller.

Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Agent of the Imperium: A Story of the Traveller Universe explores the setting from a unique point of view—a chipped personality who can appear again and again over the course of the centuries, roughly in the middle years of the Third Imperium. This personality is Jonathan Bland, an Agent of the Imperial Quarantine Agency, the department of the Imperial Navy dedicated to dealing with alien and outré threats.Viruses, diseases, intelligent robots, psionic outbreaks, and other threats, many of which originate from long in the Third Imperium’s prehistory. One of these chips—or wafers—is carried aboard every ship of the Imperial Navy and Imperial Interstellar Scout Service and is activated under certain circumstances. Once activated, the Quarantine Agent has the mandate the Emperor and acts with ultimate sanction to deal with any threat, which may see a world being interdicted as a Red Zone or it may see a world being systematically ‘scrubbed’ of life and all features. So Bland—surely a nod to the bureaucratic anonymity of both the role and the character—appears over the course of centuries taking decisions that no one other than the Emperor has the authority to take.

Interestingly this deals with a couple of issues intrinsic to the Traveller setting, both technological in nature. The first is the lack of advanced electronics and of cybernetics/cyberware. This is due in part to Traveller having originally appeared in 1977 in the pre-Cyberpunk outbreak that came with publication of William Gibson’s Neuromancer in 1984 and in its computer technology always having lagged in the 1960s in terms of size and technology. It is also due to the Science Fiction of Traveller being inspired by the Future Histories of writers such as Poul Anderson*, Isaac Asimov, Andre Norton, H. Beam Piper, EC Tubb et al of the 1950s. The use of wafers in Agent of the Imperium points to the use of skill chips and personality chips in the Traveller universe as much as it serves as the narrative device for the novel, but it never gets away from the negative effects and the limitations of the technology. It is not an embrace of cyberware or indeed, thankfully, of the Cyberpunk ethos, but it does point towards the use of more advanced technology than in Classic Traveller.

*Poul Anderson in particular as Jonathan Bland is cut from the same cloth as Nicholas van Rijn and Dominic Flandry, even if that cloth is bureaucratic grey.

The second is born of Traveller’s inspiration, that is, the Roman Empire. The issue in both the Roman Empire and the Third Imperium—and beyond is the technological limits upon the speed of communication across vast distances. In the Roman Empire communication speed was limited to that of horse on land and sail at sea, but in the Third Imperium and beyond, the limitation is the lack of Faster-Than-Light communication combined with an interstellar travel time—whatever the distance, between one and six parsecs—of roughly one-hundred-and-sixty-eight hours, or one week. What this means is that communication time across the Third Imperium is measured in weeks and weeks, so the exchanging of messages can take months… Without immediate and direct recourse to the Emperor, an Agent such as Bland can be called upon at any time, for the direst of emergencies, because ultimate authority cannot be reached directly.

So Bland is responsible for taking momentous decisions, which includes the ordering the death of billions if it necessary. Yet despite killing untold numbers, Bland is not an unsympathetic character. He never acts out of malice and the relatively minor acts of vengeance he takes are done to restore justice as much as they they to take revenge. Further his qualms come after the task is done when he has time to reflect upon his actions, but it is always the safety of the Empire that comes first. Not only that, the rules by which the Agent acts—Imperial Edict 97—allow him to act with kindness as much as he does with ruthlessness.

So having set this all up, Miller has Bland begin to realise that there exist not only threats extrinsic to the Third Imperium—and in the long term, quite possibly to intelligent life across the galaxy—but also threats intrinsic to the Third Imperium. The plot sees Bland jump from wafer to wafer across vast interstellar distances and decades of time as the wafers are routinely synchronised and comes to identify internal threats, some of them at the highest level. Throughout Bland never wavers from being an ‘agent of stability’ even as he makes changes to ensure that stability. The final resolution of this problem feel ultimately bureaucratic, but then that is exactly what Bland is and so it feels in keeping with his modis operandi.

For those uninitiated to Traveller as an RPG and a setting, explanation of the Third Imperium is provided, covering its history, its social structure, its world and ship categorisation, and major sophont races. Even so, this may well be still confusing or even overwhelming and some quick research online may be warranted if they are to get the fullest out of Agent of the Imperium. Traveller devotees will have no issue and there is no doubt that they will enjoy exploring a setting that they love from a fresh perspective and from the pen of its creator.

For a first novel Agent of the Imperium is a great read and an excellent piece of Science Fiction that fits neatly into its somewhat older Future History sub-genre. Anyone unfamiliar with that sub-genre may find the setting of the novel old fashioned, even baroque in places. Traveller fans may also be disappointed that the novel only covers so many centuries and so many crises, since the setting has some major emergencies to deal with in its future, especially during the gaming periods for the RPGs in the second millennium. There is no doubt that it would be fascinating to see Jonathan Bland come to deal with some of those… Nevertheless, Agent of the Imperium: A Story of the Traveller Universe is a book that Traveller fans will thoroughly enjoy and definitely want a sequel to.

Ice Cool School

Launched at UK Games Expo 2016, Ice Cool proved to be one of the hits of the convention. Indeed it won the UK Games Expo Award for Best Children’s Game bringing as it did two major additions to the flicking game. Flicking games, such as Crokinole and the recent Push It, have long been popular, but more recently game designers have been adding theme to the flicking. Rampage or Terror in Meeple City added Kaijū attacking a big city, whilst Flick ‘em Up! takes the flicking game to the wild west. What Ice Cool does is take the flicking game back to school, all the way down to the South Pole, and lets the players—or penguins—run round and jump about it!

Published by Brain Games, whose game the Game of Trains won the UK Games Expo Award for Best Card Game, Ice Cool is designed for two to four players, aged six and above. The story is simple. It is almost lunchtime and the penguin pupils have been promised fish. Greedy to gobble down their lunch, they have decided to race round the school grabbing fish, but the Hall Monitor must adhere to his duty and catch the miscreants before the fish is gone, confiscating  their Hall Passes when he does. Played over multiple lunchtimes, the penguin player who gets the most fish and the most Hall Passes is the winner.

 Two things stand out about Ice Cool. One is the ‘Box-In-A-Box’ set-up. Open up the box and nested inside are several smaller box lids. These together with the box base that Ice Cool comes are laid out and clipped together—using the tan wooden fish—to form the school and its rooms. Between each of the rooms there are doors and over some of these doors are clipped the fish that the penguin pupils are after. 

The stars of Ice Cool are the penguins themselves. Made of plastic, each has a round bottom with a ball bearing weight inside it. A bit like a Weeble. What this means is that when flicked, a penguin will roll. Of course a penguin can roll straight, but flick it from behind on the righthand side and a penguin will curve to the right and flick it from behind on the lefthand side and a penguin will curve to the left. Which means that it can go round corners! Yet if you flick a penguin in the head, you can get him to jump, even jump over the walls of the school!

You can see a quick demonstration here.

Ice Cool is played in rounds, one round per penguin. In each each round one penguin is the Hall Monitor. His job is to catch the other penguins who are trying to get through the doors with the fish and so claim the fish. When a penguin goes through a door with a fish of his colour, he grabs that fish and a Victory Point card. If the Hall Monitor touches another penguin, then he confiscates that penguin’s I.D. Card. Everyone continues flicking their penguins around the school until either one penguin has grabbed all of his fish from over the appropriate doors or the Hall Monitor has confiscated all of the other penguins’ I.D. Cards. At the end of the round, the Hall Monitor receives a Victory Card for each I.D. Card he confiscated. Then the I.D. Cards are handed back and another round begins with play continuing until everyone has been the Hall Monitor and the game ends. The penguin with the most Victory Points wins the game.

The Victory Point cards are worth one, two, or three points. A penguin—but not the Hall Monitor—can use a pair of Victory Cards with a value of one can use them to have another go at the end of his turn. These cards are marked with skates as well as one Victory point. If a penguin uses them like this, he does not lose the Victory Points.

Ice Cool is an attractive game with physical presence. It looks great on the table and it really is simple to play. The rules themselves are easy to grasp, but they are not written for the young audience that the game is aimed at. So an adult will need to read through them and teach them to younger players, but they are simple enough to both teach and play. Having done, what players young and old will find is that Ice Cool is fun. The design of the penguins means that skill and trick shots can be taken to get the rolling fish fiends to curve and jump to grab the fish and avoid the Hall Monitor. This physical element means that young and old can play on a level ice field and younger players have a good chance of beating adults. Both of course can get better and better with practice.

In fact, adults will enjoy Ice Cool as much as children, despite it being a children’s game. At Afternoon Play it proved to be a hit, despite it not being the type of game normally played at the regular meet-ups. Two games were played, one with just four players and another with eight, with two players per penguin. The team game proved to be a lot of fun.

If there is an issue with Ice Cool, it is that there is just the one layout that can be created using its ‘Box-In-A-Box’ set-up. It would have fun if the game allowed for a variety of school layouts to be created. That aside, the design of Ice Cool is clever in its simplicity and the design of the penguins means that tricks can be flicked around and over the walls of the school. Overall, Ice Cool is heaps of fun, a game that can be enjoyed by young and old, making it a terrific family game.

Scant Treatment

For a great many, Dungeons & Dragons was their first RPG, but as popular as the game proved to be, this did not stop publisher, TSR, Inc., from diversifying and looking for potential success with other genres. This resulted in games such as Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, and GANGBUSTERS, which in the case of the latter three, were designed as much to be introductions to the hobby as much as they were to new genres. The Old School Renaissance has plundered many of these titles, sometimes over and over, so that there are innumerable interpretations of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as versions of Marvel Super Heroes in the form of FASERIP and continued support for Star Frontiers. With continued support for these three RPGs, it would seem that GANGBUSTERS continues to be TSR’s unloved title, but in 2015, after twenty-five years since the last release for it, GANGBUSTERS is getting some love and support again.

Originally published in 1982, GANGBUSTERS: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure Game is an RPG set during Prohibition Era America in Lakefront City, a setting roughly based on the Chicago of the period. It has the players take the roles of crooks, gangsters, reporters, cops, private eyes, and FBI agents and depending upon the scenario and campaign, fighting crime, taking a piece of the action, getting the big scoop—and earning Experience Points for it. Beyond the core boxed set, the RPG was supported by six releases, five of them scenarios and then the misnamed third edition in 1990. Then in 2015, Mark Hunt revisited the setting and the system with a brand new release, GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and has since led to the release of GangBusters-The Blue Book Detective Agency Beginner Game, a new and introductory edition of the game that focuses on playing private investigators. This, together with a new and expanded edition of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and Welcome to Rock Junction, formed the basis for the Gangbusters Limited Edition Box BEGINNER GAME. Of course, for professional reasons, Reviews from R’lyeh cannot review any of the aforementioned books or indeed the boxed set, but it can review other releases from Mark Hunt for GANGBUSTERS and his Rock Junction setting, beginning with GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend. He has since followed it up with several supplements, of which GBE-1 Doctors' Orders is the second.

This supplement describes a location, that of The Men’s Doctor, a clinic in Lakefront City run by Doctor Moses Levon. The obvious use of such a location in a game like GANGBUSTERS is somewhere where the player characters can go to get fixed, typically after a fight, and this is a service that Doctor Levon offers. He charges of course—$20 per gunshot wound, but he also provides another important and legitimate service. He sells alcohol. For during Prohibition, the U.S. Treasury Department authorised physicians to write prescriptions for medicinal alcohol, typically a pint per prescription. Which meant that you could get alcohol whilst avoiding both having to associate with crooks or the chance that the alcohol you just bought was ‘bathtub gin’, notorious for its ability to poison or even kill you. Prescriptions for alcohol are not cheap, but it was an easy method of acquiring booze if you had ailment that the doctor thought could be treated with it, such as cancer, indigestion and depression. Of course, it was also a regular source of income for any doctor willing to write out the prescriptions—and in the case of GBE-1 Doctors' Orders, Doctor Levon certainly is.

GBE-1 Doctors' Orders details the owner and staff of The Men’s Doctor, although only two of the four receive any real attention. Even so, both feel underwritten and there are implications and questions left unaddressed with both. For example, Doctor Levon is described as being “ a German in his heart and left after the war with one purpose to get rich in America.” With a first name like Moses and you left wondering at the exact meaning here. Neither the clinic’s nurse nor secretary are detailed beyond their mere stats and that is a shame, since there is certainly room for it. In addition—and unlike GBM-1 Joe’s Diner—GBM-1 Doctors’ Orders is light on ideas. There are a couple of hooks, but no scenario seeds.

Available as a 1.6 MB, six-page PDF, GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders physically feels as rough and unedited as the earlier GBM-1 Joe’s Diner. There is also the matter of the supplement’s title, should it refer to one doctor rather than multiple? The use of period photographs is now more or less a trademark for the line and adds a nice sense of the era. Similarly, the addition of a blank prescription adds a degree of verisimilitude to the affair.

Again, as with GBM-1 Joe’s Diner, it is easy to drop GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders into a GANGBUSTERS campaign or indeed any campaign set within the Prohibition Era. Yet unlike GBM-1 Joe’s Diner, this supplement lacks charm and a sense of engagement, both of which did a great deal to assuage its rough and ready production values. Without either, the production values of GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders are more obvious and thus much more of a distraction. Underdeveloped and underwritten, GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders is a disappointment after the engaging pleasure of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner.

An Appendix N Short #2

For the most part, books and games released under the Old School Renaissance have been put by the small press, whether that is Labyrinth Lord from Goblinoid Games or Swords & Wizardry from published by Mythmere Games. To date, the only larger publisher to offer an Old School Renaissance RPG is Goodman Games with its Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. What set this RPG apart from just about every other RPG and every other fantasy RPG is that every player begins the game playing Zero Level characters—and lots of them! In going through their first adventure, there will perhaps, be survivors who will survive to achieve First Level and acquire an actual Class.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, is though, published under the same Open Gaming Licence as other titles for the Old School Renaissance, which means that other publishers can release support for it. One such publisher is Brave Halfling Publishing, a small press outlet best known for its ‘White Box’ iterations of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style RPGs such as X-Plorers and Delving Deeper. Now, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, the publisher has released a small selection of adventures under the Appendix N imprint.

The first of these is Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat, a Zero-Level, ‘Character Creation Funnel’ designed to be played in a single evening or session. The second is Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm. Like The Ruins of Ramat  this second scenario is designed to be played by between eight and twelve characters and like The Ruins of Ramat, this scenario has appeared for previous rule sets, as The Vile Worm of the Eldritch Oak for Swords & Wizardry in Brave Halfling Publishing’s Swords & Wizardry White Box, as The Vile Worm from Arcana Creations—again for Swords & Wizardry, and then again as The Vile Worm of the Eldritch Oak from Lord Zsezse Works for use with Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Which means that it has a bit of a publishing history and so must be worth reprinting.

In The Vile Worm, the adventurers are travelling in a forest when they encounter a hermit, a priest of nature, who offers them a chance to rest and partake of a meal. He is of course, nothing of the sort, being a crazed berserker who discovered the sacrificial site of an ancient cult and now sees it as his duty to capture and give up victims to the vile worm that the cult worshipped. Whether or not the adventurers accept his invitation, they will find themselves ambushed and wondering at the truth of this madman. This truth is revealed over the course of three rooms, each quite detailed, and two or three combat encounters. In the process, the adventurers will hopefully rescue the berserker’s current victims and thus save a family. The worm itself is a nasty oozing creature bent on turning the adventurers into hosts for its eggs.

As atmospheric and as detailed as the scenario is, this is all that is—an extended encounter. Unlike The Ruins of Ramat, there is not material here to take it much further into an on-going campaign. Like The Ruins of Ramat, this scenario comes with a pair of hand outs that the Judge can use to illustrate certain locations and these are nicely done. Similarly, the cartography is excellent.

Unfortunately, Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm has a couple of problems. The first is the one that beset Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #1: The Ruins of Ramat. The ‘Appendix N’ element of the scenario’s title—Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm—denotes the fact that it is inspired by ‘Appendix N’, the list of inspirational fiction found at the back of the original Dungeon Master’s Guide that so influenced Dungeons & Dragons and then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This designation leads to expectations that these fictional inspirations, whether it is Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth, will be discussed or at least made clear. Sadly, this is not the case, but perhaps in future releases such a discussion would be a worthy inclusion…?

The second issue that that Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm is short. It is an extended encounter, but little more, and lacking the extra material that can be added to a campaign, The Vile Worm feels all too brief… Nevertheless, Appendix N Adventure Toolkit #2: The Vile Worm is a solid, if short, adventure that works for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as much as it does for other RPGs for the Old School Renaissance.

Not Quite Out of the Gate

For a great many, Dungeons & Dragons was their first RPG, but as popular as the game proved to be, this did not stop publisher, TSR, Inc., from diversifying and looking for potential success with other genres. This resulted in games such as Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, and GANGBUSTERS, which in the case of the latter three, were designed as much to be introductions to the hobby as much as they were to new genres. The Old School Renaissance has plundered many of these titles, sometimes over and over, so that there are innumerable interpretations of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as versions of Marvel Super Heroes in the form of FASERIP and continued support for Star Frontiers. With continued support for these three RPGs, it would seem that GANGBUSTERS and Top Secret continus to be TSR’s unloved title, but in 2015, after twenty-five years since the last release for it, GANGBUSTERS is getting some love and support again.

Originally published in 1982, GANGBUSTERS: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure Game is an RPG set during Prohibition Era America in Lakefront City, a setting roughly based on the Chicago of the period. It has the players take the roles of crooks, gangsters, reporters, cops, private eyes, and FBI agents and depending upon the scenario and campaign, fighting crime, taking a piece of the action, getting the big scoop—and earning Experience Points for it. Beyond the core boxed set, the RPG was supported by six releases, five of them scenarios and then the misnamed third edition in 1990. Then in 2015, Mark Huntrevisited the setting and the system with a brand new release, GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and has since led to the release of GangBusters: The Blue Book Detective Agency Beginner Game, a new and introductory edition of the game that focuses on playing private investigators. This, together with a new and expanded edition of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and Welcome to Rock Junction, formed the basis for the Gangbusters Limited Edition Box BEGINNER GAME. Of course, for professional reasons, Reviews from R’lyeh cannot review any of the aforementioned books or indeed the boxed set, but it can review other releases from Mark Hunt for GANGBUSTERS and his Rock Junction setting, beginning with GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend.

Written for use with Second Level characters, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend describes a location and its staff, that of Vickers’ Race Track, a dog track owned and run by dog enthusiast, Margaret Vickers. Other notable characters include a rich young investor with a penchant for putting money on the dogs, plus his staff; a rich old lady whose dog—and the key to her lockbox on his collar—have gone missing, plus the private eye hired to find the animal; and a vet and his faithful companion. A number of punters that might be found at the Vickers Dog Track are also listed, though they are little more than stats. One NPC, the reporter Kit Baker, reappears from GBM-1 Joe’s Diner.

Unfortunately, neither the dog track or its operation are described beyond cursory details. Nor is there a map of the dog track and its facilities. All of which will be a problem from anyone who is unfamiliar with such places in the here and now, let alone in the Prohibition Era. What this means is that the Judge—as the Game Master in GANGBUSTERS is known—will have to do a fair amount of research of his own if he wants to get the most out of GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend. Further, there is not the wealth of detail and scenario ideas and hooks to be found in GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend as there was in GBM-1 Joe’s Diner—both the original version and the new version, again leaving the Judge with more to do.

What GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend does do is add rules for dogs in GANGBUSTERS. Whatever the size of dog—small, medium, or large—they all share the same stats as humans do in the game, but with Driving being replaced with the new Loyalty stat. This is a measure of a canine’s devotion to its master and how well it will obey his orders, whether that is running away or staying with him, or simply learning tricks. This enables a Judge to create dog companion for his NPCs as much as the players create them for their characters. They can also spend Experience Points to increase a dog’s Loyalty. These rules are supported by the inclusion of the Veterinary Medicine skill.

In terms of presentation, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend is disappointing. It does not feel as it has been edited at all and this detracts greatly from the supplement as does the inconsistent layout. As with other supplements for GANGBUSTERS from Mark Hunt, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend does benefit from the use of period photographs, but this cannot wholly address its presentation problems.

There is plenty of potential in GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend. After all, a dog track should be rife with dramatic tension—gambling, fixing races, stick ups and punch ups, money laundering, and much, much more, but none of this is brought out in the supplement. It should tell us what goes on at the track and what should go on at the track, but it never does. Whilst a better, cleaner layout would do much to make this a more professional supplement, it would not be enough to bring out the full potential of the underdeveloped and underwhelming location. Simply, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend should be brimming with potential and possibilities, but sadly it falters long before it reaches the finishing line.

Devilish Cards & Dice

Imps: Devilish Duels – A Dice & Card Battle Game is the latest game from Triple Ace Games, following on from designs such as Rocket Race: A Steampunk Rocket Building Card Game, Halfling Feast: a card game of competitive eating for 2-4 players, and Cadaver: A Game of Lighthearted Necromancy. Launched at UK Games Expo 2016, it is described as a ‘hybrid dice and card battle game’ for two players in which each player sends a team of four mischievous Imps to fight a number of elemental trials and determine who is top Imp wrangler and thus top wizard!

Now it should be made clear that this review is of a press preview version of Imps: Devilish Duels which like the preview print and play version contains just twelve Imp cards. The full version will come with a total of twenty-six Imp cards. This press preview version also comes with a plastic battle tray, whilst some Kickstarter versions of the game will have a wooden one. Both versions include a six-page rules booklet and sixteen six-sided dice. The colours of the Imp cards and the dice match according to their element: Air (white Imp cards and clear dice), Earth (green), Fire (red), and Water (blue). 

At the beginning of the game each player selects the four Imps that he will send into the trials and receives eight dice, two of each colour. On each round both players select four of their dice of any colour and one or two of their Imps to send into the trial. Then both players take in turn to roll their dice and compared with each other in a set order, so the green dice for the Earth Trial, the red dice for the Fire Trial, the blue dice for the Water Trial, and the clear dice for the Air Trial. Then the players can each roll and add two dice of their choice or reroll dice dice already in play. Then the final totals for each trial are compared, the higher total winning that player the trial and a bonus for the or a double bonus if the winning total is double or more than the other player’s total. So if a player wins the Earth Trial, then he can increase one of his dice by one of the subsequent trials, that is Fire, Water, or Air. If his total is double or more than his opponent, then he gets to increase two of his dice by two each. Note that no die can be increased beyond six. Winning subsequent trials force dice rerolls on an opponent, removal of his dice, and so on until one player wins wins the Air Trial and can banish one of his opponent’s Imps. Play proceeds like this until one player has managed to banish all of his opponent’s Imps and wins the game.

There is a cascade effect to winning trials, so that winning one trial gives an advantage to the next and so on and so on, but this is no guarantee that a player will win the final Air Trial and banish his opponent’s Imp. Good dice rolls will nearly always beat bad but modified dice rolls. Then there are the Imps. Every Imp has an ability that can aid a player with its Mischief. So the Earth Imp Puck allows the players to conduct an extra Earth Trial after the Fire Trial; the Fire Imp Soot deducts one from all of an opponent's Fire dice or forces him to reroll one of his Fire dice; the Water Imp Squirt adds one to each of a player’s Water dice or allows any of them to be rerolled; and the Air Imp Nimbus enables both players to combine their Water and their Air dice in the Air Trial. 

In initial games, it makes sense for both players to bring one dice of each elemental colour to their initial rolls. In later games players can pick and choose which dice they roll as well as which Imps they bring into play. To an extent, the player who goes second does have a very slight advantage over the other since he can react to whatever the first player rolled and can assign his dice to where he might be able to beat his opponent. Choice of Imp plays an important role too as their Mischief can greatly influence the outcome of a trial which if won affects the next trial and so on and so on…

Physically Imps: Devilish Duels – A Dice & Card Battle Game is up to standards of other games from Triple Ace Games. The rules are clearly written and although the game might be slightly easier if the Elemental Trials outcome table might have been on the back page of the rulebook, this is basically picking a nit… The artwork on the cards though is really very nice and each captures the character of each Imp.

Although it initially looks complex, Imps: Devilish Duels turns out to be straightforward to play and easy to teach. It also offers a pleasing tactical experience as each player brings their best Imps and their mischief into play. The twelve cards in the press preview version of Imps: Devilish Duels offer more than enough options to replay the game over and over, but the full game will offer even more. For a two-player game, Imps: Devilish Duels – A Dice & Card Battle Game packs a lot of tactical punch into both its box and its twenty-minute play time.

—oOo—

Imps Devilish Duels: A Dice & Card Battle Game is currently available to fund on Kickstarter.