Friday Fantasy: Just A Stupid Dungeon

Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless. It is also a dungeon published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. It is suitable for use with other retroclones. It is also a dungeon which can be played by characters of any Level. It is a dungeon which is located in the default setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying of the early to mid-seventeenth century. It is though, easy to drop into almost any setting. It is a dungeon in the style of a death trap dungeon with not a lot of death traps. It is a plain dungeon in comparison to the tone of some titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. It is an exercise in trap design by the author, James Edward Raggi IV. It is potentially a means to really overturn the status quo of a Referee’s campaign. It is all those things, and still, Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless.

Just A Stupid Dungeon does not even come with an introduction. It promises and delivers a dungeon without anything in the way of a backstory, setting, or context. The nearest it gets to that is the fact that local children have been warned not to touch the key in the door to the dungeon entrance lest they drop down dead. Instead, it starts at the door to the dungeon and goes from there. Inside, the complex consists of several similar rooms around a central hall. The hall consists of just a statue and a lectern, both holding valuable treasure. However, getting to either is unlikely to be certain given the surprisingly bouncy flooring of the hall and both treasures being destroyed is more likely. The surrounding rooms are all identical bar the nature of the traps they contain, most of which have an elemental theme. By the time the Player Characters have set off and experienced survived two or more, then they should have an idea how each room works. Here the designer gets to play with deep water, fire, light, darkness, and more, and in the main, not in a way that will necessarily kill the Player Characters. They will be hurt and they will be imperilled and they will be punished.

Just A Stupid Dungeon involves almost no combat and despite it being set in a tomb, there are no undead. Instead, it is built around traps and the designer playing around with time. There are traps in the complex, itself consisting of twenty-four locations—less if the repetitious nature of some of the doors is taken into account—that will really twist the continuity and confluence and the causality of the campaign. One trap in the short term and one trap in the long term. These traps are fantastic in their scope and repercussions and the effects of long-term trap will effectively undo a campaign. They are brilliant in their simplicity and capacity for entertainment, though more for the Referee than her players and their characters.

Physically, Just A Stupid Dungeon is clean, tidy, easy to read, and comes with a clear map.

Just A Stupid Dungeon can just be dropped into a setting and left there. It does nothing, it is inert. It awaits the arrival of the Player Characters. Of course, the Referee is free to add context, detail, and backstory to entice the Player Characters to investigate further. Or indeed, not. The Referee could drop it into a session and run it as is, and that is essentially what Just A Stupid Dungeon is designed as—a scenario that can be run without any fuss or mess. Once the Player Characters do penetrate the halls of the not-tomb in Just A Stupid Dungeon, rewards will be few and the punishments harsh, all in response to the curiosity of the players and their characters. Ultimately, Just A Stupid Dungeon is pointless, but if the Player Characters do push through to the end, the effects of the final trap will be entertainingly disruptive.

Miskatonic Monday #128: Branches of Bone

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Branches of Bone - A Viking Age Cthulhu Dark Ages Scenario

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Dark Ages England

Product: One-shot
What You Get: Forty page, 8.18 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Locked Room Horror Hell in a House of Worship

Plot Hook: Survival horror in the Dark Ages as a Viking raid unleashes an abhorrent arboresque aberration
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight handouts, one Keeper handout, six pre-generated Investigators, a spell, some NPCs, and five Mythos monsters. 

Production Values: Decent.

Pros

# Single-session, countdown horror

# Locked room (monastery) situation forces co-operation

# Pictorial handouts

# Entertainingly wooden twist upon the zombie

# Clue rich

# Includes Viking mini-supplement

# Dendrophobia

# Goat-chicken thing

Cons

# NPCs need more detail

# No Viking names

# Investigation-Monk communication requires careful handling

# Tight timeline

Conclusion

# Tightly plotted and timed, locked room (monastery) mystery which forces the Player Characters to co-operate with those they are raiding if they are to survive.

# Survival horror in the Dark Ages in which the Player Characters need to overcome the language barrier for the scenario to really work.

Pulp Action Year Zero

In the years of the Desperate Decade, adventurers, explorers, soldiers of fortune, spies, journalists, and men of action—heroes all, pushed to the four corners of the Earth and beyond into the darkest of corners! These stalwart men and women heroically overcame great danger and terrible terror to reveal ancient secrets, discover lost civilisations, and find priceless treasures and in the deepest, darkest, wildest reaches of the world thwart the plans of villains and would-be world conquerors. They evaded traps, leaped over pits, dodged bullets and spears, and even punched a Nazi or three, all in the name of fortune and glory. Their exploits would be told in the pulp magazines of the period and form the basis for films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy (from 1999), and Romancing the Stone. And now they can be told again by playing Temples & Tombs, a pulp action roleplaying published by Gallant Knight Games which employs the Year Zero Engine previously seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, the Alien: The Roleplaying Game, and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, all roleplaying games published by Free League Publishing.

Temples & Tombs is designed to accessible, fast playing, with the focus firmly on the Player Characters or Adventurers and their adventures, with the heroes often having to push themselves and raise the stakes in order to succeed. The template of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and subsequent Year Zero Engine can very much be seen in this pulp-action roleplaying game. It uses six-sided dice in three different colours—for primary or standard dice, Luck Dice, and Hero Dice—with the aim being to roll a single six as a success. Each Adventurer has a Profession, an Age which determines the points to be assigned to the four attributes and skills (younger Adventurers have higher attributes and lower skills, older have lower attributes and higher skills), one or more Talents derived from the Profession (there are other generic Talents available when an Adventurer gains experience), an Ambition which will drive the character to act, and together with other Adventurers, an institution which they all belong to. Each Adventurer will also have Relationships with his fellow adventurers and a Signature Item which will help him in certain situations, such as a bullwhip or a really sparkly red dress. Talents, Relationships, and Signature Items are all suggested by the Professions. The twelve Professions are Ace, Archaeologist, Doctor, Genius, Hunter, Journalist, Outlaw, Professional, Socialite, Soldier, Spy, and Thief.

James McTavish
Age: In Your Prime
Profession: Ace

Grit: 03 Fight 1 Endure 0 Feat 1
Quick: 05 Drive 3 Shoot 1 Stunt 1
Wit: 03 Fix 1 Savvy 1 Lore 0
Style: 03 Scare 0 Sway 1 Trick 0

Talents
Gets an additional Hero Die when using a skill to do something life-threatening.
Ambition
Relive your glory days.

Gear
Vehicle (single-propeller plane), pistol, survival gear, bag
Income: 3 (modest)

Signature Item
Lucky deck of cards

Mechanically, the core mechanic in Temples & Tombs is the Year Zero Engine. To undertake an action or skill test, an Adventurer’s player rolls dice equal to the character’s skill and its associated attribute. Any roll of six counts as success. If an Adventurer lacks points in a skill, his player just rolls a single attribute die. Modifiers can adjust the number of dice up and down. For example, a Signature Item can add a single die whenever an Adventurer brings it into play, whilst once per session, an Adventurer can use his Ambition to automatically succeed at any test.

In addition, a player can add Hero Dice to the pool. Each Hero Die is used only the once and always on the next test that the player rolls. They cannot be saved. They earned as an award from the Director for an Adventurer being amazing, for every success rolled over one on a text, and for using specific talents in a Profession. So, when added to a pool and a six is rolled on the Hero Die, they trigger a Heroic Action. These include all Adventurers losing a Catch with ‘Inspire’, give them all a Hero Die for their next test with ‘Strong Presence’, lose all of an Adventurer’s with ‘Rise Up’, clear the Adventurer’s Luck tracker with ‘Persevere’, succeed automatically on the next test with ‘Break Through’, and force an NPC to flee or surrender with ‘Ferocity’.

Temples & Tombs is designed to emulate the great swings in the fortunes of the genre’s protagonists, so failure is as much part of the game as is success—sometimes great success. However, instead when an Adventurer fails, he does not suffer harm or damage. Instead, he takes Catches. These represent the Adventurer being pushed to his limits and potentially being taken out of the action—which happens if he suffers five Catches—rather than being hurt or killed. Ranging from ‘Off Guard’ and ‘Emotional’ to ‘On the Run’ and ‘In need of Rescue’, each Catch has an immediate narrative effect which the player describes and a mechanical effect on the number of dice in an Adventurer’s dice pool. This can be negative or positive and are permanent until the triggering Catches are cleared. Alternatively, an Adventurer can lose all of his Hero Dice instead of taking a Catch.

If a player fails a roll or he wants more than the one success to garner more Hero Dice, he can push his Adventurer’s luck. Pushing an Adventurer’s luck allows a re-roll and adds one to the Adventurer’s Luck Tracker. The re-roll is made with number of dice equal to the Luck Tracker. This increases the Adventurer’s dice pool, but if one of the Luck Dice results in a roll of a one, the Adventurer’s Luck Tracker is cleared, and the Adventurer takes a Catch. The maximum the Luck Tracker can be increased to is five, after which it is cleared, and the Adventurer gains an automatic success on the last roll. What means is that an Adventurer is literally pushing his luck—to gain more dice to roll, with the increased potential for both success or failure—until he either succeeds or fails, so his luck runs out.

For example, pilot James McTavish is racing to get his team out of China where they have acquired some artefacts to bring back to put on display at the museum they work for before a warlord could and sell them to a collector. As he pilots his Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing out of the mountains and down river, he is jumped by a pair of Blackburn F.2 Lincock biplanes loaned out to the warlord after a well-placed bribe. The Staggerwing is not armed, but it is fast and manoeuvrable and one of his fellow passengers is armed with a Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer, and if McTavish can manoeuvre just right, then a good burst or three might be enough to drive off the Chinese pilots.

James McTavish’s player starts with a dice pool of eight, derived from James’ Quick of five and Drive of three. To this he adds a Hero Die because James is definitely doing something life-threatening. So, eight standard dice and one Hero Dice. Unfortunately, the player does not roll a single success, and decides to Push James’ Luck. This moves James’ Luck Tracker up by one and gives his player nine dice to roll—eight plus the Hero Die and the Luck Die. This time, he rolls four successes, including one on the Hero Die. One Success means that James succeeds—sliding his aircraft perfectly along one of the enemy aeroplanes, but the other three become Hero Dice he can roll on his next action. The success on the Hero Die gives him a Heroic Action and his player selects ‘Strong Presence’ which gives all Adventurers a Hero Die on their next action. James’ fellow Adventurer draws a bead on the enemy pilot with his machine pistol and her player takes up her dice, which will include a Hero Die thanks to James.

Combat in Temples & Tombs uses the same mechanics, including close combat, ranged combat, and social combat. Damage is inflicted in terms of Catches, reflecting that an Adventurer can be hurt, knocked out, and put out of the action, but not killed. Weapons add only a single die to an Adventurer’s dice pool. An Adventurer cannot take any more than five Catches and are thus ‘In Need of Rescue’ and need to recuperate before he can act again. Gear is broadly handled and includes travel as well as equipment. If an Adventurer wants a piece of gear higher than his Income, his player makes an Income test with any successes indicating that the Adventurer can.

For the Director, there is advice to ensure that there is Never a Dull Moment, that it be made awesome, and to make it wondrous. It suggests using blocks—having bad guys show up, a ceiling collapse, or a trap door shuts—as narrative devices in line with the genre, always presenting the Adventurers with hard choices—equally bad, escalate the situation and more, make it visual, and so on. In terms of storytelling, Temples & Tombs uses the same model or set of story beats to emulate its genre and hang the Director’s plot on. These begin with the ‘Cold Open’, and then go through the ‘Call of Adventure’, ‘The Journey’, and ‘The Dungeon’ to finally get to ‘The Wrap’. These supported by discussions of and table for MacGuffins, set pieces (or archetypal locations), dungeon (or rather tomb), threats, and more. There is only a very broad overview of the thirties—the default setting for Temples & Tombs—which includes a list of the aspects of the period to avoid. This combination of overview and the lists of potential dungeons and treasures does mean that the Director will have to conduct some research to bring these places and MacGuffins to life in her game.

In general, Threats such as NPCs are relatively easy for the Adventurers to deal with and do not have Hero Dice or Luck Dice, although some powerful NPCs might utilise Luck Dice. More powerful NPCs can suffer more Catch conditions, as can beasts. What NPCs and beasts do have is Moments. These can be things like ‘Use a gadget to cause a diversion’ or ‘Dispatch goons’, but are not used to attack or harm an Adventurer directly. Instead, they are NPC or Villain moves which occur when an Adventurer fails a test against a threat, an extra narrative consequence to the Adventurer suffering a Catch. Numerous groups from barons and presidents and blue blood society to heroes gone bad and menacing museums all the way up to mutants and supervillains are examined and given suggested names, aims, set pieces, and more. They do feel undeveloped in places. Temples & Tombs is designed to be “somewhat agnostic”, but a bit more history would not have gone amiss.

Over a third of Temples & Tombs is devoted to three adventures. These are ‘Temple of the Feather of Ma’at’, ‘Sky Zeppelin and the Valley of Yesteryear’, and ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’. The first sends the Adventurers after Ma’at’s Feather of Truth from Egyptian mythology across the ancient world from Turkey to Egypt; the second to South America in search of a missing scientific expedition and mixes dinosaurs with lost cities; and the third from Germany to the USA to find a treasure which many have looked for, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, the president is included as a threat in this scenario which makes for an interesting twist. All three follow the story beats outlined earlier in the book, except for ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’ which omits a Cold Open and means the Director will have to add one of her own. Of the three ‘Temple of the Feather of Ma’at’ feels like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, ‘Sky Zeppelin and the Valley of Yesteryear’ feels like an Edgar Rice Burroughs story, and ‘The Lost Works of William Shakespeare and the Oak Island Mystery’ like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Physically, Temples & Tombs is a plain, greyscale book. It is very lightly illustrated, it does suffer from repetition in places, and it does need an edit in others. There is no index. One oddity is the fact that the name of the roleplaying game is Temples & Tombs, but the generic term used for the roleplaying game’s grand set pieces is ‘dungeon’. Why not ‘tomb’?

Temples & Tombs feels rushed and consequently rough around the edges. Some of the rule explanations could have been clearer, there are no examples of play or Adventurer creation, and it does not help that there is no index. Nor is there a bibliography, filmography, or a timeline. These are all major omissions which make the roleplaying game that little bit harder to grasp or use with each missing element. In addition, the three omissions make it harder for the Director to write her own adventures because she has to look for the starting points which a bibliography, filmography, or timeline would have provided. To some extent the authors are relying upon the familiarity of the Director and her players with Year Zero Engine, the period when the roleplaying game is set, and definitely the genre. If that is the case, then these omissions are less of a problem, otherwise that is not so.

Temples & Tombs has a pick and up feel with its easy Adventurer creation rules and its fast-playing implementation of the Year Zero Engine which emphasises heroic action and firmly places the Adventurers in the centre of both action and story. This is supported by three entertaining adventures which romp around the genre in pursuit of their respective MacGuffins, but beyond these, the Director will need to conduct some research to create adventures of her own. Ultimately, Temples & Tombs is a solid implementation of the Year Zero Engine in the Pulp genre, but remains underdeveloped where it could have been more helpful.

Holding Off the Hard Times

With The Zhodani Candidate and Eve of Rebellion, the author Stephen J. Ellis brought his experience of freeforms and LARP—Live Action Roleplaying—to the Third Imperium, the setting for the Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller and published by March Harrier Publishing via Mongoose Publishing. In traditional scenarios and campaigns for Traveller, the Player Characters own a starship, such as an A2 Far Trader or a Type S Scout, and as the eponymous travellers, move from world to world, trading, thwarting crimes, uncovering mysteries and making discoveries, and so on. Alternatively, they go to war, undertaking contracts as mercenaries in low-conflict engagements. Either way, the focus is firmly on their adventures and their narrative. In both The Zhodani Candidate and Eve of Rebellion, the play switched to high above that. In the former, a team investigate a marriage between a war hero and potential sleeper agent and an important noble, whilst in the latter, the events leading up to the assassination of Emperor Strephon are explored, with the players taking the roles of those present. These two scenarios take place on a grander scale, their events often having wider repercussions, and with their mixture of secrets and secret agendas, designed to clash and interact through play, often offer more of a roleplaying challenge then the average scenario. Mirabilis, the author’s third scenario, is likewise inspired by freeform play with its often-interlocking secrets and agendas, but shifts focus whilst retaining a grander scale of play and whilst also being radically different. Mirabilis is diceless.

Mirabilis shifts the focus in both terms of time and space, but is still set in Traveller’s Third Imperium. It takes place on the world of Mirabilis, a low gravity, resource poor, but technologically advanced and important planet in the 82 Eirdani system of the Capella subsector of the Solomani Rim, near the border with the Third Imperium. The year is 1125. Strephon Aella Alkhalikoi, Emperor of the Third Imperium, has been dead for almost a decade and the Third Imperium is beset by rebellion and civil. In response to what it saw as a weakened enemy, the Solomani Confederation made a dash for Terra in an attempt to reclaim the Solomani Autonomous Sphere. Unfortunately, the Solomani Confederation has overextended itself, leaving it vulnerable to disrupted trade, pirate raids, and internal strife. Mirabilis has not yet suffered this fate, but it is up to its ruling Tech Council to ensure that if it cannot avoid such incidents, then it can at least survive them, and potentially survive the dangers to come. The Tech Council of Mirabilis consists of five members, controlling and representing different aspects of its society—Party Chairman Boris Gupta (Technical Maintenance & Party Administration), SolSec Co-Ordinator Jamal Goren (Solomani Security), Admiral Helen Treygar (Military Forces), Commerce Secretary Mario Niemeyer (Merchant Marine & Traders), and Chief Scientist Esme Hawking (Science, Research, & Education). Each council member has his or own agenda and secret, but also knows a secret about a fellow council member and has the means to bribe another. Each also has a power. For example, Admiral Helen Treygar can launch a military coup, Party Chairman Boris Gupta can declare someone guilty of unSolomani activities and strip them of Party membership and thus eligibility to sit on the council, SolSec Co-Ordinator Jamal Goren as the head of Solomani Security can imprison and interrogate anyone as a traitor to the Solomani cause, and so on. Thus, every council member has his or her advantages and disadvantages.

Mirabilis is designed to be played by five players exactly, who will each take the role of a member of Tech Council of Mirabilis. Each is provided with a character sheet and background information on the situation on the planet and its surrounding systems in the year 1125. As the Tech Council of Mirabilis, they take control of five levers of power or planetary stats—Tech Level (Science), Population (Maintenance), Law Level (Social Order), Wealth (Foreign Relations/Trade), and Military Power (Defence)—in order to push their agenda and respond to threats and dangers. Over the course of five turns and a decade from 1125 to 1135, they will negotiate, bribe, and blackmail each other to place these in order of priority. Those given priority will improve, but those not given priority, will suffer and not be as capable of responding to future situations and threats. The planetary stats are the only numbers given in the scenario, and will go up and down over the course of the scenario depending upon what the players and their characters decide. For example, a population increase might come about because of refugees, but a decrease because on of the planet’s flying cities crashes, the military’s capability is increased because the construction of new fleets or is reduced because maintenance time is neglected. Every turn there are trade-offs between improving a planetary factor and not improving planetary stats.

Mirabilis is based on the Prisoners’ Dilemma game theory. In a Prisoners’ Dilemma, the participants have the reasons and the means to individually do better if they betray others, but better overall if they co-operate. Ultimately, the outcome of this scenario and the fate of the world of Mirabilis being in the hands of the players and their negotiating ability and how they react to events revealed from one turn to the next. If events and the actions of other council members do not go his way, a Player character has the means to conduct a single coup, although a coup has a deleterious effect upon Mirabilis’ planetary stats.

For the Game Master there is a complete guide to staging and running the scenario as well as the rules. There are also events from year to year that the Game Master will provide as briefings to the council. These are all made available to the council members, but for a more complex game they could be handled as individual briefings given to the appropriate council members who then have to brief the council—or not. As an aside, there is everything here to run this game as a play by email instead of a convention one-shot.

There are some elements of Mirabilis which some players may find unpleasant or uncomfortable playing. Most obviously, they are roleplaying Solomani and Solomani in the Traveller setting tend to be racial supremacists. There is also a race of Uplifted Apes on the world of Mirabilis which are regarded as lesser. In addition, the players will find themselves controlling the fate of millions, who may well die because of their decisions. The scenario though, is definitely about the latter rather than the former.

Physically, Mirabilis is lightly illustrated and laid out in simple fashion. It could do with a slight edit in places.

Whether run as a one-shot or a convention scenario, Mirabilis is a really taut, fractious scenario, forcing the players as members of Tech Council of Mirabilis to make difficult decisions over the course of a few hours. Together they hold the fate of a planet in their hands in the face of encroaching Hard Times and what they decide will determine if it survives the coming dark age or falls to it.

A Cryptid Collection

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is a cryptozoological bestiary for the Dark Places & Demogorgons, the roleplaying game of being students at high school in the nineteen eighties in a small town by mysterious attacks and disappearances. With the adults at a loss as to what to do and the local police department possessing no idea, let alone the local preacher whipping up another moral panic, it is invariably down to the teenagers to find out what is going on, where the victims have disappeared to, and who or what is responsible. With the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual, the who or what responsible is drawn from the pseudoscience of cryptozoology. Creatures like Bigfoot, The Mothman, The Jersey Devil, The Pope Lick Monster, Chupacabra, Gremlins, and Lake Monsters, and more. Initially, this gives the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual a distinctly North American focus with Cryptids native to Canada, Mexico, and the USA, but there are numerous creatures included too from around the world. On the plus side, this means that the players and their students are going to be challenged by something they will probably never have heard of and not know how to deal with, but on the downside, the Game Master will need to be creative in how she brings such creatures into the campaign.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is published by Bloat Games, and is supposedly a secret printing of a file taken from an evidence locker at Quantico. These are the Hope Excerpts, the collected notes and reports of an explorer, Joel Harrison Hope, who long searched for an ancient artefact known as the Staff of Bel, which had been used Sumerian priests to defeat monsters. Over time, heroes and priests from across the ancient world used the staff before it ended up in Rome and was broken and its pieces scattered during by a barbarian invasion. Fortunately, Hope was able to locate the staff and find notes and details of other ‘monsters’ and other artefacts. However, the Staff of Bel is not detailed in the supplement and Hope’s notes play little further role either, and for as potentially as an interesting set-up as that is, it is disappointing not to see this followed through.

The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual contains some fifty or so different monsters that come from North America, Mexico, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia. They include seven types of the Bigfoot, with the Almasti being the Russian equivalent to the North American beast and the Yeren the Chinese, whilst the Grassman Bigfoot is the Ohio version, the Skunk Ape, the swamp dwelling from the South, the Yowie the Australian version, and the Sasquatch, the most well-known version from the Pacific Northwest, and the Yeti, the Asian version. The often-connected Wendigo is alongside as a spirit monster, whilst the Sheepsquatch is a newcomer to the fold, essentially a seven-foot tall ruminant known for its aggressive love of meth and other drugs, and rumoured to have been seen fighting the Mothman, which deserves a all of its very own. Similarly, there are five versions of the Extra-terrestrial, including ranging from the little-known Flatwoods Monster to the Greys and Little Green Men via the Nordic and Reptilian types. A campaign could easily mix these up for the students to get involved in the secret war between the Nordic and the Grey and the Reptilian Extra-terrestrials.

From Mexico and the America Southwest, there is the Chupacabra, and from the legends of the North Americans natives come the Mishipeshu and the Thunderbird. The African creatures include the Grootslang, a giant snake with the head of an elephant known to be wise and crafty, which resides in deep caverns, whilst the Mokele-Mbembe is a giant dinosaur occasionally spotted in the deepest jungles. The Bunyip is the only Australian entry. From Europe, the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual includes the Dobhar-Chu—the Irish Otter King—which protect rivers and streams from pollution and overuse, and are considered lucky to see, and the Kelpie from Scottish myth, as well as a more generic fairy. The Shuck comes from English folklore and is a good stand in for any black dog, whilst Greek myth is the source of both Cerberus and Medusa. There are silly creatures too, such as the Crocoduck, which has the body of a duck and the head of a crocodile, and a penchant for bananas. Thankfully they are duck-sized, but do hunt in packs.

Each entry in the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is a given a one or two-page spread, with clear and easy to read stats and explanations of its powers. It is also accompanied by a heavy, black and white illustration, some of which are quite creepy, such as the Black-eyed Children and the Reptilian Extra-terrestrial, the latter a nice nod to the V television series. Notably, quite a lot of effort has gone into making the various types of Extra-terrestrial different from each other, though this is not necessarily the case with the Sasquatch. In places the descriptions of the creatures do feel underwritten, consisting of descriptions of their habits and physiologies, but the accompanying eyewitness statements, like that of the county dog catcher who thought a Psi-Rat might have been a dog or the drug addict and meth manufacturer who threatened the Sheepsquatch with the double-barreled shotgun add some decent flavour and detail.

Rounding out the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual is set of templates which can be applied to any of the entries in the book. These include Dire, rabid, radioactive, vampiric, and zombie, plus options to enhance or weaken them. Along with the rules for morale, and explanations of both game terms and updated game terms, there is a lot of flexibility built into the supplement, allowing the Game Master to modify and adjust the various cryptids with little difficulty.

If there is a downside to the DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual, it is that its various monsters and creatures could have benefited from more background and detailing of their origins, as otherwise, it leaves the Game Master with a fair bit of research and investigation to do of her own. Nevertheless, there are nice little details of each to be found, especially in each entry’s flavour text. The DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS Cryptid Manual pleasingly brings the strange and the weird and the modern into the small-town life of DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS, as well as the Old School Renaissance itself, with a varied and interesting collection of cryptozoological critters.

Friday Fantasy: The Book of Fallen Gods

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is different to what you would normally expect Goodman Games to release for either Free RPG Day or ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’. Instead of a scenario, it is a sourcebook for the roleplaying game, one presents a set of new Patrons. In the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, these are typically gods and deities and entities that the spellcasting Classes such as the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Elf can turn to in order for greater power and surety. In the case of the Cleric, this is typically a god who in return for the Cleric’s worship and proselytising their shared faith, grants him spells and blessings, but will punish the Cleric if he sins against the strictures of the faith. Wizards can turn to greater powers and invoke their aid to gain potent, but dangerous magic, whilst Elves must work closely with an extra planar patron to do so. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game includes numerous gods, deities, and entities that Clerics, Elves, and Wizards can entreat and invoke. Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods introduces entities that are and are not gods.

For those that know where to look, there are the legends of the Ones Who Were. They were the gods who arose when the multiverse was new and shaped it according to their whims, their time one of turbulence and turmoil, upheaval and unrest, of chaos and change unfettered. It took newly arisen gods to reign in this unbalance and as the new gods rose in power, they built empyral structures and projections that reigned in the reach of chaos and with it the power of the Ones Who Were. So they were diminished and they fell and they were forgotten. Yet they are not gone, merely reduced to the status of beggars, divine down-and-outs, stripped of their power and priestly hierarchies, but nevertheless remaining the personifications of endless certainties… For those in the know, these Un-Gods can be reached out to, invoked, and called upon for the aid of what cosmic power they still possess.

What Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods presents is seven of these Un-Gods, representing everything from the eternal night and the power behind the throne to celestial Radiance and inspiration and devastation. Each the seven Un-God descriptions includes an invoke patron table, a patron taint table, and a spellburn table. What the descriptions do not include any patron spells, primarily due to size constraints, but there is the possibility that they will be included in future supplements. On the one hand, this perfectly reflects the status and lack of power and influence held by each of the Un-Gods, but on the other, it limits the usefulness of the supplement. Without the patron spells, the Judge is limited in how she can create interesting NPCs linked to the Un-Gods or present Player Characters seeking the aid of the Un-Gods with interesting rewards. Yet it also leaves room for the Judge to create her own and perhaps build a story around discovering what they are.

Should a Player Character (or NPC) manage to forge a patron bond with one of the Un-Gods, there is another way in which he can benefit. If his player possesses the dice set associated with the Un-God—available from Impact Miniatures—then the Player Character can call upon the Un-God and in doing so, grant the player a bump in die size for the action. Should the player roll a one, the Player Character immediately gains patron taint. One reason why the Un-Gods lack priests is that they have long been unconcerned with the trivialities of the mortal realms, are the doings of Player Characters are nothing if not trivial. Fortunately, these are not expensive dice sets, but it is very specific means of getting this bonus.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods opens with Chaar, Titan of Eternal Night, confined to his throne at the centre of everything, he is the manifestation of the inevitable exhaustion and decay of all things. When invoked, he can cause eternal night to envelop the Player Character and all around him, or even cause his hand to become an entropic conduit, increasing his melee damage, especially against Lawful creatures. His Patron Taint might cause the Player Character to age or cause everything in his hand to decay to dust, whilst the Spellburn has similar effects. All of the Un-Gods are like this, so the Ianthinian is the silver-tongued voice that negotiates treaties and the knife at the throat that launches coups, the power behind a billion thrones, who can animate the Player Character’s shadow to slip under doors and spy on others or dispatches a venomous, purple spider to attack a single target nearby. His Patron Taint might leave the Player Character with an unnatural and unsettling aura, which can affect his Personality or punish him by stealing his voice, whilst the effects of his Spellburn can steal Player Character’s memories or remind him that he is worth no more than the creatures that skulk and creep in the shadows, so dozens of spiders, centipedes, crawlers, and other creepy insects burst forth from the caster’s orifices in traumatic and painful fashion.

All seven Un-Gods are described in similar fashion. The others include Ivyeel the Entwining is the vibrant force of growth unchecked, Olathvee personifies passions unchecked, The Sallow Blight manipulates emotions into negative ones, Shayl, the Celestial Radiance is the potential of the righteous and the possibility of redemption for the wicked, and Tuanna and Djahlbak are the sundered remnants of lost Un-God now representative of Inspiration and Devastation. All seven are given four pages each and accompanied by a lot of artwork, a lot more than often appears in the scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is very nicely presented.

The lack of Patron Spells aside, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods is an entertaining collection of entities and effects that the Player Characters can both benefit and suffer from in interacting with them. Hopefully, Goodman Games will develop further in the future and perhaps use them in a campaign or a scenario or two. In the meantime, the Judge can use and develop them as suits her campaign.

Friday Filler: The Top Gun Strategy Game

The last time there was a board game based on the 1986 film, Top Gun, it was Top Gun: The Game of Modern Fighter Combat, published by FASA, also in 1986. It was a game of aerial combat which took the players from Pensacola: Flight School to Miramar: Top Gun School and pitched them into simulated battles between the fighters from the USA, the USSR, and other world powers of the late Cold war period. It even included rules for incorporating the game into FASA’s BattleTech universe and allowed players to field atmospheric fighters against aerospace fighters, although the technologies between the two differ greatly. The Top Gun Strategy Game is the second board game based on the 1986 film and it is a very different beast.

The Top Gun Strategy Game is designed by Prospero Hall, the collaborative game design studio responsible for games such as Horrified and Jaws. Both of which are fantastically thematic designs and highly playable adaptations of their source material. Published by Mixlore, the Top Gun Strategy Game is designed to be played two to four players, aged ten and up. It draws directly upon the film itself, but does not send the players into direct combat—only mock combat—and employs the same two-stage game play as seen in Jaws. The players take the roles of Team Maverick/Goose and Team Iceman/Slider, pilot and WSO or Weapons System Operator, respectively. In the first half of the game, the ‘Volleyball Phase’, the two teams face off against each other on the volleyball court. The team that beats the other gains self-confidence or intimidates the team, which grants them an advantage in the ‘Hop Phase’ when the two teams engage in an aerial dogfight in an attempt to acquire valuable target lock on their opponent and so secure a swift victory. The game play will switch back and forth between the ‘Volleyball Phase’ and the ‘Hop Phase’ until one team scores sufficient points to win.

The components for the ‘Volleyball Phase’ consist of nineteen Volleyball cards, a Volleyball token, and a Volleyball Net, the latter two items in thick card. The Volleyball cards are divided into two identical sets, the same for each team, a pink set for Maverick and Goose, and a blue set for Iceman and Slider. Each set is laid out face down as a three-by-three grid on each side of the Volleyball Net and consists of five card types. When revealed, the Set card and the Bump cards allow the player with control of the ball to move it orthogonally to another card and reveal it. This can be one of his own cards or his rival’s across the net. The Set card allows the ball to be moved one space and the Bump card one or two spaces. The Spike card enables the controlling player to place the ball on one of his opponent’s cards which is still face down. The aim for each team is to find and reveal its opponent’s Whiff cards. When this happens, the team who reveals this, can draw Pilot Tiles or WSO Cards which will provide an advantage in the ‘Hop Phase’. Each team has three Whiff cards and once a team has revealed all three of its opposing team, it wins the volleyball match. The winning team decides who will play as the Attacker and the Defender in the ‘Hop Phase’.

In addition, there is a fifth card type, the Bump Save card. Each team can use it once to prevent a face-down card from being revealed. It is instead used as a Bump. Overall, the ‘Volleyball Phase’ plays quickly and easily, and has the feel of a volleyball game.

The components for the ‘Hop Phase’ are more complex. Each team has a Cockpit Shield, a set of Pilot Tiles and WSO cards, and a plane. In addition, there is a Hop Board, six Hop Scenario cards, a set of Waypoint Tokens, Target Lock Tokens, green Pilot Tiles, green WSO cards, and a set of four dice. The Cockpit Shields are used to keep each Team’s decision hidden, whilst the Pilot Tiles are used to determine a plane’s movement. Each Pilot Tile consists of two joined hexes, one indicating the plane’s starting position and finishing position and direction, as a potential change of elevation. Each plane slots into a stand on which its elevation can be adjusted to one of four positions. Each WSO card shows a hex grid at the centre of which is marked a plane. In front of it are several numbered ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’, whilst behind it are several ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’, again numbered. Each WSO card in a team’s hand can only be played once unless the Retrieve card is played, which returns all played cards to a team’s hand, but prevents them from attacking or defending that turn. The Hop Board shows a seven by eight grid of hexes of the skies near TOPGUN, the Naval Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar. The Waypoint Tokens are placed on the Hop Board on spaces marked on the Hop Scenario cards. These are double-sided and as well as hexes indicating where the Waypoint Tokens are placed, each Hop Scenario card gives the starting position and elevation for each plane. The four dice are marked with blanks and Target Lock icons and are rolled when attempting a target lock. The green WSO cards and the green Pilot Tiles show different ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’ and ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’ and manoeuvres to the standard ones which each team starts play with.

To play, a Hop Scenario card is selected, and the Hop Board set according to its layout. Each team chooses two Pilot Tiles and a WSO card. The Pilot Tiles are played, the defending team moving first, followed by the attacking team. This will result in a change of position and potentially, elevation. The WSO cards are revealed and if a defending plane falls within the ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’ marked on the WSO card, the attacking team rolls a number of dice equal to the number on hex that the targeted plane is in. The number of dice can be reduced if the attacking plane is in the ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’ marked on the defending team’s WSO card. Being at a higher elevation will grant an extra die, or lose a die if at a lower elevation. If a Target Lock symbol on any of the dice is rolled, Target Lock is achieved, and the attacking receives a Target Lock token.

Play continues like this from turn to turn until one team achieves a Target Lock, the defending team has collected three of the Waypoint tokens, or either team manages to achieve the ‘Flipping the Bird’ manoeuvre as per the film. Once achieved, the ‘Hop Phase’ is over. At this point, if a team has scored a total of twelve or more points from achieving Target Locks and/or collecting Waypoint Tokens, it has won the game. If not, play switches back to the ‘Volleyball Phase’, then to the ‘Hop Phase’, and so on until one team wins.

Physically, the Top Gun Strategy Game reflects it low price. The cards are a bit thin and do need to be sleeved if the game is be played more than a few times. The Volleyball Net is difficult to set up and to be honest does not add that much to the game anyway. The planes and their stands with their poles for changing elevation are decently produced and although slightly fiddly to use, do add a lot to the game and give it a sense of space. The rules are easy to read and understand. One last issue is the choice of colours. Pink and blue neon. Which do give the game a singular look.

The Top Gun Strategy Game is two games in one. The ‘Volleyball Phase’ is a short, primarily luck-based mini-game whose game play will quickly pale in comparison to the complexities and options in the ‘Hop Phase’. It also does not really work as a game for more than two players as there are not enough decisions to be made in playing it, whereas the ‘Hop Phase’ actually works better with four players rather than two. With two players on each team, one can be the pilot and one the Weapons System Operator, responsible each turn for selecting the Pilot Tiles and WSO card respectively. This forces them to work together as shown in the film as attacker and defender attempt to out manoeuvre each other and line up the Target Lock needed to win each ‘Hop Phase’. The Waypoint Tokens add a tactical element too, as the defending plane races through them to collect them and the attacking plane chases, attempting to stop it from collecting too many whilst the remaining Waypoint Tokens predict where the defending plane might be headed.

The Top Gun Strategy Game is an odd game. An aerial combat game combined with a volleyball game and done in neon colours like the cover to an eighties’ computer game. Nor is it a ‘strategy’ game, but rather one that is tactical and that really only in the dogfights. The ‘Volleyball Phase’ does not add all that much to the play of the ‘Hop Phase’ and actually having to go back, set it up again and replay it soon becomes a chore, especially if there are four players, because it leaves a player on each team with little to really do. It is possible to alternate, but it does not really matter that much in what is a random phase anyway. Thankfully, the ‘Hop Phase’ offers actual decisions and a little deduction to work out the best Pilot Tiles and WSO card to use, and whilst the Hop Scenario cards add some variety in terms of set-up, it is not that much.

Ultimately, the Top Gun Strategy Game is a game for the fan of the film who does not mind playing the odd board game. For the regular board game player, there is not enough depth to the game to really want to replay it more than once or twice and it is certainly too light a game for devotees of aerial combat games. Prospero Hall has designed some excellent games, matching up mechanics with theme to create some excellent emulations of the films they draw from, but the Top Gun Strategy Game is not one of them. The best of the Prospero Hall designs do two things. One is to engage the players in the story of the film or source material, the second is to enable them to play and make that story their own, but the Top Gun Strategy Game only just achieves the first and never manages the second. If you feel the need for speed, then the Top Gun Strategy Game might be all you need, but there are definitely better and more fun air combat games available that do not require you to simulate a game of volleyball.