1980: The Morrow Project

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. 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—

World War III began on Thursday, November 18th, 1989.* The United States of America launched a nuclear attack in response to a Soviet missile attack over the North Pole. The rest of the world would follow in the exchange, the Soviet Union following up its nuclear attacks on the USA with biological attacks, and as first the military and then the civilian population fell victim to disease and radiation, civilisation collapsed. Within six months, some ninety-five percent of the population was dead. Fortunately, if the outbreak of the war had not been foreseen, then it had been prepared for. In 1962, a mysterious man who identified himself as Bruce Edward Morrow appeared and gathered nine of the country’s leading industrialists into an organisation known as the Council of Tomorrow. He warned them of the world’s coming destruction and convinced them to establish a means ensuring a means of humanity’s survival. This was the Morrow Project, a network of sealed bunkers or ‘boltholes’ each containing a cryogenically frozen team of soldiers, specialists, and scientists who would awaken after a nuclear war and using the cache of equipment stored with them, help reconstruct the United States of America. Unfortunately, Prime Base, the headquarters of the Morrow Project was partially sabotaged in the wake of the war, and instead of sending the signal to awaken each team immediately after the war, the signal would not be sent for another one-hundred-and-fifty years... Now each team—whether from the sixties, seventies, or eighties—awakens to find itself in a strange new land, unrecognisable from the one they knew, cut off from Prime Base, but still with their primary mission to fulfill.

*Actually, November 18th, 1989 was a Saturday.

This is the set-up for The Morrow Project, a post-apocalyptic, military orientated roleplaying game published by TimeLine Ltd in 1980. Where in other post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, such as Gamma World, the player characters are the descendants of those who survived and were changed by the great disaster which befell civilisation, who go out and explore the world, coming across the bunkers and caches of the ancients, the player characters in The Morrow Project are the ancients and are the ones leaving the bunker to explore the world. Specifically, the player characters are members of the awakened teams, unprepared for the world they now find themselves in. Their team may be a Science, MARS—Mobile Assault, Rescue, and Strike, Recon, and Specialty team, such as Engineering, Agricultural, or Psychological. They have access to arms, survival equipment, and a vehicle, typically a Commando V-150 armoured APC. Characters are defined by six attributes—Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Accuracy, Charisma, and Luck. A character is also defined by his Structure Points and Blood Points, both derived from his Strength and Constitution, and his randomly determined blood type. Structure Point and Blood Point values are determined from for some thirty or so different locations on the body. An optional attribute is PSI, which if high enough will grant the character psionic powers like empathy, healing, telepathy, telekinesis, or pyrokinetics. A character is created by rolling four six-sided dice and subtracting four for each attribute to get a range from zero to twenty.

Dave Smith
Strength 08 Constitution 15 Dexterity 08
Accuracy 16 Charisma 11 Luck 10
Blood Type: B+
Structure Points: 220
Blood Points: 220

Apart from his equipment, what is missing from the character is anything representing intelligence or knowledge. To quote the designers, this is because, “We find it best to allow the player to supply the more subtle mental and emotional talents of the character he is playing so as to more readily identify with their characters.” The character has no skills either, and indeed, there are no skills in The Morrow Project. Everything comes down to a raw roll against an attribute—or in fact, the character’s raw ability. There is some discussion of jobs and positions, from scientists and vehicle crews to the lowly kitchen porter, but they are not mechanically reflected in the game. Similarly, The Morrow Project does not address what each player character was before joining the programme and being cryogenically frozen or what their motives were. Essentially, in The Morrow Project, a player character is either a blank slate or an odd representation of the player.

Lacking skills, there is no resolution mechanic in The Morrow Project, but in general, a player is rolling against his character’s attributes using a twenty-sided die. What the roleplaying game does have is an extensive combat system, primarily focused on firefights. A character receives a number of Movements or actions per round dependent upon his Dexterity and when he attacks, his player rolls a twenty-sided die against the character’s Accuracy, aiming to get below, but not equal to the value of the attribute. This is modified for range and visibility, range and weapon modifier, firer and target movement, target size, and terrain. If the attacker fails to hit, there is still a fifty percent chance that a Luck roll will indicate a lucky hit! Only one to hit roll needs to be made for automatic fire—the number of hits by a burst being determined by roll of die equal to the number of rounds in the burst.

Then armour penetration is determined. Every weapon has an ‘E’ or efficiency factor, for example, the E-Factor for a Smith & Wesson M27 .357 revolver is ten and fifteen for a 5.56×45 mm Colt M16A1. The E-Factor represents each weapon and its ammunition type’s penetration value, and if the Armour Class of the material worn by the target is greater than the E-Factor, then the rounds will not penetrate. However, lower Armour Class values will reduce the E-Factor. For example, Armour Class 6 is equal to 0.5 cm of steel, 15.24 cm of wood, 1.52 cm of concrete, and nylon body armour, and will reduce the E-Factor of a round by six. So it would reduce the E-Factor 10 of the .357 round to five, which becomes Damage Points. Then hit location is determined and depending on the Damage Points and location, has a chance to instantly kill the target, amputate a limb, or render him unconscious. For example, the five Damage Points from the .357 round have a ninety percent chance of killing the target if his head is hit. If the target survives, the Damage Points are deducted from the location’s Structure Points. Whatever the wound, there is always a chance of the target being rendered unconscious and then there is the subsequent blood loss from the target’s Blood Points.

Hand-to-hand and melee combat is treated in a similar fashion, though with the likelihood of unconsciousness or death being confined to head hits. Hands, feet, and melee weapons do not have the E-Factor of bullets, but straightforward Damage Points, which is reduced by Armour Class—though Armour Class is more effective against such attacks. The actual damage is determined by weapon type and modified by the attacker’s Strength. In general, hand-to-hand and melee combat is faster than gun combat, and then the one set of combat mechanics you would expect to be complex—that of vehicle combat—is faster and simpler than gun combat, requiring a percentage roll to determine if a weapon is capable of damaging the vehicle, where, and if the occupants are injured. Lastly, whilst other damage types, such as electricity and of course, radiation, are described in some detail, the effects disease are handwaved aside with the application of the Morrow Project’s ‘Universal Antibody’.

The rules for combat are supported by pages and pages of guns and grenades and missiles as well as various other items of survival equipment and vehicles. All of it dates from the nineteen sixties and seventies of course, except for some advanced laser weapons, the HAAM (Hydraulically Assisted Armored Man) suit, and the MARS One all-terrain vehicle, which is reminiscent of the Landmaster vehicle from the film, Damnation Alley. All of these are powered by fusion packs supplied by the mysterious Bruce Edward Morrow.

The future world of The Morrow Project is treated somewhat haphazardly. The core book opens with a detailed list of exactly where the Russian missiles struck the United States of America, but allots the Game Master some one-hundred-and fifty missiles and warheads to drop on whatever targets she wishes. The idea here is help the Game Master apply the effects of World War III to her chosen campaign area. The effects of radiation are also discussed, and unlike its effects in roleplaying games such as Gamma World, the effects are generally negative. That said, the game does discuss how certain biological defects which could result from radiation damage to the human genome could be combined and interpreted as belonging to certain creatures out of myth. It adds to the generally more realistic approach taken by The Morrow Project to the post-apocalypse genre, but it does not make for comfortable reading.

The state of various types of technology—communications, energy, weapons, and construction—are discussed, mostly highlighting its decline following World War III. Guidance and rules are given for creating and running NPCs, either as fully rounded ‘people’ or cannon fodder with the ‘NPC Fast Kill’ table. Possible NPC motivations are also discussed. These are further expanded upon with various encounter groups. Some of these are genre staples, such as Bikers, Cannibals, Children of the Night, New Confederacy, and more, but the Ballooners—airborne traders, the Whale Worshippers, and others are nice additions. The post-apocalypse of The Morrow Project has its own flora and fauna, such as the Blue Undead—radioactive zombies, and Maggots—semi-human nocturnal mutants who live underground. Rounding out The Morrow Project is a little advice for the Game Master on setting up a game, including preparing two maps, one for the players and one for herself, and a standard introductory briefing. Lastly, the roleplaying game includes a glossary, a metric to imperial conversion table, and a bibliography of military works.

Physically, The Morrow Project is an unprepossessing book. The layout is somewhat rough and the artwork scrappy. The best artwork is that of the book’s weapons which seem to take pride of place. The organisation of the contents certainly could have been better, there being little thought given to it. 

The Morrow Project was extensively reviewed at the time of its release. Reviewing The Morrow Project in The Space Gamer Number 39 (May, 1981), William A. Barton began by highlighting the contrast between it and TSR, Inc.’s Gamma World, saying the new roleplaying game, “...[M]ay prove to be the most creditable post-holocaust RPG to date.” His lengthy review ended on a positive note with, “...[O]verall, I’d have to give The Morrow Project the highest of ratings as a SF role-playing system. If it isn’t at least nominated for the Origins awards this year, there just ain’t no justice in gameland.” Bill Fawcett reviewed The Morrow Project in Dragon #50 (June, 1981). After drawing several comparisons between Gamma World and The Morrow Project, he wrote, “These rules will appeal to two groups of gamers: those who are interested in modern weapons and combat, and those who play the GAMMA WORLD game, who will find the ideas in this game readily adaptable to that system. Anyone who considers the GAMMA WORLD game too “far out” may find THE MORROW PROJECT a less futuristic and more realistic alternative.”

Different Worlds Issue 33 (March/April, 1984) was a special post-holocaust issue and devoted much of its pages to The Morrow Project. This included ‘Playtesting the Morrow Project: An Anecdotal Report from Timeline’ and ‘Playing Hints for the Morrow Project: Advice for Players from Timeline’, both by Bill Worzel, as well as ‘Special MORROW PROJECT Module Operation – Link-Up’ by Barron Barnett and William A. Barton. Barron Barnett also reviewed The Morrow Project. He wrote, “Overall, considering the size of the company, Timeline, this critic believes The Morrow Project manual is more than worth small price it sells for.” but asked, “What does The Morrow Project need? I can sum that question in one phrase; character personalities. I generally run my Morrow Project adventures with each roleplayer knowing a little about his character’s personality in the game as well as a little of his character’s background as to why he or she is here in the first place. I think that sometimes a little past for the role-player lets them act out their part in the adventure to a more enjoyable fulfillment.”

The Morrow Project was also reviewed by the two British roleplaying magazines of the day. Phil Masters reviewed both The Morrow Project and the first scenario, Liberation at Riverton, in White Dwarf No. 42 (June, 1983). He described the roleplaying game as, “…[A] post-holocaust role-playing system with a highly specific American background, some excellent mechanisms, and a number of gaps. Liberation at Riverton is the first published scenario for the game, and looks like a labour of love for the designers. The overwhelming impression is that all this is one group's long-tested game, reflecting its originators’ tastes and personalities.” He concluded that, “The Morrow Project is a game with a very specific style, a lot of strengths, and a lot of weaknesses. Like any post-holocaust game, it may be a little depressing; it is certainly quite violent. It is, by current standards, simple and playable, and could be worse at the price.” (it should be noted that the core rules cost £7.50 in 1980) before awarding it a score of five out of ten. Similarly, Chris Baylis reviewed The Morrow Project and the second scenario, Liberation at Riverton, as well as the third, Project Damocles, in Imagine No. 2 (May, 1983). His opening comments were positive, saying that, “My first impressions of the Morrow Project made me want to begin a game immediately. The idea seemed new and exciting, and the system looked advanced, well thought out and imaginative.” before concluding effusively, “This is initially a very confusing game to play, yet with a lot of time and effort by the selected PD [Project Director], this could be the revelation role-playing game of the ’80s, becoming expandable and popular enough to rival any of the other major role-playing games available at the present time.”

It was also reviewed in Games Review, Volume 1, Issue 6 (March, 1989). Laurance Miller wrote, “Overall the game provides a good background for play, combined with detailed game mechanics for a high degree of realism within a post-holocaust environment. It is short on detailed assistance for role-playing, but this is no problem for anyone who has previously played an RPG and is countered by the addition of such information in the various scenarios that are available. Worth getting in its own right as well as a source of material for use with other similar games.”

Timeline Ltd. would go on to publish numerous supplements for The Morrow Project, as well as the interesting time travel roleplaying game, Time & Time Again in 1984. Of its three designers, Kevin Dockery would go on to write two notable works on firearms for roleplaying. One was The Armory, Volume One from Hero Games and the other was the well-received Edge of the Sword Vol. 1: Compendium of Modern Firearms published by R. Talsorian Games. This then, and the fact that Dockery was an ex-army armourer, explains the emphasis in The Morrow Project on guns. Richard Tucholka would go on to found Tri Tac Games, and notably publish Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic. A second edition of The Morrow Project was published in 1980 and a third edition in 1983—the later including a boxed set from Chris Harvey Games, a UK-based games distributor, published in 1989. The Morrow Project 4th. Edition was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign in January, 2013 by Timeline Ltd. 

Despite the positive reviews of the time, The Morrow Project, forty years on, is not a good roleplaying game, or indeed, arguably a roleplaying game at all, given its lack of player character abilities, player character development, and support for the player characters. In fact, the roleplaying aspects of The Morrow Project—or lack of them—would not be addressed until the publication in 1983 of Morrow Project Role Playing Expansion and Personal and Vehicular Basic Loads, a supplement for the third edition of the game. In this earlier edition, because of its focus on guns and combat, The Morrow Project feels far more like a set of miniatures combat rules, but without the miniatures. There is no denying that the background to The Morrow Project is interesting and not without potential, indeed lots of potential, but The Morrow Project fails to develop either that background or its set-up sufficiently. There is an amateurish quality to its production values and it very much feels like a small press product based on a home campaign of survivalist action.

The apocalypse of The Morrow Project is much drier than other post-holocaust roleplaying game of its time. It has the feel of the nineteen seventies television and film Science Fiction—so Damnation Alley and the Gene Roddenberry pilots, Genesis II and Planet Earth. There was a need for the roleplaying game though. When it was published in 1980, The Morrow Project fulfilled the hobby’s need for a military orientated post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, that is until Game Designer Workshop’s Twilight 2000 appeared in 1984.

—oOo—

With thanks to Doctor Andrew Cowie for providing access to Games Review, Volume 1, Issue 6.

Bordering Ticket to Ride

Since 2007, the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award-winning board game Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder, has been supported with new maps, beginning with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. That new map would be collected in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 2 – India & Switzerland, the second entry in the Map Collection series begun in Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 – Team Asia & Legendary Asia. Both of these have proved to be worthy additions to the Ticket to Ride line, whereas Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa and Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland have proved to add more challenging game play, but at a cost in terms of engaging game play. Further given that they included just the one map in the third and fourth volumes rather than the two in each of the first two, neither felt as if they provided as much value either. Fortunately, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania came with two maps and explored elements more commonly found in traditional train games—stocks and shares in railroad companies and the advance of railway technology. The next map collection in the series, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6: France + Old West provided two maps exploring a common theme—telegraphing each player’s intended placement of their trains—but the next entry in the line is very different again.

The next entry in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection is not Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7—whatever that might be,* but is in fact, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland. And it only contains the one map, that is, of course, Poland. Originally released as Wsiąść Do Pociągu: Polska and only available to buy in Poland, it is now available with the rules in both Polish and English, and available to buy outside of Poland. Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is designed for two to four players, is played on a square rather than a rectangular board—so two thirds the size of a standard Ticket to Ride board, and thematically shifts into the nineteen fifties and the reconstruction of the Polish railway network following World War II. Like other entries in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection series, it only requires a set of Train cards, train pieces, and scoring markers from a base Ticket to Ride set to play.

* Actually that title is Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy

Poland’s board is depicted in dark green surrounded by the earthy tones of her neighbours, who play a major role in how points are scored in Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland. The seven are Biatoruś (Belarus), Czechy (the Czech Republic), Litwa (Lithuania), Niemcy (Germany), Rosja (Russia), Stowacja (Slovakia), and Ukraina (Ukraine). They are also represented by corresponding sets of Country Cards for a total of twenty Country Cards. Each set is also given a set of descending values, so the Czechy set is valued ten, seven, four, and two, and the Rosja set is valued seven, four, and two. Most Country card sets contain three cards, only the Czechy set has four and the Litwa card just has the one. The thirty-five Destination Cards show connections between Poland’s various cities and each comes with a little map showing the positions of the two cities a player needs to connect to complete. In the case of Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, this is almost a necessity as not everyone is familiar with Poland’s cities and where they are.

At the beginning of the game, each player receives just thirty-five Trains, and the standard four Destination Cards and four Train Cards. Play is almost exactly like standard Ticket to Ride. On his turn, a player can either draw Train Cards, draw new Destination Cards, or claim a route between two cities. Where Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is different is how the countries and Country Cards work. From the moment they were introduced in Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, players could score points by completing Destination Cards which connected a city to a country or a country to a country, and they have appeared in several expansions since. In Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, there are no such Destination Cards.

In Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, a player does not score points when he connects a country to a country. Instead, when he does so, he takes the top card from the Country Set for each country he connects to. He cannot repeat this, but if he then connects this connection to another country, then he takes the top card from the Country Set for each country he connects to—even if he has already taken cards from the now connected Country Sets. Plus, the earlier a player makes a connection between two countries, the higher the value of the Country Cards left in the set. This sets up a race between the players to be the first to connect countries because they mean more points.

Although they are not the only means of scoring points in Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, they are an important means. This is because the map has no routes six spaces long, just the one route five spaces long, and just a few routes four spaces long, the rest being short, either three, two, or one spaces long. Which means although they are relatively easy to claim and thus build a series of connections between cities to complete a Destination Card, they do not score a lot of points. Further, none of the Destination Cards score a player more than thirteen points and most score much, much less. Most of the shorter routes are also in the centre of the map, so there will be a scrap in game of Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland to build routes across the centre of the country—especially in a four-player game. Whatever the number of players, this map involves a lot of blocking and that means Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is less suited for play by the casual gamer.

So the players will need to find another source of points if they want to do well in the game and win. One is to draw more Destination Tickets and there is some value in that given the possibility of a player having already connected or partially connected the route on a newly drawn Destination Card. The other is connecting countries and thus not only scoring by claiming the routes to those countries, but also by drawing Country Cards from the seven sets. Which is fine, except that everyone is after them, and so there is a race to claim these before anyone else! Unlike the other routes, the actual connection to countries cannot be blocked, so if there are three routes connecting to a country, then all three can be used.

Physically, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is as well produced as you would expect for a Ticket to Ride expansion. Everything is high quality and the rules are easy to understand and come in two versions—English and Polish. This does mean that Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is not as easily accessible by speakers of other languages as Ticket to Ride typically is. Perhaps another issue with Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is that the map is a bit too dark and oppressive, but that is an issue with the aesthetics and should not affect play.

What Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland shows is that you do not have to alter very much in a Ticket to Ride game to change the feel of the game. This expansion is tighter and more competitive with players having to balance the need to complete Destination Cards with connecting countries in order to score points and win. This makes Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland an expansion for Ticket to Ride devotees rather than casual or family players of any of the core sets. For the Ticket to Ride devotee, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland is a tighter, more cutthroat expansion which forces players to race for more than Destination Cards.

[Fanzine Focus XVIII] The Hobonomicon #1

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

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

‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ was actually a character funnel. One of the features of both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game is that is possible to play Zero Level characters going out on their first adventure to hopefully survive and return as First Level adventurers. In a character funnel, each player roleplays not one character, but several, ultimately going on to play whichever one of them survives and so achieves First Level and attains a Class. In Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the Zero Level characters are likely to be peasants and in Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, they are simple tribal folk ready to undergo their Rite of Passage, but in ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’, the Zero Level characters are citizens living in the lightless, lawless bowels of the ecumenopolis that is Planet Punjar. It is the year 50,000 and the collision of the Doom Planet with Planet Punjar is imminent, and so it has been decreed by the High Lords of Punjar that the planet be evacuated.

Published in August 2nd, 2018 at Gen Con, The Hobonomicon #0 was the inaugural issue of a fanzine written for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Unlike other fanzines, it comes not in A5 format, but letter size. Written and drawn by many of the some writers and artists who work on titles for Goodman Games—whether Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic—The Hobonomicon is the book of the void and of unbelievers, a legendary shadow tome of doom architects and fallen chaos martyrs. Or rather, it presents ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’, a full scenario based on Doug Kovacs’ after hours game at Gen Con.

At the end of ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ in The Hobonomicon #0, the surviving player characters got off the planet. What happens next is the subject of The Hobonomicon #1. Again, this comes in letter format rather A5 and is written and illustrated by the same team as The Hobonomicon #0. Yet even as you flip open the pages of this issue, you still have to wait to find out. This is because unlike in The Hobonomicon #0, the comic strips appear at the front. ‘Dreams of a Klartesh Fiend’ continues the drug induced nightmare written by James MacGeorge and drawn by Stefan Poag, whilst Doug Kovacs’ ‘Death of a Reaver’ shows us happens to the lone warrior who was beset by a trio of bandits in the first issue who bar her way over a bridge. It is a bloody continuation, but again it does leave the reader on a cliffhanger and really does not tell much in the way of a story in its four pages. In between them is ‘The Cube’, a tale of despair of working in a cube farm by Stefan Poag. It has the style of an underground comic, but really is not adding that much to the issue.

The subtitle of The Hobonomicon #1 is ‘Meat Planet’. It is a continuation of ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ from The Hobonomicon #0, but not a direct continuation, for it takes place some five hundred or so years after the ships escaped Punjar and joined up with the flotilla of Astro Grenadier vessels. As the scenario opens, the descendants of those who fled doomed Punjar are called to service as part of an Expeditionary Force to the planet below. The player characters are the best that their ships have to offer and in joining the service of the Astro Grenadier, will plead affiliation with one of the flotilla’s four Astral Lords. They will undergo a series of procedures—hypno-training, cyber-surgeries, chemical enhancements, and more—and sent to the planet below.

In game terms, a player can create a character anew, or take the stats of his character who escaped Planet Punjar, but then the player rolls for the character’s Astral Lord Affiliation, mutations from the flotilla effects, flotilla generational effects, and what equipment loadout each Astral Lord provides the character with. The four Astral Lords are Urcommandus, Quintestus Rex, Alpha Divinatus, and Felis Matronus. There is a distinctly Warhammer 40,000 feel to these, but odder and weirder.

Fingle Woznekki IV
Astral Affiliation: Quintestus Rex
Gender: Female 
Occupation: Anarchist Rabble Rouser
STR 18 (+3) AGL 11 STM 16 (+2)
PER 13 (+1) INT 17 (+2) LCK 16 (+2)
Hit Points: 30
Saving Throws
Fortitude +1 Reflex +0 Willpower +1
Mutations: Attracted to anything sticky, only two teeth and ear cancer (immune to sound attacks)
Flotilla Generational Effects: Bad Seals & Low Atmospheric Pressure, Inbreeding and phobia of crowds, Cyber-prosthetics Reliance (genitals), Increased Gravity
Equipment: Robot Legs (+10’ Mov), Flail Arm (1d10), Metal Carapace (+4 AC), Oil-Stained Vestment
Skill: Tinkerer (Combine two items to create a one-use techno-cantrip)

Once done, the newly developed Astral Lord adherents are dropped onto the newly discovered planet. The planet has a strange atmosphere and weirder features, walls which drip fluids, rooms with bone-like supports, veiny-walled corridors, and odd multi-buttoned protuberances. As the player characters explore the planet, they find themselves drawn deeper and deeper towards the centre. What they find there will have profoundly apocalyptic effects…

‘Meat Planet’ requires more preparation than the average scenario. The Judge is provided with a series of tables for randomly generating rooms and corridors, features, and more. She is also provided with a table of possible endings and one of these is generated as part of the scenario preparation. Some of these elements can be rolled on as the player characters progress through the bowels of the weirdly fleshy plant, but these should be mixed in with those already rolled for. Essentially, from the start, the Judge sets up the scenario’s ending and is directing the players and their characters towards it.

Ultimately in terms of a story, there is not a great deal to ‘Meat Planet’. Although there is a certain degree of cleverness to the guidance it gives on running the scenario at a convention as part of an event in which ‘Meat Planet’ is being run at each table, beyond a sense of doom, it is just not that interesting. The main problem is that ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ from The Hobonomicon #0 is a better scenario, more involving for the players and their characters, and with a sense of urgency to the plot. In ‘Meat Planet’ less so. Plus, the fact that ‘Meat Planet’ is set five centuries after the events of ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ means it fails to capitalise on the terrific story that ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ told. 

Bar the cover—which is done in colour, front and back, inside and out—The Hobonomicon #1 is heavily illustrated in black and white throughout. The artwork is excellent, ranging from grim to gruesome, from daft to disturbing, but it all fits. The writing is also good too, perhaps a little underwritten, but enough to nudge the Judge’s imagination, although that will be limited by the environment of the ‘Meat Planet’.

One of the things that The Hobonomicon #0 did do was showcase how the Star Crawl Classics Role Playing Game might start, and one of the things that The Hobonomicon #1 does is showcase how such a Star Crawl Classics Role Playing Game might go in a particular direction. Unfortunately, it is not a desperately interesting direction. Again, if what you are looking for is a potential introduction to a Science Fiction version of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, a scenario which can be semi-improvised at convention after convention, or perhaps you like Doug Kovacs’ (and others’) art, then The Hobonomicon #1 is perfect for you. Be aware though, The Hobonomicon #1 is simply not as good or as engaging as Hobonomicon #0.

[Fanzine Focus XVIII] Terror of the Stratosfiend #1

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

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

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is a of a different stripe. Published by Orbital Intelligence LLC following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is not a collection of random articles, scenarios, monsters, treasures, and so on, but a slim booklet dedicated to just the one event—‘The Drop’, and its outcome—the ‘Terror of the Stratofiend’.

At some point in the past, portals and warp gates opened all over the Earth and began spilling forth giant aliens from beyond the stars at the same time as aliens revealed themselves on Earth itself. A mixture of tentacles, lasers, and chainsaws, they tower over humanity, wreaking havoc with mankind and themselves, followed by humans from the stars, who spoke the same language, but were ready to fight the aliens… Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 contains four new Classes, two new Patrons—the equivalent of gods in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, armour, equipment, weapons, and more.

The four Classes are Human Sat-Caster, Half-Stratosfiend Street Whisperer, Stratosfiend Delver, and Stratosfiend Magistrate Gladiatrix. The Human Sat-Caster serves as the eyes and ears of call Orbital Intelligences, able to connect to rogue space stations and weapons satellites to call down hellfire from the skies. Wearing armour of all kinds and armed with the best laser weaponry they can find, they are essentially spellcasters who forge an ‘uplink’ with their Patron who may or may not be in orbit and who really need to maintain line-of-sight with the skies. Created via genetic engineering or unthinkable congress, the Half-Stratosfiend Street Whisperer is half-Human, half-Stratofiend, a tentacled Human despised by both sides, a ‘godkiller’ bound to slay a Patron, who with his volatile genetics, constantly mutates and evolves. As they evolve, their tentacle attacks get stronger and although primarily a stealth-based Class, may also acquire spells through their mutations. The Stratosfiend Delver is one of the terrifying races from beyond the stars, towering bipedal humanoids with combat-capable tentacles protruding from their spines who foster cults around them and who have psionically capable brains which enable them to cast spell-like effects. Lastly, the Stratosfiend Magistrate Gladiatrix are combat monsters, towering even over other Stratosfiends, killing machines whose psionic allure draws their victims in to be slaughtered.  

‘Weapons’ lists traditional weapons like daggers and two-handed swords are joined by modern firearms, such as rifles and shotguns. The warping effect of ‘The Drop’ sometimes leaves its mark upon such weapons, with twenty such effects listed under ‘Upgrades’. So a found weapon might be ‘Homing’, enabling two attack rolls to be made for an attack and the best used or ‘Acidic’, reducing a target’s Armour Class with every hit. ‘Armour’ runs the gamut from the ‘Explorer Exo-Suit’ which is slow and heavy, but is sealed against airborne contaminants and provides a bonus to skill checks and spell casting, to the ‘Twitching Carapace’, which offers increased Armour Class bonus and worse check penalties with every hit to the wearer and if the wearer takes damage when it provides the most protection, can hatch and attack the wearer! The silliest is Beach Gear, which offers less than no protection, but ensures you always hot, oiled, and beach ready, baby…! New items of gear under ‘Equipment’ include parasites, hormonal cocktails, and scanning equipment. For example, the ‘Stealth Organism’ is a living parasite which binds with its owner and uses a combination of pheromones and adrenal boosts to enable the owner to blend with shadows. The organism dies if the owner takes damage. There are downsides to using some of the new equipment. So whilst the ‘Micro-Evolution Syringe’ adds a one-time major boost to the user’s next action, its use—and subsequent use—can corrupt the user.

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 lists just the one spell. This is Polyphemean Rage, which fires a plasma beam from the user’s single giant eye. This can manifest as the caster’s blinking a million times, the eye glows as particles are sucked into it, the caster winks air around the target begins to boil, or the caster’s eye temporarily turns into a charred gemstone. Like all spells for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, it comes with a full table of its effects plus nasty results should the spell misfire or corrupt.

The first of two Patrons in the fanzine is ‘Sky-Lasher the Everlasting, Trident of the Sun’. Whether appearing as a sentient defence satellite or a a bat-winged flaming demon, it is always solar-panelled and supported by bombers, fighter craft, drones, and zealots, ready to bring its adherents the illumination and cleansing fire of the sun. The other is ‘Terror-Eater, the Earthmother’, who resides in the depths of the Earth and who may be the Earth or simply wearing its skin. She will help her worshippers as long as they feed her… Which mostly consists of her sending tentacles up through the Earth, even if that means destroying everything nearby. Both include tables for effects when the Patron is invoked, gifts or taints, and Patron spells. Lastly, the ‘Bestiary’ details Children of Earth tied to the Terror-Eater, the Earthmother and Children of Space tied to the Sky-Lasher the Everlasting, Trident of the Sun, all seven creatures being suitably weird.

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is very nicely presented. It is clean and tidy with some decent artwork, though the artwork is of an adult nature in places. It is also full of ideas and rich possibilities, but the problem with Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is what to do with it. As written, it is designed for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, so what the Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 does. As written, it is designed for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and if Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 to a Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game campaign it really is going to upset the proverbial apple cart, changing the campaign’s direction and even its genre with the addition of technology as well as the weirdness of the Stratosfiends. So in some ways, Terror of the Stratosfiend is more applicable for a Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic campaign which already has many of the elements found in Terror of the Stratosfiend #1. Another issue is that Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 does not offer options for playing the Humans who came in the wake of ‘The Drop’. Hopefully Terror of the Stratosfiend #2 will cover these as well as developing more of the post-Drop world…

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is weird and wacky and fantastic! Its contents will radically change the nature of a campaign world, but how far will have to wait for future issues.

[Fanzine Focus XVIII] Gamma Zine #1

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

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

Gamma Zine carries the subtitle, ‘A Fanzine supporting early post-apocalyptic, science-fantasy RPGs – specifically First Edition Gamma World by TSR.’ This then, is a fanzine dedicated to the very first post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, Gamma World, First Edition, published by TSR, Inc. in 1978. Gamma Zine #1 was published in April, 2019, following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of Zine Quest 1 . Published by ThrowiGames!, it comes as a black and white booklet, packed with content, including adventures, equipment, monsters, and more.

The more begins with a short interview with James M. Ward, the designer of both Gamma World and its predecessor, Metamorphosis Alpha. Just a page long it gives a little history and background to the game, hopefully the author will return to ask the designer more questions. Then it is on to the gaming content, beginning with ‘New Horrors from the Wasteland’, four new creatures and species to add to your post-apocalyptic setting. They include the Spindling, a cross between a snake and a spider which scurries and bites; the Unipede, a slug-like thing with a tooth horn which is capable piercing the hard rock and metal it likes to consume—including the player characters’ equipment and armour, so akin to the Rust Monster then; and the Shuggnagarath is a bat-winged tentacled thing which flies the across the Wasteland in search of skulls to crack open and brain matter to feed upon. Lastly, the Moleman is a new intelligent species, which hoards and uses the ancient technologies it scavenges from burrowing into lost bunkers. So a perfect source of technological whatnots and gewgaws, as foes coming after the player characters’ best gear.

Gamma World is a game without character Classes. Gamma Zine #1 rectifies that with a ‘Class Option for First Edition Gamma World’. This is the Artificer, for which a character needs an Intelligence of 15, at least two beneficial mutations, such as Dual Brain and Molecular Understanding, which grants him a bonus to both find and understand technology. Although it states that members of the Class prefer to build their own technology, this is not explored in the write-up. Notably though, the Class does gain extra Experience Points for finding and identifying technology, but none for combat. This is followed by three new items in ‘Artifacts of the Ancients’, the Type-III E-Fist—powered brass knuckles, the Pulse Grenade, and the KnifE, a vibrodagger. All three are nicely detailed and come with decent illustrations.

‘Adventure #1 – MuTech Test Facility’ is the first of three adventures in Gamma Zine #1 which details a secret pre-war research base in the Appalachian hills. Designed for two to four characters, it is a chance for them to delve into some of the events leading up to the war. The facility is essentially a mini-dungeon, all robots and electrical traps, nicely detailed and ready to add to a campaign. 

‘Adventure #2 – The Hand’ is again dungeon-like, but makes use of the Molemen detailed earlier in the fanzine, so is stuffed with technology for the player characters to find. Designed for three to six player characters, it has a more organic feel than ‘Adventure #1 – MuTech Test Facility’. Not just because it is occupied by Molemen, but also because of its shape. All of its rooms and chambers are inside the concrete stone hand of a giant statue, which gives it a weirdly natural feel despite it being an artificial environment. The complex is also lived in and there are NPCs here which may attempt to interact with the player characters. This is an easier encounter to add to a game and much like a certain statue in Planet of the Apes serves to enforce the post-apocalyptic nature of the world the player characters are in. ‘Adventure #3 – Dark Knights’ is the scenario with the most background and so the easiest to tie into the background of the Gamma World post-apocalyptic future. Knights of Genetic Purity squads have been scouring the region in search of mutants to exterminate and one squad has reopened a coal mine near the village of Gallax. Designed for three to five characters, this is a small complex, but one occupied by an armed opponent. So this is much more of a combat adventure, but one supported by a stronger motive for the player characters to get involved in comparison to the previous two scenarios.

The other continues with ‘The Hunted, Chapter One’, a short piece of fiction which recounts a violent encounter between the protagonist and some motorcycle-riding bandits. There is a desperate tone to it as she scrabbles to defend herself with few resources to hand. It is nicely written and ends on a good cliffhanger, but the introduction could have been better handled. It is followed by a new set of ‘Artifact Use (Solution) Flowcharts’,  seven simplified flow charts to help speed up play when a player character has to items to work out what they are and what they do. This includes items of varying complexity and types of doors. These are quick and easy and work well with the earlier Artificer ‘Class Option for First Edition Gamma World’.

Physically, Gamma Zine #1 is neat and tidy. It is not only decently written, but illustrated with good art throughout and each of the scenarios is accompanied by excellent maps.


As support for Gamma World, First Edition, there is a lot to like about Gamma Zine #1 and fans of the old roleplaying will certainly appreciate the new content. For newer post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, the content in Gamma Zine #1 is perhaps drier in tone, certainly later editions of Gamma World or its thematic descendant, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. This does not mean that it cannot be used with those roleplaying games—in fact, it would be very easy to add to them—but the Game Master should be aware that it is not quite as weird or as wacky. Overall, Gamma Zine #1 is both a good first issue and a good fanzine—hopefully, Gamma Zine #2 will be as good.

[Fanzine Focus XVIII] Crawl! #2

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

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

Published by Straycouches Press, Crawl! is one such fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Since Crawl! No. 1 was published in March, 2012 has not only provided ongoing support for the roleplaying game, but also been kept in print by Goodman Games. Now because of online printing sources like Lulu.com, it is no longer as difficult to keep fanzines from going out of print, so it is not that much of a surprise that issues of Crawl! remain in print. It is though, pleasing to see a publisher like Goodman Games support fan efforts like this fanzine by keeping them in print and selling them directly.

Where Crawl! No. 1 was a mixed bag, Crawl! #2 is surprisingly focused, as announced by the issue’s subtitle—‘The Loot Issue!’. Published in June, 2012, what the issue does is explore the role of treasure in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, highlighting the fact that treasure is a relative rarity in comparison to Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones—its fantasy world lacks the piles of gold and hoards of magical items and gewgaws found in other fantasy roleplaying games. In the first article, ‘Loot!’ the editor builds a means of determining treasure types from one simple table—the ‘Random Loot by Monster Type’ table. This breaks down the treasure finds by monster type, so ‘Humanoids with Weapons’, ‘Dragons’, ‘Demons’, Un-dead’, and ‘Other Monsters’. What a character finds—the roll modified by his Luck bonus—actually does not vary all that wildly, so handfuls of coins, a few gems, and so on, though a character is more likely to find cursed items with the Un-dead. Further tables expand upon the one table, one in particular adding ‘Items of Note’. These are not necessarily magical, but whether charms, bottles, scrolls, books, and the like, they are valuable, at least to someone. Magical items can be found, but they are rare—really rare in comparison to Dungeons & Dragons—and they are anything other then generic. So no mere +1 swords…

Instead, the fanzine offers ‘Lucky Items’. These are items which not only have a Luck bonus or a ‘magical’ effect, they also have a story. They can also be created during a play, such as when a warrior uses a weapon for the first time and it inflicts a critical wound or a wizard carves a staff from a branch of tree that the wizard witnessed being struck by lightning. Now the Luck bonus or ‘magical’ effect may not always work and it can degrade and even be lost over time, but idea is that over time, instead of a player character discovering yet another shield +2 or Dagger +1, he will come to favour certain weapons or items of equipment, and perhaps they might grow with him as the story and legend of his doings are told, becoming Lucky, and ultimately, Legendary as looked at in ‘Legendary Items’. (Though this does not stop him from discovering the Dagger +1.)

All together, these three articles form a trilogy, one that nicely builds upon its subject matter without the reader necessarily noticing until the end. Although the mechanics for Lucky items are slightly more complex than that might be found in standard Dungeons & Dragons, they make such items fickle—rather than unreliable—and thus more fun. Overall, this trilogy is good alternative to the rules given for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, adding depth, but also highlighting the differences between it and Dungeons & Dragons. 

This difference is further highlighted in the fourth article. ‘OSR Conversions: Treasure!’ As this series of articles details, there is a great deal of difference between how Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Old School Renaissance handles treasure. This details how the Judge can take an adventure for another retroclone and adapt its treasure element to Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So this extends the utility of the previous trilogy in enabling a Judge to run more scenarios without losing the flavour of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Jon Marr of purplesorcerer.com provides the first of several articles by other authors in the second issue of the fanzine. This is ‘Honest Orkoff!’, a personality from his Sunken Cities campaign, a generally trustworthy merchant of Mustertown who if he is not interested in making a purchase from you, then can put you in touch with someone who will be interested. Just three are described in a lovely line of patter from the merchant, each really being a little vignette or encounter that the Judge can develop and bring into her game. Colin Chapman offers new rules for both shields and helmets with ‘Shattered Shields’ and ‘Helmet Law!’. The former suggests that shields can be shattered in a single blow in order to offset damage that might otherwise greatly injure a character, whilst the latter details how a helmet can do the same, but if used in that fashion there might be unintended consequences (as detailed on the accompanying table). Much of this will be familiar from any number of retroclones from the past few years or so, but to be fair, these rules would have been nice additions for a more brutal style of game in 2012 and they still are in 2020.

Lastly, Colin Chapman takes the reader shopping. In ‘Helmets & New Shields’, he adds new rules and new types of armour, such as bucklers which can be used with ranged weapons and as weapons and the check penalty to all actions whilst wearing various types of helmets. In ‘Killin’ Time!’ he lists several new weapons, such as Bullwhip and Maul, and the rules for using them, along with notes and suggestions as to which Classes from the  Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game can use them. ‘Be Prepared!’ covers food and lodging, tools, miscellaneous items, and more—even prosthetic items!

Physically, Crawl! #2 is surprising. The layout is clean and tidy, uncluttered and easy to read. The artwork is good too. Overall and though it is a fanzine, there is a feel of professionalism in terms of how Crawl! #2 is presented. If Crawl! No. 1 was a good first issue, then Crawl! #2 is better. The presentation is cleaner, tidier, and easier to read, making the content more accessible. That content itself is useful, helping to develop a Judge’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game campaign in terms of how she handles treasure and how treasure can be made important to the player characters, and then making combat more bruising and battering with the rules for shields and helmets.