Bumps in the Night - A Monster of the Week Review

Evil Hat Games

Monster of the Week

Published by Evil Hat Productions (Revised Edition 2015)

Written by Michael Sands

Licensed roleplaying games are bigger than ever, with even confined, main character-driven settings like Cowyboy Bebop and Blade Runner getting official systems. Avatar: Legends, based on the beloved, element-bending, had a record-breaking 10 million dollar Kickstarter.

But that doesn't mean every licensed RPG is a winner - the negative response to the recent Power Rangers shows us the limits of this trend. And even the best ones still leave game masters and players acting out adventures that often feel like a sideshow to the property's main story. I've played, enjoyed, and written plenty about licensed games but that's something always in the back of my mind. So what if you want to capture the atmosphere of a specific story but let the players take more of a role in the world?

That's where games like Monster of the Week come in. The book is very open about its influences,  actively promoting itself as being in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Files, Supernatural, and those shows' creature-killing ilk. Using Powered by the Apocalypse for the mechanics, Monster of the Week shows the benefits of emulating an entire genre rather than a specific setting.

Evil Hat Games

The book puts the emphasis on getting right into play, broken up into digestible sections tailored to how quickly the table wants to get into a game. Even then, some more involved info is given for long term campaigns. Keepers are provided a wide range of support, like example monsters, mechanics for running story arcs, and advice on crafting a satisfying mystery. 

Some of this advice isn't specific to Monster of the Week but that's what makes it effective direction and plays to the overall ethos of PBtA - you're not playing

Tall Tales - A Vaesen Review

Free League

Vaesen: Nordic Horror Roleplaying

Published by Free League Publishing

Lead Writer: Nils Hintze

Game Dircector: Nils Karlén

Illustrations and Original Concept: Johan Egerkrans

Swedish roleplaying game publisher Free League Publishing has left a lasting mark in an industry that's never been more crowded. Their output has been characterized by concise rulesets, outstanding production values, and atmosphere so strong it verges on being oppressive. That's perhaps best encapsulated by their indie darling MÖRK BORG, the ultra-dark fantasy apocalypse experience presented like an art zine.

Vaesen: Nordic Horror Roleplaying fits right in with Free League's repertoire. The players are Thursday's Children, those possessing the Sight that reveals the magical creatures surrounding them. Agitated by a rapidly industrializing and conflict riven 19th century Northern Europe, you oppose these "Vaesen" as members of the Society.

But the stories are true, with giants, fairies, and ash tree wives are as rugged as they are elusive. The methods of banishing them are arcane and obscure, and oftentimes the humans who lured them out might be just as responsible for the horror. 

Vaesen offers a familiar but respectably novel take on the monster centric side of horror RPGs, where Call of Cthulhu looms almost as large as its Elder Gods. The players are outgunned and riven by personal demons: when they join the Society, the headquarters is abandoned and its sole surviving member is in an asylum.

Projection - A Vampire the Masquerade: The Hunters Hunted Review

White Wolf

Vampire the Masquerade: The Hunters Hunted

White Wolf 1992

Written by Bill Bridges

Developed by Andrew Greenberg, Rob Hatch, and Sam Chupp

90s RPG phenomenon Vampire the Masquerade provided the means to play out the shadowy politicking and tragic tales of the undead. The 1992 supplement The Hunters Hunted followed up with options for the few humans seeking to destroy the vampires hiding in plain sight. This was curtly established with the book's frontspiece, depicting a hand using a disposable lighters to torch a rose, an allusion to Vampire's iconic cover art.

Hunters Hunted leans into the idea that the Kindred really are running the World of Darkness and actively making it worse. Even so, the book doesn't automatically give its errant humans the moral high ground. From the get go its established that even the best established hunters are working on incomplete information, filling in the gaps with their own biases. The motives presented are selfish to varying degrees, either driven by a personal grudge or a transparent desire for power. 

Hunters are unlikely to ever get close to the truly influential vampires, cutting down plenty of the more "human" ones without ever realizing they might even be serving the truly monstrous rulers of the night.

An interesting parallel is formed, where vampires themselves are undead creatures who thrive off of human society but the humans pursuing them become murderous pariahs during their quests. That dynamic is where Hunters Hunted excels, giving a better swipe at "who's the real monster" than most similar works.

All Walks of Life

Falling a dozen pages short of a hundred, The Hunters Hunted mainly offers new perspectives and story advice on running this kind of Vampire chronicle, with the mechanical side of things coming second. Which is to say, nothing new for White Wolf. 

White Wolf

The first chapter is an extended prose intro, offering one look into the world of vampire hunters, along with all the misconceptions and contradictions it entails.

Never Split the Party? Going Against Conventional Wisdom

The Parting of Lot and Abraham

"Never split the party!" A phrase bandied about so much that it now surrounds us in the form of algorithmically generated t-shirts and Facebook memes. It's good advice for roleplaying game neophytes. For a game master, running an RPG group is enough work as is and splitting the players up won't make thing easier.

I agree novice GMs should avoid splitting the party when possible. But what about those of us with a few more campaigns under our belts? Or a few dozen more? There are some stories you can only tell by letting the player characters walk their own paths, at least for a while.

I often see "Never split the party" framed solely in terms of combat. I suspect that has to do with Dungeons & Dragons dominating the medium. But that's not to say its exclusive to RPG's very own 800 pound gorilla. A recurring issue with Shadowrun is the "Pizza Problem," some variation of the idea that while Decker characters cavort in cyberspace,

Convergence - A Warhammer Fantasy Role Play: A Rough Night at the Three Feathers Review

 

Cubicle 7

The tavern is such a staple of fantasy roleplaying games that starting a campaign in one is a cliche at this point. But well before that introduction outstayed its welcome, published material for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition featured inns and taverns prominently. It makes sense, considering WFRP has always been standard fantasy at its core, though the gothic and British punk influences - with a healthy dose of dark humor - distinguished it immediately.

A Rought Night at the Three Feathers covers all those bases, a Graeme Davis penned, seven page adventure published in White Dwarf issue 94 and later reprinted in Apocrypha Now and The Restless Dead. Broadly there are some similarities to Jim Bambra's Night of Blood, even down to the naming conventions. Sharing the same basic premise, the module saw the adventurers retiring for the night only to get far more than they bargained for.

Cubicle 7

Night of Blood might have been relatively complex for its short length but A Rough Night at the Three Feathers is far more experimental, by Davis' own description. Though no mutants are on the characters' trail this time, the adventurers end up embroiled in a murder mystery, a noble's entourage, another visitor's extramarital affair, and of course, a Chaos cult.

Now where did my coin pouch go...

The scenario sports seven plotlines unfolding over the course of a single night, most with multiple personalities involved. A few can play out fully devoid of player involvement or the motives are left unknown to the players. 

Experimental is certainly the word for Rough Night, which more than lives up to its name with such a short page count and time frame. On its face it seems daunting to run. Admittedly I had to read it over four or five times before running it myself.

Despite what one might think, the short length is why this scenario works at all. Seven plotlines is a lot to keep track of, in part because they intersect so much. Rough Night even recommends dropping a few if needed. A longer page count would require too much back and forth,

Do RPGs need intro prose?

It's something you don't really question after you handle enough roleplaying game books. In many RPG publications, preceding the often clunky "What is a Roleplaying Game?" section, you're greeted with a few pages of prose fiction. Sometimes it's a single page, sometimes it drags on interminably. The idea is obvious enough: giving players a taste of the game, its setting, its tone, and the kinds of stories it "should" tell.

But is that opening barrage of prose fiction really necessary? Is it even counterintuitive?

For a start, it's hard to generalize. The Call of Cthulhu 6th edition core book reprints the titular H.P. Lovecraft story before delving into mechanics for the author's stable of otherworldly creatures and how players interact with them.

Floor It - A Star Wars: Starships and Speeders Review

 

Edge/Lucasfilm

Released two months into 2020, the compilation book Starships and Speeders is currently the last supplement published for Fantasy Flight Games' Star Wars roleplaying game system, which includes Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion. It's at least the last one FFG will publish, as Edge Studios now has the license, while fans await further reprints and hold out hope for new books.

In the mean time, we're left with Starships and Speeders. It's more or less what's on the tin: a collection of vehicle profiles for Game Masters to deploy and players to purchase in their games. For the most part, it collects existing stat blocks, though a few new additions have been made, mainly vehicles that showed up in Solo. 

It's an exhaustive selection, including nearly every ship from FFG's X-Wing wargame and a few new ones, like a luxury cruise liner. It's a decent mix of military and civilian vehicles, along with the vessels used by less savory elements. I would have liked some more Legends additions but I understand the further we get into the Disney era, the less likely that is. Starships and Speeders does leave a few nods here and there, like a reference to the Droids cartoon in the A-Wing background.

Edge Studios/Lucasfilm

Starships and Speeders isn't entirely a copy/paste job though, as iconic ships are given unique profiles. For example, there's the YT-1300 entry and then one specifically for the Millennium Falcon.

Grimdark Reloaded - A Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition Review

 

Cubicle 7

Developed by Green Ronin Publishing and published in 2005 by the short lived Black Industries, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition revived a grimdark classic. As far as second editions go, it's hard to beat. More than a simple clean up, the designers incorporated 19 years worth of improvements while making a game that was still recognizably WFRP. 

It's a familiar story, with humble adventurers, including the likes of rat catchers, woodsmen, and scribes, facing off against the horrors of a fantasy world threatened by the Dark Gods of Chaos. But even vicious adversaries like Orcs, Goblins, ratmen, daemons, and worse, often pale in comparison to plain old human cruelty and injustice.

Like its predecessor, WFRP 2E combines straightforward rules with a heavy atmosphere, defined by hard fought victories and often short lived characters.

Even with a successful 4th edition, WFRP 2E is still the go-to for those looking to explore the Old World. Personally, I don't think it's the automatic improvement over 1E many see it as. But I can't deny it's a strong game that kept the light burning for this grim world of perilous adventure.

All Too Familiar

It's easy to see 2E as mostly being a streamlined update of the original system. The core rulebook is only around 250 pages, compared to 1E's mighty tome, but both books offer a comparable amount of content. Most importantly, the career system is almost entirely intact and still takes up a big chunk of the page count.

A huge part of 1E's appeal was that the players were taking control of normal people in an unusual world. Even if Warhammer's fantasy tropes were very familiar, drawn from the pillars of the genre and real world history, WFRP stood out by exploring it with more relatable, mundane characters. 

Cubicle 7

Once again, players have to randomly generate their career from a list of dozens. The roster is largely the same, though more species specific options have been added for Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling players. A few have been modified or removed entirely. Bawd and labourer are missing in action, though I'm hardly sad to see the back of the tasteless "Slave Trader" advanced career. Beggar has been recast as the more scavenger like "Bone Picker." Torturer has been laughably sanitized into "Interrogator," without any changes to the actual career.

Through hard work, quick thinking, and dumb luck, players can see their adventurers end up as the likes of knights, Slayers, and other influential figures.

Halloween Tips for Running a Horror RPG

 

 

Nuremberg Chronicle

A notion I see thrown around a lot is that roleplaying games just can't be scary. I used to think that myself. The logic is similar to the one applied to Co-op video games: it's too hard to be scared when you're goofing off with your friends. In hindsight, I think that spoke more to the games I was running and the systems I was playing.

Not only are there a host of RPG systems designed with horror specifically in mind, most notably Call of Cthulhu, I've found that this medium is in a unique position to embrace horror. After all, no other art form gives the audience the level of agency a roleplaying game does. Even video games are constrained by code and technical limitations, whereas the only limits of an RPG are those imposed by the table.

And that can allow for a damn scary story.

The Right Tools for the Job

Contrary to what you might expect, I don't think you necessarily need a horror system to run a good horror game. It certainly helps and that's where you should look first. But other systems can be used to bring the genre to your table, if you keep in mind what makes dedicated horror rulesets tick. My most successful horror game (which managed to give one of my players nightmares) was run in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion of all things. 

 

Drawing from the undmade Yuuzhan Vong Clone Wars episode and an enduring obsession with The X-Files, I had two Rebel PCs uncover an apparent conspiracy between the Rebel Alliance and an otherworldly, truly alien threat.

Or maybe it was all a plot by Imperial Intelligence to trick them into revealing military secrets.

Dark Times - A Star Wars: Collapse of the Republic Review

 

Fantasy Flight Games/Lucasfilm

Star Wars: Collapse of the Republic

Fantasy Flight Games

Developed by Tim Cox with John Dunn, Lisa Farrel, Sterling Hershey, Keith Kappel, Monte Lin, and Jason Marker

Along with the three "Essential Collection" books, Collapse of the Republic was Fantasy Flight Games parting contribution to their Star Wars roleplaying game line. Intended as a companion to their previous Clone Wars sourcebook Rise of the Separatists, this book covers the latter half of the conflict as well as some of its stranger corners. The team does an excellent job justifying the decision to split the content into two separate books. Rise gives players what they need for adventure serial influenced heroics while Collapse offers a chance to live out the darkest moments of Star Wars history.

Player characters will need every advantage to survive these bleak, final days of the Old Republic, assuming they're willing to pay the toll taken to their health, finances, and very soul.

New Faces of War

While technically a separate supplement from the first Clone Wars book, Collapse still works best as a companion to it. Whereas Rise covers all the basic careers, gear, and NPCs, Collapse takes advantage of that previous work to introduce more unique and "veteran" options. 

2 new Jedi careers are offered, both rooted in seniority and experience; the very much Yoda influenced Master tree and the more martial General path, with talents that flirt with the Dark Side. The talent "Short Path to Power" is also introduced to resolve an oversight in Rise where players were locked out of building Jedi Knight's at character creation due to the Force Rank 2 restriction.

The focus on more experienced characters is also evident in the three new Clone careers: Veteran, ARC Trooper, and Clone Commander. To top it all off, Collapse introduces "Signature" abilities for Jedi and Clones.

Fantasy Flight Games/Lucasfilm

This book also provides more universal specializations, depicting some fan favorite and very specific roles. Mandalorians finally get a proper statline with Death Watch Warrior, sporting talents that make jetpack characters even more imposing but some emphasis on the more social side of the Mando'ade as well.

Which is to say, talents to enhance Coercion.

Nightsisters also emerge from the shadows, offering one of the more genuinely unique and mystical force user talent trees. The first (and only) true Separatist specialization arrives with Separatist Commander, easing the pass for some less explored perspectives. 

Collapse does run into a lot of very "similar" careers. You can make a thematic argument for the clone specializations being so similar but it's still notable how close

Bending the Rules - An Avatar Legends: The RPG Quickstart Review

 

Magpie Games

Avatar Legends: The RPG Quickstart

Designed by Brendan Conway, James Mendez Hodes, Marissa Kelly, Mark Diaz Truman, Miguel Ángel Espinoza, Sharang Biswas, Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, Yeonsoo Julian Kim, Daniel Kwan, and Sen-Foong Lim 

Published by Magpie Games 

When it comes to licensed RPGs, there's been a gaping, Avatar the Last Airbender shaped hole. The hit animated TV show follows Aang, the titular Avatar and reincarnating master of four elements, and his journey to bring peace to a world at war. The spectacle of element bending, along with the episodic format and strong character development, makes it ripe for a tabletop adaptation. 

Thankfully the wait will soon be over, because Magpie Games has announced Avatar Legends: The RPG. The company that published the critically acclaimed MASKS and Bluebeard's Bride, they recently released the free quickstart rules as a preview. It's a strong offering and shows a promising future for the game.

Like previous Magpie Games' publications, it uses the divisive Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset. I haven't had experience with it until now, but from what I've seen, many people refuse to play anything but and there's another vocal subset that want nothing to do with it.

Magpie Games

Going off of Avatar Legends, it's very much a storytelling driven approach to RPGs, and the experience is dependent on the group running it. There's not much to keep track of but it does take some getting used to how everything fits together.

Resolution is done with 2d6, with the relevant modifiers from your four Stats and other conditional factors. The Stats are in line with how we see the characters of Avatar solve their problems, consisting of Creativity, Focus, Harmony, and Passion. Rolling 1 to 6 is a failure, 7 to 9 is a "soft" hit, and 10+ is a full hit; a success and then some.

The game rarely gets more complicated than that, though there are two very interesting aspects that stick out to me. A character's negative emotional state is represented mechanically with one of five Conditions, such as Angry and Foolish. These make certain actions more difficult and require the player to act on those emotions to clear it. Rather appropriately for Avatar, the injury system also uses Conditions.

In combat, players aim to inflict Conditions without getting countered. Once a character ticks all five boxes, they're out of action. It fits the sort of stories told in this setting very well. Defeating a foe is just as much about emotionally overwhelming them as physically besting them.

In line with that, the core mechanic of the game is Balance. Players have two conflicting Principles. When they act towards a given Principle, it moves towards that and away from the other. Going too far on either end causes players to "lose Balance" and flee from a situation. Besides their own actions, players and NPCs alike can make rolls to tip another character's balance. Characters that manage to keep both their Principles in check can make unique actions after Advancing.

It's a brilliant mechanic, one that really captures not just the surface level aspects of Avatar but also its deeper themes.

The game as a whole does a good job with that, at least going off this preview. Magpie opting against dedicated rules for bending shows how they're approaching this. It's a galling prospect to make an Avatar game without its namesake abilities. In game, Bending is left largely cosmetic, though in such a light system being able to manipulate earth, air, wind, or fire certainly has some creative applications.

Magpie Games

The lack of bending mechanics has already caused a lot of noise in RPG circles and Magpie felt the need to add a sidebar rationalizing the decision. Though I was taken aback at first, I ultimately agree with the decision after actually playing the game. 

The spectacle of bending is what drew most of us into Avatar but its philosophical and narrative foundation is what really made the show work. Having a D&D or Pathfinder spell style system bending would have frankly been miserable and they were right to put their efforts elsewhere.

Character Creation does seems short in options but rich in meaningful choices. Characters have a choice of six "Playbooks," blocks of stats and unique techniques that reflect each of the main Avatar cast's character archetypes. It's a good way to guide player's towards the kind of stories that make the show so memorable. While I think the way personality ties into each playstyle is interesting, I do wonder if it would box in how players can approach their characters.

Luckily, players have to come up with personal histories, specific goals, and connections with other player characters. This helps avoid the limitations that might come from the archetypical approach by ensuring every playbook has a different narrative approach, even if the broad traits and mechanics are set.

Players do have considerable agency in Avatar: Legends, despite certain limitations in character creations. Non-combat and combat moves are a small roster described in broad terms, once again with the main focus of adding or removing Conditions and altering Balance. The system encourages players and GMs to frame their rolls as developments in the narrative, rather than just actions or skill checks.

Avatar: Legends also gives players a lot of say in the actual premise of a campaign. The players and GM discuss the scope, era, focus, and even inciting incident of the campaign before it begins. It's a very communal effort and the game master section positions more as a player with unique responsibilities than some kind of overlord.

Magpie Games

Half the quickstart rules page count is taken up by the pre-written adventure "The Forbidden Scroll." The players are captured on the eve of Fire Lord Ozai's coronation but after being released by a defector, they must now escape the city before they are caught once more. It's a straightforward scenario with a range of options, many tailored to the pregenerated characters' backgrounds. It can be as quick or as drawn out as the table wants it to be, with a surprising amount of replayability.

Overall, it's a versatile little story with a few unique mechanics, like the clock tracking the festival events and the guards progress. If the rest of Magpie's Avatar output is on par with this, it's a very good sign.

The presentation of the quickstart rules is decent enough, though it's rife with misspellings. The rules, particularly Combat, are framed in a way that makes them seem more complicated than they actually are. Art wise, there's some great sheets for the actual game portions but the art consists of what looks like recycled promotional assets. And not very good ones at that.

There's still plenty left to explore in the final release, namely a proper NPC section, but Avatar Legends is a surprisingly complete publication, with an easy to learn system that authentically captures the setting.

Hellish Harvest - A Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Grapes of Wrath Review

 

 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Grapes of Wrath

By Carl Sargent with Derrick Norton 

Published by Games Workshop

Published in White Dwarf issue 98, Grapes of Wrath was intended to serve as "a prelude to The Power Behind the Throne and continuing The Enemy Within Campaign." However, this 18 page Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventure could easily be played independently or as a part of your own campaign, as the writer is quick to point out.

Set in the small but prosperous village of Pritzstock, a few miles away from the city of Middenheim, the adventurers discover that the villagers are being plagued by flying skulls on the eve of their annual grape harvest. Besides the physical danger posed by the skulls, the loss of the town's sole source of income is perhaps an even greater threat. The adventurers find themselves embroiled in the mystery of the skulls, which proves to be even more complicated than it first appears.

Grapes of Wrath follows the standard format for WFRP 1st edition adventures. The players are dropped into a colorful setting with a cast of dynamic characters, all of whom have their own agendas. A sort of sandbox approach is taken. certain events will happen no matter what, though ultimately the resolution comes down to how the players approach the situation. It even opens with a carriage crash, one of the most recognizable 1E hallmarks.

Sticking to the format is hardly a bad thing, considering this is WFRP 1E. Both the players and game masters are given plenty to play with, as most events can unfold a number of different ways. Even so, there's still a looming threat to keep players on track. 

In this case, it's dealing with the skulls before the harvest spoils and Pritzstock is ruined financially. A more practical and believable motive than a lot of fantasy plots.

Games Workshop

There's also an interesting cast of characters. Pritzstock's inhabitants prove to be stuck up and often unhelpful. The PCs main contact is the boisterous Bretonnian Henri-Philipe Rocheteau, mayor of Pritzstock, who struggles to control the situation as well as his personal life, all of which is harmed by his domineering personality.

There's plenty of ways for the player characters to get in trouble, a few of them far from the main plot. In one popular fantasy trope that doesn't make it into many RPGs, player characters can end up in a duel with the local noble if his love interest gets too involved with any of them.

Collector First Impressions

Ideal Hands Games

 Collector

Ideal Hands Games

By Greg Farrell, Joe N Brown, and Danny Kostianos

Special thanks for the advance copy

 

Little is certain in the shadowy Realm, except that death is fast approaching. When the time comes, those who want a tolerable afterlife must pay 1500 gold coins to the goddess Ubato. Anyone who falls short is trapped in limbo, forced to watch others make a journey forbidden to them. With a world teetering on the brink and a life days away from ending, the Roller sets out to pay the toll the only way they know how. Dice games.

They'll roll off against a range of opponents, each one stranger and more disturbing than the last. Greatest of perhaps all adversaries is their collector, who lent them money to get the Roller back on their feet and now intend to collect. The game itself is simple enough but when you lose it all, that includes your immortal soul. You can cash out of a match with your winnings in tow but the call of the game means you'll be back eventually.

Collector is a micro-RPG by Ideal Hands Games, currently on Kickstarter. Clocking in at just under 30 pages, it's designed for one player and one game master. There's also rules for a solo play and multi-roller mode, though the game works best with two souls dueling with dice for a peaceful repose. It's an agile game, with a strong central idea and a stronger central mechanic. 

Ideal Hands Games

There isn't a huge amount beyond that but Collector covers all the ground it wants to. Collector is a simple enough game, one that captures a lot of the current zeitgeist in dark speculative RPGs but with a novel twist. There's a few issues in presentation I do hope get worked out by its proper release.

Narratively and mechanically, the lure of the dice is all that's left in Collector. Beyond the apocalypse unfolding in the background, the Player character, or roller, knows they're soon to die. There are plenty of apocalyptic RPGs and such fatalistic affairs are especially popular right now. But I appreciate how Collector bucks the mold a bit in that players have accepted their impending death, all that's left now is to make preparations for their passing. 

It adds a novel twist to the well populated genre of superdark fantasy, a compelling hook that helps set up the dice game mechanics. The setting itself has some personality, especially through the  strange characters inhabiting the various random charts and their secretive gang affiliations.

Down by the River - A Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Death on the Reik Review

Cubicle 7

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Death on the Reik 

Cubicle 7

Developed by Phil Gallagher, Jim Bambra, and Graeme Davis

Playing through Death on the Reik, it's easy to see how The Enemy Within made a name for itself. The first and second books of this seminal Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign were fun, gothic romps but this third installment easily elevates the entire publication line to legendary status. After saving Bogenhafen - or perhaps failing to do so - the adventurers find themselves traveling the largest river of the Empire in search of the sorceress Etelka Herzen. It takes them to some of the most blighted, dark corners of the Old World, until their quest to defeat Chaos leads them to the nightmarish Castle Wittgenstein.

It may very well be the greatest adventure module ever published. At 127 pages it feels like an entire multi-book campaign shoved into a single volume with everything it covers. That came at a price, as Death on the Reik might very well be one of the most poorly edited RPG publications I've picked up. But that's more than worth it, as you get everything you could want from an adventure module: strong atmosphere, an engaging plot, an interesting cast, and memorable locales.

Troubled Waters

With so many plot threads and destinations, it's up to the adventurers' boat to hold Death on the Reik together. Both literally and figuratively. Unsurprisingly, the weakest part of the campaign doesn't involve the boat. The story opens with a messy intro, several vignettes designed to get the premade characters into their Advanced Careers. It takes some writing around if you didn't make your players use the pregens.

Cubicle 7

Once the players find their ship, left adrift on the River Reik after mutants killed the crew, the campaign changes dramatically. As often remarked by fans, the boat is one of the most genius plot devices in any published adventure. The original printing contained a separate booklet, River Life in the Empire, providing a wide range of rules and encounters for boat travel, including an optional Nosferatu inspired sub plot. It's useful beyond the adventure, adding a new dimension to WFRP campaigns and the option to become intrepid, water borne traders.

But what really makes the boat work is how useful it is for guiding the player's where they need to go. All of the campaign's major locales are accessible by river, though some sub-exploration is needed. It meshes perfectly with the race against time component of the first half of Death on the Reik, as the players hope to stop Etelka's dastardly cult plot after previously witnessing her indirect handiwork.

It also gives the campaign an adventurous, open feel that few modules can manage. Players aren't boxed in, instead given an authentic feel of exploration countless published adventures have tried and failed to emulate.

Tall Tales - A Vampire: the Masquerade: The Storytellers Handbook Review

White Wolf

 The Storytellers Handbook

White Wolf Game Studio

Designed by Andrew Greenberg, Graeme Davis, Dustin Browder, Dan Greenberg, Steve Crow, Frank Frey, Danny Landers, Rob Hatch, Mark Rein Hagen, Stewart Wieck, Sam Chupp, and Travis Williams

The 90s mainstay roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade turns 30 this year. In that time the game and its designers did much to push the medium forward, both in terms of representation and popularizing a more narrative driven focus. Admittedly in recent years, Vampire has become something of a wilted rose and a particularly thorny one at that.

Even so, one thing hasn't changed  over the decades. Would-be players and storytellers look to the heavens and ask "Well, how do you actually run a Vampire: the Masquerade campaign?" Historically, the books have done an excellent job establishing a rich setting of elaborate political systems and shifting mythologies, capped off by a millennia long struggle between individual vampires and the factions they represent.

Unfortunately, there's only so many pages in a rulebook and so it's often been vague how to bring any of that to the table, at least in a way players can properly engage with. Game masters, or in White Wolf's preferred terminology Storytellers, were largely left to figure that out on their own.

Published at the tailed of Vampire's first edition, The Storytellers Handbook came to the rescue. Released in 1992, this 151 page book intended to show Storytellers not only how to improve their Vampire campaign but more broadly how to run RPGs as fleshed out stories rather than scaled up wargames.

The Handbook is just shy of three decades old, so the book was obviously meant for a very different version of Vampire. Not everything has stood the test of time (or was very good to begin with) but there's some sound advice for storytellers of all stripes.

Back to Basics

The first half of The Storytellers Handbook is almost exclusively narrative in focus. It alternates between being broad and specific, sometimes on the same page. Sure, it teaches storytellers how to use the elaborate system of favors that holds the Camarilla together and how to handle quests for Golconda. But that's weighed with more fundamental advice, on how to give a story a real narrative arc, balance the tone, and the like.

It also gives advice for different styles of play, settings, and genres. One of the major takeaways from The Storytellers Handbook is that there isn't a single way to tell a story and you should approach Vampire with the same mindset. It encourages you to keep your vision broad and opt for the different and unexpected. Vampire was already a major departure from the endlessly-plodding-through-dungeons style of gaming. But the designers of this book didn't want to replace one rigid paradigm with a different but equally limited one.

White Wolf

That turns out to be The Storytellers Handbook's answer on running the perfect Vampire campaign. It doesn't really exist, so here's some ideas, and do as thou wilt.

Beyond advice specific to Vampire's setting, there's a good deal of more general tips. Namely on how to adapt the art of storytelling to the challenging medium of roleplaying games. There isn't another art form where the audience has such a strong say over the story and The Storytellers Handbook takes that into account.

Like a lot of early White Wolf content, there's a deliberate effort to minimize the game aspect in favor of the story the table wants to tell. That approach isn't for everyone but it's how I run my RPGs and The Storytellers Handbook makes a good case for it. The key takeaway us your story belongs to the players too. Storytellers shouldn't be tyrants and you shouldn't be distributing "scripts," with players are goaded down a narrow corridor. The book advises to come up with possible routes rather than definitive paths, as players will always do something unexpected. That's something to be embraced not fought against or begrudgingly accepted.

This is very much an aid for playing Vampire but even so there's still sound pointers on GMing, regardless of the system you're using. I wouldn't say it's enough to justify the purchase for someone who never intends to play out the Camarilla and Anarchs' clashes at their table. But if you do get The Storytellers Handbook in preparation to run Vampire, you'll find its usefulness extends well beyond the World of Darkness.

Moving Parts

The Storytellers Handbook goes beyond just offering advice though. Worksheets for fleshing out settings and chronicles are provided, handy resources that remind me of Creative Writing classes I've taken. The short segment detailing Live-Action Roleplay is amusing, especially considering how what was given three pages here would later become an integral part of Vampire's identity.

The latter third of the book is mostly mechanical in focus. The adversary section provides profiles for villains in the players' campaigns, with advice on how to work them into the story as dynamic elements and not just Things To Kill. Creatures from the other game lines make appearances, though little is provided to work through the difference in power and even mythology between Vampires and their supernatural relatives. 

White Wolf

Bringing in werewolves has always been an established part of Vampire, as even this early on the looming threat of "Lupines" was a way to encourage vampires to stay citybound. Other creatures don't have the same justification though.

Even if World of Darkness ostensibly shares a setting between the different games, as far as I can tell mixing them together never ends particularly well. Still, it's nice to be provided the option. 

Vampire the Masquerade 1st edition isn't a particularly popular version of the game. I'd say that's due to clunky mechanics and some weirder setting elements. Barring a few stretches that doesn't really impact the usefulness of The Storytellers Handbook, but it does render the final chapter of the book, "The Ways," unhelpful. Admittedly even if I were to run a 1st edition game, I don't think I'd find it any more valuable. The slew of expanded rules for firearms and a somewhat random slew of mechanics for things like interrogation and hedge magic, just strikes me as unnecessary complexity. 

More interesting, if a bit uncomfortable, are expanded rules for how difficult it is to hunt people in cities, modified depending on whether the approach is more "romantic" or direct. It carries a lot of unfortunate implications but ones fundamental to the concept of vampires. Considering the Golconda section makes it clear players should have something to regret before seeking a cure for vampirism, it makes sense to have.

Into the Night

With the broad range of topics covered, I'm impressed that The Storytellers Handbook avoids feeling like a bunch of articles taken from the long dormant Vampire Magazine. There's a consistent throughline and as much as it encourages thinking outside the box, there's a consistent ethos. Enough is given to capture the "standard" Vampire tone while still reminding you not to get trapped in it.

White Wolf

 Less on the consistent side is the art, which like 1st edition itself had yet to properly solidify its identity. The gothic punk and 90s influences are still prominent but it's a wide range of styles, with some certainly better than others. There is a sense of humor that's distinctly absent from future Vampire art. Tony Harris of Starman fame stand out. Jennifer Yuh's 80s anime-esque art is a huge departure from any other official Vampire material I've seen. Admittedly I think that's a bit of a shame, as it captures the spirit of the game in a way I had never considered before, as while a bit more fantastic it does make being a Vampire seem strangely alluring.

There's a wide range of art and not all of it is particularly good but the range of styles fits the overall message of The Storytellers Handbook well enough- there's no wrong way to play Vampire.  

Straight from the Horse's Mouth

Before giving way to reference charts that annoyingly lack page numbers, The Storytellers Handbook ends with a series of essays from a number of the designers. Vampire creator Mark Rein Hagen's recollection of his young RPG attempts being foiled by uncooperative players was very relatable and contains insights that make it worth seeking out by any serious game master.

The quality varies from there. Rob Hatch's "The Sound of Music: Songs for a Gothic Punk World," unsurprisingly reveals that developer Vampire chronicles were played to lots of Joy Division. Travis Lamar Williams idea of having players simply translate themselves as characters strikes me as being all at once unimaginative, hard to take seriously, and very likely to end badly.

White Wolf

Future clanbook line editor Dan Greenberg's essay takes a very worrying turn as he details the kind of "evil" that should feature in your Vampire story. He argues that widely maligned dictators, namely Hitler and Sadam Hussein, are nothing compared to the broken promises and campaigns of terror waged by Western Superpowers. It's a point I'd agree with if Greenberg didn't frame it as an either/or choice - the former only exists because of the latter.

As ignorant as it might be, it does reveal quite a bit about the Vampire developers' intent for the game (as well as a few of the more objectionable parts of the clanbooks). Vampire: the Masquerade isn't about the obvious evils but rather the quieter ones accepted by most living in developed countries.

The Storytellers Handbook has its unfortunate moments. Settings outside of Europe and North America are given little support beyond being noted as "exotic" alternatives. But that's to be expected from White Wolf, who's attempts at being cutting edge often pushed the boundaries of taste. That's one thing this book won't help you with, navigating the more objectionable parts of Vampire.

Even so, I think this is a valuable book for the prospective Vampire: The Masquerade Storyteller. The Storytellers Handbook provide what's needed to build a more compelling narrative around your group's kindred. Though I'd advise exercise some good judgment along the way.

Are We the Baddies? - A Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy 1st Edition Review

 

 

Dark Heresy

Designed by Owen Barnes, Kate Flack, and Mike Mason

Cubicle 7

In the dark future of the 41st millennium, humanity has few defenders left. In fact, we've become our own worst enemy, as trillions live under the oppressive Imperium of Mankind. Zealotry and intolerance are abundant as humanity constantly fends off the countless enemies it has accumulated over the last ten millennia. Its founder, the God-Emperor of Mankind, clings to life through arcane technologies. Little more than a corpse, his psychic might barely holds his crumbling domain together and his priests claim he single-handedly prevents human extinction. But even this won't be enough in the face of dark gods and all consuming aliens more villainous than even the Imperium.

In Dark Heresy, players take on the roles of Acolytes, the foot soldiers and investigators of the infamous Inquisition. The Imperium's feared secret police, they root out threats to the "human soul" wherever they might lie, even within their own ranks. 

Inquisitors wield the authority to put entire planets to death but Acolytes end up doing most of the dirty work. They'll be thrown into the labyrinthine politics and dark secrets of the Calixis Sector, a particularly volatile patch of an empire in peril. 

With nothing to call on but their own wits and whatever firearms they can carry, Acolytes will have to root out and destroy various threats. Malicious cults, reality warping daemons, and ruthless aliens lurk around every corner. Acolytes stand to lose life, limb, sanity, and even their souls in the quest to buy humanity even another day.

Dark Heresy was the swan song of Black Industries, Games Workshop's short lived return to RPG publishing. Built off of the second edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the hybrid RPG-wargame Inquisitor, Dark Heresy was released in 2008, one month before Black Industries closed its doors. The Calixis Sector would live on at Fantasy Flight Games, who would publish the rest of the line and its future companions like Deathwatch and Rogue Trader. Even so, none of the future endeavors would ever quite match Dark Heresy. Though not without its flaws, it was a worthy inheritor of the WFRP mantle, a great way to live out the Dark Millennium, and a solid RPG in its own right. 

Regardless of how good of an adaptation it is, Dark Heresy has a powerful hook: hard bitten investigators struggling against horrors from beyond the stars and those within their own hearts.

A Less-Than-Heavenly-Host

Character creation is fairly in line with the prior WFRP books, with the consolidated stats of WFRP 2nd edition. Notably, a Perception stat has been added and the admittedly wargame-y Attacks has been removed. This game offers no species or races besides human: the humanity of the Dark Millennium is a superstitious, xenophobic lot and doubly so in the Inquisition. To compensate are the somewhat more flavorful "Homeworlds." Players get to pick from the dominant worlds in the galaxy spanning Imperium: lawless Feral Worlds, mega city wracked Hive Worlds, the starship bound Void Born, with the rest coming from the average Imperial World.

Cubicle 7

The Homeworlds are admittedly a little more robust than the standard, currently under fire approach to species in most RPGs. While there are stat modifiers for each option, they're a result of culture and environment rather than somehow inherent. The actual statistical differences are limited to 5%, with most of the differences coming from atmospheric talents. Hive Worlders are frightened by the open skies, Feral Worlders care little for advanced technologies, and even regular Imperial Worlders are emboldened by the assertion that "Of all the planets in the Imperium, theirs is, in fact, the most beloved of the Emperor."

The all important Fate points make their return as a limited pool of bonuses and rerolls that replenish each session. They also have their classic purpose, to be permanently spent to stave off death.

Die Young - A MÖRK BORG Review

 

Free League

 MÖRK BORG

Designed by Pelle Nilsson

Art by Johan Nohr

Published by Free League  

It can hardly get any worse for characters in Old School Renaissance darling MÖRK BORG. Humanity cowers in fear of the apocalyptic prophecies of two godly, twin-headed basilisks. The ever worsening state of this lightless, monster infested world makes it clear that doomsday really is just around the corner. Amid this unfolding nightmare, adventurers set out in the hopes of averting the end. Or just to plunder whatever's left to take. 

After all, the only kind of heroes in this world are the tragic, doomed kind.

MÖRK BORG, billed as a "pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG," reads like the quintessential OSR game. Light on rules, heavy on the presentation, and reveling in the disgusting, it lays the genre's formula bare and picks through its guts. Luckily, MÖRK BORG takes all the best parts of the OSR movement and avoids its follies, for something truly one of a kind.

Free League

The book itself falls somewhere between an art zine and traditional RPG rulebook. Scratchy, depraved pieces and gloomy photos are paired with historical art. The latter is applied inventively, building both atmosphere and a grim sense of humor. The book uses both black and white spreads and splashes of color to equally good use. Despite what you'd expect, a large chunk of the book employs garish yellow and neon pink. 

I haven't had the pleasure to look through a physical copy but even through the unflattering medium of a PDF copy, MÖRK BORG is possibly the most visually impressive RPG book I've seen. If nothing else, it's certainly the most memorable, as it takes the grimdark staples of skulls, gothic castles, and satanic imagery to do something viscerally different.

My only criticism for the visual direction is that the PDF copy can prove difficult to read. The color palette and white text on black backgrounds might be important for the artistic vision but the readability suffers. The overall presentation might be the strongest part of the book, gothic and menacing, but it also poses some accessibility issues (sensory issues, screen readers, etc.) I acknowledge MÖRK BORG's current state is an important part of its overall feel but I think at the very least a more accessible, plain text version is necessary. I'd say that's a feasible ask in the age of PDFs.

Remember you are going to die

Beyond the artistic side of things, MÖRK BORG's thrives on its central dichotomy. The rules are clean and welcoming. The setting... isn't. It's a genius combination, one that prevents the game from becoming the mother of all "heartbreakers." MÖRK BORG jumps into the setting before anything else, though it favors short, evocative text over endless exposition. The game's doomed world quickly takes shape, alongside the gods, monsters, and royals presiding over the end. But much of MÖRK BORG is left shrouded in darkness, full of horrors just waiting to be concocted by game masters and confronted by the players.

Free League

The game is transparent about its influences: Berserk protagonist Guts' grisly origins and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's iconic "Small but Vicious Dog" make appearances. Even its fatalism feels familiar in some way. Perhaps it's because the lack of a true "general audience" to placate, but tabletop games have a storied history of utterly hopeless worlds. Even with such apparent inspirations, I've never seen anything quite like MÖRK BORG. Focusing on building such a strong atmosphere over setting minutiae contributes to that. You get a strong sense of the world from passages that often barely makes sense, really selling the idea you've found the last holy text of a doomed culture.

MÖRK BORG goes completely over the top, to the point of satire. It's a resoundingly bleak setting in a way every newly minted edgelord player can only dream of. Surprisingly, it's said there is a way to save the world. They just decline to say how. With horror at every turn, it's not clear where players are supposed to look for salvation. 

The game certainly pushes the boundaries of taste with the gratuitous violence. Adventuring "rewards" often come in the form of severed body parts and miscasts include lethal magical STDs. The almost cartoonish heavy metal nature loops back around to one of the best dark comedies ever to grace the medium.

It helps that MÖRK BORG avoids anything truly discriminatory, even if it delights in being grotesque. White Wolf and even my beloved Warhammer have decades of genuinely offensive blunders. The worst I'd accuse this game of being is overly crass and perhaps juvenile.

Dog Eat Dog

In the vein of most OSR games, MÖRK BORG saves the heavy stuff for the setting. Built (perhaps literally) from classic Dungeons & Dragons' bones, most dice rolls are made with D20s. Tests are determined by trying to roll at or above the Difficulty Rating, with positive or negative modifiers from the relevant Ability. There's only four to keep track of: Agility, Presence, Strength, and Toughness.

Free League

This game uses a lot of different dice, ranging from the ubiquitous D6 to the rare D2. Between calculating damage, armor defenses, and the more unique mechanics, you end up rolling a lot more than just D20s. Even so, the core mechanics are dead simple, though the players end up doing almost all the dice rolling. In combat, they roll their character's attacks and then against Agility to see if they dodge their adversaries' blows. 

Combat is as messy and quick as you'd expect. The only defenses come from largely brittle armor and Omens, a small, replenishing pool of points spent to negate enemy damage or maximize your own. Hit zero wounds and you roll on the unforgiving Broken chart. Blow past that and it's all over.

As a "perma-GM" I'm hugely in support of it, though perhaps a little biased.Though it's far from demanding, having players do the little work combat requires lets the GM focus entirely on writing the scenario and building up the setting's mood. 

The Hand of Fate

Rather appropriately for MÖRK BORG's emphasis on "cruel fate," there are random charts galore. This ranges from core game mechanics, like the perfidious scroll based magic system, to the purely cosmetic, like the weather chart. There's a chart for just about everything, and even if many of them are optional it adds a strong vein of spontaneity to the game. Even character creation is almost entirely random, including how you pick from the six optional classes. The game's website even sports a random character generator, SCVMBIRTHER, which is immensely useful for one shots. 

Free League

 The adventures seeds and dungeons themselves can be randomly generated too. And luckily, there's scarcely an uninteresting result. 

On the less random side is the short but memorable bestiary. It's mostly common fantasy staples, though with a strong Swedish mythology and heavy metal bent to it. There's a strong emphasis on increasingly vile kinds of undead, with some very novel takes and mechanics on classic creatures. Curse based goblins visually modeled off of goblin sharks took the cake for me.

Here Comes Doomsday

Even amid a sea of random charts, MÖRK BORG's most unique and crucial rule still has an overwhelming presence. At the start of each in game day the game master rolls a die, the specific one depending on how long they want the world to last. On a 1, you roll a D66 and consult the Calendar of Nechrubel, a set of 36 Miseries divided into Psalms. Each one is a short "Revelations" style tale of the apocalypse.

When the Seventh Misery is rolled, the game and its world come to a crashing halt, as it finally ends.

An unthinkable mechanic in just about any other game and perfect for MÖRK BORG. Plenty of RPG settings have a looming apocalypse but I can't think of any where that impacts the actual gameplay in such a material way. Here, the world deteriorates around the players at the whim of the dice, until the bough breaks.

Free League

Like the rest of MÖRK BORG, the specifics of each misery are left open to interpretation. Each of the six psalms have a clear storyline and progression but it's statistically improbable for every Misery to come from the same Psalm. It's even less likely to roll them in the "correct" order.

What you're left with is an apocalypse out of sequence, lacking even the comfort of a coherent timeline. With each Misery being a short cryptic sentence, GMs are given considerable leeway in interpreting them. It's an evocative system that makes the end of the world a tangible part of every MÖRK BORG game, without reducing it to a dull, purely mechanical affair.

Go Forth

MÖRK BORG is the sort of game that can get away with offering what's essentially the bare minimum. The game might not be a 400 page tome but there's more than enough to bring out whatever life remains in the final days. And the tradeoff of quality over quantity hardly means its unsupported. The games' official website has a huge offering of free material, including adventures, dungeons, classes, and a bestiary.

Free League

As for MÖRK BORG itself, it's a game I strongly recommend to just about anyone into RPGs. But not as your first game.
MÖRK BORG doesn't just expect you to handle its more graphic content, as there's a clear assumption that you know your way around a game system. The broad rules and setting might offer a lot of agency but by the same merit it doesn't offer much guidance. 

Overall, it's a harsh world GMs and players are left to navigate but one that's worth every painful step of the way. Even if their journey is cut abruptly short...