1984: Railway Rivals

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

-oOo-

Back in the early 1990s, TSR held European GenCon at Camber Sands, a windswept holiday camp on England’s south coast, much to the shock and amusement of any visiting American guests. The fact that it was within sight of Dungeness nuclear power station only added to the weirdness—and that became a joke in Shadowrun supplement. It was there that I had my first exposure to Railway Rivals to the sound of designer Jack Jaffe extolling you to come and play Save the President. I joined a game run by David Watts, the designer of Railway Rivals, which was played using a map of Ireland. I certainly did not know that I was playing with the designer and I certainly did not win the game, but I enjoyed playing what was essentially my first exposure to railway games. I thought that the idea of drawing on the map to be novel and clever. This memory was enough a decade later to purchase the Games Workshop version of the game and then two decades on, to purchase the original version that came in the heavy cardboard tube that could hold multiple maps.

Railway Rivals is a very stripped back game. It consists of a single six-sided die, six trains (or simply tokens), and a set of washable felt pens that match the colours of the tokens, but at the heart of the game—its maps. Each depicted a geographical area—Eastern USA, London & Liverpool, Germany, and so on—marked with cities, hills, and rivers on a hex grid. Each map sheet is laminated so that it can be drawn on—and that is the point of the game. Each player was setting out to build or draw his own railway network that connected the cities on the map. Then the players would race their trains over their networks to score money.

At the beginning of a game each player receives a train and a pen in a matching colour before rolling for his starting city. Then on his turn a player rolls the die to determine his income which he spends to build, or draw, new track in his network. Most of the maps consist of open plains which are cheap to lay track over, but hills and rivers cost more to cross, as does having to cross or parallel a rival player’s railway line. Money is earned for connecting your network to the cities on the map.

As soon as all cities have been connected, the game’s second phase begins. Races are set up between random cities and the players compete to get there first. Money is awarded to players arriving in first and second place, but must be paid to any railway rival whose track you used as part of your move. This is likely because it is rare for a player to connect to every city on the map. At the end of the game, the player with the most money wins.Once all cities are joined by railway tracks, the second part of the game starts. Players race their trains along the tracks between randomly chosen pairs of cities; just as in real life, players must pay other players to use elements of their track if they do not have a complete route of their own to the current target city. The choice of routes raced is random; each city is used one or more times. Money is awarded to the trains that arrive first and second, and the player with the most money when all routes have been raced is the winner.

By modern standards, Railway Rivals looks simplistic, but that would be an unfair assessment. The laying of the track across a map offers some tactical choice as each player attempts to make the best advantage of his starting position and map’s terrain. Often, this focuses upon certain choke points, typically to cities only accessible via gaps in the surrounding hills that are expensive to build through or to groups of cities, like those of New England.* In such a situation, when it comes to laying track, a player needs to ask himself if it is cheaper to build through the hills or lay track alongside that of his rivals.

*Note that this is typical of most railway games set in the Eastern USA.

Racing the trains in the second phase of course does involve more than a degree of luck, both in terms of rolling for the starting and finishing cities for each race, and rolling movement each turn. Each race will proceed without any complications when a player is travelling over his own network, but should a player need to switch to a rival network to get to a destination, then he needs to pay for the track use. Which loses him money—and thus a potential victory—to his rivals. He can offset this by spending the money he already has to build new track, but again, the cost and any advantage it gains a player needs to be carefully weighed up.

Once all of the races have finished, the players need to total up their money. The player with most is the winner.

Railway Rivals was self-published for many years, but versions have been published by Games Workshop and Queen Games. Despite having won the Spiel des Jahres in 1984,* Railway Rivals is a forgotten classic, having been out of print for almost two decades now. After all, winning the Spiel des Jahres back then did not have the same prestige as it does now, and barring Settlers of Catan, which won in 1995, few winners are remembered from before the rise in popularity of the hobby board game in last fifteen years. Surprisingly it did find a home as a PBEM, or Play-by-E-Mail, game played via fanzines, its simplicity nicely supporting this type of game play. 

*It is unlikely that a game like Railway Rivals would win the Spiel des Jahres today. Arguably though, Railway Rivals was the Ticket to Ride of its day.

Of course, Railway Rivals lacks the sophistication of the modern game. Indeed it looks very plain, but this plainness  suits the simplicity of the game and the simplicity of its game play. In fact the maps are clean, simple, and elegant. The only real complaint about the game is how messy it is—having to wipe a map clean after a game is over is a chore. Yet this write-on, wipe-off feature lies at the game’s heart—prefiguring the crayon games series begun with Empire Builder from Mayfair Games by several years—and makes the game most replayable. Some thirty-five official maps were released for the game, many of them classics in terms of locations for railway games—Germany, New England, France, and so on.

Railway Rivals is all about the maps and getting the chance to draw on them—again and again. Getting to scribble like this has a little of the childhood pleasure to it, but this is a game and a rather charming one at that. Simple and fun, Railway Rivals is not just about lay tracking, but drawing them!

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1984: Squadron UK

2014 is the thirtieth anniversary of one of the few home-grown RPGs to be published by Games Workshop. Originally self-published in 1982, Golden Heroes was a British take on the superhero genre and the superhero roleplaying game. Although very much of its time, the 1984 edition from Games Workshop brought innovations and concepts to the genre that emulated the comic books it drew from, particularly in its combat system and in its campaign ratings which were used to track a hero’s place in society and how he engaged with it. The RPG would receive two good scenarios—Legacy of Eagles and Queen Victoria & The Holy Grail. It was also supported with a number of scenarios and articles in Games Workshop’s house magazine, White Dwarf. Unfortunately, the game would go out of print in 1986 and receive no further support, but it has always been remembered with a certain fondness.

Squadron UK: The British Superhero Role-Playing Game is by the same designer and is essentially the sequel to Golden Heroes, but is once again self-published. It also remains unashamedly old-fashioned in its design. The core of every character is rolled up rather than designed using points as in almost every other superhero RPG—this includes rolling for powers, backgrounds, and skills; its uses lots of different types of dice; and damage is divided between dice rolled to inflict killing damage and dice rolled to inflict stunning damage. Despite remaining unashamedly old-fashioned in its design, it also retains three interesting innovations. The first is that its method of character creation, one that combined random elements with the dedicated design input from the player. The second is that time is handled in panels, as in comic book panels. Plot panels handle scenes and montage panels handle training scenes, whilst combat panels handle the knockabout action seen in Four Colour comics. The third are its derived characteristics—Esteem, Sleuthing, and Fate—that reflect how a player and his hero plays Squadron UK, and thus his place in the campaign that the GM is running.

Perhaps the most radical of the three innovations in Squadron UK is that first. Character creation involves the rolling of random elements—a superhero’s powers, background, and so on—before his player explains where the hero got his powers from and how they work—essentially designing his origins and his abilities. This forces a player to give his character no little thought in coming up with a rationale for him. At the start of the process, a player receives eight points—at least in the Basic Game, it may vary according to a GM’s campaign; these are spent on rolls on the Superpower Table and to upgrade powers already rolled for, plus a Background, such as Magical, Rich—Inherited, or Psionic. The system eschews the usual lists of disadvantages, but allows a character a small bonus to a power if his player decides to have his powers come from a device or unnatural means rather than be innate or be as a result of the superhero being a mutant. Four core attributes—Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, and Agility—are rolled on four six-sided dice, the lowest being dropped. Note that there is no Intelligence attribute. A hero’s IQ or brilliance can be measured by backgrounds such as Brilliant Scientist, but is otherwise down to the player to portray.

The powers themselves are broad in nature rather than being specific, a player being expected to define the exact details of his super abilities. A player cannot have more than three levels in a power at game’s start, but there is room for a character to develop. Every power comes with a list of suggested gimmicks—a player can select one for each level his hero has in the power. For example, with the Marksmanship power, a hero receives a bonus to hit and to the damage roll if he spends time aiming. This increases each level. Gimmicks for Marksmanship include reducing a targeted opponent’s Dodge roll and bouncing missiles off other surfaces. It is also possible for a character to take a power at a ‘Half Level’, meaning that he does not get its full effect, but it does have plenty of potential for development. For example, the ‘Half Level’ for Marksmanship simply adds a small damage bonus. All of the powers in Squadron UK are described in an appendix at the back of the book; this makes them easy to find.

Every character receives five Common skills and several Trained skills. The number and levels of the latter depends on how good his attributes, as does another derived attribute, Psyche. The lower the levels of a hero’s attributes, the more points he has to assign to Trained skills and the better his Psyche, that is, his mental fortitude. Essentially, the level of a hero’s Trained skills and Psyche both serves as a balancing mechanism and an emulation of the genre. That is, physically weaker or less capable heroes tend to be better skilled and possess a greater mental fortitude.

Lastly, a player really needs to define his hero’s origins and how his powers work. This is an exercise in player creativity and rationalisation, and whilst it may run counter to the design of other superhero RPGs in which points are spent to design the character that the player wants and wants exactly, it has always been a core feature of Golden Heroes and this sequel. The aim is to include all of the hero’s powers in the origin story, otherwise the hero loses unused powers.

-oOo-

Tonbogiri
Tonbogiri is the living embodiment of an ancient Japanese spear and the dragonfly that landed upon its blade and was cut in two.  He is a fearless warrior and an honourable opponent, charged to live up to all of the ideals of the Japanese Samurai. Not only is he agile, but he can also fly while gripping the spear. In battle he can throw the spear or engage in melee with an opponent, as well as use it to parry attacks. Currently, his ordinary identity is that of Michael Kurita, a student studying English.

Strength 10 (+5) Endurance 15 (+7)
Dexterity 07 (+3) Agility 13 (+6)
Psyche 12 (+6)
Kill Points 56 Stun Points 61
Knockback 25
Move 5

Esteem: 10; Legality 2, Memorability 2, Heroism 3, Relationships 2, Success 1
Sleuthing: 5; Powers 1, Detection 1, Contacts 0, Exposure 2, Accessibility 1
Fate: 9; Scruples 2, Victories 1, Public Reaction 2, Extrovert 2, Home Life 2

Background: Immortal—Legendary
Acrobatics (+3 to Dodge rolls, +5 to Agility rolls)
Energy Blast (Thrown spear)
Flight/2 (Movement 10 per panel; no visible means, can strike a blow in passing)
Protection (All damage divided by 2; -3 to Agility rolls; automatic change)
Weapon/2 (Tonbogiri, +4 to Dexterity rolls, +2D10 damage; missile/melee weapon, indestructible)

Common Skills:
Etiquette 10, Language—Japanese 11, Literacy 11, Negotiation 10, Swimming 11
Trained Skills:
History—Japanese 12, Language—English 12, Mythology 12, Occult Knowledge 12, Weaponsmith 12, Weapon Skill—Spear 11

Gear
Light Costume (+1 to Dodge rolls), Tonbogiri (spear)

-oOo-

Mechanically, Squadron UK starts out simple, but in places does get a little complex. It starts with the basic mechanic, which involves rolling a twenty-sided die to get higher than 18 for a complete success, or 15 to 17 for a partial or minor success after adding suitable modifiers. When applied to damage, a hero or a villain rolls ten-sided dice if the roll was a success and six-sided dice if it was a partial success. Before damage—and with most attacks, this includes killing and stunning damage in the same attack—is rolled, a target has a chance to dodge or parry the attack, but if he fails, he takes the damage, but the damage can be subject to dividers that reduce it. Which means that the game play can be a little fiddly in parts.

One genre fitting aspect of combat in Squadron UK is its use of ‘Panels’ as a means of handling time in combat or action scenes. How many Panels the characters have each round depends on their Initiative rolls, but their use is quite flexible in that a character can use future Panels in order to make Dodge attempts or in some cases, attempts to Parry. Overall, combat is otherwise is very knockabout, back and forth, nicely handling the feel of combat seen in comic books.

To support what has so far been the core rules, Squadron UK includes a short adventure, ‘Consequences’ as well as some fairly broad advice. The adventure itself serves as a decent introduction to superhero roleplaying and playing Squadron UK, although it needs a careful read through as it is written in an almost stream of consciousness style, the story developing as it goes along. The adventure is nominally set in the English city of Birmingham and whilst it can be set in almost in any twenty-first century modern city, residents of Birmingham may spot a satirical dig at the city here and there. That said, very little of the city is present in the adventure.

The advanced rules in Squadron UK opens up a whole host options. These include dedicated superpower tables so that players can create particular archetypes such as the Blaster or the Brick and suggestions for achieving balance in character creation, plus suggestions as to how the game system can adjusted. The advice is more detailed; covering as it does campaign set-up and play, adventure design, and the game after the campaign has ended. This is supported by a mini-campaign entitled ‘Squadron: Birmingham’, which takes place in the same city as the earlier ‘Consequences’. It showcases an example of a campaign with its settings adjusted, in particular characters begin play with six powers rather than the usual eight; it is a campaign of fixed length; and is intended to take novice heroes and push them towards becoming members of the local superhero team—Squadron: Birmingham. The campaign consists of a mixture of adventures and sections where the GM is expected to develop adventures of his own. There is a certain pleasure in this campaign in that makes fuller use of the city of Birmingham—on a personal note, two of the notable scenes in the campaign can be seen from my bedroom window!—and while a series of photographs are used to illustrate the campaign, the city is relatively easy to research and find both further illustrations and inspiration. One downside for the GM is that like ‘Consequences’, ‘Squadron: Birmingham’ does suffer from being written in a stream of consciousness fashion, so it does need a careful read through. Here is a sample character for a Squadron: Birmingham campaign.

-oOo-

‘Girl Power’
Henrietta ‘Harry’ Fawcett is a driven woman, attempting to live up to her father’s high standards. He expected little of his daughter, but much of his sons, and so ‘Harry’ Fawcett has striven to outdo her brothers at every turn, becoming not only a better athlete and sportsperson than them, but also better academically. She enjoys sports of all kinds, has obtained her pilot’s license and enjoys skydiving and judo. She is also a noted biochemist, currently having developed a formula that gives the subject great strength and endurance which she hopes will find a use medically. Currently she is on her way to the University of Birmingham to begin studying a Master’s Degree. She carries several doses of the formula and it takes roughly a minute for it to have an effect once injected. So far, she is the only subject of the formula.

Strength 16/37, (+8/+18) Endurance 16/36, (+8/+18)
Dexterity 09/(+4) Agility 16 (+8)
Psyche 09 (+4)
Damage Bonus +4/+25
Kill Points 69/138 Stun Points 64/132
Knockback 32/83
Move 6

Esteem: 10; Legality 2, Memorability 2, Heroism 3, Relationships 2, Success 1
Sleuthing: 5; Powers 1, Detection 1, Contacts 0, Exposure 2, Accessibility 1
Fate: 9; Scruples 2, Victories 1, Public Reaction 2, Extrovert 2, Home Life 2

Background—Brilliant Chemist (+15)
Endurance/2 (+5 to Knockback, 50% less sleep)
Martial Arts (+1 damage on natural attacks, +2 to hit, Judo Throw)
Strength/2 (+5 to Knockback, does not appear strong)

Common Skills:
Computer Use 9, Literacy 9, Negotiation 10, Swimming 13, Weightlifting 13
Trained Skills:
Computer Programming 8, Driving 8, Electronics 7, Pilot 8, Sky Diving 16

Gear
Protective Costume (Kill Divider/2)

-oOo-

One of the more notable features of the original Golden Heroes was its Campaign Ratings. In Squadron UK, these are replaced with three derived characteristics—Esteem (charisma), Sleuthing (crime detection), and Fate (luck). They are each made up of several other factors which are not set during character creation, but after the end of the first scenario as they reflect a hero’s performance and his deeds, rather than straight numbers. Initially this is slightly problematic as there are some skill values derived from them, but once a scenario or two has been played this is not an issue. One new feature is the use of montage panels that enable a player to describe how his hero is improving himself and so increasing his skills and—ever so slowly—his powers also.

Physically, Squadron UK is available in various formats—black & white or colour, softback or hardback. In black & white at least, its images are poorly reproduced and typically too dark. The writing also lacks polish and the layout is scrappy in places. Certainly a second edition would require a good edit.

There is an undeniable sense of nostalgia in returning to a game like Squadron UK. It is an undeniable improvement upon its forebear; streamlining many of the rules whilst retaining the best features—character generation that combines random elements with the need for a player to create a rationale, the use of the derived characteristics, and the knockabout combat system. Its improvements include a simple experience system with the use of montage panels, solid advice in terms of campaigns, and a decent mini-campaign. Squadron UK: The British Superhero Role-Playing Game might not be as slick as more modern superhero roleplaying games, but it makes up for that in terms of its charm and character.

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1984: DL1 Dragons of Despair

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, will releasing 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 to be reviewed. 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.

For the second entry in Reviews from R’lyeh’s series of anniversary reviews, we look back to the year 1984 and the publication of one of the most radical releases in TSR’s history. That release is DL1 Dragons of Despair, the first in the Dragonlance Chronicles, a series of sixteen scenarios that told of the truly epic tale of the Heroes of the Lance. It would introduce us to the Dragonlance setting and the world of Krynn—a wholly new setting from TSR which was also its first setting to be developed completely in-house—and it marked the first of the industry’s cross media intellectual properties. Beginning with the Margaret Weis short story, ‘The Test of the Twins’, which appeared in Dragon #83 (March 1984), the Dragonlance Chronicles would be developed and supported through novels, comics, miniatures, calendars, and so on. Although the first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, would not be published until a few months later, it would prove to be extremely popular as it allowed the reader to revisit the scenarios of the Dragonlance Chronicles that he had been playing and it would turn TSR into a successful publisher of fiction as well as of games.

All that was to come; in the meantime, it began with DL1 Dragons of Despair. Looking back to 1984, the physical impact of the scenario cannot be underestimated. Although it would use certain aspects of the then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons trade dress for its modules, the Dragonlance logo marked it as being very different as did the fully painted cover. This depicted the adventurers—the Heroes of the Lance—facing down a black dragon, whose name we would learn was Onyx, in a ruined, waterlogged city. It was exciting, it was dramatic, it was eye-catching, and it was unlike almost any module that had come before it. That DL1 Dragons of Despair was written by Tracy Hickman was another selling point—after all, he had co-authored the highly regarded I3-5 Desert of Desolation series and I6 Ravenloft modules. These four modules set a precedent—as did Hickman’s earlier scenario, GB5 Death in Spades for TSR’s Gangbusters RPG—for they possessed an emphasis on storytelling that would come to the fore in DL1 Dragons of Despair and its sequels..

An adventure for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition designed for characters of between Fourth and Sixth Levels, DL1 Dragons of Despair could be played with characters of the players’ own creation, but that was not the author’s intent. Rather, the players were meant to take one of the eight pre-generated adventurers—the Heroes of the Lance—that came with the module and roleplay his or story throughout the Dragonlance Chronicles. Each of the eight—Tanis Half-Elven, Sturm Brightblade, Caramon Majere, Raistlin Majere, Flint Fireforge, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Riverwind, and Goldmoon—is accompanied by a paragraph or two of background in addition to his or her stats.

Now pre-generated adventurers were not unknown in Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, whether that is for A1-4 Against the Slavelords or Judges Guild’s Escape from Astigar’s Lair, but in most cases, such characters had actually been used when the scenarios had been played as part of tournament events at conventions. Whilst it was common practice to include them in such tournament scenarios when they were published, it looked very odd to expect the players to take characters that were not their own and play them for a whole campaign.

Further, DL1 Dragons of Despair did not particularly support the creation of player characters. Considering the fact that the scenario introduces a completely new setting in Krynn, it is very light on details. The most notable of those given, are the lack of Clerics and divine magic and healing, the fact that dragons have not been seen in a thousand years, and that steel is far more valuable than gold. It is possible to play a Cleric, but at this point without divine magic, any Cleric is a poor man’s fighter. One oddity given the fact that the steel is more important and valuable than gold in Krynn, is that the many of the pre-generated characters are actually quite wealthy because their arms and armour are of iron or steel. Had this been fully thought out, then perhaps they should have been armed and armoured in other metals—bronze, perhaps? That would have added more flavour to the setting of Krynn.

The very lightly sketched out setting also details the equivalent to Halflings in the setting—the Kenders with their infamous ability to taunt enemies. Although there different types of Dwarves—Hill Dwarves and Mountain Dwarves, and Elves—only Qualinesti are mentioned here, neither their mention or their existence has an effect upon DL1 Dragons of Despair. Indeed, this is the first impression of the contents of the module, that how little of the setting beyond the lack of Clerics and divine magic has on the adventure.

Taking the eight pre-generated character in hand, at the start of DL1 Dragons of Despair, six of them start the adventure as old friends. Tanis Half-Elven, Sturm Brightblade, Caramon Majere, Raistlin Majere, Flint Fireforge, and Tasslehoff Burrfoot set out from the town of Solace five years previously to find any sign of either true clerics or the True Gods. As they come together once again, their joint mission having been a failure, they encounter Riverwind, and Goldmoon, two other potential player characters. Both are exiles from the Que-Shu plainsmen tribe, and notably in this first encounter, she imparts some of the history and nature of Krynn in a song, ‘Canticle of the Dragon’. Oddly, this song, which the players are expected to read out—or even sing, contains more detail about the history of Krynn than does the module for the DM! In addition, Goldmoon also carries a blue crystal staff, which as the adventure progresses, we will learn is capable of true divine magic and which becomes the McGuffin of DL1 Dragons of Despair.

Once the characters are together, there seems to be little that they can do except visit Solace and wander around a bit. Throughout this initial part of the scenario, the player characters are nudged, almost herded, by interaction with the peoples of Solace and beyond, but increasingly by the appearance of masked and cloaked draconians, armies of which are edging ever closer—and they are after a strange blue staff! Eventually, the heroes are expected to go east to the forgotten city of Xak Tsaroth, and it is at its doors and in its depths that the adventure begins to shine.

Perhaps the second physical impression of the module is how good the map of the dungeon is done. The wilderness map is perhaps somewhat bland, but the dungeon is done in isomorphic view to give a fantastic three dimensional view of the dungeon and a sense of its depth. Further, Xak Tsaroth is not a dungeon in the traditional sense, but a former city that has slid into a deep ravine into which the surrounding swamp empties… The result is a slimy, sodden, and mildewed atmosphere to the dungeon, the primary challenge in which is actually getting down to the lower levels as there are no stairs. There is little treasure to be found in the depths, but the Dragonlance Chronicles will prove not to be a setting in which random treasure will prove to be important. What offsets the gloom and doom of Xak Tsaroth are its inhabitants, the guttersnipe Gully Dwarves, there for comic relief and interaction rather than to be fought.

Of course the point of the Dragonlance Chronicles was to showcase one type of dragon in each module and for DL1 Dragons of Despair, that was a black dragon known as Khisanth or Onyx. It makes its appearance in two notable scenes, one a particular showstopper that sees the dragon roar up out of a well and strike before diving back in again. Onyx’s appearance heralds the return of dragons to the world of Krynn after a thousand years and that ahead of a draconic invasion that begins in earnest in the next scenario, DL2 Dragons of Flame.

As has been already mentioned, DL1 Dragons of Despair is a physically impressive module. The layout is neat and tidy, if pedestrian. What lifts it above that prosaic nature is the excellent art and the map of Xak Tsaroth. The art in particular makes for good hand-outs in addition to the song lyrics that the players have to read or perform at the scenario’s start.

DL1 Dragons of Despair starts in an underwhelming fashion, with the player characters feeling as if they are being pushed around. In hindsight, this earlier section could have been better written and tied the pre-generated characters into the story much more strongly. The other weakness of the scenario are those pre-generated characters, which feel too similar and flawless—all but one are ‘Good’ when it comes to their Alignment and the only one who is not, is Neutral. Further that is no capacity in the scenario to deviate from this inherent goodness, making the roleplaying of the pre-generated characters feel strangely challenging but dull.

Ultimately the second, finer parts of DL1 Dragons of Despair do a great deal to lift it to the status of a classic and its position of #25 on the list of ‘30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time’ published by Paizo Publishing in Dungeon #116—which is repeated here. Yet it set a precedent that would see scenarios focus on story and as a result become events to be experienced rather than adventures that the players could make their own with their characters. This is not to say that playing this or any other of the Dragonlance Chronicles scenarios would not be fun, but in DL1 Dragons of Despair the pre-generated characters do limit player options.

—oOo—

My copy of DL1 Dragons of Despair was purchased in 1984 on a sunny trip to Bournemouth  from a games mini-stall in an indoor market off Old Christchurch Road. I can recall being highly attracted by the beautiful cover and being disappointed by the initial parts of the adventure, though not by the dungeon. It would not be until a year or so later that I would play it and the rest of the series in a playing group that was so large that we would use characters that appeared in later modules. Thus I played Gilthanus, the Qualinesti princeling who would not appear until DL2 Dragons of Flame. Which is why I can better recall playing that adventure rather than DL1 Dragons of Despair—and yes, at the time I did enjoy playing these adventures.

In hindsight, it would be interesting to revisit DL1 Dragons of Despair. As with adventures of its era though, not with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, as it just does not offer the storytelling mechanics that the setting and the backgrounds of the pre-generated characters would seem to demand. Perhaps Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age or Mindjammer Press’ Monsters & Magic would provide this? Then again, it would be even more interesting to have a more modern designer revisit this series and present the Dragonlance Chronicles anew?

A good history of DL1 Dragons of Despair can be found at DnDClassics.com where it is also available to purchase as a PDF. Although understandable, it seems a pity that Wizards of the Coast could not celebrate the Dragonlance Chronicles in the thirtieth year of their publication. As the history points out, it would save TSR and thus Dungeons & Dragons, because ultimately the Dragonlance Chronicles would bring Dungeons & Dragons to a much wider audience…

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Retrospective: English, Grim, and Obscure

When it comes to obscure adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, then there is perhaps no more obscure a title than No Honour in Sathporte to have made it into print. In the early twenty-first century it is sometimes hard to recollect how few scenarios there really were for Dungeons & Dragons before the advent of the d20 System. Between them the market was dominated by TSR, Judges Guild, and Mayfair Games, but there were other publishers, such as Daystar West Media Productions (which would actually be bought out by TSR) or Phoenix Games, Inc. Yet, switch to TSR’s only other arm to publish in English, TSR (UK), and not surprisingly, there were even fewer publishers than in the USA. Best known was Northern Sages, which published the highly regarded Starstone, but there was another publisher, Chaotic Intellect Products, and just like Northern Sages, it too only produced the one product – No Honour in Sathporte.

Published in the same year as Starstone – 1983 – No Honour in Sathporte describes itself as “A fantasy role-playing scenario for priests, curates, initiates of the 1st and 2nd circles, swordsmen, heroes, protectors, defenders, scouts, courses, conjurers, theurgists, tricksters of all kinds, cutpurses, robbers, waghalters, murderers, initiates, brothers and you!!!” In other words this is a scenario for characters of first and second level in an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It does not say this on the cover, but inside it mentions not only Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but also the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Deities & Demigods. Perhaps the most interesting fact is that it specifically thanks Don Turnbull, a notable figure in the British gaming scene, not only as the Managing Director of TSR (UK), but also as the editor of the fabulous Fiend Folio and co-author of the most highly regarded of Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. It says much for the man reputation that he is particularly thanked for taking a “non-monetary” interest.

Written by Christopher Read with artwork by Stephen Ball, Liz Martin, and Pete Sharpe, No Honour in Sathporte comes as a twenty-eight page adventure in a card folder. The inside of the folder contains maps of two of the scenario’s major locations. In addition to the main booklet, pullouts provide with several pages of blank NPC forms, the stats for all of the scenario’s NPCs, and a set of geomorphs that can be cut out and used with miniatures. Altogether, it is quite a sturdy package, but does it live up to the claim on its front cover – “THIS IS A GREAT BRITISH PRODUCT!!”?

The plot to No Honour in Sathporte is a simple one of double cross. The adventurers are hired by the wife of a wealthy merchant to rescue her son who has run away to join the local Thieves’ Guild. He is hiding deep within their complex under the city which their patron wants the adventurers to penetrate the headquarters of the Thieves' Guild and persuade her son to leave with them. If this is not possible, and she informs them that he is a pathological liar, she provides the party with a poison that will drug him and put in a deep sleep for several hours. Not wanting to reveal her son’s activities to her husband or the world at large, she provides a safe house where he is to be delivered.

Of course, none of this is true. The wayward son is anything but. Rather he is a renegade assassin who has fled his guild and taken up refuge with the Thieves’ Guild in Sathporte. He has taken with him poisons and monies that his Guild Master want returned, but this is not the Guild Master’s only motive, he also wants revenge for the loss of face. For the player characters, the difficulty comes not only in getting into the underground headquarters of the Thieves’ Guild, but also in getting their recalcitrant target back out (of course he has no desire to return to the bosom of his former masters) and collecting their payment afterwards. Whilst their true patrons wants the job done, they have no intention of paying for it nor do they want any loose ends left, and that includes the player characters.

Whilst each of the scenario’s four locations – the shop and warehouse run as a cover by the Thieves’ Guild, the Guild’s underground complex, and the safehouse where the party’s patron wants their package dropped off – are fully detailed, the GM is still left with some work to do beyond the simple process of preparing the scenario to run. None of the NPCs are named for example and the locations of the thieves within the complex itself needs to be determined as it varies according to the time of day.

In terms of background, the setting for the scenario is lightly sketched out. This is because the publisher planned to produce a supplement devoted to the City of Sathporte itself. What is given is that Sathporte is a town located on the south coast of the country it is located in, that it is home to some five thousand souls, that it is a major port importing from far and wide, that it is home to several mysterious sects, and that it is ruled by a City Council of three comprised of one fighter, one druid, and one merchant. The predominant faith is Celtic. This lack of detail allows a GM to drop this scenario into any port in his campaign, but it is not difficult to infer what sort of Southern coastal town that the author had in mind. After all, the publisher was based in the English city of Winchester, and the major ports of Southampton and Portsmouth are only twenty miles away or so. That said, there is a seaside town on Merseyside called Southport and it is not impossible to imagine the name “Sathporte” as corrupted version of the name Southport spoken in less than Queen’s English. Of course, we shall never know any more than this, for the promised supplement detailing the City of Sathporte never appeared. As an aside, it should be noted that Chaotic Intellect Products would publish one other scenario, Takishido's Debt for Fantasy Flight Games' highly regarded Oriental RPG, Bushido, and that the owner of Chaotic Intellect Products, Steve Faragher, would go on to become the editor of Arcane magazine, one of the last few attempts to do a general gaming magazine in the UK.

Actual advice for the GM is light, but running No Honour in Sathporte should be a straight forward affair. Perhaps though, it is too straight forward given the slightly linear nature of the complex below the Thieves’ Guild. In addition, the player characters’ progress in getting to their quarry might be hampered if they fail a roll or two, so the GM might want them ensure that their way is not blocked.

Physically, No Honour in Sathporte feels well put together. It is done in black and white throughout and what art there is, is dark and grim if a little heavy in places. It does echo the look and feel of a Judges Guild scenario, but more attention to detail has been paid to this scenario that has also been better supported. If the layout is a little plain, then in hindsight, the designers of No Honour in Sathporte should be forgiven for its slightly amateurish feel. After all, it was the first release from a new publisher in the years before the ready availability of computers and Desk Top Publishing software that would revolutionise and professionalise the hobby industry.

One reason for the obscurity of No Honour in Sathporte is that it was little discussed at the time of its release, though this was in the pre-Internet age and in 1983, there were fewer avenues for public discourse than we have today. Indeed, No Honour in Sathporte was only accorded the one review that I know of, which fittingly appeared in issue #12 of Imagine, TSR (UK)’s house magazine that ran for thirty-one issues in the early to mid-1980s. The review, for which I am indebted to Owen Cooper (whose own blog, Fighting Fantasist, is worth reading by anyone with an interest in British gaming), summed up No Honour in Sathporte with the following:

Chaotic Intellect have put together a good product in Sathporte. The adventure is interesting and challenging, and the various play aids provided show some originality as well as being useful. I think a little more could have been done to provide the DM with some pre-play advice about running the adventure and the size and strength of a suitable party. Finally, the layout could be a bit slicker, perhaps using the system pioneered by TSR which clearly delineates in the text information that the DM should give the players from that which should not be divulged.

It is hard not to disagree with the assessment of the reviewer. No Honour in Sathporte is certainly well supported and has a grimmer tone than most Dungeons & Dragons scenarios of its period. It does lack polish though, its plot and structure are too simple, and it could have done with more advice for the GM on running the scenario. For that, it is not the “GREAT BRITISH PRODUCT!!” as claimed by the publisher on the front cover, but back in 1983, when it would have cost you £3.95, it was worth your curiosity. Nevertheless, No Honour in Sathporte is a well-appointed curiosity from a bygone age that is easily worked into urban based campaigns with a grimmer tone.

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The 1980s RPG Undead?

With the “Old School Renaissance” barely five years old, the question is, has it grown too old for its inspiration? In those five years, the movement has been exploring fantasy roleplaying as it was played back in the early days of the hobby, but with the hindsight of over thirty years’ worth of gaming experience. In 2011 though, Goblinoid Games, the publisher of one of the major “Edition 0” RPGs, Labyrinth Lord, not only obtained the rights to a game published during the 1980s, but also its associated mechanics. The 1980s publisher in question is Pacesetter, the game is Timemaster, and the Action Table system. Now Goblinoid Games could have just simply republished Timemaster, and whilst it still intends to do so, the publisher has waited to do so in favour of applying the Action Table system to a more modern subgenre derived from the horror movie. The result is Rotworld: A Game of Survival Horror Against Undead Flesh Eaters.

Inspired by Michael Jackson’s Thriller as much by the films of George A. Romero, Rotworld is a roleplaying game of the apocalypse and its aftermath, in which the dead rise as “rotters” and seek to spread their infection with a single bite. Light in terms of advice for the referee or Corpse Master, the game is essentially a tool kit with which to run a zombie apocalypse campaign. To that end, it includes all of the basics needed for both an RPG and for its subgenre – characters and combat, and then the apocalypse, supernatural abilities for both humans and zombies, locations, and of course zombies.

At the heart of Rotworld, and of course, its raison d'être, is its Action Table. With a roll against this table, a player or the Corpse Master can reasonably quick discover the result and effects of a roll. The system uses ten-sided dice, with percentile rolls for all actions. In most instances, a character can get away with simply rolling under the value of his attribute or skill, but if he needs to know how well he did, he simply deducts the number rolled from his skill to get a Margin of Success. In combat, this Margin of Success becomes his Attack Margin, the result cross referenced against the difficulty or Defence Column. This gets a result ranging from a simple scratch to a crushing or crippling blow that knocks the defendant down.

For example, the first of our sample characters, Ulises, comes to the rescue of our quivering second, Otterlie. She is being menaced by Zak the Zombie and has already failed her Fear check. Ulises attempts to sneak up on Zak, but knocks something over and alerts the menacing member of the corpse cortège. Our hero is weaponless, so must rely upon his superior fists to get the damsel out of distress. Fortunately, he has the initiative. He uses his Boxing skill of 81 which is compared with Zak’s Unskilled Melee Skill of 33. This gives the column upon which Ulises’ player will roll. In this case, column 3, a relatively easy column, the columns starting at 1 and rising in difficulty to 10. Ulises’ player rolls 21 and subtracts this from his Boxing skill of 81 to get his Margin of Success to get a result of 60. Cross referencing on the Action Table, this gives “C” as a result; which for unarmed damage, is a crushing blow that delivers between six and sixty points of Stamina damage. In Ulises’ case, this is 42 points of damage. Although Ulises did not get a “CK” result, which would have indicated that he would have knocked the zombie down as well as delivered a stinging blow, he has inflicted damage equal to almost half of the zombie’s Stamina. So the Corpse Master rules that Zak the Zombie is staggered and cannot attack until the next round.

The mechanics, with their use of the Action Table, look more complex than they are in practice. The problem with both the mechanics and their use of the Action Table is twofold. First, there is an almost bewildering number of conditional rules that apply to the various situations and skills that can come up in play. Second, the Action Table is essentially focused on combat. It is meant to, and it does, work with the use of skills, but to actually interpret the results of any skill role the Corpse Master has to look elsewhere in the book. Which can only slow game play down…

That said, when it comes to combat, perhaps the aspect that players today will find the oddest is that mechanically, no weapon in the game does any damage. Rather, the damage is essentially derived entirely from the results of the skill roll. Thus the weaponry tables in Rotworld are all about range modifiers (which do affect skill), reload time, and rate of fire. One interesting mechanic using the Action Table involves a defendant’s action when being fired upon. When this occurs, the defending character has to roll a ten-sided die to determine the Defence Column that the attacker is rolling against, but can influence this by expending Luck to make it a higher Defence Column and thus make himself harder to hit. This is a pleasing way of handling a character’s attempt to dodge.

Character generation in Rotworld again looks more complex than it is, in part because it involves a degree of arithmetic. Eight attributes, each ranging in value between twenty-six and eighty, are rolled for randomly, with a number of factors being derived from these attributes. These factors include secondary factors such as Penetration Bonus and Wounds, and also the unskilled values for various skills. The most jarring aspect of character creation is that the number of skills a character starts the game with is randomly determined, so that one character might start the game with three skills or as many as six. Like attributes, skills expressed as percentiles, with the unskilled value for any skill being equal to the average of two or three attributes.

The majority of the skills listed would cover any time within the last fifty years, but with the inclusion of the Beam Weapons skill could enable a Rotworld campaign to be set in the future, whilst the inclusion of the Horseman’s Lance, Mounted Melee, and Bow skills mean that it could easily be set in the past. From the skill list there is the one odd omission – that of a Drive skill. Every character has base chance when driving – equal to the average of his Agility and Perception attributes, yet in order to improve upon that, a character has to purchase the Stunt Driving skill.

Our sample character is a Hispanic-American ex-army mechanic who worked in Hollywood as an actor and stuntman. He used to run a boxing gym, but when that went out of business, he became a truck driver. He is used to standing up for himself, but even though he learned how to use guns in the army and then point them menacingly on camera, he does not like them.

Ulises Romero
Strength 70 Dexterity 68 Agility 58 Personality 58
Willpower 52 Perception 61 Luck 58 Stamina 60
Unskilled Melee: 64
Penetration Bonus: +15
Wounds: 14

Skills:
Boxing 81, Equestrian 78, Mechanics 70, Language (Spanish) 72, Stunt Driving 75

As an option, characters can also possess Paranormal Talents such as the predictable “Precognition,” “Distance Viewing,” and “Telepathic Sending.” These are joined by the Rotworld particular “Corpse Visage,” “Empathy with Undead,” and “Sense Undead.” Unlike skills whose number is randomly determined, the number of Paranormal Talents that a character can have is determined by his Perception and Willpower, up to a maximum of three. It costs Willpower to use Paranormal Talents, and although a character’s Willpower will refresh, the relatively high cost will preclude their being over used.

Our sample character with Paranormal Talents is Otterlie Rios, a doctoral student, who worked in a funeral home to pay her way through college. Her abilities manifested for the first time when the dead rose, enabling her to walk amongst them and survive. She is still shaken by the experience and is reluctant to use either Talent again.

Otterlie Rios
Strength 48 Dexterity 42 Agility 48 Personality 66
Willpower 72 Perception 80 Luck 66 Stamina 60
Unskilled Melee: 45
Penetration Bonus: None
Wounds: 14

Skills:
Investigation 88, Social Sciences: Anthropology 91, Social Sciences: Psychology 91

Paranormal Talents:
Corpse Visage 73, Sense Undead 71

For the Corpse Master, Rotworld provides a discussion of the cause of the dead rising – from chemicals or toxic waste to radiation or the supernatural – and the effects that these have on a campaign. Similarly, it gives a range of ideas and options for how the zombies work in a Corpse Master’s campaign. Beyond the base corpse chassis, the Corpse Master is free to choose how lifelike or not his members of the corpse cavalcade are, their attacks, their weakness, what they hunger for, and how intelligent they are. If the campaign allows player characters to possess Paranormal Talents, then zombies can also have their equivalent, known as Zombie Talents. Some, such as “Living Visage” and “Sense Living,” correspond to Paranormal Talents, whilst “Absorb Vitality” enables a zombie to repair itself by draining life from the living.

Actual campaign advice examines the practicalities of having civilisation collapse around you, before describing a trio of places of refuge. These consist of a corner grocery, a county airport, and a shopping mall, each essentially a subgenre staple. Each one is fitted into a page and includes a nicely done map. Of course, the survival horror subgenre being what it is, it is relatively easy for the Corpse Master to find other maps or simple enough to set his campaign just in his group’s neighbourhood.

Similarly, the survival horror genre being what it is, Rotworld does not really suffer for its lack of advice on running the game. Certainly, the subgenre should be familiar to almost anyone who purchases Rotworld. If there is an issue with the game, it is that it really could do with an index given both the relative complexity of the rules and the likelihood that the Corpse Master will flipping back and forth through the book. The book also needs another edit and it could do with a re-organisation, as certain elements appear before they need to or away from the sections that they should be in.

Physically, Rotworld is decently written and is infrequently illustrated with some quite heavy art. Another physical problem with the game besides the lack of index is the frequent need to refer to the Action Table as part of playing Rotworld. Such that it really needs to be on the back cover, not just for ease of use, but also because it could have been in colour (which would also be for ease of use). Much of the flipping back and forth will involve looking up the rules that relate to the particular situation, so that the Corpse Master needs to refer to pages twenty-eight through thirty-six as well as the Action Table, and that mostly for combat and actions not directly related to a character’s attributes.

Rotworld feels very much like the archetypal RPG of its period. It obviously moves away from the class and level structure that dominated the decade before and continues to dominate the “Old School Renaissance;” it clearly pushes towards the use and application of a universal mechanic in the form of the Action Table; and its starting point is not necessarily the heroic protagonist, but the protagonist who has the potential to be heroic. Yet it is also archetypal in that its use and application of the universal mechanic is hampered by numerable situational rules and the need to reference individual rules for far too many things. As with so many RPGs of the period, in Rotworld the result is far from perfect and far from perfectly easy to run for the reasons already given, and ultimately, all it would have taken to address this problem is the actual page opposite the Action Table being devoted to notes and references that covered situations outside of combat and the character sheet being moved on a page or so.

Yet for all of its failings, Goblinoid Games should be praised for possessing the drive and desire to look beyond the boundaries of the “Edition 0” movement. Similarly, the publisher deserves praise for doing something more with the Action Table system than just releasing the RPGs that used it back in the 1980s, and whilst the truth is that the game and its treatment of its subgenre is hardly radical by anyone’s standards, its pages do contain a solid survival horror toolkit. Once you get past its all too close an emulation of the 1980s RPG, Rotworld: A Game of Survival Horror Against Undead Flesh Eaters is quite possibly the start of something new and interesting – the next period of gaming history for revival. Post-"Old School Old School Renaissance," anyone?

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