Good Georgians Aghast II

Typically, roleplaying games and their supplements set during the Early Modern period like Dark Streets focus on the Elizabethan era or the Golden Age of Piracy or America’s Colonial Era or the American War of Independence. Dark Streets breaks from this tradition, for it is that rare roleplaying supplement—a campaign setting that takes place during the Great Britain’s Georgian period. A supplement for Walton & Cakebread’s Renaissance Deluxe, it is actually quite specific in its setting, for it casts the player characters as members of the Bow Street Runners or their consultants. Each is a Thief Taker, a former outlaw, thief, or watchman, or a clerk, an entertainer, merchant, or preacher, all in service to the magistrate and satirist, Henry Fielding, and his blind brother, John. They investigate the crime, the corruption, and the vice that runs rife through London life. Worse, the Fieldings have begun to suspect that there are malign agents behind the city’s heinous iniquity. For Dark Streets is even more specific in its setting—not only is it about investigating crime and immorality, it is also is also a game of Lovecraftian investigative horror.

Dark Streets specifically begins in 1749 or 1750, not long after Henry Fielding has founded the Bow Street Runners. It is thirty years since the collapse of South Seas Bubble; George II, the second Hanoverian King of England has been on the throne for over twenty years; the Whigs, supporters of the Hanoverians and the aristocracy and tolerant of the religious non-conformists, have been in power for decades; while his younger brother is First Lord of the Treasury and governs the country in the king’s name, the Duke of Newcastle holds the purse strings and routinely buys the loyalty of Members of Parliament; Frederick, the Prince of Wales, actively opposes the Whigs and his father, primarily because the King refuses to support his dissolute lifestyle; and it is only four years since Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland, put down the Jacobite Rising and earned himself the nickname, ‘Butcher Cumberland’. Meanwhile on the streets of London, the rural poor pour into the city in search of work, but find little beyond destitution and disease, even if they do find work. Women find work in the burgeoning sex trade, prostitution being very common, whether in bawdy houses, high class brothels, or for the lucky few, kept as courtesans to the nobility. Other income can be made through crime, the fact that many crimes carry the death penalty or a sentence of transportation to the Americas, an indication that times are hard and the poor are desperate. The worst of the criminals hold court in rookeries like St. Giles, dense dark dank places where even the Bow Street Runners fear to tread. The wealthy and the aristocracy are above such concerns and also the law, though many have their vices, whether gambling, prostitution, the gin that seems to flow from every building, or the Hellfire Clubs where they can indulge in titillation or blasphemy away from prying eyes. Of course, the Society for the Reformation of Manners would do away with all of this, its members actively bringing prosecutions and testimony before London’s magistrates.

In Dark Streets the players take the roles of Bow Street Runners or those serving as Consultants to the Fielding brothers. Either choice restricts the Social Class and Professions that a player can select. In addition to skill points gained from his Social Class, Profession, and Free Skill points, a Bow Street Runner investigator receives extra skill points to spend on physical and combat skills as well as a badge of office, a small club with a gilt crown on it.

Our sample character is Tobias Perdue, the son of Sir Thomas Perdue, a wealthy landowner who purchased a place at university for his son to read the law. It was there that Tobias first got caught up in the wrong crowd, gambling and whoring for the first time. Although he graduated and was accepted to the bar, his profligacy would soon land him in trouble—he ran up debts that would lead his father to disown him and almost land him in debtor’s gaol, and saw him fight duels to protect his ‘good’ name. These days he rarely practices the law and is more circumspect about his habits—there are better card players in the capital than himself. He is a Bow Street Runner at Henry Fielding’s suggestion as the magistrate believes he will bring some manners to the rough men that he has in his employ.

Adventurer: Tobias Perdue
Nationality: English Age: 28
Homeland: England Gender: Male
Social Class: Gentry Profession: Rook
Family:
Connections: Political Affiliation: Whig

Righteousness 
Righteousness Points: 54
Faction: Bow Street Runners Faction Zeal: 25

STR: 11 CON: 14 SIZ: 15 INT: 17
POW: 15 DEX: 16 CHA: 14
Damage Modifier: +1D4 Combat Order: 14
Movement: 15 metres

Armour
Type: Buff Coat AP: 2/1

Hit Points
Maximum: 15 Current: 15
Major Wound Level: 8

Sanity Points
Maximum: 15 Current: 15
Major Insanity Level: 8

Basic Skills:
Athletics  37%, Close Combat  58%, Culture (Own) 64%, Dance  40%, Dodge  62%, Drive  33%, Evaluate  61%, First Aid  33%, Gun Combat  33%, Influence  73%, Insight  77%, Lore (England) 64%, Perception  62%, Persistence  40%, Ranged Combat  33%, Resilience  28%, Ride  41%, Sing  29%, Sleight  55%, Stealth  33%, Unarmed Combat 37%

Advanced Skills:
Art (Prose Writing) 29%, Beliefs (Bow Street Runners) 59%, Disguise 31%, Commerce 31%, Courtesy 61%, Gambling 62%, Language (English) 81%, Language (French) 41%, Language (Latin) 41%, Language (Thieves’ Cant) 31%, Oratory 51%, Lore (Law) 54%, Lore (Law) 64%, Seduction 61%, Streetwise 50%

An extensive overview is provided of London as well as period maps. The overview covers the current social and political situation, religion, science, medicine, entertainment, and newspapers, but its primary focus is the law, crime and punishment, and vice and morality. The period maps support a gazetteer that details inner London and its most notable personages, from George II and the Duke of Newcastle down… A whole gang is described as is a Thieves’ Cant glossary, the latter nicely adding verisimilitude.

One of the interesting mechanics in Renaissance Deluxe is that of ‘Factions’, which handles a player character’s or an NPC’s allegiance to either himself or an organisation and its strength. Dark Streets adds gangs, the Bow Street Runners, the Jacobites, New Puritans, Tories, and Whigs as well as malignant Factions from aristocratic dinning clubs and murder clubs up to Mythos cults.

Dark Streets’ treatment of the Cthulhu Mythos is simple, unfussy, and straightforward. Magic is treated like witchcraft and cultists much like witches, the spells of the Mythos being kept generic. A few Mythos tomes are detailed, but unlike later periods of Lovecraftian investigative horror, books of the Mythos are not really a major element in Dark Streets. It keeps its Mythos ‘bestiary’ relatively short—just nine creatures and four gods, though some of the entries do feel a little exotic considering Dark Streets’ earthier feel. Of course, this being the Mythos and both Dark Streets and Renaissance Deluxe being Basic Roleplaying compatible, it is easy for the GM to find material to add to his campaign.

In terms of scenarios, Dark Streets is well supported, in fact it is better supported than Renaissance Deluxe itself in this regard. Nearly twenty scenario hooks are given, each relatively detailed and pleasingly, not all of them involving the Mythos. The supplement’s main scenario, ‘Gin & St. Giles’ is a detailed affair that draws the investigators deep into London’s worst Rookery on the trail of the worst gin the city—and that in London, is no mean feat. It is a solid adventure that should provide a session or two’s worth of play.

Physically, Dark Streets can be described as dour. Done in black and grey, it is perhaps a little oppressive in its look. The layout is for the most part workmanlike, but it grows wayward in places. In terms of content, the supplement is in places succinct. For example, although the book comes with a detailed overview of London and its life, vices, and personalities, its timeline ends in 1749 with the founding of the Bow Street Runners. This leaves the GM not knowing what will happen next unless he conducts some research himself, which seems odd given that Dark Streets is a historical game bar the influences of the Mythos. Also, as much background detail as there is in the book, it does lack advice in terms of setting up and running a campaign involving the Bow Street Runners. One hand-out that would be useful is a sheet detailing pertinent facts about London and what exactly the duties and powers of a Bow Street Runner are. After all, they are nothing like the police of later centuries.

The Dark Streets setting has the advantage of familiarity—at least from film and television, such as The Madness of King George (though this is set forty years later) or the television series Garrow’s Law and City of Vice. The latter in particular is useful watching since it is about the Fieldings and their establishing of the Bow Street Runners. Indeed, after watching City of Vice, it would be hard for the GM not to portray Henry Fielding as Ian McDiarmid and John Fielding as Iain Glen. Similarly, the Cthulhu Mythos will be familiar to many players, as will the processes of Lovecraftian investigative horror. Here though, as with many settings before Cthulhu by Gaslight and classic Call of Cthulhu, those processes involve less of a paper trail and more detective legwork, although that is beginning to change…

Dark Streets lacks the polish of other RPG settings of Lovecraftian investigative horror. It is a little rough around the edges, perhaps not as developed as it could be. Nevertheless, it is solid and accessible, presenting a fairly pulpy take upon investigating the Mythos whilst possessing an earthier tone that matches the vice, venality, and corruption of the setting.

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Renaissance Deluxe

From the designers of the award-winning Abney Park’s Airship Pirates, Renaissance Deluxeis set of rules designed to handle adventures and campaigns during the Early Modern period, between the Middle Ages and the Age of Revolutions. It is a game that thus encompasses three hundred years of history, from 1500 AD to 1800 AD, taking in changes weapons and warfare—the change from plate armour and swords and shields to wheellocks and flintlocks and pikes and swords; of education and reason as the printing press spreads, leading to a rise in literacy and political agitation; of exploration and conquest as the Age of Sail heralds the discovery of new lands and peoples everywhere. In England alone this covers much of the Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian monarchies, the English Civil War, the Jacobite Risings, while elsewhere it takes in the discovery of the Americas and the founding of the colonies, the Indian Wars and the American War of Independence, the Thirty Years War, and the French Revolution.  This is not say that the game is entirely a historical affair, for the rules also cover alchemy, magic, and witchcraft, as well as sanity and insanity, and various fantasy creatures.

Renaissance Deluxe is a percentile RPG that uses OpenQuest, an Open Game License iteration of Chaosium, Inc.’s Basic Roleplaying that is based on the Mongoose RuneQuestSRD, as the basis for its rules and mechanics. What this means is that they will be familiar to anyone who has played Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and other similar percentile RPGs descended from the original RuneQuest from 1978. For those not familiar with OpenQuest, RuneQuest, and Call of Cthulhu, what this means is that the rules and mechanics provide a skill-orientated system that gives dangerous combat and a gritty playing experience. The rules are simple and unfussy, being relatively streamlined in comparison to other iterations of the Basic Roleplaying family.

Character creation in Renaissance Deluxe begins with a player rolling his character’s characteristics—each on a scale of three to eighteen, before choosing a Social Class—Peasant, Townsman, Middle Class, Gentry, and Nobility—which determines what Profession he can select. From Agitator and Camp Follower to Witch Finder/Inquisitor to Woodsman, most of the given Professions are quite mundane, although the Alchemist and the Witch/Warlock provide outré options. Both Social Class and Professions provide bonuses to a character’s Common Skills and Advanced Skills, the value each of which is derived from the character’s characteristics. On top of that, a player receives 250 points to assign to his skills. A table of connections and past events enable a group of adventurers to create links with each other.

Our sample character is Martin O’Connell, an ex-mercenary who fought for various armies in Europe, but sickening of the slaughter decided to return to England. He came to the aid of one Noah McKay, a Scots doctor in Paris who was set upon by ruffians. Not only did Doctor McKay buy him a drink, but hired him as a bodyguard. McKay’s family does not approve, especially as Martin is Roman Catholic. Martin is confident of himself and a doughty man to have in a fight. He thinks McKay is an odd fellow, but enjoys his company and his coin. Much of the latter he sends home to his family.

Adventurer: Martin O’Connell
Nationality: Irish Age: 31
Homeland: Ireland Gender: Male
Social Class: Peasant Profession: Mercenary
Family:
Connections: Political Affiliation:

Righteousness
Righteousness Points: 50
Faction: Roman Catholicism Faction Zeal: 25

STR: 15 CON: 13 SIZ: 16 INT: 14
POW: 11 DEX: 12 CHA: 10
Damage Modifier: +1D6 Combat Order: 12
Spellcasting Order: 12 Movement: 15 metres

Armour
Type: Buff Coat AP: 2/1

Hit Points
Maximum: 15 Current: 15
Major Wound Level: 8

Sanity Points
Maximum: 11 Current: 11
Major Insanity Level: 6

Basic Skills:
Athletics  47%, Close Combat  69%, Culture (Own) 58%, Dance  22%, Dodge  62%, Drive  36%, Evaluate  54%, First Aid  36%, Gun Combat  66%, Influence  52%, Insight  25%, Lore (Ireland) 58%, Perception  45%, Persistence  42%, Ranged Combat  35%, Resilience  56%, Ride  23%, Sing  31%, Sleight  22%, Stealth  35%, Unarmed Combat 47%

Advanced Skills:
Beliefs (Catholicism) 53%, Boating 48%, Craft (Baker) 25%, Dual Weapons (Sword & Main Gauche) 55%, Dual Weapons (Sword & Shield) 25%, Engineering 28%, Language (English) 54%,  Language (Gaelic) 45%,  Language (German) 25%,  Lore (Plants) 28%, Lore (Tactics) 38%, Play Instrument (Pipes) 22%, Survival 24%

One notable addition to the characters are the rules for Righteousness, which represents each character’s belief in a creed or organisation. This could be his religion, a secret society, his clan, his master, his guild, or personal self-interest, such as honour or greed. It is a percentile score that can go up and down according to a player’s actions. For example, a player who has the Faction of Rebellion (Jacobite) would gain points for defeating a band of English soldiers in a public brawl, but lose points if he was defeated and captured. A character’s Righteousness can also contribute a bonus to skill, such as Close Combat in a fight or Influence in a debate. A Faction can also hinder a character. Obviously, a Faction may well call upon a character for certain tasks, but it might also get a character into trouble if his Righteousness is called into question or tested by another Faction. It is also possible for the Righteousness a character or NPC has in Faction to be driven to zero, in which case he is ripe for conversion to another Faction.

Righeousness then, is a roleplaying tool. It is there is to gauge, push, and pull player character actions and motivations. It is befits the period with its religious divisions,  division between religion and science, and so on. Four sample Factions are included, so the GM will probably need to create more.

Mechanically, Renaissance Deluxe is a percentile system—a player generally needs to roll under an appropriate skill to succeed. Critical rolls and fumbles are also possible. Combat in Renaissance Deluxe is designed to be fairly unforgiving—the average character only has to take seven points of damage, which most weapons are capable of inflicting—and he suffers a Serious Wound, such as broken ribs or a scar across the face. Typically, minor NPCs will be hors de combat, but player characters and major NPCs are capable of suffering even more debilitating Grave Wounds. Armour is available, but not particularly effective against firearms.

Most characters have access to weapons of all kinds, these being covered by the broad Close Combat, Gun Combat, Ranged Combat, and Unarmed Combat skills. The signature combat skills of the period fall under a number of Advanced Skills—Polearms and Bows are covered by their own skills, whilst Dual Weapons is covered by a number of separate skills, such as Sword & Pistol, Sword & Main Gauche, and Sword &bShield. Firearms take too long to reload, so are generally used as one-shot weapons before melee weapons are drawn. Critical and Fumble tables are provided for the various weapon types in the game.

In comparison to NPCs, player characters have Hero Points. These are used to gain re-rolled skills, downgrade Serious and Grave Wounds, to avoid death, and for alchemists, to design new spells. Characters also earn Improvement Points through play—these can be expended to improve skills, learn new ones, and even improve their characteristics.

The broad swathe of Renaissance Deluxe’s historical setting is supported with rules for travel and weather, illness and disease, an extensive list of poisons, ship travel, and naval combat. The latter is streamlined for ease of play. Where Renaissance Deluxe begins to diverge from a mundane treatment of its history is with Alchemy, one of two magic systems in the RPG. The other being Satanism. Alchemy revolves around the four elements—air, earth, fire, and water, as well as aether—and requires that the alchemist create a Philosopher’s Stone, in which he stores the energy to fuel his spells. The RPG’s short spell list is perhaps too cumbersome, each entry being named something along the lines of For to Speak unto the Mind of Another or For to Steady the Hands of a Marksman, and thus too awkwardly named to find with any ease. The rules also cover the making of potions and the summoning of familiar. Guidelines are also included so that the GM can alter these rules create the magic system that he wants.

Most spell-casting characters in Renaissance Deluxe will be alchemists. Two other options are available. Galenic physicians balance their patients’ humours as part of their treatment, though some also two or three healing spells. Our second sample character is an example of this. The second option is Witchcraft, which Renaissance Deluxe divides between that used for good and that used for evil. Cunning Men and Wise Women use it for good as do unaligned witches and warlocks, whilst Satanic Cultists, Witches, and Warlocks put it to malign purposes. Unless the entire party is evil, it suggested that evil practitioners of witchcraft be NPCs. Alternatives are suggested if the GM wants to adapt the rules of Witchcraft to suit his gameworld.

Noah McKay is the son of a rich Edinburgh merchant who could afford to send his son to university to study medicine, first in Edinburgh and then in Paris. Currently Noah is building up a practice tending to his friends of both his mother and his father, who wish that he would marry. This is marred by his own sickness, consumption that has left him weak and sometimes feverish. This has also left him little time to continue his studies, especially his alchemical ones, the latter his having first studied with colleagues he met as a member of the Freemasons. His poor health means that it is rare for McKay not be seen wearing a thick coat and his skinny appearance means that he is sometimes an easy mark for muggers. For this reason, he carries a walking stick as a means to protect himself.

Adventurer: Noah McKay
Nationality: Scottish Age: 29
Homeland: Scotland Gender: Male
Social Class: Middle Class Profession: Physician (Galenic)
Family:
Connections: Political Affiliation:

Righteousness
Righteousness Points: 50
Faction: Freemasons Faction Zeal: 25

STR: 07 CON: 08 SIZ: 11 INT: 14
POW: 11 DEX: 14 CHA: 14
Damage Modifier: None Combat Order: 12
Spellcasting Order: 12 Movement: 15 metres

Armour
Type: Buff Coat AP: 2/1

Hit Points
Maximum: 10 Current:
Major Wound Level: 5

Sanity Points
Maximum: 11 Current: 11
Major Insanity Level: 6

Magick: 3
Spells: For to Bring the Touch of Healing (2), For to Ehance the Hands of Healing

Basic Skills:
Athletics  21%, Close Combat  41%, Culture (Own) 58%, Dance  38%, Dodge  28%, Drive  28%, Evaluate  42%, First Aid  78%, Gun Combat  28%, Influence  78%, Insight  45%, Lore (Scotland) 63%, Perception  35%, Persistence  52%, Ranged Combat  28%, Resilience  36%, Ride  35%, Sing  35%, Sleight  28%, Stealth  28%, Unarmed Combat  21%

Advanced Skills:

Alchemist  25%, Art (Prose Writing) 35%, Beliefs (Freemasonry) 53%, Commerce 28%, Courtesy 58%, Elemental Casting (Earth) 25%, Gambling 38%,  Healing (Galenic) 55%, Language (English) 78%,  Language (French) 38%,  Language (Latin) 38%,  Lore (Law) 28%

The RPG’s bestiary consists of a mix of ordinary animals, such as boars and wolves, cats and dogs with the more fantastic, including basilisks, dragons, ghosts, and ghouls. Goblins and Orcs are also included, as are dwarves and elves, the latter two as playable races, though sadly, halflings are not listed. The Sanity system in Renaissance Deluxe is again, a slimmed down version of the rules seen elsewhere. It treats Sanity as a type of mental hit points rather than the percentile ‘death spiral’ of Call of Cthulhu, with the horror checks being made against the skill of Persistence. This does place a lot of reliance upon the one skill, especially in a horror game or setting—such as in Dark Streets, Cakebread & Walton’s setting of Lovecraftian investigative horror. That said, just as a player character’s hit points can recover, so can his Sanity points.

Rounding out Renaissance Deluxe is a section of GM advice. For the most it is a bit too broad given what it has to cover—essentially not a straight treatment of three centuries of history, but a fantasy one too… This is not say that its advice is bad, more that it is short, being mostly pointers and thinking points for the GM.

Physically, Renaissance Deluxe is a black and greyscale book, which combined with the somewhat dark art, gives it a grubby look. This seems fitting given the grubbiness of the period it covers. That said, the book is clearly written and well-organised.

Renaissance Deluxe joins a number of RPGs and settings that cover the Early Modern period, such as Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Rogue Games’ ColonialGothic, Arion Games’ Maelstrom, and more recently, scenarios like Forgive Us, Death Love Doom, and Tales of the Scarecrow for Lamentations of the Flame Princess:Weird Fantasy Role-Playing. Indeed, it would be possible to pick any of the supplements or scenarios for those games, and with a little adjustment, the GM could run them using Renaissance Deluxe.
If there are issues with Renaissance Deluxe, it is that the book does require the GM and his players to know a lot about the history of the period. A timeline and a deeper overview of the period than the one given would have been helpful, as would a bibliography. Although the book is supposed to cover three centuries of history, it feels distinctly slanted towards the earlier half of the period. It would have been nice if the book had included some setting pitches too for the GM to develop further as well as an accompanying bibliography.

Renaissance Deluxe is not written with the novice game in mind. It is all a bit grey and ever so slightly intimidating, and it is lacking in the history of the period—it may just not be ‘deluxe’ enough. As a ‘core’ book though, it has much to recommend it. The book is well-written, the rules decently presented, and for the GM and the player who has any experience with any iteration of Basic Roleplaying and grasp of the game’s intended historical setting, Renaissance Deluxe is accessible and easy to grasp. 

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RuneQuest VI

The place of RuneQuest in the history of roleplaying cannot be underestimated. Originally published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1978, it was the first fantasy RPG to be more of a simulation than a game in its depiction of characters, to focus on skills as a primary means of handling actions and character advancement, rather than the wargames orientated “Class and Level” method of Dungeons & Dragons. It was one of the first fantasy RPGs to written for its own specific, accessible setting, that of Glorantha – the first RPG to come with its own setting was TSR’s Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, which though glorious was hardly ever accessible. In years to come, the mechanics underlying RuneQuest would give birth to Basic RolePlaying and from there to at least ten other RPGs, of which Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu is the most notable. Over the years, RuneQuest has had almost as many publishers as it has had editions. The Design Mechanism is the game’s fourth publisher, and its version, is the game’s sixth edition.

It is important to note what RuneQuest Sixth Edition is and what it is not. As a roleplaying game it is a development of the RuneQuest rules, using the same percentile mechanics as did the game in 1978, but what it is not is a game with a setting and certainly not Glorantha, the setting that has been bound up with RuneQuest for much of its history. Indeed, RuneQuest Sixth Edition does not actually come with a setting, but rather hints at one in the various examples that illustrate the game’s rules. This the city-state of Meeros, a late Bronze Age culture beset by barbarian warlords. It would not be unfair to suggest that this late Bronze Age culture is a hangover from previous editions of the game and from the setting of Glorantha itself, which was built around various Bronze Age cultures. Nevertheless, a competent GM should be able to build something of Meeros from the hints given in these examples, but with the rules and mechanics presented in RuneQuest Sixth Edition he should also be able to set his game anywhere from the late Bronze Age up through to the Dark Ages. That said, The Design Mechanism has provided a GM’s Pack that gives both a scenario set in and more details of Meeros.

Written by the same team behind RuneQuest II for Mongoose Publishing, RuneQuest Sixth Edition comes as a slab-like black and white softback book. At its core it is a book of mechanics and rules built around a percentile skills system, a fairly deadly combat system, a focus on character culture and affiliations, and of course, a set of integrated magic systems. In retaining all of these fundamental aspects what The Design Mechanism has done with RuneQuest Sixth Edition is make relatively minor adjustments to the rules and mechanics. These will be highlighted as and when they come up in the review.

By default, all characters in RuneQuest Sixth Edition are human – guidelines in the Creatures chapter provide means to create centaur, dwarf, elf, and Halfling characters. The process of character generation begins by rolling dice to determine base attributes – Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma. From these are derived several factors. These include the expected Damage and Experience Modifiers, Healing Rate, Height and Weight, Hit Points, Strike Rank, and so on, but to these are added Action Points, spent to act in combat, and Luck Points, used to give a character an edge, whether a dice roll, the mitigation of damage or unfavourable circumstances, or a vital advantage in combat. Each character also receives the same set of standard skills, the base value for each one determined adding two attributes or doubling a single attribute.

With the base character in hand, a player takes his character through three steps. The first is to select the character’s Culture – Barbarian, Civilised, Nomadic, or Primitive; the second step his Career, the third his Development. At each step a character receives a set number of points to assign to skills, either to a character’s standard skills or his professional skills, the latter type of skill, such as Commerce, Gambling, and Mysticism, gained after years of practice and learning. Some professional skills come from a character’s Culture; the others come from his choice of career. A character’s choice of culture also sets the careers available to him. For example, Crafter, Fisher, and Hunter are available to all four cultures; Herder to all but Civilised; Merchant and Scholar to all but Primitive; and Courtesan and Sorcerer to Civilised only. Although the base values for both types of skills are determined by a character’s attributes, the granting of the same number of skill points throughout the process serves to balance character generation.

In addition, a character has several Passions – loyalties, beliefs, and feelings towards someone or something, that are again measured as percentiles and which work in a similar fashion to the Personal Traits of the King Arthur Pendragon RPG. They also do something more though in that they can serve as a resisting value or to give a bonus to an action if said action is dramatically appropriate to the Passion. For example, a character who is subject to a seduction attempt could use the love of his wife to resist the attempt, whilst later he might use the same Passion to grant a bonus to a bow shot to strike a villain who has his wife in grasp and is threatening to kill her. Passions though, are an optional extra, but they do add a depth to a character. A character also rolls for his Background events – he has more of them the older that he is, his social class, his family, and any allies, contacts, and rivals. 

Our sample character is Hesione, a courtesan in the city-state of Meeros. Originally a slave, she owes her position and freedom to the company that she entertains. Of late, she has also served as an envoy for the lords of Meeros, delivering messages to other city states whilst appearing to be the companion of a merchant leading a caravan to the destination city-state. She is always well dressed and knows how to use her appearance and words to impress and entice. She hides a knife amidst her jewellery and knows how to use the pins in her hair and her clothes to defend herself.

Hesione
Age 21

STR 10 CON 15 SIZ 08 DEX 14 INT 14 POW 11 CHA 18

Action Points: 3 Damage Modifier: -1D2 Experience Modifier: +1 Healing Rate: 3
Build: Heavy Height: 152 cm Weight: 67 kg
Hit Points
Head 5 Chest 7 Abdomen 6 L. Arm 4 R. Arm 4 L. Leg 5 R. Leg 5
Luck Points: 2
Magic Points: 11
Movement Rate: 6
Strike Rank: 14

Standard Skills:
Athletics 24%, Boating 25%, Brawn 18%, Combat Style (Desperate Houri) 44%, Conceal 30%, Customs 72%, Dance 57%, Deceit 52%, Drive 25%, Endurance 30%, Evade 28%, First Aid 28%, Influence 76%, Insight 65%, Locale 33%, Native Tongue 72%, Perception 55%, Ride 25%, Sing 54%, Stealth 28%, Swim 25%, Unarmed 24%, Willpower 32%

Professional Skills:
Art 42%, Courtesy 62%, Gambling 57%, Language 37%, Musicianship 62%, Seduction 57% 

Passions
Loyalty to Town/City (Meeros) 55%
Love (Sister) 55%
Hate (gang) 55%

Background – Civilised
Social Class: Gentile
Family: Parents dead, three siblings, grandmother, one aunt, one uncle, one cousin 
Reputation: Family has a good reputation – one contact/ally
Connections: Family is well-connected; one ally, one contact, two enemies
Background Event: You have a Rune-shaped birth mark.
Money: 1725 silver

Looking at the sample character, there appears to be a major omission – the lack of weapon skills. One fundamental change in RuneQuest Sixth Edition is that it discards individual weapon skills, but instead groups them under ‘Combat Styles’. Each Combat Style is a single skill, but each covers the use of three or four weapons, their grouping determined by training or cultural origins. So for example, the Combat Style (Meeros Militia) might cover the use of shield, spear, and short sword, whilst a barbarian horseman’s Combat Style (Steppe Wolf Pack) would cover scimitar, shield, and short bow. In the case of Hesione’s Combat Style (Desperate Houri), the GM allows her to include dagger, knife, club, and improvised weapon.

As much as this negates the number of skill points that a player has to assign to individual weapon skills, it raises a number of questions. First, does it really make sense for a character who successfully uses his shield to have a weapon in the same Combat Style also improve at the same time with an Experience Roll? To an extent it does if they are used in concert together, for example, the sword and the shield. Yet what if the other weapon in the Combat Style was a bow – how would that be improved by a character successfully using his shield? In terms of previous versions of RuneQuest this does not make sense because skills under that system were improved through use – use a skill, gain an ‘Experience Check’, and there was a chance that a character would improve the skill. In RuneQuest Sixth Edition, characters receive ‘Experience Rolls’ rather ‘Experience Checks’.

Essentially, ‘Experience Rolls’ are reflective in nature, a player taking stock and appraising his actions from the previous adventures. Handed out by the GM a few at a time, they can be used to improve existing skills, increase characteristics and Passions, and to learn new skills and new magical abilities and spells. In terms of improving a seemingly disparate set of weapon skills such as the scimitar, the shield, and the short bow of the Combat Style (Steppe Wolf Pack), it begins to make sense that all three are improved as a character is unlikely to practice in one over the others. In addition, a character could actually go and purchase training for any one of his skills. A nice touch is that characters can also learn a little from making fumbles under circumstances.

Another question is , what happens if a character learns two Combat Styles both of which have weapons in common? The advice to the GM is to avoid this occurring, and if it does, to go with the obvious higher skill. As a concept, Combat Styles feels a bit dry, but the later rules expand upon the basic concept to add traits such as ‘Intimidating Scream’ and ‘Shield War’. These add flavour and feel, and give more variety.

RuneQuest Sixth Edition is a percentile skill system. At its most basic, a character just needs to roll under the skill, but various difficulties are listed. These range from Very Easy (double skill value) and Easy (add half the skill value) to Hard (reduce skill by one third), Formidable (half skill value), and Herculean (half skill value), which all feels a little complex. An alternative and simplified set of modifiers is also given, but even so, a GM’s screen would make their use easier. Overall though, the number of skills available have been streamlined, giving the game a less cluttered feel.

That said, one element that has been removed from RuneQuest Sixth Edition is the use of attributes in play. No longer are there raw Strength or Constitution tests, opposed or unopposed, which also means that the Resistance Table is also no longer present. In their stead are skills such as Brawn and Endurance for example, with players needing to make those skill rolls rather than rolls on the Resistance Table with the degrees of success determining how well a character does. To anyone familiar with the RuneQuest mechanics, this may seem an odd choice, since the Resistance Table has been part of the rules for numerous editions and also the system’s later games. It is an elegant solution to using the Resistance Table though, which can be a little fiddly to use in play, but at the same time, it does reduce the use a character’s attributes bar the determining a lot of other factors.

The changes to the combat rules for RuneQuest Sixth Edition continue with the adoption of a freer flowing feel. This begins with a more traditional initiative system, now a simple roll of a ten-sided die plus the character’s Strike Rank. What a character can do and how many times in a round is determined by how many Action Points he has. This includes having to take defensive actions, such as parrying, so players are probably going to learn to spend their Action Points wisely. The combat rules are detailed in that they allow for the effect of weapon sizes and reach, and they also allow for a certain degree of tactical, if not cinematic, action. Essentially, rolls are differential in that the degrees of success between an attacker’s roll versus the defender’s grant certain ‘Special Effects’ that replace the old Impale and Critical effects. The combatant with the greater differential, that is, has rolled more degrees of success actually chooses what ‘Special Effects’ he wants. This includes defensive rolls such as Parry, so if a defender rolls better than his attacker, he can generate Special Effects to his benefit. Over all, this allows for more interesting combat than in previous versions of RuneQuest.

For example, Hesione is travelling with a merchant caravan that has been attacked by Orc bandits. Alaric, the Shaman in training, is out with a scouting party that comes across this scene and with the rest of his fellow riders charges down the marauding Orcs, marking one Orc as his intended target. Both make Initiative rolls. Alaric rolls a 10 and adds it to his Strike Rank of 10 (normally 15, but adjusted for the scale armour he wears) to get 20; the Orc rolls a 3 and adds it to his Strike Rank of 8 (also adjusted for his armour, in this case, furs) to get 11. Obviously, Alaric is going first and uses the first of his 3 Action Points to ‘Change Range’ and charge the Orc down. The Orc is not surprised – the sound of horses’ hooves is not something he can ignore – and first uses a free action to ‘Ward Location’ and lift his target shield so that it covers his head and upper body where he thinks that Alaric will try and strike with his scimitar. He then uses a Delay to hold his Parry until Alaric attacks. This costs him the first of his 2 Action Points. With his second Action Point, Alaric attacks, using his Combat Style (Barbarian Horse Warrior) 48%, whilst the Orc will defend himself using his Combat Style (Orc Raider) 62%. Alaric rolls 03%, whereas the Orc rolls 56%. Both are successful in their actions, but because Alaric has rolled a Critical versus the Orc’s ordinary Success, he gets to select a Special Effect in addition to any damage done.

Both Alaric’s scimitar and the Orc’s short sword are medium-sized weapons, which means that the Orc can block all of the damage that Alaric would otherwise inflict. Nevertheless, there is the matter of the Special Effect to take into account yet, for which Alaric selects ‘Disarm Opponent’. Although the Orc blocks Alaric’s blow, he cannot stop the scimitar from sliding down to catch his fingers and force him to drop his short sword. Alaric still has an Action Point to spend and decides to attack again, this time rolling 16%, whilst the Orc uses his last Action Point to try and block the blow with his shield, rolling 80% and failing! This grants Alaric another Special Effect, which his player decides will be ‘Choose Location’, meaning that Alaric can strike somewhere not covered by the Orc’s shield, in this case the Orc’s right or weapon arm. He rolls 1D8 damage minus his Damage Modifier of -1D2, for a total of 6 points of damage. The Orc’s fur armour stops 1 point of this, but 5 points get through, reducing the Orc’s Hit Points in this location to -1 and inflicting a Serious Wound – the Orc is in trouble!

One issue that the example does illustrate is the importance of the Action Point economy. Whilst it works well, it illustrates the difference between having three Action Points per round and two. Arguably this is a balance issue and it may not be to everyone’s tastes as every player character either begins the game with two or three. This issue is discussed in the GM’s chapter, but ultimately it is one mechanic that the GM will have to address.

One quarter of RuneQuest Sixth Edition is devoted to magic, or rather, to the basic concepts of magic followed by five types of progressively more complex magical disciplines – Folk Magic, Animism, Mysticism, Sorcery, and Theism. Folk or ‘Common’ Magic is the simplest, and is the magic of simple cantrips to aid in daily tasks and of hedge wizards and witches. It includes classic spells such as Bladesharp and Deflect, Light and Glue, representing widely available if low-powered spells. Animism covers how to contact, negotiate, combat, exorcise, and bind spirits, using the skills of Trance and Bind. The former skill allows the user to enter and move around the spirit world, while latter allows the user to persuade or force a spirit to act for him to grant various spell-like effects. Mysticism employs Meditation and Mysticism to learn and employ Talents such as Astral Projection, Life Sense, Attribute Enhancement, and so on in very personal form of magic that feels akin to traditions of the Far East. Sorcery is the direct casting and manipulation of magical effects and thus to an extent reality using Invocation and Shaping, and is perhaps the most studious of the five discipline. Lastly, Theism employs the skills of Devotion and Exhort to call upon a god or gods for magical aid.

Although magic in RuneQuest Sixth Edition is fundamentally derived from the Runes, there is a clear effort with the five disciplines to present very different approaches to magic. Conceptually, they are perhaps the most complex aspects of the new rules, but these rules work hard to keep them as simple as possible whilst still retaining a great deal of flavour in their details. The toolkit aspect of RuneQuest Sixth Edition means that by choosing the types of magic available in his game, a GM can actually define much of the flavour or feel of the setting he is creating.

Our sample magic using character is Alaric, shaman in training to his tribe. He is unsure of his calling, but he is his grandmother’s choice to become the tribe’s shaman after his father dies. Indeed, his grandmother’s spirit is bound into a fetish that he wears around his neck. His next task is to find a wolf spirit, wolves being held in high regard by his tribe and learn to become one with his spirit.

Alaric
Age 17

STR 09 CON 08 SIZ 10 DEX 14 INT 15 POW 16 CHA 14

Action Points: 3 Damage Modifier: -1D2 Experience Modifier: +1 Healing Rate: 2
Build: Lithe Height: 161 cm Weight: 47 kg
Hit Points
Head 4 Chest 6 Abdomen 5 L. Arm 3 R. Arm 3 L. Leg 4 R. Leg 4
Luck Points: 3
Magic Points: 16
Movement Rate: 6
Strike Rank: 15

Standard Skills:
Athletics 23%, Boating 17%, Brawn 19%, Combat Style (Barbarian Horse Warrior) 48%, Conceal 30%, Customs 70%, Dance 38%, Deceit 29%, Drive 30%, Endurance 16%, Evade 28%, First Aid 59%, Influence 53%, Insight 60%, Locale 55%, Native Tongue 69%, Perception 41%, Ride 60%, Sing 30%, Stealth 29%, Swim 17%, Unarmed 38%, Willpower 47%

Professional Skills:
Binding 60%, Healing 61%, Lore (History) 42%, Oratory 24%, Survival 34%, Track 33%, Trance 54%

Passions
Loyalty to Clan Chieftain 56%
Love (Friend) 60%
Hate (Clan) 56%

Background
Social Class: Freeman
Family: Parents dead, six siblings, one grandparent, four aunts and uncles, three cousins
Reputation: Family has a good reputation – one contact/ally
Connections: Family is well-connected; one contact, one rival
Background Event: I am under a divine curse… I will moan, groan, and whinge at every opportunity, or remain completely stoic at every misfortune that befalls me. 
Money: 800 silver

If character generation made much of a character’s Culture and Community, essentially his background, then the rules for organisations – ‘Cults and Brotherhoods’ – develops it for use in play. Cults have always been part of RuneQuest, but in previous editions of the game they were tied to its original setting of Glorantha. Here they are expanded to cover organisations of all kinds, ones that characters can join and progress through the ranks of, gain training and gifts from, and work for. Primarily they consist of cults attached to one of the magic disciplines, but they could be military units, criminal gangs, and so on. Numerous examples are given, these nicely providing in-game physical support for the GM and players alike and further strengthening the role of magic in any setting that the GM creates.

More specifically for the GM are the last two chapters. The first of these is a bestiary which includes a range traditional fantasy RPG creatures, such as Dragons, Ghouls, Ogres, and more. Many also have come straight out of Greek Mythology – Cyclops, Gorgons, Harpies, and so on, which further supports the implied setting of Meeros and the Bronze Age setting as well. Other creatures are oddities, such as the Acephali, headless and neckless humanoids that have their in their chest; Bonacons, bull-like creatures with horses’ heads that excrete a nasty poison; and Slargr, intelligent, bipedal lizards that are highly territorial and eat anything. The creatures are supported by excellent guidelines on using in the game and how to turn them into player characters.

The last chapter is dedicated to ‘Games Mastery’. This covers everything from general Game Master advice to actual advice particular to RuneQuest Sixth Edition. In places it answers the queries raised through reading the rules, but for the most part it addresses elements of the rules from the Game Master’s perspective. Although there is useful material here, it does feel underwritten and what it really lacks are guidelines on setting creation, or at least a sketched out sample setting. That way, a GM could see how the rules in RuneQuest Sixth Edition could be applied. This would not be an issue if RuneQuest Sixth Edition was just a set of rules – there is an implied setting in the book and it is a pity that there is not more of it, although the GM’s Pack available to download from the publisher’s website for free goes some way to address the lack of a setting.

Physically, RuneQuest Sixth Edition is decently produced. The cover is particularly good, showing a Greek hoplite warrior facing some giant creature – actually a Slargr – and is reminiscent of the cover to the original RuneQuest cover from 1978. The internal illustrations, all black and white, are not all as good as the cover. The layout is clean and tidy though, and the book for the most part is well written. In places the book could have been better organised, for although there is an index, having to flip back and forth during play may be an impediment to play. Also, some of the examples given do feel more like narratives rather than full rules explanations which are disappointing.

With a game as old as RuneQuest, it is no surprise that there is a sense of nostalgia in coming to RuneQuest Sixth Edition. Yet whilst RuneQuest Sixth Edition retains much that made the original so very different from RPGs of its era, The Design Mechanism has streamlined the rules and worked hard to make the game easier to run. It has adopted more modern sensibilities by including more modern rules to strengthen each character’s drive with the rules for Passions and by giving a means to cement each character’s place in the world with the rules for ‘Cults and Brotherhoods’. The combination is a tried and trusted RPG that has been updated without the need for radical change, a combination that long time RuneQuest devotees will recognise and enjoy playing, and a combination that anyone new to RuneQuest will not be overwhelmed by the game’s past. Either way, what shines through in RuneQuest Sixth Edition is a feeling that the RPG is whole once more and in the hands of a publisher that loves the game.

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Brains, Bullets, & Sanity

Guns. Guns. Guns. They are a gamer’s best friend. When it comes to roleplaying in any historical period from the nineteenth century onwards, in the contemporary here and now, or some way into the future, one of the common questions a roleplayer will find himself asking is, “Can I have a gun?” followed by, “What is the coolest gun that I can have?” Never more so than in Call of Cthulhu, a game in which, if set in its classic period of the 1920s, has fewer limitations upon gun ownership and use than there are today. Of course, when it comes to Call of Cthulhu, guns are really only a sort of psychological crutch. Yes, they and the bullets that they fire will work against those insane enough to worship the creatures and entities that lie just beyond the true nature of reality, and it is possible that some of the lesser creatures that the player characters might encounter as part of their investigations, might be susceptible to a case or two of high velocity, hot leading poisoning, but not all. And certainly not the utterly alien, utterly incomprehensible “gods” that threaten to return to our world again.

Still, players do like their player characters to have their guns. Even if it is have one last bullet with which to apply an emergency trepanation so as to save their characters from madness. Which leaves the Keeper with a tiny headache – though not one caused by the emergency trepanation. Rather it is this. The Call of Cthulhu rulebook does not go into a great of depth when it comes to firearms. To be fair, it is not its focus, and when the game’s publisher has addressed the subject, it has all too often, been in a piecemeal fashion. Indeed, the only single supplement devoted to the use of firearms in Call of Cthulhu is Pagan Publishing’s The Weapons Compendium, and that has been out of print for almost two decades. Further, when firearms do appear in scenarios, supplements, and campaigns, they are often glossed over, mentioned by calibre and thus by damage type, rather than make or model. Now some Keepers will argue that such details do not matter. That firearms do not matter. Which is an admirable point of view, and one that could not be more wrong. Firearms do matter because they matter to the investigators. If they matter to the investigators, then the futility of their reliance upon them can be demonstrated in the game. They also matter because if detailed correctly and handled correctly, not only can this futility be demonstrated more readily, their presence can add verisimilitude to a game.

The answer to this omission for Call of Cthulhu comes courtesy of the first release from British publisher, Sixtystone Press Limited. Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s is written by, Hans-Christian Vortisch, who as a firearms expert has authored Cthulhu – Waffen-Handbuch, the only other firearms supplement available for Call of Cthulhu, but unfortunately only available in German, as well as GURPS High-Tech, GURPS Martial Arts: Fairbairn Close Combat Systems, and GURPS Tactical Shooting for Steve Jackson Games. It carries the subtitle, “the Complete guide to Bean-shooters, choppers, gats, heaters, mohsakas, pieces, rods and roscoes” and describes and gives game statistics for some twenty-five handguns, nine rifles, eight shotguns, two submachine guns, two machine guns, and their variants, as well as explosives, flamethrowers, and grenades. It contains not just these weapons, but also expanded rules for their use, expanded background that examines how to obtain them and the legal aspects of doing so, and in purely game terms, suggests the guns that not only each Occupation would typically wield, but also those that cultists might arms themselves with, continent by continent.

It is specifically written for use with Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition, and makes use of the 1920s Investigator’s Companion, the 1990s Handbook, and both the Keeper’s Companion and Keeper’s Companion 2 as well as various other supplements and sourcebooks. That said, this book is compatible with any version of Call of Cthulhu and with any Basic Role Play driven RPG.

Before I continue with the review, it should be pointed out that my name is listed in the credits. My contribution to the book was as part of a Peer Review group that read and reviewed each part of the book as it was written. That said, my influence over and input into this volume bar working through my Call of Cthulhu library in the name of research is minimal, enough such that I am comfortable in reviewing it.

Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s comes as a one-hundred-and-thirty-two page, 19.06 Mb PDF done in black and white with a colour cover. Chris Huth’s cover feels a little too cartoon-like, but it nevertheless captures the desperate flavour and feel of a Call of Cthulhu shoot out. Inside, the book is cleanly laid out and suitably illustrated with a range of photographs and period adverts. If there is an issue with the writing, it is that it is a little stilted in places, but to be fair, the author’s English is infinitely superior to either my Danish or my German. Nevertheless, the rules write-ups for each weapon and each variant are very clear and easy to read, and avoid any problems that could come with listing one similar firearm after another. A nice touch is that the weapons listed on the contents page are linked directly to their actual entries, so the reader can go straight to them with a simple click.

Every gun is presented in a standard format. Accompanied by an illustration and appropriate quote, each firearm is given a full write-up that covers everything from its history and list of users to its dimensions and suitability as an investigator’s weapon of choice. In addition, a simple guide to using the gun is given along with a discussion of the major variants and a list of films in which it can be seen being used. Each firearm and variant is accorded one stat. A line below this gives the weapon’s appropriate Skill, Base Chance, Damage, Base Range, Rate of Fire, Capacity, Hit Points, and Malfunction. As mentioned above, these lines are very easy to read, even when there are multiple variants, such as the seventeen given for the Mauser Gewehr 98 or the eighteen for the Mauser C96.

As to the guns themselves, the entries include the familiar, from the Colt Government (M1911) and Mauser C96 to the Colt M1918 BAR and Holland & Holland Royal Double (the so-called “elephant gun”) via the Enfield SMLE Mk III and the Auto-Ordnance Model 1921 Thompson. They also include the less familiar Colt Vest Pocket, Nambu Shiki, Remington MK III, Riverside Arms Model 315, and Bergmann M.P.18,I. Call of Cthulhu player favourites are also listed, for example, the Webley-Fosbery Automatic revolver also so beloved of fans of The Maltese Falcon, whilst other more obscure entries, such as the Lebman Machine Pistol, a fully automatic version of the Colt Government (M1911) deserve to become a player favourite.

The mix of firearms listed means that a Keeper should be able to easily arm the antagonists in his scenario wherever they happen to be encountered, whether that be Germany or Canada. This is intentional, not just in terms of actual global geography, but also in terms of Call of Cthulhu’s geography. The USA figures strongly here, since most of the scenarios for the game are set there, but Call of Cthulhu also happens to take the investigators to the United Kingdom, Australia, India, China, Africa, and numerous points elsewhere. In this way, it also supports the various points of call that the typical Call of Cthulhu campaign, such as the Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep, takes its investigators to. Besides the actual guns themselves, this aspect of the supplement is expanded upon with a lengthy section devoted to firearms and the law, detailing weapons permits and how to obtain a gun in various countries, the pitfalls of travelling with a gun, the exchange rates for various currencies in 1925, as well as actually giving the addresses of various major gun dealers from San Francisco to Shanghai and all points in between – in both directions! What this brings to the fore is the fact that buying and obtaining a firearm can actually be very simple or quite difficult, depending upon the desired firearm.

Dotted around all of the weapon entries are separate sections that detail new skills like Craft (Gunsmith) and Demolitions, describe the National Rifle Association in the 1920s – which it turns out, was a very handy place to learn Martial Arts (!), body armour, weapon lights, sound suppressors, and more. Besides all of the background detail, the Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s addresses the rules for their use in Call of Cthulhu. Primarily these are with a series of optional rules that cover skill competencies, concealment, quick draw, called shots, and automatic fire, as well as rules for shooting under various environmental conditions. All in cases, these rules are clear and simple, and supported with examples.

First though, the author addresses the confusing, frightening, and often deadly nature of gunfights. There are some radical suggestions here, most notably the rules for an investigator being surprised when fired upon from ambush, the likelihood that an investigator will simply fire as many shots as possible in the confusion of a gunfight, and imposing Sanity checks upon an investigator when he shoots someone. These are not unreasonable suggestions. After all, they add to the realism of the game, divorcing it from the concept of the Hollywood shootout, and they add another element of horror to the game.

So far, the Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s has been useful for both player and Keeper, but the Keeper also receives a section all of his very own. This addresses how guns can be brought to bear on the Mythos and their effects on its creatures and entities, which to be honest, can be best summed up as “woeful.” It suggests that some Mythos creatures should be able to dodge, just as the investigators can, and that any kind of aimed shooting at any Mythos entity, should involve a Sanity check. That is, if the investigator has not made one already. It also looks at how other types of ammunition might affect these beings and how certain types of magic might be applied to firearms. This option though, is really for a more Pulp style game.

Rounding out the supplement is a full set of tables that list every weapon and variant in the game. These are followed by summaries of its new rules and a new investigator sheet specifically designed for use in combat. These also come separately when the PDF version of the book is purchased.

It should be noted that although the Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s is written with Call of Cthulhu in mind, when divorced of the mechanics, the supplement’s descriptive and background detail should be useful for any RPG set in the period. This of course, includes other games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, such as Realms of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, or Cthulhu Hero. Perhaps, there is a possibility in there being a version of this supplement for each of these rules?

A perennial problem when it comes to running Call of Cthulhu is how exactly the rules for firearms work. Not that they do not work, but rather that players disagree how they should work. Much of it born of the fact that they have experience themselves with guns, but that is not necessarily the experience of their investigators. Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s addresses this problem, adding realism and detail in how Call of Cthulhu is played when it comes to guns and in the process adding flavour too. It does so in an immensely readable and informative fashion, and its contents are not only a ready resource for Call of Cthulhu players and Keepers alike, they are also useful for Call of Cthulhu writers and editors too. Whilst not every Keeper’s Call of Cthulhu campaign necessarily focuses on this aspect of the game, without a doubt, Investigator Weapons, Volume 1: The 1920s & 1930s is the definitive sourcebook when it comes to classic Call of Cthulhu and firearms.

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