For Cultured Friends

When you get home and are asked, “Who do you know in Toronto?”, in this household there can only be two answers—Robin D. Laws and James Maliszewski—and it is unlikely that I would be receiving mail from the former. So the question is, what would James Maliszewski—a doyen of Old School Renaissance through his blog, Grognardia and author of Dwimmermount,* an Old School Renaissance mega-dungeon published by Autarch LLC—be sending me in the post? The answer is issue one of The Excellent Travelling Volume, subtitled A fanzine for M.A.R. Barker’s World of Tékumel and James’ first dip into the gaming hobby after a sabbatical for personal reasons.

*In the interests of disclosure I was an editor on Dwimmermount.

With The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 James’ not only dips his toe back into the gaming hobby, he does it in as Old School a fashion as is possible. For this is a fanzine—a format that is in this day and age decidedly old fashioned—and it is devoted to Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel, TSR Inc.’s second RPG published, the first RPG to be published with a setting, and the first ‘culture’ RPG that presented a setting based on unfamiliar societies, histories, cultures, and of course, languages. The creation of linguist, M.A.R. Barker, learning some of the languages—or at least some of the phrases—can go some way to immersing yourself in what is a fascinating setting. Compared to the background detail in Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel, its rules do feel stripped back and perhaps a little bare—certainly in comparison to the versions of the game that would come later—but are definitely more straightforward and accessible than those presented in the previous year’s Original Dungeons & Dragons and they are certainly a step or three away from the wargaming origins of Original Dungeons & Dragons. So, James Maliszewski is writing supporting material for a forty year old game in a thirty year old* format. The question is, is James Maliszewski wasting his time? Followed by, is The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 any good?

*Yes, fanzines are older than that, but the heyday of roleplaying fanzines was thirty years ago.

The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 comes as a twenty-eight page, digest-sized booklet, illustrated with greyscale pictures. Inside are eight sections, most of which map onto particular sections in Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel. To modern eyes this will look somewhat arcane, but it has to be remembered that rules in the first few years of the hobby were organised in the only way which designers knew—like those of a wargame such as Panzer Blitz or Squad Leader. The first three sections in the fanzine quickly address the subjects of Alignment, Professions, and Basic Talents in the author’s campaign before leaping into something meatier in the fourth section with a variant of the magic-user. This is the Shaman, the barbarian equivalent to the magic-user, the latter being a civilised, studious profession, typically found in the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the temples of the Five Empires—the region on Tékumel where most campaigns are set. The Shaman learns not from attending classes or studying books, but directly at the feet of another Shaman. This makes this Profession suitable as an NPC whenever the typically Tsolyani parties—civilised peoples—wander off into the wilderness or as a player character who casts magic and wanders off the boat in the company of his  fellow barbarian tribesmen, or in Tsolyanu parlance, uncultured, uncivilised, nakome scum! ‘Barbarians off the boat’ being one of the default campaign set ups in Tékumel roleplaying. The Profession includes some new professional skills as well as a list of skills. This is a nice addition and it will be interesting to see what other Professions might appear in future issues.

The fifth section is definitely the highlight of The Excellent Travelling Volume #1. In the hierarchical clan-based society of Tsolyanu—the setting’s default campaign location—often the best way to get ahead is to find a patron. Patronage will get both nakome and those of lower clans a certain protection and into places where they might not otherwise get. The five Patrons presented here are done so in the format of Patrons a la Traveller, that is, an NPC and four to five options as what might be really going on. The five NPCs are very different, what they want is very different, and each of these Patrons is essentially the outline of a mini-scenario that the GM needs to develop. They are easily adapted to the Tékumel RPG of the GM’s choice and patrons as good as these definitely need to be a regular feature of the fanzine.

The Bestiary, a collection of a dozen new monsters and creatures, is perhaps less useful. Given the limited space devoted to them, their descriptions are surprisingly flavoursome, but they do feel crammed in and they do suffer for a lack of illustrations. These creatures are followed by descriptions of six ‘magical’ items, which again suffer for a lack of illustrations, but not for a lack of interesting descriptions.

Rounding out this first issue of The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 is ‘The Hidden Shrine’, a short of adventure. Easy to drop into most campaigns, it describes what amounts to a small, eight room dungeon suitable for low level characters. It is no simple dungeon though, there is something more interesting going on here, actually quite mundane, but which can have interesting ramifications for the player characters if the GM decides to develop the plot given in its few short pages. This is a good ‘Old School’ style adventure, but adventures on Tékumel do involve more than just ‘dungeons’, so it will be interesting to see what further adventures will be presented in future issues of the fanzine.

As to the matter of whether or not James Maliszewski is wasting his time with The Excellent Travelling Volume #1, well the answer has to be ‘yes’ and ‘no’. ‘Yes’ because not only is he publishing material for a setting that is arcane, obscure, and impenetrable, he is doing it for a version of the RPG that has been out of print for decades (though it can be downloaded via RPGnow, rather than for the latest, just published version, Béthorm: Tabletop Role-Playing on the Plane of Tékumel, published by UNIgames. Arguably, Tékumalis—those of us in the gaming hobby daft enough to play RPGs set on Tékumel—are ‘niche’ gamers, because it certainly takes some dedication, and those Tékumalis who play Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel are a niche within a niche. So the exact audience for The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 is, well, narrow. Yet ‘no’ because there is material in the pages of The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 that is useful and easily adapted to any Tékumel-set RPG, whether that is Different Worlds Publications’ Swords & Glory from 1983, Theater of the Mind Enterprises’ Gardasiyal: Adventures in Tekumel from 1994, Guardians of Order’s Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne from 2005, last year’s Béthorm: Tabletop Role-Playing on the Plane of Tékumel, or another ruleset. These are of course ‘Patrons’, ‘Magical Devices’, and ‘The Hidden Shrine’, all relatively easy to adapt. And also ‘no’ because The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 is clearly a labour of love for James Maliszewski.

Physically, The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 is nicely, though imperfectly presented. The artwork is eye catching and captures the weird nature of Tékumel, though it is a pity that none of the new creatures are illustrated. The typeface is a little faint and it could do with an edit, so a second pair of eyes could have been useful.

There have been fanzines devoted to Tékumel before, most notably The Eye of All-Seeing Wonder. This new fanzine, The Excellent Travelling Volume, is not The Eye of All-Seeing Wonder—it lacks both the breadth and depth and the detail—but it is not trying to be. It is a more superficial affair, concerned with the issues that concerned us in the ‘Golden Age of Roleplaying’, that is, character types, monsters, magic, and in a sense, dungeons. Yet just like Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel, this fanzine goes beyond such base concerns to give them some of the detail, the flavour, and the feel of M.A.R. Barker’s beautifully alien creation. The ‘Old School’ aspects of The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 may be off-putting for modern gamers and some of the Tékumali may find its Old School approach a little simplistic, but there is a great deal to like in The Excellent Travelling Volume #1 and it showcases how even the earliest of RPGs, Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel, pushed the hobby beyond the superficialities of dungeon delving.

If you are a Tékumali, you are going to want to take a look at The Excellent Travelling Volume #1. This is a good first issue that lays the foundations of hopefully many issues to come. Mr. Maliszewski welcome back to the hobby. Now when is issue #2 being released?

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Thule Squared

Thulian Echoes is a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, the Old School Renaissance RPG that embraces both the weird and unforgiving bloody horror. Like last year’s well-received Scenic Dunnsmouth—which in the interests of disclosure it should be noted that I edited and developed—it draws from the works of H.P. Lovecraft for its inspiration. In Scenic Dunnsmouth that inspiration was the short stories The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth; in Thulian Echoes the inspiration is At the Mountains of Madness amongst others, though it could be said that Beyond the Mountains of Madness for Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu is also an inspiration. For just as in Beyond the Mountains of Madness, in Thulian Echoes the player characters are on the trail of a lost expedition. The author though, pushes this idea further into a clever conceit—the players not only roleplay their characters going in search of the lost expedition, they also get to roleplay the lost expedition into the bargain !

For the player characters, the scenario begins with their discovery of an ancient journal, one that describes the events of a forgotten expedition to a previously unknown, fog-shrouded island south of Iceland. In the year 200 AD, a group comprised of Roman ex-Legionary, a Gladiator, a Rabbi, a Sorcerer, a Pict, and an Engineer along with their henchmen sailed to this island in search of a Greek wizard called Xenophon, who is said to have absconded with a hoard of silver in the wake of the Emperor Titus’ sacking of Jerusalem. Once on the island they penetrated Xenophon’s labyrinth to discover strange machinery, a route deep into the bowels of the Earth, and perhaps the fate of the wizard himself. All of these events are described in detail in the journal, but in actuality the players roleplay the members of this expedition and it is their adventures that are described in the journal.

Where Thulian Echoes gets interesting is that the original adventurers are likely to have a permanent effect upon both the island and the dungeon. Actually, that is not the interesting fact about Thulian Echoes because once some adventurers enter a dungeon—any dungeon—then they will have an effect upon said dungeon. No, where Thulian Echoes is interesting is the fact that ‘modern’ adventurers come to the island and dungeon and actually see and experience the effect that the original adventurers had upon it. In the scenario, this is represented by TAGs, each essentially a conditional state imposed by the original adventurers’ actions. For example, the original adventurers bring several dogs with them. If they are left on the island when the original adventurers depart, then they breed and give the island the ‘FERAL DOGS’ TAG. This gives the DM some bookkeeping to do between the first and second time that he runs the adventure. It also allows the players to ‘meta-game’ the scenario, that is, to have the original adventurers set up certain events that the player characters can take advantage of when they come to the island a thousand years later. Whilst this may mean that the player characters get their hands on a big pile of loot, the likelihood is that the original adventurers will have left the player characters with plenty of TAGs or the consequences of their actions, to deal with…

As much as the idea behind Thulian Echoes is clever, the overall effect is somewhat flat. Part of it is due to the fact that original adventurers are no more than outlines for which the players will need to generate attributes and Hit Points. Now the fact that they are labelled Legionary, Gladiator, Rabbi, Sorcerer, Pict, and Engineer gives a little colour that a player draw upon for inspiration, but they are not interesting in and of themselves. It does not help that they lack motivation beyond the simplistic desire to steal Xenophon’s treasure. Of course, there is nothing to stop the DM adding details to any of the given pre-generated original adventurers, but some information to that end could have been included. The real issue is that the dungeon itself is not interesting. It is not interesting as a dungeon and it is not interesting as a dungeon compared to the others published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess—and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is definitely known for the quality of its dungeons (in the interests of disclosure, I should know, I have edited some of them).

Then of course there is the title of the scenario. ‘Thulian’ does not refer to the shade of pink, but to the far off island of Thule, perhaps Iceland, perhaps Greenland if Ultima Thule, certainly beyond the borders of the known world. Yet ‘Thulian’ is also a nod towards the Cthulhu Mythos, though even with the inclusion of the Elder Things in depths below the island, Thulian Echoes is somewhat light in terms of the Mythos. Rather it is a shading of the scenario, not its focus, which is of course, 'Echoes of Thule'.

Physically, Thulian Echoes is a slim booklet. The writing needs an edit here and there, but the artwork has a cartoony, even clunky look that is nicely pleasing on the eye. The cartography is certainly pretty, but the DM will need to pay it careful attend as it is not always easy to read.

There is undoubtedly an interesting idea at the heart of Thulian Echoes. Indeed, the idea at its core would work in number of different settings, whether that is Call of Cthulhu, Numenera, or Leagues of Adventure. Given the brevity of the booklet, the idea is reasonably implemented in Thulian Echoes, but nevertheless, the DM will need to pay very careful attention to the TAGs that are put into effect when the original adventurers play through the scenario. Ultimately and despite its clever idea, Thulian Echoes is perhaps something for the DM to develop further himself.

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Storytelling Dungeons & Dragons

In the absence of an actual Dungeons & Dragons RPG between January 2012 and July 2014, between Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition and the recently released Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition there leapt into void not one but two contemporary takes upon traditional fantasy roleplaying. Of course, the term ‘void’ is relative, since Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is still available, as are any number of Old School Renaissance titles, from Labyrinth Lord to Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. The first of these is 13th Age, Pelgrane Press’ action-orientated RPG that energised the Dungeons & Dragons style of play. The second is the Monsters & Magic Roleplaying Game. Published by Mindjammer Press, unlike the other Dungeons & Dragons style RPG, it is not a d20 System derived RPG, but uses its own Effect Engine mechanics to bring in storytelling mechanics that sit upon the architecture of nearly forty years of roleplaying that is Dungeons & Dragons. It has been described ‘Dungeons & Dragons meets FATE’, in that it employs descriptors—in Evil Hat Productions’ FATE called Aspects, in Monsters & Magic called Traits—that can be invoked to grant a benefit to the players’ adventurers. The result is that each and every adventurer brings more of his character to the play of the game and to the game world—more so than traditional Dungeons & Dragons. Further, it is possible to take characters from your existing Dungeons & Dragons game and slip them into a Monsters & Magic game, and in the process bring the characters alive.

Coming with the tagline, “Old School Fantasy, New School Play”, Monsters & Magic is still a classic Class and Level RPG. The classic races are present—Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Orc, and Human, as are the classic Classes—Cleric, Fighter, Thief, and Wizard. The other classic Classes are treated as sub-Classes, so Druid and Monk are sub-Classes of the Cleric Class. In this way, the Paladin, Ranger, Illusionist and Specialist Wizard, and Assassin and Bard are all present. If there is an edition of Dungeons & Dragons that Monsters & Magic is based upon, it is certainly Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. (It should be noted that the Berzerker Class is present as an example of how to create a new sub-Class, but it is not included in core set of Classes). Further, the classic six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma are rolled on three-six-sided dice and the Classes function as you would expect. So the Cleric Class can Turn Undead, cast Clerical Magic, Wear Light and Medium Armour and use Shields, and so on, whilst the Ranger can Wear Light and Medium Armour and use Shields, use Bows and One-Handed Swords, is an Enemy of Humanoids and Giant-kind, can Follow the Trail, is Solitary, and is skilled in Woodcraft and Scouting and Spying.

Laurenel
High Elf; First Level Magic User
Str 09 (-0) Dex 15 (+1) Con 10 (+0)
Int 16 (+6) Wis 13 (+1) Chr 14 (+1)

Physical Hit Points: 14
Mental Hit Points: 25
Armour Class: 13
Hero Points: 1

Alignment: Neutral
Alignment Focus: Bring the balance to all things
Alignment Drift: People must have the freedom to choose

Background Traits
My family was dishonoured for its dealings with the Dark

Goal
To restore the family honour

Elven Traits
Graceful and Mysterious, Excellent Perception, Speak Elven, Extremely Long-lived, Infravision, Resist Charm, Elf Weapons, The Rising of the Dark, From an Ordered Society

Magic User Traits
Magic, Magical Lore, Read & Write, Use Quarterstaff & Daggers, Perform Rituals, Intimidate the Ignorant, Scribe Scrolls

Spells
Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Light, Magic Missile, Sleep

As can be seen from this sample, a character in Monsters & Magic looks very much like a character from almost any Old School roleplaying game, though there are notable differences. A character has both Physical Hit Points and Mental Hit Points—so he can take both mental and physical damage—and Mental Hit Points means that characters can suffer sanity inducing shock and engage in social conflicts; he has Hero Points to help him get out of bad scrapes; and an Alignment Focus which helps him roleplay his Alignment and an Alignment Drift which represents the temptations that will push him away from his current Alignment towards another. Playing to either his Alignment or his Alignment Drift will gain a character Experience Points for good roleplaying.

One major notable difference between a character in Monsters & Magic and another Old School RPG is that each Class has a primary attribute, the modifier for which is doubled. Thus if a Cleric and a Magic User both had an Intelligence of 16, the modifier for the Cleric would be +3, but doubled to +6 for the Magic User as Intelligence is the Primary Attribute for the Class. What this does is empower each Class through the Primary Attribute.

At the heart of the character and of Magic & Monsters are Traits, each “a single word or short phrase describing something crucial about your character, like an ability, background story detail, or personality aspect”. In play, they enable a character to bring one or more of these into play and have it directly affect the game in play. Most of a character’s Traits will come from his Race or his Class, but they will also come from a come from a character’s Alignment and from his Background Trait—such as Ex-Royal Courtier or Grew up an urchin on Swill Lane. He could also take a special item, perhaps an heirloom. As a character gains a Level, he can gains more Traits. Some of these will come from his Class, others from his Background and his adventuring life, or indeed, he could discover more of the capabilities of his heirloom and give it another Trait.

Both the Attribute Modifiers and the Traits play a major role in Monsters & Magic’s mechanic, known as the ‘Effect Engine’. To undertake an action, a character rolls not a twenty-sided die, but three six-sided dice. To this roll the character adds an attribute modifier, but if the situation warrants it, a character can add not just one, but various Traits up to a certain limit. The first Trait is equal to the character’s Level, but any subsequent ones are worth a simple +1. Rolls can be made against set difficulties—Average is 10, Tough, is 15, Difficult is 20, and so on—or against static values such as Armour Class or the resistance values derived from a character or an NPC’s attributes. All a player has to do is describe how his character uses each Trait and it is allowed by the GM.

The result of a roll in the Effect Engine is where Monsters & Magic gets interesting. If the result of the roll exceeds the difficulty, Effect Points are generated and these can be used in a variety of different ways. At the most basic, if a character targets an NPC or a monster, then the Effect Points can be turned into points of damage, these in addition to the damage rolled for the weapon or the spell. Generate enough Effect Points and they can be used to generate ‘Minor’ Effects (5 Effect Points), ‘Major’ Effects (10 Effect Points), and ‘Extreme’ Effects (15 Effect Points), that are placed on the target. A ‘Minor’ Effect would be to gain a +2 bonus or impose a -2 penalty, move a Range Band, mount or dismount a horse, sheath or draw a weapon, change stance, use up a minor resource such as an arrow or a dropped item, and so on. A ‘Minor’ Effect can be used to negate a ‘Minor’ Consequence that has been imposed on a character. Both ‘Major’ Effects and ‘Extreme’ Effects work in a similar fashion. 

For example, Laurenel is travelling at dusk in the Mountains of the Neck when he is ambushed by an Orc Warrior. Unlike his peers, this Orc likes to hunt his prey using a bow and arrow rather than just his cruel sword. Fortunately for the Elf, the Orc misses, but Laurenel needs to spot where the ambusher is. Spotting the ambusher is a Wisdom check, so that adds +1 to the roll, and his player suggests that both of his Excellent Perception and Infravision Traits will help him. The GM agrees, which adds a further +1 for each Trait. Laurenel’s player rolls 15 and adds the +3 to give a result of 18.

The Orc Warrior has a Dexterity Resistance of 12, so the result of 18 is not only a success, it also gives Laurenel 6 Effect Points to spend.  He spends it on a Minor Effect he calls ‘Obvious’, which he describes as the Orc having camouflaged himself poorly. It grants the Elf a +2 bonus to hit.

Having spotted the Orc Warrior, Laurenel lets fly with a Magic Missile spell.  He will add +6 to this roll for his Intelligence modifier, +1 for his Magic Trait, and of course, +2 for the ‘Obvious’ Minor Effect. In total, he as a +9 modifier to the roll. The Orc Warrior’s Armour Class is 20. Laurenel rolls 14 and adds the 9 to get a total of 22. This generates 2 Effect Points—not enough to buy a Minor Effect, so Laurenel decides to inflict 2 more points damage and rolls 1d4+1 and adds another 2 points to the total to get 6.

If a roll is failed, a character can suffer Consequences. Essentially, these work just like Effects, but with a negative result rather than the positive ones of Effects. Should a character suffer any Consequences, then they can be negated by purchasing counter Effects. 

For example, in a later round, Laurenel decides to push forward to attack the Orc Warrior with his quarterstaff. So he rolls three six-sided dice, adds his Strength modifier (0), his Use Quarterstaff & Daggers Trait (+1), and the ‘Obvious’ Minor Effect (+2). The difficulty for the roll is the Orc Warrior’s Armour Class, which is 20. Unfortunately, Laurenel rolls a total of 15, which is under the target. The GM uses these points under the target to impose a Minor Consequence (-2) on Laurenel, which is ‘Twisted Ankle’ as the Elf gets caught up in the undergrowth.

With its Consequences and Effects, the Effect Engine can be a whole lot deadlier than the standard play of a d20 System fantasy RPG, especially as characters progress in Level and the rules for Scale come into play. At 5th Level, a character gains access to the Heroic Scale, at 10th Level he gains access to the Epic Scale, at 15th Level he gains access to the Legendary Scale, and at 20th Level he gains access to the Mythic Scale. At the Heroic Scale, a character can build himself a Reputation, build a community or gang around him, or put together a ship’s crew; at the Epic Scale a character can build strongholds or domains, and engage in politics, diplomatic, or courtly actions; at Legendary Scale, a character is capable of working at the level of kingdoms; and at Mythic Scale, he can influence the fates of nations, peoples, and even whole worlds! As a campaign grows in Scale, so does the level of Effects, from Heroic (+8) on upwards.

Another area in which the players have input during play is when it comes to determine treasure. A GM can define what loot a monster might have or what exactly is held in a hoard’s horde, but he can award the players Treasure Points. These can be spent to purchase types of coinage, gems and jewellery, and special items. More of the former have to be purchased using these Treasure Points before the latter.

To this point Monsters & Magic is decently supported with some excellent full examples of play that show how the Effect Engine works. These are necessary because the book in places lacks that clarity that it needs to impart the differences between traditional fantasy roleplaying and the narrative demands of Monsters & Magic. The support provided elsewhere in Monsters & Magic is disappointing—only First and Second Level spells are listed and only a handful of monsters are included. This has a number of consequences. First, any spell casting character must have access to the core rules or player’s rule book for another fantasy RPG if he wants spells of a greater level. Second and likewise, the GM will access to the core rules or a bestiary for another fantasy RPG if he wants more monsters. In either case, they will want access to these books, and as a third consequence, in the long term Monsters & Magic is not a wholly standalone RPG.

On the plus side, converting spells and monsters from other fantasy RPGs is not all that challenging. Guidance is included to help a player convert his character from that other fantasy RPG into Monsters & Magic, and the monsters included showcase how they should look after conversion. Just like characters, monsters in Monsters & Magic have their own Traits. This also points to another possibility. That of adapting and running other Old School fantasy RPG settings to run using Monsters & Magic. Want to use these rules to run a Dragonlance campaign or a Dark Sun campaign? Such a conversion could be done because Monsters & Magic would simplify the abilities and backgrounds found in the character types and monsters those settings into Traits.

Rounding out Monsters & Magic is a scenario. ‘Silvermoon’ describes a village wrapped and cowed in the mists known as ‘Moonbreath’ that waft their nightly way down from the craters of Moon Moor. It is a fairly short if detailed affair, and should provide two or three sessions of play.

Physically, Monsters & Magic is decently illustrated in an Old School style. The cartography, what little there is of it, is excellent though. The writing is generally clear, but in places it could be better and the examples of play often do a better job how the rules should work.

Monsters & Magic is not a fantasy RPG designed to introduce new players to the hobby. In places, it is too complex for that, and in others it does not explain the rules quite as well as it should. Rather it is a fantasy RPG in the classic mode of Dungeons & Dragons designed to appeal to more contemporary mores that want a player to have greater narrative input into the play of the game. The Effect Engine and its use of Traits brings in a mechanical and narrative flexibility not present in Old School fantasy RPGs, but builds it around the structure of the Old School fantasy RPGs to make Monsters & Magic accessible and familiar to gamers of all preferences.

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The Unforgiven

I begin this review with disclaimer. I edit books for Lamentations of the Flame Princess—not all of them, but enough to explain that I am involved with the publisher before I begin a review of one of its latest books, Forgive Us. I was not involved in the publication of Forgive Us, whereas I was involved in the publication of Scenic Dunnsmouth. Understandably, I am not reviewing Scenic Dunnsmouth, but you can read a review of it here. In the meantime, I feel qualified to review Forgive Us, a new scenario for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying and other ‘Old School’ fantasy roleplaying games.

Written and illustrated by Kelvin Green, Forgive Us – Being A Chronicle of the Events Surrounding the Mysterious Disappearance of the Notorious Criminal Gang Known as the Tenebrous Hand. And Other Stories. is written for a party of characters of fourth level and above. It actually consists of three scenarios—‘Forgive Us’, ‘In Heaven, Everything is Fine’, and ‘Death and Taxes’. All three take place in the year 1625, in Norwich, a city that has grown prosperous from the manufacture of textiles. Thus unlike most Old School fantasy RPGs and in line with Lamentations of the Flame Princess’ recent releases—Better Than Any Man, Death Love Doom, The Magnificent Jan Van Ooms, and Tales of the Scarecrow, the trilogy is set during early modern period and does involve the use of firearms. None of the three adventures are connected and there is no advice as to how to connect them, although reasons are given for involving the player characters in each. One oddity is that only the first scenario, ‘Forgive Us’, is mentioned in the back cover blurb. A map of Norwich accompanies the book.

History tells us that Norwich was struck by the plague in 1625, but ‘Forgive Us’ gives an alternative to this outbreak of the Black Death. The scenario revolves around the activities of the Tenebrous Hand, a band of thieves who have grown so successful preying on the activities of Norwich’s rich merchants that it has taken over a single block of buildings in the city. Now something curious has occurred—it appears to be locked up and deserted. Certainly those who work in the legitimate businesses based in the block appear not to have gone into work of late.

Which depending upon the motivations of the player characters, is convenient—if they want to rob the Tenebrous Hand, or inconvenient—if they need to contact someone inside. Once the characters have gained access, the various businesses and buildings under the thieves’ protection are mapped out in some cartographic detail. The Referee will need to make up the particulars of each room as he goes, for only the most information is alluded to in the text.

In presenting an exploration of these buildings, the author presents a ‘dungeon bash’, but a ‘dungeon bash’ in which almost nothing happens and which feels all the more natural for not actually being set in a dungeon. It takes its cue here from Lamentations of the Flame Princess’ inaugural scenario, Death Frost Doom, being primarily driven by the players’ curiosity and the adventure’s presentation by the Referee. This is not to say that the scenario is without incident, but to an extent, the players will need to work hard to reach them. When they occur, they are quite, quite nasty…! There is every chance that the scenario will go wrong for the player characters, especially if it plays out like the movies that the author draws upon for inspiration.

‘Forgive Us’ is followed by two shorter scenarios, each suitable for single sessions. In ‘In Heaven, Everything is Fine’ something is not quite right in the village of Ashmanhaugh. The player characters travel there because they have heard that it is haunted or perhaps because they are looking for someone. There is, of course, nothing untoward in the village—everyone seems happy, prosperous, and pleased to see the characters. Then strange things seem to happen and the characters feel unwell. Does the strange tower in the woods have something to do with this? Despite its short length, ‘In Heaven, Everything is Fine’ calls for more effort upon the part of the Referee. Especially if the player characters visit the strange tower in the woods.

Lastly, in ‘Death and Taxes’, the player characters are asked to attend the funeral of a friend. Oddly, their friend’s daughter has gone missing and tax collectors have arrived to collect unpaid revenue that their friend should have paid. This is a short affair that easily slips in between other scenarios. 

Physically, Forgive Us is a pleasing black and buff book. The author not only writes the book, but is also its illustrator and cartographer. Not all of the artwork quite works, but the cartography is excellent, providing a level of detail that the Referee can work from to give descriptions of each—something that the text does not. This should not impede the experienced Referee though. If the editing needs a little tightening here and there, that is more an editor’s pedantry than anything that mars the book which is otherwise solidly presented.

What Forgive Us highlights are the parallels between Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay—particularly in the former’s aforementioned more recent releases set in the early modern age. After all, they share the same historical period, the same grim and gritty tone, and the same perilous sense of doom. Of course, it took an Englishman to bring these parallels to the fore. Thus it would be far from insurmountable for a GM to adapt the scenarios from Forgive Us to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay—at least for the First and Second Editions of the game. Adapting Forgive Us to Fantasy Flight Games’ Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Third Edition presents more of a problem. There is also the matter of Forgive Us’ English setting, as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay never visited its British Isles analogue of Albion, but then any of the three scenarios in Forgive Us can easily be relocated to The Empire of the Old World.

Forgive Us would also work with another two British RPGs— one is Arion Games’ Maelstrom. It is set during the same period as the RPG and shares a little of the same tone, although its use of magic and monsters may be too over the top in comparison with Maelstrom’s restrained treatment of its outré elements. The other is Cakebread & Walton's Renaissance Deluxe, the Black Powder era RPG that covers the period between 1500 AD and 1800 AD.

Of the three scenarios in Forgive Us, it is the eponymous ‘Forgive Us’ that stands out. ‘In Heaven, Everything is Fine’ and ‘Death and Taxes’ are decent enough fillers, but ‘Forgive Us’ benefits from its detail and its scope being given the space. It presents a mysterious malodorous situation in a quietly entertaining fashion, punctuated by some short sharp shocks that work all the better for the scenario’s very ordinary setting. Overall, Forgive Us presents us with a trilogy of scenarios that are in keeping with the recent scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, but which are not authored by its publisher and are thus more like traditional scenarios and less belligerent towards the players.

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Against the Slave Lords

It is curious to note that in 2013, a year when there was all but no official support for Dungeons & Dragons, the best support came in the form of nostalgia. Not the ‘new’ nostalgia as seen in the form of the Old School Renaissance, but actual honest to goodness proper nostalgia. Wizards of the Coast made available much of the official Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons back catalogue via dndclassics.com as well as publishing two collections of classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons scenarios. The first was Dungeons of Dread, which compiled S1: Tomb of Horrors, S2: White Plume Mountain, S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. The second was Against the Slave Lords which collated the ‘Aerie’ or ‘A’ Series – A1: Slavepits of the Undercity, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, and A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. Both were presented as handsome hardback books, but what marks out Against the Slave Lords are the extras that are included in the book. 

The four scenarios began life as the 'AD&D Open Tournament at Gen Con XIII' in 1980. They would each be released in 1980 and 1981, before being collated as Scourge of the Slave Lords in 1986 as the middle part of the super campaign between T1–4 The Temple of Elemental Evil and GDQ1–7 Queen of the Spiders. Set in the World of Greyhawk, the series introduced the Slavers as threat in the setting and to do so, it expanded upon four scenarios that were originally designed to be played in a time frame of just four hours each. Included in each of the four scenarios were those tournament guidelines and a set of six pre-generated adventurers. This shows in the maps in particular, which either come in two versions, one with just those locations used in the tournament, the other with all of the locations; or with the tournament sections marked within the larger map given for the full scenario. 

Designed for play by a party of adventurers of fourth to seventh level, the ‘A’  Series begins with A1: Slavepits of the Undercity. For the past four years, the towns and villages along the coast of the Sea of Gearnet have been beset by the raids of slavers. In response the local lords hire a band of adventurers to investigate and put an end to this menace. An escaped slave has identified a ruined temple in the city of Highport in the Pomarj as one of the stops on the slave trade trail and as the scenario opens, the heroes find themselves standing outside a secret entrance to this temple – which they learned about from an escaped slave – ready to penetrate its dilapidated halls and uncover the first secrets of the Slave Lords. The scenario consists of the ruined temple above ground and the re-purposed sewers beneath it. The ruins above ground are split into two sections, one half of the temple unused (though parts are still patrolled by Orcs), the other half a reworked temple. Below the sewers have been extended into a nest of ant-men and seemingly endless pits of stinking, fermenting refuse.

There is a fundamental flaw with A1: Slavepits of the Undercity, at least as far as the non-tournament version is concerned. The tournament version is a straightforward affair, not to say linear and the accompanying maps reflect this. The non-tournament version is not quite as straightforward and expands greatly upon the rooms and ruins of the temple. In the process, what both the text and the maps lack are connections between various areas of the temple. For example, one of the new areas, currently home to a pair of basilisks, has been blocked off by a brick wall and the text does not describe how it can be accessed. Similarly, as drawn, the non-tournament map of the temple does not show a means by which a party can go from the abandoned area on the one side to the actual temple on the other without exiting the temple complex and walking round the outside to another entrance. Which effectively defeats the initial use of stealth to gain access. This is one element of A1: Slavepits of the Undercity that the DM will need to address before running the scenario.

Overall, A1: Slavepits of the Undercity is a serviceable dungeon/adventure. Given its origins as a tournament scenario, it cannot avoid being linear in structure and play. Nevertheless, it does in places present some challenging tactical situations, most notably the ‘Main Slave Chamber’ where the adventurers must fight over the tops of the slave cages with great care or be tipped into the cages below. 

The opening of the second scenario in the series, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, has a familiar feel to it. The adventurers find themselves outside a slavers’ base, ready to sneak inside using a route provided by an escaped slave. Despite the repetitive nature of this beginning, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade has a much more rounded feel to it as well more depth and detail. Following a map found below the temple in Highport, the adventurers have located a second slavers outpost, a hillfort deep in the Drachensgrab Hills. The stockade is only a stopping point upon the route used by the slave caravans, so if the adventurers are to learn more, they investigate what lies behind its walls and below its gatehouses and barracks.

In comparison to the first scenario in the series, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade is not only a more coherent adventure, it feels much as if the setting is alive. The stockade is heavily guarded and should its guards be alerted to the adventuring party’s intrusion, they will react accordingly. Much of the scenario is written to that end… What the adventure also includes are more tactical breakdowns of certain locations that give more detail and help support the actions of the various NPCs described in the room entries.

Where A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade disappoints by modern standards, is in its lack of narrative beyond the guards’ possible reaction to the intruding adventurers – at least initially. A closer reading of the scenario reveals that there are events going on at the stockade beyond the arrival of the adventurers, in particular the poor relations between the head of the stockade and her deputy. This may well influence how the DM runs the adventure, but being buried deep in the adventure the information is not as useful. Were the scenario not appearing in reprint, then arguably another edit would have moved this information to the front of the module so as to alert the DM. 

Another issue with A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade is that it does not address solutions to situations that do not involve combat. Much of this is due to ‘A’ Series’ origins as tournament adventures, but there are situations where non-combat solutions should have been given. Most notable of these is an encounter with a ‘Haunt’, the restless spirit of someone who died before it could complete a now unfinished task. What the adventure never really addresses is how this task can be finished except through combat. Still, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade is a solid affair with more to it than A1: Slavepits of the Undercity.

If the tournament origins of the ‘A’ Series have been evident in the first two parts, they are explicit in A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. Following various slaving parties has led the adventurers deep into the Drachensgrab Mountains where the parties seem to disappear into one mountain… After many days’ search they have located a possible tunnel entrance to the ‘Aerie of the Slave Lords’. These tunnels, or rather this tunnel, basically links a series of linear rooms that feel as if they have been written to deplete the player characters of their resources. This feeling is only exacerbated when the designer does exactly the same for this adventure’s third part.

The adventure’s second part is actually quite interesting and involves far more than combat. Once the adventurers have made their way through the first series of rooms, they find themselves in the ‘Aerie of the Slave Lords’, an island located in a lake that fills the caldera of an extinct volcano. Nearby is where the Slave Lords conduct the slave trade – Suderham, the City of the Nine, above which stands below their fortress, Drachen Keep. The latter is the party’s intended destination, but a direct assault would be foolish, so they must search for an alternate means of entry. In this they have the aid of several other agents of their employers who suddenly appear from nowhere to give the adventurers clues as where they should go… This requires some investigation upon the part of the adventurers and interaction with the inhabitants of the city, which is itself fully detailed.

In the tournament version of A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, this section is all but skipped over. In the full version of the scenario, it is but a necessity, providing a welcome change of pace between the grinding trudge of the beginning and ending dungeons that make up the scenario. In terms of organisation, it would have helped if the information about the agents had been given at the start of the section covering the city. Similarly, it would have been helpful if the information explaining the nature of first dungeon had been given before the start of that dungeon and not at the start of the section detailing Suderham. Then of course, there is that ending...

Now at last we come to the ‘A’ Series’ pièce de résistance, A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. It opens in a most spectacular fashion, with the adventurers lying in the dark without all of their equipment. They have been cast into the caves below the island and must gather the means to aid their escape as well as find their way out. At the end of the tournament version of A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, the adventurers are captured, although in the non-tournament version, their defeating the slave lords is allowed for. Still, if they are cast into the caves below the island, the players will need to be ingenious with what they do have to hand if their characters are to escape. There are plenty of opportunities to gather the means to arm themselves, not all of them involving combat, such as negotiating by very odd means with a tribe of intelligent fungi, the Myconoids.

A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords also comes with a timing mechanism, or at least an implied one, both the ‘dungeon’ and the island being beset by earthquakes which prove to be evidence of an volcanic eruption once the adventurers are free of the caves. This adds a further air of desperation to the adventure as the inhabitants of Suderham attempt to flee the island. The adventurers must find their way through these frantic islanders if they are finally to confront the surviving slave lords on the harbour front.

The issue at the core of the scenario is that the adventure begins with the player characters having their equipment confiscated. Putting aside the fact that the players  never like their ‘toys’ being taken away – let alone disliking getting captured in the first place, one of the challenges to this adventure is that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition is not a game really designed to be played without such equipment and magic items. Later iterations of the RPG possess more flexibility with regard to such a situation, though they might make the situation in this adventure less of a challenge. That said, advice is given on handling both the dark environment of the caves and the discoveries necessary for the characters to equip themselves, but this advice does begin with a surprisingly harsh admonition. A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords is the most mature of the original quartet of scenarios in Against the Slave Lords, pushing at the boundaries of what Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was capable of.

What A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords really provides is a rousing and memorable conclusion to the ‘A’ Series and thus Against the Slave Lords. It is the most focused and most effectively executed of the quartet and the least hampered by the tournament format of the four. 

Of course, whilst Against the Slave Lords primarily consists of the reprint of the ‘A’ Series modules, the compilation actually consists of more than this. To begin with, it includes a new foreward for each of the four modules, written by the original authors. These add an interesting retrospective on each, but the main addition to Against the Slave Lords is A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry. Designed for characters of first to third level, this is the first official scenario to be written for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons since 1999, it is intended to lay the groundwork for the ‘A’ Series. It takes place in Nyrond, further along the coast of the Sea of Gearnat in quarry above the village of Darkshelf. Although the quarry continues to be productive, of late, strange noises have been heard from within its depths, a third shift works the quarry in secret, half-eaten bodies have found in the nearby river, and slavers have operating in the area. These goings on are enough for the head of the village to hire adventurers to investigate.

Now there are not the adventurers as suggested for the tournament play-through of the ‘A’ Series, indeed A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry is not designed for tournament play nor does it come with pre-generated adventurers. Shorn of the tournament format, the scenario is a more rounded affair and given much more detail. It also lacks the built-in starting point that the other scenarios all have, so the adventurers have a freer hand in how they approach the quarry and its mystery and workforce. This a solid adventure and a decent introduction to the ‘A’ Series campaign.

If there is a weakness to the inclusion of A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry, it is that it only lays the groundwork for the events of the ‘A’ Series rather than linking to it. Being written for levels one through three, it leaves something of a gap of two or three levels before the player characters are suitable to tackle the next four parts. Unfortunately this gap is not addressed in Against the Slave Lords.

Physically, Against the Slave Lords is well presented. The reprint of the original ‘A’ Series is clean and tidy, although in retrospective, it is a shame that none of the art in A1: Slavepits of the Undercity, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, and A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords really serves these three scenarios. In comparison, the art in A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords is far more useful and overall, the layout and style of the series’ final part is cleaner and feels more competent. In retrospect it would have been nice if the four modules themselves had been accompanied by the type of illustration found in the ‘S’ Series that the DM could show to his players. To some extent, the fan illustrations at the end of Against the Slave Lords could be put to that purpose. 

One physical element missing from Against the Slave Lords are the original covers of the ‘A’ Series. They are present on the cover slip, as is the mockup of what the cover of A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry would have looked like had it been published in 1980. The inclusion of the latter is a nice touch, but being a separate item, the cover slip can easily be lost. It would have been better had this been presented as the back of the book rather than as a slip. The cover slip is also the only use of colour throughout Against the Slave Lords.

Of the ‘A’ Series itself, I never played through the whole of the campaign, only through A1: Slavepits of the Undercity. I did purchase A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, but at the time was not impressed by it. I would later locate a copy of Scourge of the Slave Lords. Thirty years on and my opinion of the ‘A’ Series has changed. Certainly the fourth part of the series is much better than I recall, whereas the third part is particularly disappointing. In coming back to the ‘A’ Series thirty years on, Against the Slave Lords proved to be far from an engaging read. Perhaps that is because such modules are not designed to be read for pleasure, but studied; perhaps my reading and gaming tastes have changed too much, the question remains, would I play or run Against the Slave Lords after such a long gap? The simple answer is, if I were to do so, it would not be with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition or indeed, any version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It might be with D&D Next, which the cover slip says that Against the Slave Lords is compatible with, then again, it might be fun to play this with a set of rules with a sense of energy, such as Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age.

The ‘A’ Series has long been out of print, so having it available once again is a welcome sight, especially when it comes as a sturdy hardback as Against the Slave Lords does. As uneven as the four scenarios are in the series – A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade and A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords are certainly better than A1: Slavepits of the Undercity and A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords – the series should be of interest to the ‘Old School Renaissance’ and anyone coming back to Dungeons & Dragons with the release of D&D Next in 2014. The addition of A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry is equally as welcome, although a bridging scenario between it and the rest of the series would have been a reasonable addition. Still, the flexibility and choice of Dungeons & Dragons-style RPGs available means that Against the Slave Lords can be run and played using a variety of different RPGs, making it accessible and playable even thirty years on.

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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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Old School Distilled

Originally published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1977, Chivalry & Sorcery was written as response to the medieval fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead its focus was medieval chivalry and roleplaying in a feudal society, though one that did not wholly ignore fantastic elements such as magic and non-human races. Since then, the game has gone through a number of editions, never quite losing its reputation for possessing complex rules, but now it has been out of print for almost a decade. Almost thirty-five years on from its original release, Brittannia Game Designs Ltd. is re-releasing Chivalry & Sorcery Essence, the revised introduction to the game.

Available as a forty-five page, 6.78 Mb PDF, Chivalry & Sorcery Essence comes with everything necessary to play. This includes rules for character generation, combat, and magic, equipment, skirmishes, a setting, and an introductory scenario. The rules themselves are supported with examples throughout.

Character creation in Chivalry & Sorcery Essence involves rolling dice to generate the numbers to assign to attributes, and then choosing a Social Class and a Vocation. A character’s Social Class provides some base skills, some skill points to spend on skills, one or more attribute bonuses, and some equipment and money. His Vocation will grant extra skills. The process is quick and easy, with the five Social Classes given – Serf, Freeman, Townsman, Guildsman, and Noble combining easily with the eight Vocations, Warrior, Forrester, Bandit, Thief, Friar/Priest/Shaman, Mage, Physician, and Mountebank to give the players plenty of choice. For example, Wilf of Gotham is a serf who had to fight for his lord in France. He was injured in battle and lost his right ear. The injury denied him the opportunity to loot the enemy and he has returned to England almost as penniless as when he left. Not wanting to return to the farm, he still knows that he has little choice but to continue serving his lord. Wilf is renowned for his prestigious strength.

Wilf of Gotham
Social Class: Serf Vocation: Warrior
Strength 20 Constitution 15 Agility 15
Intelligence 8 Wisdom 13 Discipline 13
Appearance 6 Bardic Voice 8 Piety 10
Body Points 35
Fatigue 35
Skills: Bargaining 1, Brawl 2, Craft (Carpentry) 1, Craft (Farming) 2, Detect 1, Dodge 2, Flail 2, Language (English) 1, Language (French) 1, Knife 1, Willpower 1
Equipment: Threshing flail, clothes he is wearing, and two days’ worth of food

Mechanically, Chivalry & Sorcery Essence relatively straightforward. To do anything, a character needs to roll under a target number with a twenty-sided die. The target is invariably the total of an appropriate attribute plus any suitable skills, bonus, or penalties. Higher rolls are better than lower ones, and a critical result is scored if a character rolls the target number exactly. The penalties are quite harsh though, running from -1 for even a “Very Simple” task up to -24 for a “Seemingly Impossible” task. These penalties are worse if a character does not have the required skill for a target and will vary according to how much it costs to buy a level in that skill. For example, if Wilf had to swim across a still pond on a warm day, a “Very Simple Action,” he would suffer a -2 penalty to his Constitution before he rolled against it. The Swim skill is cheap to buy though, a much harder task such as identifying even a relatively common poison for someone without the skill would face a -9 penalty.

Combat uses the basic mechanic, but adds a number of factors in. The number of attacks or Blows a character can make per round or minute is determined by the Weapon Class of his chosen weapon and his Agility. Lighter weapons are much faster. So for example, if Wilf attacked with a knife, he could attempt to stab his opponent five times in a minute because it is classed as a Light weapon. Wilf’s threshing flail is much heavier and thus much slower, so he can only make three Blows with it. Critical Successes with swung weapons or a defensive manoeuvre such as Dodge, weapon parry, or Shield use cause an opponent to be bashed backwards with the chance that he might fall over. Making a defensive manoeuvre requires the expenditure of a Fatigue point or the foregoing of the defender’s next Bash.

Damage inflicted is determined by the weapon type, half of a character’s Strength, and by how well he rolled. Both armour and shield reduce this damage, with any leftover being deducted from an opponent’s Fatigue and then his Body Points. Critical successes on an attack mean that the damage is deducted from the Body Points instead. For example, Wilf, facing a French knight in combat, must roll under his Strength plus Flail skill, plus a bonus from his Craft (Farming) skill, for a target of 23. He rolls 19, getting a Critical Success (target numbers over 20 grant better Critical Success ranges), whilst the knight chooses to try and get his small reinforced shield in the way of the farmer’s weapon and does so with an 11. Wilf inflicts a maximum damage on the knight, some 24 points! Fortunately, the knight’s shield and coate of plates armour stops 13 of that, but the remaining 11 points are deducted from his 30 Body Points. In addition, Wilf’s Critical Success inflicts extra damage which is not stopped by the armour, losing him another 8 points from his Body Points. Lastly, the knight was hit by a swung weapon on a Critical Success and must roll against his Agility to remain standing. On a result of a 16 he fails and is knocked to the ground, losing another horrible 10 points from his Fatigue. At this point, the knight is down, has lost half of his Body Points and a third of his Fatigue. The knight might not be out of the fight, but he is at a serious disadvantage!

Magic use in Chivalry & Sorcery Essence varies according to the type. Prayer and Shamanism both use the Piety attribute and the Prayer skill as the basis for the Target, with the actual Difficulty Factor being determined by the prayer being made. In addition, any Prayer attempt also costs a priest Fatigue which increases for each extra Prayer made. In general, Prayers are low and supportive in nature, such as Bless, Lay on Hands, or holding a Mass. Shamanistic prayers are not regarded as being civilised and let a shaman Converse with Spirit, Purify Blood to remove disease or poison, or Animate the Dead, for example.

Magic itself is more complex, each mage having a limited number of Spell Points with which to spend on spells that he knows. Actually casting a spell will cost him Fatigue – and even Body Points if he casts too many, modified by his Magic skill and his Spell Focus. This Spell Focus, a device such as a ring, staff, or wand, also allows a Mage to store fatigue for use in spell casting. In addition, extra Fatigue can be spent to enhance a spell’s range, duration, intensity, and the number of people affected. The mage also receives the longest list of spells, from which he must choose carefully. Further spells can be purchased with Experience Points.

Alternatively, a mage could use the Enchant spell to implant other spells into devices. This is expensive, not only in terms of the materials required – which can actually resist the enchantment attempt, but also in terms of the mage’s Magic Skill. The mage actually expends Magic Skill levels to carry out the enchantment.

Our sample mage is an itinerant book binder who travels from court to court repairing books. This enables him to look for interesting works, not only to read, but also to copy for their spells. He also works as a tutor and translator when his book binding are not required. He learned his magic from his first master with whom he travelled to Paris.

Richard le Lieur
Social Class: Guildsman Vocation: Mage
Strength 10 Constitution 10 Agility 11
Intelligence 18 Wisdom 10 Discipline 14
Appearance 10 Bardic Voice 8 Piety 6
Body Points 25
Fatigue 20
Spell Points 18 (9)
Spells Known: Charm, Light, Sense Magic, Strike
Skills: Craft (Book Binding) 2, Detect 2, Dodge 1, History 1, Language (English) 2, Language (French) 1, Language (Latin) 1, Lore (Astronomy) 1, Magic 2, Read/Write (English) 2, Read/Write (French) 1, Read/Write (Latin) 1, Sword 1, Willpower 1
Equipment: Suit of clothes, two shillings, a sword, book binding tools, and spell focus ring

The GM receives little advice in Chivalry & Sorcery Essence bar some suggestions as to alternative skill use. He does get though, a short bestiary and a set of ready-to-play heroes and villains, both of the latter with a set of adjustments to make any one of them more of a challenge. There is also a setting in the form of “Darken Expansion,” which is taken from the publisher’s The Dragon Reaches of Marakush campaign setting. The nation of Darken is ruled by the Great Queen Dragon Shugaloth, who is attempting to establish a feudocracy despite the temples devoted to her wanting to maintain a theocracy in her name. Shugaloth’s chancellor, the lich known as Ingravain funds the “The Queen’s Falconeers,” not to support a sport that she has no interest in, but as his personal spies and enforcers. Used to check the efforts of the temple, it is suggested that the player characters be members of this group.

Darken is also home to other races including Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Dark Elves. These are available as player character races. Two new Social Classes are available, the Darken Warrior, more slave and militia overseer than true warriors; and the Mystic, which combines elements of the Priest and the Mage Vocations. This is continued with the Shaman Vocation, which gives a character access to both prayers and spells.

Chivalry & Sorcery Essence also includes a scenario, “The Serpent Of Paun-I-Tawe,” which takes place in a village in a border region recently annexed by Darken. Its set up is that the player characters are forced to stop at the village due to bad weather and must find shelter either with the villagers who resent being occupied by Darkic soldiers or with the soldiers who prefer to be stationed elsewhere. Into this situation will enter a thief prepared to take advantage of the tensions between the soldiers and villagers.

The problem with the scenario is that it is entirely possible for the player characters to wander through unaware of what is really going on. Now this intentional, the idea being that the characters should be the stars of their own particular stories and that often, there will be events going on in which they are only marginally involved in, and never get to see the whole picture. Whilst this is laudable in a longer campaign, in a short scenario, especially in one designed to introduce and showcase the new edition of your RPG, this is a mistake. The GM needs to get his players involved in the scenario as quickly possible and then keep them involved. Otherwise the likely result is that the players will not have been involved enough to play again.

The other reason why this was the wrong scenario to include is that it has very few ties to setting background given in Chivalry & Sorcery Essence. Had there been a scenario included that involved members of “The Queen’s Falconeers,” then the player characters would have had more of a drive to explore this or any other scenario.

Rounding out Chivalry & Sorcery Essence is a quick and dirty means of handling skirmish combat, plus a character sheet, a guide to character generation, and a sample character. Surprisingly for a supplement of this size, Chivalry & Sorcery Essence actually comes with an index!

Physically, Chivalry & Sorcery Essence is nicely illustrated and generally well presented. It could have been slightly better organised though, as some of the elements of the game are explained before the rules for them. For example, how arms and armour work is explained before combat. It does need a closer edit too.

Putting aside the poor choice of scenario – and it should be made clear that it is not necessarily a bad scenario, but rather not a suitable for either an introductory product or the background given – there is much to like about Chivalry & Sorcery Essence. Neither the rules nor the mechanics suffer from the complexity that Chivalry & Sorcery is supposed to suffer from. They are instead a nicely balanced mix of simplicity and brutalism, with a magic system that firmly and successfully aims for low fantasy rather than high. Overall, Chivalry & Sorcery Essence is a pleasing introduction to the game’s mechanics.

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