Of Mice and the Moon

Conduct scientific research! Undertake ground-breaking feats of engineering! Manage the greatest minds of the age! Get some dullard of an accountant to manage your finances whilst you prepare for the greatest endeavour of all time—getting to the Moon! The year is 1898 and Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, has decreed that only the British Empire can put a man (or woman) on the Earth’s nearest celestial neighbour. The race is on for the honour of fulfilling Her Majesty’s dream, one that will see England’s many Clubs or Leagues desperately designing and building mad-cap rockets and launching them into space!

This is the subject for Rocket Race: A Steampunk Rocket Building Card Game from Triple Ace Games. Better known for its RPGs such as Sundered Skies, All For One: Régime Diabolique, and Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age!, this is the publisher’s first non-RPG design. It is set in the same world as Leagues of Adventure and was a big hit at UK Games 2014 where its Preview Edition of one hundred copies were quickly snapped up. Now the game is coming to Kickstarter.

The game comes in Standard and Advanced versions. In both, the aim of the game is to get a rocket to the Moon. To do this, a player must assemble a rocket, which must consist of a capsule, a propulsion system, and a steering mechanism, with up to three accessories. Their attempt can be affected by Events such as bad weather or sabotage, but eventually one League will ensure that Her Majesty prevails!

Rocket Race consists of fifty-seven cards, two six-sided dice, sixty cog counters, and the rules booklet. The cards are done in full glorious colour and depict the components and accessories that go into building a rocket, events that might help or hinder the process, and for the Advanced version, the Leagues themselves, plus their Workshops and Workshop Accessories. The components and accessory cards are each marked with a number that goes towards the Reliability total for a player’s rocket, plus a research cost used in the Advanced version. Every card is fully illustrated and titled, and many come with a piece of colour text. For example, the Capsule, ‘Martian Salvage’ has the text “I managed to secure one of the Martian landing capsules used in their abortive invasion from the Aegis of Terra. Oh wait, that’s supposed to be a secret. Forget I spoke.”; the means of Propulsion, ‘Giant Helium Balloons’ has the text “Do balloons float upward? Is the Moon not up above us? Then my logic is sound!”; and the Steering Mechanism, ‘One Hundred Hungry Mice’ has the text “The Mice will naturally be drawn toward the Moon, which is made of cheese, which in turn tip the craft to point in the right direction.”

In the standard version of the game each player begins with ten tokens, each representing his finances and resources he has to devote to the rocket building project. On his turn a player turns a card over from the deck and everyone gets the chance to bid or pass on it using their tokens. The highest bidder gets the card and has to put the tokens he bid to win the card actually on the card—this represents the card’s development time. At the end of the turn, any player with tokens on a card can remove a single token. Once a card no longer has any tokens, its development is complete and it can enter play. This applies not only to the components and accessories needed to build a rocket, but to Event cards too.

Once a player has assembled a rocket—complete with a capsule, a propulsion system, and a steering mechanism (plus any accessories)—he can launch it into the heavens. To do so, he adds the total of the Reliability factors on the cards and rolls two six-sided dice. If the result is equal to, or lower than, the Reliability total, he has successfully landed on the Moon and may bask in the glory of his achievements. If not, he has crashed on take-off, must discard a random card from his rocket ship, and begin again! The winner of course, is the first player to successfully land on the Moon.

Thus the standard version is a simple bidding game with limited resources and a simple balancing mechanism. Bid too much on a desired card and it not only takes too long to develop, it reduces the finances a player has to gain new cards. Thus smaller bids will invariably bring cards into play quicker and give a player greater control over his finances. Of course, a player can make bids to drive up the cost of card without any intention of buying it, but that might not go his way...

Where the Standard version of the game will support as many as six players, the Advanced version is for two to four players. It adds the Leagues of Adventure proper, makes use of cards that will enhance each League’s laboratory, and the advanced options on each of the Event cards. Each player is assigned a League and a workshop card. Each of the four Leagues—Aegis of Terra, Daedalus Society, Lunar Exploration Society, and Society of Aeronauts—sets a player’s starting values in three scientific disciplines, Chemistry, Engineering, and Electrics. Each  workshop has a track for each of the three scientific disciplines. Finally five cards are drawn from the deck—which now include the Workshop Accessory cards—and laid out in a row.

On his turn, a player can undertake two actions, selected from two sets of options. The first set of options are Launch, Scientific Research, or Event Acquisition, whilst the second consists of Component Acquisition or Discard. Launching a rocket works just as it does in the Standard version; Scientific Research allows a player to increase a single scientific discipline and roll for the chance to increase all three; whilst Event Acquisition lets a player take an Event card from the line. During Component Acquisition a player can use up the points he has in scientific disciplines to purchase components and accessories, whilst if he has not taken an Event card or any components or accessories, he can Discard a card from the line.

The Standard version of Rocket Race plays in about ten minutes. The Advanced version is double the playing length, and is slightly more complex. It also feels slightly more random than the Standard version, with less skill involved, whereas the Standard version gives the player some decisions to make in what to bid for and for how much. Both versions could benefit from more Event cards to encourage more player interaction. Nevertheless, both versions are decent fillers and both are let down by the flavour text that is printed just that little too small. (It should be noted that the publisher will address the size of the text with the new edition launched on Kickstarter and will offer more Event cards as stretch goals as part of the Kickstarter).

What Rocket Race really has going for it—and what it has not in spades, but in whole shedfulls—is charm and flavour. The cards themselves are a delight, beautifully illustrated, and the flavour text has a certain tongue-in-cheek humour.  Rocket Race: A Steampunk Rocket Building Card Game is an amusing, if simple diversion that brims full of derring do, erratic scientific endeavour, and of course, the best use of One Hundred Hungry Mice ever!

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On Her Majesty's Adventurous Service

How do you like your Victoriana roleplaying? As with most historically set RPGs, those set during the reign of Queen Victoria bring other elements to the table. For example, Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Deadlands brings horror to the Wild West, Cthulhu by Gaslight from Chasoium, Inc. brings Lovecraftian investigative horror and the horrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction to the 1890s, and CubicleSeven Entertainment’s Victoriana brings magic and other elements normally associated with the fantasy genre to the 1860s. So the question is, what does the newest RPG to draw up a chair at the roleplaying table of your gentlemen’s club, Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age!, bring to Victorian era?

Leagues of Adventure is published by Triple Ace Games, the British publisher best known for a number of RPG settings that make use of Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds rules such as Necropolis, Hellfrost, and Sundered Skies. Rather than employ the Savage Worlds rules, Leagues of Adventure makes use of the Ubiquity System. First seen in ExileStudio’s Hollow Earth Expedition, and since used in Greymalkin Design’spost-apocalyptic fantasy, Desolation, and the German version of Space 1889 from Uhrwerk Verlag, the Ubiquity System has also been previously used by Triple Ace Games’ own award-winning All For One: Régime Diabolique. What the Ubiquity System brings to Leagues of Adventure is a fluid, action orientated set of mechanics that supports a Pulp style of play.

What Leagues of Adventure brings to Victorian era roleplaying is a sense of adventure and mystery. It is specifically set during an age of great exploration in which the boundaries of the known world are only just beginning to be pushed back and many secrets are being revealed. As much as it is set during the history of the period, it draws heavily from the fiction of the period, so that Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson are as much real as Brigadier General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, VC, Phileas Fogg, and Abaham van Helsing. As adventurers or globetrotters, the player characters will travel to the far corners of the Earth, exploring the unknown, making great discoveries, and uncovering mysteries, whether these are the strange Gill Men reputed to live in the Black Lagoon at the head of the Amazon, another plot to overthrow the monarchy in Ruritania, or a rash of stranglings in Shanghai!

Every globetrotter or player character is a member of a “League,” an exclusive or secret—or not so secret—society, such as The Alpine Club, the Epicurean Society, or The Temporal Society. These are the “Leagues” of the game’s title — as much as the multitudes of adventures it also suggests, with each League providing contacts, resources, and patrons that will call on the globetrotters just as the globetrotters can call upon the aid of their Leagues. For the most part, the various Leagues possess a friendly rivalry with each other where their interests conflict, but there exist villainous Leagues whose aims are far from honourable or enlightened. The Thuggee is one such villainous League, as is The Immortals Club, whose members seek ever greater power and the means to keep it for themselves.

Character creation is matter of choosing one of the provided archetypes – Big Game Hunter, Consulting Detective, Diligent Correspondent, Explorer, Crackpot Antiquarian, Pioneering Aviatrix, and Temporal Scientist – each of which is presented in full colour, or assigning a number of sets of points. Fifteen points between six attributes and another fifteen points to skills before selecting a Talent such as Knockout Blow or Well-Educated or a Resource like an Artifact or Rank, and a Flaw such as Flea-Infested or Thrill-Seeker. Another fifteen points are spent to customise the character. A character also needs a Motivation and he also starts the game with a Style Point, the Ubiquity System’sequivalent of hero or luck points.

For the most part, this is standard character creation under the Ubiquity System. To this Leagues of Adventures adds a tweak or two. The first of these are “Zero Level” skills, of which a globetrotter receives four. Two to account for his background and another connected with the League that he belongs to. Truth be told, they do not add all that much to the game, but just enough to add a little depth to each globetrotter.

Our sample character is Lieutenant Henry Rathwell, a member of her Imperial Majesty’s fledging Air Corps. An excellent navigator, he transferred from the Royal Navy because he suffers from sea sickness. Currently he is on detached duty and is willing to join an expedition that needs a good pilot or navigator.

Lieutenant Henry Rathwell

Archetype: Pilot Motivation: Duty

Style: 2 Health: 4

Primary Attributes

Body: 2          Charisma: 2

Dexterity: 3   Intelligence: 4

Strength: 2    Willpower: 2

Secondary Attributes

Size: 0            Initiative: 7

Move: 4          Defense: 5

Perception: 6 Stun: 2

Skills/Base/Levels/Rating/Average

Anthropology 4/0/4/2

Athletics 3/1/4/2

Bureaucracy 4/1/5/2+

Craft (Electrics) 4/0/4/2

Craft (Mechanics) 4/0/4/2

Diplomacy 2/1/3/1+

            Leadership 2/2/4/2

Empathy 4/1/5/2+

Expeditions 4/1/5/2+

Firearms 3/1/4/2/1

Gunnery 4/1/5/2+

Linguistics 4/0/4/2

Pilot (Aerial) 3/3/6/3+

Science (Physics) 4/1/5/2+

Survival 4/3/7/3+

            Navigation 4/4/8/4+

Talents

Direction Sense

Resources

Rank – Lieutenant

Flaw

Honest

When it comes to the Ubiquity System, it is all a matter of the number of successes rolled. A task’s Difficulty determines the minimum number of successes that have to be rolled for someone to achieve it. Even results equal successes, so any type of die can be used with Leagues of Adventure and the Ubiquity System. Any successes rolled above that improve the result. The rules also allow a character to “Take the Average,” meaning that if the average number of successes that he would roll is equal to, or greater than a task’s Difficulty, then the player does not have to roll. In addition, every player character has Style Points, which are spent to add bonus dice, boost the level of some Talents, and reduce damage. They are gained for pursuing a character’s Motivation and playing to his Flaw, for being heroic and being in character, as well as for out of game actions, such as writing gaming reports, hosting the game, and so on.

What is interesting about Leagues of Adventure is that although it has little in the way of background – the various Leagues, both fictional and historical, along with the various fictional characters mentioned are the extent of its background, it comes with plenty of setting material. The bulk of this comes in the form of an extensive gazetteer that takes the GM around the world in fifty-six pages. Continuing the game’s mix of the fictional with the historical Victoriana, once it has the “ordinary” descriptions of the continents and their constituent countries out of the way, it joyously as many fantastic places, both real and fictional as it can. So it describes the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, the Diogenes Club, King Solomon’s Mines, El Dorado, the Lost World, the Plateau of Leng, and Ruritania as much as it does the Black Museum, the Rookeries, Great Zimbabwe, Timbuktu, Machu Picchu, Ponape, and the Great Wall of China. In fact, it almost seems as if the author cannot wait to get the descriptions of the ordinary places out of the way so that he can concentrate on Leagues of Adventure’s fantastic locations. Further, all of these locations—places already crying out to be visited by the player characters—are accompanied by at least one adventure, usually more than one. All told, this gazetteer of the fantastic is accompanied by over one-hundred-and-thirty adventure seeds!

In addition, Leagues of Adventure comes with a bestiary with which to populate these locations. Again, they include a mix of the fictional and the real, from Amazon Warriors, Giant Apes, Kraken, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Doctor Moreau, and Professor James Moriarty to the Officious Bureaucrat, the French Foreign Legion soldier, the camel, the hippopotamus, and the tiger. Plus guidelines so that the GM can create Villainous Leagues with which to oppose his players and their globetrotters.

In terms of advice for the GM, Leagues of Adventure dispenses relatively little, assuming that the prospective GM is not new to the hobby. Perhaps the most telling advice comes in the form of setting the style that the GM and his players want for their game, essentially by determining the game’s Action Level. The options include “Gritty” like The Man Who Would Be King, “Adventurous” like Around the World in Eighty Days, “Pulp Adventure” such as the Indiana Jones movies, and “Cinematic Reality” like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Each sets the number of Style Points and their effect that the players get to use during the game, from the all Style Point free of the “Gritty” Action Level up to the double Style Points of “Cinematic Reality.”

Apart from the rules for setting the Action Level, the major mechanical addition to Leagues of Adventure is the rules for invention. Supported by numerous examples, these are a really easy set of rules to use, and support the creation of fantastic devices and vehicles in the game, whether that is by a gadgeteering player character or a nefarious villain with a penchant for dastardly devices. As written and as evidenced in the examples, these rules are not intended to cover the Steampunk genre, but rather the type of devices drawn from the fictions of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. That said, these rules would cover the Steampunk genre with relatively little difficulty.

Physically, Leagues of Adventure is nicely put together and pleasingly illustrated. If the book lacks anything it is maps that match the detailed contents of the gazetteer, but this should not held against Leagues of Adventure. Finding maps, or indeed, further details of any one of the locations described in the book is hardly a challenge given access to the Internet. One might quibble at the lack of a pre-written scenario in the pages of Leagues of Adventure, but given that the book is written with the GM who has some experience in mind and the fact that it comes with as many adventure seeds as it does, this is less of an issue than it be with any other RPG. In addition, the QuickStart Rules in the form of Plateau of the Ape Men & The Dragons of London are available from the publisher’s website and they come with two scenarios.

So what does Leagues of Adventure bring to Victorian era roleplaying? In a word, ACTION! Well, actually “action and adventure,” for this is far from being a deep or introspective game – and there is nothing wrong that. To an extent it is something of toolkit, allowing the GM to adjust slightly the tool of action that he wants to present, but with the supplements available from the publisher’s website, such as the Globetrotters’ Guide to Weird Science and the Globetrotters’ Guide to Gothic Horror, the scope of both the game and the GM’s toolkit expands further. There is nothing to stop a GM from running games which focus on those elements just from Leagues of Adventure, but the Globetrotters’ Guide to…series support them better.

Beyond the game’s ACTION!, Leagues of Adventure exudes a sense of wonder and fascination that the possibilities of the unknown in the late Victorian era – whether real or imaginary – present to the GM and players alike. There is certain joy and excitement, almost exuberance in the presentation of Leagues of Adventure’ssetting, which it matches well with a set of rules that support its action and adventure. 

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Ogre Cave Christmas List 2012

Come the end of the year and as has been vaguely traditional for the past decade that in December, OgreCave.com runs a series lists suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition – in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond our control, this list is not appearing at OgreCave.com – Reviews from R’lyeh would like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about “Baleful Blandishments” to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days.

Nevertheless, Happy Gaming and enjoy the suggestions. Consider them perfect for purchase for yourself. If the world is to end in 2012 – and the denizens of Reviews from R’lyeh doubt that the stars have come right as yet – then at least enjoy a few last rolls of the dice with a favourite new game…

Lords of Waterdeep
(Wizards of the Coast), $49.99/£39.99
One of the best and most accessible board games of the year came from the most unexpected publisher, Wizards of the Coast. Lords of Waterdeep combines the classic Dungeons & Dragons theme with tried and tested Eurogame-style “worker placement” mechanics. For between two and five players, the game casts the players as masked lords vying for control of Waterdeep, the City of Splendors, the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms. They send out their Agents to acquire Buildings and access to better resources; gain Gold to make the many purchases necessary to ensure their rise to power; the means to Intrigue with their fellow Lords; and hire Adventurers whom they can send out on missions or Quests that once completed will spread their influence and gain them true power. The game scales nicely, being as challenging to play with two players as it is with five, plays easily in an hour, and forces a player to make difficult decisions when presented with numerous options! (Read the review here).

Midgard Campaign Setting 
(Open Design) $49.99/£29.99
The bad news is that in 2012, we lost Kobold Quarterly, the only Dungeons & Dragons compatible magazine to be available on the shelves at your local friendly gaming store. The good news is that we finally got to see an introduction to Midgard, Wolfgang Baur’s home campaign previously best seen in the Zobeck Gazetteer and the numerous articles that appeared in Kobold Quarterly’s twenty-three issue run. Now with the release of the Midgard Campaign Setting, we no longer have glimpses, but a full introduction to a dark fantasy world that at its heart is steeped in a mittel-european sensibility, whilst still leaving room for fantastical, even weird elements. Designed for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, an appendix also includes rules for the adventure game engine, allowing players to use Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age RPG to visit a very different and a very original take on the fantasy setting.

Glory to Rome Card Game: Black Box Edition (Cambridge Games Factory), $35.00/£25.00
AD 64 and Rome has been burned to the ground. Answer Emperor Nero’s call and bring Glory to Rome as you compete to rebuild the heart of the ancient world’s most powerful empire. This is a strategic card of city building and resource management in which every card can act as a building, a patron, a raw material, or a valuable resource. This clever mechanic combined with the fact that the card a player gets to play is often dictated by his rivals, gives the game a pleasing elegance and forces difficult choices on a player. Redesigned from the original edition with new art reminiscent of the 1980 classic board game, Civilisation and mechanics reminiscent of more modern games like Puerto Rico, San Juan, and Race for the Galaxy, this is a great game that should be on every gamer’s shelf.

Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press), $44.95/£29.95
You are an ex-secret agent. You just discovered that your former employers are controlled by vampires. So quite possibly is your government, your bank, and that NGO you always felt great about donating money to… This is the set-up for Ken Hite’s Night’s Black Agents, the Vampire Spy Thriller RPG he describes as “The Bourne Identity meets Dracula.” It brings 007-esque high action to the clue driven GUMSHOE System, but when it comes down to it, Night’s Black Agents is not Ken Hite’s game, but yours. It gives the means and tools for the GM to create any style of espionage RPG, from James Bond to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and lets him it slam it up against the vampires and the vampire conspiracy of his design. As a genre mash-up, Night’s Black Agents is a combination that sells itself, but as a toolkit, Night’s Black Agents is your Schweizer Offiziersmesser. Just add dice. 
(Read the review here).

Cthulhu Fluxx (Looney Labs), $16.00/£12.99
An award-wining, classic, quick playing card game for over a decade now, Fluxx is all about chaos and winning means adapting to that chaos as the game and the rules change through play. Now Looney Labs has upped the ante and introduced the forces of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and an almost primordial unstoppable force to the chaos of Fluxx. In Cthulhu Fluxx, you are not just up against your rivals, some of whom might be in the thrall of one of the Great Old Ones, but also the Great Old Ones too! You can win Cthulhu Fluxx, but sometimes the influence of the Mythos is just too insidious meaning that Cthulhu himself wins!
(Read the review here).

Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition 
(Paizo Publishing) $59.99/ £39.99
Five years ago, Paizo Publishing launched its Adventure Path series, each a campaign for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in six parts. To celebrate that anniversary, Paizo Publishing has collected the very first Adventure Path series, Rise of the Runelords, in hardback and in the process taking advantage of five years of player feedback and the chance to revise, and add to, a campaign that will take the adventurers from first to eighteenth level. Beginning in the sleepy coastal town of Sandpoint, in course of defending against an attack by crazed goblins, the adventurers learn of a greater evil. If they to prevent it coming to Sandpoint, they must track a cult of serial killers, fight backwoods ogres, stop an advancing army of stone giants, delve into ancient dungeons, and finally face off against a wizard-king in his ancient mountaintop city.

Snowdonia (Surprised Stare Games) £31.99
The year is 1894, and the Snowdon Mountain Tramroad and Hotels Company Limited has been formed to build a branch line from Llanberis to the summit of Snowdon. Each player controls a work gang providing the labour for the construction of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, each trying to outdo the other in excavating the railway line, laying the track, constructing stations on the way up, and fulfilling Contracts that will score them those all important Victory Points. This a well-appointed worker placement game in which the game itself demands that the gangs of labourers get busy building the line up the mountain or the game will do it all by itself and deny you Victory Points. All this and having to deal with the fog and the rain on the mountain that only slows your labourers down!

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game 
(Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.) $19.99
What happens when the inmates from The Raft, the island prison facility in New York City for psychopathic superhuman criminals, escape? You already found out how in early issues of Marvel Comics’ New Avengers series, but with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game, you can team up as Captain America, Cyclops, the Human Torch, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and more, in order to return the escapees to prison. Or alternatively, create heroes of your own with this dice driven narrative RPG of super heroic action. Comes with the datafiles for twenty three heroes, numerous villains, powers, action, and more in a rulebook that could easily be mistaken for a Marvel graphic novel!

Escape – The Curse of the Temple (Queen Games) $59.99/£39.99
There are games about exploring ancient temples and avoiding their dangers, but Escape …from the Curse of the Temple is truly a different game. You and your fellow adventurers have been trapped – trapped in a cursed temple, and the only way to get out is by working together. IN REAL TIME. You have just ten minutes (a timer soundtrack comes with the game) to explore the temple, activate the magic gems in the temple chambers in order to banish the curse, and then escape! All this done by rolling dice as quickly and as continuously as you can in order to get the right combination of symbols that activate the gems, move from room to room, lift you from under the spell of the Black Mask (which stops you rolling dice), and more. Get the right combinations? Use them up and then starting rolling for the next. Ten minutes though, otherwise you and your fellow adventurers will find yourselves crushed inside the collapsing temple. Everyone gets out, or nobody does in this frantic game.

Primeval 
(Cubicle Seven Entertainment) $39.99/£26.99
Anomalies are appearing and opening everywhere, allowing us to step through doorways into the past and into the future. As amazing as they are, the anomalies are also a danger as they let others from the past and the future into our present – including dinosaurs! A mammoth on the motorway? Velociraptors in the velodrome? These threats and more have to be dealt with before the public are placed in danger or learn too much. As part of the government run Anomaly Research Centre, the characters will track dinosaurs, research the anomalies, and more to keep not just the country safe, but the timeline too. Based on the TV series of the same name, the Primeval RPG uses the same mechanics as the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG, and thus emphasises talking and thinking first before combat. This still leaves plenty of room for action and scares in facing down not just the dinosaurs, but those that would use the anomalies for their own ends.

Leagues of Adventure 
(Triple Ace Games) $39.99/£24.99
In Leagues of Adventure the world of the Victorian Age is as fantastic as you would imagine – H.G. Wells’ Martians invaded England, Professor Challenger has found the Lost World, Phileas Fogg made it around the world in eighty days, and Sherlock Holmes has solved untold numbers of crimes and mysteries. The player characters follow in their stead, the members of various “Leagues of Adventure,” travelling the world, unravelling mysteries, righting wrongs, and all in the name of Her Majesty. Using the Ubiquity mechanics previously seen in Hollow Earth Expedition and All For One: Régime Diabolique, this is a pulp action RPG of derring-do and honour that adds in the Steampunk and the fantastic of the era too.

RuneQuest 6e 
(The Design Mechanism) $62.00/£40.00
RuneQuest is back and in one volume! The new sixth edition updates and presents a set of rules that has been a classic for over thirty years in a single book that provides GM and players alike with everything necessary to create and build a campaign of heroic, gritty, fantasy. Characters – Barbarian, Civilised, Nomadic, and Primitive, are all covered; as well as five types of magic, ranging from the classic Runes to Theism; belonging to a Cult; and both monsters and playable character races are all covered in this thick softback book. It feels complete, and best of all, it feels loved again.

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Four for One: a Campaign

One of the problems with All For One: Régime Diabolique, the RPG of swashbuckling action, manners, magic, and monsters in seventeenth century France is a lack of support for it. Or rather, one format of support for it. For the truth is, the publisher has released some thirty adventures and supplements for it since the RPG’s release in 2010, but the majority of them appear only in PDF format. Fortunately the publisher, Triple Ace Games, has released two titles for the game that can be found on the shelves of your local gaming shop, All For One: Richelieu’s Guide Compendium Une and Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré. Both titles are also available as PDFs and both actually collect individual titles that are available separately. Where All For One: Richelieu’s Guide Compendium Une collates supplementary information that further details the setting, Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré brings together a quartet of scenarios that make up the basis of a mini campaign. It is this latter title that is being reviewed here.

Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré is designed for beginning characters who are members of the King’s Musketeers. Whilst working for Lieutenant Jean-Marc de Guerre, the player character Musketeers will find themselves sent on missions that will take them back and forth across France, from the heart of Paris and France’s borders with the Spanish Netherlands during a Habsburg invasion to her coasts in the fogbound North West and then the disgruntled South West. There is room in the campaign for slightly experienced characters, but it is really intended for use as a starting campaign. There is also room between the four parts of the campaign that takes place over the course of a year or so, for a GM to add his own adventures so that the campaign’s story can be extended and leavened out.

As the campaign’s title, Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré suggests, the plot behind the campaign revolves around a dishonoured King’s Musketeer. He is not known to the characters, although he is connected to one of them, and his search for revenge will draw them into his plans.

Subtitled “Revenge is a dish best served cold!”, Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré opens with “Désir Mortel.” The player characters are assigned the task of investigating the deaths of Sergeant Roger Dupin, Paul de Chamest, and de Chamest’s manservant near the village of Champs-Saint-Denis. Seigneur Dupin had offered to sponsor de Chamest , a young noble from Champagne for induction into the King’s Musketeers. The scenario, a mix of investigation, combat, and interaction, feels quite traditional in terms of storytelling, coming with it as it does with more victims, obstructive authorities, and a certain sense of misdirection. That said, the adventure contains lots of period detail and plenty of room swashbuckling action. One nice touch is that the adventure opens with a set of opening scenes that are tailored to the player characters’ Flaws. So for example, a character with the Flaw of Lustful can play through an opening scene that finds him awakening in the bed of his latest conquest only to find that her husband is home early! These are lovely inclusions and not only help to get the scenario and the campaign off to a colourful start, they also give each player a chance to shine.

The plot underpinning the campaign gets underway properly with the second scenario, “Le Baiser de la Mort.” As the Habsburg invasion of North East France continues, the player characters are once again tasked to investigate the death of a former musketeer, this time one Francois Joubert. Joubert had been tasked with delivering payment to a mysterious agent, Le Faucon. It is known that payment was made, but no information was forthcoming from Le Faucon, and now Joubert is dead. The trail takes the characters to mysterious and fabled island of Mont Saint-Michel, the waters around it increasingly fog bound, the monks that serve at its famous abbey, acting increasingly oddly, and Cardinal Richelieu’s having taken an interest in the Musketeers’ mission. This is a much more complex affair with a lot more going on, with multiple plot lines and numerous antagonists. That said, the setting itself nicely corrals them and keeps everything from sprawling out of control.

By the end of “Le Baiser de la Mort,” the player characters should be aware that a mysterious man known as “Delmar” is plotting against both them and the King’s Musketeers. Not only is this “Delmar” someone that is known to those who once dealt with the same outré threats to the King and to France that the player characters deal with now, but he also happens to be an ex-Musketeer! As “Rançon de Sang,” the third part of the campaign opens, the player characters will be able to gain further information about their antagonist from a very famous ex-Musketeer as well as an inmate of the Bastille. Visiting what is perhaps the most famous prison in France proves to be disturbingly genteel, although it does bring the characters to the attention of Cardinal Richelieu, again… Further information comes from an old contact that not only is another of “Delmar’s” ex-colleagues still alive, but also that his daughter, Jeannette d’Aronde, has been kidnapped! Duty-bound to rescue her, the player characters must travel to Bordeaux where all evidence points to a famous pirate as being the kidnapper!

Given the intrigue of the first two parts of Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré, “Le Baiser de la Mort” initially feels a little slow with little to punctuate its opening series of roleplaying encounters. Fortunately, once the player characters are out of Paris and reach Bordeaux events pick up a pace with plenty of opportunity to swashbuckle!

The campaign comes to a close and a finale with “Le Mousquetaire Final.” With no more leads as to the whereabouts of “Delmar,” the player characters are initially caught up with preparations for war with the Habsburgs, but their attention is fully piqued when Delmar first strikes from afar using magic and then forces them to act when he kidnaps their superior, Lieutenant Jean-Marie de Guerre. Of course, he is laying a trap for them, but what choice do the player characters have? Worse the trail forces the characters to confront the worst excesses of a French army on the march and leads them into the notorious Gévaudan region…

Physically, Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré is well written and well presented. It could do with an edit here and there, and is a bit lacking in certain places. The fact that the book contains black and white art instead of the colour art of the PDFs is understandable, but it would have been nice if the NPCs had been illustrated and some maps had been included. Neither is wholly necessary to run the campaign though. In terms of writing, the conclusions to each scenario and to the campaign itself feel underwritten and abbreviated, but with a little roleplaying upon the part of the GM should get around this.

There is nothing to stop a GM from running one part of Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré after another, but the campaign works better the more adventures that a GM runs between its parts. The adventures themselves present an excellent mix of intrigue and interaction, action and adventure, swordsplay and swashbuckling, making Le Mousquetaire Déshonoré an excellent way to get your All For One: Régime Diabolique campaign off to an entertaining start.

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Cold, Grim Fantasy

The truth is that are more games released than I can ever review however much I try. This means that I miss games that I want to review as I never find the time to tackle them. One such game is Hellfrost, a setting published by Triple Ace Games which I had good reason to read this last fortnight or so. Written by Paul “Wiggy” Wade-Williams for use with Savage Worlds – the generic RPG rules from Pinnacle Entertainment Group that handles slightly pulpy, cinematic action – Hellfrost is yet another fantasy RPG setting, but one that is very different to other fantasy RPGs in a couple of important ways. First, whilst it is fantasy RPG that draws on European roots, those roots are not atypical fantasy, for setting can be best described as a pre-apocalyptic, Northern European set fantasy. Second, unlike other Savage Worlds settings, it comes as a typical fantasy RPG rather than a Savage Worlds book. In other worlds, it is not a single book with an included campaign like Triple Ace Games’ Sundered Skies or Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s 50 Fathoms, but rather a true setting in that it is described in three books – the Hellfrost Player’s Guide, the Hellfrost Bestiary, and the Hellfrost Gazetteer, with support in the form of scenarios and supplements sold separately. It is the first of these books, the Hellfrost Player’s Guide, which is reviewed here. As with previously reviewed titles from Triple Ace Games, I should point out that I have worked on several of their titles as an editor, though not specifically on Hellfrost itself.

The setting for Hellfrost is Rassilon, a continent that for centuries has been divided in two by the Ice barrier, a gigantic, mile high wall of ice and cold that rose at the end of the Blizzard War. North of the Icewall, an army of coldfire-breathing Hellfrost dragons, frost giants, coldfire elementals, and orcs swept away numerous, but now forgotten civilisations whose lands lie under deep under snow and glacial ice. As fire as an element diminishes, the newly appeared Coldfire grows in its place, being an element that burns as well as it freezes, such that it can be used to forge arms and armour, especially from the new “black ice.” South of the Icewall, some civilisations held out against the Hellfrost armies, but in the five centuries since, ice and snow has continued to encroach ever further south as the temperatures drop. The forests continue to freeze, coniferous trees replacing deciduous ones, Taiga Elves living amongst the former, whilst their cousins, the hearth elves, reside in the latter. Frost Dwarves now build their cities into the high glaciers as well as the rock of the high mountains, all the whilst mining for precious metals and gems as well as the “black ice” from which they can forge arms and armour. South of the Icewall, three human civilisations can be found – the city-dwelling Anari; the rural and clannish Saxa; the tribal and warlike Tuomi; and the nomadic Finnar. Travelling in great caravans throughout this region are the Engros, a diminutive and distrusted race that has the reputation of being thieves and beggars. Nevertheless, their indomitable spirit sees them withstand all of the jibes that come with such a reputation. Lastly, the Frostborn are a new race, born of other races, which has found a home in the encroaching cold and snow even as their recent appearance is seen as one more sign that the gods have abandoned the peoples of Rassilon to the cold.

All of these races – Engros, Frostborn, Frostdwarves, Hearth and Taiga Elves, and the Anari, the Saxa, the Tuomi, and the Finnar – are available to play. In terms of occupation, both the setting and the Hellfrost Player’s Guide offer numerous options. Elven Bladedancers and Engro Bludgeoners protect their respective races, whilst druids protect both races and also attempt to protect the wilds from the oncoming Ice Age. Elementalists are wizards that work to master the elements one-by-one. Heahwisards work their powerful magics through their staves, but would be lost without them. Hrimwisards, or “Hoar Frost Mages” draw directly from the cold to fuel their spells and the more cold it is, the more powerful their spells are. Meanwhile, the Frost Dwarves remain the last people to retain knowledge of Rune Magic, focusing their magic through carved runes. The tradition of magic, poetry, song, and stories is maintained by the Skalds, entertainers who are welcome in any stead or household.

Several knightly orders are known across Rassilon. Hearth Knights defend directly against the predations of the Hellfrost inhabitants and mostly work along the Icebarrier and beyond. The Order of the Knights Hrafn, or “Order of the Knights Raven,” is dedicated to military leadership and usually serves the nobility as advisors. In addition, protection is provided by various guilds, such as the Iron Guild, which hires out its mercenaries to protect merchants. The Roadwardens are an informal organisation dedicated to protecting travellers on the road, whilst the Elven Woodwardens protect the forests.

Lastly, the Lorekeepers are an informal organisation dedicated to finding lost knowledge and ensuring that it is never lost, whilst the Reliquary is more interested in locating, studying, and protecting magic items. The art of creating magic items is one that has been lost following the rise of the Hellfrost, but the Reliquary would rather ensure that the remaining relics never fell into the hands of the enemy than see it be used against the enemy. Both the Lorekeepers and the Reliquary consist of scholars and tomb-raiders.

Character creation more or less follows the standard pattern for Savage Worlds. Except that there are more options given in the Hellfrost Player’s Guide than in many other Savage Worlds settings, and because a character’s race is important in Hellfrost, a player’s choice of race uses up the Edge (or advantage) that all characters begin with prior to creation. This includes Humans as race, but rather than receiving further Edges and Hindrances as part of a racial package, they instead have a choice of more skills or an extra Edge. The two sample characters below are typical of the setting, a hated Hrimwisard or “Hoar Frost Mage” who searches the Winterlands and beyond for lost secrets, whilst the second is a stalwart Roadwarden, protecting Rassilon’s roads and travellers. Nevertheless, the Hellfrost Player’s Guide is ripe with character options and ideas, and it would be easy to fill this whole review with sample player characters. That would be extra hard work though, in part because the process does flipping back and forth to work out what works with what and what each of the setting’s new Edges requires.

Howell Frostfall – Frostborn Hrimwisard
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d6, Hrimwisardry d8, Investigation d6, Knowledge (Arcana) d8, Knowledge (History) d4, Lockpicking d4, Notice d6
Charisma: –4
Glory: 0
Pace: 6” Parry: 5 Toughness: 5 (+1) Bennies: 3
Languages: Anari, Classical Anari, Frosttongue, Trader, Selari
Hindrances: Bad Eyes (Minor), Curious, Necromantic Weakness (Minor), Outsider
Edges: Arcane Background (Hrimwisardry), Lorekeeper
Spells – self only: Armor (icy skin), Environmental Protection (against cold only), Smite (icicles grow from hands or a held weapon), and speed (ice-shod feet) – all from Frigid Form
Spells: Burrow, Detect/Conceal
Notes: Frigid Form; Heat Lethargy (Lethargic at temperatures of 53° or higher. –1 to all trait rolls in such temperatures); Winter Soul (+2 to Vigor saves to resist the effects of cold weather, and +2 Armor to resist the effects of cold, coldfire, or ice attacks); Hrimwisardry (permanent environmental protection (cold) spell, but +4 damage from heat and fire attacks)
Gear: Leather Armor (+1), knife (Str+d4), warhammer (Str+d6, AP 1 vs. rigid armour)

Yrsa Skulisdohtor – Saxa Hearth Knight
Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d8, Guts d4, Persuasion d4, Riding d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d4, Survival d6, Tracking d6
Charisma: +2
Glory: 0
Pace: 6” Parry: 6 (+1) Toughness: 5 (+2) Bennies: 3
Languages: Saxa, Trader
Hindrances: Code of Honour, Magic Forbiddance
Edges: Attractive, Roadwarden, Snow Walker
Notes: Roadwarden (+2 to all Survival and Tracking; +2 to Notice rolls to detect ambushes, traps, concealed weapons, and such like)
Gear: Chainmail Hauberk (+2), Medium Shield (+1 Parry, +2 Armour against ranged attacks), Short Spear (Str+d6, Reach 1), Bow (12/24/48, 2d6), winter clothing

Magic, as has already been suggested by the character types earlier, comes in numerous forms in the Hellfrost setting. These are not the only forms of magic in Rassilon, for Alchemy is also studied, as is Hedge Magic and Herbalism. Both are natural magic rather than arcane or divine magic. Herbalism focuses on the creation of poultices and draughts to provide remedies to various maladies, but Hedge Magic draws on natural magic to replicate other forms. In game terms, this requires both the Hedge Magic Edge and a Professional Edge if a character wants to know more than Herbalism. The advantage of both Hedge Magic and Hrimwisardry is that neither is affected by the disturbing phenomenon known as The Siphoning which replaces Savage Worlds’ Backlash rules and which can occur any time that an arcane spell is cast. In game terms, any time that a one is rolled on the arcane skill die, The Siphoning occurs with effects ranging from the caster being simply Shaken – at best, or Fatigued and losing the use of his powers for a day, to at worst, being Wounded and losing his powers for days or even permanently losing part of his magical ability. The latter is represented by a reduction in type of die he rolls for his arcane skill. The effect of The Siphoning is to make casting spells anything other than an easy choice, even though all arcanists are free to cast as many spells as they would want. In game terms, the casting of spells in Hellfrost does not use the Power Points usually found in other Savage Worlds fantasy settings.

Whilst The Siphoning does not affect priests and divine magic, the gods of Rassilon are all the more difficult to contact and they dislike those who abuse their power or call upon it too often. Thus when casting Miracles, a cleric who rolls a 1 on his Faith die, regardless of the Wild die, is automatically Shaken. At worst, he can be Fatigued or even Wounded. Nevertheless, the gods are important and through faith and dedication, it is possible for priests and paladins to become disciple of any one of the twenty-four deities that are recognised – if not always worshipped by the peoples of Rassilon. Each of the gods is fully detailed, from the titles they known as and the aspects they have domain over to the signature Power and Powers granted. More importantly for paladins and priests, the description includes the sins that in committing would cause either to lose their Powers.

For example, Thrym is the god of winter who has risen to prominence as the gods of the fire and sun, Kenaz and Sigel, have disappeared. Also known as the Blizzard Roar or the White King, Thrym’s aspects are cold, ice, winter, blizzards, and icy realms; his symbol is the head of a Hellfrost Dragon’s head; any day that temperature falls below freezing is regarded as being one of his holy days; the duties of his priesthood – the Breath of Winter, and his paladins – the Talons of Winter are to expand the Hellfrost and to destroy servants of fire and heat (including those who worship Kenaz and Sigel, fire elementalists, and fire elementals); and sins against him include lighting a fire, deliberately warming oneself by a fire, eating cooked food more than once a week, slaying any creature with Resistance or Immunity to cold except in self-defence, living in the warmer Hearthlands for more than half a year without permission of a superior, slaying a Hellfrost dragon, and working against the Fimbulvintr. To his worshippers, Thyrm embodies the Hellfrost, and whilst neither a “good” or an “evil” deity, Thyrm is followed by evil races such as Orcs and Frost Giants, though Hrimwisards at least acknowledge him as the source of their spells.

In addition all player characters have a statistic new Savage Worlds – “Glory.” It is like Charisma, but represents a character’s reputation rather than his force of personality. Within the game it is rewarded for undertaking heroic deeds – in addition to Experience Points – and every twenty or so Glory a character gains Connections with certain organisations, greater Combat Prowess, and can even be “Immortalised in Song”! Skalds can tell stories of a character’s deeds and so increase his Glory. Of course, Glory can go down as well as up, and gain such an infamous reputation that he is a Wanted man or even gains an Enemy who wants him dead! Essentially, encourages positive play, though a player could still play a villain if he wanted to.

Although the Hellfrost Player’s Guide provides only general information about Rassilon’s topography – the actual geographical details are described in the Hellfrost Gazetter – it does give plenty of background information and the rules to support this information. This includes not just chapters on gear – from food to fortifications and vehicles to weapons, and daily life on Rassilon – everything from food and funerary customs to calendar and coinage; but also descriptions of many of the continent’s organisations, all of which the player characters could join (if they qualify) or interact with; all before rounding out the volume with a set of setting specific generic rules. These understandably cover the weather and its dangers in some detail as well as the dangers of travelling in cold environments.

Physically, the Hellfrost Player’s Guide is a nicely presented hardback. The book is heavily illustrated, but what there is, does capture the grimmer nature of the setting. In comparison to other Savage World settings, a complaint could be made that the volume is incomplete in that it requires more books and an adventure to play. This though, should not be held against the publisher, for the Hellfrost Player’s Guide is, as with other well-known fantasy RPGs, a book intended for both players and GMs. Further, beyond the Hellfrost Bestiary and Hellfrost Gazetteer, the Hellfrost setting is well supported by the publisher. If there is an issue with the Hellfrost Player’s Guide, it is a lack of map that would give some idea of Rassilon’s geography. That said, a map is available from Triple Ace Games which also gives the breakdown to which of the setting’s areas the various Region Guides describe. Another issue might be the setting’s extensive use of non-English for its terms, such as some of the titles taken by the characters – Hrimwisard or Skald, for example, and names of the gods and Rassilon’s calendar. To be honest, this is just another element that brings Rassilon to life and the book includes a pronunciation guide.

Although the Hellfrost Player’s Guide is not a setting book, it does much to bring the richness and detail of Rassilon to life. Obviously, this is primary through the myriad number of detailed character options available right through character progression, which are tightly tied into Rassilon’s various organisations and elemental adversities and not only give rise to interesting characters, but also interesting character motivations too. The richness also shows in the setting’s inspirations, the cultures of Northern rather than Western Europe, and the extensive use of their languages. Accompanying this richness is a grim and gritty feel, one that again shows in the setting and its encroaching apocalypse, in its character options, and to an extent in the rules for magic and the weather. Above all, the Hellfrost Player’s Guide brings the complexity and detail of Rassilon to life in preparation for the heroic exploits of the player characters.

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