Game Like It's Another 1974

In January 2012, Wizards of the Coast announced that it was working on the next version of Dungeons & Dragons and that it would take two years’ worth of development time. So whilst the hobby waited to see what D&D Next or ‘Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition’ would look like, it left a gap at the top of the hobby because for intents and purposes, the game, in the form of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition,  was redundant. This is not to say that the style of play that Dungeons & Dragons offered went away. After all, PaizoPublishing’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game was and continues to be popular, and there are of course any number of ‘Retroclones’ that Dungeons & Dragonsstyle play based on older variants of the rules, most notably Labyrinth Lordand Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. More recently Pelgrane Press has given the style of play a contemporary update with 13th Age. In 2012 the update to this style of play was offered by Goodman Games in the form of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, an ‘Old School’ style nod to the literary sources for the original Dungeons & Dragons.

By 2012, Goodman Games was no stranger to the ‘Old School’ style, having published in nine years some fifty or so titles for its Dungeon Crawl Classics line, starting in 2003 with Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King. What each entry in the series provided was a scenario in the classic sense, as published by TSR in the first ten years of its history, scenarios in which the adventures itself mattered more than the setting and the NPCs were primarily there for the slaughter than the scintillating socialisation. Yet by 2012, the series had stalled, its quality suffering primarily from a new rules system that seemed ill-suited to its intended style, but then by 2012, critics had long been wondering what type of game Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition was suited to. The Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game offered a chance to reinvigorate the line and the concept. The resulting game was and is not a ‘Retroclone’ in the classic sense – one that sets out to emulate a particular set of rules; it is instead a d20 System RPG that goes back to the inspirational source for the original Dungeons & Dragons – the legendary ‘Appendix N’. Penned by Gary Gygax as part of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, ‘Appendix N’ was a list of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror authors that inspired the innumerable elements that made up Dungeons & Dragons, whether it was Fritz Leiber’s thieves or Jack Vance’s magic and spells, or Robert E. Howard’s corruptive influence of magic. From this basis, author Joseph Goodman has developed an RPG that uses the same basis for its rules as the d20 System, but one that sits somewhere between Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in terms of its complexity.

To get into what the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is about, you need to start at the beginning and in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, that means playing Zero Level characters. Playing characters of Zero Level in Dungeons & Dragons is nothing new. It was done by TSR in 1986 with N1, Treasure Hunt and then again in 1987 with N5, Under Ilefarn, and then in 2005 by Goodman Games in Dungeon Crawl Classics #0: Legends are Made, not Born. Here each player takes the role of not one Zero Level character, but several, each a serf or peasant looking beyond a life tied to the fields and the seasons or the forge and the hammer, looking to prove themselves and perhaps progress enough to become a skilled adventurer and eventually make a name for themselves. Unfortunately, delving into tombs and the lairs of both men and beasts is a risky venture and death is all but a certainty for the lone delver… In numbers, there is the chance that one or more will survive long enough to go onto greater things! This is what the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game terms a ‘Character Creation Funnel’.

Characters in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, just like in Dungeons & Dragons, have six Abilities – Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, and Luck, each rolled on three six-sided dice. These are rolled in strict order, because after all, life in the world of the ‘Known Realms’ or Aéreth, that of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, is something of a lottery. That includes not just his basic Hit Points – rolled on a single four-sided die, but also the Zero Level character’s occupation, which will also determine his race, a weapon, and a possession related to his occupation. For example, this could be a cheesemaker with his cudgel and stinky cheese or an animal trainer with his club and pony, but it could be an Elven navigator with his bow and spyglass or a Dwarven chest-maker with his chisel and his 10 lbs. weight of wood. For in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, just as in the original Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons, the races Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings are Classes as much as they are species.

Our sample character is a Halfling Gypsy who seeing no future in reading fortunes has run away from the circus. He is a healthy fellow somewhat lacking in the wits or nimbleness that marks out many of his race. Sadly, his grandmother has read Milo’s fortune, but his Luck may still out…

Milo Tosscobble

Zero Level Halfling Gypsy

STR 12 AGL 7 (-1) STM 15 (+1)

PER 12 INT 7 (-1) LCK 15 (+1)

Hit Points: 5

Saving Throws

Fortitude +1 Reflex -1 Willpower +0

Birth Augur: Four-leafed Clover

Luck Benefit: Secret Doors

Weapon: Sling (1d4)

Equipment: Hex Doll

18cp

Of the six core Abilities, Luck is the one that needs the most explanation. It is used for various different skill checks and rolls, for each character’s single Luck Benefit – for example, in the case of Milo, to find Secret Doors – and can even be burned to gain a one-off bonus. The latter though is a permanent use and any Luck lost in this fashion can only be regained by a player roleplaying his character to his Alignment. The Luck bonus also applies to critical hit, fumble, and corruption rolls as well as various Class-based rolls. For example, the Elf receives it as a bonus one single spell and a Warrior to a single weapon such as a longsword or a war hammer. Further, both the Thief and the Halfling Classes are exceptionally lucky. Not only are their Luck bonuses doubled when they burn Luck, they actually regain Luck each day equal to their Level. In addition, if a party has a Halfling amongst its numbers that Halfling can pass his expended Luck to other members of the party!

So once a Zero Level has been on an adventure or three and acquired enough Experience Points, he can advance to First Level. It only takes ten Experience Points, with an average of two points being awarded per encounter, rather than per monster killed or item of treasure being looted. It should also be pointed out that the Experience Points progression needed to reach Second and subsequent Levels has been substantially streamlined and simplified for ease of play. Human characters can advance from Zero Level into one of the four Classes – Cleric, Thief, Warrior, and Wizard, whilst the demi-humans advance into the Class appropriate to the Occupation rolled during character creation, the Elf Class for Elves, the Dwarf Class for Dwarves, and the Halfling Class for Halflings. Each Class feels very much the Classic version seen in, for example, Basic Dungeons & Dragons, but with sufficient tweaks that make each – and thus the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game – more interesting to play than those of Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

The Cleric must choose a god and matching Alignment and weapons training – which includes the Neutral deity Cthulhu if the player wants his character to be a Priest of the Old Ones! – and in return gains clerical or Idol Magic, can Turn creatures unholy to his god, and can Lay on Hands. The latter includes the ability to heal broken limbs, organ damage, disease, poison, and more – rather just heal Hit Points. It is possible for a Cleric to gain the disapproval of his god and even sin, this including the healing of a character of an opposing Alignment or faith. Thieves are relatively little changed, although their skills – Backstab, Sneak Silently, Hide in Shadows, and so on – are done as a bonus to the RPG’s universal d20 System skills mechanic rather than as percentiles. The skill values and their progression also vary depending upon whether the Thief is Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic. The Warrior receives one single new ability, that of being able to undertake ‘Mighty Deeds of Arms’. Need to sweep an opponent off the stairs or swing on a chandelier to kick a mob down or throw a flask of flaming oil into the eyes of a basilisk? With the simplicity of the Mighty Deed of Arms mechanic, a Warrior can. Wizards of course cast magic spells, but their initial spells are randomly known and they also are encouraged to take a patron, like Bobugbublilz, demon lord of amphibians or Sezrekan the Elder, the wickedest of sorcerers, whom they can also invoke to gain powerful, but dangerous magic.

The Dwarf is like the Warrior and can match that Class’ Mighty Deed of Arms, but in addition gains a random bonus to each attack and do a bash attack with his shield. The Elf is susceptible to iron and so must use mithril arms and armour, and can use many martial weapons as well as cast spells, but must work closely with an extra planar patron to do so. Lastly, the Halfling, as well as being intrinsically lucky, is also stealthy and capable of using two weapons together in a fight. There are lots of elements in these takes upon the classic character Classes that add both a mechanical benefit and flavour. The addition of the Mighty Deed of Arms not only gives the Warrior an edge, but also gives the player room to develop his character’s style of play and match it to his weaponry; the Cleric gets to both role-play and ‘roll-play’ his faith; and in both cases, the Dwarf and Halfling Classes are far more capable than the classic versions of either Class. In addition, each of the Human Classes, bar the Wizard since the pursuit of magic is a solitary affair, are each given a pair of pages devoted to suggested backgrounds and organisations for those Classes that add further flavour.

To undertake an action, a player rolls an Action Die and adds to the result any of his character’s Attribute bonuses, Luck bonus, and Level bonuses that apply. This is usually against the base Difficulty Class of ten, with difficulties raising or falling by five. This also applies to Spell Checks for Clerics, Wizards, and Elves, and also to combat, although the target in combat in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is an ascending Armour Class. In most cases, the Action Die is a twenty-sided die, but this can change. For example, as a gypsy, Milo might have a way with ponies that allows him to make a skill check using a twenty-sided die as his Action Die to determine the health and value of any pony that he wants to purchase. Were he to attempt to illuminate a forged manuscript, he would only roll a ten-sided die as his Action Die – and that is in addition to the penalties he would suffer to the roll for his lack of skill!

Where Dungeons & Dragons and other games of its ilk use the usual polyhedral panoply – the four, the six, the eight, the ten, the twelve, and the twenty-sided die, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game employs another seven in addition to those standard six. These are the three, the five, the seven, the fourteen, the sixteen, the twenty-four, and the thirty-sided dice. These are arranged in a ladder or ‘dice-chain’ that goes up from the twenty-sided die to the twenty-four-sided die and then to the thirty-sided, and down from the twenty-sided die to the sixteen-sided die and then to the fourteen-sided die and so on. Different Action Dice are rolled when a Warrior or Dwarf makes his second attack which he gains at Fifth Level and also when a Dwarf rolls his Attack Bonus.

Suggestions are given if the Judge and his players lack these different sided dice. If the Judge does want them, they are only available from Gamescience. None of these are inexpensive dice and that is just ordering them within the United States. International orders are another matter… This is an issue with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, but how much of an issue will vary between one Judge and his players and another Judge and his players.

Combat in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is relatively little different to that of d20 System. Bar the use of a second Action Die type to grant certain Classes second actions in combat – the Warrior and the Dwarf gain a second attack and the Wizard and the Elf gain a second spell to cast at higher levels, the extra combat rules add rules for Fumbles, Critical Hits, and expanded details for Mighty Deeds of Arms. In each case these are accompanied by tables and charts, which in the case of Critical Hits is varies according to a character’s Class and Level, so there are several of them.

Magic in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is no longer a matter of casting a spell and forgetting about it. Instead magic is deadly and dangerous, sometimes corrupting, but it can be very powerful. A Wizard can enter duels with enemy Wizards and Clerics to counterspell their spells and a Wizard can also Spellburn points in his Abilities to gain temporary bonuses to regain lost spells. This is only temporary – rest and recuperation will let the Wizard regain these Ability points. Spell duels increase the capabilities of both Classes, although the rules do add a degree of complexity and time consumption not readily found in the rest of the game. Within the game itself, there is the danger of the spells perfectly countering each other and setting up a ‘Phlogiston Disturbance’ that might cause the spells to merge, the summoning of supernatural creatures, or set up a backward time loop! In addition, whenever a Wizard learns a spell, he learns it in a slightly different way to any other Wizard and that means that the spell has a slightly different extra effect that varies from one Wizard to another. This mercurial nature means that when the Wizard casts one spell, he might suffer the Sleep of Ages, whilst with another he might gain a temporary Psychic Shield. A Wizard’s Luck bonus applies to the roll to determine this effect whenever he gains a new spell.

Over a third of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Gameis devoted to one thing – spells for both the Wizard and the Cleric. Each receives roughly a page each that details how the spell works, what its effects are, and what can go wrong with said spell; in other words, an effect chart. For example, the classic standby of First Level Wizards everywhere, Magic Missile, might manifest as a meteor, a screaming, clawing eagle, a ray of frost, a force axe, or so on. When cast, a Wizard might throw a single Magic Missile that only does a single point of damage; one that might normal damage; multiple missiles or a single powerful one; and so on. Alternatively, the Wizard’s casting might result in a Misfire, which for Magic Missile might cause the caster’s allies or himself to be hit by multiple Magic Missiles, or to blow a hole under the caster’s feet! Worse, the casting of the spell might have a Corrupting influence upon the caster, which for Magic Missile might cause the skin of the caster’s hands and forearms to change colour to acid green or become translucent or to become invisible every time he casts Magic Missile! This is in addition to the chances of the Wizard suffering from Major or even Greater Corruption…

Rather than listing magic item after magic item, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game presents both a discussion of their nature in the ‘Known Realms’ and the means for the Judge to create them. Magic items in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game are rare and of a singular nature and purpose. They may even be of such power as to arouse the ire of a demi-god! In keeping with the sources within ‘Appendix N’, the creation of swords receives particular attention, whilst guidelines are also given for the creation of wands, rods, rings, and other items. The mixing of potions is covered by the Make Potion spell. Monsters are treated in a not too dissimilar fashion. Although standard versions of each are included, from the Basilisk and Bugbear to the Wolf and the Zombie, there are rules and suggestions as to how to make them mysterious, if not necessarily unique, essentially to spice them up a little, and so ensure that they are not simply generic. The monsters have access to broad set of their own Critical Hits table to roll on when fighting against the player characters.

The last fifty or so pages are devoted to a series of appendices that cover everything from languages and poisons to names and the fabled ‘Appendix N’, as well as two short scenarios. ‘The Portal Under the Stars’ is designed for Zero and First Level characters and sees them enter a supernatural portal and delve into the burial tomb of an ancient war-wizard. It is followed by ‘The Infernal Crucible of Sezrekan the Mad’, an adventure for Fifth Level characters in which the experienced player characters enter one of the workshops of the notorious sage, diabolist, and warlock, Sezrekan, who was obsessed with attaining immortality. Both scenarios are relatively short if deadly affairs that that are accorded plenty of detail and flavour. They also previously appeared in the DCC RPG Free RPG Day Adventure Starter released for Free RPG Day 2011 and reviewed here. In addition, certain editions of the game have a copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings inserted inside the front cover. Designed for First Level characters, this has them visit the village of Hirot which of late has become besieged an immortal hound, a devil-beast that hunts the inhabitants of the settlement. It can be played by Zero Level characters, but will be even deadlier than the ‘The Portal Under the Stars’. Unlike ‘The Portal Under the Stars’ and ‘The Infernal Crucible of Sezrekan the Mad’, Doom of the Savage Kings is much more of a full scenario than a simple dungeon delve and serves as a good adventure for First Level characters and the Judge new to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Physically, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, despite being almost five hundred pages long, is surprisingly light in the hand. A wholly black and white hardback, what strikes the reader about the volume is that it is profusely illustrated, not quite one illustration per page, but certainly not far off. Every one of these illustrations is drawn by artists familiar to the Old School Renaissance – Jeff Dee, Jeff Easely, Jim Holloway, Erol Otus, Jim Roslof, and more. Many of the pieces delightfully illustrate the text and all of them invoke not just the Old School style, but also the look of the core three books of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons – the Monster Manual, the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide; the latter in particular with its little cartoons that dig at the mores of Dungeons & Dragons. In addition, the cartography for all three adventures is excellent.

On the downside, the book lacks an index and that is inexcusable in this century and age, especially given how often a Judge needs to refer to the contents of the book. The Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is not a complex game by any means, but it makes heavy use of charts – and often, especially if one of the player characters is a Cleric, an Elf, or a Wizard when every casting of a spell requires the consultation of a particular chart. This is more an issue than the need to purchase special dice in order to get the most out of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, but there are ways around this whereas there are no means given to play the game without the charts. Nor though, would you want to. The charts and the tables are fundamental to handling both the high and the low points of combat and both the high and the low points of casting spells. Nor are the charts just mechanically important, as they add both flavour and feel aplenty to the game’s play.

Whilst the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is not an Old School Retroclone per se, it is a love letter to the Old School. This shows in the choice of artists, the use of the fundamentals of Dungeons & Dragons’ architecture – the character Classes, the spells, and so on, and in what by modern standards is an imbalance between one character and another. This imbalance can be as simple as better core Abilities for one character and not another, but it also shows up in the differences between the Classes. For example, the Warrior is a consistently powerful Class with its Mighty Deed of Arms capability, whereas the spell casting Classes are powerful, there are also debilitating constraints to the use of magic, whether it is the chance of mishaps and Corruption for the Wizard or the possibility of disapproval by his deity for the Cleric. That said, when roleplayed, these are entertaining aspects of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

As the first major publisher to delve into the Old School Renaissance with the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, Goodman Games was best placed to publish a roleplaying game like the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. There is no doubting that it would have been easy for Goodman Games to publish just another Retroclone, but in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, Goodman Games did something different. It designed and published an Old School style RPG that draws on the same sources as Dungeons & Dragons, but yet stands on its own mechanically, thematically, and tonally. As much as there is the familiarity of both Dungeons & Dragons and the d20 System to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the differences in terms of its mechanics, its themes, and its tone all serve to give the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game an engagingly brutal charm.

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Triple Ripple Yellow

Since 2003, the Miskatonic University Library Association series of monographs has been Chaosium, Inc.’s way of making other works available to players of both Call of Cthulhu and Basic RolePlay. Bar the printing, each monograph’s author is responsible for the writing, the editing, and the layout, so far the quality of entries in the series have varied widely and has led to some dreadful releases. Fortunately, Ripples from Carcosa: Confronting Hastur Across Time and Space is far from dreadful in terms of both editing and layout, or indeed storytelling and writing.

Ripples from Carcosa dates from 2005 and is Oscar Rios’ first campaign. As its title and subtitle suggests it presents a campaign against a single threat not in single era, but several. More specifically three eras, each of which at the time of publication were supported by Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, though not so currently. They include the Ancient Rome of CthulhuInvictus, then a fellow Monograph; the Dark Ages of Cthulhu Dark Ages, only recently translated from the German version; and End Time: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying At The World's End, a Monograph that detailed a near future in which mankind has fled the Earth as the stars have come right. As of 2013, Cthulhu Invictus is in print as a full book available at your local friendly, gaming store and indeed would be the setting for Rios’ well-received campaign from Miskatonic River Press, The Legacy of Arrius Lurco. Of the other two supplements, Cthulhu Dark Ages remains out of print and End Time is still only available as a Monograph. Fortunately, none of these three supplements are absolutely necessary to running any of the scenarios in Ripples from Carcosa.

The trilogy opens with ‘Adventus Regis’ or “Arrival of the King” in which various Roman citizens have come to Vestalanium to undertake a vacation, some with their children. Treated to every luxury, the highlight of their week’s stay is sure to be the performance of a new play, the first in five years by the famed playwright, Livius Carbo. The town is rife with rumours about the play, which will be staged at the town’s arena the following night and the characters will see the following night. Worse everyone seems on edge, but perhaps once the play has been performed, tensions will lessen? The scenario consists of relatively little investigation, initially there is little for the characters to discover and little for them to put together. Instead, everything is revealed in a bloody climax of madness, mayhem, and murder that interestingly sees the characters coming to the aftermath of a Mythos summoning.

It continues with ‘Herald to the Yellow King’, which is set in the kingdom of Shereborne in Wessex during the Dark Ages. Ten years ago, Lord Boniface made a promise to Wessex’s oldest man not to cut down an ancient oak, but now that has happened and as part of his household, Lord Boniface tasks the characters to ride out to Derek’s Holding and offer an apology upon his behalf. Setting out in the last few days before the Yule festival, what the characters find is a village in disarray, a scene of madness. As the weather draws in, they are sent out again and again in search of answers to what happened in Derek’s Holding, but what they find is more madness, more mayhem, and more murder. As the season draws in, they must return to Lord Boniface’s castle where they find that the answers they seek have arrived before them.

The last scenario in Ripples in Carcosa is ‘Heir to Carcosa’ which takes place in The United Colonial Coalition Asteroid Colonies in 2147. There, four asteroids are home to a secret alliance between humans, Elder Things, and the Great Race of Yith, trying to remain hidden from both an Earth abandoned following the rise of R’lyeh in 2045 and the remnants of mankind on Mars. The characters are the crew of the UCC Gladius, an armed vessel tasked undertaking various missions and with keeping the existence of the colonies a secret. Via a trade with the Mi-go, they learn of another vessel operating near the colonies. The crew is ordered to intercept the ship, disable and board it in order to learn what the crew knows and then repair the ship for UCC use. Repairing the ship and determining the crew’s objective involves an interesting trip into the past.

In addition to the three scenarios, Ripples from Carcosa includes an examination of Hastur, the King in Yellow, and the play of the same name. Initially it only compiles what has been seen before, bearing in mind that this Monograph was published in 2005 and the Great Old, his avatar, and The King in Yellow have been revisited several times since. It expands upon this in supplementary chapters by examining the worship of Hastur in both the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages, including several adventure seeds also. Instead of presenting the worship of Hastur in the period of the End Time, the supplement instead presents enough background to run ‘Heir to Carcosa’ without recourse to owning the End TimeMonograph. That said, all three scenarios could be run without reference being made to their setting sourcebooks.

Each scenario in Ripples from Carcosa comes with a set of six pre-generated investigators, and whilst they can be used to play each of the scenarios as a one-shot, they are fundamental to playing the trilogy as a campaign. Variations upon each of the six characters appear in three scenarios and exposure to the Mythos of Hastur allows an investigator to recall dimly the events of a previous scenario to gain insight as to his current predicament. Whilst it would be possible for the Keeper to add further scenarios, these three – and it has to be three with Hastur! Hastur! Hastur! – do intentionally take place a millennium apart and the Keeper would have to develop the characters in each case.

Physically, Ripples from Carcosa is well produced. If the artwork is perhaps a little scrappy, there is at least some effort made to give the book a little style, and there is evidence of some editing. It feels cramped in places, especially the investigator sheets for each scenario.

Campaigns through time and using the reincarnation concept to provide continuity between eras have been done since the release of Ripples from Carcosa, most notably the Dungeons & Dragons influenced Red Eye of Azathoth from Open Design, but arguably Ripples from Carcosa was the first. The three scenarios here show a progressive spiral into madness that are the hallmarks of Hastur’s influences as well as what has become the author’s trademark avoidance of Call of Cthulhu’straditional investigative methods. As a campaign, Ripples from Carcosa is far from a traditional Call of Cthulhu campaign – it dispenses with the onionskin format and there is no climax to the campaign, instead has the characters face the same threat, or rather variations upon it, again and again. In a sense this is unsatisfying for both the players and the Keeper because of this, but each scenario in Ripples from Carcosa is satisfying enough to stand on its own. Together though, they impart a sense of continuing despair across the ages as Ripples from Carcosa: Confronting Hastur Across Time and Space.

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A Timey-Wimey Bradshaw's

Understandably, the focus of the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game in both its core boxed set and the Aliens & Creatures boxed set has been on the modern series and on the adventures of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Doctors. To an extent, this has been frustrating since there is more to the Doctor Who universe than the series since its re-launch in 2005 – in fact, there is half a century of history awaiting exploration by the game and its authors. Therefore, it seems appropriate that with the latest releases for the game, Cubicle Seven Entertainment has begun to explore that history in what is Doctor Who’s fiftieth year. These releases include Defending The Earth: The U.N.I.T. Sourcebook and The First Doctor Sourcebook – the latter the beginning of a series of releases that will look at each Doctor in turn, but it is The Time Traveller’s Companion that is the subject of this review.

As its title suggests, The Time Traveller’s Companion explores the idea at the very core of both Doctor Who and the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game – ‘time’ itself. Thus it explores ‘Temporal Mechanics 101’ in detail, including its physics and temporal phenomena – such as Temporal Nexus Points, the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, Chronic Hysteresis, and Time Spurs, but it does not limit itself purely to ‘Timey-wimey’ stuff. Rather it delves deep back into the television series’ history to present a history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, an expanded set of rules for creating Time Lord characters and handling those all-important Regenerations, temporal devices other than TARDISes, expanded rules for crewing and piloting a TARDIS, creating and customising a TARDIS and giving it a personality, and more… That ‘more’ though is a whole separate section for the GM’s eyes only, presenting as it does the ‘Dark Secrets of the Time Lords’; explores the possibility of campaigns set before, during, and after the infamous Time War; and as a companion to the earlier ‘Temporal Mechanics 101’, gives ‘Advanced Temporal Mechanics’, the game rules for said earlier section.

The book begins – where else? – with the ‘known’ history of Gallifrey and its people, both Gallifreyans and the Time Lords, even offering the ordinary Gallifreyan as a player character option as a suitable Companion to the group’s Time Lord. Of course, a focus on the latter understandably underpins The Time Traveller’s Companion, so that the player who wants to play a Time Lord can the Advanced Time Lord Creation rules to add his character’s Chapter House, choose a TARDIS, and choose from a wider array of Time Lord Traits, both Good and Bad. Thus a Time Lord might possess Bio-Rhythmic Control or a Doctorate, be a Celestial Intervention Agency agent or even an Outsider, one of the Time Lords who has rejected life in the Citadel for the wilds of Gallifrey.  Equally, he could have been Bottom of the Class or be a Wanted Renegade, have a Faulty Heart or suffer from Random Regeneration. The process of Regeneration is greatly expanded upon, covering its difficulties and dangers, as well as providing a set of Regeneration Tables to randomly determine what a Time Lord’s new Regeneration is like. It is possible for a Time Lord to have some control over his Regeneration, but only with a good Regeneration roll.

Similarly, the chapter devoted to time and time travel expands upon that given in the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game. Its focus is twofold. First the dangers involved, most notably the Blinovitch Limitation Effect which limits the ability of anyone wanting to interfere with his own timeline, but then the means of time travel, covering the basics of navigation as well as an array of time travel devices other than the TARDIS such as Time Corridors, Time Scoops, and Time Rings. The TARDIS receives a sizeable chapter all of its own, detailing every aspect of the iconic vehicle like never before. This very easily could have been developed into a ‘TARDIS Manual’ supplement for the RPG, but it makes sense to have this material in The Time Traveller’s Companion. With its detailed descriptions of what a TARDIS can do, its features, components, rooms, and more, most notably allowing players and GMs alike to design their own TARDIS. Not just design their own TARDIS, but actually create just as they would a player character, including Attributes, Skills, and Traits. Of course, a TARDIS has access to its own exclusive Traits, including Fast Healing, Psychic, Run For Your Life!, Argumentative, Haunted, Inexperienced, and so on. A last indicator that these rules turn a TARDIS into a character is that there are rules for TARDIS Growth – essentially a TARDIS now has a chance to have its own Experience Points! In particular, these rules pleasingly model the TARDIS as seen in the new series where the Doctor very much has a special relationship with the ‘old girl’.

For each of the chapters in the first half of The Time Traveller’s Companion there is a counterpart in the GM’s Section. Here are revealed the ‘real’ history of Gallifrey and the Time Lords; full Bio-Data Extracts for the numerous renegades who have plagued the Time Lords and the Doctor in the last fifty years; a discussion on setting campaigns in Gallifrey’s timeline, right up to the Time War and beyond; and a look at the ‘Children  of Gallifrey’, those left behind after the Time War, some whom might be Neo-Time Lords – like River Song. The latter allows for the creation of Time Lord-like characters after the events of the Time War and so gets around the idea that the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords. Also discussed are some of the deadliest devices of the Time War, ones that the GM does not want his players to get a hold of, that is, unless they are being used as especially deadly plot devices! If the GM’s Section has a particular focus, it is on the Time War and the events that led up to it, addressing what is otherwise a very touchy subject in the television series itself. Throughout this section, the GM is given numerous Adventure Seeds, though he should be warned that their titles include some of the worst puns ever put to paper…

Rounding out the GM’s Section are the rules for the earlier chapter in the Player’s Section that discussed the nature of time travel. For all the complexity of the subject matter, these do a very good of keeping things relatively simple and straightforward easily supporting the explanation given in the Player’s Section. It also covers time travel by other technologies, and even without a Time Lord, but one possibly very useful section suggests how the GM curb his players from overusing the TARDIS and its fund of Story Points as a means to solve every little problem. One actual very useful element is saved for the appendix. This already includes all of the Traits, Gadget Traits, and Space-Time Navigation Tables given earlier in the book, but to this it adds TARDIS sheets and Expert Cards. The latter are the very useful element, each an informative hand-out detailing a particular temporal phenomena, such as the Blinovitch Limitation Effect or Chronic Hysteresis, which the GM can give his Time Lord player without a lot of parrot-like repetition. Indeed, the Time Lord player is now free to lecture his companions on the subject as much as he likes…

The book is nicely presented and organised. Both the players’ and the GM’s sections come with their own introductions that explain the following contents. The book is illustrated throughout, primarily drawing from the new series, but where appropriate uses illustrations from the game’s last fifty years. It is a pity though that The Time Traveller’s Companion is one whole book – the split between Player’s and GM’s Sections seem like it was intended to be another boxed set. (That said, it should be pointed out that the Player’s Section of The Time Traveller’s Companion is available for use on tablet devices so that the players can access it during play).

For any group playing the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game wanting to expand upon all things ‘Timey-wimey’, The Time Traveller’s Companion is incredibly useful. The expanded information upon Time Lords, Time Lord Society, and Time Lord history, allows the players to create more varied characters, especially with more than one Time Lord or Lady in a TARDIS and the GM to create interesting adversaries, or indeed bring back old ones such as The War Chief or The Rani. Similarly the expanded history gives the GM a whole timeline to explore. The new rules for the TARDIS enable the GM to bring his group’s TARDIS into play as a character all of its very own and the expanded rules on the nature of Time Travel enable him to make it a bigger and more challenging feature of his game. Ultimately, The Time Traveller’s Companion is not a supplement that changes a GM’s Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game campaign, but one that lets him expand and develop it.

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What killed Dungeons & Dragons?

It is difficult to approach 13th Age without a sense of hyperbole. In effect, Rob Heinsoo and Jonathon Tweet, respectively the designers of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition have backstabbed their respective editions of Dungeons & Dragons, taken the corpses of both and revivified the choicest cuts with action and drama. Where Dungeons & Dragons – and most variants and retro-clones – are perhaps a little staid in their play style, 13th Age is a d20 System variant is written to be anything but that… It employs streamlined mechanics and choices in play to speed the play of the game and it employs mechanics that actively work to engage the player characters in both the setting and the story. In effect it takes the war game simulation origins of Dungeons & Dragons and sacrifices them on the altar of dramatic action and storytelling. Although it very much has the underlying architecture and many of the elements of the archetypal Dungeons & Dragons game, 13th Age is what would have happened if Dungeons & Dragons got its arse handed to itself by Feng Shui and its corpse was stamped on by Dungeon World. 

Hyperbole aside, 13th Age is a Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG unlike anything that that ‘style’ in gaming has ever seen. What it brings to Dungeons & Dragons are contemporary mechanics that encourage storytelling as part of the game’s play that combine the best features of the last two official versions of Dungeons & Dragons – and it does this before we have the next official version, D&D Next. Published by Pelgrane Press, better known for its GUMSHOE System family of games, including Trail of Cthulhu, Ashen Stars, and Night’s Black Agents, 13th Age just might be everyone’s next fantasy heartbreaker.

At the heart of 13th Age are three core elements that change Dungeons & Dragons as we know it – Icons, “One Unique Thing”, and Backgrounds. The setting does not have gods as such, but thirteen Icons, each a being or personality that shapes part of world. They drive and direct the events of the world, and include the Archmage, the Crusader, the Diabolist, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the Emperor, the Great Gold Wyrm, the High Druid, the Lich King, the Orc Lord, the Priestess, the Prince of Shadows, and the Three – the latter being ancient evil Dragons. In another setting they might be Sauron or Vecna, Elminster or Gandalf, Conan or Drizz’t Do’urden, Orcus or Tiamat, and so on, but either way, each player character has relationship with one, two, or three of the Icons. Each relationship can be Positive, Conflicted, or Negative depending upon how many points are assigned to it and will further vary depending upon if the Icon’s nature is Heroic, Ambiguous, or Villainous. Before each session each player will roll for his Icon relationships to see if one or more will somehow influence the events of the forthcoming session. As a player character progresses from First Level up to the maximum of Tenth Level, the strength of his Icon relationships will also grow, whether becoming an Icon’s champion, enemy, and so on, or indeed as is inferred by 13th Age, eventually supplanting the Icon. The question is, would such a change inaugurate the 14th Age?

One further influence that the Icons have on any setting is that they replace the Dungeons & Dragons sacred cow that is Alignment. Without the presence of Alignment in the game, 13th Age has no need for player characters to select it or to have spells that work with it, such as Detect Evil or Protection from Good. Whether or not an Icon or an NPC is ‘Lawful Good’ or ‘Chaotic Evil’ is down to the story that the GM and his players are gaming. Of course it will be obvious that the Great Gold Wyrm is good, that the Diabolist is evil, and so on, but when it comes to the Ambiguous Icons, such as the Crusader, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the High Druid, and the Prince of Shadows as well as occasionally the Emperor and the Three, there is more flexibility in their attitudes and actions. Thus there is also a greater flexibility to telling stories where they are involved. (Of course, the GM and his players are free to re-adopt Dungeons & Dragons’ Alignment system if they want, and it should be noted that 13th Age actually places all of the Icons on an Alignment diagram for such an eventuality.)

Every player character has One Unique Thing, an aspect of his origins or personality that singles him out in the 13th Age. No other character will possess this aspect, and whilst it cannot confer a mechanical benefit of any kind, including a combat benefit, it serves as one big fat story hook for the GM to play with and give that character his moment in the spotlight. For example, “I hear the Music of the Spheres and sometimes it guides my song” or “My true father was not a blacksmith, but the Prince of Shadows who never stayed to raise me.”

13th Age forgoes traditional skills in favour of Backgrounds. Each Background is essentially a flexible package of skills represented by single catch all phrase or word. How each Background works or can be applied in each situation is determined by the agreement of both player and GM. For example, ‘Lady of the Emperor’s Court +4’ would indicate a person with an understanding of etiquette, a head for court politics and intrigues, and who possesses a certain status. Whereas ‘Bounty Hunter +5’ would be able to investigate where his target is, interrogate suspects, track his target, and so on.

Of course, the Icons, the One Unique Things, and the Backgrounds are not the only changes in 13th Age when compared to Dungeons & Dragons, but these changes escalate aspects of the game and how it is played. They lie at the heart of characters in 13th Age. The game gives nine familiar choices for a character’s Race – Dwarves, Dark Elves, High Elves, Wood Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Halflings, and Humans plus some further options if the GM wants to add them to his world. Each Race provides a bonus to one of two characteristics – the player’s choice, though the bonus cannot stack with the one gained from his chosen Class – and a Racial Power that a character can use once per battle. For example, a Dwarf has the choice of +2 Con or Wis and receives the Racial Power of ‘That’s Your Best Shot?’ which lets him heal as a Recovery free once per battle.

Similarly, the choice of Classes available will be familiar, but each is different to the familiarity of Dungeons & Dragons. The differences are given up front in a Play Style section for each Class which describes how easy it is to play, who it would appeal to, and so on. Certain elements of each Class are optimised – Armour Class and choice of armour and weapons and choice of weapons for example. Thus the Rogue can wear any armour, but wearing heavy armour or wielding a shield imposes an attack penalty. His optimal choice of Armour is Light which gives him a base Armour Class of 12. The Rogue can use any weapon, but with Martial or Heavy weapons he again accrues an Attack Penalty, so small, light, or simple are a better option. What is interesting is that weapon damage is determined by how well the Class can use it, so that the Rogue is as deadly with his knives or his shortsword as a Fighter is with his longsword. In effect this is dramatic damage rather than simulationist and this only escalates because a character gets a damage die per Level. So a Third Level Rogue would roll not 1d8 for his knife attack damage, but 3d8! 

Every Class has its selection of Powers and Talents, many of which a player can enhance though his choice of Feats. Both Talents and their accompanying Feats come in three levels – Adventurer, Champion, and Epic – and barring the general Feats, every Feat serves to enhance one of a character’s Powers or Talents. The selection of Powers and Talents available varies in number and complexity from one Class to the next and 13th Age is again quite open about which Classes are more complex than others, from the simple Barbarian and Paladin Classes to the complex Bard and Wizard Classes. At the heart of each Class is a singular feature that only members of that Class can do in 13th Age. For example, the Barbarian can Rage once per day – more if certain Feats are selected – allowing him to roll two twenty-sided dice in combat and if both roll eleven plus and hit, then the attack is a Critical, while the Paladin can ‘Smite Evil’ several times a day to add more damage. In comparison, the Bard sings magical Songs that have initial effects, continuing effects, and a final effect when the song ends. For example, the Song of Spilt Blood levies a penalty against a Bard’s attackers equal to the number of his allies with greater Hit Points than the Bard when first sung and sustained, and then grants the Bard or an ally a heal using a Recovery when it is ended. The Wizard can of course cast arcane spells, whether that is Cantrips, Cyclic spells that can be cast from one battle to the next, and Ritual spells that can take hours to cast, but have a greater effect. The complexity of the Class comes in knowing when to cast what spell and in taking the right Talents and Feats to customise the Wizard according to the player’s design.

Of the other Classes, the Cleric possesses Domains and can modify some of his spells for broad or power effect and the Fighter can use flexible attacks called Manoeuvres that are triggered under certain circumstances, the player selecting which one to be triggered. The Ranger focuses on Talents that might for example make him a better archer, an expert tracker, or give him an Animal Companion, whilst the Rogue has a Sneak Attack and Trap Sense as well as Momentum, which is gained and lost in battle and then spent to fuel the Class’ Powers. Lastly the Sorcerer gets spells, but can also re-use Breath Weapon spells over the course of a battle, chain spells to attack multiple opponents from round to round, and can Gather Power to cast double-strength spells, amongst other Powers. At first it might seem that in creating a character has a lack of choice when it comes to the selection of Talents and Powers, but 13th Age does not so much restrict a player’s choice as focus it, enabling a player to better define the character that he wants and what he wants his character to do.

Our sample player character is a Dwarf and a Barbarian – the simplest of the Classes available in 13th Age. In keeping with that simplicity, his Backgrounds and his One Unique Thing pretty much define Fandor whilst leaving room for further detail to come up in play. Plus whatever the GM comes up with…

Fangor
Dwarf; First Level Barbarian
Str 18  (+4) Dex 15 (+2) Con 17 (+3)
Int 12 (+1) Wis 08 (-1) Chr 13 (+1)

Hit Points: 30 Armour Class: 15 (Ankheg Hide)
Physical Defence: 14 Mental Defence: 12
Recovery Die: d10 Recoveries: 8
Initiative Modifier: +3
Melee Attack: +5 (Orc F’ckin’ Kleaver 1d10+4 damage)
Ranged Attack: +3 (Orc Bone Bow 1d8+2 damage)
Feats: Barbarian Rage (Adventurer), That’s Your Best Shot?
Talents: Building Frenzy, Unstoppable, Whirlwind

Icon Relationships: The Dwarf King (+2), The Orc Lord (-1)
One Unique Thing: “I am Fangor, son of Fandin the last son of lost Second Host of the Forge; and the adopted son of the Orc Lord, Zildak, and I have fought my way out of the Underhome and  beyond – and will fight my way back in!”
Backgrounds: Master of the Forge +2, Orc Pit Fighter +4, Underhome Refugee +2

Although there is flexibility in designing a character within the limits of his Class, what 13th Age does not allow a character to do is Multi-Class. This is not a wholly slaying of a classic Dungeons & Dragons sacred cow, for a future supplement will give the rules for it, plus some Class’ Talents allow the Class to use certain aspects of another Class. For example, the Paladin can select one of the Domains from the Cleric Class, whilst the Sorcerer has access to lower Level Wizard’s spells.

Combat in 13th Age is also streamlined and focused to speed up play. In addition to the simplified choice of weapons and armour per Class and the increased damage a character does as he rises in Level, a character also does damage when he misses – usually half damage, which means that a character is always doing something, just not always effectively! This works well when facing Mooks where their damage is listed as big block for all of them and as damage is done to their Hit Points, a Mook is lost from the pack. Range and position are also simplified; this by abstracting what would be a map in Dungeons & Dragons to three range bands – Engaged, Nearby, and Far Away. Characters are more freely allowed to move around the battlefield, with some Talents and Feats, such as the High Elves’ ‘Highblood Teleport’ Racial Power almost encouraging it. 

As well as simplifying combat, 13th Age also intensifies it with the Escalation Die. This is a six-sided die placed in the midst of the table on the second round of a combat. It is initially set at one and on each subsequent round it is increased by one until it reaches six. What the Escalation Die represents is the momentum of a battle, driving it forward to a climatic outcome. It can be de-escalated if the player characters do not really engage with the enemy, but as long as the Escalation Die keeps rising, the player characters receive a number of benefits from it. First, a player character always receives a bonus to his Attack roll equal to the value on the Escalation Die, but second, the Escalation Die can trigger certain Powers. For example, as a Barbarian, Fandor can Rage once per day, but because he has the Barbarian Rage Feat at Adventurer level, he can Rage for free if the Escalation Die is four or more – and this gets better if he takes the same Feat at Champion and Epic levels!

13th Age takes two approaches to magic. First it divides magic items into two types. One-use items that a character purchase, such as potions, oils, and runes, and ‘true’ magic items that are amazing and rare and therefore special. The latter are not only special, but like the intelligent swords of Dungeons & Dragons, actually have an influence over the wearer or user, particularly if the character wields too many items. For example, the Boots of Ferocious Charge has the quirk of “You like to start fights as much as you like to finish them”. Simply, a character can own and use one ‘true’ magic item per level. Beyond that and the character is in trouble… Second, just as each Class has a limited range of Talents to choose from, so all spell casters have a limited number of spells to choose from, but their spells get better at higher level as they learn to cast the higher Level versions rather than the lower ones. So at First Level, a Wizard can cast five First Level spells, and then six at Second Level, but at Third Level, he can cast three First Level spells and four Third Level spells. This progression continues as he rises from First to Tenth Level, so that at Tenth Level, he can cast three spells of Seventh Level and nine of Ninth Level.

One effect of the limited number of spells available to the Wizard Class is that it loses a lot of the spells from Dungeons & Dragons that do not inflict damage, for example, Feather Fall, Hold Portal, and Levitate. What 13th Age does instead is amalgamate all of these spells into one single Utility Spell. This gives the Wizard access to a number of non-combat spells that grow with the Level of the caster and further, the Wizard chooses the effect that he wants when he casts the spell rather than when he takes the spell. Similarly, the Wizard’s cantrips and rituals are intended to be as versatile in their use, this being limited by the player’s imagination and the GM’s agreement.

Roughly half of 13th Age is devoted to supporting the GM. This includes advice and rules on handling the storytelling elements of the Icons; building battle encounters – at higher levels, they are intentionally unfair, or ‘challenging’; and handling healing. Characters can take a quick rest after a battle to heal using Recoveries and even recharge some Powers, but more dramatically, the GM decides when a Full Heal-Up occurs and everything is restored and if the players demand one, the GM can impose a Campaign Loss, the latter something that will hinder the player characters in some way… 

It should be noted though that the fact that the player characters can heal themselves with the use of Recoveries divorces 13th Age of the need to construct the player character party along traditional lines. No longer is there the need to have a party consist of a Cleric, a Fighter, a Thief (or Rogue), and a Wizard. Thus it also divorces it away from the obvious need to have four players or more in a party, so 13th Age has the capacity to work with smaller as well as larger groups.

Another sacred cow that 13th Age sacrifices is Experience Points. Indeed, the authors’ opinions are that XP are better left to computer games! Instead, the characters should ‘Level Up’ when it is dramatically appropriate, plus they should each receive an Incremental Advance at the end of each successful session, such as a bonus to an attribute, a new Feat, or a new or altered Icon Relationship.

Characters in 13th Age need something to fight and unsurprisingly, they come in the form of monsters. There are no surprises when it comes to the choice of monsters included and to be honest, there is no reason for there to be. The monsters are all very traditional – dragons, goblins, skeletons, what have you, but all are presented with the minimum of fuss and the minimum degree of detail. More detail would just have got in the way… Every monster though is associated with one of the Icons, which enables the GM to tailor his choice of monsters to the Icon Relationships selected by the players and to the Icon Relationships that come up in play. The sparse simplicity of the monster stats in 13th Age make them easy to use and customise as well as prepare for an adventure.

The setting of 13th Age – The Dragon Empire, is given in broad swathes, leaving room aplenty for the GM to add his details. What is given in terms of setting tends towards the dynamic, for example, gladiatorial games regularly take place in the Dragon Empire’s capital, Axis, City of Swords, including a boardgame played with living pieces; there are numerous flying realms in the overworld above The Dragon Empire and demon-infested Hellholes transformed by the Diabolist that beg to be explored; and a ruined coastline of castles, cities, and villages that are regularly assaulted by tsunamis and inhuman aberrations coming in from the Iron Sea. What matters here is not the day-to-day lives of the natives of The Dragon Empire, but where the player characters can adventure. Rounding out 13th Age is an adventure, ‘Blood & Lightning’, which is specifically designed to introduce the players to Icon Relationships and combat 13th Age style.

Physically, 13th Age is a full colour hard back, neatly illustrated and laid out. The writing style is again unlike any Dungeons & Dragons rulebook that you can think of; it is light, conversational, and throughout takes time to step away from the rules to talk directly not only to the GM, but also the players about various elements of the game. Further, where another rulebook would maintain a single voice, 13th Age allows both authors to speak about how each approaches each rule or how they run it in their campaigns. Overall, whilst you might not want this with every RPG, here it is engaging and often it gives a slight alternative to a given rule. One final, very pleasing touch is the combination of the index and the glossary into one and it is very effective, quickly recapping the rule and giving its page number elsewhere in the book.

Given all of the hyperbole so far placed at the 13th Age’s feet, it is really quite difficult to identify issues that count against it, but in the interests of some semblance of balance, here goes… Whilst 13th Age is very much written for anyone who is familiar with Dungeons & Dragons and the d20 System, such that it is very easy for them to pick this game up and play, it does not serve those who are less familiar or even new to roleplaying as well. Primarily this shows in the lack of an example of character generation and in an example of play, though there is an example of combat given somewhat later in the book. Mechanically, it seems rather odd for a classic Dungeons & Dragons-style game not to include the Druid Class, especially given that one of the Icons is the High Druid. Another Class not present is the Monk, but this is less of an issue, and anyway, both Classes will be presented in a future supplement. That said, once the Monk is presented it would be nice to see it accompanied by some cinematic style rules or mechanics, perhaps in the Wuxia style, to reflect the Class’ Oriental origins; and if so accompanied, perhaps such rules could be expanded to cover the other Classes in 13th Age too?

13th Age can be best described as the first post Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition ‘Dungeons & Dragons’-style RPG. It is a Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG that looks to contemporary sensibilities rather than looking back to 1974 and it does so in three primary ways. First, it takes account of the fact that most roleplayers have less time to play, offering optimised character design, easier encounter and monster design, and faster, much faster combat. Second, it takes account that in playing a roleplaying game we are telling stories, with the Icon Relationships that tie the characters to the setting and their use to improvise elements of the on-going story, and the use of the familiar advice to ‘Fail Forward’ and reinterpret a character’s near failure as a success with consequences. Third, the game wants the characters to be ‘great’, not necessarily to be heroic, but to have their moment in the spotlight, and this again is supported by the Icon Relationships as well as the mechanics that escalates both what each character is capable of and the challenges that he will face. The resulting combination of these three ways is a game that is AD&D – ‘Action Dungeons & Dragons’ or perhaps DD&D – ‘Dramatic Dungeons & Dragons’, but whatever you call it, in summing up 13th Age it is difficult to avoid the clichés; so I am not going to… Thus Dungeons & Dragons and its staid playing style is dead, because in taking the familiar architecture and elements of Dungeons & Dragons Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age not only makes them its own, it also energises fantasy roleplaying up to eleven.

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Four for War

Since 2003, the Miskatonic University Library Association series of monographs has been Chaosium’s way of making other works available to players of both Call of Cthulhu and Basic RolePlay. Bar the printing, each monograph’s author is responsible for the writing, the editing, and the layout, so far the quality of entries in the series have varied widely and has led to some dreadful releases. Fortunately, Shadows of War: Four Scenarios Set In and Around the Second World War is far from dreadful in terms of both editing and layout, or indeed storytelling and writing.

World War Two would seem to be ripe ground upon which to roleplay games of Lovecraftian investigative horror so it is surprising that no publisher has released either scenarios or a campaign during that period. Yet despite there being three supplements forthcoming that support for Call of Cthulhu campaigns during World War Two – Achtung! Cthulhu from Modiphius Press, World War Cthulhu: The Darkest Hour from Cubicle Seven Entertainment, and Pagan Publishing's Our Darkest Hour, it is oft forgot that the premier RPG of Lovecraftian investigative horror actually has already visited the world's biggest conflict – five times. Not though in the form of something that could be purchased via your local friendly gaming store, but in Monograph format. One is in the obvious ‘Where Byakhees Dare’ from Toying with Humans, the other is in the form of Shadows of War, a quartet of scenarios that comprise the longest Monograph to date.

The anthology opens with a crisis before quickly coming, quite literally down to earth. ‘Goodnight Vienna’ begins aboard a B24 Liberator, its crew being forced to bail out over North Africa after getting lost and running out of fuel on the return leg of a mission to bomb Italy. Initially the crew’s focus will be on their survival in the harsh desert environment and on their drive to get to somewhere safe. Along the way though, evidence begins to mount that they are following in another group’s footsteps and that at least one member of that group suspected that something was amiss. Are the downed airmen destined for the same fate?

Once past the heavily scripted opening, care needs to be taken that the characters do not wander off and die in the desert – that would make for a dull game. Designed to be played by as many as eight participants, a smaller group is catered for with a smaller bomber and a set of British characters. If the characters can be kept on track, then ‘Goodnight Vienna’ is a pleasing slow burn survival horror one-shot.

‘No Pasaran!’ turns the clock to 1938 and the later stages of the Spanish Civil War. The characters are radicals and idealists serving with the International Brigades against the Fascists. They are stationed in Barcelona, members of the Friederich Engels Brigade, ill-equipped, but welcomed and saluted by the local populace, the characters get to experience life in the barracks, in a city under war time, and on check point duty. The city is rife with rumours about the war, about the political situation, and about the recent murder of a much respected bookseller. Eventually, the characters get what they want – a posting to active duty!

Sadly the posting is not to the front, but to a backwater region known as the Sierra Verde. The journey up country begins a descent into hell that intensifies and mirrors the horrors of war that have been visited upon the region in the past, leading to a confrontation with both the natives and those who have gone native! That this has a cinematic feel to it is no surprise given its primary sources of inspiration – Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. ‘No Pasaran!’ suffers from the lack of a map or two and some will decry that it is all too obvious in its inspiration, but is otherwise an effective homage adapted to a usually ignored period of history.

‘Thracian Gold’, the third scenario, turns the clock forward towards the end of the war. It is 1944 and news has come to Allied intelligence of an incredible archaeological find in Bulgaria, a country which though nominally allied with the Axis powers, is likely to tip into anarchy as partisans, monarchists, and the invading Soviet army vie for power. Were any one of these factions to gain possession of these artefacts, the possibility that they might never be seen again represents a terrible cultural and scientific loss to both the world and Bulgaria. Fortunately, the Area Head of Intelligence for Allied Command is an archaeologist and expert on the region so wants to lead a mission to snatch the artefacts before anyone else can. 

The resulting scenario has some parallels with the Balkan section of Horror on the Orient Express in that it concerns eyes, multi-angular viewing, and caves, but here the characters find themselves chasing a Great Old One’s thralls out of Bulgaria in order to prevent its summoning – and that in the midst of a war zone. Initially, the scenario feels vague, but this is in part intentional and it takes a shock or two to pull events and the investigators together.

The last scenario in the book is set after the war and has the most traditional Call of Cthulhu feel of all of the scenarios in the book. ‘Isle of Lost Souls’ is set in 1952 and casts the investigators as a relief team sent by the University of Bristol to determine both the fate of, and continue the work of, an archaeological expedition it sent to a Greek island. Although much of the investigators’ efforts will be spent in continuing the dig, the scenario also presents them with a greater freedom than in the preceding three scenarios. The scenario is also the most complex of the four, requiring careful staging upon the part of the Keeper as he places one strange incident after another, often repeating and building on those that occur before. The latter serve to build a strange almost ghostly atmosphere towards the scenario’s potentially bloody climax.

Although events in World War Two have a bearing on ‘Isle of Lost Souls’, its post-war setting mean that it feels a little out of place as part of the Shadows of War. Its inclusion is in keeping with the other three scenarios in the anthology in that they all have a Mediterranean setting, but the truth is that ‘Isle of Lost Souls’ could have been included in any ‘general’ anthology and not felt out of place. 

Physically, all four scenarios are well presented, well written, and come with reasonable hand-outs and pre-generated investigators. That is, for a Monograph. Some of the artwork has not been reproduced as clearly as it could have been and the maps are muddy in places. Like nearly every Monograph, Shadows of War does need an edit in places.

One criticism of this anthology is that the first three – ‘Goodnight Vienna’, ‘No Pasaran!’, and ‘Thracian Gold’ all suffer from being too linear, but in their defence, the situations they describe do limit the actions of the characters. Another would be the lack of investigation involved in the first three – hence the use of ‘character’ over ‘investigator’ in this review, but again the situations do not allow for much in the way of investigation in the classic Call of Cthulhu sense. Of the four, ‘Goodnight Vienna’ provides a short, sharp effective shock, but ‘Isle of Lost Souls’ is probably the best of the four, which being the most traditional scenario in terms of play and setting is at odds with the war settings of the previous three. Otherwise, Shadows of War is a solid anthology of one-shots for Call of Cthulhu.

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Think Fluxx

As many copies as have been sold in the fifteen years – almost a million according to publisher Looney Labs – Fluxx the Card Game is divisive a design. The problem for many players is that the game is purely random, is too chaotic, and can last anywhere from two minutes to sixty minutes… That there is no way in which any one can win other through random chance. To an extent, this is true, but Fluxx the Card Game is a game about change and adapting to that change, from one turn to the next. Personally, I quite like playing Fluxx, although I prefer the versions without the Creeper mechanic unless thematically appropriate as in Martian Fluxx or Zombie Fluxx, because otherwise, the Keepers slow the game down. Now Looney Labs has turned Fluxx into a board game, and the question is, will Fluxx the Board Game be as good or as bad some think that the card is?

Designed for between two and four players, aged eight and up, Fluxx the Board Game uses much of the same mechanics as the card game, but as its title suggests, it uses a board and playing pieces. What the board represents are objectives to be reached – such as Cookies, Money, the Rocket, Dreams, and so on – and matched to the Goals given on the Goal cards. These objectives can be reached by moving a player’s pieces around. A player simply has to have his pieces on these objectives to gain a Goal, and where in Fluxx the Card Game a player only needs to have his Keeper cards match one Goal card in order to win, in Fluxx the Board Game, a player has to match and win multiple Goal cards in order to win. This being a ‘Fluxx’ game though means that everything is subject to change. Just as in Fluxx the Card Game, the number of a cards a player must draw, play, and discard fluctuates during Fluxx the Board Game, but being a board game, the number of times a player can move his pieces, the actual colour of the playing pieces he can move, the number of Goals he needs to acquire in order to win, the board layout, and the rotation of the tiles are all also subject to change.

The board consists of nine square tiles. One of these is the Start Tile, the other eight represent the playing area. Each of the eight tiles is divided into four spaces, three of which are objective spaces for Goals and one of which is either where there can be more than playing piece or portal that links to a portal on another tile. Together these nine tiles are arranged into a square with the Start Tile at the centre. Two additional tiles serve as the Control Boards. One for the Goal cards, five of which are randomly placed face up in a stack; the other a peg board used to indicate how many cards a player draws, plays, pieces he moves, and his hand limit as well as if he rotate and move tiles, and move off the edge of the board and onto the other edge. A set of pegs are slotted into the spaces.

The cards are also divided between the familiar – to anyone who has played Fluxx the Card Game, and those new that take account of the new playing area. Action cards will be familiar and do various things such as ‘Taxation!’ which forces rival players to each give you a single card or ‘Discard and Draw’ which lets a player effectively change his hand. New Action cards interact with the board and playing pieces. For example, ‘Back to Square One’ forces the playing pieces of every other player back to the Starting Square and ‘Rotate Colours’ forces players to change the colour of the playing pieces they control. New Rule cards like ‘Hand Limit’ will be familiar although instead of the limit being set by the card, the player now shifts the appropriate peg on the board, whilst ‘Rotate On’ and similar cards turn the board movement on or off. Goal cards remain unchanged from Fluxx the Card Game except for setting the objectives that the players need to move to claim each Goal card. The new Leaper cards send playing pieces to a particular Objective, like ‘Music’ or ‘The Eye’, or to any ‘Octagon’ or ‘Portal’ space. Lastly, the Color cards determine which playing pieces a player currently controls.

At the start of the game each player gets to adjust the control pegs up once and receives a hand of three cards and a color to determine his initial playing pieces. Five Goal cards are placed on the Goal Control Board all face, the uppermost one setting the initial objectives.

On his turn each player draws a number of cards, then plays cards and moves pieces, and then discards cards, all according to the positioning of the pegs on the Control Board. A player is free to play cards and move pieces in any order that he wishes, and this is where the game begins to get interesting. To start with, if a player moves a playing piece into a space already occupied, it bumps the playing piece already there into an adjacent space – except for Octagon spaces which can hold more than one playing piece. That is the least of it because a player can also examine the cards in the Goal stack, though not change their order, so thus he knows what Goals and what Objective spaces he needs to reach throughout the game. Plus a player may also have Goal cards in his hand and these can be played onto the top of the Goal stack to claim. What having this knowledge of the Goals and their Objectives throughout the game means is that a player can actually plan both his card use and his moves. If he is clever, it is possible for a player to use his cards and move his pieces to gain more than a single Goal in just one turn.

What these together add is a strategic element to Fluxx the Board Game that is not present in Fluxx the Card Game. They also serve to counter the random element so often criticised in Fluxx the Card Game. Not completely though, as the cards drawn and the actions of rival players still effectively have a randomising effect. The great thing is, is that it does all this without adding anything in the way of complexity.

If there is anything disappointing about Fluxx the Board Game it is the Control Boards and the pegs. The latter do not always sit easily in their holes and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of which peg is meant to sit in which hole. That said the other components are decent enough and the playing pieces are pleasingly differentiated by both colour and shape. The rules are clearly written, but another  pleasing touch is the inclusion of a box that explains the differences between Fluxx the Board Game and Fluxx the Card Game.

In developing Fluxx into Fluxx the Board Game, the designer has created a game that is more thoughtful than Fluxx the Card Game. Still a light game though, so suitable for a family audience, but still just enough of a challenge so as not to bore a gaming audience. 

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