2014: White Box Fever VIII

Friday, July 4th 2014 was a special day for gamers everywhere. It saw the release of the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set for the new version of Dungeons & Dragons—that is Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. This is the introduction to the finished version of Dungeons & Dragons Next which has been through several rounds of development and public play-testing by Wizards of the Coast over the last two years. The deep box for this Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set includes a 32-page rulebook, a 64-page adventure book, five pre-generated characters, and a set of polyhedral dice. The Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is designed to take a group of four or five adventurers from First Level up to Fifth Level using the given pre-generated characters. 

At the same time, Wizards of the Coast also released Basic Dungeons & Dragons, a PDF version of the rules that includes the rules for character creation as well more detailed rules on how the game is played and magic is handled. The fact that Basic Dungeons & Dragons has only been released as a PDF and is labelled as being ‘Version 0.1’ means that it can be updated freely and easily without the need for a new print run. Its release also means that more experienced gamers could take the rules from Basic Dungeons & Dragons and use them to run the material presented the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. This includes the creation of their own adventurers as it includes rules for the Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human races as well as the Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard Classes. The problem is that in order to get the fullest experience out of the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, a group will need to download the Basic Dungeons & Dragons PDF, and that undermines the point of the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. Which is to provide a complete playing experience and that includes the creation of characters.

The rules present in the 32-page rulebook will be familiar to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons. An adventurer (and each monster, when you get to the adventure book) has six Abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—each of which can provide an Ability Modifier used throughout the game. The core mechanic is still the roll of a twenty-sided die against a Difficulty Class or an Armour Class. Apart from Constitution, all of the Abilities have associated skills. For example, the Athletics skill is associated with Strength, whilst the Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, and Survival skills are associated with Wisdom.

The most notable change to the core rules is that a character can have an Advantage or Disadvantage in situation. When he has an Advantage, the character’s player rolls not one twenty-sided die, but two, and then uses the best result. Conversely, if he is at a Disadvantage, he rolls two twenty-sided dice and uses the worst result. For example, a character is defending against an Orc that is climbing up a ladder to attack him. The character would be at an Advantage when attacking the Orc. When the Orc comes to attack the character, then he would be at a Disadvantage.

The other change is that each character has a Proficiency bonus, initially equal to +2. Whenever a character uses either a skill or a set of tools with which he has a Proficiency—for example, one of the two pre-generated Human Fighters in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set has the Proficiencies of all armour, shields, simple weapons, martial weapons, carpenter’s tools, and vehicles (land). The Proficiency bonus applies to weapons as well as skills and tools—though this is not obvious from the paragraph devoted to the Proficiency bonus in the rulebook, but is explained in the combat rules—and some monsters can have a Proficiency bonus.

Initiative in combat is handled by a Dexterity check and when a character acts, he can move and undertake one action. This can be a combat action or something else, but a character can also gain bonus actions or reaction actions under certain circumstances. For example, one of the two pre-generated Human Fighters in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set has a Trait called ‘Second Wind’ which gives him the opportunity to recover some Hit Points as a Bonus action. The most obvious type of Reaction is an opportunity attack.There must be others, but they are not given in either the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set or Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

Characters begin play with the maximum number of Hit Points possible, equal to the Hit Dice for their Class, plus Constitution modifier. In addition, for each Level a character also has a Hit Die, equal to that of his Class. Whenever he has taken damage and takes a Short Rest—equal to an hour or so—he can expend these ‘temporary’ Hit Dice to heal Hit Points. Once expended, most of these Hit Dice and a character’s full Hit Points can be recovered with a Long Rest of eight hours or more.

As a party goes on adventures, it will gain Experience Points which will go towards each character’s next Level. Only 300 Experience Points are necessary for a character to go from First Level to Second Level, then 900 Experience Points for Third Level, and so on. Killing a Goblin is only worth 50 Experience Points, a Hobgoblin or Orc is worth 100 Experience Points, and a Bugbear is worth 200 Experience Points—and this is typically divided amongst the party. In comparison with previous iterations of the game, this version of Dungeons & Dragons does lend itself to faster progression at the lower Levels.

In terms of arms and armour, everything that you would expect to be present is in the equipment lists (the Morningstar is present, though no flail). The weapons list includes some interesting weapon properties. ‘Light’ weapons such as club or scimitar are used with the rules for fighting with a weapon in each hand; ‘finesse’ weapons like the dagger or rapier can be used with either the user’s Dexterity or Strength modifier for attack and damage rolls; and ‘versatile’ weapons, such as the quarterstaff or warhammer, can be used one- or two-handed and get a correspondingly bigger die for damage when used two-handed. The rule for the latter is really simple—light weapons only and only one of the weapons benefits from the Attack and Damage Modifier.

Armour is classed as being either light, medium, or heavy. Only light armour, leather or studded leather, grants the wearer full use of his Dexterity modifier to his Armour Class. Medium armour grants a maximum Dexterity modifier of +2 and heavy armour negates the use of the Dexterity modifier altogether. What this does is flatten Armour Class inflation. Even the most agile of characters, with Dexterity of 18 (+4 modifier) and wearing studded leather (AC 12) is never going to have an Armour Class of more than 16 without magical aid. Compare that to a fighter in medium armour like scale mail (AC 14), maximum Dexterity modifier of +2 and carrying a shield (AC +2) for a total AC 18 or in a heavy chainmail suit (AC 16) and carrying a shield (AC +2) for a total AC 18 for similar total AC 18, and it is obvious that the advantage goes to the wears of medium and heavy armour, but not by much. Further, the medium and heavy armours are obviously more expensive. 

The last part of the rulebook is devoted to spells. The first thing to note is that both Clerics and Wizards get cantrips—spells that can be cast as often as a character likes. Otherwise, spellcasters still have a number of spells and spell slots per day that they can cast. Some spells can be cast Rituals—this takes longer and does not expend a spell slot, but again, none are listed in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. More interesting is the fact that lower level spells can be cast in higher level slots for greater effect. So for example when a cleric casts the Bless spell in a second level or higher slot, it affects more people.

What this means is that each and every spell will always have a standard effect unless the spellcaster decides to improve it. In other words, a spell does not get better the higher the Level of the caster. Thus the Magic Missile spell will always launch three magical darts that inflict damage unless the caster casts in a higher level slot.

The five pre-generated adventurers in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set consist of two Human Fighters, a High Elf Wizard, a Lightfoot Halfling Rogue, and a Hill Dwarf Cleric. Notable additions on each of the five pre-generated characters include not just a Background, but also Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. For example, one of the Fighters is a Human with the Background of Folk Hero; the Personality Trait of ‘When I set my mind to something, I follow through. Also, I use long words in an attempt to sound smarter.’; the Ideal of ‘Sincerity. It’s no good pretending to be something I’m not.’; the Bond of ‘One day, Thundertree will be a prosperous town again. A statue of me will stand in the town square.’; and the Flaw, ‘I’m convinced of the significance of my destiny, and blind to my shortcomings and the risk of failure.” All of these are a character’s personality characteristics and when a player roleplays his character according to one of them, the DM can reward him with Inspiration.

There are two things that a player can do with his Inspiration. First, he can expend it to gain an Advantage when his character has to make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Second, he can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or doing something fantastic in the game by giving him the Inspiration. Whichever character it ends up with, this Inspiration is all that a character can have until he uses it—that is, he cannot Inspiration stacking up. He must use it before gaining more. Whether this will encourage him to hold on to it or expend it and play well enough to gain some more will depend on the player. What you have here is a mechanic and a rule—in Dungeons & Dragons—that specifically encourages roleplaying for the first time in forty years! This is highly laudable, especially given the singular failure to support roleplaying in the previous edition of Dungeons & Dragons. 

Annoyingly, the rule for Inspiration is not in the rulebook, but in the adventure book presented for the GM—not the players. This highlights an issue in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, that of not being as good an introduction to roleplaying as it should be. This is only compounded by the other omission in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set—the lack of a decent example of play. The rulebook includes a very cursory example of an exchange, but this lack in intentional. As explained here, the idea is that the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set should provide long-term value and not contain material that would become irrelevant once the full version of the game was released. So notable examples of this intent is the lack of a tutorial explaining what roleplaying is and the lack of a scripted adventure that would teach the rules. The suggestion is that an online video would be a better means of providing that tutorial.

This fundamentally undermines the point of a Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. It should be complete, it should introduce the game to prospective players, and it should help get them playing. Pointing a prospective player to an online video rather have him play through a tutorial means that he is going away from the Starter Set he just bought not to learn how to play, but to be told how to play. A tutorial with a programmed means of play would get the player immediately involved in the game and rolling dice. Further, it would show him how to play and not just tell him.

Fortunately, the DM is not treated in quite so underwhelming a fashion. Unfortunately, the initial impression is that he is going to be, as it appears that the adventure book is only going to give the basics of how to be a good referee and no more. Once you get into the adventure, advice is present on how to handle different scenes, NPCs, and so on. The adventure itself is ‘Lost Mine of Phandelver’, a lengthy four-part affair set firmly in the Forgotten Realms, south-east of the city of Neverwinter that is designed to take the characters from First Level up to Fifth Level. It begins in somewhat of a clichéd fashion—the characters are escorting a caravan to a town called Phandalin when they are ambushed by goblins. All right, it does get them involved and if the party deals with the goblins they will uncover the first of many clues that will lead to the adventure’s denouement. Of course, the next cliché is that Phandalin is a village under threat, but the adventure obscures the external threat with an internal threat. This internal threat, a gang of ruffians, in the village feels rather forced, even unsubtle, but that is the point, as it focuses everyone’s attention on them rather than on the external threat, whomever it is they are working for. 

Not only do the adventurers need to deal with this internal threat, but they also have the opportunity to adventure elsewhere. Many of the inhabitants have tasks and jobs that they will want done and in doing them, not only will the characters be rewarded, but they will learn more about the external threat to the village. There is no set order in which to run these ‘side quests’, giving this second part of the adventure something of a sandbox format. Some of these small encounters are excellent, not all of them involving combat. Indeed, if the party leaps into the fray every time, they are not likely to get anywhere…

None of the adventure’s major encounters is particular large—most consist of little more than fifteen encounters, though the end dungeon consists of twenty encounters. For the most part, the encounters are well designed and nicely detailed, but the end encounters with the main villains often feel underwritten and lacking somewhat in flavour and detail. There are some great encounters here, but the motivations of these characters are not always obvious. Nevertheless, this is a good adventure that presents a solid mix of combat and roleplaying encounters.

Rounding out the adventure book are two appendices. Appendix B is devoted to the monsters that appear in the adventure, a good mix of the Dungeons & Dragons standards—Orcs, Goblins, Owlbears, and so on—and the slightly more outré—Gricks, Nothics, Twig Blights, and the like. In terms of information and stats, the monsters here lack the density of information that previous versions of Dungeons & Dragons possessed, but they still have the same six Abilities that player characters have in addition to whatever powers and special moves and capabilities they may have. More interesting is Appendix A, which is devoted to magic items. It discusses how to use them and identify them. The latter is easier than before, requiring concentration and a Short Rest, or a taste in the case of potions, so no longer is there the pot luck aspect of testing devices and potions. There is no advice on cursed items, as the magic items listed are all from the ‘Lost Mine of Phandelver’ and no such items appear in it. It takes a character a Short Rest to attune himself to a device and he cannot be attuned to more than three items at any one time.

Of the magical items present in the adventure—and there are a relative few, the rest being potions and scrolls—the most interesting are the staves and wands. Just as in previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons, they have charges that expended for various spell-like effects. They only have a few charges, but they recharge daily! There is a chance that they might stop working if all of the charges are expended, but this empowers the users of these magical items. No longer are they devices to be husbanded carefully because they take so much effort to recharge such that it is easier to purchase or find a new one. Overall, the magic items in ‘Lost Mine of Phandelver’ tend to favour the spell-using characters than the Fighter or the Rogue.

Physically, the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is nicely put together. The books are solidly written, barring an issue or two that needed to be checked in the Basic Dungeons & Dragons PDF and the adventure is entertaining. The illustrations are also good and the cartography very nice. Sadly both the rulebook and adventure book are misnamed—neither is a book. They are magazines or even booklets, but not books. For that, both need to have covers. They lack them though and the result is that as glossy as both are, neither stands up to much in the way of punishment.

Two physical omissions from the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set are a map and a set of counters for the adventure’s monsters. This is either annoying or a good idea—if not both. It is annoying because the map and counters would have helped spur the imagination of the prospective player during the game, but a good idea because it enforces the concept that Dungeons & Dragons is a game of the imagination, one in which maps and figures are not necessary. Further, it divorces Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition from the skirmish battle format of the previous edition.

So far, so good. If you have read this far and have played Dungeons & Dragons in the last forty years, then the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is easy to pick up, start reading, and then start playing. It may be necessary to refer to the Basic Dungeons & Dragons PDF, but for anyone who has roleplayed, whether they have roleplayed or not, this is a good introduction to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.

If you have not roleplayed before, then the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is not quite what you are looking for. The sad fact is, as an introduction to the hobby, the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is not everything that the introduction to the world’s premier roleplaying game should be. The problem is very, very simple. It fails to address the question, “What is roleplaying?” in as an adequate a fashion as it should. The introduction to roleplaying is not detailed enough—and neither is the introduction to being a Dungeon Master, although it is better than that of the introduction to roleplaying. The box fails to include a stepping stone between opening the box and delving into Dungeons & Dragons which a simple programmed adventure and a good example would have provided. The sad fact is, the red box Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Starter Set for Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition did that and it did a good job too—just not to a good version of Dungeons & Dragons. Similarly, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box does a good job too, but that is to a more involved version of Dungeons & Dragons than Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. The point is this. Just because an item might not be used again, it does not mean that it is a waste of time including it in the box, especially if that item is not just an introduction to the very hobby, but a show and tell for that hobby that your product is intended to be the point entry to the premier game in that hobby.

So the question is, what do I think of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition as presented in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set? Its simplicity is impressive, the rules feel cleaner and streamlined in comparison to previous editions, and the addition of Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws pull the game away from its wargaming roots, especially when combined with the rules for Inspiration. This is not to say that previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons have not been roleplaying games—though if you were being generous, then the jury has yet to come back in Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition—but these additions mark Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition as so being. In some ways, Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition is a streamlining of Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, one that moves it back towards the Basic Dungeons & Dragons Cyclopedia in terms of ease of play. At the same time—and this is without seeing the full rules yet—those in the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set suggest that Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition will maintain a compatibility with forty years* of Dungeons & Dragons titles, so that it will be possible to use them to play U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh or Dark Tower or indeed, any of the titles published under the Old School Renaissance movement. 

*Except of course, all Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons titles published between 2008 and 2012. Well, all right. You could adapt them, but not without considerably more effort involved than with any other title published between 1974 and 2008 or after 2012…

Overall, the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is a good introduction to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, but only if you roleplayed before or are experienced with previous editions. If you have never roleplayed before, then the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set might not be strong enough an introduction, at least not without the help of a more experienced player or Dungeon Master. It just needed that extra stepping stone and the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set for the world’s premier roleplaying game would have been the introduction that both Dungeons & Dragons and the hobby needed.

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Comedy & Games

Comedy takes effort and it takes practice. At this time of year, numerous practitioners of the art up and down the country are preparing for one event—the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Which according to Wikipedia is the world's largest arts festival, and for comedians it is a chance to bring an act to a larger audience that if successful will see them take it around the country for the next year. Plus of course, a good review from The Scotsman can really help a comedian’s career.

In order to prepare for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, comedians put on preview shows where they work out and practice their act beforehand.  Thus, these are not fully polished acts, so they may not quite work or they may not be quite funny enough. So that was why I attended the Jewellery Quarter Comedy Edinburgh Previews on Sunday July 8th with some trepidation and then some more trepidation for another reason. That second reason was because one of the acts would be about board games. The danger being that the comedian would be making fun of my hobby at the expense of my fellow gamers.

That the title of the show was ‘Always Be Rolling: How board games can change your life and save the world’ bode well for the evening. As did the fact that the comedian, James Cook, was a fan and player of board games, and was enough of both to have attended UK Games Expo, this country’s biggest games convention, held back at the end of May.  So at least he was going to know what he was talking about and from the title of the show, he was going to be positive about playing games.

As it turned out, Cook was positive about games, though not always quite so about gamers, though none of his comments were really unfair. At the core of the act was the hypothesis that as children our enjoyment of games was ruined by having to play bad games—Buckaroo, Guess Who?, Hungry (Hungry) Hippos, Monopoly, and so on. The solution of course, and despite all of our foibles—our love of accuracy, zombies, being inside on a hot day, putting medieval merchants on the front of game boxes—was to play the games that gamers like. This would teach us that games could be fun to play even if you did not win. So games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan.

Now to be fair, to many of those in the room, he was preaching to the converted, and whilst what he was saying was not wrong, it was obvious. Then again, unless he is going to perform the act at next year’s UK Games Expo, James Cook is unlikely to be performing to more than a dice roll’s worth of gamers at any one time. In addition to the thesis about the benefits of playing board games, there were interactive games and audience participation. I now know that it really helps to have facial stubble if you are going to be playing a live action version of Hungry Hippos with marshmallows instead of little plastic spheres.

Ultimately, the main criticism that can be levelled at ‘Always Be Rolling: How board games can change your life and save the world’ is that James tells you how bad games can be and he tells you why, but he does not effectively tell you how good they can be. If Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan are as good as James tells you that they are, then we never learn why. The issue there of course, is that James does not have five minutes or a thousand words to explain why they are good. He has to get on and be funny at the same time, and whilst he is, by not telling us how good the games are, he never quite sells the idea that they can change your life or save the world.

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1974: Kingmaker

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

It would seem fitting that in 2014, the fortieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons—the game that would inaugurate roleplaying as a social pastime, that would inaugurate roleplaying and gaming as an industry, and that would influence the multi-million dollar computer games industry—that the first review in this series be of the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. Sadly I do not have a copy of this in my collection, though the year is only half done and there is time for me to obtain such an item yet. Thus the inaugural entry in the anniversary series will be of a grand, classic board game—Kingmaker!

Kingmaker is a simulation of the Wars of the Roses, the period of sporadic Civil War in England between 1450 and 1490 that saw the two rival branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet—the houses of Lancaster and York—and their supporters vie for dominance, and ultimately, the English crown. Each player will take control of one the factions of Noble families aiming to use their influence and military forces to manoeuvre a claimant to the throne and into power whilst preventing rival factions from doing the same. Thus the players are not the claimants and heirs to the throne of England, but potential powers behind the throne, each the very ‘kingmaker’ of the game’s title, itself taken from the nickname for Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the most powerful noble of his age.

The game is designed for two to seven players—though as many as twelve could play—and takes anywhere from two to six hours to play. The ultimate aim is for one faction to control and have crowned a claimant to the throne after all of the others have died or been killed.

The Kingmaker board; a fabulous jumble
of irregular geography.

Kingmaker is played out over a map of the Wales and England of the 15th Century—with the port of Calais to the southeast on the corner of northern France across the English Channel—that is marked with the two countries’ various castles, royal castles, towns, fortified towns, ports, and major geographical features. Broken down into irregularly spaced and sized squares, the map is a messy jumble that is often difficult to navigate or find anything on.

The heirs over which the player factions will feud over are comprised of seven Royal Pieces. The Lancastrians consist of Henry of Lancaster—actually Henry IV of England at the start of the game, plus his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and his son, Edward of Lancaster, the Prince of Wales. Another Lancastrian heir is the noble, Beaufort, but his claim can only be pressed once the other Lancastrian heirs have died. The Yorkists consist of Richard, Duke of York, and his three sons, Edward, Earl of March, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

Crown Pack cards, from left to right (upper row): a Noble, a Noble with
a Title, a Title, an Office; (lower row) a Mercenary Unit, a ship, an
ecclesiastical office, and a town 

Each of the nobles that form a player’s faction is represented by a card and a counter, both marked with the noble’s coat of arms. A noble’s card also indicates which castles he holds and the number of men-at-arms he commands. Most nobles are knights and barons, but some also have a title. For example, Percy is the Earl of Northumberland, owns the castles of Alnwick and Cockermouth, and commands one hundred men-at-arms, whereas Audley owns Tickhill castle and commands just ten men-at-arms.

Titles are important—and others may be awarded throughout the game, like the Earl of Worcester or Duke of Exeter—because they also make a noble eligible to be appointed to an office, for example, Marshal of England, Warden of the Cinque Ports, or Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Each of these offices grants the holder further men-at-arms and in most cases, extra benefits. For example, the holder of the Warden of the Northern Marches gains fifty men-at-arms, plus a further one hundred troops when he is north of the River Tees and the towns of Bamburgh and Berwick, while the Admiral of England also gains fifty men-at-arms, two ships, and the towns of Southampton and Lynn. With most offices come certain responsibilities. For example, the Warden of the Northern Marches might find himself sent to Berwick if the Scots launch a raid and the Marshal of England to Bodmin to put down a peasants’ revolt. A noble can also hold ecclesiastical office, for example, Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of Norwich. They each grant control of a town with a cathedral, but more importantly, they enable a faction to hold a coronation and crown an heir—an Archbishop can do this as can a pair of Bishops.

At the start of the game, the seven Royal Pieces are placed in their starting locations and the game’s two decks—the Crown Pack and the Event Pack are shuffled. From the Crown Pack each player is dealt a certain number of cards, the number dependent on the number of players. From these cards, a player sorts his nobles and assigns them titles, offices, and ecclesiastic positions, plus  mercenary units (for example, Company of Flemish Crossbowmen or Company of Saxons), towns (Shrewsbury or Ipswich), and ships (Le Rose, Ship of Plymouth or Le Michael, Ship of Bristol). Any titles and offices that cannot be assigned go into second deck known as Chancery. They can only be reassigned when the faction controlling the sole crown king can summon Parliament during play.

Kingmaker set up for four players.

Once everyone has formed their faction and placed their nobles’ counters on the board, play begins. On his turn a player draws from the Event Pack, moves his pieces and engages in any battles, and then draws from Crown Pack. The card drawn from the Event Pack might grant a noble a Free Move or the faction a Writ of Summons to Parliament, which the player can keep until used. Other Event Cards are potentially more interesting. Each of these is divided into an upper and a lower half. The upper half presents an event, the lower half the victory odds used in battle. Events can include a French Raid, an Embassy, or a Plague. The first of these sends the Warden of the Cinque Ports to Pevensy with one ship—though similar events will send other Office holders and nobles to various places. The second sends the King to a particular location to receive the ambassador, whilst the third causes the death of anyone in the named location, for example, Lincoln or Newark.

Cards from the Event Pack.

Movement is simple—all units can move five spaces per turn. Sea movement is greater because the squares are larger and it possible to transport troops by sea. Battles—and there can only be land battles—are handled not by rolling dice, there being no dice in the game, but by odds. When two factions engage in battle, each side totals the men-at-arms it has at its command—derived from titles, offices, mercenaries, and so on, and the ratio between the two sides determined. An Event Card is drawn and the ratio on the card compared with the ratio of forces involved in the battle. If the ratio of the forces is greater than that on the card, the lesser side has been defeated, its nobles killed and stripped of their titles and offices. Both titles and offices go into the Chancery deck, while the nobles go onto the bottom of the Crown Pack, where their heirs will be drawn later in the game to declare for one faction or another.

Although battles come down to which side is larger, they are all the more interesting for two factors. The first is that bad weather can delay an attack, enabling one side to escape from the other. The other is that each battle result is accompanied by one or more names of nobles. If they are part of either side in the battle, then whatever the outcome, they are also killed.

For example, an Event Card has been drawn that brings down the Plague! upon London, resulting in the death of Henry of Lancaster. In response, Neville, the Earl of Warwick (50) and Archbishop of York in command of a Company of Burgundian Crossbowmen (30) is racing north to capture the leading Yorkist heir, Richard, Duke of York. His aim is to crown Richard and proclaim him king. He has a total force of 80 troops.

To prevent Neville from gaining an important lead, two other nobles move to counter him. Clifford (10), the Earl of Westmoreland (40), in command of a Company of Scots Archers (20), Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham (30) and Warden of the Cinque Ports (50) together have a total force of 150 troops.

Neville versus Stafford and Clifford with the Battle Card
that determines the results between them.

This pits 150 versus 80, giving a 3/2 odds of Neville being defeated. An Event Card is drawn which gives the desired result—Clifford and Stafford are victorious and Neville is captured. Unfortunately, the card also states that Stafford and Greystoke are killed. Greystoke was not involved, but Stafford was and so is killed. His card is removed from play and added to the bottom of the Crown Pack, whilst his office, Warden of the Cinque Ports goes into Chancery. Meanwhile, Clifford, having captured Neville, can ransom him or kill him. He does the latter, sending Neville to the bottom of the Crown Pack. Clifford also takes command of Neville’s Company of Burgundian Crossbowmen (30) and takes over as Archbishop of York. His plan now matches that of the late Neville—get to York and capture and crown the leading Yorkist heir, Richard, Duke of York.

Under certain circumstances, Parliament can be called. Primarily this can be done with a Writ of Summons to Parliament by whichever faction is control of the sole crowned king. If one of the nobles in a faction is the Chancellor of England, then he may also summon Parliament under certain circumstances. Doing so enables the summoning faction to reassign many of the titles and offices that have been lost to Chancery through previous events. It is a means for the summoning faction to bolster its standing.

The last action a player does on his turn is draw from the Crown Pack. This may give him a new noble, ship, town, or company of mercenaries to add to his faction. It may also give him a new title or office—one that has not entered play yet and thus is not in Chancery. The player may add this to his faction immediately if he can, but he can also choose to keep it secret. In this way, the true strength of a player’s faction can be kept hidden until revealed at the right moment—perhaps a noble declaring for one faction or another, a faction making a propitious hiring of a company of mercenaries, and so on.

This then is the core of the game. Once past the set-up, Kingmaker proceeds with most factions trying to build their power and bringing their nobles together. This will be hampered by events drawn from the Event Pack. Too often a faction will find its forces riven by the effects of events. This occurs to nobles, to office holders, and to the King. So the noble Douglas will be forced to return to Douglas in the Isle of Man due to piracy; a peasant revolt will oblige the Duke of Exeter to return to Exeter, the Chancellor of Duchy of Cornwall to Plymouth, and the Marshal of England to Bodmin; and the King must go to Preston to receive an Embassy from the King of Scots, and whichever faction holds the King has to decide whether or not to accompany him. This has a number of effects. First, it splits the forces and nobles of factions apart and weakens them. Second, it makes these nobles vulnerable to attack by factions which would otherwise be too weak to attack the combined faction that the nobles were split from. Third, it slows the game down as factions try again and again to bring their nobles together. Fourth, it adds a sense of verisimilitude to the game.

The aim of this power build-up is two-fold. First, it gives a faction sufficient combat strength with which to defend itself. Second, it gives a faction sufficient combat strength to capture claimants. Initially, there are one or two ways in which a claimant can be captured. One of these is for a noble to hold an office which grants him the town where the claimant is. For example, Constable of the Tower of London grants a noble the deeds to London, so is a powerful office at the start of the game because that is where the King, Henry of Lancaster starts the game. Similarly, the office of Marshal of England grants the holder the town of Harlech where Edward of March, a Yorkist claimant is found. In other cases, simply receiving the town, for example, that of Coventry where Edward of Lancaster begins the game, will grant a faction access to a claimant. A faction can only hold claimants from one house, not both, and a faction is free to do with the claimants with what it wants—it can exchange them, give them to other factions, or simply have them murdered.

This highlights the role of the Royal Pieces in the game. They are a resource, a possible bargaining chip, and a means to an end. It is necessary to have one in order to win the game, but if a claimant stands in a faction’s way, then he is disposable, and similarly, if a faction stands to gain by giving a claimant to a rival faction, he is also disposable. In all three roles, the use of the Royal Pieces becomes part of another aspect of Kingmaker—diplomacy. The players are free to engage in alliances and deals throughout the game. Doing so is one means for weaker factions to harass and even destroy stronger factions by working together, and of course, breaking a deal and betraying your allies is perfectly in-keeping with both the game and the Wars of the Roses.

Physically, Kingmaker is very nicely presented for a game published in 1974. The map is large and colourful and the pieces are equally colourful. In most cases, they are easy to identify, but some are identical bar their different colours. The game’s cards feel a bit soft and flabby, but they are large and easy to read. What was surprising on returning to the game was that the rulebook, though done in black and white without any illustrations, was well written. Despite it being over thirty pages long, it is easy to read, the rules come with plenty of examples, and it ends with a lengthy discussion of how the game should be played.

One issue with the game is when it runs into a stalemate. Typically, the factions have built themselves up as powerful as possible and retreat to their power bases, regions where they have extra troops because of an office. For example, the holder of the Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester has two hundred extra troops whilst he is in Wales. When this happens, it will take an Event Card to drive them from their refuge and leave them vulnerable to attack by a rival faction. In the meantime, not a lot may happen… Which given the potential playing time of the game, it can make the game a little dull. Another issue is that combat is simplified by modern standards, with little chance of a smaller force surviving an attack. The best it can hope for is bad weather and the chance to escape—there is no chance of it snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Originally published in 1974, Kingmaker would receive the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best Professional Game of 1975—these awards being given annually for excellence in the historical wargaming—and be republished in 1975 as a second  edition by Avalon Hill. A later Expansion would add new Event Cards, but the second edition added a more complex means for handling Parliament, bringing voting into the process—a discussion of which can be seen here—as well as adding Ireland and parts of Europe to the game. It was certainly popular enough to be the subject of numerous articles in The General, Avalon Hill’s house magazine and it was turned into a computer game by Avalon Hill in 1994. Much like the earlier Diplomacy—a game that itself is sixty years old in 2014—Kingmaker has the capacity for player negotiation away from the board and thus could be played over time by post as a PBM or ‘Play-By-Mail’ game rather than face-to-face with everyone sat round the table. It has though, been out of print for several years, although the Wars of the Roses have been revisited more recently in game like Columbia Games’ Richard III: Wars of the Roses and Z-Man Games’ Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York. Further, its influence can be seen in Games Workshop’s Warrior Knights and more obviously in Fantasy Flight Games’ A Game of Thrones—but then that is a given since the George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels are themselves inspired by the Wars of the Roses.

Revisiting Kingmaker satisfies a sense of nostalgia for the game and the chance to revisit it as an adult rather than the teenager I was when I was first playing it. When I was originally played, it was out of an enjoyment of the game’s sense of history. That history—even though that history is ahistorical rather than absolutely faithful—is still much present in coming back to the game. As is its pageantry and its theme, all of which is very well handled in the game. As a game design though, Kingmaker does show its age, it is perhaps too slow in places and too basic in others, but the pageantry, the theme, and the history more than make up for the deficiencies in the design.

Kingmaker is rightfully regarded as a classic boardgame and there can be no doubt about that. The question is, forty years on from its original release, is it time for a redesign and a release? 

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The Third Doctor

With a certain panache and not a little bit of a swagger, Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s celebration of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary leaps into action and full colour with The Third Doctor Sourcebook for Ennie-award winning Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space roleplaying game. Having begun with The First Doctor Sourcebook and continued with The Second Doctor Sourcebook, the third entry in the series takes into the seventies to detail the full colour adventures of the Third Doctor as played by Jon Pertwee.

With arrival of the Third Doctor in the story, Spearhead from Space, the series underwent a radical series of changes whilst still looking back to the previous decade. Two of the Second Doctor’s adventures pre-figure the era of the Third Doctor. The first is Web of Fear, the story that marked Second Doctor’s encounter with the Yeti and the Great Intelligence in the London Underground along with his first with Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, which would lead to the establishment of UNIT—United Nations Intelligence Taskforce—to which the Third Doctor would find himself attached to as Scientific Advisor under the command of Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. The second is his last adventure, The War Games, in which the Time Lords exile the Doctor to Earth, meaning that he would no longer be able to travel in time or space and that his adventures would initially be confined to Earth. Of course, this would change in later series. In game terms, what this means is that two of Cubicle Seven Entertainment’s previous sourcebooks serve as companion volumes to The Third Doctor Sourcebook. The obvious and more essential  one is Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook as it defines the organisation that the Doctor will be working for, whilst the The Time Traveller’s Companion is of use once the Time Lords begin to manipulate and use the Third Doctor.

Another way in which the Third Doctor looks back to the previous decade is how his adventures model those of the classic ITC adventure serials such as The Persuaders!, The Protectors, Department S, and so on. For the Third Doctor, a much younger incarnation of the Doctor, is a man—or Time Lord—of action. Unlike his forbears, the Third Doctor is prepared to fight for what he believes in, though usually only using his Venusian Aikido, and he gets involved in a vehicle chases in Bessie (his souped up vintage speedster), the Who Mobile, helicopters, hovercraft, and so on, lots and lots of times.

Although the Third Doctor introduced ‘aliens’ that would return in later incarnations—in particular the Silurians, the Sea Devils, and the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons, his stories also introduced a major new villain, one that would plague each of his subsequent incarnations. The Master, a fellow Time Lord, would work plans within plans, ally himself with the Daleks, all to rule the Earth or destroy it, rule the universe or humanity, or simply humiliate the Doctor. He wanted power, and even though he would be captured again and again, he would escape each time to continue his machinations. In some ways, the Master is the nearest that the Third Doctor comes to encountering true evil—barring the Daleks of course!

The Third Doctor Sourcebook takes us from the Third Doctor’s arrival on Earth and his first foiling of an invasion of the Earth whilst working for UNIT in The Spearhead from Space to his final encounter with an invasion attempt in The Planet of the Spiders, an encounter which would lead to his regeneration. Barring The Time Warrior, the Third Doctor’s adventures do not take place in the past. The majority deal with the themes of big authority and scientific hubris, of peace versus war, and of mysteries without real villains. For the most part, The Third Doctor Sourcebook presents an opportunity for the Doctor—or indeed, the player character Time Lord and his Companions to not be so much wanderers in the Fourth Dimension, as protectors of Earth and humanity, to form a family with UNIT, but still be a force for good and for truth.

The book is essentially broken into two parts. The first introduces us to Pertwee’s portrayal and explores his character, his Companions, the difficulties of his travels during this period—mostly the fact that he cannot travel, and the common themes and ideas. In particular that the Third Doctor’s character is rather patrician in nature and he only has the three Companions over the course of his adventures, though he is sometimes joined by members of UNIT. His adventures deal with the dangers of technological progress, diplomacy and attempts to bring about peace—both world and galactic, environmental concerns, and the possibility that a Companion might fall in love whilst travelling with the Doctor or even betray the Doctor.

As well as the stats and write-up for the Third Doctor himself, The Third Doctor Sourcebook includes stats and write-ups for all of his companions. The most notable changes in the Doctor are the addition of his ‘Hotshot’ Trait, to represent how good he is behind the wheel of any vehicle, and his ‘Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow’ Trait which gives him an instinctive understanding of energy fields. Most of the new Traits come from Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook and The Time Traveller’s Companion. There are also write-ups of the Third Doctor’s notable foes—the Master, the Nestene Consciousness, and the Daleks. Rounding out this half of the book is an excellent discussion about the Third Doctor’s themes and the creation of adventures suited to his era.

As with every entry in the series, the second and longest part of The Third Doctor Sourcebook is further divided into chapters that travel chronologically in order through the Third Doctor’s adventures. For each of these there is a synopsis followed by a guide to running the adventure and a listing of any appropriate characters, aliens, and gadgets. The guide to running each adventure is not a straightforward adaptation, but rather a discussion of themes and ideas inherent to the adventure. So for example, in the discussion of The Claws of Axos, it is suggested that whenever the Doctor instructs Jo to stay where she is whilst he goes off to do something, as soon as he leaves, she should go exploring! Why? Well, because it is interesting and it pushes the story forward. Rounding the entry for each story is a selection of Further Adventures, hooks that could be run as possible sequels.

Physically, The Third Doctor Sourcebook is a slim hard back book, suitably illustrated throughout with photographs—now in colour! The volume feels solidly researched and well written, but if there is a downside to the book, it is that not going to appeal or be of use to everyone, and that is going to be an issue with each of the subsequent volumes in the series. After all, almost everyone has their favourite Doctor and also their least favourite Doctor, and that may be reflected in the Doctor Sourcebooks that they purchase. With The Third Doctor Sourcebook, the adventures presented here are even more dynamic, even more knowing, and even more exciting than those of The First Doctor Sourcebook and The Second Doctor Sourcebook. Yet in comparison with The Second Doctor Sourcebook, there is perhaps less depth to the writing in The Third Doctor Sourcebook, but that is likely down to how straightforward the stories are for the Third Doctor.

The Third Doctor is the first generation to have all of his adventures available to purchase and watch on DVD, but apart from the later stories when he manages to leave Earth, they will feel unfamiliar in terms of style and oddly constrained. That comes down to the Third Doctor’s exile on Earth, and anyway, they lend themselves to a very different style of campaign, one which The Third Doctor Sourcebook should make you feel very at home with (even if that home is Earth!).

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Psssh-ti-cooff Fun

If you have never watched Ivor the Engine, then you should watch this video before reading the rest of this review. Made by Smallfilms, also responsible for other classics such as The Clangers and Bagpuss, this BBC children’s television classic told the tales of the adventures of a small green locomotive who lived in the “top left-hand corner of Wales” and worked for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited with the help of his driver, Jones the Steam. Most of us will remember the colour episodes from the 1970s, but the original six episodes were made in black and white in 1959, making the series fifty-five in 2014. So it seems as good a year as any to celebrate the series by us helping Ivor the Engine out. Which is exactly what we get to do in Ivor the Engine, a new board game designed by Tony Boydell—whose previous game, Snowdonia, also involved trains and railways, and also happened to be set in Wales—and published by Surprised Stare Games.

Illustrated by Peter Firmin, the illustrator of the Ivor the Engine television series, the Ivor the Engine game asks the players to come to the aid of Ivor the Engine and Jones the Steam in rounding up lots of lost sheep and do any number of good deeds. Designed for three to five players, aged eight and up, Ivor the Engine is a game of tidying up sheep and fulfilling tasks that can be played in about an hour or so—arguably much quicker once the players know the game. The winner is the player who at the end of the game has the most sheep—gained in  rounding up sheep and completing jobs. 

It is played out over a map of forgotten corner of north Wales, with various locations such as Grumbly Gasworks and Gwynaudolion Halt, Mrs Porty’s House and Pugh’s Farm, Tan-Y-Gwlch and Dinwiddy’s Gold Mine, and towns like Llangubbin, Grumbly Town, and Tewyn. All of these locations are connected by branch lines. In addition, a main line runs between Llangubbin and Tewyn which allows direct movement between the towns. Most of these locations consist of a single large hexes, although some consist of two, so the players need to be careful with their movement.

Besides the board with its map, Ivor the Engine consists of a rulebook, several cardboard Trucks (the players' pieces), cubes of gold and coal, plenty of wooden sheep (sheep meeples or  ‘sheeples’!), wooden tokens to represent flocks of sheep, and various cards and cardboard pieces. The cards consist of Sheep Pens for the players and a mix of Job Cards and Event Cards. The cardboard pieces include lost sheep tokens, a pair of Sleeping idris tokens and a pair of Runaway Sheep Tokens, and an Ivor the Engine Token. 

At the start of the game, the map is seeded with sheep—the number on each location determined by the random placement of the lost sheep tokens; each player receives three Job Cards, a Sheep Pen and matching Truck, plus a single piece of gold and coal each. Each player also places his Truck on the board starting with the youngest player, who also receives the Ivor the Engine Token. Three Job Cards are laid out face up alongside the board in a Card Line.

On his turn, each player does three things. The first is to take a sheep from his current location and place it on his Sheep Pen. Second, he moves his Truck. He can move from his current location to an unoccupied adjacent location along a connected single-track branch line. He cannot move into a location if another player has his Truck there and he wants to move further, he must steam up and shovel more coal into the boiler, one piece of coal for each extra location. If a player starts at either the towns of Llangubbin or Tewyn, then a player can use two coal to travel from one to the via the main line. If a player needs more coal, then he can purchase more by spending gold.

Before or after a player has moved his Truck, he can play a Job Card. Each Job Card has a task and a location, a reward for completing the task—anyway from three to six sheep, and an action that a player can do instead of completing the task on the Job Card. For example, “Fetching  Mr Brangwyn’s pigeons from” … “Llangubbin” instructs a player to travel to Llangubbin where in return for fetching the pigeons, he will be rewarded with three sheep. Alternatively, the player can use the Job Card for the action, “Make 2 extra moves.” and discard the card. Other actions enable a player to take coal or sheep or gold, put sheep back onto a location (from the supply or another player’s Sheep Pen), or take cards from the Card Line. More special actions temporarily force another player to give up any sheep he collects as they run away—this is what the Runaway Sheep token denotes, or allow him to take extra Job Cards from the deck. He also takes a Sleeping Idris token to indicate that he misses a turn for taking this special action.

What is important to know is that a player cannot complete a Job Card on a particular town or village until it has been cleared of sheep—the player who does so, also receives bonus sheep. What is also important to know is that when a player completes a Job Card he must read out the details of the Job Card. (A Welsh accent is not required for this.)

Lastly, a player takes a new Job Card from the Card Line, which is then refreshed. If the new card added to the Card Line is an Event Card, it has an event that takes effect immediately, is seeded with a single sheep, and a reward that takes effect at the end of the game. To select an Event Card from the Card Line, a player must pay a single piece of gold. For example, the “Bani Moukerjee” Event Card forces each player to move his truck to Llanmad or discard a sheep—this is the only time that the players’ trucks can be on the same location. If selected, this Event Card will reward a player with an extra sheep for each Job Card completed.

The end of game is triggered when one player ends his turn with a certain number of sheep, the number dependant upon how many players there are. Then everyone else receives one further turn to ensure that everyone has the same number of turns. Once done, everyone counts up their sheep and the player with the most is the winner.

Physically, Ivor the Engine is a lovely game. The artwork is delightful—both on the cards and on the board; the rulebook—which initially looks intimidating—is well written and easy to grasp; and the wooden sheep are, of course, delightful.

There are exactly two things wrong with Ivor the Engine, both to do with the components. First, the cardboard pieces used to represent the players’ Trucks are disappointing and add little to the game—wooden locomotives would have been far more in keeping with the charm and feel of the game.  Second, the flat wooden pieces used to represent the flocks of five sheep are equally disappointing, not to say dull, and add nothing to the game. It would have been nice if larger wooden sheep had been included to represent sheep. Of course, including such components would probably have increased the cost of what is otherwise a very reasonably priced game, but then, there is nothing to stop the owner of Ivor the Engine from replacing them himself.

At first glance, Ivor the Engine looks like a children’s game—no surprise given the source material. It is not that though, although it can be played by children. Given its length and subject matter, it offers a surprising degree of complexity that adult gamers will enjoy. There are plenty of choices to make—what sheep to take, which places to visit, and what Job Cards or Event Cards to select. The game is primarily competitive, although one player can block access to a location and some of the Job Cards give actions that target other players, so adult games can get cutthroat...

Unsurprisingly, given its theme, Ivor the Engine is also a train game, but in terms of complexity it lies somewhere between Ticket to Ride and a more traditional route-building, pick-up-and-deliver game such as Canalmania or Age of Steam. Although in Ivor the Engine there is no route-building, in effect a player is building a route by rounding up the sheep—once the sheep have been rounded up deliveries, or rather Job Cards, can be completed. Whilst there is no ‘pick-up’ aspect to the game, there is certainly delivery in the game in the form of the Job Cards. 

The complexity of Ivor the Engine means that it is not quite an introductory game—the game is more complex than say Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan, but not much more. For younger players that may mean that it is is more of a challenge, but for seasoned gamers, Ivor the Engine is pleasing light filler. Utterly charming, Ivor the Engine  is a delight, offering enjoyable play for casual and enthusiast gamers alike.

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Your Westeros Primer

Having finally got round to watching Season #3 of A Game of Thrones and read both parts of A Storm of Swords, I can at last feel confident in avoiding spoilers in reading and then reviewing A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide. This is the first supplement for A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventure, War, and Intrigue , the RPG published by Green Ronin based on the series of best-selling fantasy books by George R.R. Martin.  I have already reviewed the second supplement, A Song of Ice and Fire Chronicle Starter, as that contains no spoilers from either the books or the television series and is much of more of a gaming supplement than A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide. This supplement though, is much grander affair, describing as it does Westeros in lavish detail, providing full details on all the major regions and principal players of the game of thrones.

So if you happen not to have watched season #3 of A Game of Thrones or read both parts of A Storm of Swords, you do need to know that it does contain some spoilers. For in detailing the places and personages of Westeros and beyond, it focuses on places and peoples that do not appear until towards the end of both. It should be made clear that for the most part, these are not plot spoilers, but rather setting spoilers. Nevertheless, at least one plot spoiler is illustrated late in the book.

In keeping with the A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventure, War, and Intrigue, the setting for A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is in the immediate years before the events of Martin’s heptalogy—or is that octet?—begin. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros are at peace under the reign of Robert Baratheon, who usurped the Iron Throne from the Targaryen dynasty, the last of the Targaryens are powerless exiles to the east, the wildlings beyond the Wall seem contained, and the first stirrings of winter have yet to come. The handsome hardback opens with a history of Westeros, covering from The Dawn Age through the Age of Heroes and Age of the Dragons to just beyond the War of the Usurper and Greyjoy’s Rebellion. It is followed by an examination of the culture of Westeros, covering laws and justice, customs, entertainments and pastimes, goods and trading, language, faith, and the Maesters—the latter the scholars of Westeros. Several sections here will be of interest to the GM wanting to run a standard campaign based around a house of the players’ creation as described in A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventure, War, and Intrigue. These include knighthood, social status and rank, and illegitimacy—the latter accompanied by the regional names accorded bastards in Westeros, Jon Snow of the North being the most obvious example.

This sets the stage for the bulk of the book. From King’s Landing and Dragonstone to The Stormlands and Dorne, the book details the history, geography and key locations, and the ruling House of its region, plus persons of note and notable personages, and the Banner Houses that owe fealty to the ruling House. So for example, the chapter detailing The Reach tells you how rich and fertile it is and of its rivalry with Dorne; of Oldtown, the city that is  home to the Maesters of the Citadel that was once Westeros’ premier city; and of the Maesters and how you would don the Chain to become one, before presenting House Tyrell. Some members of the House are simply given descriptions, but others are also given full stats according to the rules of A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventure, War, and Intrigue. In this case, they are Lord Mace Tyrell, his mother Lady Olenna Tyrell, and three of his four children, Ser Garlan, Ser Loras, and Margaery. Other persons of note are also given full write-ups, though these are less frequent. For the Reach, they consist solely of Samwell Tarly of House Tarly. Following the description of the Ruling House, the most notable Banner Houses are presented. These include major, minor, and landed houses as well as extinct ones. In some cases they are accorded a single line, others are a bit more detailed and thus interesting.

In each of the descriptions of the Seven Kingdoms, further aspects of Westeros are also given. In the case of The Reach, this is Oldtown and the Maesters, for the North, this the Night’s Watch, the neutral sworn brotherhood that mans the Wall against incursions by the Wildings, and for Dragonstone, it is background to the Targaryens, including write-ups and stats for Viserys and Daenerys, the surviving heirs. Accompanying the House descriptions and the Banner House descriptions are their castle names, coat of arms, and motto. In many cases, a very many of the Banner Houses have their coats of arms illustrated. Each of these chapters is accompanied by a decent map.

Having worked its way north from King’s Landing to the North and back down south again, the penultimate chapter in A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is the eponymously titled ‘Beyond Westeros’ as it takes the reader across the Summer Sea to the Free Cities, the Dothraki Sea, and beyond. There are no game stats or character write-ups in this section.

Rounding out A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is ‘Exploring Westeros’, a chapter of advice for the GM. This presents a look at the themes and feel of a Westeros campaign—noting that throughout, both are unlike traditional fantasy, either of certain novels and their bearing of rings or particular roleplaying games. It addresses the issue of running a campaign with a setting that has a particular plot—something that the A Song of Ice and Fire series has in abundance. There is a balance to be maintained the advice suggests between the players and their characters wanting to interact with the series’ signature characters and the influence and input from the player characters not derailing the plots and events that weave around the series’ characters. Essentially, what it comes down to is that a GM  and his players need to decide on the game that they want to play—one that unfolds alongside the events of the novels or want that goes off in another direction entirely. Completing the chapter is a number of campaign ideas that a GM could develop.

Physically, A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is nicely presented with lots of full colour, painted art that presents another look and feel to that depicted in the television series. The book is nicely written and an enjoyably clear read, and the maps are good too.

There are one or two issues with A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide. As good as the maps are, the book could have down with more. In particular, no maps are given for the lands to the East. Given that they figure strongly in the novels, the lack of maps is a disappointing omission. Similarly, more maps of other locations would have been nice too. Maps are given for King’s Landing and the Red Keep, but not for many of the other castles or big towns in Westeros. To an extent, not all of them are detailed in the novels, but this is a roleplaying supplement after all, and some GMs like to have things quantified. Having already mentioned the plot spoilers in the art in the rear of the book, it should be pointed out that the choice of characters given full stats seems odd given that they are not connected with any particular character or House. This sort of heralds the importance of their roles in the novels.

If you happen to have read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords, and watched the first three seasons of A Game of Thrones, then there is much to be enjoyed in A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide. You could ignore the game game stats altogether, because really, they do not take up all that much space; if you did, then what you would have is a well written and informative sourcebook for both the books and the television series up to end of book #3 and season #3. One that complements them both, though the books more so than the television series. As written though, A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is a roleplaying supplement and both the source material presented here and the accompanying stats ably support that aspect (the latter without being unobtrusive). The advice in the last chapter is a pleasing if concise counterpart to the material presented earlier in the book and is good corollary to the advice given in A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventure, War, and Intrigue.

Thus A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is a good sourcebook for the A Song of Ice and Fire novels. It is also a good roleplaying supplement, expanding upon the information given in A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: Adventure, War, and Intrigue. So A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide succeeds twice.

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Empire Building Filler Thriller

Eight-Minute Empire could be described as wargame. It has armies, their leaders contest for territory, and at the end of the game, the leader who holds the most territory wins the game. It is though not a wargame—certainly not in a traditional sense—but is instead a Eurogame that combines area control and card drafting mechanics with a set collection mechanic. It is a little game with big themes that can be played through in the eight minutes of the title with just two players, but just twenty minutes with the maximum number of five players.

Published by Red Raven Games, inside Eight-Minute Empire’s small, square box can be found one double-sided map board, a four-page rulebook, forty-two cards, and five sets of armies, forty-four coins, and ten Goods Tokens. The map board depicts various continents broken up into regions, connected by safe sea routes. At the centre of the map stands a city—this is the starting point for the game. At the top of the map is a line of numbers—[0], [1], [1], [2], [2], [2], and [3]. These are the costs that a player will have to pay for the cards placed in the corresponding line placed at the top of the board. The cards are marked with an order that the leader will give his armies and with a Good such as a Carrot, Pine Tree, or a Gem. A leader will gain more Victory Points if he has managed to collect these symbols in sets by the end of the game. The five armies—in blue, green, pink, red, and yellow—each consist of fourteen cubes (the armies) and three discs (the cities). The coin tokens are used to purchase cards and the Goods tokens replicated the symbols on the cards and are used as part of the game’s advanced options.

At the start of the game, the cards are shuffled and six laid out at the top of the board face up. Each player receives his armies and some coins. Initially he will use these to bid on who goes first in the game, but their primary use is to purchase cards. He will also place three armies in the starting region. On his turn, he will purchase one of the cards at the top of the board, the cost being determined by its position in the line. Cards towards the left are free or cheap and get progressively more expensive to the right.

Purchasing a card gains a player its Goods symbol and an order that he can give his armies. This order may be to place armies (from his reserve onto the board), move armies (already on the board), move armies by sea (already on the board along a sea route between continents), destroy armies (remove an army from the board), or build cities (in a region where a player has armies). Some cards give a choice of options, others two options, while others give the player the choice of Goods symbol at the end of game to add to the sets he is collecting.

Each player has two aims in the game. The first is to dominate as many regions as possible—a player needs to have the most armies in a region to hold it, though having a city in a region will also contribute towards the number of armies in a region. The second is to collect sets of Goods tokens. At the end of the game, a player will receive a Victory Point for each Region he controls and for each Continent he controls. He will also receive Victory Points for each set of Goods cards he has, the number varying from one Good to another. For example, three Carrots scores a player one Victory Point, five Carrots two Victory Points, seven Carrots three Victory Points, and eight Carrots five Victory Points, whereas one Gem scores a player one Victory Point, two Gems two Victory Points, three Gems three Victory Points, and four Gems five Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points is the winner.

The Eight-Minute Empire rulebook does feel a little cheap, but it is clearly written. The other components are all of a high quality. It could be argued that the auction at the start for first player delivers little given its potential cost. One way to balance this would be to have an auction at the start of every turn, but the game does not include enough gold for this. If it did, it would also mean that the players might have too much gold with which to purchase their cards. Another issue might the game’s lack of theme. My suggestion would be that the Emperor’s sons’ rivalry threatens to erupt into civil war, so he directs his sons to take their armies and compete for dominance without course to open conflict.

Interestingly, the game’s feel and flow will be influenced by the cards drawn. For example, the lack of Sea movement cards would limit travel to other continents, concentrating the contest for territory to a limited area, whilst lots of them, would enable the players to spread their armies and vie for wider regions. Balance this against the need to collect Goods for sets and limited gold to spend, and a player has some tight choices to make over the course of cards he must choose—varying according to the number of players, more players means fewer cards. Eight-Minute combines tactical play in its armies and area control with strategic decisions in the Goods needed for sets in a pleasing presented and re-playable package. The result is that Eight-Minute Empire is a rather charming little filler.

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