Classic RPG Review #17: Pendragon

3^rd edition softcover

by Greg Stafford

1990 Chaosium Inc, Oakland CAL USA

If you ever wanted to play an Arthurian knight, if you ever wanted to quest for the holy grail, if you ever wanted to joust and be chivalrous yet merry, then Pendragon may be the game for you. Pendragon isn't called Pendragon for nothing, it's because of Arthur Pendragon.

If you're not wondering what on earth Pendragon means by now, I'll tell you anyway. It means Lord of the Dragons, and it was the epithet of Arthur's father Uther. This doesn't mean the game is full of dragons however. Not at all. You can play knights, and that's pretty much it. I guess Greg Stafford just figured Pendragon would make a cool name for the game.

And I guess he's right. Greg Stafford by the way is one of my favorite game designers since “Basic Fantasy Role Playing”. Somehow he manages to provide a lot of flavour and atmosphere for his games without burying you under rules. Fortunately that's true here too.

Pendragon sports a simplified Runequest system, using a d20 instead of percentile dice. The Runequest increments of 5% each are one twentieth anyway. So why not play with a d20? It's much easier, as you don't have to multiply by 5 all the time. Also, there are less rules and mechanics than in Runequest. That's good. Less good is that the few game rules that are left, are kind of hidden between the huge amounts of flavour and background. In three columns of text per page. In over twohundred pages. You'll either need the index, or just make up the rule yourself.

New is the emphasis on role playing. And rules provided to help you. You don't quest for experience points by bashing monsters, but you quest for glory points by doing chivalrous deeds. Joust foul black knights, woe and marry the right lady, fight battles, own land. Glory makes a knightly noble tick, and sets him apart from the common folk. Also, when you design your character you have extensive rules for generating your family, family history and coat of arms. Now that's background!

Then you have personality traits and passions. Chastity, energy, honesty, cruelty, valorousness, and so on. Whenever you are challenged on a trait, the game master may require you to roll. So if you're particularly lustful, you may end up seduced all the time. If you're rather chaste you'll end up with more glory but will probably never get laid. Passions are more about your loyalties and what you'll get emotional about. Love your lord, wife or family up to the point that you'll go to hell and back for them? Or do you hate immigrant Saxons so much that you'll do much the same? Again you may be required to roll a d20 or lose control.

Lose control. That's exactly what I do, and at the same time do not like about this well meant mechanic. Using traits and passions may jog uptight hack 'n slashers and shy newbies out of their apathy. They may in fact help players to start role playing a bit. But at the same time the traits may provide yet another rule to hide behind. Oh, wow, sorry. I just missed my temper check. Now I'll have to bash you. In practice I've seen more of the latter, alas.

In Pendragon, you don't just play a knight really, but you play a dynasty. One of the goals in the game is to get married. To a non player character, it is assumed, which can be generated randomly, but it's better to find a special lady. And after getting married you try to obtain a healthy son. You can roll for this every year, randomly getting more children as you go along. And once your heir reached the adult age of 21, you can continue playing your son!

Rolling on tables does not only help you find who you can marry to, or what happens to your children, but it also generates quite a few opportunities for adventure. There even is an explicit section for solo adventures. So, if you like you could play Pendragon entirely as a solo game. Rolling up history and adventure possibilities for your character, and then playing them out with yourself as you go along. You'd almost guess that Stafford figured you'd be left without fellow players fairly often. I wonder where the guy lived while he wrote this. Alone in the outback?

How does it play? Personally I never got beyond rolling up a character and doing a few solos. So I guess I also lived in the outback when I first had the game. But I did hear of the game being played by friends. And they seemed to like the flavour and mechanics. But they also did not play for very long, perhaps finding it hard to build an actual campaign with just knights. Personally I'm still curious. It's not the first on my list as a system. But I would play if someone asked. And that's saying a lot. Meanwhile I'll page through the book for inspiration. It's very good for that too.

RULES 4/5
(rules are elegant, fairly simple, realistic, d20 based, simplified RuneQuest set of rules, with additional rules to focus on role playing, solo play and generating character history)
INSPIRATION 4/5
(Arthurian legend has always been a strong source of wonder and inspiration, and Pendragon is full of historic and literary facts, names, characters, creatures, heraldry, events, peoples and so on, for today's standards the only thing you may miss is colour print throughout)
PLAYABILITY 3/5
(starting up the game and generating your character is easy, as is building your background with tables, but actually playing adventures falls slightly short, adventures being reduced mostly to encounters, battles and jousts; also there is little room to play anyhing but a knight, as even a damsel is not a real option)
GAME FEATURES
(a true to theme Arthurian role playing game with a simple, yet effective set of rules, massive backdrop and strong suitability to solo play)
OVERALL 7/10

Classic RPG Review #16: Maelstrom

1st edition softcover

by Alexander Scott

1984 Puffin Books, Harmondsworth UK

When Alexander Scott started writing Maelstrom, he was only sixteen years old. Still at school. Somehow he got himself invited by Pinguin publishers to write a game in a paperback. The publishers had no idea what he talked about. “Role playing what? No idea what that is. You're the wizkid who can do it? And you say this will sell? Euh, okay.” But, they said yes. And this gave Scott a lot of freedom. Perhaps because of his age, and this freedom, he made something unexpected, different and special.

The setting of Maelstrom is a cross between the medieval world of Chaucer – pilgrim's progress – that of Dickens, and that of Remi, Alone on the World. It's nearly realistic, but with a touch of magic. Very undefined, low key magic. But magic nonetheless. It's the real world with a hint of the supernatural. Closer to literature than to fantasy. Closer to Penguin publishers than to DAW paperbacks.

And that's actually cool. If you ever contemplated studying medieval literature, or ever stood in awe of the British library or any cathedral, you'll understand the appeal of this game. You can play a traveller, a guildsman, a scholar, a craftsman, a clergyman, a noblewoman, a rogue or a military – and much in between. The rules are fairly simple, percentile based – a bit like Runequest but easier and with less emphasis on combat. Building your character is simple, and you'll learn your character's age and some of his or history in the process of creation. And not just about the character's history, but also something about real history. As said, the game is fairly realistic. And thus good for serious students.

Magic also touches on the real. There's an excellent index of herbs and plants, with their medicinal uses. And not made up, but real. If you use Maelstrom just for this index, and nothing else, you won't be the first. Again, realistic. So is there some fantasy left in this game? Yes. It's in the name: Maelstrom. The Maelstrom is a magic vortex that can draw you anywhere, any place, any time. You might end up as Catweazle, in the present time of the players. And the likelyhood of encountering this vortex becomes greater as you use more magic. Scary for mages... don't use too many spells or you're in trouble. I liked the idea so much, that I took up using something alike in the Dark Dungeon 2^nd ed. game.

How does it play? Well, that's where it starts to fall down a bit. There's a good solo game to start you off. Follow the numbered paragraphs and don't stray off the path, or you may end up reading signs like: “Reading Paragraphs at Random brings Bad Luck”. Then there's a whole adventure traveling on the road to London. But then what? It remains too scetchy after that. We had no idea how to proceed from there. There is no cool backdrop with a clear conflict. There's no party of evil to fight. There isn't even a mention of Cromwell and his men, or an earlier Queen Elizabeth, Wars of the Roses or a potential Spanish Catholic invasion. Not that I remember anyway. So... we forgot about the game.

Shame, though. Because the game has a lot to go for it. Given the right background, and a clear conflict in the setting, it might have become a true classic. Now it's mostly... a gem in the rough. So if you think you can make up your own campaign, have a look. It's worth it.

RULES 3/5
(rules are elegant, simple, fairly realistic - especially in character creation -, percentile based, somewhat resembling the RuneQuest set of rules, with a scetchy but innovative way of looking at magic)
INSPIRATION 3/5
(the game uses a realistic late medieval backdrop, which resonates strongly if you have a historic interest – though it lacks a central conflict, or choice of conflict, to use as a campaign theme)
PLAYABILITY 3/5
(the game plays fairly easily with the sample scenarios, but failing a clear goal or backdrop of the whole game, and failing a clear adventure format, it regretfully fizzles out)
GAME FEATURES
(a complete game in a small paperback, a nice scetch of late medieval society, a fairly realistic low fantasy setting, an inspiringly real index on medicinal plants and herbs, nice sample adventures)
OVERALL 6/10

Classic RPG Review #15: Stormbringer

4^th edition softcover

by Ken St. Andre, Steve Perrin, John B. Monroe

1990 Chaosium Inc, Oakland CAL USA

One of the oldest fantasy heroes, and possibly one of the most famous and dramatic, is Michael Moorcock's creation Elric of Melnibone. Together with is not so trusty, soul slurping sword Stormbringer, prince Elric lives through many an adventure. He slays his most beloved, he fights his kin, he sees far shores, he fights the forces of Chaos with a capital C and... he's an albino.

Stormbringer is the first commercial role playing game that tries to bring his adventures to life – for role players. And it's written by Tunnels & Trolls inventor Ken St. Andre, with the help of RuneQuest writer Steve Perrin, and Cthulhu buff John B. Monroe. That's quite a team. So you might expect straightforward adventuring, and no beating around the bush like in T&T. You might expect streamlined and logical, realistic rules like in RuneQuest. You might expect a touch of evil - like in CoC, not Orson Welles. And in all these expectations you are right.

Stormbringer is well written, easy to read, and full of background information and detail. It has some nice artwork, beautiful colour plates – even if they may no longer be up to todays standards, they're very evocative. And if you don't know the Elric stories, the book will help you get a long way, with character descriptions and a summary of the novels. So you shouldn't have too many problems if your fellow players did read the books and you did not.

A special part of the game is the summoning and binding of demons, chaos creatures, and controlling them. This goes so far, that a large part of the rules is spent on how many demons you can bind, what the features of the demon are – like how many legs - and how many points that would cost. And as if that's not evil enough, you can also play a follower of one of the elemental forces. Then you can collect Elan points by... converting or killing followers of other cults. Stormbringer is a game about the battle against Chaos. Evil against Chaos if need be. Stormbringer RPG is as bloodthirsty as the sword Stormbringer itself. Not too scary for the average roleplayer, but you have to like the gore.

I wanted the Stormbringer game for a long time before I bought it. And I guess I waited such a long time because I had doubts. Doubts whether you could play such dramatic, tragic heroes like Elric. And do it in Michael Moorcock's world.To me that sounds like being an elephant handling porcelain. Because... well, what if I screw up? Will Michael Moorcock come and get angry at me?

Silly of course. But Ken St. Andre might to have had the same considerations. Before providing five complete adventures (over 50 pages), he has a very short section on how you could play the game. Originally he says, Stormbringer was to be played in the Young Kingdoms, but preferably as far away from Elric as possible. Ken does not give many handles on role playing Elric or his friends and enemies – not beyond giving a fairly good resource book. Seems like I'll have to face the challenge of being Michael Moorcock on my own.

The writers do provide some nice examples of what you could do for an adventure. But if you expect real stories, you may be disappointed. They're really nicely made dungeon bashes, with a little twist, a rival party, some deadly traps and tricks and some bizarre creatures. But, they're dungeon romps, not dramatic storylines.

And that while Elric off Melnibone is dramatic in the extreme. He mistakenly kills his own wife Cymoril in one of the books, so how much more over the top can you get? Just suppose an example adventure assumed one of the player characters was Elric, and his wife was kidnapped by his evil brother. That already would have been a different sort of game.

Maybe the above is the reason I always postponed playing Stormbringer. The game looks well made. It's well written. With a great setting. But now it's too close to straight D&D for me. Then again, if you're an old style D&D fan this might exactly be the reason for you to love it.

RULES 4/5
(rules are elegant, mostly simple, easy to learn, fairly realistic and fairly balanced, based on the RuneQuest set of rules, with a good deal of attention to demons and poisons)
INSPIRATION 3/5
(the game uses the strong backdrop of Elric's world, with a lot of background information, but even though example adventures are provided, the real dread and tragedy of the novels is lacking )
PLAYABILITY 2/5
(the game as such is probably easy to play as a variant of D&D using RuneQuest-esque rules, doing hard core search, destroy and get the loot missions, but there is virtually no advice on storytelling, recreating the feel of the novels, or even an introduction to role playing – as such the game master needs to do much to propel the game forward for a longer period)
GAME FEATURES
(dungeon romping in the fantasy world of Elric as created by Michael Moorcock, extensive rules on making demons, lists of creatures and main characters from the novels, maps of the Young Kingdoms, and five sample adventures)
OVERALL 6/10

Classic RPG Review #14: Dungeons & Dragons Basic

basic rules

by Tom Moldvay (ed.), Eric J. Holmes (ed.)

1981 TSR

Reviewing Dungeons & Dragons more than once may seem a bit superfluous. But there really is a difference between editions. No, really. Gary Gygax his name as a developer is not mentioned in these rules, and neither is the name of Dave Arneson, his co-inventor. That's one difference for example. Why their names are not mentioned, I can only guess. Maybe Arneson was just angry that he wasn't credited enough for his part in the discovery of fantasy role playing. Missed chance, I'd say. And maybe Gygax didn't feel another set of rules was needed – as he had just written the Advanced D&D books.

Gary must have been cross. Eric Holmes even apologized for writing the first basic set, but he felt that the original D&D rules were impossible to understand for normal people. So Gary wrote AD&D. But that still was nearly impossible to understand. So, I guess, that's why Moldvay did the second basic set. And they were right. Without the basic set I would have given up on D&D.

Like in all Dungeons & Dragons games the object is to search, destroy and loot. Mostly loot. And if you have a good time imagining you're a brainless warrior, a charming sorceress or a hairy halfling, so much the better. This is a simple game, but it is one of good old Sword & Sorcery. Sword & Sorcery without any real plot, that is.

But that doesn't matter, really. There's a charm to smashing the lairs of evil creatures and slaying them in between looting and counting the treasures. Dungeons & Dragons is good at this stuff. There are ample lists of monsters and treasures, even if it's only a 64 page booklet. And building your own Dungeons (these are the monster lairs you are supposed to loot) is easy. There still won't be much plot, but hey. You can just draw a map on grid paper and dice up the contents of each and every room. Your wrist may be tired of shaking dice afterward, but you'll have something to be proud of.

And making a hero isn't too hard either. The only qualm you might have is that you have to roll up your statistics. And if the dice aren't friendly, you have bad luck for the rest of the hero his life. It will be a short life most probably, but still. It's less fun to play a wizard with only average intelligence, no strength, zero charisma and just a single hit point. Fortunately most Game Masters will let you shake the dice ad nauseum until you are satisfied with the results, or until your wrists give up. Whatever comes first.

The rules are simple, clear, not always realistic and they go only up to level three. Level three is what your heroes will reach after a few games. And then you have to buy the next book, called the expert set. There you will find even more monsters, spells and magic items. And you will learn how to fill up monster lairs that are aboveground. Then your heroes can go looting in the wilderness, too.

Maybe all this looting business isn't all that special, but me and my players loved the game. Though we did start adding plot, and tried to make more of a story between lootings. For some time we even used the AD&D monsters and stuff in our basic D&D games. But then we converted to the Advanced game, because then you could play Paladins and multi-class heroes. That you couldn't do with these basic rules. But we also were sorry for stepping up for a long time. At least I was. The freshness of the earlier games was lost, and instead we gazed a lot at complex tables and flipped through heavy tomes of rules. Boy, did we think we were smart.

Maybe basic D&D isn't the best introduction to fantasy role playing, it still is one of the best introductions to dungeon bashing and looting. Mostly looting. It's fun.

RULES 3/5

(rules are clear, easy to play, fairly balanced, and not too realistic)

INSPIRATION 3/5

(the freshness of the game still is there, and there's an amazing amount of commercial material you can use to support this basic rule set)

PLAYABILITY 4/5

(maybe simple looting wears too thin after a few games, but the rules are so open and accessible that almost anyone could master a game and make it exciting)

GAME FEATURES

(fantasy, with humans, elves, dwarves and halflings, class based – this means you either are of a profession or a non-human race, combat with twentysided dice and separate damage rolls, hero progression based on slaying monsters and gathering treasure, magic accesible to some, with a limited number of one-shot spells that must be chosen before actual play)

OVERALL 7/10

Classic RPG Review #13: Dungeon Master's Design Kit (AD&D)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons supplement

by Harold Johnson and Aaron Allston

1988 TSR Inc., Lake Geneva WI, USA

Three thin booklets in a soft cover. One called Adventure Design, a second is the Forms Book, and the third – also just 32 pages thick – is the Adventure Cookbook. Advanced players of course scoff at it, because hey, it's AD&D and it's commercial and... it's a cookbook. You cannot make gourmet adventures with a cookbook, can you?

But as I hardly dare admit to my regular players, I actually use this one. Not always by long, but more often than you might think. It's not bad at all, especially if you use it just to jog your imagination. Imagination which can run dry, as many a GM may know. Or get stuck in the wordprocessor somewhere.

The cookbook (book III) has a number of quick random tables to decide what your adventure of this evening will be like. You just roll percentage dice, and see what comes up. Before you know it, you have the outline of... some sort of story anyway. Say it's an espionage adventure, featuring the long escape of the heroes. They may start out with the dying delivery of another spy, somewhere in a cosmopolitan city (you'll have a favorite in your campaign). They'll end in a madman's fortress and will visit a magic lake, be helped by a merry minstrel and face a ravager for a master villain. A chief assassin will make their lives harder, and the whole thing will climax in a bloody battle. Good eh? Just ten dice rolls!

Alright, it's fuzzy, and you'll have to fill in a lot of the blanks for yourself, but it often helps me to get ideas. And if it does not, then I'll surf a bit on internet or pick one of my history books to think of something new. Or I plunder from films, series and books. Anyhow, whenever I'm stuck, I often find myself browsing this little booklet. And that's a feat for something twenty years old.

The other two booklets were fun to read once, but these are less my own style. They might be helpful for many a Game Master (or Mistress) though. If you want to structure your ideas, and plan your adventure or campaign well ahead, put it all down in prearranged forms where you can find what you need, then this may be for you. Just be sure to copy your forms before you make the booklet useless for another time.

And if you fill out all the sheets for your session you will probably spend more hours preparing your adventure than you'll end up playing. Unless you use it twice, maybe. Like, hey, you want to play my Bloody Quest of the Dead Minotaur again? Or you could sell your hard work as a module to other game masters.

Seriously, the Adventure Design booklet contains a lot of good advice and things to think about. Choosing a villain, choosing scenes, fleshing out the story and the non-player characters... all very organised. If you are just making the step from a hack and slay dungeon delving mission to an actual storyline, then this is pretty good. And if you are an accomplished storyteller, even then you may find some ideas you had not thought of. You'll smile a lot too.

INSPIRATION 4/5

(for three thin booklets there is a lot of ideas here)

USABILITY 4/5

(the cookbook is pretty good, the adventure design book contains a good framework for stories being more than a hack and destroy mission)

FEATURES

(random tables, forms and organised guidelines to set up fantasy adventures somewhere between dungeon delving and storytelling, although made for AD&D the kit can be used for most fantasy games)

OVERALL 8/10

Classic RPG Review #12: Dark Conspiracy

softcover 1^st edition

by Lester W. Smith

1991 Game Designers Workshop, Bloomington IL, USA

Throw together “Night of the Living Dead”, “Red Dawn” and a bit of “War of the Worlds” and you may have an idea what this game is about. In the near future the world, or rather the US of A has been overrun by aliens, undead and demons from another dimension. The city sprawls, or metroplexes, have become mazes of mayhem, crime and violence. Pretty much like your average gangland neighbourhood. Except that the gangs may be in league with the demons. Or be busy fighting them back. Communications have broken down. The army and police are forcefully present in controlled zones but otherwise understaffed, taken over or gone. And nobody knows quite how this darkness came about.

So our heroes are to find out what happened, be brave and resourceful, and “push back the dark”. It's different and scary. And intriguing. What would your backyard look like if it's taken over by demoniac aliens?

The game is probably easier to play for Americans than for Europeans. Europeans generally have less access to guns, so imagining civilians (hill billies, gang members, wall street folk) armed to the teeth roaming one's own countryside takes a bit more effort. And we Europeans also don't know tabloids with silly news, nonsensical reporting and supernatural novelties. Like sightings of Elvis, or witnesses vowing that the president is a reptilian. But Americans do.

A lot of the inspiration for the setting comes from that kind of tabloids. There is even a section with adventure ideas taken from actual “news” in these papers. Ghosts exist. Aliens hide under your bed. You can read minds. Or fry them. And Elvis lives. Dark Conspiracy shows a world where Mulder and Scully from the X-files desperately screwed up.

Making a player character in Dark Conspiracy is not very hard, and in the process you also develop a background. Your character serves “terms” either in the army or a civilian context, and picks up new skills in the process. Terms could be assignments, schools, classes, being in a profession, or even being locked up as a guinea pig in a lab. The good thing is that you get an idea of what your hero went through before you start play. The bad thing may be that you have as much or little control of your career as you sometimes have in real life.

It's meant to be gritty role playing. And slightly right wing. Imaginary philosopher Zena Marley illustrates that throughout the book with her quotes: “We have a fighting chance. Anyone who thinks we deserve more than that is probably a socialist. Nice philosophy – wrong century.”

There are more special touches to the game. Like initiative. Those with high initiative don't just act faster, as in most games, but they act more often. For each point of initiative you act once in a round. That may be six times. If you have initiative zero you don't need to be dead, you may just be baffled or too badly wounded to do something. Cool. But having a lower initiative than your pals may also mean you have to cheer them all the time, while they slay all your enemies for you.

Another innovation is the way you determine the personality of a non player character. You draw two cards from a standard deck. The number determines strength of a basic motivation. The suit determines kind. Hearts is love, spades ambition, clubs violence, diamonds greed. A nice idea, usable in other games.

Dark Conspiracy keeps going on like this. Intriguing novel ideas, smart solutions, special rules to cover all sorts of stuff. The rules are not easy everywhere, and the book is not always as accessible as I would like it, but it has something. It's even foreboding in a way. The game assumes a “Greater Depression”. A near total economic collapse caused by greed, hollowing out of the real economy and reckless investment. This book was written just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, not during the subprime mortgage crisis.

The only thing I'm really missing is a grand theme. Hope, maybe. Really good guys. A way out. Or a way to turn the mayhem to something positive. If you can add that for yourself, there is a lot to this book.

RULES 3/5

(rules are gritty, innovative, fairly realistic, not always accessible or simple, and may be too hard core for the average gamer)

INSPIRATION 4/5

(the book is full of ideas, and the near future mix is intriguing, but lacks the powerful charm of Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, or Kult)

PLAYABILITY 2/5

(running a one off with this game proved to be fairly easy – if you ignore the more intricate rules and wing it, but making a campaign work is hard because there is too little of a hopeful backdrop)

GAME FEATURES

(USA in the near future of a Greater Depression, with supernatural aliens from a dimensional rift changing the world into a kind of hell; everyone is against you mentality; character development in career terms where you assign points in career skills and get older too; higher initiative gives multiple actions; separate damage rolls or even damage formulas)

OVERALL 6/10

Classic RPG Review #11: Talislanta Fantasy Roleplaying

fourth edition hardcover

by Stephan Michael Sechi, John Harper, Adam Sonfield

2001 SMS / Shootingiron Design

“The Fourth edition of Talislanta is dedicated to Jack Vance, preeminent author of fantasy and science fiction...” This dedication pretty much sums up where the inspiration for this game came from. And even if Jack Vance's name is mentioned nowhere else in the text, there is no other game that captures the feeling of Vance's novels so well.

Talislanta is a huge, sprawling world of wonder. It's full of curious races, strange creatures, creatively eccentric magic and unexpected customs and fantasies. Think of Nagra spirit trackers, Sindaran effectuators, two headed dragonlike Duadir, lionlike Jaka beastmasters, Chana witchdoctors, enchantingly beautiful Batrean paramours, or dead ugly Saurean gladiators. Or any of hundreds of other templates and creature races. Most of them with a well crafted pencil illustration – otherwise you'd have no idea. It's beautiful. And pretty weird. Much like the Dying Earth novels or Tschai series that Vance wrote. So I guess he is just not named for copyright reasons.

Personally I did not get around to playing the game, maybe because it's too different from the average fantasy setting. There are no elves, nor dwarves. No orcs. So where do you start as a player? It's harder to sell for a game master than say, AD&D. Maybe I should let my players visit as off worlders to get a feel for it first. Or maybe I should let them read the Dying Earth novels, tweak Talislanta a bit, and ask them to build characters that would fit in the Vance stories.

For now the tome lies on the coffee table every once in a while, trying to entice me and my players. One day it will draw us in, maybe. Five hundred pages. Just about a hundred pages of rules. Most of these are spell lists and skill descriptions. The other four hundred pages are filled with background, artwork, sprawls of character templates and extended world information. The setting is definitely the most important in Talislanta, not the rules. I think the writers have their priorities right.

The rules are light, slick, and fairly realistic. I always find that a good sign. They may leave a lot to the imagination of the game master, but it also gives game master and players more time to focus on story than on rules. Doing an action is like rolling a twentysided die, adding a modifier or two, and “consulting the action table”. This table is so short, you'll know it by heart in three minutes. Making a character is picking a template (that takes most time), and modifying it a bit. All very simple. Then you can start playing.

And that's where the game starts falling short. Where to start? In the hefty hardback there are adventure seeds, but not an example adventure. Nor an example of play. There is no obvious grand scheme of a campaign to run. And since there are no elves or orcs, and it's not your average sword and sorcery, what's your theme? Perhaps the designers figured you should play a grand tour of their continent. “Talislanta on Twenty Gold Lumens a Day”. But as far as I scanned they don't say so.

And that's a bit of a shame, because the work is so inspiring otherwise. It's so hugely different. The artwork and fantasies are so wondrous. I guess the best way to go about it is just do that grand tour. Have the player characters on a mission to deliver a very special package at the other end of Talislanta. And then work through the book region by region, thinking up small plots and encounters along the way. It will be as surprising to the game master as it will be to the players. Actually, I kind of feel like it.

RULES 4/5

(rules are simple, elegant, and fairly easy to learn, although they leave much open to the game master, hardcore table toppers may find the rules fall short)

INSPIRATION 5/5

(Talislanta is as different, sprawling, wondrous and strange as you may ever find a work. It's also closest to Jack Vance's fantasies, detailed, and well illustrated)

PLAYABILITY 3/5

(you'll have to do a lot of work as a game master to set up a campaign and make adventures work. Because so much is new, unknown and not immediately part of our common subconscious, you may have a hard time relating the real feel of the game.)

GAME FEATURES

(wondrous Vancian fantasy, like the Dying Earth or Tschai series, with Moorcock-esque and Arabian Nights elements, scores of weird races, and absolutely no elves, dwarves or orcs, a simple d20 based – but not WotC – set of rules)

OVERALL 8/10

Classic RPG Review #10: The Palladium Role Playing Game

softcover, revised edition

by Kevin Siembieda

1983/1991 Palladium Books, Detroit MI, USA

Palladium Fantasy as this game is also called, is very much a one man effort. Both the rules, descriptions and the very crafty grey pencil artwork are all made by Kevin Siembieda. As such it's a laudable piece of work. Twohundred seventyfive pages of work. In small font.

But it leaves you pretty much in the dark how the game is played. In the introduction Kevin says he's “not going to bore you with some lengthy explanation or history of role playing”. But I wish he would have. Without this statement one might have suspected this book was not a game, but a bundle of stencils from an old style, classic Dungeons & Dragons home brew set of rules. Then again, maybe that's exactly what it is. Old style home brew.

If you assume it's like D&D, then it's indeed possible to make something of it. Then it's another dungeon delving, hack and slay, search and destroy, loot and loot type of game. Old style. Home brew. And this book features a complete different set of tables, classes, races, specific rules, and monsters. And more even, a big collection of spells and wards.

The spell lists are probably the best of the whole thing. They are so colourful, the descriptions sometimes so gross, and the pages of runic drawings so intriguing that you'd think to be holding an actual magical tome. You could get scared that some of the spells actually work. Someone else must have thought so too, because a special note on one of the fist pages says: “ALL of us at Palladium Books condemn the belief and practice of the occult”. That's a relief then. The next sentence says “Dedicated to the Defilers”. That does not help.

But the Defilers are just a gaming group whose imaginary characters imaginarily wrecked some imaginary evil temple. Nothing occult or demonic. That's just the old style thing again. Old style where undiluted evil, tough monsters, powerful items, and combat tables and statistics are more important than story. Because the story is mostly the same. The evils locked themselves up in some underearth tunnel system, and the heroes break in to slay them and steal their ill gained treasures. In passing they also save the local townsfolk or the universe, but that's just secondary.

Palladium does have a game master section with a sample adventure, but that starts only at page 250. After the full seven pages of world information. And the other twohundredforty something pages are for monsters, races, classes, spells and combat rules. So it is clear what's deemed important.

If old style is your thing, you might want to scrounge the book for ideas. You might even give the rule set a try if you are bold. If it's not, you may enjoy the drawings, the feel, and especially the almost real looking spell book sections. You could even use it as a spell book mock up in one of your games. It's just as good looking, cryptic and intriguing as it should be for that purpose.

RULES 2/5

(rules are old style D&D like, suited to dungeon delving and experience point collecting, but with little flexibility in character design, and little realism, finding specific rules can be a nuisance in the big book)

INSPIRATION 3/5

(especially the art work and the look of the spell books are very inspiring, but most descriptions are too brief and just suited to old style search and destroy gaming, less to real role playing)

PLAYABILITY 2/5

(if you know old school D&D the playability may actually be better, but if you don't it may be far less. You might not even be able to start)

GAME FEATURES

(occult looking spell books with 290 spells, 60 wards, 50 magic circles, excellent artwork, 20 classic D&D like character classes, lots of monsters, demons, devils, gods, and practical interpretations of alignment – evils do not always torture for pleasure for example, according to these lists. Lots of look up tables, and lots of percentage dice rolling)

OVERALL 5/10

october 2009

Classic RPG Review #9: Warhammer Fantasy Role Play

hardcover

by Richard Halliwell, Graeme Davis, a.o.

1986 GamesWorkshop Ltd., Nottingham UK

To be honest, I never played this game, even if I loved the setting and I had a group nearby that revelled in it. At the time I was heavily promoting my own new role playing game, and a good friend used my rules for the Warhammer adventures instead. So I guess the dark, gunpowder flooded, warpstone infected, mutated dwarven, undead gothic horror, demonic magic version of Germany that Warhammer introduced was pretty good.

And the artwork is still pretty good too. Lots of black ink, chaos, axes and beards everywhere. Quite much like your average role playing group. No wonder it sits well with us chaotic and bearded nerds. Except that I did not have a beard nor an axe then. I never realized at the time, but the sprawling battle scenes, and the 16^th century feel of the artwork are surely inspired by the 16^th century artist Albrecht Altdorfer. If you don't know him, look him up and be surprised at the similarities to the whole Warhammer “raaah. Battle!” concept. And the Warhammer capital of the old Reich (“Reik”) is named Altdorf. That should be a clue.

So, the setting is inspiring and the artwork is dark and cool. How about the game itself? Well, that's based firmly in the miniature war gaming camp. Not the realistic wargame sort, but the quick and dirty, yet fun sort. Player characters have statistics as if they are soldiers of a tin men army too. Yes, they also have skills, and might even grow personalities as the game progresses. But they basically start out as a line of statistics, more than in other role playing games.

I suspect that the designers of Warhammer FRP like to play large fantasy battles. And one day they thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool to give our tiny heroes some specials? That's what it looks like. Personalised miniatures. Okay in itself, yet a different school of thought than say, radio theatre.

That the player doesn't have to be to close to his (or her) hero, you can also feel in other rules. If a hero has a mandatory hatred for another race for example (like dwarves hate orks), then you have to check your cool to avoid fighting. Sorry guys, couldn't help it! I just happened to split my axe in his head and now we are in big trouble... In many other games the player has to decide for himself, here the rules force you to proceed to combat. I guess the designers love combat. Chaotic combat.

Perhaps this game is best enjoyed with meticulously painted tin men in a huge chaotic diorama like you can see in the Games Workshop stores nowadays. Citadel Miniatures, sponsor and probably now owner of the game would like you to think so. And it sure may be fun if you have lots of money and time to spare. Otherwise imagination works wonders too.

Other than that, the hardcover is over 350 pages thick with practical rules, scores of monsters, spells, skills and careers, and best of all a fleshed out world guide and a first adventure. Artwork abounds, the font is readable (that's more than many current games can say), and the lay out gives the tome a magical feel. If you can lay your hands on an old copy it may well be worthwile. Even if you don't play the game, you'll find a lot of inspiration in it.

RULES 3/5

(rules are practical, detailed, and fairly easy to learn, but they lean much to the war game side)

INSPIRATION 4/5

(the worked out dark fantasy setting, and the rich career, skill, spell and monster templates make you want to play)

PLAYABILITY 3/5

(if you like fun war gaming, this may be the game for you bridging war gaming and role playing, if not you may feel your heroes remain somewhat cardboard)

GAME FEATURES

(dark medieval fantasy, with Teutonic-Moorcock-esque religion, lots of gunpowder, bombs, chaotic dwarves and horrific mutations, rules encourage militaristic, somewhat detached play, but with humour)

OVERALL 7/10

Classic RPG Review #8: Fantasy Wargaming

hardcover

by Bruce Galloway, a.o.

1981 Patrick Stevens Ltd, Cambridge

First edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons looked like something you could delve from an antique bookshop. Fantasy Wargaming I actually did find among the occult books in a dusty corner of a second hand book store. And that's not all that strange. The small hardcover depicts an annoyed devil materializing from a spellbook, behind a hapless wizard doing some innocent research. And inside the book there are many entries about astrological signs, religion and the use of magic. So no wonder the bookseller placed it next to silly books like “the satanic bible”.

Fantasy Wargaming is not an occult book. But the game does try to approach medieval life as it was for real, or how it could have been for real. The first ninety pages or so are actually devoted to a description of medieval life, medieval warfare, theories of magic and religion and a medieval view of creatures. There is room for favorite fantasy authors and game mastering advice too. It's a treasure trove of information and inspiration. If you want to understand medieval life without earning a degree in history, then this is one of the best books to start with.

Only after this long “introduction” the game system is described. And its an intricate system, again aimed at simulating medieval life and medieval mores. A medieval life with magic, monsters and unholy temptations that is. It's still fantasy you know.

But the system is a tiny bit complex. The astrological birth sign of your hero influences his or her abilities and demeanor, for example. And each hero has statistics for strength, intelligence and piety, but also for lust, greed and selfishness. And these latter stats you don't want to be too high if you want to avoid the numerous temptations you'll face in adventures. All heroes also have one or more “bogeys”. These are uncommon good or bad quirks, whatever the dice decide: deafness, shyness, alcoholism, keen eyesight, bisexuality (yep), clairvoyance... Sometimes playable, sometimes not.

Combat rules actually are less complex than they seem. But they are written down in a complex way. All bonusses and penalties are hidden in paragraphs of text, and not shown in a few simple tables. It's a wargame, too. There are lists of typical medieval troops and rules for whole armies engaging in battle. Superfluous? Maybe. Not if you play an army commander.

The magic system is a beauty. It is written down in an inaccessible manner though, so I wonder what the writers tried to hide. Maybe it's the part where you can gain magic powers from sacrificing animals or even humans. You can also gain power from meditation, but hey. Once you have collected your power, called mana, you can cast your spell. And here you are almost totally free. You may make up effects of conjuration, evocation, protection, command, illusion, transmutation, divination – you name it.

Of course you have to take into account the astrological controllers. Aye, there's the rub. Crossindexing the right date and time, gemstones, herbs, metals and all what for your magic effect may be a bit cumbersome. It does look a lot more like alchemy and magic in the book. But in practice a game master may be too busy to take notice of your long study of the tables.

“So, you want a rhino bone wrapped in copper dowsed in full moonlight and virgin's blood?

Er... okay.” It takes effort to make this work.

Not only your physical constitution is important for survival. Certainly if you are a member of the clergy, you also have to watch your piety. Piety is lost for sinning, and some may be gained for resisting temptation. If your piety goes below zero, you may be excommunicated by the church, or worse: visited by the devil. The idea offers intriguing options for role playing, but the system unfortunately invites even more bookkeeping. And as you do not want to play Papers & Paychecks, that is not good.

Long lists of saints, demons, devils and pagan gods are provided, together with their areas of influence and areas of disfavor. This game dares to take a Christian stand – and the opposite stand too. Maybe that is why this game was hidden between the occult books.

In practice I found the rules too inaccessible to actually play. As a group we never tried to make heroes for this game and try an adventure. None is provided, so we would have had to make one up anyway. After the bestiary section the book just ends. Maybe that's a pity, as the book offers a huge amount of beautiful innovations.

Then again, to be honest, I took quite a few from its ideas and transformed them to my own game of Dark Dungeon. Playable or not, Fantasy Wargaming presents a milestone in fantasy role playing. Few games dare to use the Christian religion this boldly. And few games dare to leave magic effects so open to player creativity.

RULES 3/5

(rules are innovative, detailed, surprising and fairly realistic, but quite inaccessible)

INSPIRATION 5/5

(the first ninety pages present a good crash course in real medieval society, and the many tables of saints and magic tickle the creative soul)

PLAYABILITY 1/5

(the game is more of a suggestion how fantasy role playing could be, than a playable game in its own right)

GAME FEATURES

(“realistic” medieval fantasy, human based with Christianity and social standing taking a very central place, percentile based checks but with many modifiers based on many different factors, battle rules, a free form magic system allowing great freedom for magi, extensive rules for piety and temptation)

OVERALL 6/10

Classic RPG Review #7: Star Wars RPG

Star Wars, The Roleplaying Game
first edition hardcover
by Greg Costikyan
1987 West End Games

What Tolkien did for Fantasy, Star Wars in a way did for Science Fiction. Or Science Fantasy, more properly, because Star Wars is not exactly hard core Sci Fi, with it's religious Jedi knights waving their light sabres driven by the mystic “Force”. It's a special kind of Science, obviously. And maybe that is partly why the movies became such a phenomenon.

Ten years after the first movie (named part IV), the official Star Wars Roleplaying Game was a fact. A letter-sized hardcover, pleasant to hold, well bound with sixteen extra glossy pages in colour. It's made to be used, and to last nonetheless. And believe it or not, that also goes for the content of the game. It's a good game. And it even managed to keep the feel of the movies.

The book wastes little time on complex rules or exposees. Instead you are quickly invited to choose a hero template and modify it as you wish. You can choose to be a young Jedi, a smuggler, a native, or even a Wookie – although you have to say “ooaarggh” like a wookie and not sound lame. And there are plenty of other options. Statistics are already filled in, and all you have to do is choose a name, and distribute seven dice among your skills. And then you have to decide, together with the other players and the game master how your heroes know eachother. Player interaction is at least as important as statistics.

This game wastes no time on rules. The focus is on story telling and on role playing. Role playing as in play acting and “being” someone else for a while. Game master advice starts on page 29, and not somewhere as an afterthought. This game is closer to theater than to war gaming, and if you ask me that's good. Game introductions are adviced to be scripted in advance by the game master. Each hero is to say a line which conveys where we are and why. And then the game can start. My players are not too keen on having their lines written for them, but I've seen it work well for others. Its innovative at the very least.

The Force and the Dark Side are represented too, in the form of points. Force points allow you to do heroic things or save your ass. Dark side points you get for doing evil things. If you have too many dark side points your hero reverts to the game master. Playing evil heroes or villains is strictly verboten. It's a clear and moralistic choice. But to me it also feels chicken.

What I missed most though is the feel that you can really make a difference as a hero. It seems as if you may only move in the shadows of the demigod Skywalker and his father Vader. You can't do anything big, because that might change the big Star Wars story. And the Star Wars story is holy. So at best you can play the non-influential nephew of the sidekick of the sidekick of Han Solo, and nag endlessly about your insignificance. And since this is not a game about ants but about heroes, that feeling annoys me. So far it even kept me from actually playing more than a scene.

If you ignore the Star Wars canon, maybe. If you spin off your own version of its universe where your players can be the ultimate heroes. Where they can be the last of the last of the Jedi and change the walk of the universe, maybe then. Or maybe if they could play the Dark Side too. Then this good game could be a great game.

RULES 3/5
(rules are elegant, mostly simple, easy to learn, fairly realistic and fairly balanced, but detail sometimes lacks and many extra rolls are needed)
INSPIRATION 5/5
(the game is true to the Star Wars universe, which is a strong backdrop, and its advice to game masters and tips for role playing are abundant)
PLAYABILITY 3/5
(the game is easy to learn, and fun to play, but you can't play Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader or make a real difference in the universe)
GAME FEATURES
(science fantasy true to the earlier Star Wars movies, with humans, wookies and weird creatures, limited skill based with small pools of sixsided dice and bonusses, heroes made from modified templates, “the force” - a sort of magic – is available to some but bound to strict codes, if these codes are broken your hero reverts to “the dark side”)
OVERALL 7/10

Classic RPG Review #6: Middle-Earth Role Playing

boxed set, Games Workshop UK edition

by S. Coleman Charlton

1985 Iron Crown Enterprises

Although fantasy role playing would probably not have existed if it were not for Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels, role players had to wait some ten years before a game could actually use this setting wholesale. This has to do of course, with the rights to the possible multi-million dollar profits such a game might generate. They would wish.

No, maybe the Tolkien heritage just wanted to be sure that their father's creation would not be distorted. That the game would be worthy of the Tolkien name. Or at least of the Middle-Earth name. And that is indeed the only part in which the developers of MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing) seem to have succeeded. With painstaking detail and with painfully small print a good deal of the hundred plus pages of rulebook have been dedicated to description of Silvan Elves, Numenorians, Haradrim, Hobbits and a host of other races unique to the world where Sauron also hides. A Tolkien fan confided to me that the writers may not have been experts, but they know what they write about. So far, so good.

The game system is a simplified version of the ICE (Iron Crown Enterprises) system. Simplified? It seems hard to believe once you flip through the many lists and tables in rather minuscule print. There are tables for encumbrance, encumbrance calculation by profession and race, moving maneuvers, bolt damage, critical hits by fire, bonuses, poisons and diseases, stat deterioration after death, and so on. You name it. It's probably there. The critical hits tables are fun to read if you're in an aggressive mood, but you wouldn't want these hits to ever happen to your heroes.

Reading through the rules I got the impression that the game was devised by miniature war gamers. I don't mean small people playing war games, although that would explain the small print, but war gamers that play with miniatures. War game rules are often also this complex, and the detail always seems more important than game flow. Rummaging through the box and looking at the typical adventure in MERP strengthens this impression. Precise hex sheets (maps) of many locations are provided, and so are cardboard figures of creatures and heroes. And most telling, a typical MERP adventure is a detailed skirmish or a hit and run military mission. Or it's a series of these.

There is little wrong with war gaming. It's better than fighting out wars for real. But role playing evolved away from war gaming. And this game is quite a few steps back towards the war game. Maybe that MERP appeals to hard core war gamers who love this kind of rule detail while they enjoy their beer and pretzels. But my players decided that we should try another game next session, after we spent a complete afternoon trying to make a hero. And we still weren't quite ready to play.

RULES 1/5

(rules are complex, complicated, extremely detailed and possibly overly realistic)

INSPIRATION 3/5

(the game is fairly true to Tolkien's world, in detail, albeit limited to the Third Era, and this is a strong backdrop)

PLAYABILITY 0/5

(even a computer will find the bookkeeping of this game a tough cookie, creating a hero takes longer than the average life expectancy of that hero)

GAME FEATURES

(fantasy true to Tolkien's Middle-Earth, humans, elves, orcs and hobbits, skill based, combat and tasks percentile based with extended critical hit tables, races and professions, magic accessible to some, with spells grouped in lists)

OVERALL 4/10

Classic RPG Review #5: Tunnels & Trolls

boxed set, fifth edition

by Ken St. Andre

1975, 1979 Flying Buffalo

Even in the early days, some people found that D&D was too expensive, too complex, and too commercial. One of these people was Ken St. Andre, and he wrote a simpler dungeon delving game called Tunnels & Trolls. It was cheaper, and it used six-sided dice, which were at that time much easier to obtain than the multifaceted twenty-siders, tetrahedrons, octahedrons and dodekahedrons needed for D&D. The D&D people were not amused, and did not see why they needed competition.

St. Andre thanks the people of the No. 1 game for their groundwork though, and states that his game is sufficiently different to deserve a place of its own. Is it different? Well. Yes and no. Dungeons & Dragons tries to mask that it's mostly a game of search, destroy and loot. Tunnels & Trolls squarely admits that's the whole concept of the game. You build a Dungeon, fill it up with traps, treasure and monsters, and then you invite the demolition team. Once the demolition team has done their jobs, you restack the same Dungeon, change a few things, and invite them in again.

No need for an adventure rationale, no need for a complex storyline, no need for a well conceived backdrop. The Tunnels just are. Like the trenches in the first world war. And that's where the delvers go, to gain glory, gold and power – or to die.

Dying is a lot more likely than during the mid-levels of D&D, so it is advised that players play more than one hero at once. Players do not control a single hero, but they have a whole team of three or four at their disposal. Making a new hero is easier than in most games, probably also because of the death rate. Once you get the hang of it a new hero is made in minutes. It won't have much depth, but where is the need?

Monsters are even easier to make. You just give it a Monster Rating, a figure from 1 to 100 or more, which determines how tough it is. And that's it. You can think up a name for the creature, try to imagine how it looks, or give it special abilities. But for the game you do not need to.

Combat is a team effort in this game. Both combating teams add up all their dice, add all their bonusses, and the highest team wins. This part is especially fun if you have a lot of dice in your home – the rattling sound! The losing team divides the difference equally among it's members, and takes that as damage – either on their armour, shields, or their constitution. Monsters take damage on their monster rating of course, no need to make things complex there. If your constitution or monster rating reaches zero, you're dead.

Heroes with a high IQ may also become wizards. These may cast spells, often with silly names, instead of just adding dice to the pool. As long as the wizard knows a spell, he or she can use it at the expense of strength points. There is no need to decide beforehand what one might need, like in D&D, and that makes the game a lot more flexible and fun. Most later games systems copied this feature, though spell casting then typically drains other statistics than strength. Not all wizards are as muscular as those in T&T.

All in all, the game is fun to play. It's simple and straightforward, even if you have to do a lot of dice rolling and adding up. There are nice illustrations by Liz Danforth, and there is something attractive about mindless slaughter and dungeon demolition. But it also has virtually no depth. So as a player I quickly moved on.

RULES 3/5

(rules are simple, elegant, open ended and not very realistic)

INSPIRATION

2/5 (the game has a thrill of it's own, but source material is limited, and the backdrop is maybe overly simplistic, avoiding any storyline)

PLAYABILITY

2/5 (although the game plays fast and easy, it also bores easily)

GAME FEATURES

(mindless slaughter and looting in a fantasy setting, human based but with dwarves, elves, halforcs, ogres and the like, combat with pooling each side's many six sided dice, limited professions, magic accessible to those of higher IQ)

OVERALL 5/10

Classic Review #4: Call of Cthulhu

boxed set (Games Workshop edition, UK market)

by Sandy Petersen

1981, 1986 The Chaosium

Many horror stories don't end well for their heroes. Many Call of Cthulhu games also don't end well for their heroes. The heroes die, turn into monstrosities, or most often they just go completely and utterly insane because of what they have seen. In that respect the Call is a successful attempt to turn horror into role playing.

But for many players it also makes the game less attractive. Because an insane hero is much harder to play, if the game master allows you to play an insane hero at all. In the original setup writer Sandy Petersen seems to assume people can't or won't play madmen, so they'll just have to make up a new hero. Of course it does not have to be that way. If players and game master do their best, a party of heroes who are complete nutcases may provide some terrific (pardon the pun) adventures.

If you can live with this rather inherent fault in the game concept, or work around it, Call of Cthulhu is a gem among role playing games. It is set in the roaring 1920's of the H.P. Lovecraft horror stories, and one of these stories is also where the name of the game comes from. Lovecraft wrote stylish, typical prose, full of horror and less with plot, but with an atmosphere that is hard to match. The horrors in his stories probably came straight out of the writer's nightmares, teetering on the brink of insanity as he was himself. Things from outer space, tentacles under the sea, dead which are not dead, terrors that flap their many wings and tails in the night.

Most Lovecraft stories are set in New England, so that is where the game also takes place. And in far off archaeological dig sites in Egypt, the Andes and Antarctica. A source book provides ample ideas and feel for the period between the wars. But in my experience a few good history books are also indispensable. Or maybe I just love to give my players a history lesson or two, too. Later game supplements also provide background for heroes from the United Kingdom, and games set in more recent years.

The rules are based on the innovative and realistic Runequest rules, but slightly simpler and with some different details. Heroes actually have professions, which guide the type of skills they may have. One may learn how to use all sorts of firearms, although it is not often that you will use them in the game. Because it's a game of brain, and less of brawn. Insane brain maybe, but brain nonetheless. Insanity is indeed also a central concept. Or rather: sanity. This is a hit point like value which goes down steadily as the heroes encounter the horrible, incredible truth. A truth which is... monstrous and inhuman, usually. The less sanity you have, the more likely you are to go “gaga”. But also, the more you may know about those unspeakable, unknowable truths.

Call of Chthulhu has quite a few good scenarios to play, and many horror stories adapt easily to a home made game. If you have nightmares like I do, these will also provide lots of inspiration. Did I say too much? The hardest part of game mastering is really to hit the right tone of the era. Because it's a real historic time with historic places it feels as if you can fail your exam. How long does one drive from New York to New Hampshire? How common is a driver's license? Do you need one? Who was the president then? Was there prohibition already? How about phones, newspapers, hair dryers, washing machines, national flights – were there any? It's not fantasy where you can make anything up. Or maybe you can. It just doesn't feel that way to me.

And campaigns do not last much longer than the sanity of most of the heroes. That's where I've seen the game break down in practice. Starting up insane heroes who want to be normal is just not too easy. Cthulhu keeps on calling though, and time and again I still play this game – even if we now tweaked the rules to my own system. Nearly twentyfive years now. That's a feat.

RULES 4/5

(rules are logical, elegant, flexible and quite realistic. They are in fact better or at least easier than their Runequest equivalent)

INSPIRATION 4/5

(The game is provided with large amounts of background, period source book and adventures. And it's easy to pull out history books and horror stories to adapt to your own games.)

PLAYABILITY 4/5

(especially if horror is your genre, the game is easy to play and master, the only thing is that you have to dig that this is a game where the heroes are bound to lose. They either save the world and go insane, or they die.)

GAME FEATURES

(horror set in the real 1920's, in the style of H.P. Lovecraft, human heroes but supernatural horrors as enemies, skill based with professions, percentile based combat and tasks, separate roll for damage, magic hard to learn but accessible to the debilitating and insane)

OVERALL 8/10

Classic RPG Review #3: RuneQuest

First Edition Boxed Set, Games Workshop version (UK market)

by Steve Perrin, Ray Turney and friends

1980 The Chaosium

Certainly in the days the game was published, its cover was sure to draw a boy's attention. And a girl's attention too, maybe. The lady on the cover is not only beautiful and fighting a vicious lizard, she is also hardly wearing anything. Yes, she does wear a helmet and some scant armour, but I would not want to go into combat in her clothes. Then again, she is very nice to look at. I see now she even wears make up. Hm.

The rules are boxed, with classy dice of all sorts, a rules booklet, a prerolled monster booklet, a sample adventure and a small booklet called Basic Role Playing. And this last booklet may be the best deal in the package. Aside from that cover of course. Basic Role Playing is a simple role playing system, loosely based on Runequest but without the frills and without the complicating details. It's a well written, clear and enticing introduction to role playing. So it's a shame it is “Not to be sold separately”. It's still one of the best introductions to the game I know. For game masters too.

Runequest itself is a bit more complicated, but it is also well written and easy to understand. And if you should fail to understand anyway there are many examples featuring “Rurik the Restless”. He is the type of young adventurer you are obviously supposed to play. Not always too smart, but very willing to learn. There even is humour in most examples, and some nice black and white artwork.

Runequest is still one of the most realistic games around. That was also its selling point. But there is realism and realism. Among my friends it became known as “the limb chopping game”. You can actually hit a specific arm, leg or head in this game, and without armour a bit of a sword will most certainly severe the extremity from the body. So everyone in this game wears a lot of armour. Not like the lady on the cover.

Tasks in the game are resolved rolling percentile dice. One ten-sided die for the tens, another for the single figures. To succeed, you have to roll lower or equal to your skill percentage. And if you roll very low you may have a critical success. Double 0 is one hundred, and means a fumble or botch up – you break your sword, hit yourself, or stumble and fall. This sometimes unnerving, but very funny innovation is one of Runequest's gifts to many later games. If you used a skill during a game, you may try to increase it by rolling a percentage above your skill. So after a typical session the dice are shaken like it's a regular casino.

There is battle magic too, and as everyone can learn spells, everyone does learn spells. And everyone may eventually become a Rune Lord or Lady. There are no clear classes or professions either, making everyone a generic adventurer. Everyone plays a Rurik or Rurka the Restless, it seems, the only difference being the number of limbs you have left.

There the beautifully crafted Runequest game goes a bit awry. It gets worse once you try to play the provided “Apple Lane” adventure. To me it felt like stepping into a kiddie cartoon, not into an exciting fantasy novel. And then there are non-human races like “ducks”, humanoids with heads of ... ducks. A crafty game master could still make a scary game out of the given ingredients. But in most people's hands, certainly if they are beginners, at best it will become silly.

Yet I have the impression that Glorantha, the original fantasy world which Runequest uses, is a very inspiring and magical place. Greg Stafford, who also wrote the Basic Role Playing booklet, thought the place up for a different goal. Maybe for unwritten novels or just as an exercise in fantasy. But Runequest does not seem to fit in completely, and most of Glorantha remains shrouded in mystery. Maybe the Runequest politically correct, emancipated unisex approach to adventure hid it away.

RULES 4/5

(rules are innovative, logical, elegant, flexible and sometimes painfully realistic. Low damage is however hardly possible, making the game often too deadly. As an added minus, a fair amount of bookkeeping is involved.)

INSPIRATION 2/5

(Glorantha may be a very inspiring world, but what's left of it in Runequest is alas a bit stale)

PLAYABILITY 3/5

(playing the game is fairly easy, keeping it exciting is harder because the backdrop is so unclear)

GAME FEATURES

(ancient world fantasy, in the tradition of Conan or ancient Persia, human centred but with elves, dwarves, dragonnewts, trolls and ducks, skill based with virtually no differing professions, percentile based combat and tasks, separate roll for damage, separate hit locations each with their own armour, magic accessible to all)

OVERALL 6/10

Classic RPG Review #2: Traveller

Starter Edition and Booklets 4 (Mercenary) and 5 (High Guard)

by Marc W. Miller

1983 Game Designers' Workshop

For a long time, Traveller was the only science fiction role playing game worth knowing about. There were many others of course, including a D&D spin off, but there was no serious contender. What D&D was for fantasy, Traveller was for Science Fiction.

Strangely enough the game does not really allow you to play a typical Star Wars or Star Trek campaign. The rules allow for Phaser and Blaster-like weapons, but these are typically much more high tech than what the players have. And Traveller is somewhat darker, more corporate, militaristic and less friendly than these two blockbuster phenomenae. You can however style your Traveller campaign more easily to Blake's Seven, Alien, or the more recent Firefly series.

Like the original set, the starter set is boxed with booklets in stylish black covers. There is little artwork inside, and it's all black and white, but it's still nice to look at. One book contains the rules, the other contains all sorts of tables needed in the game. It's not as bad as the math supplement needed in college, but it comes close. And it has the same almost magical appeal for others, like me. These tables uncover new worlds, literally in this case.

Because much of the Traveller game is generating stuff, by rolling dice. You generate heroes, generate their histories and careers, generate worlds, generate encounter tables, and later the encounters themselves and you generate or rather design starships and vehicles. As you roll the dice subsectors of the unknown universe grow under your hands.

It's not the same as role playing, but I loved it. I even wrote computer routines to handle the tables and dice for me. Whole new universes rolled out of my printer. I just had to interpret the codes.

At the same time I longed for playing or mastering a Traveller campaign. And that is where the game falls short. It does not provide a strong adventuring concept. You can run lots of small military style missions, commissioned by so called “patrons”, but there is no true backdrop to your stories. The starter set does not mention a Dark Empire that threatens Freedom and Democracy. Nor does it sport a clearly corrupt Federation for whom the heroes have to hide and flee. There are not even any dungeons to rid of their monsters and treasure.

Consequently I played very few Traveller games. Shame.

Subsequent Traveller editions did have more inspiring backdrops, and supplements and adventures published in White Dwarf magazine tried to remedy the gap. One very nice concept in these was the computer virus which made ship's computers sentient, and hostile to their crew and passengers. Nasty. But it didn't really help me or my friends. Most preferred fantasy after all, or missed the magic, or they wanted something more like Star Wars or Star Trek – and never both.

Still, Traveller holds a favorite place on my bookshelves. The rules are simple, fairly realistic in that they make you avoid combat, and balance seems to be little of a problem as the heroes hardly change over a series of adventures. New skills are seldom learned, and old ones seldom become better. No growth like that in this game, sorry! Instead most fun in Traveller is before the playing. Its career and world generation tables are first class: a solitary game in themselves.

RULES 4/5

(rules are elegant, and fairly flexible and realistic. They do lack some detail however and have little room for growth during the game)

INSPIRATION 3/5

(although the career and world generating systems are very inspiring, the rest of the background is scetchy and it needs effort to mold into a campaign)

PLAYABILITY 3/5

(although the rules are fairly clear, a great burden is laid in the hands of the game master to make the game work)

GAME FEATURES

(hard core, slightly militaristic science fiction in the traditions of Niven and Heinlein, mostly human centred, skill based but virtually limited to military careers, almost no progression possible, 2d6 based combat and tasks with die modifiers based on skills and abilities, some limited psionic talents may be acquired by the heroes – such as telepathy and clairvoyance)

OVERALL 7/10