Tabletop Tales | Geekscape

Kingdom Death Monster 1.5 Triple Funded

by NecroscourgeDecember 11, 2016

Returning with a vengeance and on it’s last month of funding is the new Kingdom Death Monster Kickstarter Campaign sitting pretty at 7.3 million in funding and three times it’s original backers. The project revolves around a 1.5 edition of the core game being printed along with an ever-growing list of secondary and tertiary expansion content; with an update kit tier for those that already own the core game. I keep calling it a new “edition” but my understanding is that it’s a reprint with a new expansion tucked inside it that lengthens the core game with an even more final boss. And announced during the campaign is the new Screaming God expansion that adds further final bossness. Because hey, game was too easy amirite?

In addition to the core game the campaign presents the Gamblers Chest, otherwise known as “The Gigantic Box Of Expansions”. Every day or two Adam Poot’s rolls 2D10 and updates the boxes contents accordingly. Inside is everything from advanced game rules, “Narrative Character” mini-expansions, topless men with solid iron nipple-rings, and more! It’s basically for people like me that must have every single bit of game content or I feel dead inside.

I’ve been watching this campaign extremely closely because I feel like it’s a landmark for the tabletop hobby as a whole. Adam Poots is using Kickstarter exactly for what most people argue it should be for: Pushing through a complex labor of love project no sane corporation would touch. This lack of executive meddling is part of what makes the game so organic in presentation.With less than a month to go and plenty of content to reveal it’s too early to wrap up exactly what your pledge will get you besides many, many miniatures; even now there are monsters in the darkness that have yet to make themselves fully known to us.

I keep calling the game complex, why? Having watched a lot now I know that the table setup is pretty manageable compared to other big box games. There’s less than ten miniatures on the table at any time, all of the decks are placed in specific places in a neat row during play, and you assemble miniatures as they are needed session by session. Those are major selling points, but I call it complex because of how extremely intimidating the game can be for the uninitiated. Looking at any individual part of the game, the kick-starter campaign, or really anything KDM related without the entire product as context can be absolutely maddening like an eldritch artifact. You really do have to watch a full session of the game being played before your brain clicks and you get it, just reading a rulebook won’t do. And that’s also a selling point.

Kingdom Death Monster is currently on it’s last month of it’s Kickstarter Campaign. To sum up what’s what: Kingdom Death Monster 1.5 is the core game, the Gamblers Chest is a big box of extra game content, and the other expansions are large chunks of extra game content.

Tabletop Tales: The Art of Fightyness

by NecroscourgeNovember 6, 2016

So you got invited, sat down at the table, you have your character. What now? Depending on your GamesMaster and fellow players every table has a different attitude on roleplaying, and I can’t pretend there is a right way to do things when that is concerned. But what will inevitably happen is the GM will shout “Initiative!” and everybody will scramble to find and roll their dice. Combat has begun.

First we need to look down at our handy dandy character sheet to figure out what our purpose in combat is. If you are playing Dungeons and Dragons or it’s twin brother Pathfinder you have a character class that typically spells out what you do; but for now let’s just assume we don’t know the difference. You’re looking for your weapon and any numbers that have to do with using it, ask your GM. Alternatively you might have magical spells with strange names, ask your GM to help you look them up; but a merciful GM has summarized the spell in parenthesis next to the name on your sheet.

Maps have a grid that represents five foot areas for characters to move in.

The roles I am accustomed with are as follows: The “Tank” is heavily armored, and typically heavily armed. Their job is to run into the breach, sword swinging. “Supports” are combatants that can fight near the front, but also wield healing or beneficial spells/abilities. Your “Squishies” are lightly armored heavy damage dealers that have low survivability but can do intense damage in a few turns. Rogues and War Magicians are what I think of as Squishies. You can go into a lot more detail in defining these roles but recognizing these three will help a great deal in helping you figure out what to do.

Eventually it will be your turn. In most RPG systems you have two actions (A movement and combat action), but there are many different styles. One game called Poison’d does not have a typical combat system at all but a threat escalation system where situations gradually becomes more violent. Assuming we’re in a two action system, you will want to move up along with your allies and attempt to always get your actions worth. Avoid passing your turn or holding your action if possible, because you’re potentially wasting an opportunity to help your team.

If you moved up you will get attacked. How this tends to work is they will roll dice, and if they rolled high/low enough then you are dealt damage. Sometimes you get an armor or saving roll but in most systems you just get hurt. Fall back and heal yourself if you have to, but also consider finishing the enemy off and healing afterwards. In dungeon based RPGs you can rest to regain hit points, so don’t waste your healing potions if you don’t have to. And remember: Victory is not so much a success as it is an absence of total and complete failure.

Should you be reduced to zero hit points, you will normally be knocked unconscious so an ally can revive you; granted you will probably be bleeding out and expire soon if they don’t. The exception is in games with guns in them, where the written rules make it easy to get shot in the head and go down in a turn. The other week in Shadowrun I tried participating in a fight wearing light armor and got shot once, nearly killing me.

ttt2 — A basic fight situation in closed quarters

For most tables it’s as easy as that. You’ll probably get some experience points from the fight and you’ll continue on role playing and exploring. Your first three or so fights will be again fairly trivial things, but you’ll find the more you play the harder it gets; the GM is feeling you all out to see how to behave in fights.

Good luck and happy hunting.

The Grognardies: Kingdom Monster Death

by NecroscourgeSeptember 25, 2016

The Grognardies is a series where we highlight the nerdiest and most intense games of imagination and thought; ones that take so much effort to master and play that to call them a hobby is an understatement. Titles that portray Imagination, Design, and Commitment to the hobby in top form. Such tabletop games are worthy of an award of it’s own class: A Grognardy.

Imagination is the titles ability to not only transport the players to a different place but a place that makes so little sense it makes a sense all of it’s own. Good Design principles weave this imaginative fabric into an experience worth celebrating. A title that rewards not only the physical Commitment put into assembling and playing it, but demonstrates the hobby as a whole as it is played.

Kingdom Death: Monster is an indie project that was kickstarted back in 2012 by Adam Poots resulting in over two million dollars worth of funding, far surpassing his $35k goal. Part of this is due to the $400 MSRP of the core game buying you seven different monsters (varying from beginner to expert level hobby kit complexity), around thirty two survivors worth of parts, as well as all of the gameplay materials. Thankfully the pieces you need are on a sprue marked Prologue and should be what you assemble first, giving you four naked people and an evil lion beast. Everything else can be assembled later, this is already far more generous than comparative games. From there you need to grab one to three other people and then gather around the table with the promises of pizza and lion killing.

kdm4 — …And the expansions add another half-box to this

From the very start of the game session the players are steeped in Imagination as a player reads out the plight of the first four survivors, plunging the party into a tutorial battle. The prologue chapter then walks the players through the first session with the full intent of them reading the book together right after setup, filled with colorful art and diagrams to help them confront the giant lion threatening to eat them. The Prologue acts as a fantastic grounding place in the setting, immediately guiding players into how to go about fighting what will be the only easy fight of the campaign. This is an opportunity to teach people that loudly complain about not knowing how to play tabletop games how to do so.

The setting forces you to fill in many of the blanks by showing you images and describing cultural norms of the setting alongside putting you through their fight for survival. This is a setting that grabs hold of you and changes you forever. Kind of like the first time you watch Animal House or date a girl that likes pegging. You very quickly start scanning the rules for loopholes and ways to make your life easier, but this game has been rigorously play-tested to be as Nintendo hard as possible.

kdm9 — Only real men fight lions with just a sharp rock and cloth wrapped around them

A play session after the Prologue consists of a Hunting Phase where the survivors track down a monster and fight it in the Showdown Phase; where they can hopefully slay it and bring it back to town for resources to use in the Settlement Phase. Once the settlement has allocated it’s labor and prepared the next hunting party a lantern is removed to mark the end of a Lantern Year and the days session. Each Lantern Year takes two to four hours to complete, after which you are encouraged to put the game away and breath. Many tabletop games take three hours minimum to complete and only get longer, since the game has no internal mechanism to pace the players.

The risk and reward in fighting monsters is immense. Not only do you have a growing list of monsters your settlement may hunt but you may fight any enemy in game at a power level from one to three, with the third level monsters having the toughest mixtures of AI cards and a bunch of passive cards that they just start with. The cool thing is because the monsters AI deck is dismantled through wounding it; the monster gets a little more predictable as you fight it. Even if you hunt the same monster a few times to complete a set, you can fight drastically differently versions of them for different levels of reward(including a fourth Legendary version that’s EVEN HARDER). Wimping out and only fighting weaker monsters will just lead to the end boss waking up on the twenty-fifth Lantern Year and decimating you; assuming your bare bones playstyle has not gotten you killed by then.

At first you're crudely equipped — At first you’re crudely equipped

The brilliance in KD:M’s Design is it all follows a central survival horror theme, gives players a base of operations and most importantly guides the players through the first session to explicitly avoid players becoming too confused. The Prologue chapter does it’s job of introducing the combat and settlement system, being kind of easy but make no mistake: The gloves come off the very next Lantern Year. The rules are written with the purest intention of introducing and killing off characters from week to week, so in what must be an act of divine pity the majority of equipment is salvaged off dead survivors; the players represent the will of the settlement to live more than anything else.

What tends to hurt the replayability of other games is that you start off the same way every time and do the same thing the same way every time. The core of KD:M‘s campaign can be approached in many ways, several of the choices made in the first few sessions effect events far down the line. Expansions in the form of new monsters not only add onto the core campaign but like the Dragon King and Sunstalker add whole new campaign starts that tweak the rules of the core campaign but plays in the regular Lantern Year format; and later expansions promise to lengthen the core campaign with more final bosses. As a reminder, you can fight every monster at levels 1-3, progressively becoming even harder to kill and ontop of all that: a more difficult 5-6 hunting party variant exists for those that hate life and want it to stop.

As you fight more monsters you get the chance to craft better equipment

Everything about KD:M bleeds not just the Commitment that Mr. Poots put into organizing the release but into improving the hobby as a whole. While the art direction of several monsters and characters is questionable at least, but it kind of has this “Frank Frazetta, Mark Bode, and Pablo Picasso collaborating on an artbook taking LSD” appeal to it that starts to grow on you. These influences blend together so nicely you just fall right into the world and accept it.

Something I do need to bring up is the controversy surrounding the influences above. Pretty much any style of super high fantasy/horror inevitably works in human sexuality somewhere; KD:M cranks this up to 11. The rulebook has art pieces on every other page loaded with high octane fetish fuel not for the faint of heart, the writing instills a tone of certain doom, and the internal magic of this realm seems to inflate every woman’s chest to triple-E proportions both off and on the table. The worst examples are expansion and promotional boxes while the core games armor sets and monsters are still pretty damn questionable but nowhere near as bad. If you even vaguely think the art and models are too much for you then I assure you they are. And if you don’t like the idea of monsters with human mouths on them eating people whole then just… walk away.

The sexualized pinup line is usually what catches fire from critics. They are single miniatures that are allegedly non-canon and depict females in bikini’s made of various materials. And then there legitimate expansions like Fade, whose titular character is matronly proportioned and a strong breeze can rob her of modesty. The game itself is quite respectful of the subject and is far more interested in detailing body horror than body proportions. In fact sometimes you wish they would talk dirty to distract you from the horrible things going on.

If I ever had to make a game that enshrines everything that embodies fantasy horror and weds it with modern gaming theory, it would probably end up looking pretty close to Kingdom Death: Monster. Everything a long time nerd wants is in there: Base building, monster hunting, crafting, immersion, and a game that fights back. At it’s mechanical core this is a really, really messed up tabletop campaign that is influenced a little bit by everything doused in nightmare fuel. It’s best marketed as a cooperative hobby tabletop experience, something everybody can chip in on and enjoy.

At this point you may be thinking that this is all well and good but how would you get your own copy? An issue with the quality of the core set is that it has to be printed in limited runs right now and it’s totally sold out. I would guesstimate only 7000~ copies exist. But the good news a reprinting campaign is rumored to start by the end of the year.

Tabletop Tales: ‘Out Of The Abyss’

by NecroscourgeDecember 1, 2015

Warnings adventurer; spoilers ahead!

Wizards of the Coast’s strategy with the D&D Fifth Edition book has been seasonal story arcs that are a series of themed adventures meant to run characters from beginning to end. Out of the Abyss marks the start of the ‘Rage of Demons’ storyline, and is for a group of first level characters and ends with them all at fifteenth level. While the previous storylines were more suited for novice players; this book is far from introductory. While the other storylines also support levels one to fifteen they are more focused on dungeons rather than exploring an entire underground region.

Out of the Abyss is based in ‘The Underdark’, the underworld beneath the surface consisting of caves and tunnels. The party has been captured and brought to a small slave encampment south of Darklake, hidden amidst the webs of the Dark Elves favorite pets. Failure to escape timely will mean getting carted off to the Drow Capital as slaves. The leading jailers are detailed in personality, but the most amazing thing is the sheer amount of characters you meet in just the cells you’re thrown into. This list includes a monster that proclaims he is an transformed Elf, another is a gamblo-holic Deep Gnome, an Orc bully, and a fish-person monk that proclaims he has found the true way. Despite starting with so many characters you only get more and more throughout the story.

As quirky as they seem, these initial allies almost seem barely noted when introduced. This is because Wizards of the Coast uses an organization method that assumes the reader is familiar with the trinity (Players Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual) as any text in bold is a reference to that exact word in one of them, typically obvious by the context. This results in a lot of cross-referencing book by book, and the difficulty of some encounters isn’t immediately obvious until you look up the creature’s statistics. This works both against and in your favor; especially as the book randomly declares earth elementals are helping you fight; or when you meet Glabbagool the friendly Gelatinous Cube.

The Underdark is detailed so well in this book it doubles as a general setting book. From the parties escape they can go in any direction, and pretty much anywhere. Well, sort of. There is a town very close by in one direction and a enourmous sentient fungus cave network in the other. From the town the more obvious path is to traverse the Darklake to Gracklestugh. Assuming the grey dwarves don’t enslave you or feed you to their red dragon; there is a more ideal path to the dwarvern city of Gauntlegrym. Much of the book assumes the players want to go to the surface yet the storyline actually picks up in a dwarven city at the middle-ish layer of the Underdark. While this is obviously the ideal route; the Underdark is never a place of straight paths. When the players get lost all sorts of things might appear in their way, such as the long lost crypt of an ancient sorcerer or the Temple of Ooze.

Abyss1 — The best and only image that explains where anything is in the Underdark

Every single location, no matter how minor it may be, is detailed with a set of general features that are always in effect while the players are there. Usually this builds on the basic “It’s dark down here” description of lighting, adding hazards like slender crevices, pollution, spider webs, and other environmental hazards. Chief among them is the unique type of wild magic field that permeates the Underdark: Faerzress. Not only will spells act a little wonky in areas where this mysterious energy flows but staying in them too is hazardous to your mental health. Sanity, and it’s sudden demise down below is a central theme to the adventure. Every race and monster is experiencing sudden lapses of insanity and strange behavior. Several of the party members may come down with bouts or permanent madness conditions; writing additional flaws and personality traits on the characters sheet. Some of these are harmless, some comedic, others entertainingly dangerous. Gazing upon a demon lord is the surest way to go crazy, each has their own personal madness table that generates the conditions players suffer.

Each location has several things going on. Power struggles, assaults, dangers, and all manner of side-quests for the players. The party is often a deniable asset that the local leaders can fling at whatever issue has come up. While it’s not immediately obvious, the book is written in a way that leaves a lot to the GM’s discretion. The most important story quest of the game: gathering ingredients for the final ritual, is a list that can be added to and taken away from in a way that goads players to go to specific places. Many of the initial NPC’s have general things they try to do listed, rather than any specific dialogue. This aspect of the book severely limits its use to inexperienced players; as it takes a creative mind that knows how to put this all together in a way players can process.

Abyss4 — Prince Derendil: Slave, Ally, Nutjob.

Every aspect of ecology and society is investigated within the book. Many monsters have “Roleplaying as” sidebars that encapsulate how you would roleplay those creatures. The actual monster manual entries lack such information, while this book ties together a lot that is alluded to in other books. The recently released Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide barely mentions the Underdark, as this pretty much is the Underdark book. Creatures that otherwise are listed as just “monsters” in one book come to life when explained in this one. It’s written in a factual tone unlike the SCAG which is written from the tone of a dwarf adventurer. So while the SCAG is cryptic and alludes to all sorts of weird things, those things are addressed in this book in full.

The major new content comes in the form of stats for several demon lords (two of which only barely mentioned in the Monster Manual.) pose as the end bosses of the adventure. They have the tendency to just pop up every now and then, each is hiding out somewhere in the Underdark. In Dungeons and Dragons cosmology if you kill a demon on its home plane it’s dead for good, and if you kill it while it’s summoned to another it just reforms on their home plane. The adventures whole point is essentially to clean up a mess the Dark Elves made.

Abyss3 — Each Demon Lord as they appear in Out of the Abyss.

Something that always bothers me about the end of “End of the world” story arcs in video games is the story suddenly gets very rushed at the end as we suddenly go “Alright let’s do this!” and the setup often overshadows the actual deed. The climax reads this way. The final acts of the story are collecting a series of ingredients for calling all of the rampant demon lords together so that you can fight the survivor; as written it’s always Demogorgon (Rightmost above). A variant rule exists letting players control a demon lord in a minigame fight but the end result should still be the same: A boss fight against a weakened demon lord. Still difficult, but with the players all at level 15 and given serious bonus it’s not the hardest fight in the book.

Don’t get me wrong. Assuming you had to fight Demogorgan he still most certainly will hit you, and his attacks drain your maximum hit point total; being reduced to zero means instant death. While other Demon Lords do significantly less damage and lack any such effect. The book was clearly written to make him seem powerful, despite this book being the triumphant return of Zuggtmoy the Lady of Rot and Decay. She get’s far more potential face time than he does! She can be talked to in her lair, and a whole chapter revolves around going to the World Fungus to stop her from marrying it. Yes. Really.

If you are gathering books to play Fifth Edition then I would highly recommend this book be part of your collection. It’s well written with support from Green Ronin Publishing; one of my favorite companies. If you have some Dungeon Mastering experience and want one book to last you for a few months than you will find Out of the Abyss is a book that just keeps on giving.

For me, this book summons Five out of Five Demon Lords

Tabletop Tales: ‘Dystopian Wars’: ALL The Tanks!

by NecroscourgeNovember 8, 2015

As any long time wargamer will tell you, it all started with minimal forces and a struggling concept of the game’s rules. My British friends have been congratulating me on my newfound addiction, while also advising me that crack is cheaper. It’s generally a sign of acceptance when you are buying as much paint and models as I am!

The quarterly order I put in just before Halloween is going to finish up my demand of Grench models for the time being, as well as equip me with enough paint to begin that process. I’ll be starting with a base grey primer coat and build from that, limiting how much detailing I have to do on weapons and armor. Neighbors models will have a green coat to tell them apart on the table. Don’t expect anything master class out of me, but I have read enough on the topic to do a decent enough job.

Esc3 — My neighbor exclusively plays FSA, and will be painting his own fleet.

I’m at the point where I’m planning for a table, which I’m going to paint specially to make it clear where the No-Man’s Land is; the neutral zone between the two territories. It’ll be 5’x4’; reluctantly accepting the reality of having to store it. It won’t be a dull board either, I’m going to mark it up a little for “basic” scenery such as trenches and roads. The theory being that by having them there I’d be able to field extra infantry and put them in a safe spot. Infantry aren’t really a big focus point anyway, the idea is that by making them extremely hard to hit I’m forcing the attention on other units while they move forward.

It has become clear that it takes a handful of times playing, re-reading the rules, and then playing again before you start playing what can be considered a fair, proper game. Having tasted the old land movement rules and embraced the new ones I can say they greatly streamline the ability to use land units; at the same time making land based large units a nightmare in some circumstances. I still have a difficult time lining up the forward guns of the Mauselle up, while he has easier and easier times maneuvering his landship into firing position. In general the FSA has strong broadsides, being able to maneuver their broadside tanks is an immediate buff for them. Now If I could just find a way to order the dang things.

This week’s reading of the manual has helped a great deal in fixing a lot of my mistakes and the forum communities been helping me with whatever questions I have. It does not help that the rules are written in long delicate sentences that complicate the point trying to be made, while unofficial cards with the stats and rules can easily sum up any of those rules in a blurb. Don’t try to learn this game if you flunked English 2. There are a lot of rules mentioned somewhere separately inthan where it applies; All FSA Capital’s (‘Cept robots) have snipers on them that get a special non-attack-attack against models to pick off some troops. No reminders exist on relevant units entries hence why we always forget to use it.

Esc2 — Covenant of Antarctica flying battlegroup, fear the skyships!

My opponent is still hiding behind his damn bunker complex. In general the American land units have strange firing arcs that are ambiguous at best; contrasted by fairly clear firing arcs on most other factions. The way he makes up for this is having disastrously good artillery and powerful boarding squads. He has not played them this way yet, but he is capable of mounting his own tank offensive to uproot me. Well sort of, the issue with the Americans is that their models are old designs that operate in old whacky ways. Both of their frontline tanks lack a forward turret but have things like broadside guns, or for the Trenton four diagonal facing fixed guns. Then glance over to my table, you’ll have a hard time finding a French model without some kind of front aiming gun (Unless you immediately point at the Arbalete, but that’s cheating)

I, of course have a plan for dealing with his puny army. I’m ordering my skimmers, floating naval ships capable of turning with minimal effort. They will be able to zoom deep into the enemy’s front lines like cavalry to harass him long enough to set up shots with my angrier tanks. I considered the HQ skimmer but it’s expensive to field and I’d rather use the points fielding chasseur squads (Floaty Cruiser + Floaty Frigate x2). There is a lot of joy to be had in units that can move half speed, fire, then move the rest of their speed; all while being capable of making turns naval ships typically can’t make. Despite being mounted on flying bases, they are not really fliers but instead are more or less surface units incapable of being anti-aired.

Something I am hoping to do is get more people interested in wargaming; It’s just too hard to find anything other than Warhammer players locally. Miniature Market has about 200 Dystopian Wars items on clearance still. All you really need for two players is one armies 2.0 starter box (it comes with materials the old ones don’t) and from there get a landship or two, four squads worth of mediums, and a box of smalls of another nation (I’d also argue get a pack of fighter tokens for each nation too!). Combined that with tape measure, some dice, and a table, and you have a game. That’s more or less what I did and I have been doing fine. I think it’s a good game for teenagers too, as itforces them to do a lot of quick mental math.

As to those wondering “What happened to DnD? Did he stop playing?” and the answer is hell no. In fact, I preordered the new Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide and plan on doing a write up of that combined with the Rage of Demons storyline book “Out of the Abyss” in a week or two when they arrive. I also have a ton of recorded audio of my weekly game I plan on doing a few mega-cut’s for. I promise to get that out before the next rapture happens.

Tabletop Tales: Dystopian Wars Beginnings

by NecroscourgeSeptember 27, 2015

For a long time it’s been difficult to get into hobby war-games such as Battletech or Warhammer, usually because of the price; since Games Workshop and other major developers are European it can get very pricey for what is essentially molded material with game rules. Games Workshop is the notorious one here, currency conversion rates increase kit prices; not something to look forward to when you’re mandated to own most of your armies models to even consider playing the game. This has cemented the price of miniatures in general at an average rate of $20-30 for a squad and $100+ per army. My goal was to have two legitimate forces for under $60 each while also having something “nice to present” even unpainted and playable with minimal assembly.

DW2 — Dystopian Wars armies look great when painted and gathered

No matter how long I did my research I kept finding myself looking at Dystopian Wars for its scale and simplicity. The basic plot is that Antarctica discovered an special element (Sturginium) allowing for the construction of gigantically proportioned weapons and vehicles; leading to a WW1 style scenario where everybody declared war against somebody else dividing into Imperial Bond or Grand Coalition forces with Antarctica hating both. The element allows for crazy things like colossal warships, battleships, tanks, and more.

The majority of the online community for DW plays with naval armies, I couldn’t find many Armored or any Air forces being played on Youtube. For the sake of gigantic tank battalions I optioned for Armored forces to start with; since the rules allow for mixing a little bit of air or even floating naval units to my force list should I wish to. Naval and Air models can have large turn widths while most Armored units use the 45 degree template.

DyWar1 — The “Operation: Shadow Hunter” box contains enough models and scenarios for two players to learn the game

Half of my order consisted of “older” print models while the rest were newer ones. Besides various different shades of resin, there’s no noticeable difference between the old and new castings. One thing I did notice though is that the 1.0 army boxes lacked the “MK1” drop-on choice for the Taka-Ashi landship inside while the 2.0 boxes had all the options for the units contained with one exception: The Russian box landship drop-on does not match the one in the picture, thankfully not having any specific game rules like other drop-on’s have.

As others have mentioned in unboxing these miniatures the majority of the models have imperfections on the bottom of the figures where people won’t see them, and the turrets had ugly flashing on them (like all pewter parts made ever) that sometimes didn’t clean up as well as they should. Each model has many fine details, some of which represent the models weapons. In cases like tiny fighter tokens coloring them differently sets them apart by type and in some cases denote Ace wings

DSCF0766 — Army lists are composed out of models organized into Squadrons, bigger models are put in smaller Squadrons.

As for craftsmanship the models are top shelf yet come with no documentation for assembly or play (the old blisters had outdated rules-cards, boxes had nothing). Since the majority of vehicles are single pieces or have one or two dropped on parts this isn’t that bad, until you get something like a mobile airfield with parts that are not immediately obvious in their purpose. In cases like the “Taka-Ashi” walker and “Mauselle” mobile airfield several parts must be permanently glued before the model can be used while the other 99% of my models can be freely packed and unpacked with little risk of damage and minimal assembly, often sharing parts of the same factional design (turrets for example are often shared by several models from the same army list)

DSCF0765 — Heat Lance Tanks are great for blasting high value targets!

I went for the French for the design of the above plane flinging Arbelete support tank, which contributes to the number and strength of my support aircraft; every force gets ten free wings of support planes but carriers and models like the Arbelete grant additional air support. My French strategy is to cover my advance with dive bombers and fighter screens. My second army is built of a Russian core and Tank-Hunter box along with extra Orlov heavy tanks. I found myself meeting the goal of having enough units to play a reasonably sized game between my French and Russians, having already ordered a Russian landship to supplement the fleet.

Each box may of lacked any type of rules but did come with sets of game aides (tokens, templates, etc) that must be cut apart before use rather than being punch-outs. The 2.0 core boxes each came with a set of command cards used for the game and a set of super teeny tiny dice for the infantry and plane trays, while both came with enough infantry tokens I found myself wishing I had more of the plane trays you can seemingly only buy from Spartan Games. What I didn’t know it came with was a single random objective marker (from objective markers box set) and with my French I got the best one…

While I may be complaining about the lack of any game related materials being in any of the boxes besides tokens and templates it’s not like all of the faction unit lists and the game’s rule-book aren’t a free download on the Spartan Games website. I was able to learn the game far before I had the miniatures to move around on the table, meaning I didn’t have to sit around thinking “What if I hate the rules but love the miniatures?” and was able to make a fairly informed decision before pulling the trigger. Many miniatures games do release their rules free now, but this only started recently.

As for the rules of Dystopian Wars, it’s an “I go, you go” style war-game where one player moves a squad of units, shoots with all weapons he can, then the next player does the same. Unlike other miniature games however there is an extreme focus on individual unit play-styles, every different size class of unit and type of weapon can behave specially within a fairly easy to learn rule-set. Every type of attack uses the same “build a dice pool from six sided die” mechanic with sixes usually “exploding”; meaning that you get to count that six AND reroll a die to potentially roll another six.

DSCF0773 — The mobile airfield may look impressive but requires glue before it can be used without falling loose

Bigger vehicles just naturally have better dice pools where smaller models need to gather into 2-5 model squads to roll the same kind of big dice pools. This gives lot of credibility to a balanced force list as well as an experimental one where some games favor specific play-styles more than others. In addition to models the player uses a set of command cards to directly influence the battlefield at the expense of giving the other side victory points for doing so. Destroyed models yield half points, while captured capital models yield double their points. Victory is obtained through gathering enough points to fulfil the objective rolled at the start of the game (or drew through the objective cards provided in the core boxes) normally mandating you destroy enough of a certain size class of enemy vehicles.

So the conclusion is like any other hobby war-game, you need some money to spend to gradually increase the size and amount of forces to play with. Though if you play Call of Duty this should be nothing new to you. Dystopian Wars is a game you can buy into very cheaply because of how long it’s been around and it still gets support from its developer (new models have been appearing bi-monthly). It’s a game you and your friends can transition into, strategize, and replay for quite some time.

DSCF0767 — The Russian Coalition solves its problems through large caliber guns

Tabletop Tales: ‘Sengoku’

by NecroscourgeSeptember 11, 2015

Sengoku is a rare gem of authors that care about a subject so much they translate it entirely into text with little editing or ease of movement. The tone is rich in history and proclaims itself for anywhere from one to 180,000 players assuming you wish to reenact the Battle of Sekigahara on a 1:1 scale. Sengoku means “warring states” and refers to the period where Japan was in civil war with little true leadership and most citizenry armed and very ready to wage war for personal honor. It’s the time many people think of when you say things like samurai and ninja. While other games view the character by default as heroic and powerful the opposite is true here.

A huge focus of the game is in clan and Japanese politics, including matters of court and honor. The very first rules the game teaches you is the circumstances and process in which you commit the act of ritual suicide known as Seppuku (right after sword etiquette of course!). Honor and Kao (“Face”) are core game concepts, players creating samurai and ninja in the hopes of abusing their rank will quickly learn this game has been designed to root them out just like the system rooted out those that tried so in real life. My big gripe with the honor rules is even in the revised edition the “honor loss formula” can cause headaches; it’s improperly explained. Several circumstances such as many people knowing of what you did can heavily multiply the loss, potentially ruining you. Information is an extremely powerful thing in this setting for that very reason.

Sen5 — Combat is brutal and bloody in Sengoku

Posture and interaction with other actors in the game world is therefore critical to success. The first 94 pages are protocol for almost every aspect of Sengoku society including the caste system, religious points and laws, crime, and the arts. It’s even suggested to use the real parlance of the time, including the times of day, calendar, and more. I always maintain Sengoku as a great simulation of an earlier time. The power structure and most of politics is centered around regional rulers and those that serve them. The imperial caste at this point in history is actually fairly weak outside of the capital; local lords are far stronger and by proxy lords with lot’s of land are the strongest.

Everybody fits in the system. Even Europeans (Nanbanjin) fit in there just above criminal and just under common folk. The game lists pretty much every profession and offers templates for every walk of life, presenting these as character template packages in addition to caste packages. Players can thus play pretty much anybody from a drunken ninja magician to a paranoid schizophrenic fisherman. Even though not samurai this does not restrict the players from fighting, pretty much anybody from the lower castes can become soldiers and thus technically be warrior caste.

Sen4 — Lords have many different bannermen

This game runs on the Fuzion rule-set created by Hero and R. Talsorian games; a D6 open source system that emphasizes gritty, complex combat and startlingly wide character options. Sengoku has its own variant of the life-path system that can help sort you sort out a fully realized concept. What few actual rules that are represented in the Sengoku rule-book are heavily modified but still based on the Fuzion skeleton. This ends up representing the legality of far eastern steel very well! Sengoku offers a low, medium, and high powered character creation options, with high being the realms of pure fantasy and medium representing martial arts cinema. To accommodate high fantasy games supernatural creatures and magic are present way in the back of the book tucked besides the tiny campaigns section.

Something the game neglects to mention is a system for easing large battles asides from hints laid in the form of skills like “Tactics”. Higher ranking characters by necessity have to employ lots of people! A party of samurai could easily see themselves having twenty or so soldiers and attendants walking the roads with them. In that way Sengoku can be played like a wargame,or really any kind of game you want. Unlike comparative titles there can be a huge disparity between players social status. Players have no real reason to help each-other save for being in the same clan under the same lord. This can be easily fixed by telling the players to pick a certain caste or profession though.

Sen6 — Only high ranking characters can ride horses out of wartime; like Date Masamune

The tendency of tabletop gamers is to roll up an extremely powerful martial character and act like a bully. Samurai in Sengoku all have the complication of being sworn to their liege, and may very well be “invited” to commit seppuku should they break the laws sufficiently. Though this all assumes the characters are acting publically. The rules at least mention social taboo’s only count as broken should others learn of their exploits. What ends up bothering me about the focus of lore and culture is that besides the core Fuzion rules and minor addition there is no real mechanic that sets it aside from other games besides the concept of honor; the games indie roots show.

Combat varies from dangerous to outright havoc. Many weapons deal more damage the stronger the character is and already deal a handful of six siders in damage where the average citizen of Japan boasts around 15 hitpoints. Armor soaks the majority of the damage but utilizing locational damage immediately throws away the hope of being invincible wearing it. Many weapons have specialized attack rules, can be poisoned, and other heavily detailed goodies. With foreigners being around moderately there are even some exotic weapons like matchlock rifles. Other games suffer from too few options where Sengoku almost suffers from having too many!

Sen3 — After the re-release sourcebooks were introduced

The game has since been revised and re-released digitally and softcover as the Revised Edition. Some people report buying the new book for less than five dollars and the PDF was on sale for $1.50 when I looked it up. The Revised Edition is purely just re-edited and none of the math or rules have been altered. This is one of the rare times that the reissue of the book is actually far better than the old issue without making the old one obsolete. Since the new edition has more conversion material for that that absolutely need to convert their samurai into second edition DnD.

Being a gigantic head-smasher of a book it’s easy to get intimidated looking at this game. “It must have a lot of rules!” or “Gee that seems too complicated for me…” might be the initial thought when seeing it. It’s 75% Japanese culture simulation built around a system where your actions have personal and social consequences. Where Sengoku becomes less accessible is the fact that you have to find a games-master that *really* loves Japan and is willing to present a complex experience based around hardcore feudal politics with bouts of extreme violence and drama. When you get to the actual rules, it’s basically stock Fuzion with some bells and whistles (lets not forget hundreds of pages of Japanese lore!)

I give it three out of five cups of tea.

Tabletop Tales: ‘Paranoia Troubleshooters’

by NecroscourgeAugust 21, 2015

When I say “role playing games”, I’m usually talking about games that focus on immersing people in a setting and then allowing them to shape the world cooperatively with the GM into generally a better place, if not just different than how it was before. Dungeons and Dragons casts the players as heroes that go around clearing out pockets of dangerous creatures, Shadowrun has you doing dirty-work, Deadlands pits you against evil itself, all of which changes the game in progress.

Then there’s Paranoia, a game that violently encourages total ignorance of how the games rules work. It takes place in a large subterranean complex run by Friend Computer. His trust in you as a citizen is one of, if not the core requirements of promotion in clearance color. The mnemonic “Roy-G-Biv” lists them left to right in importance, and notes the gaps in social status between RED ORANGE and YELLOW from GREEN, and their difference between the BLUE, INDIGO, and VIOLET. This won’t seem important to you now, but it will.

A word you are going to hear often (and I mean often), is treason, say it with me now. Treaaaaassssooooon. Mmm. It varies in severity but it’s always bad. The GM can and will punish players for committing treason one way or another; though the players themselves have plenty of methods of bothering each other too. For instance the Team Leader is technically higher ranking than his team and his team ONLY, while the Hygiene Officer can order immediate Personal Hygiene Tests. As you begin to realize you are not so much competing against the GM as you are your fellow citizens, you start taking note that anything you say or do has consequences in Alpha Complex.

Most citizens, such as you currently, are of INFRARED clearance. You may think “Wait, that wasn’t part of the mnemonic!” and you would be right. INFRARED citizens along with their opposite ULTRAVIOLET are represented by Black and White and sit as the extremes of the masses and 1%. INFRARED’s crowd the streets, offices, cafeterias, and most everywhere else working loyally and heavily medicated. Failing to take your pill regimen is treason. Many doors, hallways, and essentially everything else is painted to correspond with the clearance level allowed to use it. Trespassing in higher clearance areas is treason. See where I’m going with this?

Paratreason — The smoking boots of treason

Paranoia: Troubleshooters is the newest Mongoose Publishing contribution to Paranoia, which has had many editions over many years. Past paranoia game have always focused on Troubleshooters, who are typically in the “Roy” spectrum of Friend Computer’s trust. Two other editions were later released for Internal Security and High Programmers allowing you to experience Alpha Complex as high and highest clearance citizens. Knowledge of the lifestyles of high clearance citizens is treason.

Congratulations RED citizen on your appointment as Troubleshooter! Your job description is to seek out treason, communism, and do whatever Friend Computer tells you to. In short: Find trouble and shoot it. RED citizens still work part time at a service firm, but they make the most credits doing missions. While low ranking, the Troubleshooters perform a very important function in Alpha Complex, doing the dirty work nobody else wants to do but is too sensitive to have INFRARED’s do. Where there is a communist prepping a bomb, a mutant conducting treasonous mutancy, or a High Programmer’s catbot is stuck in a tree, the Troubleshooters shall be there to right all wrongs.

After being summoned to a briefing room Friend Computer will often appoint a citizen mandatory bonus duties, such as a Team Leader or Hygiene Officer. Such Troubleshooters have a set of responsibilities they have to live up to. One duty is even to basically take notes of what he see’s. Once this is done the team is sent to requisitions to get their standard equipment: The reflec armor vest and laser pistol assembly. Your pistol must be fitted with a pistol barrel in order to fire, and is ineffective against reflec armor. Now the trip to R&D.

The great thing about Troubleshooters is they have high clone priority! They get refitted and sent back into action within minutes, which makes them perfect for the testing of experimental equipment. Friend Computer see’s to it that the team has access to a variety of gizmos from battlesuits to drones, to new weapons, etc. This equipment is very expensive and very fragile. Breaking valuable equipment is treason.

During the mission you must be on alert for the presence of mutants, communists, or worst of all mutant communists. Years of unregulated cloning has side effects. Every now and then citizens catch on fire, see dead people, or can talk to fish. These treasonous people are mutants. Being so disenfranchised by society they often turn to the care of a secret society, a underground network with their own brands of politics. You must watch the rest of your team closely for mutants and secret society members, any proof can be cause for promotion! You must also be careful that the team does not discover your own secret society affiliation and mutant power. That’s right both apply to you; probably should’ve mentioned that.

Paradoom — Is it really Paranoia if they are really out to get you?

Finally there must be a debriefing where evidence against the rest of your party is used to preferably avoid termination. Lies are told, accusations are made, and the points don’t matter. You don’t so much “Succeed” as you “Avoid absolute failure”. Typically atleast one citizen is branded a traitor and executed violently, provided more than one actually made it to the debriefing. Those that somehow survive can potentially be promoted for their service in the field, in theory.

As you can gather Paranoia is more of a mindset than a game. It trains the players to think hard on their actions, as well as the actions of each other. You will never know how much of anything works besides what you eventually figure out yourself. And even then that may be a false truth. As I mentioned Paranoia encourages complete ignorance of how the rules work by it’s players, yet heavily encourages knowing the setting (within your clearance level). You might imagine this would be difficult, or requires multiple books. Where Deadlands encourages a “one way things work” Paranoia offers you a series of cups to choose from for everything; some of which have marbles, some are empty, and a few are packed with nuclear ordnance.

Which is not to suggest there are no rules, they are just above your clearance level. The GM is encouraged to run his ship as tightly as he wants, and there are several play styles offered from the comical “Zap!” mode, a more traditional Classic mode, and there are even rules for the one or two people on earth that want to play Paranoia as a serious campaign. There are supposed to be differences, but it’s all people in RED jumpsuits shooting at things eventually. The other books Internal Security and High Programmers offer differing play-styles by virtue of higher clearance, for instance High Programmers don’t usually get their own hands dirty while Int Sec is much like a police force.

I have but a one major gripe about P:T and that is the artwork is inconsistent with the rules. The cover shows off Troubleshooters with RED laser rifles, and in general the look of the guns change throughout the book. Another art mistake is the females all have gigantic breasts and some men have facial hair when all citizens are dosed to the eyeballs in hormone suppressants; not that I’m not a fan of gigantic breasts and/or facial hair. Let’s have some consistency people! Now the fair defense is that nothing in Alpha Complex always appears the same and it’s not hard for Friend Computer to have Laser Rifles and Barrels painted RED and assigned; but I really think they didn’t bother proofing or briefing the artists. It won’t ruin anything for new players, but long time Paranoia fans will notice some shenanigans.

All you need is the book and play materials, though it’s advised if you are hosting a game you premake a stack of characters and hand them out. They might ask treasonous questions like “What number is good?” or “What is the best skill” (The answers are “A number between 1-20” and “*point at random skill* is the best skill”) but don’t be discouraged, just make a mental note of their insubordination and hold it against them later. Playing therefore is damned easy as long as you understand the concept that you are not the one actually being crushed by a warbot, even if your snickering girlfriend is the reason it happened.

I give Paranoia: Troubleshooters [This statistic is above your clearance] out of 5 Laser Barrels

Paraeye — Just because you can’t see him does not mean Friend Computer can’t see you.

Tabletop Tales: ‘Hell on Earth D20’

by NecroscourgeAugust 9, 2015

There’s a saying that I read some time ago on a forum that I liked so much I stole for myself: “Whatever you wrote the most about is what your game is about. If you wrote a 120 page tank combat game with 75 pages of plane combat rules, you have written a plane combat game.” There’s a lot of truth to this statement, especially when it comes to older roleplaying books that adopted a common ruleset so they could focus entirely on story mechanics. The Deadlands trilogy piggybacks on the DnD 3.5 rules because at the time the rules were open source; the new Deadlands books (that I don’t have yet) use Pinnacle’s Savage Worlds system instead.

Deadlands is a saga of roleplaying books detailing the battle of heroes against the theoretically fallible horsemen of the apocalypse (known in universe as “The Reckoners”) over a long, convoluted story-line that spans over two time periods and two planets. Normally I would start this saga with the original Deadlands and not with Hell on Earth, but I won’t for two reasons: 1. I don’t have the first book and 2. According to Hell On Earth anything the heroes did in the original Deadlands was undone by the Reckoners sending their #1 badass Stone into the past to kill ~~Sarah Connor~~ any heroes he could find until the bad guys won; negating the entire first part of the series. Their whole plan revolved around being defeated so that they could lure all of the heroes out from hiding so they could send their Terminator after them.

DL2 — The makings of the perfect EVIL PLAN

In regards to the opening quote, Deadlands‘ Hell on Earth D20 is a setting book almost completely dedicated to giving general setting information in the form of an introduction chapter and retelling that information for games-master use at the end of the book. Information a player would want is sandwiched in the middle and consists entirely of custom feats and classes. These classes are all fit to a specialized roll. Third party 3.5 content tends to focus on making every concept a class in its own right, such as insisting on the existence of a rogue class, a ninja class, a special ops class, etc when they are all pretty much rogues. Here, we have a class that focuses on making weapons, a few fighting classes, a radiation spell-caster, and a charisma class that ends up being the most important in the party after the adventure.

The introduction is written from the viewpoint of a ~~Brotherhood of Steel~~ Templar named Joan, who describes herself as bleeding out and dying talking into a voice recorder. She then spends 49 pages explaining absolutely everything a common character would know about the setting including landmarks, why the war happened, major enemies and allies, and effectively every reason not to get out of bed in the morning. Common sense would dictate Joan isn’t really dying and you would be right, the re-introduction’s first segment is about how “Jo is alright, we have plans for her”, she has a lair around Denver and is likely mentioned in the relevant sourcebook. The long story short is that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse need human emotions to gain power, and have engineered a series of events that prompted a magical nuclear holocaust that destroyed civilization, covered the world in monsters, and now use the remaining humans as an energy source by striking fear into their hearts.

This sum’s up a major problem I have with the Deadlands trilogy. Every major character is either written to be interacted with or given no statistics followed with the mantra “If we stat it, you will kill it and we don’t want that to happen”. Thus the major villains such as the Horsemen, Stone, and the other big names enjoy plot immunity UNTIL you buy the adventure where you can kill them. The GM Secrets section is littered with prompts for the reader to buy source books that detail the areas mentioned with more detail. Areas of major plot significance are all vaguely mentioned, some areas are mentioned, complete with a prompt to buy a book for more information. The few areas that are listed are more or less references to other media with places like S-Mart and Movietown. Dr. Pepper not only survived the bombs dropping but it has the magical ability to cure you of all radiation.

For instance a major plot point concerns Air Force One and its crash somewhere near Denver. The GM Secrets states that the spirits of the plane refuse to let it be found and if you want to find it you have to buy the Denver Sourcebook. The result is, if you actually wanted to run Hell on Earth as a gamesmaster while remaining faithful to the metaplot you would need not just the 3.5 Handbook and this book but you would also need the specialized monsters manual “Horrors o’ the Wasted West”, and depending on what part of the gameworld the party goes to you will need a different book for each major area! Meaning you need the Denver sourcebook in Colorado, City ‘o Sin for Vegas, Shattered Coast for California, and Iron Oasis for Utah; Joan paints those four states as extremely important yet the book teases you time after time with half information meant to prompt you into book-buying. So despite devoting almost the entire book telling you about them, as a GM you are basically lost without the full library.

Since the game uses 3.5 rules, the majority of the GM secrets section is scattered with different skill checks with a target of 15-25; meaning a player that knows what skills he needs to move the story forwards can be stacked effortlessly by level 7 and above. Skill-Stacking has always been a 3.5 issue, and it’s only made worse in Hell on Earth: D20 by how important skill checks are to the games plot. For example the core mechanic for lowering fear and potentially winning the game has a target of 20-32. If you are playing the class meant to do this task you can be easily stepping over that number by tenth level due to how 3.5’s skills work. By level 15 a “Tale-Teller” can reliably lower the fear level after every adventure, and by 20 the only way he could feasibly lose is by rolling a one. Translating these games concepts to 5E ends up in a cleaner system all around, and it’s probably much cleaner in the new Savage Worlds ruleset too.

When it comes to setting specific weaponry in 3.5, you really are at the designers mercy. Melee weapons like clubs and swords just do a single dies worth of damage while guns do two dice worth. When your typical human has around 12-30 hit-points getting shot means you can afford to get hit once or twice. While this does mean that the players have a fighting chance against most enemies, the way power ramps up in 3.5E makes it so that by later levels there’s very little stopping the party from rushing in guns blazing for every single situation; the amount of ammo spent is nothing compared to the continual treasure gain the average party experiences. You can imagine most combats consist of “I get into cover and shoot” with the occasional “Nade out!”

DL4 — Fighting evil eventually takes you into SPACE!

I mention the power balance because I have “Horrors ‘O the Wasted West” and I can tell you for certain most of the enemies are either humanoids armed to the teeth or monsters with teeth for arms. Most of which have mechanics that kill or maim players instantly with very high skill saves. As an example Mainliners are freaks with syringes for fingers and a tiny handful of hitpoints, if they hit you then you must immediately constitution save against death. Many monsters have such mechanics, I sincerely doubt how much these monsters were tested. From a glance it looks like throwing any of these monsters against a party will kill most or all of them; which is not only the opposite of good design but it also does not make much sense for the setting. The Reckoners need living, scared people in order to exist. Most of the Hell on Earth monsters are capable of wiping out the remaining towns with their near endless numbers, or are mindless horrors that wipe out whole towns for fun. That devolves into an argument of how much control the Reckoners actually have, since they are supposed to be immortal yet Famines horse was famously slain. At any moment a hoard of Tremors worms can stray from the Mojave and destroy everything, I don’t get how gigantic underground creatures can have a marked territory and don’t just roam.

The Deadlands line is really focused on a specific series of events happening, and that shows throughout the entire Hell on Earth line; it’s clear that they worked hard to edit out anything of story significance out of the core book, leaving you with only part of a setting. That said you could run a game of Deadlands with just the core book and Horrors O’ the Wasted West making things up as you go and players wouldin’t know the difference. But deep down you would know you are playing the game “wrong”, and that’s something that always bothered me about Deadlands. There are alot of extra books for Hell on Earth that add further flair and story that could of been compiled into a few really big books. The core book by itself is useless, and that’s not good design in my opinion.

You might wonder “How does it end, if they are so worried about the plot?” Here it is and I kid you not: At the end of the Hell on Earth game line,a spaceship called the Unity warps to Earth captained by Dr. Hellstromme, who apologizes for helping destroy the world by capturing the Reckoners in a magical thingamajig. He then sends the party off on his spaceship to the far off planet Banshee (Located in the Faraway system) where you will begin the next game in the line: Lost Colony. Exchanging one hellish planet for another hellish planet. Having not read the adventure “The Unity” myself I can’t say for sure what the plan is but from what I’ve read it has the same explanation everything else in Deadlands…

DL1 — The answer to questions like “Why do people come back to life as zombies?”, “Why does magic work?”, “Why can Junkers make death rays out of string and batteries?”, and more!

About that. Every part of the rules that seems to favor the players really does not. If you die, you might get back up (eventually) as a “Harrowed”. You are the walking thinking dead. The manitou powering you is constantly trying to take control of you to further the cause of evil. Junkers have to bargain with a manitou to get ideas to develop their tech. Those evil spirits serve the Reckoners and are always causing havoc somewhere. Because of the evil coating the world all characters get the “Counting Coup” ability, allowing them to earn special perks from notably powerful enemies by harvesting their soul energy. By the end of a trek across the wasted west you’ll end up with all sorts of whackey things like magical guns, a haunted Harley motorcycle, immunity to toxins and poisons, and other supernatural goodies.

In conclusion we have a game line so worried about the plot that they forgot to spend much time at all discussing what the world is like in any more detail than a third party description of what the world is like. The most concrete thing we get is the description of what a Deadland looks like, since most of the game world is one. Between the players and monsters there is little to no balance to be found, with wonky weapons and megamonsters I can’t imagine most fights ending with anything less than half the party dying; which I argue is not that fun. Deadlands emphasizes why third party content was suspicious at best for the 3.5 ruleset, often presenting it’s own balance and gameplay issues. Hell on Earth may not be a bad game, but it’s certainly not the best post apocalyptic game I have seen. At best it requires you to have your own version of the post apocalypse in mind well before you try to apply Deadlands to it, and that is a problem.

As a 3.5 Setting Book, Hell on Earth gets two out of five pop culture references from me.

Tabletop Tales: ‘Dungeons And Dragons’ Fifth Edition!

by NecroscourgeAugust 3, 2015

For the longest time it was fairly difficult to recommend an edition for newer players when it came to Dungeons and Dragons; there is simply something to complain about in all of them. The earliest second editions are notorious for their steep learning curve, third has power balancing issues, and fourth edition is better known as “Stuff To Complain About: The Game”. They all have two major issues in common: character creation needs an experienced player sitting beside you to explain it, and the books do very little to prepare the player for actual play. Fourth editions “player guides” are almost entirely filled with cards either detailing magic items or the classes abilities (“Power Cards”), leaving a tiny blurb at the back of the book telling players how to actually play the game. It’s no wonder your typical 4E session is fight after fight with a word or two of plot inbetween; far from Gary Gygax’s original vision of swords and sorcery.

Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition is Wizards of the Coast’s apology to the hobby at large, cutting out almost everything that convoluted the game and reworking it from the ground up. Power Cards are gone, magic items no longer litter the streets, and the setting itself has been toned back from a time of magical superheroes to a more appropriate swords and sorcery styled setting full of adventure and mystery. In general, many new rules and mechanics exist that give players many non-combat opportunities to further the story, where before most players just resorted to extreme violence. The pivotal new tool for roleplaying and combat is the concept of Advantage/Disadvantage, which benifits characters in situations where it’s very likely the character shall succeed/fail miserably. In either case two twenty sided dice are rolled instead of one, and either the higher or lower result is taken depending on the situation; flanking most notably provides advantage rather than an attack modifier now. It’s the ever present equalizer.

5E feels more like Gygax's original vision than any edition we've played thus far. — 5E feels more like Gygax’s original vision than any edition we’ve played thus far.

Characters now choose a background at character creation that sums up the general life experiences they have under their belt. With this experience comes a general idea of their personality as well as their backgrounds feature ability; a special rule that normally makes exploration or social niceties easier somehow. The nobleman paladin commands respect worthy of his title while the party’s rogue is a deadbeat charleton that fancies forging fake aliases to soak up his debts. This system often blends with Advantage and Disadvantage to create interesting scenarios such as: the Human Monk is a sailor at heart and spent most of his life at sea, he would have no problem keeping on his feet during a storm and would roll with advantage. The dwarf on the other hand hates water and everything that lives within it, rolling with disadvantage when the storm hits.

Character creation has been tidied up into a manageable step by step process that can be understood by players new and old alike. In past editions it was hard to pick a race because they all looked so interesting and powerful… except the basic humans. The earliest editions balanced the whole game around humans being “standard” and thus penalized the other races in their potential, this was written out edition by edition until the other races were just so much better that nobody wanted to be human. Let’s face it why be a weak ol’ humie when you could be Gnarmtar the Ogre House-Juggler. Humans now are gifted with naturally good statistics (+1 in all of em’) but no special rules OR you can go with the statistically weaker variant but get a tasty feat to play with. Either way 5E boasts a good lineup of stock player races.

The classes have also been scaled back into a traditional array of classes from Fighters, Monks, and Rogues; with thankfully no mention of 4th Edition’s contributions such as the Spellblade; who teleported around and hit you with his sword magic. Every class now features role playing abilities, such as the rangers terrain bonuses being switched out for travelling bonuses, and at higher levels monks can be understood by any creature that knows a language no matter what language they are speaking. It all comes back to the games rules being fleshed out to allow for richer storytelling, something the game has needed for years! Even monsters now have rules for pure roleplaying purposes now with lairs that influence the world in subtle ways around it.

Monsters are now uniformly angrier and less loaded with hitpoints and more loaded with stabby slicey bits. A fight that has been going well may quickly cascade into a series of botched rolls and knee-bites that can bring a party to its knees; players can’t just go on murder cruise-control anymore. I threw a trio of what were effectively great white sharks at the party and the party had a great ego about them until they realized that jumping into the water to fight them would be utter suicide from how hard they hit (even while shrunk by a spell one jumped out and nearly killed the rogue!)

On the other side of the table the game is nothing but fun to run as a GM. The Dungeon Master’s Guide is a beautifully written resource that does a perfect job sparking the imagination while teaching you how to run a game of 5E with a table or section for every situation. These sections of sage advice provide plenty of fuel for both the game and the game’s world and generally makes you worry less about making up rules regarding minutia. The DMG contains a section detailing areas of peculiar conditions such as areas of wild magic; places where every spell makes you roll for weird stuff going on like your hair turning greenish orange for a day. After one session in such a place the wild magic sorcerer went from wanting wild magic to always happen to being afraid it might happen.

The cosmology of DnD is extremely confusing: existence as we know it is called the material plane and from there is an ongoing matryoshka doll of different planes of existence that potentially go on forever. The description of the inner planes is the most poetic, describing the Plane of Water as an vast tropical ocean between the extremes of an icy abyss and a gigantic silt bog darted with various islands covered in ancient shipwrecks. A full read through the DMG arms you with not only the way to run 5E but the knowledge is just plain useful for any roleplaying game you attempt.

All in all I can’t stress enough how much I love this edition over any other I have played, and I’ve played most of them while owning the books for all of them. I’ve defaulted to advising new players to start with fifth, and generally hold it as a success. It’s been engineered to be accessible to new players, with the basic rules available on the website for free. Your local hobby shop more probably than not is holding a weekly DnD Encounters game designed to introduce new players to the system through an official story-line; As of writing it’s Elemental Evil (Which by the way is also a nifty book) that presents four different cults of elemental maniacs to fight with friends.

I give this edition five out of five giant sharks!

Tabletop Tales: ‘Dragon War’

by NecroscourgeAugust 5, 2013

In a wave of complicated games flooding through the scene every now and then, a title comes along that performs in exactly the way it should. I picked up Dragon War at San Deigo Comic-Con this year, and is one of the two card games I plan on reviewing from the con. Where my other find may pride itself in its extensive testing and applied design, professional artist Robert “RAK” Kraus brings a game to the table that you can explain in under ten seconds, yet enjoy for hours while getting lost in the wonderful artwork and relaxed heavy metal atmosphere the game sets. Every card has great art adorned with dragons, zombie boobies, demons, and dinosaurs, in great neon colors with frazetta-esque brutality implied to the point where you can really imagine traversing the land and facing the monstrosities laid before you, weapon in hand, every time you blink.

Two of the game cards, the spaces on the bottom when lined up form the game board.

The overall goal of Dragon War is to usurp the Dragon Throne left open by the mighty Dragon King Marloon after his death, presenting an opportunity that has not come for thousands of years (Dragon Years!). Your character must traverse the land and capture the Throne before another does. The playing field is composed of lines of cards each sporting typically three spaces. Every space has directions much like any classic board-game, and movement is similarly achieved using a D6 and performing the action on the landed square. These directions are usually brief and simple, losing/gaining life, picking up fate cards, battling, and other normal tasks, while advanced cards might bring a sideboard to attention. In terms of difficulty, This is the easiest game to learn that I own, and this is coming from a man that owns Brute Squad. It’s as simple as picking a character and rolling the die to discover what cruel fate the cards have in store for you.

Dragon War‘s production value is fantastic for its price point, with a bright box and inclusion of absolutely everything needed to play, including customized tokens for every track needing them as well as a six sided die. The instructions for every expansion are available on the site, and the game’s own rules come on two brief cards for ease, even coming with plenty of extra credits and sketch cards. Like the base set, the expansions are all self contained and immediately ready to be plugged into the game, most can just be shuffled harmlessly into the deck (except Valley of Dinosaurs, but I’m a rebel). Some of the sideboards are difficult to fit in the box, and after awhile your Dragon War set will need a bigger case as more cards enter your possession. As the physical box can be held in most adults palms, it’s a wonderful travel game that you can pull out just about anywhere (but good luck trying to get the Dragon Allies cards in there).

Battlescar is too mighty to fit in your puny box!

Where the game begins to shine is its open content attitude, as RAK not only recommends but insists that the game be played however it is most fun to you. In addition to the core set there are many mini-expansions RAK both sells and provides free on his website, presenting new rules, cards, and adventures to deal with on the way to the Dragon Throne. These vary from romps through castles, new characters, set piece cards, new rules, and more to add plenty of hours of extended gameplay. You start with five characters, five adventurers, and a random sixth hero (I got Executioner). Others such as the Elder Wyrm Drako or the noble werewolf Silverbane can be added to your roster for more players and more mayhem, along with their unique special powers. These expansions build upon the basic cards and introduce various new mechanics. The Elemental Furies pack adds four game cards and four sideboards, the spaces on the cards cause the player to do battle with that element’s sideboard. Alternately, you may use the Dragon Allies pack to pick a patron dragon, which, once impressed by fulfilling its goals, will aid you in situations unique to that dragon. RAK’s site, booth, and brain is filled with plenty of such adventures, all the while enjoying seeing what his fans introduce to the gameworld.

The Thundermace card. — Thundermace’s Bio card, one of the collectible characters.

Due to that nature, it’s hard to play the same game of Dragon War twice. At least ten of the base cards have entertainingly brutal effects that make players lose turns or outright switch places with others in a capacity that reminds me of the immense fun to be had playing Boardgame Online, and in some respects Dragon War brings that same zany feel but without the ability to snort coke off Jane Fonda’s rear. Inevitably, a card will be placed in just the perfect way to cause trouble, flinging you a few spaces to an even crueler fate, or robbing you of time that could be spent not being frozen in time. Sooner or later you will roll exactly the number you didn’t want to roll for it is the whim of the mighty Random Number Dragon. That’s all part of the game and fun because of it, as the game’s loose design lets pretty much any player usurp control of the board with a few choice decisions.

This game, extra content, free stuff, and more can all be grabbed on his personal website. RAK also is in the Convention Circuit, with a booth full of great art and a box full of Dragon War cards. Of my regular visits at San Deigo Comic-Con, I found myself wandering to RAK’s booth more often than the others, to pick up more Dragon War cards throughout the entire convention. Dragon War is available for $20 on his site, but it’s worth it to meet him in person at a convention if you can manage it. Of the many card games in my arsenal, this is one of those games that will see use quite often, as you can just lay out exactly as many cards as you need and play whenever, with whoever.

-Necroscourge 7/26/13

Journalist PVP: “F2P Is Not The Future For AAA Titles” Rebuttal

by NecroscourgeJune 7, 2013

When I wake up, there are a few online bases that I check: my email, my porn, and of course, the latest gaming news. Sometimes, instead of gaming news, these are actually just poorly written rants by the community writing team; volunteer writers obsessed with posts comparing everything to League of Legends and World of Warcraft… or “Blizznuts” as I like to call them (shush, I get to make up stupid names too). As evidence, there is “Why Free 2 Play Is Not The Future For AAA MMORPG’s!” by Zack Sharpes aka George Washington… which nobody sane actually calls him.

Now, don’t try too hard to read that. It’s poorly paragraphed and nigh unreadable. He does no research, does not stop to explain his leaps, and it’s not surprising that the two of us have butted heads before. I am going to loosely sum up his article with hopefully illuminating responses on what the actual landscape and future of gaming looks like. I think it will be enlightening for all of us, even Mr. “George Washington”, as a basis for further discussion on the state of the industry.

1.He defines Free to Play titles as having no cash shop or costs. Not only do these not exist (every free model game has alternate incomes, usually cash-shops), but he also argues that games that do have such models are in fact Freemium. Name Change aside, all he did in explaining this is claim that no Free MMO of AAA stature has started with a free subscription model. Well, there’s Planetside 2, with its amazing graphics, Sony backing, and snipers galore. Guild Wars 2 fits Zack’s “Freemium” definition as well, and proves still that its a pretty fun MMO with no added required costs besides the initial purchase.

The reason most titles don’t start F2P is because either A. It was crafted in cave man time when they thought the idea of server costs to be insurmountable without a gigantic budget or B. Not enough paying gamers to facilitate having such an expensive server structure. Why pay for a game when I can play a better game just like it for free? News is circulating that the big moneymaker MMO’s of times past are very quickly losing out on sales as more and more gamers divert to equivalent games that are just as fun if not more, for instance are you bored of killing Orcs and doing quests? Buy The Secret World and get straight to torching zombies and saving the world from the shadows. No added fee’s, no subscription, no fuss.

2. AAA publishers have much more money than other publishers. Not sure why this needed to be brought up, but its true. The free-to-play leap is one to gather more players, since so many gamers are poor and are drawn to the free titles much easier than a $60 yearly update of CoD. Shooting games and generic MMO’s are disgustingly easy to make, both genres have dedicated programs *designed* to allow anybody with enough patience to produce their own working FPS or online world to romp around in by the end of the day. The Source Engine, behind the powerhouses that are Counter Strike, TF2, and DOTA2 is fully moddable and with the know how you could remake Bioshock Infinite into a team death-match rpg if you really wanted to.

The idea that a video game REQUIRES a big budget to be of decent quality is a proven myth. It takes skill, dedication, and teamwork, something the people at Double-Fine, Valve, and many other developers have proven time and time again with great titles. So, having played much better games than the supposed “AAA” titles for much less, I fail to see why we should keep giving them money, when the future of game design is not the gigantic multimillion dollar sinkhole that is EA or Trion but laid on the efforts of Indie Developers and Privately Owned Dev Teams. The biggest reason for this is simple: The AAA Powerhouses design games to get more money, they design it to appeal to certain people, market it to certain people, and could care less what the end consumer really thinks since they got the money. On the flip side, everybody else wants to design an amazing game that everybody will like, they listen to the forums and figure out how to make their titles even better.

3.A Metaphor is utilized in the article of a combat between two players, and that DLC or Cash Shop purchases should not be necessary to compete. No Steam Game to my knowledge requires DLC to compete in multiplayer asides from All Points Bulletin where a cash-bought sniper rifle is mandatory to survive, and any game that does “boast” the requirement of buying certain in game items to compete in any form of the game is dishonest, and probably why the game is not going to stay around for too long. Yet… This is something that an AAA Publisher would do! Remember, They do not care about how much we enjoy the game or our experience playing it, they care about numbers. The proof is visible on Steam with games like Loadout on Early Access, which is a free game when released but for now you can pay either $20 for access or a few times that to get better and better in-game rewards in the form of in-game currency. Now, I like Early Access but using it as a method of squeezing more money from people for an unfinished product is morally wrong. In short, its a means not an end.

4. He once again claims Freemium and Free 2 Play are not the same thing (the difference to him is when you pay) and that Freemium, Not Free 2 Play, will be the future for MMO’s. Yes. Freemium, which he has explained in his article to be roughly the same thing, is the future for AAA titles. “Free 2 play is not the future, but it is, but it isn’t, but it is”. Well, which is it? And is it that simple? It’s a little shortsighted to think that future profit models for gaming won’t be as diverse as the games themselves, the players themselves or the systems on which we play them.

That being explained… I am at a loss. He nullifies most of his argument by double-talking himself, not citing any references to his claims, and saying the same thing with different words. He keeps talking about the business models of games like they ARE the game. Never mind the content, or the skill that went into them but simply talking about how much dirty money they have sitting in the bank to make more games. Who gives a fuck who makes it? Let’s think about the time and effort, and the great ideas that went into the game. As consumers, let’s talk about the final product and judge the titles on that merit alone. I’m going to take some flak for this but Starcraft 2, Graphically the game is absolutely gorgeous, reflecting the large budget behind it. The game’s story is fantastic and the characters are all entertaining to listen to. But is it a well designed strategy game? Having grown up with the original, I don’t think so. So yes, it looks fabulous but when it comes to a multiplayer experience I would much rather boot up the original.

Economically, players are much more willing to try a free game than a paid title. It’s just how it is. If a lot of time, effort, and skill has been put into the gameplay mechanics, the experience, and the joys of playing the game, you will keep the players, and they will spend money in your cash-shop because they enjoy your title. That’s how Free to Play is supposed to work. However, what harms this are the big AAA publishers that over-inflate their budgets and spread propaganda about how much it takes to make a title. People are “happy” that they have their generic shooter games. They are “happy” that they have their Korean WoW clones. And they are “delighted” that they don’t have the ability to play pure strategy titles or true RPG’s. Though that’s not entirely true, the public is getting smarter and more people are realizing that there is better entertainment out there in an rapidly expanding market.

Next time you are about to pick up the new Diablo DLC, this week’s Call of Duty, or anything Kalypso makes ever, look on Good ‘ol Games or the Steam Indie section and find yourself something original to enjoy. If anything, Free to Play, Freemium (no really, what’s the difference) and Free to Win titles aren’t the future of the entire industry yet stand as the forefront of the end of the big name companies as they no longer have a vice grip on the industry. Blanket statements like “Pay 2 Win” only reflect our own need to simplify an increasingly stratified medium that has always been informed by consumers who have been expanding what (and how) they want to play for years now as technology advances alongside them. Speaking of cheap development, design, and marketing I should remind everybody about the upcoming console Ouya, boasting a $99 price tag and the ability to try every game on it for free to make your choice even easier and when you get bored of the games on there you can design your own game and put it on there to sell for yourself.

Necroscourge 6/7/13

Tabletop Tales: ‘Synergon’

by Derek KraneveldtMay 31, 2013

Some people roleplay by simply sitting around the table and casting the die of fate. Brave is the nerd that lives it by donning his armor and striding the LARP battlegrounds. Yet braver still are the men and women of Synergon: The BLARP (Business Live Action Roleplaying). Capitalism at its finest, the business office environment is a social time bomb of veiled feelings, buzzwords, and despair. So it only stands to common reason that dressing up in suits and living it as a cutthroat game of politics is only right! Synergon takes the spirits of D&D and the Business world, throwing them together. Part of the hilarity is that there are apparently a few real companies called Synergon, yet the site still remains hidden in the interwebs.

I say D&D specifically because Synergon uses identical character generation rules, though instead of the basic statistics of fantasy you have Patience, Tech Savvy, Eloquence, Charisma, and Creativity; and rather than classes you have a Department and get one Skill. While not identical to D&D in many other regards, it’s similar enough that anybody that knows the basics shouldn’t have too much of a problem as Synergon‘s rules are very easy to understand; with plenty of step by step graphs and clearly labelled sections containing several topics.

I cast the runes seven times to get me seven numbers to put in my new employee’s resume; with a low roll of 6 alongside 15,17,13,13,12,12. For Billium Majar, the latest addition to the Synergon family, I decided to fling the 6 into Education (like anybody cares where he went to school…) and made his primary stats Patience and Creativity, to make him a perfect applicant for the Legal Team, giving him an inherent weakness to Human Resources but making him the worst fears of Accounting.

All employees start by picking one skill of their choosing and get two random ones with a new choice every ten levels. I chose Intimidate as Billiums chosen skill, making him perfect for demoralizing those that get in his team’s way. In addition, Bill is a bit apathetic and couldn’t care less what people have to say, especially about his MBA degree. The same degree lets Mr. Majar use the Catchy Slogan ability to rejuvenate the efforts of the group. For the free item he gets at sign-on, he chose an Inspirational Poster to give him additional Creativity. The ending result is Bill has 23 AP and 15 MP. If he runs out of MP he quits his job and must start over as an Intern, during this time all he can do is regain his AP used for abilities.

An employee of Synergon uses abilities for anything, many of which allow you to be productive and useful to the company, while many others are used to torture and depress your enemies or inspire your own team. Employees can use any Ability at or below his or her tier (1-3), as well as their department unique abilities. When somebody uses an Attack, the target is allowed the choice of using a Defensive Ability that does not count against his actions for the hour. You are only allowed three per hour, and with only so many soul crushing hours of the day, each employee must be careful on how they budget their time, morale, and ability to get things done.

In addition to the players, there are always the hundreds of other drones that reside at Synergon HQ; the Frenemies. The Janitor, CEO, and the rest of the workforce would love to see you stomp off in anger to free up room in the budget for more pay for themselves. Its not that they hate you, they just hate the idea of working with you when they could be getting more money without you. These parasites often swarm around the halls and water coolers, and are known to strike when you really don’t want to acknowledge their existence. Though it may just be a case of the Mondays.

Synergon is easy to understand, easy to play, and just plain fun. It’s taking one of the most serious things and exposing just how silly it all really is. Character creation is a snap, and if you feel all the abilities you use can be daunting just make a list of 12+ abilities that you’d like to use and limit yourself to that.

While written primarily as a LARPing game, it’s worth noting that the game is playable just fine as any other tabletop rpg (but I’m sure in its full suited glory the game is great too)! The office environment leads to intense squabbles and the game’s system is very forgiving while also being very cruel, resulting in an entertaining experience when greed isn’t the motivator of the fighting. You can see Synergon free on their official website!

Necroscourge 5/26/13

Tabletop Tales: ‘Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition’

by NecroscourgeMay 23, 2013

As some of you on Steam may have noticed, Shadowrun Returns by Harebrained Schemes is on its way, which is of course based on the long running Cyberpunk meets Magic RPG series Shadowrun. This is also the first game in a long while that has been actually worked on by Harebrained’s founder, who also is responsible for the RPG, along with several other games such as Mageknight and something called Mechwarrior. Some of you may recall 2007’s Shadowrun for 360 and PC, which was a Counter-Strike esque team game that, while it had some of the spirit, it was more or less not really all that faithful to the source material at all. Yes, it was a good game, but it was not a good Shadowrun game.

While the first RPG to blend the Trolls and Elves of fantasy with cyber linked machineguns it was not, a year prior to its original conception, Cyberpunk 2013 debuted, later succeeded by Cyberpunk 2020 and its nuke and paved sequel Cyberpunk V3 (Oh trust me, that waits for another day). While they are comparable and to an extent the same game, there really are key differences. 2020 is simpler, with a heavier focus on the lifestyle of being a Cyberpunk without any of the trolls,orcs or magic, while Shadowrun focuses on well, its namesake: The Shadowrunners. A “Shadow Run” is a tactical operation performed, usually on the behalf of a megacorporation, that involves breaking several laws and must therefore be hush hush. Normally this occurs in meatspace, but it usually pays off to have a hacker capable of traversing the Matrix or a Shaman that frequently steps into the astral realm. While 2020 is all about how awesome it is to be cybered up, Shadowrun is all about the lifestyle and career of a team of Shadowruns created by the players with a greater focus on storytelling.

I own the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition, which uses the fourth iteration rules. Full color hardcover with a nice silken bookmark. Like all dramatic RPG systems (Ex: World of Darkness), there are several vignettes that exemplify core themes and characters in the game’s lore. The first story “What is inside your heart” introduces the concepts of magic and hacking but most of all the important thing to take away from the first story is a mantra that will save your Shadowrunner’s life time and time again: Dragons are douchebags. Yes, the flying kind, but more on them later. The second story “Happy Trails” shows us inside the Matrix and introduces Fastjack, the best damn decker there is. Normally this is bullshit, but Fastjack goes on to save the internet by repeatedly smashing a cyberdragon directly in the face with his signature weapon: The Jackhammer.

Fastjack was born 1999, and narrates the game’s history lesson to explain exactly what happened between his birth and 2072 that left the world as it is today (in the FUTURE). Long story short, magic reawakened in 2011 bringing forth disasters of biblical proportions. Earthquakes around the globe, volcanos simultaneously coating the world in lava, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Thankfully, the wise dragon Dunkelzhan appears and gives a 16 hour marathon interview explaining exactly what is going on and that magic had surged back into the world, causing the Earth to peak in arcane energy, which is the reason the world was fighting right back. At the same time, various megacorporations were fighting “terrorists” all over the world and constantly winning senate rulings in their favor resulting in their status as world superpowers. Now here in 2072, dragons rule most major corporations and in the same store you buy your guns, ammunition, pants, and can get your ears chopped and replaced with cybernetic ones. Why stop there though? Cyberware comes in four flavors, with varied tolls on your sanity, the best stuff is cloned tech if you can afford the insane fees.

The third story, still before any rules, is “Weekend Edition”, telling the story of an Orc Decker named Taylor, and shows off more of how to play the part of a Runner, making contacts, and managing the finances. Food, shelter, booze, ammo, it all costs Nuyen and most runners need to ply their trade to get bread on the table. Strange, since they go on to display bar prices. No way in hell are you getting tap water, but for 1 Nuyen a bottle of water who cares? Not into water? that same Nuyen gets you a can of FUTURE coke and a few more puts booze in it. Granted, that’s just one bar, but its already cheaper than bars are now. The rest of the chapter discusses the big ten megacorporations, combat sports, and finally the major theme connecting the three stories: Simsense.

Nearly everybody has a commlink, which is a form of cell-phone/computer and acts as your electronic swiss army knife, that emits a Personal Area Network or “PAN” allowing you and anybody nearby to indulge in the Matrix and experience Simsense. Simply watching movies is boring, why not be inside them? Simsense lets you do just that, but there are drawbacks as you might imagine living somebody else’s events can be addicting and the worst offenders are Better Than Life chips, they act as the major illicit drug in the setting. In the first story the main character mentions walking by several tags and online obstacles in his walks around town, in the second Fastjack pretty much fights Black ICE and in Weekend Edition, Taylor’s date is an Ex-BTL user that experiences withdrawal when a car pumping out raw Simsense data passes by. You can tell reading this book that every detail stated actually exists in the game world, you never feel too much doubt about the validity of the statements where earlier iterations likely felt more patch-worked.

The next story before the games rules is “Gaia’s Heart”, a brief story of a runner told a story about an artifact of great power that twists her into paranoia. The important moral being there are as many liars as ever and the existence of magic makes it even more dangerous. Shadowrun‘s system, like the type of drama it employs is very World of Darkness inspired with all tests using dice pools of Stat+Skill+Mod, with each rolled die of five or more considered a hit. The most important aspect of Shadowrun‘s character sheet is Essence, which starts at six for everybody, and is used for both magic and cyberwear. If you run out, your soul is very violently consumed and you die.

Shadowrun Character Sheet — The ‘Shadowrun’ Character sheet.

One of the largest factors to how your Runner will behave is his race of metahumanity, that is to say whether he is human, ork, troll, elf or dwarf. Elves tend to be the less affected by racism, and many movie stars, celebrities, and porn stars are elves. Orks and Trolls, due to their very decidedly not normal features are usually without a registration number and subsequently, rights. Being a metahuman also means you either have thermal or low light vision, instantly making you better at fighting than a mere human is at the expense of Build points. Every character is made with a point buy system, a much more arbitrary system than the World of Darkness that severely handicaps the points of the various metahuman races in exchange for better stats and abilities. Those that are unwilling to play or mess with the build point system are able to pick from a handful of pre made character archetypes from Enforcers to Adepts, allowing anybody to jump into a field of interest fairly quickly without the math.

Getting to the halfway point in the book, the stories begin to sink in quality. “Fresh Meat” details the formation of a Shadowrun team, what roles these runners normally have, and how they would go about getting prepared in an actually fairly good cohesive story. The sink begins with Monica the Ork Adept in “Extraction”, which tells of Corporate back dealing. At least, I think it does, to be honest the story is written in a chaotic ‘action packed’ style that unlike every other story thus far is much more happy explaining abstract concepts than helping us understand what we are looking at. The last page is indecipherable, it’s hard to figure out who to root for, and what the twist is at the end.

Cyberpunk media prides themselves in a few major genre “requirements”, the first of which is its dark world. Atherton of the first story loses all of his friends in his search, if Fastjack had lost against the dragon both him and his daughter were to be devoured. Drug use, racism, and such themes are much more relaxed than other editions, but its far from gone. In the FUTURE, Orks play heavy metal (more), and are essentially treated poorly. The very nature of being a Shadowrunner is that you are a deniable asset specialized in crime, and part of this involves leading a double life. I appreciate the more dramatic tone in the fourth edition, but it’s worth noting that the 20th Anniversary Edition is NOT a compendium, it flat out sites the other books in the series in a sort of taunting manner. The book’s size is primarily attributed to how very detailed every single aspect of the world is. Factors like recoil, cover, drugs, and summoning are awarded plenty of room to be fully explained. Some may argue a lot of it does not really need to be so explained, but it does really show the effort put into making the reader get into their role in the way a roleplaying game should.

Just a few of 'Shadowrun's weapons. — Just a few of ‘Shadowrun’s weapons.

Second, the toys. We want our smartlinked guns, decking rigs, and cybernetic muscles. Like the Cyberpunk video games, the genre has spawned such as Deus Ex or EYE Divine Cybermancy, a staple of Cyberpunk is the equipment and weapons and Shadowrun still delivers exactly what it should with plenty of Cyberwear coming in several flavors, an extensive weapons list and plenty of drugs to nuke your characters memories. 4th edition presents even more with wireless technology: hackers no longer need to jack in, as most people carry a Commlink and can access whatever they want with it with no wires needed. Which is important as it keeps the group together.

And then of course we have the Cyber Realm, which in Shadowrun is known as Matrix 2.0. As said earlier, almost all tech is wire-free and most electronics allow you to simply think a certain way and things shall happen. In past Cyberpunk games, you normally need to escort your Decker inside the enemy facility if you wanted inside, otherwise your hacker was safely somewhere else. In 4th edition, Hackers can ply their trade wherever they stand and Technomancers act as Cyber-Magicians to add depth to the usual roster of agents (They basically get their own versions of mage abilities, but all sciency).

‘Deus Ex’, a great cyberpunk video game.

What seals Shadowrun‘s reputation as an extremely tactical combat game are the pages upon pages of “much easier than it looks” combat rules. While Cyberpunk 2020 had simple yet brutally realistic combat rules, Shadowrun takes it many steps forward with special rule after special rule detailing absolutely anything that could potentially happen or go wrong in combat. The main thing to note is through Magic or Cyberwear its possible to have more than one turn (called an Initiative Pass) in a round, with the most possible being four. Each Initiative Pass, a character has either two Simple actions or a Complex, with a multitude of choices of various actions. Firing semiautomatics is a simple action even if you are using two at a time, giving lots of room for badass Adepts to come crashing through windows with a gun in each hand blazing death. Another factor to combat is cover, as every material has a durability and armor rating, and gun control is a punchline in the future so I hope you are not expecting heavy caliber ordinance to be uncommon. Thus, it’s easy to expect combat to turn into Gears of War, running from cover to cover, blind firing to prevent snipers from getting too good of a shot on you. This presents realistic and gritty combat, and once you take the time to read through it, it’s really not too confusing.

The rest of the book details available gear and cyberwear, as well as shows off the Technological and Magical aspects of the game’s system. The last few stories thematically run through a combat scenario, a magic scenario, and then another net scenario; introducing more and more concepts alongside characters that we have no connection with. The only character we actually seem to care anything about is Fastjack and we already know pretty much everything that happens to him. The players are meant to be the sort of heroes, at least until you get the brand new NPC book released just the other week.

A shiny new 5th Edition is on its way.

Shadowrun‘s main appeal is that in most cases you are playing a criminal, one in the darkest, deepest pits of society, and you’re shackled to the top of the pile. The rules are extensive and its one of *those* RPGs that is intended to be very deeply structured in the base material, with characters as an extension of it. In order to play the game correctly, its very suggested you read the book cover to cover; That can make the game very hard to learn at first. A lot of the concepts are covered in the book, and those without the time to learn the setting will be missing out, or getting their team killed. That’s something else that always looms in your team’s future as well, from how violent and deadly combat is, to how very ready everybody else is to sell you out: it’s far too easy to get yourself wiped out.

A Fifth edition is on its way, though I have not had the chance to really look through it. The 20th Anniversary Edition is worth checking out: it comes with its own bookmark and has a great comprehensive appendix for the then series of books. Other than that, the Anniversary Edition mostly just looks nice. All in all, I really enjoy Shadowrun‘s well fleshed out world, though its not to the liking of all gamers; those wishing for a much simpler Cyberpunk game need look no farther than Cyberpunk 2020. A great game of magic, guns, and tech, is worth checking out.

-Necroscourge 5/22/13

Shadowrun 20th — ‘Shadowrun’ 20th Anniversary Edition

Gaming Philosophy: Dungeons And Dragons, Morality, And You

by NecroscourgeMay 2, 2013

When it comes to the concepts of good and evil, there has been an eternal conflict of opinions and thoughts concerning their uses. The muddiest of uses of course being the 9-part morality system as popular in the Dungeons and Dragons series that is composed of the concepts of Lawfulness and Chaos in various degrees of Good or Evil (IE: Lawful Good, Chaotic Neutral) and like any other concept of morality, you can practically expect that pretty much nobody truly understands it. I was sent into this rant by Spoony’s “So you want to be Evil” video (posted yesterday) that begins with “don’t do it”, and is just him sitting infront of a camera explaining his rampant generalizations and misunderstanding of gaming morality.

Good and Evil, as many know, is the philosophical concept that all actions are either “good” or “evil” where the positive actions that the people like are branded as “good” and things people do not like are called “evil”. This matter gets more complicated in Dungeons and Dragons because of the very true presence of gods, angels, and demons in most normal settings as well as the presence of death, true death, and resurrection. In particular the confusion comes from the DnD interpretation of morality, where Evil just means you kill people and Lawful just implies a moral code or respect of law.

The common interpretation is that the two states of Good and Evil are directly opposing entities, and that by being one you act a very specific way. That is to say Orcs kill on sight because they are evil rather than any real personal philosophies they may have. “Heroes” kill “Monsters” on sight because they are Evil and thus should not feel bad about the lives they extinguish because our culture says killing monsters is “good” . Good or Evil aside, the Paladin that speaks to god still sliced the heads off three Orcs for just being in his way.

As written by Gygax himself in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook:

Chaotic Evil: The major precepts of this alignment are freedom, randomness, and woe. Laws and Order, Kindness, and Good deeds are disdained. Life has no value. By promoting Chaos and Evil, those of this alignment hope to bring themselves to positions of power, glory, and prestige in a system ruled by individual caprices and their own whims.

-ADnD PHB

Chaos and Law in DnD are as simple as it sounds, the character either adheres to a code of conduct or instead values the freedom and liquidity of life. These are philosophical states often polarized just like Good and Evil, while they are more accurately states of being as real as ourselves. While as written Good and Evil are mentioned to be a polarized struggle as well, but in truth the only clause that Gygax seems to attribute to an Evil character is having no inherent reverence to the sanctity of life, implying that the Paladin that runs around the countryside mowing down Orcs is “good” because they would never slay a rational being that surrenders before them. In moral terms, the Paladin would be committing an Evil action if he were to take the life of an Orc that surrenders regardless of the Orcs alignment, while the Orc if Chaotic Evil may very well surrender without moral issue and attempt to kill the Paladin in betrayal, though he may not just to keep you guessing as is implied by his random, Chaotic nature.

Let’s look at Batman and Superman, who represent Chaotic and Lawful Good. Both do “good” things, they save the day, stop the villains, but no matter how VERY evil their opponents are, they cherish life (which seems to be the only tangible point to being “Good”), and if given the choice would rather spare lives then extinguish them. Even though Batman is chaotic and will do pretty much anything he can to get it done that may or may not cause suffering, he won’t kill. The Joker does not, being Chaotic Evil, cherish life at all and will kill when he feels like it. On the flip side, he may not because he feels like it.

That being established, now to the task at hand. People like to blame morality rather than the actual player’s actions themselves, or use morality as an excuse to do whatever they want. Honestly though, its a game foremost and the simple “Black and White” morality was there just to give an arbitrary excuse for Orcslaughter. Not knowing that years down the road and after Gygax’s death there would be people using mortality as an excuse to slice people’s heads off because they are Good (Something a truely “Good” character would not do) while Evil characters take this as an excuse to go around town murdering willy-nilly just because they are Evil. This is the aspect of morality people usually have a hard time with, the idea of being evil and then the actual practice of being evil.

Granted, as you have noticed Gygax’s view of Evil is very polarized in a fashion that taken literally and morally incorrectly deems all Evil characters to be wanton killing machines with no possible remorse or redemption, nor a tangible reason for their murder as is the ideal of “Evil is just Evil” while Good characters sort of get off scott free with their murder because of their “just cause”. However, until now I have refrained from the second part of the Good versus Evil morality system, the gods themselves. Unlike life as we know it, gods in DnD actually exist. They appear on the planet, walk around, talk to people, and grant spells to their loyal clerics. The “big” gods such as Bahamut, Lolth, and the rest have entire metaphysical planes they live inside populated with outsiders of their alignment as well as the means of directly communicating with living people.

This is where the already very muddy moral politics get even muddier. We know that Evil simply means having no moral issue with taking lives, while Good will only take lives in self defense and that law and chaos are the primary means to which those morals are taken lawfully or randomly. The issue arises when you have the god king of dragons telling you to smite evil in the name of Bahamut, or when Lolth the spider queen of the Drow urges you to sacrifice the young in her name. Lolths existence and policies directly contradict the laws of a God like Bahamut, which drives the Lawful Good followers to kill Evil things in his name and the name of Goodness. Lolth’s followers are urged to spread Lolth’s corrupting influence and kill those that get in their way. We have labelled Bahamut as Good and Lolth as Evil, The former cares about life while the latter does not. The point being that religious characters have a very real god in this world telling them what is good and what is evil, and to an extent most characters know they exist while nowhere near all have had the chance of actually meeting a god. While their actions are not excused, there reaches a point where individual morality is very separated by what god tells them, that just happens to be morally aligned.

The human, you're standard follower. — The human, your standard follower.

As a general rules of thumb, humans are social creatures and are hardwired to listen to the person in charge, if not obey them. When the entity that gives you the ability to heal and call lightning down from the heavens tells you to smite Evil in his name, most are pretty willing to do so. Conversely, without the prior knowledge that the entity is “Evil”, there is little stopping most from obeying them either as without knowing of both Good and Evil, it is impossible to grasp either individually. What does this mean in a gaming context? Essentially that a Chaotic Evil character does not rampantly run around stabbing people because they are Chaotic Evil, they do so because they have a personal reason of doing so. DnD character morality is often played for laughs because of how initially wild the concepts look when in fact the moral alignments presented in DnD are things that we witness and watch every day, especially knowing now that Good and Evil as defined is a stance on the sanctity of life rather than a polarized mindset or specifically the means rather than the end.

It only stands to reason, to realize that while alignment determines a good bit about the individual philosophies and thoughts a character may contain, there is nothing about the system that absolutely determines how a character *should* act. All evil characters do not like the color black, just as all evil characters are not rampaging lunatics in the same manner that all Good characters are bible thumping fanatics that ceaselessly preach about the joys of Pelor. It’s an arbitrary system developed to make players feel better about slaying the various monsters of the world taken far more seriously than it should be.

What's your alignment? — What’s your alignment?

Take for example the Orc baby “Dilemma” as posed by Spoony, where a traditionally good party wipes out a Orc encampment and finds women and children, who immediately surrender. The Good decision is to spare them, with the Evil to be killing them despite the prisoners being of Evil alignment themselves. Of course, the metagaming argument of “they are evil” is moot since that is not roleplaying, and not a proper justification of murdering women and children. Then we are introduced to the concept of Evil characters in the party arguing *for* the murder. The most common ignorant thought is that Good and Evil cannot co-exist, and thus a party must be either all Good or all Evil, despite the hundreds of examples of parties with a mixed ratios of alignments in popular media. A common argument against a mixed party is that there will be conflict and thus it is impossible for them to be in the same party together. Any professional writer can tell you all good stories *require* conflict, and the same is true of a DnD party.

People are under the impression that if a Good and Evil character, meet they are required by the games rules to do combat to the death, which is false as evidenced by what we know Good and Evil stand for, and where they divide. The cause of this incorrect assumption are the cases of “controlled” monsters that are in league with whatever Big Bad is looming beyond the Gates of Extremely Evil Evilness at the end of the campaign. These creatures include Outsiders (Creatures from other planes), mind-controlled or otherwise malcontent goblinoids, and other various ill-willed monsters and are the common things you will be fighting so its only natural to assume they are completely unfeeling in their attacks. In most cases these creatures are either genuinely “Evil” homicidal bastards or directly being controlled by the higher powers just as the heroes are doing the dirty work of the good higher powers in most cases. What most don’t realize is there is a very vast difference between a Good creature and a Cleric of Pelor just as there is a difference between a Chaotic Evil Orc tribesman and Saruman’s Uruk-Hai, and thats where people get confused. A Witch is not bad because she is evil, its more of the whole poisoning and cursing people thing, which is a personal choice made by that witch.

-Necroscourge 5/1/13

Tabletop Tales: ‘Operation Perfect Blue’

by NecroscourgeApril 13, 2013

When a computer game is successful (or at least interesting), it’s only a matter of time until it’s adapted to RPG form. Everquest, EVE, Dragon Age, have all been brought to the tabletop at some point but what about the classics like XCOM that may never receive an adaptation? Here’s a fun fact that may blow your mind: An XCOM RPG does exist, brought to us by none other than Cutters Guild. Anybody familiar with my works knows that I tend to be really harsh on them despite how dear the company is to my heart. The reason for that is, of Cutters Guild’s offerings, there are two that excel above the rest and today I will discuss the most influential of them.

For those that live in a cave and remain ignorant to XCOM’s existence, I shall explain. In the roaring 1990’s when we were 100% sure PC gaming was just a fad and the internet would never achieve a damn thing, I was but a wee lad when XCOM: UFO Defense was released for free by PC Gamer Magazine to its subscribers. In this game, you were tasked with operating mankind’s last defense against the alien menace, and were dropped into the world with no tutorial or information. The game was hard, the enemies were without number, and you were expected to fail. This game was later remade by Firaxis in 2012, and it was more or less a pretty accurate reimagining of the original XCOM, but to be honest when I say XCOM, assume I am referring to the original and not its reimagining, if only because today’s review is of a game that was designed before the Firaxis version was even in production, much less released. Originally, Operation Perfect Blue was going to be a licensed XCOM game, but due to licensing issues the game was given another direction, which honestly provides a much more open sandbox for the group to play by bringing us a unique “Uncanny Valley” situation of the world being invaded and fully taken over in the same way that would happen if losing the original XCOM game.

Operation Perfect Blue takes place on the far off Planet Orna in a far away, previously undiscovered sector of space during a routine search for Itosium, which much like “The Spice” from Dune, must flow, for it is the only known source of spaceship fuel capable of sustaining interstellar travel. Orna is inhabited by the docile and polite Ornan people, blue colored humanoids with a tech level comparable to modern day earth. Orna is a paradise, untouched by major industry and mostly ignored by the universe until the EVIL Triaxy Corporation scams Orna into selling itself to Triaxy for the equivalent of three turnips and a cow.

Only then do we get the real setting of this story. Triaxy has now covered the entire planet with mining facilities, the pollution generated by the Itosium factories having reduced Ornas status to a Trash Planet. The Tri-Galactic union is powerless to stop Triaxy, leaving Orna to its fate; to be destroyed by Triaxies greed as they rape the world and use Ornans for biogenetic experiments. It even seems like there is no hope, Orna’s government has been disabled by Triaxy and its people comb through ruined cities avoiding Triaxy, manhunting parties while scavenging for food and water, while the Galactic Sena- Err Tri-Galactic Union is doing nothing to help. That’s where Operation Perfect Blue comes in.

OPB is a gigantic resistance shadow organization that officially does not exist, established by the ever enigmatic ornan known only as Majestic Blue; This operation is split up into several levels, such as RED level, ORANGE level and of course: BLUE Level (Black ops, Land and Undersea Espionage) which the players take control of. Unlike other tabletop RPG’s in circulation, OPB is fairly unique in its hybrid design, in that the players create and control main characters called “Executives” that act as their avatars and run BLUE level by managing its bank account, designing the bases, researching new technologies, manufacturing new equipment, hiring soldiers, and of course, launching raids on EVIL Triaxy bases. The ultimate goal of Perfect Blue is to repel the Triaxy occupation and re-establish Ornan control of the planet.

Now, who is Triaxy? Triaxy is an Andromedan Mining Corporation that specializes in mass Crystal Aggregate (AKA: Itosium) production that is used as starship fuel. The Andromedans are closest in stature to the Grey Aliens of modern imagination, and are separated into a common and higher caste of Psionic Andromedans. All Andromedans of common stature are capable of using Hardpoint cybernetic armor that links into their nervous system. This armor makes Triaxy soldiers difficult to take down in contrast to lightly armored Ornan freedom fighters and can pose a difficult challenge to the players with the powerful armors unique to the Andromedan race. Ornans, in addition to being blue in color also have natural resistance to psionic attacks, making them ideal for fighting stronger Andromedans.

Play begins with the creation of the players Executive Characters. They also begin with 400 Revenue Points (2 Million Dollars) and a starting base to call their own with basic amenities. In addition to their base and startup, BLUE Level has a league of Funding Corporations, including Perfect Blue itself. The players begin with eight all on the verge of dropping out if they are not shown results within three months. More corporations can be gained and it is feasibly possible to continue the game without them by selling resources gained from missions. Most of the game will be spent in base managing and improving its various functions. But when tasks cannot be completed by BLUE Level, the operation can lease equipment, manufacturing services and research firms from MerCore (a fellow Perfect Blue operation) or other companies if the proper structures cannot be afforded.

The character creation sheet for 'Operation Perfect Blue' — The character creation sheet for ‘Operation Perfect Blue’

Cutters Guild’s titles have always stacked the odds against you, but Operation Perfect Blue brings even more pain to the table with the hyper-realism introduced in its combat system where damage is concerned. A character’s Endurance Stat directly limits each character’s hitpoints, with each part of the body given its own HP totals. The Head and Torso are critical locations that result in death if lost, while the arms and legs are less important but can be severed. Thankfully here in the SPACE FUTURE, the technology exists to replace and repair such damaged parts. This becomes most relevant while in the middle of a combat where more advanced and powerful characters are able to dispense a lot more pain and damage than lower leveled characters. In contrast to the realism presented, there are several alien races available to hire as mercenaries and personnel from bug aliens, the cousins of the Brutes from Halo, to big blue dual-larynxed scientists and their creations the Androids (Mistakenly referred to as Cyborgs despite their lack of organic structure)

You may of notice up until now Humans have not been mentioned. This is not because they do not exist, but remember in Titan A.E when the Dredge blew up earth? Yeah that happened. The Andromedans, fearing Human Adaptability blew up our solar system reducing most Humans to being exotic creatures and many turn to space piracy, some of which becoming MerCore agents available for purchase by Perfect Blue. Each race is accompanied by a few pages of explanation and the general state of affairs surrounding the race, most of them having moderate reason to be capable of being hired by Perfect Blue. Humans and Androids are fellow victims of Triaxy racism and readily are available to aid in the struggle, and even some Andromedans are willing to join though those that do should be held suspect.

In addition to the diversity, every race has a unique special trait that can range from minor to gamechanging. Some races like the Lotharians are immune to psionic influence, while others like the Andromedans/Androids can purchase upgrades for themselves. This provides a lot of choice for how to construct the 3-4 man teams that BLUE Level can send out into the world depending on circumstances of the battlefield. Adding more diversity is a series of military professions available that fit combat roles from assault to heavy demolitions as well as providing the ability to hire psionic personnel. Realistic systems for space, underwater, aerial and land combat exist along with dedicated vehicle rules similar to land combat rules but with added systems like locking onto targets for missiles.

One of my gripes with the systems used, is that uses pretty much every kind of system available. Statistic rolls are settled with a D20 roll, Skills with percentile, and combat uses a complicated D20 system mixed with various types of action points, and this can get very confusing when trying to remember what to roll for what. The benefit of this system, however, is that combat becomes very tactical, lethal, and difficult. Every character in combat has a number of Action Points, using one per combat. In addition to this statistic is a character’s Aggression, and his Aggression remaining for the entire day. What this means is that a character with 29 points of aggression can fight well for 29 rounds over the course of the day before becoming tired. These points are drained even faster depending on the nature of the actions taken, making underwater combat even more tiring.

Initiative is also very important in the gunfights taking place in OPB, as characters can use up to three actions instead of one per turn, which primarily benefits higher level characters with more APRs, as it allows them to shoot, dodge a return shot, then shoot right back again if they want to. This mechanic gives combat a very tactical and action packed feel, as shots fly and characters are given the choice to duck into cover, take it, or even attack right back. Thankfully, to aid with the confusion the book includes a very helpful series of detailed Tutorial examples that walk you blow by blow through solving a few combat situations which can help those willing to read through it understand the system rather quickly.

Base design and functions are fully realized, with a large section devoting itself to the manufacturing and research functions. I really enjoy the treatment science is given, as players are expected to come up with their own pseudo-scientific theories and thus research pretty much anything within reason that the GM allows. There is no shortage of structures and variety for bases, with mechanical benefits for installing doors and alarms. The alarms of course can be programmed with thousands of different sounds for different occasions. Everything you would expect you can build in XCOM can be built and more, from things like the mess hall to defensive cannons, to containment cells and their upgraded versions.

Players begin with a Trident Base, which is a half constructed base for the players to turn into the glorious first base of Perfect Blue, giving the players quite a lot of freedom in its customization. More space for facilities can also be constructed as additions to the base and theoretically allow you to build a base pretty much anywhere you want, even on land if you were that ready for Triaxy to bomb you from orbit and/or send their large amount of Big Fucking Mecha to stomp it flat. In addition to the base and tactical aspects of Operation Perfect Blue, there are pages upon pages of various craft for the air, sea and even space if need be. Though that’s far from where the list ends, as then there are several Combat Walkers available as well (tanks are for wusses, real men use giant mecha) that are oddly rather cheaply available from one of the many fronts that Perfect Blue uses to purchase and design weaponry and vehicles, Ornan Technologies Center, a thinktank established by Perfect Blue that has been secretly designing and constructing a wide variety of weapons for sale to Perfect Blue and other companies.

The (tiny) key art to 'Operation Perfect Blue' — The (tiny) key art to ‘Operation Perfect Blue’

I have several issues with this. OTC and many other such businesses lay in the Atlantean Cities, never mind that I seriously doubt the Ornans would know what Atlantis is, but the fact these cities lay in domes underneath the oceans (Which is where the primary Itosium deposits are!) and have for an indeterminate amount of time in the “deepest” parts of the planet’s oceans… Which is where Triaxy would logically want to scan first for large Itosium deposits as beneath mountains and on the ocean floor are common locations for them. Granted, the game mentions that it’s only a matter of time before they are found, but with the amount of military presence Triaxy has and the fact that the cities are stupid enough to actually conduct interstellar trade as well as train MerCore soldiers makes me call bullshit that Triaxy has not located them already. They have spies everywhere, at least one has to have made it into MerCore and thus into the cities despite how I already call foul that there are gigantic underwater utopias that somehow no Ornan has told Triaxy about, despite the countless acts of torture they are subjected to.

The overall theme of the game, if you have somehow not noticed yet, is that Triaxy represents the Nazi’s in basically every way. They conduct genetic experiments to create cyberzombies called Enforcers on top of pretty much every war crime imaginable, even having more than a few concentration camps on the planet. The game wastes no time in telling you just how really bad the Ornans have life now, some becoming servants, many others as common slaves, and the rest fighting for their lives amidst the ruined cities for scraps of food. As a child of 1990 I managed to miss the Holocaust, but I’m pretty sure this is what it would look like if Hitler made cyber attack jewzombies, which can make reading the games lore more than a little difficult to those that strikes a bad chord with.

While Operation Perfect Blue has a learning curve, it’s not a very steep one. The game is written in a very informative manner, which can make it rather easy to learn for those willing to read the massive book. The combat system is very brutal, as it’s designed with the intention of players being able to replace characters easily, which they can, due to the base mechanics of hiring mercenaries. The game does a good job of giving the player a large amount of variety, and while not all of the story actually makes sense, the way it is written gives the players a ton of free choice to play the game exactly how they want to play it (which is odd, considering the same person wrote What Lurks Beyond). I highly recommend this game, I have very few bad things to say about it, and the fact that you can buy miniguns that can fire underwater make this one of the best Cutters Guild products ever released.

-Necroscourge 4/13/13

Tabletop Tales: How To Host A Dungeon

by NecroscourgeApril 1, 2013

I love stuff like this. How to Host a Dungeon is a loose set of guidelines meant to aid one in the creation of a dungeon, fully developed with general lifeform populations and landmarks from ancient civilizations. More of an exercise than a proper ‘game’, the rules are well crafted and meant to simply aid, rather than direct. Many measuring systems are meant to be arbitrary and there are no concrete, correct ways to draw anything.

Created by the mind of Tony Dowler in 2008, this PDF is available for a one time fee of $0 is available from his website. If you like creative drawing or solitaire games I would suggest giving it a shot. For a small donation, a paid version exists that adds a new content for the later three ages in the form of an additional choice or two. Honestly, with how easy it is to just make stuff up for the game there is nothing these choices bring new to the table, so the decision to pay is mostly in aiding the developer which is a just enough cause.

As written, the game goes through four time periods known as Ages: the Primordial Age, Age of Civilization, Age of Monsters, and Age of Villainy. Each Age is intended to be drawn on tracing paper, with parts of your dungeon intended to be improved upon by the next age. I really like this concept, as its merits will become a bit more clear later. In preparing for this article it was only proper that I of course prepared my own example play of How to Host a Dungeon.

As any tale of a Dungeon, this story starts many years ago in the Primordial Age, with but a blank slate to mold the topsoil of in order to give yourself a playground, though the majority of it will fall beneath the ground. Three D8’s are rolled, and tables are consulted to add natural landmarks to the realm. Upon my realm I cast three heavenly die which broke my screen, so I just used a dice roller and drunkenly pointed where “it would be cool”. Upon my realm was a majestic goldvein that ran through it like a shiny river. Just over it was a network of caves inhabited by ancient Neanderthal Samurai. Little did they know that many miles underground on his gigantic lucre pile was an ancient dragon, for now, he slept…

Our land having been defined, I believe those Neanderthal Samurai referred to the area as Gomjak, and as such it shall be known. As the days grew shorter and colder more and more of the Neanderthals flocked to the Gomjak Caves. Here it is said the mighty Samurai Jonathan of Clan London forged his empire within Gomjak. The London Clan controlled this land, and they were to carve it into a great paradise for their people. I based my custom Samurai Civilization on the Dwarves, but with key differences. Freshly minted, it was time to put it to the test. Their ancestral home has been turned into a deep loving place for them as they delved deeper into Gomjaks soil.

Clan London’s trials were many, and times were tough in the Age of Civilization. Their knowledge of the land aided them as that Spring rose them to four great families of Samurai belonging to the Clan, able to make use of the ancestral resources available to support them. With the numbers capable of fulfilling the task, Daimyo Jonathan would face his first defeat at the hands of the Black Rider who had slain two of the great families that Summer. Further woes occurred over the next year as treachery took place when another Samurai tripped and accidentally murdered the entire Jonathan bloodline. This power struggle caused Clan Urmesh to ride by and wipe the rest of the clan home out. Within two years the Empire was burnt to a crisp. For decades the caves would lay in misuse…

On a later fateful day, a great quake shook the land, a thick vein of lava spurting right to the top and bursting. This great shake awoke the mighty Lignog the Ferocious Dragon, and began the Age of Monsters. As Lignog stirred, he could find more monsters had come to inhabit his new domain, and in his sleep the Kingdom of Bargnor was above easing the panic of its citizens with the recent hellfire spewing from the mountain. It also seemed that deep beneath a collection of Magma Sprites had began melting over the ancient caves and hardening them, uncovering ancient treasures buried beside old bones in the ceremonial plot. While in yet another corner of the old dungeon it seems that some Gnoll Pirates had come as well to bury their Horde and turn the place into the perfect hideout!

With the die cast for the monsters, it would seem the first year would also be the most interesting. A group of adventurers seems to have come in quite quickly in request of the King, to soften up any resistance beneath the undergrounds following the disaster. And that they did: the first major victory of the brave two soldiers sent in was defeating the dreaded Gnoll pirates and carting off their lucre, and soon the two warriors fell upon the Magma Spirits, quickly slaying the many beasts beneath. Twas a victorious day, for much loot was extracted from the underground! Little did they know, that every year Lignog would be crawling closer and closer. But alas, this did not really matter to the King, in a bid of madness with the riches carted from the Dungeons, he would descend underground with his greatest warriors, the Prince electing to rule in his stead.

The age of the Dungeonmaster had begun.

My game was on a much shorter and smaller map; your games likely won’t end so violently or quickly, but I do hope you generally understand the idea now of what a game of How to Host A Dungeon looks like. Potentially I could continue, though honestly at this point the villain wins. Below I have included the custom Civilization I used, so that it can be used in your own games.

There are a few things like it, but How to Host as Dungeon covers pretty much every base it needs to, and helps tell a great story by the end with just a little bit of imagination.

-Necroscourge 3/30/13

Neanderthal Civilization

Forming into loose Clans, the ancient Samurai honed sharp stone blades of raw Stonesteel. The Clan seeks to journey abroad and gain honor as well as wealth. With the politics of the Clan come its vices, many such Empires soon found failure as the line of friend and foe grew thin often. Neanderthal caves are roughly chiseled from the earth itself, adorned with various paintings,tapestries, and pelts. While advanced at their time the Neanderthal Samurai were still not truly civil.

Choose a cave, preferably near the surface and connect it. If one does not exist, make one. The original cave becomes the Community Cave, which is enlarged, and where many families gather. Two small caves for Population and two for Storage should be attached to the Community Cave. Black Represents a force of Neanderthals, White represents wealth.

It is now year zero of the Empire.

The Clan Year

Duties among the Clan are often delegated to those too weak to fight, while those strong enough will also do sizable work during times of war, they must focus on combat. If no members of the Clan live the Age of the Empire ends.

Spring

In the Spring the Clan will breed and mate and Scouts will be dispatched to see what is available to horde. Gather all White not claimed by the Clan but near Clan lands, each White gathered must be stored in a Cave and if need be new ones shall be drawn. For every white gathered in this way a new habitat cave should be drawn if needed for a new black counter.

Summer

If at least four black are within the Clan there will be Blood this Summer, otherwise the Clan shall focus on its efforts mining as per Dwarves. When Blood will be had, half of the Clans Black will emigrate and a D8 should be rolled. On 1-4 a Black is lost permanently, but on 5-8 the Black will return with a White.

Fall

The season of scheming. Being crude people the Clan often works against itself. Roll a D8, on a 7 or 8 remove a Black for they have been wiped out by treachery. If this occurs then an enemy black appears for every two white the Clan owns. If no treachery is to be had they will build as per Dwarves but per the Neanderthal Construction Table

1	Family Shrine: Establish a shrine near entrance, which helps keeps evil ghosts from coming inside and looks pretty.
2	Honor Shrine: Establish an Honor Shrine, giving a +1 when defending the Civilization.
3	Personal Chambers: Draw a series of small cubbies and caves connected to a few corridors.
4	Great Hall: Draw a big fancy chamber, carved from the earth with a big fire in the center.
5	Great Statue: A Stone Sculpture is created in the Great Hall . This is a Great Treasure.
6	Sacrificial Pit: Draw a shaft about a finger down with a new cave. The Clan throws people they don’t like down this hole. In the Age of Monsters a Black will be placed here.
7	Great Foundry: A Great Smith is awakened and Establishes a Forge. This mighty room is three beads large and possesses a blessed Anvil. A magma vein is connected to this room and shoots straight down to the bottom of the page. A Great Treasure is placed here
8	Great Spirit Guide: A Shamans Cave should be constructed, where the mystic of the Clan sit’s. Place a Treasure here.
9	Awakening: Fertile Ground spreads a finger from the Shaman Cave. In the Age of Monsters this land counts as it were Gold.
10	The Great Campaign: The Age of the Clan ends in this realm, for the Samurai have all left with their families to the greatest battle of History. Their Ancestors may be present in the Age of Monsters if they succeeded.

Winter

In the Winter the Clan will dump its bodies in a big hole. Dig a ceremonial bodyhole a finger down, with a new side room with an X representing the grave plot of a family’s worth of population for each lost Black this year and move a White into it.

End of the Clan Age

When the Age ends, remove the Samurai and all their loot except great treasures and White in Tombs.

Tabletop Tales: ‘Pokéthulhu’

by NecroscourgeMarch 10, 2013

If there was ever the perfect invention for gaming, it was giving us things to collect. People love collecting things, I know I do! That’s probably why Pokémon nearly took over the world in the late 90’s, as it was literally a show, cardgame, and series of gameboy games with the sole purpose of collecting creatures, using them to fight other creatures, and getting a bunch of shiny objects to help us collect more monsters. Why, there is almost nothing you can do to make it better, short of mixing it with Cthulhu. Cumberland Games brings us Pokéthulhu, illustrated by John Kovalic of Dork Tower and Munchkin fame.

The world of Pokéthulhu takes the concept of collecting monsters and vigorously mixes it with H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. Players are Pokécultists, young children that have found a Pokénomicon and Shining Dodecahedrons and use them to capture and use Pokéthulu. You see, Pokéthulhu scare older people, but kids are unaffected. The eventual goal of all Pokéthulhu Cultists is to become a master, and what better way than to journey forth and collect Elder Badges.

The more you know about Pokémon, the funnier the game is, but really you can get away with just knowing about Lovecraft. There is no concrete lore used in the game, it’s expected of the players and gamemaster to go wild with their imaginations and just enjoy the game for what it is: playing psychotic children that pit fight other psychotic children with eldritch monsters for entertainment.

Characters have six different Statistics: Grade Level, Sanity, Phys Ed, Pokéthulu Lore, Shoplifting, and Trash Talking. Every kid also has a preferred Aspect, which is an overall type of Pokéthulhu and represents supernatural energy. The rules are simple, tasks consist of rolling a few D12’s, and you want to roll under your statistic. In combat, your Pokéthulhu Lore works in conjunction with your Pokéthulhu’s attributes. Every one of the darling non-euclidean monstrosities has a Power, Speed, and Hit-Point rating. There are also four types of attacks, each with their own ratings. Injure deals hit point damage, Trap binds the enemy, Dodge regains hit points from attacks, and Frighten attempts to end the battle by scaring the enemy away.

Pokéthulhu is completely free, and available on the author’s website. The games rules are amazingly simple and its a way to enjoy playing a Pokémon rpg without actually knowing anything about Pokémon, and while being cool. Go go Blhastur!

Tabletop Tales: ‘The Shadow Project’

by NecroscourgeMarch 4, 2013

Something you quickly realize about Cutters Guild products is that they are all very clearly inspired by popular mainstream works, specifically popular games of the time. The mascot of Deathstalkers 2, which is fought in What Lurks Beyond, is a large armored black knight called a Juggernaut, which heavily resembles a Chaos Warrior from Warhammer, the popular tabletop wargame. The Shadow Project seems inspired by quite a lot of media while proving to be fairly original in its own right.

This game, like many indie RPGs, is a custom ruleset with its own niche setting. This game is based on the fictional man-made island New Prometheus, a 3000 square mile large floating city-state off the coast of New England. Much like other islands off the coast of Eastern America, the entire island has entered a state of emergency. In this case, it’s due to a rogue computer virus so powerful it has hacked into the human genome and discovered the secrets of perfect biomechanical parasitism, enslaving the populous as cyber zombies and threatening to take over the entire world if so much as a single bit of corrupted data escapes the island. Thankfully the book later mentions that somehow the Shadow Project constructed a gigantic containment wall around the infected downtown sector (I suspect wizards were involved), which is where the majority of the game is suggested to take place

The intro takes this concept and immediately poses a scenario that if true, the world has already been conquered, and there is no further reason to play the game. It follows a combat journalist on his deployment to New Prometheus to help recon the city and figure out just what’s going on. The team is killed near immediately by the techno-zombies, robo-vampires, and other deadly creatures of the city, leaving the infected journalist to wander off on his own. He eventually find a computer terminal, which the virus naturally threatens him with; it’s suggested that the man kills himself soon after. What is not mentioned however, is the fate of the anti-viral Archangel chip in his camera, which he did not botherto destroy after the evil virus pretty much demanded the damn thing. It’s implied that if the virus got its hands on this camera, it would completely nullify the single edge humanity had left against the DEVIL virus.

'The Shadow Project's character creation sheet. — ‘The Shadow Project’s character creation sheet.

At the end of this story, the journalist also decides to mention that in addition, an Archangel chip that the player characters use is nearly ready, which indeed makes me wonder why they sent a recon team with the well known repercussions of rendering their secret weapon completely useless. The opening of this book is flawed; the players would get to the scene and immediately become infected since the virus has by then figured out how to defeat its one predator. This part of the setting drives me nuts, not only is the setting so generic but it flat out denies its own possible existence with just a small bit of logic.

The books art is the other thing that irritates me; for the life of it, the games artists cannot decide what any of The Shadow Project’s soldiers or the monsters themselves look like.

Many illustrations depict the cyber-undead as decomposing bodies with metal graphed bits, while the bestiary pages suggest they are built completely of sinew-like cybernetic tubing with maws of gnarly teeth. Other pages picture Shadow Project soldiers in infantry combat armor while other agents are decked out in the same sinew-armor the undead appear to wear. It’s like the art of two very different games but with the same enemies and ideas behind them.

Shadow Project soldiers are tasked with defeating the virus, and are outfitted with Archangel chips that limit the exposure of the DEVIL virus and allow the operatives to hack and utilize the virus for themselves. This is not only extremely dangerous but the main way characters gain power and weaken their enemies. Various weapons the agents are equipped with hack the data within the enemy which can then be applied to the agent’s body, mind, or soul. Yes, as in there is actually a readout on the wrist of every Shadow Project soldier that says body, mind, and soul, and their survival hinges on their ability to shoot monsters and apply it to their SOUL. The fact that this mechanic is in no way actually a meta-concept yet commonly accepted in the game world helps completely undermine any horror the DEVIL virus may have had. If the Hindu philosophers ever saw this book, I think India would declare war on us.

Boogeyman - one of the DEVIL virus' most feared spawn. — Boogeyman – one of the DEVIL virus’ most feared spawn.

With the great power and reward that comes with the virus there is also great risk. Every time you reach certain levels there is a chance that the DEVIL virus will assume direct control and kill you, as is what normally happens when you plug a virus that shares the name of the dark one into your neural net. Yet Shadow Project is completely fine with their agents doing this, to the aforementioned point of labelling their equipment for inputs of this data to their body, mind, and soul. I can’t get over how weird it is for a horror game to be so laughably flawed in its setting.

Every monster in the game is named after traditional fantasy monsters, with various ghosts, wraiths, werewolves, and vampires around. The art for them all is of the sinew variety, and thus once you see one you generally have seen them all. Large humanoid figures with big round eyes, gnashing teeth, and a PHD in kicking your ass. Many of them are designed to be serious threats, as they are created by the DEVIL virus for various functions and purposes. Why however the DEVIL virus named them the way they did, the world may never know.

This game is for collectors only, and I don’t suggest actually trying to play it. The book itself is a large softcover book, ships in great condition, and while the artwork flips between two different settings, it’s also rather in-depth and quite pretty. The story of this game is a black hole devoid of any actual plausibility, to the point of being insulting. I don’t question the DEVIL virus at all, in fact that’s the most brutal virus possible. What I object to is how there is no possible way with the current setting that the game should be playable. It sounds like the DEVIL can simply fall into the ocean, grab a fish and suddenly the world is fucked. Also, how is a 20 foot tall wall supposed to stop the DEVIL minions when they almost all can climb buildings effortlessly? There is no possible way to actually quarantine the island! Everything we know about the DEVIL virus just points out more and more that there is nothing we as humanity can do. Not since the reporter basically gave our secret weapon to it!

This is a horror game that manages to fail at every quality of being a horror game. The monsters are simply not frightening, the game technically has already been lost, there is a meter for soul on the military’s armor, and on and on. It’s too easy to analyze the game and see exactly what it is doing wrong, and thus draw little entertainment from it.

-Necroscourge 3/1/13

The company has much, much better offerings! — The company has much, much better games!

Tabletop Tales: ‘SimCity: The Card Game’

by NecroscourgeFebruary 24, 2013

As a child of 1990, I had a front row seat for the crazy 90’s gaming scene. I was exposed to the convention scene quite early, and to this day my drawers are filled with old failed card games of widely varied quality thanks to it. Some, like Pokèmon and to a lesser extent Legend of the Five Rings are still somewhat popular, while others, like Hecatomb, The Crow, Animayhem, and my two big boxes of Sim City: The CCG stand as a grim reminder that not all games achieve fame.

For those unlucky enough to be born when music was on MTV and Cartoons were made to entertain rather than desensitise, the original SimCity (1989) was created by the legendary titan Will Wright, forged on Mount Brokosh from the shards of creation and the ether itself forever defined the genre concept of enjoying simply building a map with little in the way of actual goals and spawned many sequels, tributes, and stands besides Alpha Centauri in the Hall of Legendary Games. Fast forward to 1995 when Mayfair Games tried to get their hands on every Intellectual Property they could get their hands on. This resulted in the Mortal Kombat Kard Game (Which I seriously want to find and review now…) and of course: SimCity. 1995 is also when Mayfair’s most popular game, Settlers of Catan was released.

Three appropriated sized SimCity: CCG decks. — The collection

It’s pretty hard to mess up a card game based on a City Builder, and SimCity: CCG provide exactly what it needs to. Every card represents the space of a city block and is a building or terrain feature that composes the city. However, every pack of 14 cards also comes with special long card that takes up two blocks of play but can only be placed with rezoning (a rule to be explained later) In addition to the regular cards are event cards that represent either fortune… or a disaster that will cause damage to the city and force the mayor to pay for it. Obtainable by buying enough boosters or getting a Starter Deck, one player holds the Mayor card that grants him extra vote strength which gives him a slight advantage if the deck does not have the correct cards to offset it. Since many of these powerful cards are fairly rare among a very large list, it can be maddening to put together a proper deck that accurately keeps the mayor in check.

There are around 1100 cards for the game, with a good 150+ of them being extremely rare Promo cards for conventions and gaming stores. There is a ton of variety, even with the long cards that serve as famous landmarks in your city late in the game. Instead of artwork every card has a picture, usually of an existing structure, which is interesting considering the Great Wall of China, Forbidden City, and other wonders are around. Since the game suggests a deck of 50 cards that everybody draws from, and the sheer variety of cards available can make the game hard to accurately form an opinion on since like any other collectible game from the 90’s there are direct counters to strategies many other reviewers have whined about. SimCity expected you to buy a lot of cards and create a versatile deck with a particular strategy assigned to it. This is one of those games that predates DLC yet makes it even funnier by not telling you what you get until after you pay.

The game suggests using a very small deck (less than 60) and back in the day if you loved a game you bought about the equivalent of a booster box if you wanted to be competitive (like I am.) I opened an two entire boxes to see just how many rares I could pull. Like the box, the boosters have 90’s style clouds and a yellow box that immediately brings your attention to the game; the added nerd factor of muttering “is that a SimCity Card Game?” upon recognizing it makes the packaging absolutely genius. The long cards are the funniest of the bunch, with such famous places as Alcatraz Island, The Taj Majal, and more among Oil Platforms, Surf and Beach Resorts, Golf Courses, A Federal Express, as well as very tactical cards like a State Police Headquarters, Major Fire Station, or Ghost Removal Specialist’s building. Anybody who talks trash about this game, when you can build a Ghostbusters franchise in your city, I say your arguement is invalid.

Yep... That's a booster box full of cards. — Yep… That’s a booster box full of cards.

The rules are amazingly simple, every player can play a card on vacant tablespace, upgrade a card without a needed vote, or rezone a card from their hand which requires a vote by all players. Later in the game as the table begins to fill up and more cards begin requiring rezoning to play, a larger game of SimCity suddenly becomes very diplomatic as the game simply expects the players to lie, deal, and blackmail each other for superiority. You see, players have vote strength according to the politicians they control (Or represent) that are accumulated during play. The most common of these politicians are council members, there are rarer corrupt and specialist council members as well as two more special seats. The election card allows players to become governor or the council chairman, The amazingly creepy chairman nullifies the mayor’s tiebreak ability if they oppose on issues. The mayor and governor have to pay damages caused by disasters, but otherwise have voting power.

Being the mayor is both a blessing and a curse. In return for being jacked out of their money by disaster cards, the mayor is the very first player to get the ability to vote and unless the other players are lucky enough to find a few council members they can’t stop the mayor from doing some renovations to damage the holdings of their fellow players. If the mayor is good at securing an ally or two they can prove very difficult to beat. To offset this powerful ability, one can put in a variety of disasters, include the election card, and use a wonderful card that immediately recalls the mayor to put him in his place. All of this implies you have collected several boosters and rares to have such useful mechanics in your game. This is one of those games that is exactly what you put into it, since the game uses only one deck it would be embarrassing to invite your friends to play SimCity and be ridiculed for not having the cool cards that make your deck bearable in multiplayer.

Play starts in the first of four stages, the Settlement Phase where only cards with white stat boxes can be played. This consists of undeveloped land such as mountain and plains, ye olde shoppes, small farms, and victorian houses. Phase 1 shouldn’t last too long as once four sims live in your Settlement it becomes a Village unlocking green cards for use. The next two stages are slightly trickier, as out of the near thousand cards I opened up I primarily received Phase 3 cards. I say tricky because to enter the third stage you need eight available job slots for sims in addition to one of the players having a power plant to officially begin the phase and take mayordom. The game suggests that players only can have one card and pass if they can’t make a play. An incorrectly proportioned or shuffled deck can lead to an annoying problem of simply being unable to find the cards needed to actually continue the game. Though this can be rectified by granting three cards to players instead; I dislike this aspect of design making it way too easy to be unable to actually play the game. While methods can be devised to thwart this bad design feature I don’t feel right having to fix a published game before I can enjoy it.

A card is scored after being placed, and the player gets points for the placed block’s value, any zoning or complex bonuses, and any special bonuses the block may get such as being connected to a power station or covered by a police department. Later in the game, a strategically placed card can be worth a large amount of points, especially if placed as a upgrade of somebody else’s building. You don’t lose points for replacing or losing structures, which goes against our urge to protect them. The game also makes no claim that you should remember who placed what card, except for special cards where this is a factor.

In addition to the zone bonus granted by placing four or more cards of the same zone together, there is also the complex bonus. Many rarer cards are denoted as being part of the University, Medical, Airport, or even Farm Complexes. If these cards are placed together the values listed by their complex identifier (Farm 4, Airport 2, etc) are added together for a large sum when a new part of the complex is built. The absolute most common are the Oil Refinery and Farm, but rarer complexes like some stated above exist as well. I heard the argument that the Zone Bonus can get out of hand when in reality it can get nowhere near as bad as the Complex bonuses, which can be used tactically to steal the lead or catch up in points.

Since the booster packs primarily give cards that are for the last portion of the game you end up with a lot of cards you simply cannot put into your deck as doing so would make getting to the second and third stages amazingly hard, especially if you try to pull a Munchkin; shuffle your massive deck and try to play it that way then you will have a rough time due to the mix of cards offered. You will end up with way too many cards that you have to hold for a prolonged period of time, even more so if you keep the proportions of cards that are given by boosters (predominantly late game cards) SimCity is a hard game to tolerate at times for all of its customizability, and it’s a game you need to specialize in to really enjoy.

Another shot of the ol' collection — Another shot of the ol’ collection

To properly enjoy SimCity: CCG you need to heavily augment the given rules, and make up your own. A good multiplayer deck needs a lot of news cards, and plenty of the cards that promote backstabbing. Some buildings detract from the value of the neighborhood, making it good for damaging the scoring of other players. Some cards even exist specifically for use in the “Duelling Cities” ruleset provided in the manual, that let you directly build in your enemies town. This leads me to the impression that while people can review and look over this game until the end of time but not really able to find anything you can accuse the game of not doing well that can’t be fixed by arranging the cards a certain way. It’s based on a city builder and was designed to be very political in a large group, which it does exactly what it needs to in that regard. Any other problems relay directly to what cards you have and what cards you use in your deck.

For instance, the argument of the mayor being unbeatable can easily be curtailed by providing a variety of cards that both damage and replace the mayor. The problem with cards being increasingly harder to count can be prevented by simply limiting the amount of cards with strange point gains. Those that hate having to figure crime or fire coverage can just use the long cards that affect the entire city. With over a thousand cards available it’s not exactly hard to build a varied deck or way of playing that handles whatever arguments you may have against the game. SimCity is rather easy to play and has a gentle learning curve, or alternatively you can throw in the confusing cards; its up to you. If the way cards are limited by what phase you can start playing them bother you, just don’t use that rule. The game can’t decide what the “right” way to play is, so why should you?

I love this game. The rarer cards give you the satisfaction of being funny, the city built by the cards is varied and while some cards are meant to specifically exist in the same deck, these cards tend to be rare as well. What you’re left with is a city that’s as unique or bland as you want it to be, and a game just as fun as you want it to be (and make it).

-Necroscourge 2/21/13

Tabletop Tales: ‘What Lurks Beyond’

by NecroscourgeFebruary 17, 2013

As I like to bring up near constantly, I love OGL (Open Game License) content. I play a third party character in every game that I play in, and utilize plenty of OGL content in my own games that I start. However, it’s not all made equal in any way shape or form and I make no claims otherwise; sometimes it falls flat and descends into obscurity where it can’t hurt anyone. What Lurks Beyond is a published 3.5 adventure that helps support the argument of why if you don’t specialize in writing DnD products you should not write one. This is also going to be your one warning, since this review covers a specific adventure it, by nature, is chock full of spoilers. If for some reason you plan on playing this adventure (you poor sadistic bastard!) then this review may hurt any enjoyment you would receive in doing so. Unless of course you are insane, then rock on!

Supposedly, What Lurks Beyond is built for 4-6 level 7-10 characters and it warns not to admit anyone of a higher level than that. A core concept to designing adventures, or at least this is Wizards of the Coasts method, is to build it around a group of four characters and test it with various builds and parties of characters. On the first page this book has already filled me with a sense of dread, as you can’t help but wonder how the adventure accounts for the mere possibility of two extra party members. Another warning flag is the adventure’s size. The softcover book is easily over a hundred pages due to the two dungeons contained within.

The adventure is split up into a series of chapters, each covering a particular area of the adventure. This clean organization makes the adventure quite easy to run as there is no question as to where various areas are located, while past adventures I have seen lacked such a neat arrangement. The first of these chapters covers the overall area of the adventure and contains the entrances to the various dungeons as well as major points of interest while each more defined location has its own chapter.

The back of the book also contains a series of “handouts” meant to be copied and passed out to players, though only a handful of them are not maps but actually puzzles. What Lurks Beyond prides itself in mentioning how well written and cerebral it is for having developed puzzles, but don’t get too amazed; these are mostly boring crosswords, hangman, and other such activities designed to pad out the sessions and punish any players that could care less about the adventure’s plot. The book also claims at the beginning that it is acceptable to swap out the names of some of the gods for whatever is relevant in your campaign, without telling you that one of these gods is the answer to some of these handout puzzles. Along with these puzzles are a series of small, barely detailed maps, but I have no idea why these maps would be passed out in favor of using a traditional mapping method since there is no reason whatsoever the players should have access to a personal map (A useless one at that; this is not exactly the most complicated adventure.)

We begin this adventure in the middle of the woods moving East. The party very quickly runs into a wrecked coach for a chance at a little looting before starting the adventure proper at a fork in the road, presenting the first choice since the book makes no claim that the party can deny to loot the wrecked carriage. The passage in the book swears up and down that it does not matter if you go left or right, and that is simply a damn right lie. No matter which path you take the party is thrown into its first combat encounter. Ever wondered what would happen if a Headcrab from Half-Life rampantly bred with rabbits? That’s more or less what a Blood Bunny is. On either side the party is faced with a large amount of the creatures and there is no written way to dodge this first encounter (it’s forced). That’s a shame because the adventure throws no less than TWENTY FIVE monsters at you, each with ten hit points and a +7 initiative, all of the little bastards do up to five damage per turn as the horde leaps around like the little hell-beasts that they are. Though this encounter is heavily overpowered there are ways of dealing with it using standard classes; if the party has spellcasters specializing in area of effect spells or stocked up on alchemists fire then it should not be too hard to roast that army of head humpers.

No doubt spending eight hours to rest or using a good amount of healing magic, the party then continues to see what happens on the left side. Earlier the adventure claimed that it was fine no matter what side you took. By “it does not matter” they of course meant “Pick left and die.” As not even a page later the book mentions that the players are absolutely not supposed to go left, and “discourages” the players by putting yet another fight in their path in the form of tainted Grizzly Beasts, all the while showing the party signs to turn back now. The beasts are dispatched easily enough, they may hit like freight trains but at least they have a normal array of hit points and AC. Wasting even more healing, the party can then walk 30 feet down the road to a broken bridge, where once again the book begs the GM constantly to try and get the players to go right but by then it is too late since the party is then faced with a SWAMP DRAGON, on it’s own this is easily a CR 15+ monster waiting to penetrate you with four bladed tentacles a turn that do 4D6 damage EACH. Seeing a pattern here yet? Guess what’s directly after the dragon? Surprise, ANOTHER COMBAT ENCOUNTER!

By then if your party has not strangled you and impaled your skull on a pike for trying to run this adventure they will likely immediately plead to just let them go right. Unlike the left road, this option lacks the three encounters put there to ensure that the choice is one in name alone (Cutters guild, you are aware that a choice with one correct answer is not actually a choice right?). Keep in mind that the party has no goals at the moment yet can already be faced with complete destruction. On the plot railroad the party finds the first handout, a cypher that leaves the party with a cryptic phrase that is the secret to finding hidden loot later in the adventure. Loot of course, the party would not know existed if they had gone left. Afterwards the party is introduced to the Tower of Bladesedge, the first dungeon (Likely designed by whoever built Sauron’s tower.)

The tower is the hellhole you would think it is, filled with arbitrary traps and strong use of the word “Immune”. I held back on this detail but most (if not all) monsters are outright immune to *something* as opposed to using the vulnerability and resistance system in D20. For instance, if you are a spellcaster that uses anything but Earth magic, a cleric or a rogue with points in Open Lock or Disable Device you are going to very quickly find that the book seems to be under the impression that everything only has one answer and will happily declare everything you do to be either ineffective or outright not allowed. As you could also tell the damage values of everything in the adventure are also very arbitrary, to the point where instead of having an enchantment rating like it’s supposed to, there is a sword laying around that is magical and does a whopping 3d8 damage per swing. I really want to know where all these high damage numbers came from and what game the writer thinks he is writing an adventure for, because it sure as hell is not standard 3.5.

The tower serves as another slog of secret doors, riddles, and tasks that all have one single way of being completed. The top of the tower is another deathtrap, with three riddles, ever descending spikes, and a conveniently impossible to dispel Wall of Force to contend with. Completing this riddle opens a secret door in the dungeon that contains the lock for the McGuffin you grabbed from the Well outside. “What key?” you ask? Obviously the key that was never hinted at before yet conveniently is the only way to work the lock that because the plot demands it opens the door to Ezreal’s tomb. Who’s Ezreal? The book seemed to forget to explain that part too. Hidden in *another* dungeon below the dungeon you already are in is a scrap of exposition explaining that Ezreal is a foul witch, though it’s never explained why all magic around Bladesedge is completely bullshit and incapable of being dispersed and why no locks in this land can actually be picked.

After wading out of that HELLHOLE the party can finally walk down the road to yet another fork, presenting the group with two possibilities. By now the party is aware that they have opened Ezreal’s tomb in the Cemetery so there is little reason to go anywhere else really. The Generic Hellish Cemetery houses the Tomb of Ezreal and serves as the last real area of the adventure and its oh so varied locations of ruined cities, abandoned towers, and dank dungeons all the while raining and storming. The Tomb is unlocked in the tower, or at least that remains an option since you could…. you know… just climb over the gate and enter the tomb anyway. And yes, that is a viable option capable of saving the party a large amount of time. You would think so at least, despite the ability to get into the tomb it’s still impossible to complete the adventure without opening it with the key in the tower (damned impossible to dispel enchantments!). Though you better hope that you have already done everything you need to do before going to confront Ezreal because halfway to the tomb the dead begin to rise in mass. You thought 25 rabbits was bad, try taking on 200 lesser zombies!

FINALLY! It’s time for the final battle! The party, tired from their battles stumbles into the main tomb of Ezreal to find his eternal prison, the stained glass statue of Ezreal and the four key shaped ho- No… NO… NO NO NO…. Ezreal’s tomb is surrounded by four towers, each with its own key and trial (and of course are protected by bullshit magic) that conveniently are required before the final confrontation. If the party were to start at level 7, by now they would measure around level 13-15 (Its hard to tell because the monster entries lack CR’s and thus make it difficult to award experience) from the sheer amount of puzzles, riddles, bullshit magic locks, monsters with bullshit immunities, and McGuffins the adventure puts them through, so what’s a few more towers? Just like every other dungeon in the adventure this is a linear trek to the top to solve a puzzle, slay some critters and repeat.

Four towers later….

Ok. NOW it’s time for the final battle. Ezreal’s dark soul encased in Stained Glass animates once the final key is inserted and turned and he gives the generic “Rule by my side” speech one would expect. In both forms he acts as a level 15 Sorcerer and is one of the easiest fights in the adventure, since Ezreal fights completely alone and as a Sorcerer will provoke attack of opportunities if he tries to cast any powerful spells; there is really no way you can fail to beat him… Upon destroying his larger Stained Glass form Ezreal rises in his medium sized mortal form ready to continue the battle, which actually makes him even easier to circle and puddle stomp. Suddenly, before you strike the final blow, Ezreal launches bolts of energy that instantly without any save needed knock you all out, he then turns you into his Nazgu- I mean Shades that have been hounding you this entire adventure. That’s right, Ezreal (like everything else in this adventure) has plot armor and cannot die thus winning by default. The party has failed and Ezreal goes on to rule the world because he is invincible for no established (or possible) reason.

What the adventure fails to alert the players of in any real concrete way until they actually bump into the McGuffin required is that Ezreal can ONLY be slain with the powers of the dead paladin Seth, whom every now and then is referred to in scriptures found in the adventure. Due to how the adventure’s maps are structured and because the book itself makes it fucking impossible to go left (Which is where Seth is buried as well as the exposition needed to signify that Seth is even needed to slay Ezreal.) You actually are encouraged to metagame and be aware that Cutters Guild fucking hates you, has never played DnD in their life, and of course would never make it as simple as just slaying the end boss and bringing happiness to the world.

If the players instead chose to continue down the road before confronting Ezreal, and braved the lair of the growlings beneath the tower in order to get Seth’s amulet then the party can journey past the ruined city and travel to Seth’s burial ground where the party can then revive the dead Paladin, who promises to help you in the final battle against Ezreal. From then forward if you bring the Amulet to Ezreal and destroy his stained glass form the character wearing his amulet will poke’morph into Seth and thus be able to lay a divine asskicking on that damned defenseless Sorcerer that could not fight his way out of a paper bag. After the two to three rounds needed to encircle and destroy Ezreal, Seth will behead the blighter and forever doom his eternal soul to hell (Heaven and Hell of course is called something different in DnD and behaves completely different, but I don’t expect the authors to know the first thing about the game at this point)

The birds sing, the sun shines, and your party is now victorious holding the various overpowered weapons and artifacts found from the adventure and the knowledge that pulling their own teeth would’ve been less painful than trying to win this adventure. What Lurks Beyond is a strange animal, as the book itself is actually well written and diverse with plenty of adventuring to be had; yet it falls completely flat with its arbitrary judgement of monster and loot strength and the obvious fact that the authors probably never played a real adventure beforehand or have any knowledge pertaining to the balance of a written adventure. A core rule to playing GameMaster is that there should never be such a painfully linear path to victory, and I count the possibility of losing for just not exploring enough to be too much of a “videogamey” cop-out. Unlike a videogame, a RPG party rarely gets the option to continue from where they lost and often will not want to sit through fights or sections multiple times. There are too many overpowered enemies, arbitrary traps, and the ever present impossible to dispel magic that seems to litter these godforsaken woods.

Gary Gygax has often been accused of writing the worst modules in DnD’s history, and to that I call bullshit. Mr. Gygax’s infamous modules were written for the express purpose of thinning out crowds of gamers at tournaments and as a test of a party’s ability to min-max and create a balanced group while What Lurks Beyond was written as a serious, cerebral adventure of high (as a kite) fantasy. Though honestly the adventure itself is not too hard to fix, the main issues lay in the sheer amount of magically locked doors, unbalanced encounters, incomplete monster entries, and joke of a final battle that leaves you feeling like you wasted more than a months worth of sessions for the weakest payoff possible. Copies of this adventure are rare as the book was not very widely circulated. Like the rest of Cutters Guilds titles you can get What Lurks Beyond from their shop, while it may be the weakest of their titles I will one day visit their stronger ones, as their better works can be considered somewhat legendary.

It turns out the reason the balancing is off is because the module is technically not for D20 at all but their own 3.5 setting book Deathstalkers 2 that uses a very different ruleset, behaving like a completely different animal. Many of the monsters in this adventure are from Deathstalkers 2 as well (Including their re-used bestiary pictures, tsk tsk)

-Necroscourge 2/15/13

Tabletop Tales: ‘Legacy: War Of Ages’

by NecroscourgeFebruary 9, 2013

RPG’s based on TV and movies are nothing new, with more famed series having received better and better adaptations by saner and saner designers. Normally a good sequel is met with a cash-in RPG, or in Highlander‘s case, a good third party RPG, The Quickening and later… The Source. Legacy: War of Ages can most simply be described as a labour of love for their favorite movie; taking every (good) part of the first two films and injecting their own creativity into the project to create an “Alternate Version” of the Highlander franchise with all of the buzzwords replaced with more generic titles. For instance, The Quickening became The Rapture, and The Gathering became The Conclave. Zeist of course, is never mentioned or even suggested to possibly exist.

The beginning of Legacy very quickly explains the various periods of Immortal History, along with the basic rules of Immortal protocol, such as “one must never do combat on holy ground”. It turns out that over this history, many important names have in fact been Immortals including Gustavus Adolphus, Gilgamesh, and Jesus. Not Hitler though, he was mortal. This history goes up until the 1890’s which is known as “The Age of Madness” by the Immortals. Oddly, directly after this history lesson is a section devoted to pointing out that this is in fact a Cyberpunk setting, complete with Neural Interfaces and a 3D version of the Internet called…. The Winternet. The reason I call this “Odd” is because the game points out quite quickly that Immortals are not able to use cybertech due to how their regeneration works, leaving me with many questions such as “Why is this important?” Answer? It’s not. As Neural Cybertech is THE method of reliably hacking anything, or even getting a decent experience out of the Winternet, it makes me wonder why they felt that they needed to explain a part of the setting, and immediately tell you that Immortals have little to no reason to care about it. They also cannot decide upon calling hacking countermeasures “ICE” or “EIC” (Supposedly pronounced “ICE”).

Character creation is simplified and offers a point buy system à la World of Darkness, with a few notable deviations. Such similarities include scaling costs for points, ranks 1-5, karma/experience system, and a constant “Crawling in my skin” tone towards how much it sucks to be Immortal. Anyone familiar with the storytelling system will be able to pick the game up rather quickly, making it a rather good alternative to those seeking a less complicated form of the World of Darkness. The key difference: rather than use a truckload of D10’s, Legacy only uses a single one, but with the same general idea. The Statistic, Modifier, and Skill values are attached and if this number is rolled at or under on a D10 the roll is considered a success, combat rolls being slightly different from this. The resulting system can be as lethal as any other hard realism game, which poses an interesting idea considering the general difficulty in killing that which cannot die.

The only way to put down an Immortal for good is to sever the spine between the heart and brain, most popularly the neck. The book makes it quite clear that The True Death should never happen casually or randomly, as Immortals are expected to be “killed” often but never truly fall until their luck runs out. The reason for this is called The Rapture. When an Immortal’s neck is severed, energy forcefully pours from the corpse into the surrounding area, other Immortals in this area can collect this energy for extra experience, in the process causing thousands of dollars of property damage as the surrounding area bursts into flames and explodes from the amazing energy of Immortal life.

As any Highlander fan knows, Immortals can sense other Immortals based on their strength; in Legacy this is known as The Foreboding and is dubbed a psychic power alongside a choice of several other such abilities available to said psychics. Foreboding however, is always available to Immortals, and innately roll when another Immortal gets too close, which I like more than Vampires take on such a mechanic. Psychic powers are designed to be rather broad in order to be utilized in different ways, such as to denote psychics and vampires.

The combat mechanics are presented in a “use the rules you like” fashion and suggest that in combat the players make up moves and maneuvers to use for slight benefits such as a thrust doing more damage while sacrificing accuracy or vice versa. Legacy sports a large armory filled to the brim with all the weapons and armor one could ever need, from swords to assault cannons and all the way to plasma rifles. Armor includes the traditional Immortal garb of armored trenchcoats (Dishwasher safe!) with modern styled ballistic and heavy armors. Behind this of course is a load of Cyberwear that most characters can’t use. The rules do suggest a character may be mortal, and rulings do exist that specifically target mortals with the trade off of being able to use Cybernetics and the Winternet. Could you imagine having to choose living forever or being able to turn your car on with your mind?

Legacy was given a tough break due to the time of it’s conception, a mere two years after the very complicated Old World of Darkness began its run, and predating the New World Rules by nearly a decade. The setting and jargon heavily dates the game and really shows the paranoia people had towards gamers at the time. So much so that a very large disclaimer exists in the first few pages, and the game outright demands that this disclaimer be read before and after every single session of Legacy: War of Ages. With the added fact that Legacy‘s setting is Highlander with a coat of paint and the obvious influences of Highlander II: The Quickening can leave a sour taste in the mouths of some fans. The original book’s “art” is a series of black on grey polaroids of the Blackmoors with their friends running around with swords and trenchcoats, usually drained out by some annoying aftereffect. Every section begins with a loosely relevant quote from a movie or song (Including a mangled version of Pink Floyd lyrics).

There was a remake of Legacy published in 2010, I hear that this revision is vastly different from the original Paperback version that I own, which you can get in hardcopy from Amazon for just $5, half the price of the 2010 Legacy Revision PDF from Drivethrurpg. If you even loosely like collecting RPG’s I would suggest adding this title to your collection, as while its inspirations are painfully obvious, it still beats within it the Blood of Kings and deserves praise for doing so before its time, in an age where many games fell into obscurity. I would hurry on your decision between which copy you desire as much like the Immortals there will be one day where THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE! I’d love to see the look on the poor bastards face that tries to burn THIS book! KABOOM!

-Necroscourge 2/8/13

Tabletop Tales: Dealing With Stress: My Own ‘Dungeonland’

by NecroscourgeFebruary 1, 2013

For months I have been awaiting the release of Paradox’s new title, Dungeonland.

The game finally launched just a few days ago, and is most definitely an early contender for the most embarrassingly terrible release of 2013 (and it’s only February!). The game was originally pushed back a week to January 29th, with the promise of a smooth (and relatively bugless) launch. This would have been quite a change for Paradox, as they have a very spotty history, full of bugged releases and bad ideas.

Dungeonland released publicly with severe balancing issues, and Paradox decided to make it available the very hour Valve Staff were arriving to work at their California office, rather than a more traditional midnight release.

The Steam Community forums were flooded with cries of lag, connection problems, balancing issues, and a severe limit of content. Paradox’s Facebook page is filled to the brim with hatemail (Though to be fair, I wrote a fourth of it…). It’s almost a joke in the way Paradox behaves after botching a release so badly.

It was after trying this tangled mess of a game that I angrily stood up and perused my own game shelves, mumbling angry truths to myself that I dare not repeat here. It was only then that the planets finally did align and the angels did sing a lovely tune, my fingers grasping the sacred book as it came free from the shelf…

“Those petty fools and their Dungeonland stand no chance against the joys of… The Sunderdome!”

The book I held in my hands was Xcrawl; one of my most prized possessions and the tome that shall seal the fate of many witless saps and heroes who so much as dare to enter my domain! Xcrawl is a setting book based on a generic fantasy world with the idea that it is “Modern day” with a few very major difference between the two timelines. For starters, instead of beginning as a godless Democracy, Mr. George Washington took the other option and forged America as the North American Empire (NAE), crowning himself Emperor George Augustus I, with his first major decree being the immediate release of all slaves within the empire. Within this great Empire, LARP (Live Action Role Play… silly) was born when a pack of dim witted college mages descended into their basement, only to encounter a pack of ghouls (much to their dismay)! Instead of being terminally punished, the college boys were rewarded as the founders of the NAE’s new national sport. The titular XCRAWL Games!

I madly flipped through the pages, “Blah blah blah, Empire this, Empire that.” Normally I prefer to keep the setting intact when I do such a thing, however, any setting based in an empire that has banned all adult entertainment definitely has no room in my heart! Finally, 87 pages into the book, I was able to start reading about the actual sport of Xcrawl, which with some distinct differences, behaves much like a regular dungeon crawl.

Xcrawl is a combative sport where a previously established team of heroes ventures into the equally preconstructed labyrinths created by the event’s Dungeon Judge. This “judge” is given a generous budget to hire hunters to bring bloodthirsty beasts, wizards and architects to his hospitable dungeon! While real Xcrawl events have various “rules” (like a ban on firearms), I chucked such principles out the door nearly instantly realizing, “Those puny heroes will need every edge they can get in my new park!”

As such, it’s no big wonder that Sunderdome could be classified as an illegal event by the NAE. Well bah, I didn’t want my porn banned anyway! Much like the infamous illegal Chinese events, all players will be allowed in my dungeon at once without a real time limit, and will gain glorious prizes for bloodshed – the value increasing if they should happen to shed the blood of a fellow player, hehe.

Sunderdome gives its heroes the standard bonuses and edges one could expect from a regular Xcrawl event, including rest rooms and the Mojo system. For glorious feats of teamwork and violence the party is rewarded with Mojo points that can be offered to fellow players in times of need. However, a player may not beg for the use of these points; it needs to be offered naturally.

In my park, the heroes won’t be the only ones that are cheered for, as my hoards are also allowed Mojo points if they are built of preconstructed teams such as the vicious “Eleven Imps of Hate” I have hired to guard the exit to the first stage of Sunderdome. The ranks of Xcrawl are filled with the standard classes of adventuring lore, but for those that take the sport somewhat seriously, the Athlete class makes a good replacement for combatants that want to dedicate their lives to Xcrawl, or any sport really.

Ran by the enigmatic DJ Majesty, this dungeon will test the mettle of any party! Composed of two stages and a mighty Boss level to smash those would be heroes who progress too far. No expense was spared in the park’s development and even the most seasoned Xcrawlers will have a problem or two getting out alive! Why would one subject themselves to this? What are they playing for Suzanne!?

“Thousands of gold worth of prizes, with the winning purse valued at 100,000,000 gold!”

That’s going to buy the winning team a few good burials for their fallen comrades, with enough leftover to retire to boot! Remember, all teams are in it to win it. Running into another dungeon crawling team need not be a fight, but you can’t risk them getting to the Boss before you do, can you?

Stage 1 is more like an application than a true stage, as the heroes battle their way through the entrance area known in the nightmares of heroes as the Parking Lot of Pain! This regular looking parking lot has a few surprises in the form of Anti-Hero Mines scattered intermittently around the pavement. Those that evade the mines will then have to avoid the eagle-like sight of Crimbles, the Kobold Sharpshooter that makes his home in the water tower that overlooks the entire area! Head still intact? Time to march up the Sunderdome Steps as the famous Eleven Imps of Hate pelt the party with stones, small arms fire, and boulders. Only then will the party be allowed into the Sunderdome Proper and be admitted to Stage 2.

Stage 2 is the Sunderdome itself. A gigantic labyrinthine maze of twists, turns, and deadly traps! Players enter through the Lobby of Torment, assaulted at all sides by Rabid Elven Lobbyists my boys have injected with Kermitis C bacteria; highly illegal, very entertaining. From there, the Players must navigate the Vicious Maze of Horror and its assortment of Spike Cannon traps, more Anti-hero Mines, and the great many monsters that stand between the party and the elevator. Said elevator takes you atop the Sunderdome, where the final confrontation against whatever fiendish boss I have chosen to rip them limb from limb today awaits. If they can overcome this monstrosity of a problem, it’d be less of a problem than Paradox’s blundered release.

See, right there. RIGHT THERE is a better idea using Xcrawl and Dungeons and Dragons, than Dungeonland is; I suggest that you don’t question it. What? WHOS THERE!? NO DON’T TAKE ME BACK TO THE WHITE ROOM! AHHHH!

Fin.
-Necroscourge 1/30/13

Tabletop Tales: RPGObjects ‘Abandon All Hope’

by NecroscourgeJanuary 25, 2013

Just like their video game counterparts, RPG’s fall into different genres as well as different styles of play. Some games glorify combat like a fighting simulator, while some focus on deep roleplaying experiences. Abandon All Hope is a Sci-Fi Psychological Survival Horror RPG effectively set in Hell, fully capable of immersing you in one of the worst possible situations a person can ever imagine. AAH presents an interesting concept; in the future, after a long string of wars, the tired planet turned to a paranoid utopian Meritocracy. One that grades everybody’s dispositions, attributes, and which even has a system of quantifying how crazy they are. Taking this knowledge, they proceeded to launch everyone, even those predisposed to violence on a big spaceship (called Gehenna) sent in a random direction. On this spaceship, you as a prisoner must survive both the robotic Custodians and your fellow prisoners.

Cross section of a typical Gehenna floor.

Of course, it always gets better. At some point during the Gehenna’s voyage the ship was caught in a form of rip in the Space-Time continuum referred to by the prisoners as “Perdition”; that is for lack of a better word, Hell incarnate. This is both a weak and strong point of the game’s writing, as the book assumes that players begin after Perdition, and everything has already gone wrong, leaving a sense of confusion for those that don’t understand prison life as it is, much less how a prison behaves in hell. In addition, AAH has no source books, only additional adventures taking place in a canon plot string. The result is that the setting book provides only the core basics of how the ship operates with very little explanation of how things actually *work* on the ship. This can make Abandon All Hope a hard game to DM, despite how comparatively easy (and fun!) it is to actually play.

Character Generation is very simple and demonstrated in an easy step by step (and to the point) process, beginning with rolling up your Prisoner ID number. From there, you make choices for your inmate regarding his criminal background, attributes, mental health, and even your secret agenda which in turn opens up several Traits that can be taken to make your character even more unique. The result is that every player’s Prisoner will widely vary depending on their dice rolls and Trait choices. AAH also sports a very efficient balance: those who lack high statistics as weaker characters are given extra Build Points to buy more equipment and traits than a stronger character who has less dependence on good starting equipment.

In its inspirations, the game pays a lot of homage to Survival Horror games such as System Shock 2 and several high-casualty RPGs such as Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia, all of which is very evident by reading through the games rulings. However, amidst all of its detailed rules and systems there is always one thing that seems to be missing from every section. Fluff. As stated before, the game makes little to no mention besides casual references to “common” rules and laws amongst the prisoners and the vague warning that you will be searched for contraband often. There is very little mention of the inner workings of the prison itself besides the presence of robot Custodians and a Warden AI that rule the ship with an iron fist. The end result is that the book only contains rules and should be treated as a rulebook only (All of the story seems to be in the adventure modules), which as stated before makes this game hard to DM: if you lack basic knowledge of how prison life works, you will be playing this game wrong.

This is an important thing to mention, actually. This is a game based in a prison spaceship that tells you absolutely nothing besides basic descriptions of facilities and expects you to run the game as a Survival Horror Prison game. Honestly, I think detailing how a prisoner lives their daily life in this gigantic deathtrap of an ugly ass spaceship is sort of important. Things such as politics and the behavior of the Robot Custodians are often hinted at and mentioned at different parts of the book but there are no concise rulings actually made concerning the ships politics besides the enigmatic Wardens control of the ship and the SUGGESTION that there are demons running around.

A preview of the Abandon All Hope character sheet. — A preview of the *Abandon All Hope* character sheet.

Yes, Suggestion. You see while the game does detail several demons and how they generally appear, the rules for actually using demons are incomplete. A demon can spawn when a mental statistic meets or exceeds 10, however no mention is made of how often this occurs, or when another demon is allowed to spawn (I emailed the writer, all he could do is copy paste the rules on manifestations in the hope it answered my question. It didn’t). Demons are also mentioned to be prowling the decks often yet the Wardens Guide (DM Section) swears up and down that such beings should be rare due to their strength and shock value which leaves me the impression that they never considered that Abandon All Hope could be ran without the adventure modules.

While the game is criminally lacking in fluff, explanation, or plot, AAH does have a brisk explanation of the combat system within two pages and that is a plus. There is also a loosely imagined crafting and salvage system in place for those that want to research and build new items out of items collected from the various broken terminals and devices around the ship. As crafting systems go, AAH’s is easily my favorite. Every source of salvage can be checked once for materials, of which it has 0-2 different components you can grab that can be in turn used to make items and equipment using experience points. Certain characters may even to learn how to craft various items with toolkits, or even craft drugs.

Cover from the module 'Seeds of Rage' — Cover from the module ‘Seeds of Rage’

Despite the numerous weak points, AAH is a fairly well written game for those who just want to use the rules and play their own campaigns. There is very little effort required to make your campaign unique and interesting as the setting itself (while unexplained) is original enough to be interesting on its own, but could also easily be adapted to any space-borne setting from DOOM, all the way to Pandorum. Abandon All Hope is a Horror game by heart and its unexplained vacuous nature lends to the setting, adding to how lethal the game itself is.

Abandon All Hope is available on Amazon and various other websites where RPGs are sold. I do give you one word of warning however when purchasing books from the RPGObjects website: Only buy in bulk from them. My copy of Abandon All Hope came in a flat rate envelop with no protection whatsoever and thus arrived at my doorstep damaged and dogeared; the response I received from RPGObjects was an amatuer “Wow, How did that happen!? Pay for the shipping and I will replace it” response. I was also not happy that the PDF(Less than $3) is in full color while the print version of the book($25) is in black and white. This normally is not too much of an issue. In this case however, the most painful section to look at is the Demons part of the book; all of the art is bright and colorful causing the pictures to come out as muddy dark and grey abominations. This alone is enough reason to skip on getting a hard-copy in favor of the cheaper (and prettier) PDF if you have the means to.

Despite how much I hate their business practices (and owner), I do have to report that RPGObjects games (Of the four or five books of hardcopy that I own) are brilliant. For instance, I have been running a weekly Darwins World game for a little under a month now and it’s an extreme hit with my group, and when we start our weekly AAH game I’m sure it will be a hit too. In short, their books are good, but for the love of the maker don’t get anything non-bulk shipped by them if you like your books being in mint condition.

Abandon All Hope is a an easy to learn system akin to Traveler, and is perfect for Horror gamers.

In the 27th century, after generations of war, Terra has finally entered a Golden Age. With the rise of a new global regime, and the installment of a Pan-Terran Meritocracy, efforts are made to stamp out crime and violence permanently. The solution: the ruthless rounding up of all murderers, vice offenders, dissidents and anarchists and loading them onto the colossal prison hulk, Gehenna. The concept is simple. Eradication of all lawbreakers from Terran society and indefinite exile to the furthest corners of space.

Five years into its automated voyage, the Gehenna has inexplicably vanished from all tracking and earth-based telescopes. Five years into is voyage, the Gehenna and the nine million souls aboard her has slipped through a spatial anomaly into another dimension entirely.

The event has wrought havoc on the ship and caused the death of many aboard. Thousands more are now free, running riot in the ship’s dark levels. Murderers, rapists, and maniacs are loose, but they are not alone. This new dimension is home to strange alien lifeforms that are drawn to the hate, misery, fear and suffering of those aboard.

Abandon All Hope is a science-fiction/supernatural horror role-playing game in which players take on the role of the condemned aboard an automated spaceship that has plunged over the edge of the known universe. Here, in another dimension, they must contend with escaped lunatics, robotic controllers, and monstrous aliens who feed off of their fear and suffering. Former convicts are now the heroes, and every day is a fight for survival. For those who seek it there will be chances to escape, to gain power, embrace damnation, or seek redemption…