Iron Age Vigilantism

Most superhero RPGs, whether it is TSR’s Marvel Superheroes, Mutants & Masterminds from Green Ronin Publishing, or Arc Dream Publishing’s Wild Talents, tend to take a broad approach to their sources. So they have to take in Four Colour superheroics as much as they do gritty street action. Thus they have to encompass Thor or Superman as much as they do Daredevil or The Question. Now this can be an issue in a game where the players want to play heroes of differing power levels. Not so in Cold Steel Wardens: Roleplaying in the Iron Age of Comics where the power options are low and the shadows are deep. For this superhero RPG the inspirations are specific—the Dark Age of comics when following the publication of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen, the heroes turned inward and reflective, becoming more human amidst grittier, more realistic, often more violent stories that frequently dealt with social issues. This was coupled with the rise of the anti-hero, of which the Punisher is the leading example.

Of course, the typical superhero RPG will support one type of game by releasing a sub-genre specific supplement. For example, Dark Champions for Hero Games’ HERO System, whilst Green Ronin Publishing released Iron Age for Mutants & Masterminds, Second Edition. Of course, Cold Steel Wardens is an RPG all of its very own, one that like those supplements, harks back to the 1980s. Originally launched on Kickstarter, Cold Steel Wardens: Roleplaying in the Iron Age of Comics is published by Blackfall Press via Chronicle City. It comes with a complete set of rules for gritty vigilantism and low powered superheroism, GM advice, and a grim city setting, essentially everything necessary to play a game in which the heroes are principled if flawed, prepared to break the law, even kill, to uphold what is right, what is honourable, and of course, justice. There is though, a hurdle to overcome first.

MAFIANAP

Cold Steel Wardens uses what it called the MAFIANAP mechanic. Which has to be as inelegant a name as a horse on roller skates or Dick Cheney in a tutu. It makes sense when you realise that MAFIANAP is actually the initials for the game’s attributes or Vitals—Magnetism (charisma), Accuracy, Force, Intellect, Agility, Nerve, Awareness, and Psyche. It is also probably a nod to ‘FASERIP’, the very similar name for the mechanics in TSR’s Marvel Superheroes, but that still does not mean that it is as inelegant as—well, see my earlier comment.

Creating a character involves points from two pools. First, thirty-two points are divided between the eight Vitals, and then eighty-five points are spent on skills, (skill) masteries, and powers. Skills are rated between one and fifteen and a character needs to have a minimum of one in a skill to do anything related to it. For every three levels of a skill purchased, the character receives a speciality. For example, Gambling for the Deception skill or High Society for Canvass. A speciality typically grants bonus dice when it comes into play. Masteries are essentially advantages derived from particular skills, for example, Staredown requires Intimidation 6 and Speciality—The Stare. A character also has two Flaws, but can have more for extra points. Lastly, every character has at least one Memory, one Motivation, and one Stance, each of them a roleplaying hook that the GM can reward for being played and to drive a player character to act.

Codename: Yōkai Secret Identity: Fukui Chinatsu
Age: 29 Height: 4’10” Weight: 120 lbs.
Magnetism: 3 Accuracy: 5 Force: 4 Intellect: 3 
Agility: 5 Nerve: 4 Awareness: 4 Psyche: 4 
DV: 9 Pace: 7 Wealth & Status: 3
Strain: 15 Physical: 5 Mental: 5 

Physical Skills: Armed Melee (3+5), Armed Ranged (6+5), Athletics (3+4), Stealth (3+5), Unarmed Combat (6+5)
Physical Specialities: Acrobatics (+1d), Chain Weapons (+1d), Bow (+2d), Move Silently (+1d), Unarmed Damage (+2d)
Investigative Skills: Canvas (2+3), Examination (3+4), Investigation (3+4), Notice (3+4), Research (3+3), 
Investigative Specialities: Appraisal (+1d), Quick-Analysis (+1d), Keen Hearing (+1d), Newspapers (+1d)
Social Skills: Deception (3+3), Intimidation (3+4), Intuition (3+4), Persuasion (3+3), Reputation (3+3)
Social Specialities: Disguise (+1d), ‘The Stare’ (+1d), Negotiation (+1d), Criminals (+1d) 
Knowledge Skills: Criminal (3+3), Cultural (5+3), Esoteric (5+3), Historical (3+3), Scientific (3+3)
Knowledge Specialities: Crime Families (+1d), Philosophy (+1d), Myths & Legends (+1d), Japanese History (+1d), Medicine (+1d)
Technical Skills: Driving (1+5), Fine Manipulation (1+5), Mechanics (3+3), Piloting (1+5), Vehicle Combat (1+5)
Technical Specialities: Sabotage (+1d)
Flaws/Injuries/Psychoses: Hunted, Uncultured, Layman, Merciful
Masteries: Judo, Combat Style; Archery, Combat Style; Cult Affiliation; Quick; Artist
Powers: None
Memory: The face of the child whose family she had to kill
Motivation: To destroy the Society of Imminent Harmony
Stance: There must be justice and honour
Major Equipment: Bow, Arrows, Throwing Stars, Kevlar Costume

Background: Raised as a child in the Society of Imminent Harmony, Chinatsu was trained as an arm of the society, which is dedicated to the survival and glory of Japan—through any means. She has killed for the cult, she has broken into buildings for the cult, and more. She was devoted to the cult; it was her father, her mother, and more. At first, she never had any compulsion against killing, but then she baulked at killing children. She discovered that she could not kill the innocent and she was rebuked for her failure to serve the cult. She was ordered to complete the task, but instead of doing so she fled, killing the cult’s minders sent to ensure that she was truly devout. The cult has not only disowned her, but placed a bounty on her. She has found a place in America where she is living as a Japanese exchange student and artist. At night she strikes at the cult and its criminal activities as well as those of other gangs and organisations with links to the cult.

There is also the option to purchase Powers and if a hero has one or more Powers, then their source—for example, magic or mutation—needs to be defined. The selection available is limited to just twenty five and for the most part they are expensive to purchase as their power levels also need to be purchased too. Just like skills, for every three levels of a Power, a character can have an Optional attribute, an extra benefit for the Power. For example, a hero with Phasing might select ‘Carrier’ which allows him to use Phasing on another person or for Elasticity, the hero can ‘Wrap’ or entangle a target. Ranging from Adhesion, Affliction, and Alter Emotions to Telekinesis, Teleport, and Toughness, these Powers tend to be fairly low level and it would be very expensive to attempt to build anything near a Four Colour superhero. That said, there is nothing here to stop a player creating low level versions of characters such Spiderman, Daredevil, Bloodshot, Green Arrow, Kitty Pryde, and so on.

Codename: Haunt Secret Identity: Regina Mowbray
Age: 25 Height: 5’5” Weight: 135 lbs.
Magnetism: 5 Accuracy: 3 Force: 3 Intellect: 5
Agility: 3 Nerve: 5 Awareness: 4 Psyche: 4
DV: 7 (10) Pace: 5 Wealth & Status: 11
Strain: 12 Physical: 4 Mental: 4

Physical Skills: Armed Melee (1+3), Armed Ranged (5+3), Athletics (3+3), Stealth (3+3), Unarmed Combat (3+3)
Physical Specialities: Pistol (+1d), Gymnastics (+1d), Stakeout (+1d), Unarmed Damage (+1d)
Investigative Skills: Canvas (1+5), Examination (1+4), Investigation (2+4), Notice (1+4), Research (1+5)
Investigative Specialities: None
Social Skills: Deception (5+5), Intimidation (1+5), Intuition (3+4), Persuasion (3+5), Reputation (3+5)
Social Specialities: Bluffing (+1d), Gambling (+1d), Fast Talk (+1d), Aristocrats (+1d)
Knowledge Skills: Criminal (1+5), Cultural (3+5), Esoteric (1+5), Historical (1+5), Scientific (3+5)
Knowledge Specialities: Art (+1d), Psychology (+1d)
Technical Skills: Driving (3+3), Fine Manipulation (6+3), Mechanics (3+5), Piloting (1+3), Vehicle Combat (1+3)
Technical Specialities: Motorcycle (+1d), Lockpicking (+1d), Sleight of Hand (+1d), Electrical (+1d)
Flaws/Injuries/Psychoses: Coward, Loyalty
Masteries: John Woo, Combat Style; Gambler; Assets; Safe Cracker
Powers: Phasing (6d+4)
Optional Attributes: Organic Phasing, Combat Phasing
Source: Mutation
Memory: The darkness which blocks her memories
Motivation: To find out what happened to her
Stance: I will not take an innocent life
Major Equipment: Kevlar Costume, Glock 18 (×2)

Background: Regina knows that she is a gambler and that she has money. How she ended up in her current situation—able to become intangible—she cannot recall. She aims to find out though…

The MAFIANAP mechanic uses dice pools of ten-sided dice. To undertake an action, a character rolls a number of dice equal to the skill level, with results of six, seven, eight, and nine counting as a single hit, and rolls of ten counting as two. To the number of hits rolled are added the associated Vital. Specialities and Masteries increase the number of dice rolled. A Routine test difficulty is between six and eight, Difficult is between nine and eleven, Complex is between nine and eleven, and Impossible is between nine and eleven. Rolls that result in five or more Hits greater than the test difficulty are counted as being a Total Success. The difficulties for Vitals tests are set slightly lower.

For example, Yōkai is chasing an agent of the Society of Imminent Harmony who has fled into hotel suite. The window is open, as are the doors to the bathroom and bedroom. She wants to know where her quarry has fled. So Yōkai’s player rolls her Notice skill—three dice, plus the extra die for her Keen Hearing. She rolls 4, 6, 8, and 10. Two Hits plus another two Hits for the rolling of 10. To these four Hits are added Yōkai’s value for her Awareness Vital, for a total of eight Hits. This result puts it at the upper limit of Routine Tests and so the GM states that Yōkai hears the sound of movement coming from the bathroom.     

Combat uses the same mechanics, including rolling for damage. So a character rolls to attack, aiming to get more Hits than the target’s Defence Value (DV). Damage is then rolled according to the type of attack and suffered as Strain. A Total Success in combat is a Critical Hit, which doubles the number of dice rolled to determine damage and any damage inflicted also doing an injury to the target. Should a character suffer Strain enough to exceed his Physical (threshold), then he is also in danger of suffering an Injury, anything from an Abrasion and Bruised Ribs to Ruptured Organ and Spinal Column Tear, essentially temporary to terminal. Similarly, once a character suffers enough damage to exceed his Mental (threshold), he can also suffer from a Psychosis. Of course, both Injuries and Psychoses impede a character’s ability to act… 

The Strain mechanic is designed as a ‘downward spiral’, modelling the act of a hero pushing himself in the face of adversity, like that seen for example, in how Batman pushes himself in the storyline, Knightfall. This is supported by the fact that a hero can push himself to gain extra dice, but this comes at the cost of suffering yet more Strain. In addition all of the characters have access to a pool of Vigilance dice that can be used to add to Tests, to reroll a Test, or even temporarily gain Narrative control. The Vigilance pool is usually refreshed at the start of each session, but a GM can add to it if the heroes overcome obstacles caused by their Memories, Motivations, Stances, and Flaws.

For the GM, there is a guide to setting up investigations using the Pyramid structure (with the ‘big bad’ at the top), the Concept Map (essentially an interconnected map), and Event Based (driven by time rather the players’ actions). At just a few pages, this section feels just a little too short, though the examples of each do help. Likewise, the Gamemastering section is somewhat disappointing. Whilst the discussion of Iron Age tropes and of the controversial subjects often explored in the comics and investigation hooks are all worthy, the actual advice for the GM undermines itself. Advising the GM that there are no rules for him and that he should “Cheat anyway.” seems distinctly unfair and pointless especially after spent several pages giving out actual advice.

Although there is no advice on creating a setting, Cold Steel Wardens comes with its own setting—New Corinth. Otherwise known as ‘Smoke City’, it is modelled on various ‘Rust Belt’ cities by way of Batman’s Gotham and Green Arrow’s Star City. It feels a bit identikit in places, but comes with a good mix of nasty, nasty story hooks and write-ups for everything from mooks, made men, and masterminds, as well as sample heroes. Together with the investigation hooks, there is a lot to get out of New Corinth, a cesspit of a criminality and cynicism.

Cold Steel Wardens is a game of gritty superheroes and it has gritty mechanics to support it—especially in the rules for Strain and suffering Injury and Psychosis. Yet the game feels as if it should be simpler and the book as if it should be easier to use. Both hamper the use of the book—especially having to flip back and forth during character creation—and to a lesser extent running the game. Nevertheless, Cold Steel Wardens: Roleplaying in the Iron Age of Comics is a solid treatment of 1980s superheroic stories that showcases the author’s love for the Iron Age of Comics.

Once and Future Dystopia

Mike W. Barr’s Camelot 3000 meets Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash. This is the elevator pitch at the heart of Corporia, an urban fantasy RPG that was originally funded via Kickstarter, but is now published by Brabblemark Press via Chronicle City. Its setting is The City in a near future in a post-Cyberpunk corporatized world in which the social order is increasingly disturbed by strange events that see the near omnipresent Augmented Reality network disrupted and citizens suffering from sudden mutations, cause unknown—officially that is… What is actually responsible is Flux, a chaotic energy leaking in from a parallel dimension that is returning magic to the world as well as strange monsters known as Cryptids. At the same time, the Knights of the Round Table of Arthurian legend are being reborn to fight both these incursions and for justice alongside their newly appeared supernaturally-powered allies in world beset by otherworldly Chaos magics and the stiflingly oppressive regime of mega-corporate rule. Plus of course, Morgan Le Fay has returned as well…

In the default set-up for Corporia, the players take the role of these reborn Knights of the Round Table and their supernaturally-powered allies as members of Knightwatch. This is an elite unit of Watchmen, one of several Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) that have contracts to police the various districts of The City. The Watchmen are owned by Valyant, the CEO of which is Lance Martin—the reborn Lancelot, and it is to him that members of the Knightwatch report directly. Aiding both the Knightwatch and Lance Martin are an A.I. called M.E.R.L.I.N. (Master Eye Registrar and Logistical Intelligence Network) and Nimue, Merlin’s apprentice reborn. Most missions assigned to the Knightwatch come about because of M.E.R.L.I.N. monitoring the net or Nimue’s prescience. Knightwatch operatives are expected to act covertly and nearly all have lives other than their Knightwatch assignments.

Corporia is specific about the types of characters it wants the players to take, listing some thirteen archetypes. These are Badges (PMSC operatives or private investigators), Hackers, Headhunters (assassins or recruitment specialists), Journos, Knight-Errants (knights of King Arthur reborn, melee specialists), Listers (celebrities), Radicals (opponents to corporate rule), Runners (couriers that combine parkour with wuxia-style martial arts), Sorcerers (techno-mages), Suits (corporate executive), Thinkers (doctors, scientists, experts), Witchers (traditional magic), and Zeroes (labourers and manual service workers). Once this archetype is selected, a player also needs to choose a second, his character’s astrological sign. Fortunately, this is only to define the personality traits rather than as a means of prediction. 

Each character has four personality traits—three public and one private. For a character born under the sign of Aries, his Public Traits might be Aggressive, Generous to Friends, and Viionary, and his Private Trait might be Addict or Orphan. Essentially, Public Traits can be seen as advantages and the Private Trait as a disadvantage. Either way, roleplaying either type will earn a character Flux Points, the GM being expected to tempt a player with Flux Points to encourage him to give in to his character’s Private Trait. Flux Points can then be spent to improve dice rolls when acting or to shrug off damage. Whenever a player receives or spends Flux Points, he also receives Build Points with which to improve his character.

A character also has a ‘Core Competency’, which determines his focus during character generation. ‘Touched’ characters get more to spend on attributes and skills, whilst ‘Fluxed’ characters get less to spend on attributes and skills and more to spend on Supernatural Assets. ‘Gifted’ characters receive a balanced mix of points. All characters receive the same number of points to assign to General Assets. Sorcerers and Witchers must have the ‘Fluxed’ Core Competency in order to possess the Spellcaster asset and be able to learn and cast all spells. ‘Gifted’ characters can have limited spellcasting or psionic ability, or be Hackers capable of immersing themselves fully in the Augmented Reality.

Our first sample character is a Knight-Errant, or at least a Knight-Errant to be. Norman Cheeseman, a low level enforcer for the Oseku cartel, an Albanian crime ring that currently runs several district franchises. An ex-prizefighter, Cheeseman was never more than a journeyman fighter and now makes most of his monies doing using his fists and Com/Bat melee weapon. Of late, he has begun to have second thoughts about his choice of career and is beginning to develop a conscience.

Norman Cheeseman
Archetype: Knight-Errant
Sign: Aries
Public Traits: Aggressive, Generous to Friends, Optimistic
Private Traits: Gambling Problem
Core Competency: Touched

Strength 3 Deftness 2 Mettle 3
Knowledge 2 Wits 3 Magick 1

Valour: 1

Skills
Athletics 3, Business 1, Crime 2, Firearms 1, Fisticuffs 4, Getting Medieval 2, Humanities 0, Influence 3, Instinct 4, Sciences 0

General Assets
Fortitude, Knight’s Prowess (6), Lionheart/1 (2), Prudent (2)

Augments
EyePhone, Hardened (Subdermal)/1

Equipment
Com/Bat (1d8+STR), Hand Axe (1d4+STR), Short Sword (1d6+STR); Light Modern Body Suit

The mechanics in Corporia use the Flux System. Whilst other dice in the game might be used for rolling damage or other effects, when a character wants to do something, he adds the relevant attribute and skill to a Flux Dice roll—a roll of two six-sided dice, of which he chooses the higher result. Rolls of six enable a player to roll and add, including both dice. Target Numbers range from Easy (5) and Average (7) to Difficult (9) and Hard (11), and beyond… A result of five or more than gains a player a Raise, which gives an additional degree of success. 

Combat uses the same mechanics, but attacks are rolled against the target’s static Defence Check, for example, versus the target’s Deftness plus Getting Medieval. Damage is rolled according to the weapon used, armour and protection reduces this, and if the result exceeds the target’s Mettle, then damage is inflicted. This is not expressed in the number of points inflicted, but rather as a Wound and hit location penalties in the particular hit location. Optionally, the Director may allow Raises on damage to inflict more Wounds. A character can suffer a number of Wounds equal to twice his Mettle.

A range of weapons are included in Corporia. Most of them are fairly generic, though the Raypier is an energy for your Knight-Errants who want to wield lightsabers! It should be noted that even though Corporia is a post-cyberpunk urban fantasy, melee weapons are just as important as firearms, if not more so, as there are Cryptids that are only vulnerable to cold iron. As a post-cyberpunk setting, numerous augmentations are available to purchase, both legally and on the black market. EyePhones and EyePads are legal, whilst Cloak, which inserts nanoprojection units onto the epidermis to distort the visual signature and so fool robots and holographic sentries is not. Augmentations, both physical implants and ingested are part of the setting of Corporia, but not its focus—magic though, is.

The magic rules in Corporia are designed to be simple and flexible. There are two types of magic—Sorcery and Witchcraft—and each of these has its own quartet of skills and associated spells. Sorcery has Holography, Kinesis, Metamorph, and Technomancy, whilst Witchcraft receives Charm, Elemental, Perception, and Spiritism. It is possible for a Sorcerer to learn Witchcraft spells and vice versa, but it costs more to purchase ranks in the other type of magic. To cast a spell, a Sorcerer or Witcher adds his Magick and his Sorcery or Witchcraft skill to a standard roll, the Target Number being determined by the spell itself. For example, the TN for the Mindtrick spell from Witchcraft’ Charm Discipline, which allows the caster to make a victim believe a simple suggestion for a few rounds, is 3, whereas the TN for the Sleep spell is 5. If the caster wants to increase the range, duration, or number of targets for a spell, then he only has to increase the TN of any spell by two and he can do this as many times as he wants.

For example, the Witcher Elspeth Stephens is attempting to get into a freight holding area. The area outside is being patrolled by a pair of augmented guard dogs and Elspeth wants to put them to sleep. The TN for the Sleep spell is 3, but this is two targets, so the difficulty goes up by two. The spell will last three hours—equal to her Witchcraft (Charm) Discipline—but wants it to last longer. So she also doubles the time and increases the TN by two for a total of 7.

In addition to modifying existing spells, a spellcaster can also create new spells in addition to the few listed for each discipline. Unfortunately this section is somewhat underwritten and could have done with an example or two. There are limitations on a caster using magic. Primarily on the number of spells that he can cast per day—equal to his Magcik attribute—before he has to cast with penalties.  Both types of spellcasters can use wands, made of artificial materials for Sorcerers and natural materials for Witchers. There are various types of wand available—which feels very Harry Potter-ish—and all can do ranged damage equal to the caster’s Magick attribute. This damage ignores armour, but again, the number of times a caster can do this is limited to his Magick.

Our sample Witcher is Elspeth Stephens, a recently divorced mother of two who has moved into a townhouse with her children. Her ex-husband is a corporate suit and continues to pay alimony. She recently re-examined some old books that her mother had left her, but she forgotten about and rediscovered on moving out of her husband’s house. Along with discovering the wand in the trunk with the books, Elspeth found that the books were interesting and teaching her things, magical things…

Elspeth Stephens
Archetype: Witcher
Sign: Cancer
Public Traits: Dependable, Loves Family, Nostalgic
Private Traits: Clinging to a Past Trauma, Formerly Fat
Core Competency: Touched

Strength 1 Deftness 1 Mettle 2
Knowledge 2 Wits 2 Magick 3

Valour: 0

Skills 113
Athletics 0, Business 1, Crime 0, Firearms 0, Fisticuffs 1, Getting Medieval 1, Humanities (Perception) 0, Humanities (Antiques) 2, Humanities (Arts—Painting) 2, Influence 3, Instinct 2, Sciences 0, Witchcraft (Charm) 3, Witchcraft (Perception) 3

Supernatural Assets
Spellcaster (10)

General Assets
Bloodline (Theurgic) (2), Funding ($55.3k) (3), Influential (2), Safehouse (Townhouse) (4)

Augments
EyePhone

The default setting for Corporia is The City, to which a whole chapter is devoted—though it would be easy enough for the Director to set his game somewhere of his choosing. With just under a page devoted to each of its Districts, including a general description, a few places of interest, and its government, The City is described in fairly broad details. Broadly based on Tokyo, The City nevertheless feels North American if it has a feel at all. Nevertheless, the differences between Districts will come into play, especially if the Director is running the default Watchmen campaign. Security and policing is contracted to different corporations in different Districts, which can make matters of jurisdiction an issue if Lance Martin wants the player characters to be discreet. An overview of Corporia’s eighteen corporations adds a bit more flavour that the District descriptions might be seen as lacking.

For the Director, the author includes a good chapter on both running Corporia and presenting some of Corporia’s deeper background. The general advice on running the game is solid, if familiar to anyone who has read an RPG of late, but a nice touch is that the author actually recommends Robin D. Laws’ Robin’s Laws of Good Gamemastering amongst others. To help create adventures, Corporia provides the G.R.A.I.L. (Goal, Recon, Assault, Infiltration, and Liquidation) model as a structure in which the player characters are briefed or informed of the mission, examine the mission’s initial or primary scene, assault or infiltrate their target, and lastly deal with, or liquidate, the threat. Although the name of the model befits the game, it does feel as if the author is trying just a little too hard. Despite this, there is good advice in this chapter, along with a set of scenario outlines , various adventure hooks, write-ups of the most important NPCs, some example Cryptids—some of them quite creepy, and a guide for the Director to create his own.

Physically, Corporia is a small hardback book done in full colour. Overall, it is well written and profusely illustrated, not with artwork though. Rather, the author has used specially posed photographs throughout, with the models using various props. This works for the most part, but in places the art feels a little forced and somewhat generic. This is an extension from the equipment list which itself is also generic. Nevertheless, the writing is light and the RPG is easy to pick up and grasp.

Corporia feels like three things. First it feels like a UniSystem RPG as published by Eden Studios with its various archetypes; second, it feels very much like an elevator pitch developed for television; and third, it feels a little like a computer game. Although there is an interesting elevator pitch at its heart, that of post-cyberpunk Once and Future King meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the setting itself does not quite do justice to the concept. The City feels slightly too generic, a little too bland, and this undermines the feel of the game. Nor does it help that the equipment list is also bland, which means that it only adds function when it should also be adding flavour and verisimilitude to the game and setting. 

Although underdeveloped in terms of world building, Corporia is strongest when directly addressing its elevator pitch concept. This it does with a solid set of rules and a set of interesting character options.

The TALENT Campaign II

The popularity of genres wax and wane as time passes, and so it is that the superhero genre is no longer as popular as it once was. Certainly not popular to be supported with regular supplements, but one exception to that is GODLIKE: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946. Originally published in 2002, Arc Dreams' RPG is supported by various supplements including a full campaign in the form of Black Devils Brigade: The First Special Service Force and the Italian Campaign, 1943–1944. This is now followed by a companion mini-campaign, Combat Orders No. 4 - The Courtyard of Hell. What separates the two are the Apennine Mountains and their differing scopes.

As its title suggests, Black Devils Brigade concerns the whole of the Italian Campaign, including the battle for Anzio and the eventual drive on Rome. Geographically, it is set entirely on the western side of the Apennine Mountains. The Courtyard of Hell takes place on the eastern side of the Apennine on the Adriatic Coast, in just the one location, that of the port town of Ortona. Located on a steep-sided plateau and comprised of narrow streets lined with stone buildings, the town was the site of fierce street fighting between the defending Fallschirmjäger troops and the attacking Canadians in the final weeks of 1943 that Winston Churchill came to call the battle for the town, ‘Little Stalingrad’.

In The Courtyard of Hell as in GODLIKE, the player characters are Talents, members of the Allied forces who have been ‘blessed’ with an amazing ability such as controlling the blood flow of the wounded, being able to map out a location with a shout, or smash open the armour on a Tiger tank with a single punch! The player characters are soldiers first before being trained to use their Talent effectively in battle, but as more and more Talents manifest on the battlefield, there is not always the time or the chance for newly expressed Talents to receive this training before being thrown back into fray. This often means that they will be prepared to face the Übermenschen, the Nazi Talents who are part of the SS and who revel in their powers and the Aryan ideals of the ‘Super Race’. This will be an issue in The Courtyard of Hell as will be a Talent’s Will. It is his Will that fuels a Talent’s powers and his ability to cancel out another Talent’s powers that can be lost in a contest of Wills with an enemy Talent.

The Courtyard of Hell takes place in the last week of December, 1943. The soldiers of the 2nd Brigade, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment, the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, and Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry have recently made a hard fought and bloody crossing of the Moro River and now need Talent support in taking Ortona. The battle is depicted in thirteen scenes that take place between December 20th and December 27th, as the Talents, being among the first Canadians to manifest as Talents, are thrown into support the assault on the town. This will see them leading the attack on Ortona’s outskirts before becoming embroiled in street fighting against troops of the 1st Fallschirmjäger Division. Intelligence reports that there are Übermenschen in the town, including at least one flyer. What is curious about these Übermenschen is that they are not members of the SS as are most Nazi Übermenschen, but have remained with the elite Fallschirmjäger troops rather than transferring to the SS as is expected of all Übermenschen. Technically then, these Übermenschen are members of the Luftwaffe!

In the seven days of the battle for Ortona, the Talents will support tanks, fight from one building to the next, move heavy artillery, and come to the rescue of their comrades and civilians alike. They will also find themselves fighting Übermenschen other than Fallschirmjäger as the intensity of the fighting increases and Übermenschen of the SS are brought into to support the German defence of the town. Throughout, the Talents will be shadowed by newsmen and photographers who are eager to report on the success and activities of Canada’s first Talents in battle.

Based on a real battle, with two of the battle’s actual participants being included in the seven pre-generated Canadian Talents, The Courtyard of Hell is a combat intensive affair. Designed to be played by between six and seven players, guidelines are included to help the GM adjust the difficulty of the scenario’s encounters so that they can be played by a smaller group. Further support comes in the form of descriptions of the weapons and vehicles used by both sides; guidelines for handling large battles as well as a means to quickly set up interesting encounters using the ‘One Roll Cityfight’ rules; full stats for both the Canadian and Fallschirmjäger troops; and some twenty-four fully detailed and described Übermenschen in addition to the six pre-generated Canadian Talents.

In previous releases for Godlike, the design of the Übermenschen and the Allied Talents has been somewhat underwhelming, perhaps even unimaginative. Admittedly, it is not easy to come up with interesting Talent concepts, let alone create them on the limited number of points available during character creation. With over thirty presented in the pages of The Courtyard of Hell, there is a surprisingly degree of invention on show.

Physically, The Courtyard of Hell is generally well presented. In places it needs another edit and in places the text has faded to the point of near illegibility. The maps are also hard to read in places, primarily because of the difficulty of depicting the necessary detail in grayscale rather than colour. Otherwise, The Courtyard of Hell is decently illustrated.

The Courtyard of Hell is much more focused and much shorter affair than Black Devils Brigade, though the possibility of soldiers from the First Special Service Force being sent over the Apennines to fight in the battle for Ortona is discussed. It could thus be used as an extension to the campaign presented in Black Devils Brigade: The First Special Service Force and the Italian Campaign, 1943–1944, but even if not, it should offer several sessions of challenging combat. Well-researched, solidly-presented, Combat Orders No. 4 - The Courtyard of Hell presents the opportunity for the players to explore a heroically tough if little known battle of World War Two.

Monkey Magic!

If you are English and of a certain age, you will remember a television series by the name of Monkey. Although based on the Chinese novel Journey to the West, the television series was in fact Japanese and would be dubbed into English as Monkey. It was broadcast by the BBC in the early evening on BBC2 beginning in 1979 and would become a cult favourite, telling as it did of the adventures of the upstart Monkey King, who after having been released from Heaven-imposed imprisonment by Tripitaka, a Buddhist monk, must accompany by the monk on a pilgrimage to India. They are joined by Sandy and Pigsy, ex-angels who were expelled from Heaven for failing to prevent the irrepressible Monkey’s misdemeanours and turned into ‘monsters’. The series ran for two seasons and was noted for its over the top wuxia action; its ‘Oriental’ accents; and its boundless optimism.

Irrepressible! is the RPG based on Monkey.  Published by Postmortem Studios via Chronicle City, it is a diceless RPG of mythic moral adventure in a China of fable and legend. The players take not the roles of Tripitaka or Monkey, Sandy or Pigsy—though the stats for all four are included in the rulebook—but Pilgrims like them. Heroes, monsters, monks, and other who have been cast out of Heaven for transgressing its many laws, or even the undead or demons, they are all pilgrims trying to get back into Heaven. In order to do that, they must redeem themselves and society at large, which Buddha says has lost its way and fallen prey to earthquakes and floods, famine and fire, banditry and warfare, corruption and immorality. By exposing the corruption and immorality and saving the peoples of the Earth, the Pilgrims can bring enlightenment to society and achieve redemption.

Each Pilgrim is defined by a Weakness, a fatal flaw that he cannot overcome; a Curse, whatever punishment Heaven has opposed upon him; four Traits, powerful skills, abilities, or powers such as Monkey’s ‘Cloud Flying’; and six Virtues. Each Virtue has a yin/yang value, essentially a Virtue/Demon pairing. The six are ‘Charity/Selfishness’, ‘Uprightness/Wickedness’, ‘Forbearance/Impatience’, ‘Dispassion/Passion’, ‘Dauntless/Cowardice’, and ‘Contemplation/Impetuosity’. Each pairing has a mid-point, representing perfect balance, and can go five points either way. Virtues represent a Pilgrim moving towards Enlightenment and grant him Karma, whilst Demons are easier to call upon and more effective when undertaking actions. 

A player chooses his character’s Weakness and Curse, Traits, and assigns fifteen points to his Virtues and Demons. Of each pairing, a player can only assign these points to one side of a pairing, thus to ‘Uprightness’ or ‘Wickedness’, but not both. Lastly, he adds up all of the points assigned to Virtues. This is his Enlightenment. When it reaches twenty-five, the Pilgrim can ascend to Heaven—and so becomes an NPC.

Our sample Pilgim is Shi Yusheng, was once the darling of the court, mannered, pretty, charming, and talented. Yet such a situation could not last and she found her position at the court slipping as it became enamoured of one young ingénue after another. She knew that she had to find a way to reclaim her beauty, her search involving ever stranger methods, finally settling upon alchemy as a means to gain her looks and keep it. It took years, but eventually she managed it, but upon attaining both, she was punished for her transgression against the Mandate of Heaven. She has been cursed to be eternally ugly except for a single hour per day when she as beautiful as she once did—during the rest of the time, she usually wears a veil.

Name: Shi Yusheng
Weakness: I can never look less than my best
Curse: Immortally ugly
Trait: Alchemist
Trait: My clothes are my weapons
Trait: A lady of the court
Trait: I am old and wise

Virtues & Demons

Charity OOOOO/O/XXXOO Selfishness

Uprightness OOOOO/O/XXOOO Wickedness

Forbearance OOOXX/O/OOOOO Impatience

Dispassion OOOOO/O/XXXOO Passion

Dauntless OOXXX/O/OOOOO Cowardice

Contemplation OOOXX/O/OOOOO Impetuosity

Enlightenment

7

Doing anything in Irrepressible! involves drawing from the Six Demon Bag. It contains not just the potential universe, but its luck and karma—the latter represented by beads. It contains five white beads for each Pilgrim, plus white beads equal to the value of each Pilgrim’s Virtues. So for example, Shi Yusheng would contribute just seven white beads to the Six Demon Bag as well as the standard five white beads. In addition, the Six Demon Bag contains a single black bead—this represents the negative karma.

The base difficulty of an action determines the number of beads to be drawn to succeed at it, the difficulty modified by the appropriate Virtue or Demon and by the Pilgrim’s Weakness or Curse if appropriate. If all of the beads drawn are white, then the Pilgrim succeeds, if one is black, then he suffers a setback, or even a disaster. If a Pilgrim wants to succeed spectacularly, then he can draw yet more beads. All of the beads drawn are kept in front of the players and only go back into the Six Demon Bag when the black bead is drawn. Essentially the Pilgrims are pushing their luck whenever they draw from the Six Demon Bag and the more actions they attempt, the more likelihood that one of their number will suffer a setback or disaster. This adds a degree of dramatic tension to the play of Irrepressible! It is possible to add beads back into the Six Demon Bag during play and to increase the number of beads by doing something heroic and gaining the notice of Heaven in doing so, or by a Pilgrim improving one of his Virtues.

Scenarios are described in terms of ‘Scrolls’, mini-campaigns in terms of ‘Books of Scrolls’, and whole campaigns of ‘Books’ in terms of ‘Sagas’, the latter representing a whole pilgrimage. Each Scroll is bookended by a proverb at its beginning and a lesson discussing what happens if the proverb is fulfilled or what happens if it is not at Scroll’s end, just as was heard at the beginning and end of each episode of Monkey. Solving the intervening adventure involves making one or more moral choices, which ultimately should fulfil—or not—the proverb that inspired the adventure. Irrepressible! includes a lengthy list of Chinese proverbs. It also includes a sample scroll, ‘The Blood Village Scroll’, a short, ready-to-play scenario that serves as a solid example of a Scroll. 

Unfortunately, as much fun as Irrepressible! might well be, the rulebook is anything but that. It opens poorly. Once the engaging introduction is out of the way, the rulebook jumps straight into a fifteen-page description of Heaven and its various inhabitants, from the Jade Emperor down to all of the lesser gods. None of this information is irrelevant to the game or its setting, but it takes twenty pages—one third of Irrepressible!—before an explanation is given as to what the players and their characters do in the game. It takes another fifteen pages—now over a half of Irrepressible!—before the author gets round to explaining what the GM and his players need in order to play Irrepressible!; vitally important because the game is diceless. Thus there is no mention of the Six Demon Bag, let alone the fact that Irrepressible! requires beads to play. Despite containing fifteen pages devoted to Heaven, Irrepressible! contains nothing describing where the adventures take place—Earth. Except that is, in the included Scroll. A bibliography would have been nice too.

Ultimately Irrepressible! is let down by self-editing and underdevelopment. It deserves to be better organised and better presented—perhaps in a second edition? Nevertheless, although just like Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy, Irrepressible! has its problems, it rises above them to present a simple narrative driven game of redemption, moral choices, and Monkey magic!

Reviews from R'lyeh Christmas Dozen 2013

Since 2001, I have contributed to a series of lists in December at Ogrecave.com, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles that you might like to receive and give. Initiating a break with tradition – in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists – Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about “Baleful Blandishments” to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents the what is my dozenth’s Christmas List Dozen, I can only hope that the twelve below includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you do not have and someone is happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you.

Tales of the Sleepless City 
(Miskatonic River Press), $29.95/£21.99
It is sad news indeed that Tales of the Sleepless City, an anthology of scenarios set in New York during the Jazz Age, is Miskatonic River Press’ swansong for Call of Cthulhu. This beautifully presented book contains six scenarios that bring the Big Apple to life like no supplement for Call of Cthulhu before! Let your investigators discover how far reactionaries will go to preserve the fabric of New York, expose them to bloody horrors in the museum, or have them experience Harlem in mourning. Send them into Hell’s Kitchen to live in a slum tenement owned by the worst slum landlord possible, have them expose a dark future for one young child in Chinatown, or let them truly enjoy a night at the opera… Tales of the Sleepless City is the best Call of Cthulhu title of 2013 – it is such a pity that we shall not see its like again from Miskatonic River Press.

Hanabi (Cocktail Games), $11.99/£8.99
Remember how 7 Wonders made the Ogrecave.com Christmas list back in 2011 after not winning the ‘Spiel des Jahres’ (German ‘Game of the Year’), but winning its new bigger brother award, the ‘Kennerspiel des Jahres’ (roughly ‘Connoisseur-Enthusiast Game of the Year’)? Well this year we include an actual ‘Spiel des Jahres’ winner, one from the designer of 7 Wonders – Antoine Bauz. His award winning design is Hanabi, a clever game in which the players race to bring about the most impressive fireworks display. This requires that the players work together in order to launch the fireworks in the right order, which means everyone playing their cards in the right order. The twist in this co-operative card game is that everyone can see each other’s cards, but they cannot see their own! This is a clever little card game about communicating the right information with your other players in order to win the game.

13th Age (Pelgrane Press), $44.95/£39.99
What do you get when a designer of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition and a designer of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition decide to create a fantasy RPG together? The result is Rob Heinsoo and Jonathon Tweet’s 13th Age, a furiously fun take upon playing Dungeons & Dragons. It still uses the d20 System, but streamlines the mechanics and play style for faster game, combining well-designed character Classes with story-telling aspects that both tie the heroes into the broadly drawn setting and make them stand out as potentially epic champions. With Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition not out until GenCon 2014, 13th Age is the freshest take upon Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying in years.

Ogre Designer’s Edition
(Steve Jackson Games), $100/£85
If in 2013 the gaming hobby, the elephant in the room that is Dungeons & Dragons was on holiday, then pound for pound, its spot was occupied by a 26 lbs. tank. Big enough and heavy enough to scare your game’s collection, the Ogre Designer’s Edition brings back Steve Jackson’s first game design in a very complete combination of the original classic Ogre and G.E.V. two-player game, plus more. Five maps, hundreds of counters, and over seventy 3D Ogres and buildings, all in a big box! What’s an ‘Ogre’ you ask? A big tank, a big damned tank under the command of an A.I. and bristling with big guns, big rockets, and big nukes, all rumbling towards you… Can you stop it before it stops the units under your command…?

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords - Base Set 
(Paizo Publishing), $59.99/£49.99
Remember the original Adventure Path campaign for Rise of the Runelords and how we liked it last year enough to include Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path Anniversary Edition on the 2012 Ogrecave.com Christmas List? This year, you get to play it all over again with the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords, a game that distils the essence of both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Rise of the Runelords into an elegant and quick playing deck-building card game that plays equally well for four players as it does for the single player. The game pitches a party of adventurers in a series of scenarios against various villains and their henchmen who are hidden – find the henchmen and the heroes have a chance of finding and defeating the villain. The adventurers need to have the right skills, right spells, and right equipment all at the right time – and if they succeed they get better. All represented on the cards, which makes for both slick game play and extended game play over the course of the Rise of the Runelords campaign.

Firefly: The Game
(Gale Force Nine), $50/£44.99 
If there is one RPG that we are looking forward to in 2014, it is Margaret Weis Productions’ Firefly Role-Playing Game – of which you can find a taster here – but that is coming in 2014. In the meantime, you can fly the ‘friendly’ ‘Verse in search of a profit aboard your own Firefly Class transport in this well-appointed boardgame from Gale Force Nine. Some jobs will be legal, some jobs will be illegal, and some may bring the attention of the Alliance or worse, Reavers! All you need is the right ship, the right crew, and the right job – maybe it’s a job for Badger, maybe for Niska, but it just needs to go shiny. The game does not always go smooth, but if you are a fan of the television series, then is exactly what you want. Find a crew. Find a job. Keep flying…

Fate Core System (Evil Hat Productions), $25/£16.99
In most RPGs you sit down, create a character and start playing a world of the GM’s creation (or purchase). In Fate Core System, the new edition of the Fate System first seen in Spirit of the Century, you sit down and work with your fellow players and the GM to decide upon a world and the elements in it. This presents enormous flexibility in creating the game that everyone wants to play, whether that is protecting small town Texas from the scum of the universe in 1961, strapping on a jetpack to free the Solar System from the yoke of the Mongol Horde, or wielding the arcane arts against the greatest of Napoleon Bonaparte’s sorcerers! It means that right from the start, the players have narrative control of who their characters are and what their place in the world is, the GM taking his cue from these characters and the narrative that they demand. This is a game about dramatic characters and their adventures and the means to build and run them. (Two supplements – Fate Worlds: Worlds on Fire and Fate Worlds: Worlds in Shadow each come with six ready-to-play settings should the GM and his players not have the time to create worlds of their own, or just want to cut to the chase).

Love Letter (Alderac Entertainment Group), $11.99/£7.99
Princess Annette is unhappy and has locked herself away in the castle; as a suitor can you make her happy once again? To do that you need to get a love letter to her, but between you and the Princess stands the palace bureaucracy – from the lowly guards and priests up through the barons, handmaidens, the King, and the Prince to the Countess and the Princess herself. Each and every one of these august – and not august personages – has a special ability that will advance or block your path to the Princess, but no suitor knows whose favours his rivals currently possess. This is a quick-playing game of bluff and deduction that plays perfectly between other games.

Adventures in Kaphornia 01 – Draconian Rhapsody: A Fantasy Movie For Your Game Table (Chronicle City), $19.99/£13.99
Sadly, roleplaying takes time and there are times when it would be great to have something that you can pick and play with a minimum of preparation. Originally published in German by Ulisses Spiele GmbH, Draconian Rhapsody is just one solution. It is not an RPG as such, but rather a scenario that comes with everything necessary to play – except dice of course! It includes ready-to-play characters, simple rules, and of course an adventure that everyone can jump straight into. Arriving in Kaphornia, through circumstances beyond their control the adventurers discover that Countess Esmeralda of Belzheim needs a dragon, alive and inside of a week. Can they capture the dragon for her in this definitely cinematic, if slightly humorous adventure? Draconian Rhapsody is at its heart a fantasy action movie that you can play through in an evening.

Numenera (Monte Cook Games), $59.99/£39.99
Were the people of the Ninth Age ignorant of the past, then perhaps Clarke’s Law, that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” might be true. In the very far future of the Ninth Age, humanity is surrounded by the fragments and remains of the previous ages – swirls of nanotechnology, impossibly manicured buildings and landscapes, creatures and peoples bio-engineered to some unknown ends, data streams from still-orbiting satellites, and devices and objects weird and wondrous. Such devices, known as the ‘numenera’, can often be used by the peoples of the Ninth Age, or if not, adapted to a new purpose – perhaps by the Amber Priests. With Numenera, the author’s first RPG of his own design, Monte Cook lets us explore a world of fantastical science to build a bright new future.

Eternal Lies (Pelgrane Press), $49.95/£32.95 
In the 1920s, doughty and stalwart men and women banded together to investigate and thwart the menace presented by threats beyond mankind’s understanding and sanity. We have played out such attempts in Masks of Nyarlathotep, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, and The Day of the Beast, each in their own way classic campaigns for Call of Cthulhu, but there is one question that has never been asked. What if they failed? This is the set-up for Eternal Lies, the first full campaign for Trail of Cthulhu, Pelgrane Press’ RPG of clue-orientated Lovecraftian investigative horror. In this globe-spanning campaign, the investigators must follow in the footsteps of their predecessors, uncovering clues old and new, not just to reveal the nature of the menace, but to determine where their predecessors went wrong. This is superb interpretation of a classic format that promises month after month of sanity searing play around the world.

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Roleplaying Game (Fantasy Flight Games), $59.95/£39.99
The gaming hobby feels all the better for having an RPG based in the Star Wars universe on its shelves and in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Fantasy Flight Games gives us the first of a trilogy of new Star Wars RPGs. In the one you play Bounty Hunters, Colonists, Explorers, Hired Guns, Smugglers, and Technicians attempting to get by on the Outer Rim, far from the centre of the galaxy, but not so far that the Empire is no longer a threat. The new mechanics use a set of dice particular to the game whose results drive the adventure onwards with results that might ensure a hero’s successes whilst upping the threat or giving him an advantage, all in support of the game’s cinematic style of play. Already supported with several supplements, the Star Wars: Edge of the Empire – Beginner Game is also available to help you get started.

Against the Slave Lords
(Wizards of the Coast), $49.95/£34.99 
With no new official Dungeons & Dragons titles of note this year, perhaps the best were the nostalgia titles repackaged and re-released by Wizards of the Coast. Against the Slave Lords collates four scenarios – A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, and A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition. Previously released as the collection, Scourge of the Slave Lords (A1–4) which was voted the twentieth greatest Dungeons & Dragons scenario of all time, Against the Slave Lords is a campaign for characters of fourth through seventh levels set in the World of Greyhawk that pitches them against an insidious gang of slavers. Presented as a pleasing hardback that not contains the original four scenarios, but also adds a fifth scenario designed to introduce player characters to the campaign, which means that Against the Slave Lords can not only be played by us old nostalgic players, but new ones too.

An Afternoon Tea Game

Lords, ladies, gentlemen, and other yet to be enlightened folks, there is an Empire – an Empire of Steam! – to be upheld and protected. Founded on Her Majesty’s faith in the computational advancements of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, in the engineering developments of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson, and in the technological travel possibilities of Henri Giffard’s steam powered dirigibles, all culminating in the creation of Her Majesty’s Flying Steam City Atlantis in the midst of the Atlantic, this Empire of Steam is a wonder of the age! It is an age that the Ministry of Computational wish to uphold – and who knows to what ends its Ministry Men will go? Whilst Great Britain enjoys her ‘Steam Age’, Europe is undergoing La Belle Époque, France recovering in the wake of Bismark’s unification of the German States and the Americas has entered a Gilded Age that see the USA’s North American Space Exploration Board in a race for the Moon with Canada’s Hudson’s Space Company – as advised by Jules Verne! This is the setting for Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks: Cracking Adventures in the Empire of Steam, a roleplaying game of Steampunk pulp published by Modiphius Entertainment through Chronicle City.

This is a polite little game intended to be played and run with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of manners, preferably in the comfort of the sitting room with tea served in bone china, a neatly filled cake stand, and the company of like-minded friends. The game is light enough that in the absence of character sheets – sadly something that the game does indeed lack – and dice, a gaming group could use as something as simple as napkins and a suitably marked sugar cube! Alternatively, simple paper, a pen, and a single six-sided die per person are sufficient.

As much as Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks is the game title, each element is an Attribute integral to a character in the game. ‘Cogs’ covers a character’s technical, mental, and knowledge skills; ‘Cakes’ his personality and social skills as well as your social standing; and ‘Swordsticks’ his physical and combative skills. For each Attribute a character possesses a single descriptive trait as well as a value at +2 or +3. Two are set at +2, the other at +3. A character also has a Foible, not a flaw in game terms, but certainly something that might get the character in trouble or provide a plot hook for the GM to use. 

‘Derby’ Ned Billingsgate
Cogs: Fast Hands (Can empty a pocket in a thrice; open a lock just like that; and fan the Aces!) +3
Cakes: East End Urchin (Knows his way around the rougher parts of London; sometimes mistaken for other urchins; knows how to charm the charitable) +2
Swordsticks: Slippery as an Eel (Can get out of trouble if he has to and avoid blows; slips easily into buildings) +2
Background: Ned Billingsgate is an orphan, abandoned on the steps of Mrs. Miggins’ College for Wayward Foundlings, a baby farm and orphanage. Eventually it turned out that the education in the orphanage was less about books and more about thievery and burglary. Ned became adept at both, yet like his brothers and sisters, he would be beaten by  Mrs. Miggins if he did not bring enough home. So he ran away to make his own life. He acquired the nickname ‘Derby’ from the hat he wears.
Foible: Cares for his brothers and sisters at Mrs. Miggins’ College for Wayward Foundlings

Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks is mechanically very simple. To undertake an action the player and the GM agree as to the appropriate Attribute and applies its modifier to the result of a single six-sided die. If the result beats a given target, two for Very Easy, three for Easy, four for Medium, and so on, then the character will have succeeded. A roll of one is an automatic failure, a roll of six is an extraordinary success. If a character lacks an appropriate Attribute, then he always has a +1 modifier. The system is simple and fast as is combat which uses opposed rolls for most situations, the loser has to reduce one of his Attributes by one.

As written, Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks is designed to be picked up and played with the minimum of fuss. Within a page or three, the game has explained the basics to the rules, and within five pages has presented three ready-to-play characters and a scenario to run for them in a single afternoon’s tea. In ‘Time Flies By’ the staff of the Bedfordshire Gentleman’s Parcel & Post must deliver a package to St. Pancras Station via the Midland Railway. It would appear to be a simple enough task were it not for the dread Steam Train Pirates! The book also includes several scenario seeds as well as a lengthier scenario, ‘Devices & Designs’, in which the adventurers must track whoever broke into the British Museum.

Physically, Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks is a slim black and white volume illustrated in an engagingly mannered style by Geof Banyard. The book is solidly written and has a certain homespun quality to it. There is good advice for the GM, the background is nicely thematically presented, and there are lots of examples in terms of characters and actually Cogs, Cakes, and Swordsticks Attributes. Yet, as a game, Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks is lacking something, and that something is a menace, a threat, and perfidy even… It is perhaps a little too polite.

Politeness counts for a great deal though and Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks: Cracking Adventures in the Empire of Steam is delightfully easy to pick up and play possessing manners and elegance in its lack of complexity. Above all, it is a charming and proper little game that deserves a little more background and a lot more danger!

Who's got game RIGHT NOW?

For the most part, roleplaying requires preparation – which can be problem. Roleplayers, just like everyone else, have at their fingertips any number of other forms of entertainment, often quite literally. Whether it is a computer game, a television programme, or a movie, they do all of the preparation for the player, the viewer, and the cinema goer. Roleplaying does not work that way – the referee or Games Master has to prepare the adventure, understand its ins and its outs, and give some consideration to what the players and their characters might do. What though if there was the roleplaying equivalent of the movie? Well, thanks to Chronicle City, there is – Adventures in Kaphornia 01 – Draconian Rhapsody: A Fantasy Movie For Your Game Table.

Originally published in German by Ulisses Spiele GmbH, Draconian Rhapsody is not an RPG, but more of a scenario that comes complete with all of the rules to play it. It promises to have done all of the work for the GM, to provide simple rules, and of course an adventure that everyone can jump straight into. Designed for play by between three and four players, plus the GM, it comes with those simple rules, eight pre-generated adventurers, and an adventure that should provide an evening’s worth of gaming – all for the price of two movie tickets.

Where a traditional RPG starts with the rules for character generation, Draconian Rhapsody starts with an explanation of the sample heroes. Each character is defined by his Skills – of which there are twelve, from Close Combat and Ranged Combat to Strength and Willpower; plus his Special Ability, and his Stamina and Fate Points. For the eight pre-generated adventurers, the Skills range in value between eight and thirteen and have either four or five Stamina points. All have five Fate Points. All have a Special Ability, some more than one. For example, Gragg the Barbarian has ‘Battle Frenzy’, which enables him to roll an extra die in combat if he continues to attack an opponent for more than a single round. Some Special Abilities require a player to expend Fate Points. Flamelet the Fairy, for example, has ‘Flying’, which allows her to circumvent a Climbing or Running challenge by expending a Fate Point and so moving by flying. Besides being expended to activate Special Abilities, a Fate Point can be used to gain a ‘Adrenalin Boost’ to recover in combat from having lost all Stamina and to ‘Raise the Ante’ to gain bonus dice to roll and add the results to a failed challenge.

To undertake a Challenge in Draconian Rhapsody, the Narrator states the Challenge – for example, to out-run a boulder that is rolling down the tunnel towards them, the heroes each face a Running [4] Challenge – which means that each character needs to roll four successes to overcome the Challenge. Everyone then rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to their Running skill. Each five or six rolled counts as a Success. If a character fails to get enough Successes, then he can ‘Raise the Ante’ and try to get more Successes. In combat, successfully overcoming an Attack Challenge and gaining a number of Successes equal to the opponent’s Defence inflicts a point of Stamina loss on an opponent, but it is possible to inflict a Severe hit and thus more damage.

Playing the game is particularly player-facing. In combat, the player characters always act before the opposition; a character never dies, but if down always recovers back up to one Stamina at the end of an Act; and when it comes to the action in each Act, the Narrator presents the various Special Actions that the players can undertake and the Challenges involved. For example, the heroes are being chased through a mine by an Orc horde and have just raced across a rope bridge only to find their way blocked by an Ogre guard and a barred door! Having described the situation, the Narrator reads out the following:

During the combat you may choose from the following Special Actions:

1. Hack through the ropes supporting the bridge, a Strength Challenge
2. Face off the horde coming across the bridge to give everyone time, a Close Combat challenge
3. Swing out on ropes to strike at the horde coming across the bridge, a Reflexes challenge
4. Get the Ogre to lift the bar on the door, a Persuasion challenge

Not all of the game or its rules favour the players. The Narrator gets his own Fate Points, but he has to earn them by taking his own actions that make things more difficult for the players. For example, in the situation above, the characters might face a Reflexes [4] Challenge as orcs swing out madly on ropes to attack them. In return, the characters will receive extra Experience Points come the end of the adventure for this and any other Narrator Action that gets thrown at the players.

The adventure in Draconian Rhapsody is a five Act affair – or to be fair, a four Act affair and an epilogue. The adventurers arrive in Kaphornia and through circumstances beyond their control discover that Countess Esmeralda of Belzheim needs a dragon, alive and inside of a week. Of course, who gets to go in search of such a beast? The subsequent adventure is humorous, if not silly in places, and very like a movie, is very much a pre-determined affair. That though, should not be held against Draconian Rhapsody, it is the point of the book after all. Were it not as pre-determined, even as heavily scripted compared to the traditional roleplaying scenario, then it would require more preparation time, and that is not the point of Draconian Rhapsody.

In addition that point – the minimal preparation time required to get it ready to play – Draconian Rhapsody can also do something else. It can serve as an easy introduction to roleplaying. After all, the rules are light enough, the adventure is straightforward and intentionally cinematic in tone, and everything is presented and explained to the characters during play. If the adventure proves popular enough, then there is a sequel, Adventures in Kaphornia 02 - The Island of the Piranha Men, already available which uses the same characters. Of course, having done for fantasy, it would be interesting see the format and the simple mechanics used in other genres – could you do A Science Fiction Movie For Your Game Table, A Horror Movie For Your Game Table, or – gasp – A Call of Cthulhu Movie For Your Game Table?

Rounding out Draconian Rhapsody is a nine-page, detailed example of play. It does a good job of showcasing the rules, although it is a pity that it never gets as far as the roleplaying scenes given in the adventure. Physically, Draconian Rhapsody is reasonably well presented with decent illustrations that have a slightly cartoonish feel that matches the tone of the adventure. Although it is readable, Draconian Rhapsody does need another edit as the presentation and the writing is slightly rough in places.

On the back cover of Draconian Rhapsody it suggests that can be prepared and made ready to run within half an hour. This is the case, but an experienced Narrator should be able to prepare this much more quickly. The rules are light and easy to understand, the setting and the adventure are light and familiar, and the whole package has an immediacy that few RPG titles ever achieve. Draconian Rhapsody: A Fantasy Movie For Your Game Table is a nicely done, all-in-one package that delivers a scripted fantasy movie that you play.