Micro RPG IV: To Elfland and Back

The forest stands on the edge of the village fields or not far from the town walls, but it is somewhere to be feared. For under that canopy there is dappled light at best, darkness at worst, and something lurks there, ready to prey on the peasantry and add one more misery to their lives. And now, as if to justify those fears, something has been stolen. A child, or a coin purse, or a lover. In response the peasants have banded together and the bravest of them all will journey deep into the forest in order to retrieve the stolen item from the thieves that hide amongst the trees—the fae! This is the set-up for To Elfland and Back, a minimalist storytelling roleplaying game published by Planar Compass, best known for the fanzine of the same name, which takes Old School Essentials, the retroclone from Necrotic Gnome out onto the Astral Plane and beyond. To Elfland and Back is about as simple as it gets—a motivation for the players and their characters, character creation in four steps, fast mechanics, and a set of encounters that will develop through play. It can be played through in a single session, requires no more than a pair of six-sided dice, and offers a reasonable degree of replay value.

Player Character creation in To Elfland and Back is very light. All a player does is roll for a Job, chooses three or possessions, rolls for a Personality, and names the character. It should be noted that there just six Personalities, and it is a good thing that the game does not use a seven-sided dice or the Personality of ‘Doc’ would be added, because the six listed are all named after the Dwarves from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves!

Matilde
Job: Tailor
Personality: Grumpy
Possessions: Needle, thread, thimble

Mechanically, To Elfland and Back is quick and easy. To have his character undertake an action, a player does a Challenge roll and rolls a six-sided die, consulting the Challenge Roll table for the outcome. One is a ‘Failure’, two to three is a ‘Success with negative consequences’, four and five indicate a ‘Success’, and six is a ‘Success with fantastic results’. Essentially, what you have here is the equivalent of ‘No’, ‘Yes, but…’, ‘Yes’, and ‘Yes and…’ results, and whatever the result the referee will describe the outcome. In addition, a Challenge roll can be made with Advantage or Disadvantage, the player rolling two six-sided dice and using the best result if at an Advantage or the worst if at a Disadvantage. The most obvious means of gaining Advantage will be from the Player Character’s Job, whilst the most obvious means of gaining Disadvantage is due to the Player Character’s Personality, though of course, other situations and causes will come up in play. Beyond that, the complexity of play—if any—comes from narrating the outcomes.

For the Referee there little in the way of advice, but rather a set of tables for generating various aspects of the story to be told, starting with what was stolen and where it was taken. After that, there are tables for encounters along the way, what fae can be encountered and what they might be riding, locations along the way, fae food and drink, and magic items that might be found in the fae lands. There is a table for what the fae might want in return for giving the purloined item back and lastly, because this is a fairy tale, the final table is a coda—how long have the Player Characters been gone?

Physically, To Elfland and Back is beautifully illustrated with a range of artwork, most notably medieval and Victorian pieces, as if it were an illuminated manuscript that was actually a Victorian collection of fairy tales. The writing is succinct.

Written for Fae Jam 2020, To Elfland and Back is at its most mechanical, a sparse set of tables with nothing in the way of advice or background. However, those tables are prompts that set the game up, enabling the Game Master to prepare a session quickly and easily beforehand or run a session straight from the rolls at the table. The latter makes To Elfland and Back a highly portable, low preparation game, making it great for a convention game or a pick-up game. In terms of background, this is a fairy tale roleplaying game and fairy tales are some of the earliest stories we are told as children, so most players are going to be familiar with the genre. In terms of play, To Elfland and Back is demanding in that it is relying on elements of storytelling more than mechanics, asking Game Master and player to create much of the world they go along, based upon the prompts taken form the game’s tables. Of which, there are enough to run To Elfland and Back more than a few times for the same group.

Overall, To Elfland and Back is a pleasing combination of simplicity and familiarity that is both easy to run and easy to play, and all with a genre and setting that needs no explanation.

Micro RPG IIIc: Blades & Spells IV

Lâminas & Feitiços or Blades & Spells is a minimalist fantasy roleplaying game from South America. In fact, Blades & Spells is another Bronze Age, Swords & Sorcery minimalist fantasy roleplaying game done in pamphlet form from Brazil. In actuality, Blades & Spells is a series of pamphlets, building from the core rules pamphlet to add optional rules, character archetypes, spells, a setting and its gods, and more, giving it the feel of a ‘plug and play’ toolkit. The Storyteller and her players can play using just the core rules, but beyond that, they are free to choose the pamphlets they want to use and just game with those, ignoring the others. So what is Blades & Spells? It describes itself as “…[A] simple, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG game where the Storyteller challenges the Player and not the character sheet.” It is written to pay homage to the classic Sword & Sorcery literature, uses the Basic Universal System—or ‘B.U.S.’—a simple set of mechanics using two six-sided dice, and in play is intended to challenge the player and his decisions rather than have the player rely upon what is written upon his character sheet. Which, being a minimalist roleplaying game, is not much. So although it eschews what the designer describes as the ‘classic restrictions’ of Class, Race, and Level, and it is very much not a Retroclone, there is no denying that Blades & Spells leans into the Old School Renaissance sensibilities.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG provides the core rules to the roleplaying game. They are a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, emphasising a deadly world of adventure in which the heroes wield both weapons and magic. Beyond the core rules, Blades & Spells is fully supported with a series of optional pamphlets which expand upon its basics and turn it into a fully rounded roleplaying game. All together these might be seen as  the equivalent of a ‘Blades & Spells Companion’, although they just as easily could be combined into the one publication, including the setting supplements of Blades & Spells: The Land of Aaman and Blades & Spells: The Lands Beyond. To date, Blades & Spells has been mostly focused on the Player Character and the Game Master, but that changes with the Blades & Spells – Dark Pack.

The Blades & Spells – Dark Pack contains not one, but three pamphlets. All three focus on the villains, providing them in turn with archetypes, dark spells, and even grotesque spells. They provide the means for the Game Master to assign basic descriptors and abilities to the villains in her campaign, as well as their henchmen and their mostly loyal lieutenants. Not just that, they offer over fifty new spells, dark and shadowy, bloody and aberrant. Together, these enable the Game Master to quickly create the basics of any vile enemy or other NPC, and if a spellcaster, equip them with a raft of horrid spells that embody their malicious and cruel natures. Alternatively, and for a very alternative campaign, there is nothing to stop a playing group from creating and playing a band of villainous Player Characters with dark designs upon the setting that the Game Master has created.

In the core rules, the Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic does two things. First, it expands upon each Player Character’s Focus. This is his occupation or something that he is good at, either Fighter, Mystic, Intellectual, Support, or Specialist. The supplement divides some twenty-nine archetypes into these five categories with a simple thumbnail description. The second thing is provide spells for the roleplaying game. Blades & Spells – Dark Pack provides both of these, but more like an evil, villainous twin—or rather its set of evil, villainous triplets that Blades & Spells never knew it had.

Blades & Spells: Dark Archetypes gives twenty-five archetypes, five for each category. Some of these fall within typical roleplaying archetypes, like the Assassin or the Burglar for the Specialist, whilst Support Archetypes such as Armourer, a weapons and equipment engineer, and the Mender, are not necessarily dark in themselves, but rather that their clientele likely consists of characters who make use of the other archetypes in this supplement. Those other archetypes are definitely ‘dark’ though. For example, the Bloody Blade is a loyal servant to the gods, handing out their justice as instructed by the voices of the cursed weapon you wield on their behalf; the Parasite has taken possession of the character and grants extraordinary powers, but takes control of the character’s mind; the Fallen Noble has been reduced to near penury, but will do anything to restore his fortunes; the Thug is a bodyguard or muscle for a gang, ready to solve a problem using physical means; and a Shadow Sorcerer can shape darkness and command the things within it. Like all three supplements in Blades & Spells – Dark Pack, this does carry an advisory warning and archetypes like the Bloody Blade which suggests the player roll on the Insanity Table and the Drug Mage which manufactures and uses potions and drugs and uses the Optional Rules for ‘Poison, Drunkenness, or Insanity’ all support the necessity of those advisory. Tables for both can be found in Blades & Spells: Optional Rules.

Blades & Spells: Dark Spells details over thirty dark and nasty spells, with themes of necromancy, shadow manipulation, and more. In the case of necromancy and shadow manipulation, these neatly tie into the Necromancer and Shadow Sorcerer  Archetypes given in Blades & Spells: Dark Archetypes. For example, Rigor Mortis causes the touched victim to suffer convulsions and their nerves to become painfully paralysed, as well as taking on the appearance and feel of a dead body, whilst Bone Weapon summons a temporary weapon from the ground that inflicts poison damage and can harm both material and immaterial beings. Cloak of Shadows shrouds the caster in living darkness and makes him undetectable in shadow or at night, whilst Umbral Binding sends his shadow stretching unnaturally out to touch the shadows of others and in doing so, temporarily paralyses them. Not every spell follows either them, such as Cauterize, which makes the caster’s hands as hot as red-hot iron, or Parasite Weapon which summons a mutated parasitic worm from the underworld which mutates into a weapon and defends the caster, but demands to eat the flesh of the still living, but defeated opponents. This a great range of spells for darker games or darker characters or villains, including a few more inventive entries. These are nasty spells that the players are likely to hate the villain—if not the Game Master—when he casts them at their characters.

Both Blades & Spells: Dark Archetypes and Blades & Spells: Dark Spells carried content advisory warnings, but of the three pamphlets in Blades & Spells: Dark Pack, it is Blades & Spells: Grotesque Spells that deserves it the most. The thirty or so spells it describes are all vile, unpleasant concepts. So be warned. They involve a great of manipulation of the flesh. For example, Decomposition forces the flesh of the touched victim to rot at a rapid rate through gangrene and then death; Cursed Cure first heals wounds and then turns the flesh cancerous and tumorous; and Flesh Armour forces muscle to strengthen and thicken until it is cable of protecting against injury. One can actually be useful, the unfortunately named Relink Members enables large cuts to heal and lost limbs to be reattached. The rest though are all foul, disgusting affairs, likely to be highly memorable when cast by a villain the Game Master’s campaign.

Physically, the three pamphlets in Blades & Spells: Dark Pack are fine. Their layout is clean and tidy, and all three titles are easy to read, though a slight edit would not have gone amiss. The artwork on the front page of each is good too.

Blades & Spells: Dark Pack is optional. Some of the ideas and things—especially the spells—in its three pamphlets are not going to be suitable for every campaign or even what every player wants to include or encounter.  As a potential source of character ideas and spells—especially the spells—for the villain or henchman in the Game Master’s campaign, Blades & Spells: Dark Pack is good for most Swords & Sorcery settings.

Micro RPG IIIb: Blades & Spells III

Lâminas & Feitiços or Blades & Spells is a minimalist fantasy roleplaying game from South America. In fact, Blades & Spells is another Bronze Age, Swords & Sorcery minimalist fantasy roleplaying game done in pamphlet form from Brazil. In actuality, Blades & Spells is a series of pamphlets, building from the core rules pamphlet to add optional rules, character archetypes, spells, a setting and its gods, and more, giving it the feel of a ‘plug and play’ toolkit. The Storyteller and her players can play using just the core rules, but beyond that, they are free to choose the pamphlets they want to use and just game with those, ignoring the others. So what is Blades & Spells? It describes itself as “…[A] simple, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG game where the Storyteller challenges the Player and not the character sheet.” It is written to pay homage to the classic Sword & Sorcery literature, uses the Basic Universal System—or ‘B.U.S.’—a simple set of mechanics using two six-sided dice, and in play is intended to challenge the player and his decisions rather than have the player rely upon what is written upon his character sheet. Which, being a minimalist roleplaying game, is not much. So although it eschews what the designer describes as the ‘classic restrictions’ of Class, Race, and Level, and it is very much not a Retroclone, there is no denying that Blades & Spells leans into the Old School Renaissance sensibilities.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG provides the core rules to the roleplaying game. They are a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, emphasising a deadly world of adventure in which the heroes wield both weapons and magic. Beyond the core rules, Blades & Spells is fully supported with a series of optional pamphlets which expand upon its basics and turn it into a fully rounded roleplaying game. All together these might be seen as  the equivalent of a ‘Blades & Spells Companion’, although they just as easily could be combined into the one publication. In terms of setting, Blades & Spells only goes so far in stating that the default is the Bronze Age and hinting that this setting might be in the Middle East—or at least a fantasy version of it.

Blades & Spells: The Land of Aaman describes this setting. ‘The Land of Aaman’ is roughly analogous to ancient Mesopotamia in the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The rivers here are the Numadai and Thaar, the lands between them a plateau dotted by ruins of societies past, including ragged ziggurats and complexes below them populated by aberrations and filled with treasures to be plundered. These are believed to be all that is left of great and glorious civilisations once ruled by demi-gods, washed away it is said in the sacred texts, by a cataclysmic flood. The plateau is home to eight city-states. These are described as being fairly similar, most of their tightly packed buildings being constructed of mud bricks and each city being dominated by a large ziggurat temple, a palace, and an arena where bloody gladiator bouts are staged to placate the masses. What separates the city-states are their reputations and the god that each holds to be supreme. For example, Aruk was once the seat to a mighty dynasty of kings, but has declined as the squabbles and intrigues of its nobility have grown, whilst the people of Aqeron, the largest city-state, worship Amurak, the sun god to the near exclusion of all other gods. 

Blades & Spells: The Land of Aaman does describe the ‘Lands Beyond’, but not in great detail. It mentions that the Numadai and Thaar flow into the Gulf of the Qoros Sea, that various primitive tribes inhabit the Gemini Delta, and that Amazon warriors raid the peoples of the plateau for both plunder and slaves. Also mentioned is Khmet, a great pharaonic kingdom that sits on the banks of a mighty river that divides a wide desert.

Blades & Spells: The Lands Beyond goes into further detail than The Land of Aaman does, in turn, describing Kandar’s Range, the Kingdom of Khmet, and the Middle Sea. In most cases, it is easy to determine what their real-world analogies are. Thus, the Kingdom of Khmet is Ancient Egypt, straddling the great Gonn river and wealthy enough to erect huge pyramidal temples and monuments, whilst Kandar’s Range is all but impassable Himalayas, home to a forbidden monastery on the frigid plateau of Daru, where veiled monks worship in secret. The slopes of the mountains are renowned for rare and wonderful herbs that grown in their soil. These include the trance and vison-inducing lotus as well as the Lo’Ra herb, sought by many arcanists wanting to use it in their rituals. Far to the south-east of the plateau is the kingdom of Hindra, rich in spices, ivory domes, fakirs, and mystics, and thus roughly analogous to India. The supplement also details the nations along the Middle Sea which separates the Kingdom of Khmet from its nearest neighbours as well as those along the Sea Qoros into which the Numadai and Thaar flow. This includes the Amazons of Xendria.

As overviews of a setting, both Blades & Spells: The Land of Aaman and Blades & Spells: The Lands Beyond are fine. As useful descriptions of a campaign setting, they are anything but. Between the two them there simply is not enough playable content and not enough for the Game Master to really work with and create adventures from. There are no maps in either supplement, and that is less of an issue than perhaps possible scenario hooks or a little more detail that might have made them stand out a little and thus been more useful for the Game Master.

Physically, both Blades & Spells: The Land of Aaman and Blades & Spells: The Lands Beyond are fine. The layout is clean and tidy, and both titles are easy to read.

Blades & Spells: The Land of Aaman and Blades & Spells: The Lands Beyond together do provide context and setting for the Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG if not the detail. They are at best a starting point for the Blades & Spells Game Master—and that is likely the point, but it does not prevent the reader from wishing that there was a little detail to make the land of Aaman stand out.

Micro RPG IIIa: Blades & Spells II

Lâminas & Feitiços or Blades & Spells is a minimalist fantasy roleplaying game from South America. In fact, Blades & Spells is another Bronze Age, Swords & Sorcery minimalist fantasy roleplaying game done in pamphlet form from Brazil. In actuality, Blades & Spells is a series of pamphlets, building from the core rules pamphlet to add optional rules, character archetypes, spells, a setting and its gods, and more, giving it the feel of a ‘plug and play’ toolkit. The Storyteller and her players can play using just the core rules, but beyond that, they are free to choose the pamphlets they want to use and just game with those, ignoring the others. So what is Blades & Spells? It describes itself as “…[A] simple, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG game where the Storyteller challenges the Player and not the character sheet.” It is written to pay homage to the classic Sword & Sorcery literature, uses the Basic Universal System—or ‘B.U.S.’—a simple set of mechanics using two six-sided dice, and in play is intended to challenge the player and his decisions rather than have the player rely upon what is written upon his character sheet. Which, being a minimalist roleplaying game, is not much. So although it eschews what the designer describes as the ‘classic restrictions’ of Class, Race, and Level, and it is very much not a Retroclone, there is no denying that Blades & Spells leans into the Old School Renaissance sensibilities.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG provides the core rules to the roleplaying game. They are a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, emphasising a deadly world of adventure in which the heroes wield both weapons and magic. Beyond the core rules, Blades & Spells is fully supported with a series of optional pamphlets which expand upon its basics and turn it into a fully rounded roleplaying game. All together these might be seen as  the equivalent of a ‘Blades & Spells Companion’, although they just as easily could be combined into the one publication.

Blades & Spells: Beasts & Monsters follows the pamphlet format of the core rules and presents a set of twenty-one potential threats and hazards that the Player Characters might face. All have a name, a Challenge Rating, some Hit Points, details of its main characteristics, the latter amounting to no more than a sentence of two, thus giving no more than a thumbnail description of the monster. They include Shedu and Lamassu; the Akhazu, an evil creature which spreads plagues and can only be destroyed when whomever summoned it is killed; the Nommos, the humanoid amphibious ‘fishmen’, complete with tails, scales, and gills who hate the light and who indirectly built and rule the city-state of Nippur; and the Aqrabu, fiercely territorial, cave-dwelling humanoid scorpions created to fight a war between two gods in the distant past. Non-monsters are not ignored and Bandits, Cultists, Pirates, and Sorcerers are included as well. As with Blades & Spells itself, the entries in this pamphlet are inspired by Mesopotamian myths and other Bronze Age mythologies.

Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic does two things. First, it expands upon each Player Character’s Focus. This is his occupation or something that he is good at, either Fighter, Mystic, Intellectual, Support, or Specialist. The supplement divides some twenty-nine archetypes into these five categories with a simple thumbnail description. So for the Fighter, there is the Brute, the Exotic, and the Spearman; for the Mystic, the Warlock and the Beastmaster; for the Intellectual, the Actor and the Merchant; for the Support, the Artisan and the Musician; and the Specialist, the Deceived and the Pirate. These are again kept short and simple, but suggest some ideas as to what a Player Character is and what he can do, each one, just like the Focus, providing Advantage or Disadvantage, depending on the situation.

The second thing that Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic does is provide spells for the roleplaying game. Although every Player Character in Blades & Spells is capable of casting spells, the mechanics are objective orientated, but kept freeform. This supplement details some twenty-nine new spells which the Player Characters or NPCs can cast, whether they are doing so as arcane magic or divine magic. Some of these are nicely inventive, such as ‘Viper Venom’, which fills the caster’s mouth with water and after concentrating for a few moments, he can spit it out as a corrosive liquid or a toxic gas; ‘Dead Memory’ allows the caster to see through the eyes of the dead and so learn their secrets they kept in life and the fate that befell them; and ‘Thirty Coins’, an area spell which forces anyone who lies within its effects to vomit thirty pieces of silver that then disappear…

Blades & Spells: Optional Rules expands upon the rules presented in the core Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG. They are all optional. They add in turn, rules to create non-Human characters, perhaps pushing Blades & Spells away from its Swords & Sorcery roots, but they give the species two positive physical traits and one negative physical trait. In addition, a Player Character of that species must still have a defect as per usual in addition to the species’ negative physical trait. Tables for ‘Wild Terrain’ cover the weather and ground types, plus random events, whilst the rules for poison are brutally nasty (options are given for less lethal effects as alternatives.) These are followed by rules for drunkenness too, and then insanity. Here a Player Character has ten Sanity Points, which are lost in moments of stress and terror. Once they are reduced to zero, a roll is made on the Insanity table. These rules and their effects are underwritten as not all of the results have a time length and there is no guidance as to what happens afterwards, such as how Sanity Points might be recovered. For the main part, the new rules in Blades & Spells: Optional Rules do what they suggest and cover aspects of play without adding too much in the way of extra complications. The disappointing element here are the rules for insanity, but the Storyteller can adjust as necessary to make them work and fit her setting.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG is a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, but whilst that means that it is easy to play, it also means that it is easy to expand and add optional rules and extras to. Which is what these three supplements do. Not always effectively in places, but others, such as the Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic and Blades & Spells: Beasts & Monsters add a lot in terms of flavour and feel, but without without adding a lot of complications. Consequently, they are worth adding to have the options for both play and whatever setting the Storyteller wants to create.

So that really is it to . Or at least the core rules. It fits on two sides of a single sheet of paper. It is cleanly laid out, although it does need an edit in places to account for the translation from Portuguese to English. It has a decent piece of artwork on the front. It is also perfectly playable barring a couple of issues. One is that it does leave the Storyteller to wonder what sort of complications a failure of a dice roll might add to the plot and it does not state what the difficulty number is for hitting a Player Character in combat.

Blades & Spells is short and brief, but there are numerous optional pamphlets which expand upon its core rules and turn Blades & Spells into a fully rounded roleplaying game rather than just a core set of mechanics. Nevertheless, Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG is a solid, serviceable, easy to learn and play, minimalist roleplaying game.

Micro RPG III: Blades & Spells

Lâminas & Feitiços or Blades & Spells is a minimalist fantasy roleplaying game from South America. In fact, Blades & Spells is another Bronze Age, Swords & Sorcery minimalist fantasy roleplaying game done in pamphlet form from Brazil. In actuality, Blades & Spells is a series of pamphlets, building from the core rules pamphlet to add optional rules, character archetypes, spells, a setting and its gods, and more, giving it the feel of a ‘plug and play’ toolkit. The Storyteller and her players can play using just the core rules, but beyond that, they are free to choose the pamphlets they want to use and just game with those, ignoring the others. So what is Blades & Spells? It describes itself as “…[A] simple, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG game where the Storyteller challenges the Player and not the character sheet.” It is written to pay homage to the classic Sword & Sorcery literature, uses the Basic Universal System—or ‘B.U.S.’—a simple set of mechanics using two six-sided dice, and in play is intended to challenge the player and his decisions rather than have the player rely upon what is written upon his character sheet. Which, being a minimalist roleplaying game, is not much. So although it eschews what the designer describes as the ‘classic restrictions’ of Class, Race, and Level, and it is very much not a Retroclone, there is no denying that Blades & Spells leans into the Old School Renaissance sensibilities.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG defines a Player Character in simple terms. He is Human and he has a Name, Focus, Background, and Equipment. His Focus is either Fighter, Mystic, Intellectual, Support, or Specialist, whilst his Background includes goals, skills, knowledge, adjectives, and at least one flaw. He also has ten Hit Points. Character creation is a five-minute job and everything can be recorded on an index card.

Ublaf the Unbelievable
Focus: Fighter
Background: Ublaf is a blond, blue-eyed warrior from the frigid north, who has come far south to make his fortune and prove himself to the girl he wants to marry, but who has so far spurned his advances. He is a good hunter, and capable with both axe and spear, but has no tongue for languages. So often others think him a fool—or ‘Unbelievable!’. He is often impulsive, but invariably tries to be helpful and friendly.

Hit Points: 10

Mechanically, the Basic Universal System of Blades & Spells uses two six-sided dice. To undertake an action for his character, a player rolls the dice attempting to equal or beat a difficulty number set by the Storyteller, ranging from Easy at three all the way up to Epic at twelve. Any roll less than this is a failure and also adds a new complication to the plot. If a Player Character can gain an Advantage from either his Background or Focus, the difficulty number is reduced by two, but increased by two if his Background or Focus would impose a Disadvantage (though this would not increase the difficulty number beyond twelve). Ideally, elements of a Player Character’s Background should work as both Advantage and Disadvantage, depending on the situation. For example, Ublaf’s Impulsiveness would be a Disadvantage if there was trap he could have spotted before he acted, but an Advantage in attempting a foil an assassination attempt on a merchant.

Combat in Blades & Spells is deadly, with attacks, whether by a weapon, magic, or a creature, being either light, strong, or fatal. A Player Character could be killed with a couple of strong blows or even one fatal blow as he only has ten Hit Points (monsters can have more), and once they are gone, that is it. Although monsters have a Challenge Rating equal to the standard difficulty numbers, Player Characters do not, so the default is probably Normal or six. However, shields and armour, in whatever form they take, reduces damage and the Storyteller can allow a Player Character to make a defensive or dodge manoeuvre.

Magic and spells are available to all Player Characters. No spells are described in the base rules for Blades & Spells, but instead, the player decides what the aim of the spell is. Is it to Attack, Defend, Create an advantage, or Overcome an obstacle? The Storyteller sets the difficulty number and the player rolls. If successful, the spell is cast and has the desired effect. Failure though means that the Player Character has suffered Arcane Corruption, which might be that the spell effects turn on the caster rather than the intended target or a second grotesque head grows from the caster’s shoulder, which stays for a few days before withering away, in the meantime annoying everyone with its different opinions and ideas.

So that really is it to Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG. Or at least the core rules. It fits on two sides of a single sheet of paper. It is cleanly laid out, although it does need an edit in places to account for the translation from Portuguese to English. It has a decent piece of artwork on the front. It is also perfectly playable barring a couple of issues. One is that it does leave the Storyteller to wonder what sort of complications a failure of a dice roll might add to the plot and it does not state what the difficulty number is for hitting a Player Character in combat.

Blades & Spells is a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, but there are numerous optional pamphlets which expand upon its core rules and turn Blades & Spells into a fully rounded roleplaying game rather than just a core set of mechanics. Nevertheless, Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG is a solid, serviceable, easy to learn and play, minimalist roleplaying game.

Micro RPG II: Lost in the Fantasy World

For every Ptolus: City by the Spire or Zweihander: Grim & Perilous Roleplaying or World’s Largest Dungeon or Invisible Sun—the desire to make the biggest or most compressive roleplaying game, campaign, or adventure, there is the opposite desire—to make the smallest roleplaying game or adventure. Reindeer Games’ TWERPS (The World's Easiest Role-Playing System) is perhaps one of the earliest examples of this, but more recent examples might include the Micro Chapbook series or the Tiny D6 series. Yet even these are not small enough and there is the drive to make roleplaying games smaller, often in order to answer the question, “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a postcard?” or “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a business card?” Although a micro roleplaying game, Lost in the Fantasy World fits all of its content on the two sides of a single sheet of paper.

Lost in the Fantasy World is a roleplaying game in which a group of children is magically transported to a fantasy world complete with magic and monsters. Once there, they are each given an amazing artefact by a mysterious Mentor, which enables them to come to the plight of the peoples—and they have many plights—and so become heroes. Yet, they still want to return, and ultimately, will have to choose between going home and the powers that the artefacts grant them. How the children get to the fantasy world—going on a strange ride in an amusement park, being sucked into a weird old book, going through a very small door in a scary abandoned house—suggests the inspirations behind Lost in the Fantasy World. Narnia, perhaps? The Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series? Well, definitely the latter, and that definitely comes down to nationality. 

Lost in the Fantasy World is designed by Diogo Nogueira and Diogo Nogueira is Brazilian. Now where the Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series might not be held in the highest regard in the English-speaking hobby, it had more of an impact in Brazil where it was more popular. To the point the Renault launched an advertising campaign in Brazil for one of its vehicles based on the Dungeons & Dragons Animated Series and it was very well done. Published by Gallant Knight Games, Lost in the Fantasy World is not retroclone in the Dungeons & Dragons sense, but is definitely inspired by it.

A Player Character in Lost in the Fantasy World is simply defined. He has a name, concept, four traits, and an Artefact. The concept, such as ‘Brendan, the quiet D&D geek’ or ‘Emily, the bolshy cheerleader’, defines the Player Character, whilst traits can include a quality like ‘Athletic’ or ‘Good with his Hands’; an object such as notebook and pen, a football, or a torch; a companion like a pet rat or a baby unicorn; some training or knowledge, foe example, ‘Read up on all the myths’ or ‘Works in my dad’s garage’; or a relationship with another character, such as ‘David is my best friend’ or ‘I always have to keep an eye for Andrea’. At the beginning of the game each Player Character will receive an artefact and have some idea of what it can do from its name, but not exactly what. What, exactly, it can do, will be developed during play. For example, the Torch of Unending Light, the Pipes of Piercing, or the Buckler of Shielding.

Tristian the inquisitive musician
Fine singing voice (Trait), I must protect my sister, Monica (Trait), helps his grandmother with the garden (Trait), Catapult (Trait)
Artefact: Lyre of the Living

Mechanically, Lost in the Fantasy World is direct and simple. When the outcome of a situation is uncertain, both the player and the Mentor—as the Game Master is known—make a Resolution Roll. This is the roll of a six-sided die each to which the player can add a +1 Modifier for any pertinent Trait, the Expenditure of an Adversity Token, a great description of his character’s actions given by the player, as well as the situation itself, the later mostly provided by the Mentor. Whomever rolls highest, narrates the outcome of the situation or scene.

If the player’s roll is lower, then he earns an Adversity Token, which can later be used to gain a Modifier. A player can also Push the roll, which allows him to make the Resolution Roll a second time, but if it is failed, the Player Character temporarily loses a Trait. Use of a magical Artefact enables the player to make the Resolution Roll with two dice—or even three dice if used in a creative and exciting fashion—and the highest result used. Combat uses the same mechanics, the winner of the Resolution Roll narrating the outcome and the loser temporarily losing the use of a Traits. A lost Trait can be recovered in time, but a Player Character or a monster or NPC is ‘Taken Out’ if they lose all of their Traits. They are not dead, but cannot act decisively and are at the mercy of other Player Characters or even their opponents.

For the Mentor there are several suggested opponents and obstacles complete with Traits which she can bring into play and there is also some advice on running Lost in the Fantasy World. The role of the Mentor is actually twofold. First, she serves as the Referee, and second, she actually roleplays the Mentor as character in the game world, who guides the Player Characters to some extent, mysteriously presenting them with both opportunities for adventure and rumours and hints as to the way back to the Player Characters’ home world. Ideally, there should be a balance between the two, a pull and a push, the push to undertake more adventures and help others becoming stronger as the players narrate new and more interesting capabilities for their Artefacts. However, Lost in the Fantasy World does not fully support that notion. There is no mechanical means provided to model the balance between the Player Characters’ supposed desire to help and their desire to get home. Perhaps some kind of countdown or count-up which a player can roll against to determine which of the two desires that his character follows, such that ultimately the pull towards one or the other becomes too much.

Physically, Lost in the Fantasy World comes as a simple pamphlet which folds out to just a single sheet of paper. It is nicely, simply presented and the artwork has a certain charm, but the pamphlet does need another edit for all of its brevity.

Lost in the Fantasy World is a clever little concept which draws upon something often ill-regarded by Dungeons & Dragons fans and develops it into a simple narrative, storytelling game. It is easy to learn and quick to play, but ultimately does not quite follow through on its concept when there was very much room and scope to do so. Hopefully, Lost in the Fantasy World, Second Edition will do that.

Micro RPG I: Smithy of Sacrilege

For every Ptolus: City by the Spire or Zweihander: Grim & Perilous Roleplaying or World’s Largest Dungeon or Invisible Sun—the desire to make the biggest or most compressive roleplaying game, campaign, or adventure, there is the opposite desire—to make the smallest roleplaying game or adventure. Reindeer Games’ TWERPS (The World's Easiest Role-Playing System) is perhaps one of the earliest examples of this, but more recent examples might include the Micro Chapbook series or the Tiny D6 series. Yet even these are not small enough and there is the drive to make roleplaying games smaller, often in order to answer the question, “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a postcard?” or “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a business card?” An example of the former is Smithy of Sacrilege.

Smithy of Sacrilege is a minimalist roleplaying which fits on the back of a postcard and comes with just about everything a gaming group needs in a roleplaying—bar a setting. The bulk of the game focuses on character creation and the rules, but there is an implied setting, sort of… In Smithy of Sacrilege, a Player Character is defined by three Abilities—Skill, Stamina, and Luck, and Health and Equipment Score (or EQ), the latter indicating how much a Player Character can carry. Both Health and Equipment Score start at eight and the value of the three abilities are determined by rolling a single die for a Background and an Occupation, both of which grant a single Ability bonus and a piece of equipment, and also an Aspiration, which only provides an item of equipment. For example, the Darksilt Ruffian Background grants a bonus to Skill and lockpicks, whilst the Alchemist Occupation adds to Luck and gives some Reagents. The Aspiration of ‘Dispense a cure’ comes with a sacred relic. (A Player Character generator can be found here.)

Eltaor Ninthalor
Background: Birchrift Elf
Occupation: Alchemist
Aspiration: Rout an army

Skill 0
Stamina 0
Luck 2

Health 8
Equipment Score 8

Equipment

Catgut Bow, Reagents, Bugle

Mechanically, as you would expect, Smithy of Sacrilege is very simple. When a Player Character has to undertake an action, his player rolls two six-sided dice against a Difficulty Value, which is either eight, ten, or twelve, and adds the appropriate ability and a point for any piece of equipment used. If the result is equal to or higher than the Difficulty Value, the Player Character succeeds. If the action is regarded as dangerous, such as against an enemy, the difference between the Difficulty value and the roll—if successful, determines the amount of damage inflicted. The Difficulty Value to hit an NPC is also its Hit Points and so as combat progresses and the enemy takes damage, it effectively becomes easier to hit!

For example, Eltaor Ninthalor and travelling companions have been ambushed by a bunch of Orcs. It is his turn to attack. These are tough Orcs and so the Game Master sets the Difficulty Value at ten, which also represents their Hit Points. His player rolls two six-sided dice and adds one for Eltaor Ninthalor’s bow. Eltaor Ninthalor is incredibly lucky—his player rolls twelve! The total result with the bonus from the bow is thirteen, which means that the Orc takes three points of damage, reducing its Difficulty Value to seven.

Now mechanically, that is the limit of Smithy of Sacrilege. There are no rules for NPCs beyond their Difficulty and initiative, so there is a whole lot more that you might expect to find in a traditional roleplaying game which is absent. However, such is the simplicity that the Game Master can decide on how these work herself, and easily draw them from the fantasy scenarios of her choice.

The other big element missing from Smithy of Sacrilege is a setting, although there is an implied one and the roleplaying game does open with, “At last your two-day hike is over. What you do next might not make the history books, but it’ll win you bed and board the next few times you tell the tale over a mug of ale. Let’s begin.” This suggests that the Player Characters have set out to do ‘something’—whatever that is—and each Aspiration gives an objective that a Player Character wants to do, such as ‘Climb Mount Ashpeak’ or ‘Best the Fang Gauntlet’. There is also the implied fantasy in Smithy of Sacrilege, with its Dwarves, Elves, Alchemists, and so on, but it leaves questions such as “What is the ‘darksilt’ of the Darksilt Ruffian Background?” and “What is a Toothduke Dwarf?” open to development and determination by the players and the Game Master. The aspirations ask similar questions about the world and about what the Player Characters want to do.

Physically, Smithy of Sacrilege is simply laid out, but the text is just slightly too small to read easily and it is not quite clear how Abilities are rolled for. For example, it states “Roll 3D6 for attributes and starting gear.” That reads as if three six-sided dice are rolled for each attribute (when it should be ability), but a much-needed close read through of the rules suggests otherwise.

The only piece of artwork on Smithy of Sacrilege is the front of the postcard and it is a fantastic piece, depicting a tentacular, trident-wielding deep-sea diver. However, anyone coming to Smithy of Sacrilege knowing that it is a micro roleplaying game would expect to see some kind of connection between that cover and the game, but there is none. Which is so disappointing.

Smithy of Sacrilege is not necessarily a terrible game, the mechanics are workable, and the implied background, likely to be fantasy of some kind, something to work from by the players and Game Master alike. Essentially, pick this up and there is not a lot to explain, roll up some Player Characters, ask a few questions, establish a few facts about the world to begin with, add some more as you go along, even grab a scenario—for example, Isle of the Damned or The Isle of Glaslyn would do, and away you go.

And yet… What does ‘Smithy of Sacrilege’ mean? Who or what is the tentacular, trident-wielding deep-sea diver on the front of the postcard? That will have to wait for another roleplaying game or even the back of another post card…

The Other OSR: In the Labyrinth

 It is impossible to ignore the influence of Dungeons & Dragons and the effect that its imprint has had on the gaming hobby. It remains the most popular roleplaying game some forty or more years since it was first published, and it is a design and a set-up which for many was their first experience of roleplaying—and one to which they return again and again. This explains the popularity of the Old School Renaissance and the many retroclones—roleplaying games which seek to emulate the mechanics and play style of previous editions Dungeons & Dragons—which that movement has spawned in the last fifteen years. Just as with the Indie Game movement before it began as an amateur endeavour, so did the Old School Renaissance, and just as with the Indie Game movement before it, many of the aspects of the Old School Renaissance are being adopted by mainstream roleplaying publishers who go on to publish retroclones of their own. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, published by Goodman Games is a perfect example of this. Other publishers have been around long enough for them to publish new editions of their games which originally appeared in the first few years of the hobby, whilst still others are taking their new, more contemporary games and mapping them onto the retroclone.

Yet there are other roleplaying games which draw upon the roleplaying games of the 1970s, part of the Old School Renaissance, but which may not necessarily draw directly upon Dungeons & Dragons. Some are new, like Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World and Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!, but others are almost as old as Dungeons & Dragons. One of these is The Fantasy Trip, published by Metagaming Concepts in 1980. Designed by Steve Jackson, this was a fantasy roleplaying game built around two earlier microgames, also designed by Steve Jackson, MicroGame #3: Melee in 1977 and MicroGame #6: Wizard in 1978. With the closure of Metagaming Concepts in 1983, The Fantasy Trip and its various titles went out of print. Steve Jackson would go on to found Steve Jackson Games and design further titles like Car Wars and Munchkin as well as the detailed, universal roleplaying game, GURPS. Then in December, 2017, Steve Jackson announced that he had got the rights back to The Fantasy Trip and then in April, 2019, following a successful Kickstarter campaign Steve Jackson Games republished The Fantasy Trip. The mascot version of The Fantasy Trip is of course, The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition. 

The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition is a big box of things, including the original two microgames. So instead of reviewing the deep box as a whole, it is worth examining the constituent parts of The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition one by one, delving ever deeper into its depths bit by bit. The first of these is Melee, quick to set up, quick to play game of man-to-man combat, followed by Wizard, which did exactly the same for sorcerers and other magic-users. The third part of this triumvirate is Death Test, which combined the two original scenarios—‘Death Test’ and ‘Death Test 2’—both originally published as MicroQuest 1: Death Test and MicroQuest 1: Death Test 2 in 1980. bringing the trilogy of mini-boxed sets together is The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth. This is not yet another mini-box, but a book which combines their content into one volume and expands upon with further rules, expansions, and options which lift Melee and Wizard up from being combat and magical skirmish games respectively into an actual roleplaying game. What it lacks though is the counters and maps to be found both in Melee and Wizard, but that is not an issue with The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition.

The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth is a combination of three books for The Fantasy Trip. The first two are Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard which provided expanded rules for Melee and Wizard respectively. The third is In the Labyrinth: Game Masters’ Campaign and Adventure Guide, published originally in 1980, which added a role-playing system and a fantasy-world background for the whole of The Fantasy Trip line, as well as introducing a point-buy skill system for the system as whole—rather than just spells in Wizard. The new version of In the Labyrinth collates all of that content into one supplement for The Fantasy Trip Legacy Edition. It includes rules for creating characters, the core mechanics, notes on designing labyrinths, rules for both advanced combat and advanced magic, and it introduces the setting of Cidri, including a lengthy bestiary. All that, that there are two notable aspects to In the Labyrinth. First, the Game Master and her players could just start with In the Labyrinth as their introduction to The Fantasy Trip, instead of Melee and Wizard (and Death Test). That might steepen the learning curve though, and there is something to be said of the experience of trying out the basics of both games prior to coming to In the Labyrinth, though the supplement does serve as the capstone for The Fantasy Trip. Second, In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip look like any other generic fantasy system, but dig down into the mechanics and the setting details, and whilst on one level, it does look fairly generic—and could be run as generic fantasy, it really is quite a bit different.

After introducing and explaining the concept of roleplaying, In the Labyrinth introduces the world of Cidri. This is a large world with an Earth-like gravity and environments, which until a few hundred years ago was the playground of an ancient all-powerful race of dimension travellers called the Mnoren. It was one of many worlds they created before they disappeared, but this has many continents, many of them connected by magical gates, and many peoples imported from the original Earth. Consequently, historical faiths and cultures of Earth can be found on Cidri, so Vikings, Aztecs, Persians, Samurai, and so on, can all be found on the world—somewhere. As can adherents of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, as well as those faith to gods and goddesses and pantheons unknown on Earth. Notably, whilst there are numerous faiths and religions to be found on Cidri, along with their priests, churches, and temples, the gods themselves do not appear in the world, and it is actually possible for the devout to achieve apotheosis. This mix of the fantastic and the real explains the cover to In the Labyrinth, which shows a wizard, a priest, a Norman knight, and a Roman legionnaire together best by monsters, a mix which otherwise be incongruous. What it also means is that almost any fantasy or historical setting can be dropped into the Cidri, such is the scale and scope of the planet.

In comparison to most fantasy settings, Cidri is relatively technologically advanced, gunpowder being known, but expensive—requiring dragon dung, and gunpowder weapons being unreliable. Despite these technological advances, magic is more prevalent and the Wizards’ Guild holds no little influence and power—far more than the Mechanicians’ Guild. Other guilds include the Thieves’ Guild, the Scholars’ Guild, the Mercenaries’ Guild. Alongside the guilds, In the Labyrinth covers various jobs and occupations which the Player Characters can have when not actually adventuring and so earn an honest (or dishonest depending upon occupation) income. 

A character in In the Labyrinth and thus The Fantasy Trip is defined by three attributes—Strength (ST),  Dexterity (DX), and Intelligence (IQ). Strength covers how many hits a character has, what weapons he can use, how effective he is in hand-to-hand combat, and for a Wizard, how many spells he can cast, each spell having a cost that is paid in Strength points, not only to cast the spell, but also maintain it if necessary. Dexterity covers how easily a Hero or Wizard can hit an opponent, disengage from the enemy, and how quickly he can attack. Intelligence governs the number of spells a Wizard knows, the maximum level of spells he knows—each spell has an IQ rating between eight and sixteen which the Wizard’s Intelligence must match for him to know, and his resistance to illusions and Control spells. With In the Labyrinth, Intelligence is also how many Talents a character knows. Both Heroes and Wizards can learn spells and Talents, but Heroes learn spells with great difficulty, just as Wizards learn Talents with great difficulty. 

In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip is not a Class and Level system, but a Class and Spell or Talent system. It has only has the two Classes—Hero and Wizard. Yet, a Hero need not be the fighter of Melee and a Wizard need not be the classic adventuring wizard a la Dungeons & Dragons, guidelines being included to cover everything from the barbarian, the gadgeteer, and the merchant to the martial wizard, townsman wizard, and the wizardly thief. It is possible to create a priest, which can be a simple cleric or monk, or may actually know a limited number of spells. However, technically such priests would be Wizards with a Talent or two or a Hero who knows a spell or two. 

In the Labyrinth expands upon Wizard to include over one-hundred-and-fifty spells. These all have a minimum IQ rating to understand, from IQ 8 to IQ 20 and a ST cost to cast, and if necessary, to maintain. So they range from the simple Blur at IQ 8, a defensive spell which levies a penalty on DX when attacking the caster and costs 1 ST to cast and maintain to the IQ 20 Word of Command which costs 3 ST and affects those that fail their save for a whole minute. Typical words include ‘Believe’, ‘Come’, and ‘Quiet’, and the Wizard needs to learn the spell for each word. Similarly, it adds a range of Talents, which again have a minimum IQ rating for a character to know, from IQ 7 to IQ 14. These have a purchase cost, so the IQ 7 Talent of Brawling costs a point to purchase, whilst the IQ 14 Talent of Alchemy costs three points. Most grant the simple ability to use something like a knife or do something like diplomacy or undertake a profession such as Engineer or Theologian. Many Talents have prerequisites, so that Unarmed Combat I grants the ability to attack punches and kicks more effectively, and then Unarmed Combat II increases the effectiveness and adds ability to throw opponents or evade them, and so on up to Unarmed Combat V. 

To create a character, a player takes a base character with ST 8, DX 8, and IQ 8, and divides eight points between them with ten being the human average. Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, and Halflings have different starting values. Then, if a Wizard, the player has points equal to his character’s IQ with which to purchase spells, whilst similarly with a Hero, the player has points equal to his character’s IQ with which to purchase Talents. The process is relatively easy, but a random character generator is provided to speed the process up. 

Deodato Patriarca

Human – Hero – Healer

Motivation: Desire for adventure 

Appearance: Average (5)

Bravery: Brave (9)

Friendliness: Friendly (8)

Honesty: Less than truthful (5)

Mood: Shy (4)

Strength 08

Dexterity 12

Intelligence 12

MA 08

Talents: Diplomacy (1), Naturalist (1), Detect Lies (2), Physicker (2), Expert Naturalist (2), Woodsman (1), Courtly Graces (1), Unarmed Combat (1) 

Mechanically, In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip are simple and straightforward. Whether a character undertakes an action, such as striking an opponent with a sword or following some tracks, or needs to make a Save to avoid an unpleasant or difficult situation, such withstanding the effects of a spell or dodging a falling log trap, his player rolls three six-sided dice and attempts to roll under the appropriate attribute. Rolls of three, four, and five indicate degrees of critical success, whilst rolls of sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, indicate degrees of critical failure. The attribute may be adjusted, whether that is due to wearing armour or environmental conditions, but the main means of adjusting the difficulty of a task is by increasing or reducing the number of dice a player has to roll, and guidelines cover both critical successes and failures with the adjusted number of dice. It is simple and it is quick, and as a logical extension of both Melee and Wizard it presents a relatively easy learning curve.

Where In the Labyrinth and The Fantasy Trip becomes complex is in the advanced rules for both combat and magic. Advanced Combat is designed to cover just about every situation imaginable, starting from the combat order and options such as dodging, charging, disengaging, and casting spells to weapon types, fighting on broken ground, stairs, and in narrow tunnels, ambushes, unarmed combat, gunpowder bombs, taking prisoners, and more… The options are neatly explained and the Advanced Combat rules are backed up with a solid example of combat in play. Magic is treated as comprehensively in Advanced Magic. Thus types of spells—missile and thrown spells, control spells, illusions—including their limitations and even their disbelief by animals, and casting from both books and spells. Both of the latter take more time, but where casting from a scroll can be done in combat, casting from a book cannot. There is a complete guide to casting that most wanted spell, Wish, plus Advanced Magic takes the Wizard away from adventuring and into the laboratory with rules for alchemy, the enchantment of magical items, and more, accompanied by lists of potions and magical items that the Wizard can manufacture, or perhaps when adventuring, discover with his fellow Wizards and Heroes. 

Expanding upon Melee and Wizard, the bestiary for the world of Cidri in In the Labyrinth includes over hundred different entries, from humanoids, intelligent monsters, and ghosts, wights, and revenants to water creatures, plants, and nuisance creatures—the latter amusingly including children! All of the humanoid races are playable, with Orcs being more vicious rather than evil, Goblins being crafty and capable of giving and keeping their word rather than again being evil or nasty, and Gargoyles turn out to be tough and trustworthy, but distrust others because their gallbladders are used by alchemists in various different potions. The only addition to the humanoids on Cidri are the silly, annoying Prootwaddles, whilst the major addition to intelligent races are Octopi, which are capable of walking on land and wielding weapons and shields, but are cowardly, greedy, and dishonest! In the main, the various entries in In the Labyrinth’s bestiary will be familiar from other fantasy roleplaying games, but in many cases, there are little differences which will make adventuring on Cidri a different experience. So Vampires and Werewolves are actually suffering from a disease which they can pass on and can be cured of, and Wights, whilst undead, have a physical form that can attack and be attacked, and further, may not necessarily be evil. In some ways, it is this bestiary which showcases the default setting for The Fantasy Trip the best. 

In addition, In the Labyrinth includes rules and guidelines on creating and stocking labyrinths and on taking the game beyond the confines of such a labyrinth. Along with a few random tables to help stock both locations, these sections are relatively short, almost as if the actual labyrinths are not necessarily the focus despite the title of the supplement. There is a sample labyrinth included though, just a few locations and it is used in the example of combat later in the supplement. That said, the labyrinths do look weird done on hex maps rather than the square maps we are used to after decades of Dungeons & Dragons. Rounding out In the Labyrinth are descriptions of the village of Bendwyn and the Duchy of Dran in Southern Elyntia, both a couple of pages in length. These are very much a starting point for the prospective Game Master to develop, so a little basic, but nevertheless with a few hooks that she can employ. 

Physically, In the Labyrinth looks a little old-fashioned by being black and white throughout, and whilst the artwork varies in quality, some of it is excellent and some of it feels anachronistic in places. Nevertheless, it is a cleanly presented book and it is all very readable. 

Despite originally having been published in 1980, In the Labyrinth feels modern. Part of this is down to the presentation—clean, bright, and tidy, just as you would expect from Steve Jackson Games, but in the main, it is due to it being a point-buy system. In fact, one of the earliest of point-buy systems and probably one of the simplest. That simplicity is where In the Labyrinth shines, providing the means to run a fantasy roleplaying system that the Game Master and her group with a solid starting point upon which to add the advanced rules. The simplicity also provides a flexibility in terms character creation, suggestions being given to create numerous different types of character, but still only using what are effectively, two different Classes. Another reason that In the Labyrinth feels modern is that in its design can be seen the genesis of Steve Jackson Games’ other great roleplaying design—GURPS. So many of the elements of In the Labyrinth would go on to inform or even appear in one of the great generic point-buy roleplaying systems. 

As much as In the Labyrinth effectively explains and showcases the mechanics of The Fantasy Trip, it is less successful at showcasing the world of Cidri. At best the description of the giant multi-continent world of Cidri is an introduction to and explanation of why it is, but at worst, that explanation is bland and uninteresting. The problem here is that Cidri is presented as an every-world, a world that can have every historical setting in it plus fantasy, and whilst that gives the Game Master a lot of scope, it is also intimidating and it really does not give the Game Master a starting point. It should feel fantastic, but despite being fantasy, it does not. A more experienced Game Master will have less of a problem with this and be able to develop more of the setting herself, playing around with the potentially intriguing mix of real world and fantasy cultures rubbing up against each other. 

In the Labyrinth is a great supplement, packing a lot of well-explained and well-presented options into its pages. The result lifts the combat and magic-focused play of Melee and Wizard into a fully rounded The Fantasy Trip roleplaying game.

The Other OSR: Death Test

It is impossible to ignore the influence of Dungeons & Dragons and the effect that its imprint has had on the gaming hobby. It remains the most popular roleplaying game some forty or more years since it was first published, and it is a design and a set-up which for many was their first experience of roleplaying—and one to which they return again and again. This explains the popularity of the Old School Renaissance and the many retroclones—roleplaying games which seek to emulate the mechanics and play style of previous editions Dungeons & Dragons—which that movement has spawned in the last fifteen years. Just as with the Indie Game movement before it began as an amateur endeavour, so did the Old School Renaissance, and just as with the Indie Game movement before it, many of the aspects of the Old School Renaissance are being adopted by mainstream roleplaying publishers who go on to publish retroclones of their own. Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, published by Goodman Games is a perfect example of this. Other publishers have been around long enough for them to publish new editions of their games which originally appeared in the first few years of the hobby, whilst still others are taking their new, more contemporary games and mapping them onto the retroclone.

Yet there are other roleplaying games which draw upon the roleplaying games of the 1970s, part of the Old School Renaissance, but which may not necessarily draw directly upon Dungeons & Dragons. Some are new, like Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World and Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!, but others are almost as old as Dungeons & Dragons. One of these is The Fantasy Trip, published by Metagaming Concepts in 1980. Designed by Steve Jackson, this was a fantasy roleplaying game built around two earlier microgames, also designed by Steve Jackson, MicroGame #3: Melee in 1977 and  MicroGame #6: Wizard in 1978. With the closure of Metagaming Concepts in 1983, The Fantasy Trip and its various titles went out of print. Steve Jackson would go on to found Steve Jackson Games and design further titles like Car Wars and Munchkin as well as the detailed, universal roleplaying game, GURPS. Then in December, 2017, Steve Jackson announced that he had got the rights back to The Fantasy Trip and then in April, 2019, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Steve Jackson Games republished The Fantasy Trip. The mascot version of The Fantasy Trip is of course, The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition. 

The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition is a big box of things, including the original two microgames. So instead of reviewing the deep box as a whole, it is worth examining the constituent parts of The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition one by one, delving ever deeper into its depths bit by bit. The first of these is Melee, quick to set up, quick to play game of man-to-man combat. It is designed to be played by two or more players, aged ten and over, with a game lasting roughly between thirty and sixty minutes. The second is Wizard, which brings in more options in terms of tactical play because it introduces magic to the arena. Although the two integrate well, Wizard is more complex and harder to learn, yet offers more for a player to get into. The third is Death Test.

Death Test actually consists of two adventures—‘Death Test’ and ‘Death Test 2’—both originally published as MicroQuest 1: Death Test and MicroQuest 1: Death Test 2 in 1980. The new, combined edition comes in a box which contains the two adventures and some sixty-six new counters. Both require the map from Melee and can either be played using just Melee or a combination of Melee and Wizard. Both can also be played in a number of ways. They can be played solo, one player or several players against the adventure, instructions being included in the text as to how any monsters or NPCs will react to the player characters. They can be played with a Game Master controlling and rolling for the monsters and NPCs, whether is with just one player or several. They are designed to be played by between one and four characters. Ideally, these should not be beginning characters, but unfortunately ‘Death Test’ does not say how experienced the player characters should be. In addition, although having more characters in play will provide more tactical options—especially if they include a wizard, they do reduce each character’s final score at the end of the test. If they get to the end of the test, that is. In this way, ‘Death Test’ sets its own difficulty. It is easier with more characters, but the rewards will be less.

The background to ‘Death Test’ has the character—or characters—travelling to the city of Ardonirane, which is ruled by the famous and powerful war leader, Dhallak m’Thorsz Carn. He is once again hiring mercenaries, but will accept only those that pass a test—enter the labyrinth beneath his palace and there fight animals, monsters, prisoners, wizards, and rival would-be employees—and survive! Although there is treasure to be found, what matters to Thorsz is the mercenary’s or mercenaries’ performance. The more foes they defeat or kill, the more they will rank in his estimation and the higher position they will attain in his army.

The labyrinth consists of twelve colour coded rooms connected by a series of corridors. There are no doors, but entrances and exits are marked by black curtains, or rather black magical illusions which the player characters can sometimes pass through and others not, but which they can never see through. This means that in order to find out what is in a room, one or more of the player characters must enter said room. Most of the time, they can leave the way they came. Each room then is its own discrete encounter and with just a dozen of them, it allows for variety of denizens and challenges. ‘Death Test’ is not a dungeon in the traditional roleplaying sense though, the focus being more on combat—as the background suggests—than exploring, finding traps, and so on. Nor is it really a roleplaying adventure, a ‘programmed adventure’ certainly, but not a roleplaying adventure as there is very little, if any, roleplaying involved. That said, run ‘Death Test’ with a Game Master and one or more players and then there are opportunities for the Game Master to roleplay and bring some of the NPCs to life and thus for the player characters to interact with them rather than fighting them.

Consisting of one-hundred-and-sixty-seven entries over seventeen or so pages, there is a greater physicality to ‘Death Test’ in comparison to other solo adventure titles. This not surprising though, for Death Test is an expansion for a man-to-man combat game. So instead of sitting down and reading through a book and rolling dice as necessary, this is definitely an at the table affair with the map, the counters, and the dice in front of you. In further comparison with those other solo adventure books, ‘Death Test’ has a greater replayability factor. Only score enough points to get hired as a recruit? Well, why not try again to see if you can attain a better position or try it with a different mix of characters?

‘Death Test 2’ is double the size of ‘Death Test’. Again, it can either be played using just Melee or a combination of Melee and Wizard, but it can also be played using Into the Labyrinth, which covers roleplaying, character creation and experience, and advanced magic and combat rules for Melee and Wizard. Like ‘Death Test’, it can be can be played solo, one player or several players against the adventure, instructions being included in the text as to how any monsters or NPCs will react to the player characters. They can be played with a Game Master controlling and rolling for the monsters and NPCs, whether is with just one player or several. This is certainly the case if ‘Death Test 2’ is run using the rules from Into the Labyrinth. Unlike ‘Death Test’, ‘Death Test 2’ is intended for a party of four characters rather than between one and four, and it includes advice as how experienced the player characters need to be, for like ‘Death Test’, it is not designed for beginning characters. ‘Death Test 2’ can also be run like a traditional dungeon adventure, and this is supported with advice on adding it to a campaign and on expending gained Experience Points.

The background to ‘Death Test 2’ is that Dhallak m’Thorsz Carn is unimpressed with the candidates to join his army who succeeded at getting through the labyrinth in ‘Death Test’. So he has another built, one which is more involving and more challenging. Consisting of some two-hundred-and-eighty-seven entries over thirty-six pages, ‘Death Test 2’ only adds a few more rooms in comparison to ‘Death Test’. The increased number of entries allow for more detail, more things to happen, and more things for the characters to do. There are traps and puzzles, a greater range of monsters to encounter and magical items to find, players will find their characters tested in other ways than combat—‘Death Test 2’ includes the need to make Saving Throws. This is a richer environment for them to explore and no mere complex of arenas to enter and fight in. This does not mean that ‘Death Test 2’ is not a combat focused adventure—it very much is—but it is written far more like a traditional solo roleplaying adventure and presents a richer playing environment, so is far more engaging. 

Physically, both ‘Death Test’ and ‘Death Test 2’ are plain, simple booklets with paper covers. Behind the full colour covers, they are black and white throughout. Each is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent throughout.

Of course, of the two, ‘Death Test 2’ is better than ‘Death Test’. It is more detailed and offers more options than just combat, plus it supports more roleplaying, especially if Into the Labyrinth is being used. On the downside, because it has more secrets to be found, it is not as readily replayable. In other words, there is less of the simple board game to its play than there is in ‘Death Test’. Yet ‘Death Test’ should not be discounted. Its simplicity means that it can more readily be replayed, and it is easier to both set up and play. At its very simplest, ‘Death Test’ provides a reason to play Melee and/or Wizard than just fights in an arena.

Death Test is a good combination boxed set, presenting two solo adventures of differing complexity and detail that offer a great deal of flexibility in terms of their set-up and play options. More so than traditional solo adventures. If you have Melee and/or Wizard, then you should put yourself through the Death Test—both of them.