Motley Is A Fool's Uniform

Title: Blowback
Author: Elizabeth Shoemaker Sampat
Publisher: Two Scooters Press
Published: August 2010
RRP: US$10 (pdf @unstore) / Book (?)

Description: Blowback is probably best described as Burn Notice: The Role-playing Game, except without Michael, Fiona, Sam or any other identifiable features that would have the USA network come knocking at Elizabeth's door requesting a licensing fee. Still, the basic premise remains the same, as players play highly competent "burned" spies and the civilians that are their only remaining resource.

Setting: It could be anywhere in the modern world where a burned spy might be put out to pasture, except viewed through the eyes of a spy it is probably not a friendly place. Often this will be the players actual home town. After all, everyone should be familiar with where they live. But remember that there are moves going on in the background. The Agency wants you stuck here, so there must be some reason why this place is important.

However that's just the physical setting. The important setting is all about the relationships between the characters and their relationship with The Agency. The first allows the characters to show off their awesome spy skills, whilst the second is where the true basis of the game lies.

Character Generation: There are three types of characters: Lifers (those spies that are naturals in a business known for short careers), Artists (those spies with a special skill set that is useful in covert actions), and Civilians (those bystanders that care for the spies, and are cared for in return). Lifers are pretty good at the spy stuff, but being a good spy means you are usually bad at forming actual (rather than pretend) relationships. Specialists may not be as good as a lifer outside of their specialty, but are probably not as much as a weasel when it comes to forming relationships with outsiders. And civilians, well, they are not very good at the spy stuff but they are silly enough to care for the spies, so have fairly strong relationships. So as a result, Professionals (Lifers and Artists) get more points that can be applied to the spy skills than Civilians, but Civilians get to have stronger relationships (and almost no spy skills). You get to play two characters, a Professional and a Civilian (who usually has their strongest relationship to another player's Professional).

There are four different spy skills: Pavement (which is all about hitting the street for information), Diversion (which is how you mislead and distract), Provocateur (which is the ability to be a chameleon), and Commando (which is the use of straightforward force). The interesting thing is that the use of these skills changes in each of the three phases of the game. For example, a Provocateur excels at Developing Assets (going undercover, making contacts and charming the right people) in the Analysis phase and Rallying Forces (obtaining help from unexpected sources and tricking the opponents into doing the dirty work for you) in the Operation Phase, but suffers from Control problems (treating friends as assets rather than people) in the Blowback phase of the game.

The relationships on the other hand are the strengths of your attachments to the other characters and even non-player characters in the game. If someone has a relationship with you then they have certain expectations of you. If their relationship is strong enough, they might even have an Agenda (and want you to change in some way). The greater relationship you have with someone, the more stress it can take before it breaks and is worthless – you've asked too much of them.

Mechanics: There are three separate phases in the game: Analysis, Operations, and Blowback. The Analysis phase is where you meet the client, gain intelligence on what is going on, and set up the resources you need to actually do the job. This earns dice for you and The Agency (who plays the opposition, even if they might not be from The Agency itself). You can do this safely, for a minor reward, or take a risk (which has the potential for greater rewards (more dice for you, less for The Agency). The Analysis phase tends to naturally terminate, as the character's either run out of skills they can use effectively, or more likely, they suffer from a loss of Momentum (which reduces the number of dice they can use next). [There is a flow chart that explains this, although it is rather impenetrable without the text.]

The Operations phase is where you actually get the job done. Dice are assigned from the pool generated in the Analysis phase (which represents The Plan) and the players skills (as before, each dice has a 50% chance of success or failure, with the number of dice indicating effective degree of success or failure [by generating Momentum]). Meanwhile The Agency develops it's own plan and assigns dice to it, which it can use to resist the attempts of the players. This will usually be in response to the character's actions in the Analysis phase, so it is possible to mislead The Agency into protecting assets that the players have no intention of threatening. Unlike most story games, there is an actual adversarial relationship between The Agency and the team of players. It may not be possible to complete a mission in a single Operations phase, particularly if the Analysis phase was a bust. But you can always go back to the Analysis phase and try again with generating a new plan.

The Blowback phase always follows the Operations phase. This is where you deal with the fallout from the operation. This includes dealing with baggage from the operation, the stress you put yourself under conducting it, and the stress that you put on your relationships with the other people in your life. It is also where The Agency (the actual one) can start pushing up the aggravation on the burned spies. As you can guess from thetitle of the game, it is probably the most important phase of the game as it deals with consequences.

Thoughts: This game captures much of the feel of the show Burn Notice, particularly with the inability of Mike and Fi to actually form a stable relationship with each other (or in fact, with any other people at all). And while the professionals have awesome abilities to get stuff done, they also have no agency backing them up, and have to rely on the civilians for support, and that is going to stress their relationships. Burn through your relationships and you will truly be left out in the cold with no one to turn to. You need them. They don't neccessarily need you.

There is a lot of good advice for the gamemaster (aka The Agency) in the game, and no denying that there is a considerable workload placed on them. My only concern is that the mechanics of assigning dice to the plan (which is how the game gets balanced in play) means that it difficult for the gamemaster to simply wing it. Or steal ideas from the players... <grimace> Then again this is probably a good idea, since it encourages the gamemaster to write down a plan for the operation beforehand (assuming what will happen if the players don't interfere). That way you only need to add changes to the plan in compensation for the player's perceived actions.

Overall this is an interesting game, and very well produced. It was the beneficiary of a $1000 prize in a competition on the Story Games website for the best concept and deserves it.

Rating: Very Good.

Description: Starblazer Adventures is one of two* recent science fiction games that use the FATE system of Spirit of the Century (and the upcoming Dresden Files RPG). The FATE system is an interesting outgrowth of FUDGE that adds the ability to tag and compel various Aspects of a character using Fate Points and Stunts to the basic FUDGE system. There is an SRD for the FATE system that can be found here (as well as rumours of an upcoming FATE core book from Evil Hat). FUDGE and FATE traditionally use a set of 4 unique six-sided dice (although an alternative method is to use 2 normal six-sided dice).

[* The other being Diaspora.]

Setting: Starblazer Adventures, subtitled "The Rock and Roll Space Opera Adventure Game," is based on the 1970/80s British comic book Starblazers. Each issue had a seperate story, although common themes and ideas tended to reappear between stories. It is very much space opera, with blasters, force fields, laser swords, antigravity, and reactionless drives (as well as roaring reaction drives that make no appreciable use of reaction mass).

Given the source material there is no real consistency to the setting, which is fine. After all, it is a Rock & Roll Space Opera game. If you want a planet of giant carnivorous plants, or a mad scientist with an army of uplifted gorillas in powered armour, go for it. This is a game where a single heroic player character agent of the Space Patrol can make a difference and defeat the nefarious schemes of the evil aliens.

That being said, Cubicle 7 have recently released a formal setting for Starblazer Adventures, called Mindjammer, which appears to be a much harder SF universe than that portrayed in the core rules, but very far future SF (AI ships, mental interfaces, reactionless drives, force fields and the like).

Character Generation: Standard FATE. Character's start with a pyramid of 15 skills ranging from Superb to Average in ability. They get to choose up to ten Aspects for their character, two in each phase (Training, Starblazer Legend, and each time they Guest Star in another player's story). They also gain one Stunt for each phase they partake in. In addition to many fine Stunts being listed for specific skills, a character may elect to take a Career track and choose special Stunts from that. Stunts are handled more evocatively than with Diaspora, with titles suitable for a pulp hero, such as "Now You've Made Me Mad" and "Thump of Restoration," and, similarly, there are a lot more Aspect examples, such as "Architect of Destruction" and "Girl in Every Starport," and much more importantly, a deeper explanation of the reasons why you should choose them.

There is also a random character generation system if one wants to start getting a handle on the character, although it is rather superficial.

Starships, Space Monsters and Aliens are treated in the same manner as characters. Alien powers work through the same Stunt system as characters 9although these Stunts may only be available to the specific aliens). Starships have Aspects and Stunts of their own. And Space Monsters combine the two philosophies.

One thing to remember is that the game is much more open to advancement than either Spirit of the Century or Diaspora, since each further grand adventure undertaken would grant two additional Aspects and a Stunt. The Aspects should probably relate the the previous adventure, and may actually be forced on the character. For example, don't go blowing up any planets unless you want the "Oh My God, What Have We Done!" Aspect.

Mechanics: Standard FATE. Although the game primarily uses the 2d6 method of rolling as standard (roll two differently coloured d6 and subtract one from the other), which gives a much sharper distribution of results. Again the main focus is on the use of Fate Points to compel and tag Aspects, rather than just testing abilities. There are only two Stress tracks (Physical and Composure), and again, the emphasis is on taking Consequences to avoid being stressed out.

The interesting addition here is Scale. With organizations this is the extent of the organization (in the galactic arena); with starships and space monsters it is the physical size of the ship or creature. The interesting thing is that things are generally limited to interacting with things that are within two steps of their own Scale, although sometimes specific abilities might counteract this. For example "Torpedoes" ignore the scaling rules when attacking large targets. And thus you'll find antishipping fighters equipped with torpedoes if they want to do anything other than scratch the paintwork. I find this gives a much finer control of interaction than Diaspora split playing fields. For example, a single person will be unable to affect a planet. But if they recruit a large enough organization, that organization will be able to influence the planet (whilst the character influences the organization). And so on.

As mentioned previously, spaceships are designed like characters, except their abilities are defined by their Scale (size). This gives them the size of the pyramid that they use for their Systems (in place of Skills), the size of their Stress tracks (Systems replacing Composure), and the number of Aspects they can have. And like characters, ships will have an apex System at the top of their pyramid which tends to readily define their role. Ship Systems also have Stunts that allow them to violate the normal rules, as well as Aspects that can affect their performance, such as "held Together By Gaffa Tape" and "I've Got A Traaz In My Hold And I'm Not Afraid To Use It."

Thoughts: This is a massive book, and it was apparently rather stressful to put together, which was probably why it's arrival was greeted with less enthusiasm than Diaspora in some quarters. It also didn't feature any real new advances to the FATE system, apart from the Scaling mechanic, so it missed a lot of the Great New Idea surge. But overall I can't help thinking that it is actually the better game. Diaspora just comes over far too mechanical for me, whilst these rules spark ideas aplenty.

The problem is, like the source material which copiously illustrates the book, is that there is no consistency or real direction provided by the base game, which is why I think the addition of a defined setting is vital for the future of this game (although I have yet to fully peruse my copy of Mindjammer enough to decide on the quality of that), even if it just forms a suggestion on how to set up a Starblazer campaign. You have a good toolkit for building any space opera universe, but there is no real seed around which you can form one (but lots of little ideas). But reading the book does makes me want to run (or play in) a game of it. Which is something that, for me, defines the basis of a good game.

And really, I still have no idea what Rock & Roll Space Opera is (apart from Tommy in Space). <grin>

Rating: Very Good.

Description: The One Roll Engine (ORE) is the resolution system that Greg Stolze originally developed for Godlike (at that time published by Hobgoblynn Press). It has since been used as the basic resolution system for a number of his own games, and a number of games produced by Arc Dream, including Wild Talents, Monsters & Other Things, A Dirty World and Reign. All of which I intend to review at some point or another, so I might as well mentio the glue that holds them all together.

[* The current incarnation of the ORE is available in the Essential Edition of Wild Talents. This is the second edition of Wild Talents with all the game world information removed. However you should be warned that while the base system is recognisable in each game and setting, it is often implemented in different ways. This is an example of the extreme flexibility of the system.]

Setting: This system has been used in a superhero game set in WWII (Godlike), a more generic superhero game originally set in the Cold War (Wild Talents), a game where you are a kid with an imaginary monster who happens to be your best friend (Monsters & Other Childish Things), a game of film noir detectives (A Dirty World), a sword & sorcery game (Reign), a game of the Gifted in the US Civil War (This Favoured Land), a game of legendary Victoriana (The Kerberos Club), a game of modern urban fantasy (The Grim War), a game of cyberpunk-style mods (eCollapse), and, hopefully, many more future games.

Character Generation: Each setting has it's own method of generating a character. The standard system as used in Wild Talents gives each dice a cost, based on the powers that the dice represents. This cost is doubled or quadrupled for the special dice used (more on this later). Other games simply assign them as characteristics. The final result is the same.

Mechanics: A character makes a test in the ORE by rolling the appropriate number of ten-sided dice as determined by the abilities being tested (up to a maximum of 10d10). The character then sorts these dice into "sets" of multiple dice with identical numbers. Normally, rolling any set of two or more identical dice means the test succeeds. If you don't roll a set, you fail.

Each set will have a "height," which is the value rolled, and a "width," which is the number of dice that rolled that value. The height is a measure of the quality or effect of the roll, whilst the width is a measure of the speed of the test. For example, in combat the height is the effective hit location, with "10" being a head-shot. On the other hand, width is a measure of how fast something happens, so if you have a choice of two sets, you might want to use the wider one to act before your opponent. Useful if you want to win a race, for example.

And there are lots of options in how you may want to use your sets. For example you could use them defensively to attempt to break another player's set (if it is wider). If the task requires a certain minimal difficulty then you need a certain height to succeed. Or maybe you need a certain width to disarm the bomb before it explodes. Or perhaps you want to use multiple sets to attempt multiple actions?

There are two types of "special" dice. Hard Dice have a preset value (usually a "10"). They usually cost twice as much as a normal dice. If you have two hard dice then you automatically have a set (usually with a height of "10") without the need to roll any other dice. Wiggle Dice can be set to any value after you roll, making it easier to complete a wider set. For example, an expert in Reign has a skill that includes a Hard Die, whilst a master has a skill that includes a Wiggle Die.

Everything is measured in dice in the ORE, including superpowers. In fact the number of dice in your power pool is a measure of the strength of your power (such as how fast you actually can fly). But in order to succeed in the use of any power you need to generate a set with the appropriate dice pool. The easiest way to do this is to simply buy 2 Hard Dice, which automatically gives you a width 2 set (a 10x2 set to be precise). However that won't make you a very fast or powerful flyer, and it would be easy to knock you out of the sky with the appropriate powers.

Thoughts: I like this system because it is quick and rather flexible. For instance, the standard character generation system in Reign requires you to roll 11d10 (guarenteeing at least one set), and then you build your character from the sets you generate, with the height representing the social status of the position and the width how fast you have risen within it.

The other reason I like it is that you roll your pool and then use the resulting sets to determine what exactly you are going to do. This gives you a fairly good narrative control of the action within the round, especially in light of what your opponent is doing. Although it is not quite as flexible as, say, using the River in Weapons of the Gods.

The only problem I find is, conversely, the flexibility of the system, especially when dealing with fully-detailed superpowers, since the cost of each die depends on the power and whatever benefits and limitations you put on it. This can lead to a lot of calculations, which seems to be a common thing in the superhero genre (Champions and Mutants and Masterminds in particular). On the other hand, Monsters & Other Things eliminates the whole thing by just giving you 50 dice to define your monster's powers, whatever they may be. I personally prefer the latter approach, but I know people who would be exquisitely happy calculating the exact cost for a power capable of permanently extinguishing the sun (roughly 42 points per die). In either case, any variation between the two schemes tends to come out in the wash of play, so why not go for the simpler idea anyway? [Then again I am a firm believer that balance comes from play, not character generation in most role-playing games, so this probably influences my opinion. But it is also the opinion of the authors of Wild Talents it seems.]

Rating: Very Good. [Although it is used in a number of Excellent products.]

Description:"What would the world be without the agon – the agonistics of one man against another – to show everyone the order of precedence among men, just as no two other things on earth are alike? How could any of us alive know quality if competition and personal combat did not let all the world know who embodies excellence and who merely manages mediocrity?" – Odysseus, OLYMPOS

Setting: Agon takes place in an ancient Greece that never was. Like the mythic, ancient world as described by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey, the gods are alive and very present in the lives of humans, appearing often to intercede directly in mortal affairs. The lost islands that the heroes explore are similar in some ways to those they know in their homelands of the Aegean – the people speak proper Greek, they worship the Olympian gods, and they practice the other customs of civilization. However, the islands are also magical places, filled with supernatural monsters and fantastic beasts.

When they approach an island they will usually be given three quests by a god that they must complete. Success will earn the heroes divine favour; failure will incur divine wrath. Each of these quests will usually have a number of challenges that the hero must complete in order to finish the quests. An interesting thing is that the game master is only given a limited budget to actually build these challenges. This is important because the players are really competing amongst themselves for the limited glory and fame available with each challenge, not against the game-master, who merely is providing them with the opportunity to prove their prowess.

Character Generation: A hero has a name and lineage, which may be divine. This is so important it is actually given a ranking (initially d6 or d8), and increases with the character's eventual fame. They also have a trait that marks them as a hero, such as Fleet-Footed, Monster-Slayer, or Clever-Eyed, which gives the hero a powerful bonus in certain situations.

Sixteen attributes define the hero. These are grouped into four areas of possible contest (Arete, Craft, Sports, and Battle). For example, the Battle group contains the abilities of Aim, Shield, Spear, and Shield. These start at a level of Adept (d6), although a player may increase an ability in a group to Master (d8) at the cost of reducing another ability in a group to Novice (d4). The player also has the option of increasing two of the abilities by one level, up to a maximum of Champion (d10). With experience they might even raise their ability to Legendary (d12). Thus a character has some measure of ability in any possible contest.

Finally the hero must choose a patron god, equip themselves with their preferred weapons and armour, and reveal their previous achievements (which should create a network of oaths binding the player heroes together). Oaths are important as they form a type of inter-player currency.

Mechanics: In a simple contest the heroes roll their Name and the appropriate ability against the difficulty of the challenge (which is generally a two dice roll). The highest roll wins the contest. If that is a player then they achieve the objective of the contest, and gain the glory for doing so. If that is the gamemaster, then the players have failed, and in doing so run the risk of temporarily reducing their ability and even possibly taking damage. Players that beat the gamemaster's roll, but don't make the highest roll, gain a small amount of glory for the assist. Heroes can increase the odds of their winning by working to ensure that they have some measure of advantage from previous challenges. For example the heroes could attempt to scout out the enemy's camp before sneaking in. This may grant them a bonus die to use in subsequent tests in the enemy's camp, including the one that may be the ultimate objective of the challenge.

There are also Battles. Normally used for portraying actual physical conflict, it can also be used for any form of extended challenge, and heroes always have the option of escalating a failed simple contest into a full blown challenge. In this case the heroes gain glory for the opponents that they actually defeat. Combatants can affect the battlefield by making positioning rolls (important because weapons are only usable at certain ranges). It is also interesting that a character must divide their available dice between their left hand (signifying defence), and their right hand (signifying offence). Weapons will provide the heroes with extra dice for these contests.

Not only can glory be used to increase abilities, it also serves as a measure of the heroes legendary status, which effectively doubles as the character's score in the game. This is important, because eventually the character's fate will catch up with them, and they will be forced to retire.

Thoughts: This game is really evocative in capturing the feel of the heroic struggle common to Greek myth. Whilst seemingly a very regimented game in how it handles the mechanics of quests, in actual play this is generally not the case, as players narrate what happens and seek to gain the best advantage for their heroes, both in terms of actual Advantage dice and channelling the challenge into their preferred ability, so it is their character that wins the challenge and gains the glory for doing so.

The idea that the heroes are actually competing amongst themselves for the greatest glory works very well and is very genre-appropriate. Do players cooperate, possibly giving the glory to another hero, or do they seek all the glory for themselves? The problem is that you will probably need the other heroes in order to complete the quests, and if you don't complete the quests the gods can get ever-so-slightly miffed, which tends to lead to a rather short and unhappy life.

The fact that the gamemaster has a limited budget (of Strife) to work with in designing the challenges is a very interesting aspect of the game. The gamemaster can spend Strife to buy monsters and opponents for the players to defeat, or to raise the difficulty of the various challenges that the heroes will face. This serves rather nicely to focus the game on the contest between the players, rather than the contest between the players and the gamemaster that is more common in other role-playing games.

The rules are very nicely produced, well laid out, and full of examples and random tables to make life much easier for the gamemaster. There is a lot of mechanical crunch in this game (more so than I've described above), but it is coupled with an overriding simplicity that makes it extremely playable.

To sum up:

"You're as good as dead, you sorry bastard. You may have put me out of commission, but this is the last day on earth for you. Flattened by my spear you will give glory to me and your life to Hades." – Odysseus, THE ILIAD.

Rating: Excellent.

Description: The Fantasy Trip is composed of three separate products released at the same time: In The Labyrith, Advanced Melee, and Advanced Wizard. As the "Advanced" part of the title indicates, they were expansions on the systems originally presented in the Metagaming microgames Melee (1977) and Wizard (1978), also by Steve Jackson.

Melee was a simple man-to-man combat system played on a hexgrid. Wizard added wizards and rules for magic to the game system. Both have been through a number of editions, both before and after the publication of The Fantasy Trip, with slight revisions to the rules in each edition. The Fantasy Trip was supposed to expand the boardgames into a full-fledged role-playing game, which is why the first book in the series was In The Labyrinth. Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard expanded the combat and magic rules presented in Melee and Wizard respectively, and thus all the games should probably be considered as a single system.

However creative differences between Steve Jackson and Howard Thompson (the owner of Metagaming) over the project led to Steve Jackson leaving the company, and the eventual publication of a simplified version of the game (as The Dragons of Underearth). Metagaming collapsed, and whilst Steve Jackson offered to buy his game system back, the asking price was impossible. Steve went on to found Steve Jackson Games and produce GURPS as a substitute system (which is why the early GURPS rules had a great focus on the tactical battle aspects of role-playing than is apparent in later editions).

Setting: The Fantasy Trip is set on a generic sword-and-sorcery fantasy world called Cedri. The diversity of life-forms were explained by postulating an elder race, the Mnoren, who had constructed gates between worlds, and then subsequently mysteriously disappeared. Very little official support was given to this setting however. Metagaming continued to publish microquests for Melee and Wizard however, and a couple of these (Treasure of the Silver Dragon and Treasure of the Gold Unicorn) were set in a rather interesting world that, amongst other things, mixed dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals with Native American cultures (such as the Toltecs), and which had intriguing possibilities and potential. There is a very rich, and very underdeveloped, world setting here.

Character Generation: As befits something that was originally a microgame, character generation is extremely simple. There are three stats: Strength [ST] (which determines the size of weapons you can wield and thus the damage you do in combat, as well as being the amount of damage or fatigue from spell-casting you can take), Dexterity [DX] (which determines your ability to hit with both weapons and magic), and Intelligence [IQ] (which determines both the number and power of the spells and talents you can know). A human has a base score of 8 in each, and gets to add 8 points to the abilities of their choice. So a typical fighter would be ST 12, DX 12, IQ 8, equipped with a broadsword doing 2d6 damage, and possibly in leather armour, reducing his effective DX to 10. Most players didn't even bother with visiting the shopping lists to purchase equipment and simply equipped characters with the attribute-appropriate equipment.

Mechanics: The basic resolution system was simple. Roll a number of dice and attempt to get equal to or less than the appropriate attribute. For average tests this was 3D6. For increasingly difficult situations the number of dice went up. For example, an opponent could decide to "defend," in which case the difficulty to hit them went up to 4d6 (the opponent's actual skills being irrelevant in this situation).

That being said, it was very much a tactical combat system played on a hex map, and tactical manoeuvres often trumped the simplicity of the resolution system. For example, actions were resolved in descending DX order, so a high DX character could always strike first or even withdraw from combat, before the lower DX character gets to strike. Getting hit by that wizards spell was difficult if the wizard couldn't see you. And firing arrows past your friends was a quick way to get them annoyed at you (and having to explain why their only injuries are on their back...).

Thoughts: This was one of the most popular role-playing games* amongst my peer circle at the time (exceeded only by the various forms of D&D that were in play at the time, and possibly by my regular Runequest games). The reason was the utter simplicity of the game mechanics, combined with the tactical and strategic complexity of the actual play. For the first time you had a role-playing game where tactical decisions were the core of the game, rather than something added to the original game. The difference is something subtle and yet highly significant. No subsequent game has managed to capture the feel of this game, because either the tactical elements of combat are an add-on, or the actual system became overcomplicated with special rules and exceptions, and thus lost a vital immediacy of play.

Character creation was also so easy that it was trivial to create both player-characters (and opponents), leading to lots of dungeon crawl style play. After all, it didn't really matter if you lost your newbie character as it was easy to make a new one. [Although that definitely didn't stop people from trying to survive to become an experienced veteran, and a few heroes being carried back in pomp on their shields.]

The only real problem with the game was it's reliance on the hex map, which didn't necessarily mesh well with standard orthogonal architecture. Still, that was easy enough to compensate for.

And interestingly enough, the lessons learned in playing The Fantasy Trip often made combat in other role-playing games more enjoyable and much more realistic.

Rating: Excellent (as a tactical boardgame); Good (as a role-playing game).

Addenda: Whilst legal copies of this game are difficult to find nowadays, Dark City Games are publishing a simple pseudo-clone of the Melee/Wizard games called Legends of the Ancient World [pdf], as well as a number of microquests and adaptations of the basic system to other genres.

Description: Runequest is a venerable old game that has been around for quite a few years and a number of different publishers. The original version, developed by Steve Perrin for play in Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha, was published by Chaosium in 1978, where it, and it's supplements, set benchmarks in quality that are still rarely met today. The game system, formally renamed Basic Role-Playing, formed the basis of a number of popular licences such as Stormbringer/Elric, Hawkmoon, Ringworld, Elfquest, and, most importantly, Call of Cthulhu.

It was later licensed to Avalon Hill, where it was supposed to be the flagship of the boardgame giant's new roleplaying game franchises (which included Powers & Perils and Lords of Creation). Unfortunately a decision to remove Glorantha from the game setting, and really terrible production values, made the title languish heavily. [Although Games Workshop, who was licensed to print their own version, did go on to enhance the franchise in the UK, at least until they decided to only support their own games.]

Business problems with Chaosium then created an interesting dynamic. Greg got the rights to Runequest and his world of Glorantha, whilst Chaosium kept the rights to Basic Role-Playing. Gloranthan development continued essentially in a different system (Hero Wars, later renamed Heroquest in honour of the Runequest expansion that never was ("coming in 1983!"). Greg (through his company Issaries), then licensed Runequest to Mongoose Games. Mongoose wanted to use it as the basis for their own house system of fantasy role-playing games, in addition to using it for Glorantha and a number of the old Chaosium licences thay had also acquired. Which definitely led to an interesting dilemma that they wanted produce "a generic system" where the actual ownership of the game system they were using was vested in another company (Chaosium, who had just produced the 4th edition of Basic Role-Playing). This may account for the slightly schizoid nature of the original Mongoose edition; it had to retain enough Gloranthan content to be Runequest but it also had to be open enough to be used in other products that had nothing to do with Glorantha.

Meanwhile, development of Glorantha continued apace at conventions and online, eventually resulting in the production of Heroquest II (which was actually supposed to be a generic system), and more importantly Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes which adapted the HQ2 system to the best-known piece of Sartar.

Runequest II is Mongoose's attempt to reconcile their game with the current theory of Glorantha, and incidentally, clean up all the mess they made of the first edition.

Setting: Runequest II is still written from the viewpoint of it being a generic system, although it does embody considerable Gloranthan sensibilities in it's portrayal of the magic system. The approach to cults (an important element of Runequest) has been redone, also generically, but also by presenting a tool set where it is comparatively easy to construct cults to your requirements, in or out of Glorantha. [One of the problems of the Mongoose 1st edition (MRQ I) was that it exported Gloranthic things such as "cults" and "rune magic" to non-Gloranthan worlds, such as Llankmar, Elric, and Hawkmoon, probably as a necessity to continue claiming it was actually RQ and not BRP.]

Character Generation: Essentially Basic-Roleplaying. Random characteristics, with percentage-based skills whose initial value is determined by the characteristics, and to which previous experience is added. One important change is that characteristics aren't tested directly. Instead there are various skills that serve as characteristic tests.

Mechanics: Definitely cleaned up from MRQ1. Opposed tests now use the higher quality of success wins (which means you want to roll low), or, if the same quality of success ensues, the higher roll wins (which means you want to roll high). This cures the old "hit!/parried!" problem of original RQ, but at the potential of making the game more deadly. If you or your opponent have skills over 100% then the amount the highest skill is over 100% is subtracted from all skills, which is a better mathematical approach than the previous "divide by 2" method.

The idea of actually needing to find physical runes and align with them (ala Swordbearer) in order to cast basic magic has been dropped. Instead the idea of runes can be readily seperated from the magic system. Runes may still be invested, but this is much more in the nature of a heroic ability than a default approach. This allows the magic system to drop all Gloranthan references with ease, and yet still allows the game to officially not be Basic Role-Playing.

The system proposed by Lawrence in MRQ1's Cults, Guilds & Factions (derived from the MRQ1 version of Elric) is now the default standard, and looks quite workable, especially in relation to Divine Magic (traditionally sourced through the cults).

The system remains, as was the original, intensely simulationist.

Thoughts: One has been a Runequest devotee since early 1979, when I first saw a set of rules with a lizard gnawing on the shield of a female greek hopalite. It was really several generations (depending on how one measures such things), ahead of the curve. For example it had a single simple resolution system that was used for everything, rather than the customary hodge-podge. It treated NPCs the same way as PCs, essentially allowing players to play "monsters," and even more importantly, encouraging the treatment of "monsters" as beings in their own right and with their own motivations. One enjoyed the world of Glorantha as well, although my campaign rapidly diverged from the official one, so much so that in it's latest incarnation names have been changed to encourage people that they aren't really in Glorantha anymore. Runequest always had problems with high skill levels, and this version seems to have hit a workable approach to the problem.

The production values on this edition are very good, and even better, they've managed to keep a consistent approach to the standard Gloranthan ideology. Some of the earlier MRQ1 expansions, such as Legends, weren't really suited to being part of the game's core identity (and more reminiscent of Mongoose's old D&D supplements), and had all the signs of being hurried into production in order to support the line. [Then again, I believe that Mongoose, like Avalon Hill before them, have effectively only licensed the name; only specific Gloranthan product is actually vetted.] Even better they are attempting to maintain fairly close compatibility with the Heroquest II development of Glorantha, albeit as a simulationist rather than narrativist game.

Unfortunately it is their second attempt, and the idea of investing again in a product line I'm not really going to use* is less than attractive (the next few planned books are essentially reprints with a couple of additional new things). I just wish that they had gotten it right the first time (considering they had an extensive history of different solutions to various problems to draw upon). Still, for people wanting to take up this game for the first time, I do actually recommend this version. It's very well done, much more approachable than Heroquest II (and without the vehemently fanatical supporters of that game that you will find online), and I hope they can keep up the quality an attract new people to the wonderful shared world that is the modern Glorantha.

Additionally there are a number of third party developers of Runequest II product, such as Clockwork & Chivalry (alchemy and clockwork "steampunk") in the English Civil war, and Deus Vult (a crusade era historical game). In this regard they've managed to create something on par with Chaosium's 4th edition of Basic Roleplaying, albeit one that is not as customizable (which is probably an advantage for an inexperienced gamemster).

Rating: Very Good. Much better than their first attempt anyway.

Title: Ganakagok
Author: Bill White
Publisher: Consensus Games
Published: December 2008 (final version)
RRP: US$15/US$10 (book/pdf) [@IPR]

Description: Ganakagok is the name of the great island of ice upon which a tribe of primitive, fur-clad hunters called the Nitu eke out a tenuous existence beneath a black sky ablaze with stars.

The Nitu live on a vast snowdrift-covered ice-pack that surrounds a gigantic central iceberg whose upper reaches have at some point in the past, far beyond living memory, been shaped into enormous towers and cascading stairs, intricate labyrinths and soaring spires. The Nitu say that it is the work of the Forgotten Ones, vanished beings of immense power and mysterious purpose whose relics are sometimes yet found out on the ice. But the glacial plains are haunted by dangers, such as monstrous creatures called the cannibal-ghouls, and they are fearsome and terrible.

But now the Stars begin to fade. And in the counsels of the wise, the visions of the far-sighted, and the mutterings of the mad comes a new refrain. Dawn is coming. Night is ending. Soon the Sun will rise.

Setting: The game uses a customized tarot deck to generate both characters and actual setting. These cards are interpreted by the players in order to generate the story of the coming Dawn. Each card has a name which sets the tone of the card, a mythopoetic meaning, and a numeric value and suit, each of which has it's seperate meaning. For example the Seven of Flames is ganake onarta (melting ice), which has the customary meaning of "to possess temporarily," but is also associated with the sun, rage and blood (suit of Flames), and evil, ill omens and bad judgement (the number 7). So there is plenty of latitude for creative interpretation of each card.

As players determine the initial situation facing the world and the people, the players draw a map of both the World (Ganakagok) and the People (Nitu), which graphically shows the various relationships. As the game progresses, during character generation and beyond, more relationships will be explored and more details will be added to this map, creating a visual representation of the world. Even the stars in the sky are added, for these mark the time until the Dawn as they are slowly disappear as characters take actions.

In addition, the cards are also used to determine the initial Good Medicine and Bad Medicine, which are the scores that will eventually determine the fates of the characters, the Nitu, and Ganakagok, when the Dawn eventually comes.

Character Generation: Once the character's initial situation has been determined, the character determines their actual abilities divides points into Body (physical prowess), Face (social prowess), Mind (intellectual prowess), and Soul (spiritual prowess), and takes three Gifts and three Burdens (which can enhance or inhibit a character in certain situations respectively). Finally the character's mana is divided between the Ancestors, the Forgotten Ones, the Sun and Stars. This is the character's basic capability in the game, used when dealing with situations in the village, on the ice, with one's hopes for the future, and with one's fear of the future respectively.

Mechanics: Players take turns to draw a card and interpret that card (in conjunction with the established situation), as a basis to determine what is happening to them. Eventually they will reach a crisis point in their narration, where their character faces a particular challenge. A new card is drawn to reflect this consequence. The character then rolls d6 equal to their appropriate mana and compares this to the relevant ability. Each die will be Good Medicine, Bad Medicine, a Gift, or a Burden. Each player, and the gamemaster, then has one or more opportunities to start altering the values of the dice (possibly changing their nature), by invoking gifts, burdens, and relationships. They will do this to optimise the result for themselves (not necessarily the active player). Once this has been done the winner of the contest (player or gamemaster), gets to narrate their interpretation of the consequence card, and the Good Medicine, Bad Medicine, Gifts, and Burdens are distributed appropriately.

The actual mechanics are more complicated of course, as the active player may draw on extra dice from a variety of sources, usually at a cost to themselves or others though for example a selfish action may not help the people as a whole). Players must be able to narrate how they are affecting the situation when they alter the dice. Burdens and Gifts can be used to create new things on the maps of the people and the land. But despite the seeming complexity (it's actually simpler than it sounds here), it is a very powerful system allowing everybody considerable creative control, as they balance their needs between winning the ability to actually interpret what happens, the amount of Good and Bad Medicine created, and even the number of stars that disappear from the sky (when all the stars are gone the game is over, and the effects of the accumulated Good and Bad Medicine determine what happens to everyone).

Thoughts: This is indeed mythopoetic roleplaying in it's finest form. You really do get the sense that you are creating the myths of the time before the first sunrise. In fact, the stories you eventually derive have many of the same sensibilities as the various Dreamtime myths, and it probably wouldn't be too hard to convert the game if one wished. However the stark imagery of the Ice and the Forgotten Ones and Cannibal-Ghouls has it's own stark beauty that I would be loathe to abandon.

The use of the tarot cards to guide narration is excellent, and whilst you can substitute a normal deck of playing cards, the visual imagery of the dedicated deck can only help players conceptualise the card. However I think that the true genius of this game is in drawing the maps that pictorially represent the relationships amongst the Nitu and the mythical lands of Ganakagok, especially if you decorate each "place" on the maps with delicate iconography (don't just map what happens, draw a little picture to represent it; here there may actually be ice dragons). This stimulates the part of the brain that is rooted in symbology and visual identification, enhancing the play experience from being one of simple storytelling. And when you finish the game, you will have created a map that tells the story of the myths you collectively created, which will be obvious to you who have been initiated into it's mysteries, but suitably esoteric and arcane to those who haven't lived it as you have. And that really does capture the hidden powers behind myth.

As far as game mechanics go, the requirements that each player wishing to affect one of the dice must personally relate how they themselves affect the outcome for the spotlighted character, even if it is done in flashback (as in, for example "Nimatuk remembers the time when Issu..."), means that the interaction mechanic is still firmly based "in character," strengthening the relationships (positive and negative) between the characters.

And if the nature of this game seems similar to that of Polaris (Tao Games), it is simply the fact that they are both products of the same Iron Game Chef competition (2004), which drew on the possible theme ingredients of Ice, Island, Dawn and Assault.

Rating: Excellent.

Description:Spectromancer is a computer duelling game between two wizards that has been around (in various forms) for several years. Duellists take turns summoning creatures or casting spells in an attempt to reduce their opponent to zero life. Very similar to Magic the Gathering, except mana is generated automatically, and there is a room for a maximum of six creatures on the battlefield at once (and how they are placed on the battlefield will affect game play). Spectromancer: League of Heroes is the first expansion.

Setting: There is a campaign included in the game which probably counts as a setting, and explains why each wizard has only a single specialty, but ends up allowing the wizard to become the titular spectromancer and wield all the magics. There are cards and settings not available in the straight duel (which shows the basic engine should be customizable). However the game is primarily a dueling game, either against the AI (which is rather good at Archmage level), or against another player (there is an online "arena" for duellists).

Character Generation: Players choose one of a number of wizardly specialists: Cleric, Necromancer, Mechanician, Dominater (aka Control Freak), Chaosmaster, Illusionist, Demonologist,* Beastmaster,* and Sorceror.* Or they can enter a duel as a random character. Each wizard knows a random four spells (out of eight or so) associated with the four elements (Fire, Water, Air, and Earth), and their specialty. Each spell has a different mana cost. The randomness of the spell lists makes the game play more interesting.

In the campaign game you learn new spells from the opponents you defeat, but your actual spell list is still generated randomly from your known spells.

[* These are introduced in the expansion.]

Mechanics: Each turn the player's mana pool in each catagoury that increases by one each turn. They and their opponent take turns either placing a creature in the battlefield, casting a spell, or occasionally sitting back and watching your army tromp your opponent into the dust (or desperately waiting for enough mana to do something about the creatures assualting you). Like Magic the Gathering, the summoned creatures may have abilities that affect the game and may not attack on the turn they are summoned.

Thoughts: The idea of duelling wizards is a popular one,* and this game scratches the itch quite well. It's a lot quicker and simpler than the Magic card game, and I tend to use it a lot to clear my head after doing serious work. After all there is something so innately satisfying watching your legions advance on your enemy's citadel (not that you actually get to watch this; I'm reviewing this as an RPG, so use your imagination), or watching the devastation as you release arcane magics against the enemy. <bwah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha>

That being said, they made the classic mistake with the expansion of uprating the power of the spells for the new specialty classes. This tends to be a natural mistake to make when designing expansions to games, especially computer games, because you become so used to people playing the old classes in an optimal manner that you create opponents that can face them, forgetting in turn that these new cards can then be played in an optimum manner. Rather disappointing in this regard.

They've also changed a lot of the original creatures attack and hit point values. Where before the numbers were rather finely balanced, and definitely showed the influence of a mathematician (aka Richard Garfield) in their selection, it appears that these changes were essentially generated by forum comments, and all sense of the subtlety and balance in the original mix has been lost. And then there is the basilisk, a new creature with this expansion, which is probably the ultimate creature in the game, which totally perverts the play balance of the original game with it's special ability.

The other thing is the game system is locked, with no potential for modding or creating your own campaigns, and this irritates the gamemaster/world-builder in me. I really do wish they would open their game engine so that people can create their own campaigns with exotic cards and challenges that could then be swapped.

Rating: Very Good in it's original form, dropping to merely Good with the addition of the expansion (the power-gamer in me likes the new creatures and spells; the rest of me feels they are very unbalanced, especially when used against me).