[REVIEW] Swordbearer

Title: Swordbearer Author: Dennis Sustare Publisher: Heritage USA (1st ed) Fantasy Games Unlimited (2nd ed) Published: 1982 (1st ed) 1985 (2nd ed) RRP: US$18/US$10 (FGU boxed set/ FGU pdf)

 

Description: Swordbearer was a role-playing game by Dennis Sustare (with Arnold Hendrick), who is perhaps best known as the author of that infamous rpg, Bunnies & Burrows. Initially released by Heritage USA, a company that was perhaps more famous for the miniatures that it produced than it's boardgames or rpgs, and it was later re-released by FGU. The content of the FGU edition is essentially the same as the Heritage edition, the main difference (apart from numerous typos and at least one missing lines) being it was produced in two US letter books, rather than three 7x8" books. Illustrations are by Dennis Loubet (who later went on to produce the Carboard Heroes line for Steve Jackson Games), and David Helber.

Setting: Swordbearer is set in a generic fantasy world. It does include a number of unique creatures, such as the Bunrabs (in presumed homage to B&B) and Moonspiders (giant intelligent spiders). There are two distinct magical systems, one based on the eight Elements (Light/Dark, Fire, Metal, Crystal, Water, Wood, & Wind), and the other based on the four Humours (Choleric, Phlegmatic, Sanguine, & Melancholic). In both cases magicians need to seek out a "node" containing the essence of the magic that they seek and bind it to them. Elemental nodes are found in pristine places associated with the element. Spirit nodes are found in the body parts of living intelligent creatures.

Character Generation: Rolled attributes and skills. Dice rolled vary by characteristic and race (technically any intelligent race can be played, even dragons), and generally follow a 2d10 distribution for humans. Skills are either rated (percentile based) or yes/no. Percentage skills have both minimum and maximum values, either predefined or set by characteristics). Beginning characters spend experience to add dice rolls to specific skills.

Skills are gathered into eight Spheres of activity (Fighting, Stealth, Town, Country, Magic, Leadership, Knowledge, & Arts/Crafts). A character may specialise in one or two Spheres, and initial experience grants larger dice rolls in these skills.

A character's Social Status determines their wealth, general standard of living, and the equipment they can have access to. A character is limited to only having ten items of equipment whilst adventuring, although these "items" may be retainers who look after equipment for the character.

Interesting Mechanics: There is no money. A character's Social Status determines the resources available to them. Minor purchases of items beneath the character's Social Status are readily obtained. Major purchases (items near the character's Social Status) can be obtained after a number of days of haggling and trading). Expensive purchases (over the character's Social Status) can be obtained only at the risk of the character going into debt (which reduces the character's Social Status). Characters may risk a level of Social Status in ventures of note (such as a wealthy merchant's caravan trading with a far city), with success gaining the character a level of social status and failure dropping a level. Treasure was also measured in the equivalent Social Status, so that a treasure that might allow a peddler to buy a shop and become a shopkeeper would only be incidental pocket change to the local baron.

Elemental Magic requires the magician to locate and capture an elemental node in an appropriate container. The magician then aligns this node with a specific spell allowing it to either be actively cast (with the risk that the node will become exhausted and useless), or passively enchanted into the object (with a reduced risk that the the node becomes exhausted, but at the cost of permanently alienating the node). The more nodes already possessed by the character the easier it is to align a node, and the more powerful a node (and spell) may be aligned.

Spirit Magic is similar except it makes use of the spirit nodes found in living creatures. These must be harvested from dying creatures (usually in the original container, such as the heart for humans), and are associated with a random spirit magic spell. It can be actively cast or, more importantly, bound into the spirit of the magician, allowing them to automatically wield rather powerful magics, or be transformed thereby.

Combat was detailed (1/6th of the rules) and dangerous. If you didn't wear armour it was easy to permanently crippled or even instantly killed. Each weapon was associated with two skills, Weapon Speed and Weapon Use. Weapon Speed was important because it allowed you to strike first (and if using a shield, automatically block an incoming attack). Of course, you still needed to hit with your super-fast attack (and a shield could only cope with so much damage before it splintered).

Craft skills made use of two categories of tools: the portable toolkit and the shop. Essential the portable toolkit allowed the craftsman to make repairs, whilst the shop allowed the character to actually make things. In some cases the shop also included access to the appropriate resources as well. For example, the portable tool kit for the scribe skill was a calligraphy set and parchment, whilst the shop was a facility for making paper and ink for refilling the portable tool kit.

Thoughts: I really liked these rules when I picked up the Heritage edition back in 1983, and you can tell by how well "loved" the booklets are. Which is why I also picked up the FGU version recently. The Social Status system, in particular, was an excellent mechanism for changing the nature of the game. It didn't just remove accounting from the game, it changed the way the players viewed their role in the community. After all, if you didn't actually invest your treasure in something it would slowly fritter away. I'm always thinking back to how this system worked, when constructing wealth systems in my current games. Even the ten item limit worked well in practice, no matter how ridiculous it may seem when simply reading it ("Only ten items! No way!").

The skill system works well, and is perhaps a bit more cohesive than similar systems (such as Basic Role-Playing with which it shares many similarities). Categorising the skills by sphere of activity works really well too.* The magic system was perhaps overly complex, but certainly captured a unique feel. It took effort to find, identify, capture and align a node, before it could even be used (although characters specialising in Magic would start with some aligned nodes). Many of the ideas in the spirit magic section found their way into my ED&D game, particularly when dealing with necromancy.

The only real problem is that these rules retain both the complexity and randomness of games of their era, which will tend to put off the New School gamer who likes their characters to be balanced and better than the common herd.

Rating: Excellent. Albeit rather dated by now.

* One idea I had was to replace the rather standard eight characteristics (Strength, Dexterity, et al) in Dragon Age with these spheres. I probably won't, but I definitely thought about it.

[REVIEW] Ganakagok

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.

racial sensitivity

Viewers of the excellent TV show Better Off Ted will find this hilariously funny.

a raven is indeed like a writing desk

I quite enjoyed Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, even though it lacked a certain subtlety and was far more pedestrian than the source material. Still, the ideas of choice and consequence were not entirely absent. Although I am unsure about how much my appreciation of the film was influenced by the fun the animators had with my favourite character, the Cheshire Cat. The bright green highlights in the fur were a nice touch, and Stephen Fry did an excellent job of voicing the cat.