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Big Eyes, Small Mouth

March 23, 2000 in Reviews

Big Eyes, Small Mouth (hence BESM, since that’s a lot to type) accomplishes what a lot of games want to – it’s a genre game that’s just the right amount of general (as opposed to too general or not general enough).

I’ll clarify that. Bubblegum Crisis from R. Talsorian Games, while an excellent game and a good introductory piece for the Fuzion” line, was an anime role-playing game that expected you to play the Knight Sabers (creation rules for other character groups were in the back of the book). Teenagers From Outer Space, while obviously anime-influenced, managed to sprawl over at least three genres (adolescent gaming, like Cybergeneration; American cartoon gaming, like Toon; and anime gaming). BESM has one goal in mind: to be the ultimate anime role-playing game. It pulls it off, too; it’s genre-specific while being as broad as possible, its rules are broad enough to be encompassing but tight enough to be playable, its attitude is more playful than most gamers, and it sells for $14.95.

I’ll say that again. $14.95. In an age where gaming supplements run $20-30, Guardians of Order has managed to bring us a polished game for just under fifteen dollars. (Oddly, the supplements cash in at a dollar more than the game itself.)

The book is laid out well. It has a logical flow to it, moving from an introduction to the book and a basic introduction to anime to character creation, which takes up much of the rest of the book. (It’s a small book, which makes it all the more impressive.) Creation involves the Tri-Stat system, where characters have Body, Mind, and Soul, and then use Skills and Advantages to beef up those stats. At the end is a lexicon – the authors are anime fans, as befits writers of an anime RPG, and thus use a lot of Japanese and jargon words – and a bibliography, which also recommends some anime to watch, to get into the mood.

The system is also simple; roll 2d6. If you roll lower than your Stat (plus modifiers), you succeed; roll higher, and you fail. A 2 always succeeds, and a 12 always fails. Combat tends to be just as simple; roll initiative (only 1d6), then attack or defend (2d6 vs. the character’s Attack or Defensive Combat Value). Damage is meted out, and a new round begins.

End result? BESM is a lot of fun. For an otaku (fanboy) like me, it’s great to have a chance to play a character in universes I’ve watched and read so many times. It’s a good system, too, and fun to read. Truth be told, the game I was supposed to review was the first (mecha-building) supplement, Big Robots, Cool Starships; it was on the strength of that supplement that I decided to lay out the cash to buy the main book. I haven’t for one moment regretted it.

The game also has two supplements, Big Robots, Cool Starships – mentioned above – and Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies, which I’ll be reviewing later in the month. Keep an eye out.

Free Trader EDG signing off.

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The Three Stooges Card Game

January 26, 2000 in Reviews

Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck! Spread Out! BONK! POW! Hommina, hommina, hommina…

Heh heh. Women just never get the “stooge thing.” I’m not one to make
universal semi-sexist comments, but I’ve yet to meet a member of the
Double-X chromosone set that had a high tolerance for the antics of Mssrs.
Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp (Curly Joe DeRita and Joe Besser were lame, so I
ignore them). Must be the nurturing urge. If you encounter a MALE, however,
between the ages of 16 and 60, and profer two extended fingers in the
general area of the eyes, I daresay you will encounter the ritual response
of a hand extended parrallel to the nasal ridge along with the reponsorial
“Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!” It was with great affection, therefore, that I
discovered THE THREE STOOGES CARD GAME in my review box.

For starters, this is no High Concept. The players act out the parts of
“stooges” themselves, attempting to commit all those exquisitely painful
activities that are such a highlight of the Stooge film body of work.
Imagine a giant Stooge Slap fight (what, ten seconds of film time?) rendered
frame by frame onto cards. The mechanics of the game are entirely
card-based; there are no external elements such as tables, dice or charts
(well, okay, you do have to keep track of points, so a piece of paper and
pencil stub might come in handy, but not essential). Play is absurdly
simple, and extremely (EXTREMELY) fast paced. Not a game for the Advanced
Third Reich crowd, but sometimes that is exactly the sort of thing I’m
looking for.

What You Get For Your 8.95 Plus Tax

The deck of cards consists of 55 playable cards and 5 double sided
instruction cards (this is an interesting twist–) instead of including a
small, densely printed and stapled rulebook, the folks at Archangel
Entertainment opted to include all the rules on five *seperate* cards. I
predict this could be a real huge pain in the butt. The instruction cards
will, inevitably, go astray. Fortunately the rules are easy enough to
memorize. Only a knucklehead would have a hard time with this one… nyuck
nyuck!

The cards are illustrated with black and white movie stills of the actions
they are attempting to illustrate– for instance, the DUCK defensive card
depicts Moe ducking while Larry delivers a furious slap in the face to Curly
(the blow being meant for Moe but he ducked, git it?). The black and white
graphics are ENTIRELY appropriate, much more fitting than illustrations or
even color (which would be sacrilege).

In any event, the cards are very well done, both from an artistic and
quality perspective. They are pretty stiff and have a thin plastic
lamination coat, similar in size and execution to modern playing cards. They
should stand up to a few years of abuse. My only gripe was that there is no
graphic distinction between Attack and Defense cards at first glance (you
have to read down in the text to figure it out). This is no big deal but it
does require you to take the time to look. 1 deck of cards should be all you
need to play comfortably with 2-3 players. The rules state that an extra
deck would be handy for 4-8 players, and I believe it. During playtests, we
went through the deck (and thence the game) rather quickly.

How The Game Plays

As mentioned above, each player plays the part of a “Stooge.” The players
get inolved in a mock combat, with cards representing the slaps, punches,
pokes-in-the-eye, et. al, that were prevelant in the series. The game
sequence is played out like so:

(pregame stuff) Write out a score sheet. Put everybody’s name on it and
record points lost there. Choose a dealer. Deal out five cards each.
Remaining cards are facedown in a draw pile.

(game stuff) Dealer goes first.

Play attack cards on opponents

Play until 1 of these 2 conditions are met: A defense card is played (and
reactions to it resolved)

or

The attacker runs out of attack cards.

Everyone replenishes cards from the draw table.

The next player takes a turn.

When all cards are drawn from the draw deck, the game goes into the *Larry,
Moe, Cheese phase*. The player with the *lowest* point total gets to execute
ALL his attack cards on anyone else in the game with them only being able to
respond with defense or matching attack cards (a word on that later).

At the end of the Cheese phase, the player with the lowest amount of damage
is the winner!

I know this sounds incredibly simplistic, because it probably is. However,
there is enough chrome in the game to contribute to an intensely variable,
unique experience. For instance, there is the concept of Matching attacks.
If an opponent plays an attack card (on anybody) that has one or more of the
same word in it as one of YOUR cards, you can play that card on anybody. For
instance, Moe plays the SLAP card on Curly. Curly has a BIG SLAP! card in
his hand, whih he retaliates with back to Moe (the SLAP! in Big Slap!
matches the SLAP in the SLAP card that Moe played). Most of the game is in
the cards themselves, however, with interesting counters and defenses such
as DUCK, SLAP, OLD SWITCH-A-ROO, and BONK ON THE HEAD being de rigeur for a
game.

In preparation for this review, I played once against my wife and once
against two friends. By FAR the better experience of the two was playing
against my friends. Not because of any misogynistic preconceptions about men
being “better” at games than women, but because this game is truly designed
for more than two players. Many cards have a sequential effect (such as big
slap, which applies to multiple players), which is totally lost in a two
player game. In both games I got waxed, but had a great time. The rules
actually state that the game plays much better when the players adopt phony
accents of their favorite stooges, and I’m here to confirm this! (a few
beers might help with your vocabulary) Like any new thing, the game started
slow, but was going a point-blimfark by the end of the night. I got in two
games vs. my wife and two versus my friends. The pace had accelerated to
something like this:

FWAP! (sound of card being slapped down) “POKE IN THE EYE!” FWAP! “Not so
fast! I’m playing NYUCK, NYUCK, NYUCK!, the only counter to POKE IN THE
EYE!” FWAP! “Oh yeah? Well how does a POP GOES THE WEASEL suit ya?” FWAP!
“Why I oughta… Here’s a HAIR PULL!” (exasperated Curly sounds) “why, I
oughta….!”

(distinct sound of bottlecaps being levered off of carbonated beverages)
glug glug glug glug

You get the picture…

The Verdict

On a sliding scale of 1 through 5, I’d give THE THREE STOOGES CARD GAME a
solid 5. The game isn’t going to win any design awards, but it IS a blast! I
recommend it highly for those idle moments between something more serious,
such as “downtime” at a Con, or maybe you’re just having some buddies over
for a few hours and want to get a few cheap yucks. The folks at ArchAngel
Entertainment are onto a good thing– publishing high quality, durable and
replayable (and best of all NON-COLLECTIBLE) card games with an humorous
theme. Their previous multiplayer card effort, GROO:THE GAME, is about on
level with the THREE STOOGES CARD GAME, perhaps a notch or two higher in
terms of complexity. I’m a big fan of any company that will publish a card
game that does not require you to mortgage your paycheck on all sorts of
“collectible” expansions. When was the last time you purchased a *complete
game* for less than most starter decks for collectible card games? You could
do a lot worse for a measly 8.95… give THE STOOGES a try.

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Cybergeneration: Revolution 2

January 10, 2000 in Reviews

“My parents became Cyberpunks and all they left me was this dark future.”

Cybergeneration, R. Talsorian Games’ followup to their highly successful Cyberpunk 2020 line, puts a somewhat unique spin on the Cyberpunk world. The year is 2027, and the Edgerunners have all but vanished; the Corporations have taken America and the world, and arcologies stand where cities once sprawled. Most adults have been assimilated, and spend their days working dull, soulless jobs and their nights dreaming of the days when they had s real future. A deadly plague sweeps the land, killing most people over 20 who encounter it. The adults have only one chance left, one hope of destroying the Megacorps and returning America to a free state.

Their children.

Cybergeneration is a game not for children, but about children. It concentrates heavily on the works and days of the children of the Edgerunners, forming street gangs and rebelling relentlessly against the evils of the Megacorps. The design of the book reflects this, from the almost attention-deficit organization to the scrawled typeface used throughout the book. (Fortunately, it’s used only for headers and page numbers – else, the book would be unreadable.)

Character creation in Cybergeneration is, unfortunately, mixed in with the introductory story. While this might make for an interesting way to introduce new players to the game, it’s frustrating for more experienced players to have to edit out the adventure in order to make a character – and as there are parts of the adventure which should only be read by the GM, it’s difficult to allow a player who’s in the adventure to look through the book in order to create her character. There is a character creation summary, but it almost requires a player to refer constantly to the regular creation rules due to its extreme brevity.

On the other hand, had the adventure been later in the book, and character creation been more cohesive, it would have been a lot of fun. New characters are guided through generation by an Edgerunner named Morgan Blackhand, and creation is treated as though the character were simply giving information about herself. This tends to create more of a connection with the character, more of a sense of /being/ the character.

For the most part, skills and statistics work the same way in Cybergeneration as they do in Cyberpunk, and indeed, rules are provided for converting Edgerunners to the Cybergeneration world. Add Stat to Skill, then roll 1d10 and add that to the total; if your combined total is higher than the target number, you succeed. Thus, there are always a certain set of activities that a character will almost always be able to do. The exception to this is on a total fumble – a 1 on 1d10, which is an automatic failure. On the other hand, the system is also infinitely open-ended – if you roll 10 on your d10, you roll again and add; another 10 means you roll again, and so on, allowing for spectacular successes on a cinematic scale.

The setting and background is what really makes Cybergeneration, though. Regardless of what system you use with the game, the essence remains the same – you are children, rebelling against an oppressive authority. The wonderful thing about this game is that if you’re playing it dark and gritty, with characters who are all guns and sex, you’re missing a lot of the point. Characters in Cybergeneration are no older than 17, and as such are still idealistic, hopeful youths, many of whom have never actually seen someone die and most of whom aren’t yet out of puberty. Cybergeneration allows the player to relive youth, rebelling against anything as long as it’ll look cool.

The Verdict

High Point: background and setting

Low Point: character creation is poorly organized and jumbled in with the first adventure

Looks: 4 (out of 5)

Concept: 5 (out of 5)

Originality: 4 (out of 5)

Playability: 4 (out of 5)

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Sanctum

December 28, 1999 in Reviews

SANCTUM is an online card game in where you play one of the Twelve Houses. Your goal? Invade the opponent’s home base, called a Sanctum. You do this by casting spells, and advancing your armies on the playing field. But there are obstacles along the way: Mountains, desert terrain, enemy armies, and the opponent’s spells. Not to mention summoned monsters…

This game is similar to Magic: The Gathering in that you must have mana to cast spells. The major differences in this game and Magic are Sanctum adds a game board., and you don’t have mana cards. You must capture the towns that lie in your progress to the opponent’s Sanctum, which then can generate any of the mana types for any house, but once you choose, you can’t change the mana it will generate, and the other benefit of owning a town is that it produces recruits suitable to your House.

The Twelve Houses are: Justice, Body, Mind, Making, Unmaking, Hope, Despair, War, Death, Abomination, Nature, and Life. The six mana types are: World, Order, Mystery, Clarity, Strife, and Will.

The five different spell types are: Alteration (alters the recruits or mana generation), Manifestation (a variety of effects, from temporary mana gains to fireballs), Summoning (you guessed it–monsters!), Conjuration (enchantments that can affect recruits, towns, and Sanctums), and Hero (summons Unique characters–each with their own special abilities).

You start out as Unranked–meaning you can play, but you they don’t count in the overall ranks. Once you buy X amount of cards, you then become Ranked, and thus will begin the long climb to the top spot of Number One.

The Verdict:

So is this game fun? You bet! Can it get expensive in the long run? You bet! With the initial run, plus two expansions (Bloodlines and Oppositions) it can put a major dent in your funds. But with the power of trading, you don’t have to spend a lot to get a good deck. The citizens in the online community for Sanctum are in general quite helpful, but some are like sharks–if they smell a newbie, the challenges will strike you from all around. Accept their challenges if you dare, and for your sake, watch out for the following people: Fafnir, KennySP, Whammo, Dracha, Xerxes, Tupacalypse, Starsurfer, and anyone else with more than 20 wins. They are good, they will hurt you, but best of all, they will help you be a better player.

Of course, if your ranked while they’re “helping” you, it could mean that climb to the top spot will take a lot longer than you hoped…

“Graveyard” Greg is the unofficial Whipping Boy for Sanctum. He’s now waiting for his very own Hero card, and is pushing for the Gaming Outpost to be the thirteenth House.

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Puppetland/Power Kill

December 15, 1999 in Reviews

Puppetland is a roleplaying game in which you are a Puppet in the Maker’s Land–a special place which the Maker created to keep the puppets away from a terrible war in the real world. The puppets lived without fear, without any hands to control them or strings to pull them. The only human in Maker’s Land was the Maker, who would mend and repair broken or torn puppets. All was happy in Maker’s Land.

Then came Punch, who slew the Maker with his great mallet, taking his flesh to make a new, cruel face for himself and made six puppet-servants called his Boys. Punch was now the Maker-Killer, and those who didn’t obey his commands would suffer greatly.

But, in the small village of Respite, which lies across the great lake of Milk and Cookies, there is a puppet named Judy, who once loved Punch but does so no more. She was there when Punch slew the Maker, and caught the Maker’s last tear in a silver thimble. With this tear, the Maker can be brought back to life. Thus, puppets that declare themselves free of Punch’s terrible rule gather to Respite, and plan for the day they overthrow Punch.

Welcome to Puppetland, where you assume the role of a puppet. This puppet can be one of the following: Finger Puppet, Hand Puppet, Shadow Puppet, or Marionette Puppet. Each has certain things they can and cannot do (for example, the Shadow Puppet can dodge things thrown at them, but can not get wet, because getting wet kills them!)

Once you choose a puppet, you take the character sheet and draw your puppet. This puppet will be the actual size of the puppet, so be careful in how you draw it! Then you write down what the puppet is, what the puppet can do, what the puppet cannot do, and add three additional things to each list.

There are Three Rules that makes playing Puppetland special. The first is a game of Puppetland lasts only an hour. During the game, a week can pass by, but “the time passed is the time in which the tale is told”. During the next session, the characters will find themselves safely in bed. The second rule is when your sitting at the table, what you say is what you say in character. If you want to say something out of character, you have to stand up and say it. And if you want to do something, you have to state is as something your puppet would say, like: “I think I shall finish reading this book.” The third rule is: imagine that a game of Puppetland is a tale being read by an invisible reader. Better make that dialogue colorful, folks.

Another thing about Puppetland is the Jigsaw Puzzle found on the character sheet. If you do something the puppet can’t do, or take damage, you fill in a piece of the Puzzle. Once the Puzzle is filled in, the character will be gone forever after the current session.

That’s enough about Puppetland–let’s talk about Power Kill.

Power Kill is a roleplaying metagame–not an actual game, but an additional layer of a game to an RPG you are currently playing. The setting is the Real World, and only comes into play during and after the regular gaming sessions. What it all boils down to is that the Power Kill Character (PKC) is the real character, and the roleplaying character is the schizophrenic character, and the Power Kill sessions are psychiatric sessions. From there, it gets stranger…

The Verdict:

Puppetland is a diceless roleplaying game, and a good one. This game is meant to capture the feel of a children’s storybook, which is why the author insists on in-game dialogue and narration. It’s a good effort, and worth taking a look at.

Power Kill, on the other hand, is absolutely odd, but it’s also worth a look, if only for the questions it brings into focus (which will not be brought up here, as the Power Kill section is only three pages long!). Since you can get both for one price (a low price at that), Puppetland/Power Kill is worth picking up.

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Elemental

December 13, 1999 in Reviews

I jump at a chance to review microgames and microgame-like products; there’s a certain Zen-like beauty in a game that is complete unto itself, done in a small format. Element is a boardgame done in that sort of format; published by the same folks who brought us Knights of the Dinner Table. For your investment, you receive a 11×17 map, which requires, the edges to be snipped off to make formation charts that demonstrate the killer moves. You also receive a double-sided cardstock insert, part of which is the (rather simple) rules and the rest a sheet and a half of double sided counters that you have to cut out. The counters represent Elements& from the medieval alchemist’s point of view that is: Air Earth, Fire and Water. The board is a simple grid, depicted almost like a Go board.

How it Plays

As you can guess from what I’ve already said, this is a game about Elements and how they interact. Each player (up to 4) chooses an Element for his side. Players should only choose 1 element to play, but may have to double up if they are shorthanded. Players then alternate placing Elements on the board, trying to create killer formations that will decimate the opponents’ ranks. The Victory Condition is to create a large diamond like formation called the Rose (this is pretty hard to do). If you can’t arrive at the Rose, the next best thing is to have the most elements on the board wins (by when, the rules did not say).

Creating Formations

The game is all about creating killer formations that will effect the other pieces on the board. There’s a big hint of Go here:


  • The Mountain is a group of 4 identical elements arranged in roughly a square shape. The Mountain’s strength lies in being immutable. Other formations cannot effect a Mountain.
  • The Tidal Wave is an S-shaped formation of identical counters. The tidal wave moves in any direction, once per turn, until the formation is broken up, meets a Mountain, or meets the edge of the board.
  • The Winds of Change has an Othello-like quality to it. The formation is deployed by placing two sets of two identical counters in a straight line with all the formation pieces the same kind of element. If an enemy piece is placed between the two sets of two, it changes into whatever element makes the Winds.
  • Fireball is a destructive 3-piece formation shaped like a triangle. Any point of the triangle can send out an imaginary “fireball” that can obliterate other pieces.

You’re noticing the elemental nature of these fighting formations at this point, I’m guessing.

These formations are the heart of the game and really, how the players attack each other. Combinations can exist that combine the effects of different formations& for instance, a volcano is a combination of fireball and mountain. A Death Star is a double sided fireball& shaped like a small diamond. Deathstars can fire up or down, right or left.

The Verdict

There’s some additional chrome (such as the erosion rules), but I’ve covered the waterfront on the basic game. I’ve played this game at least three times for this review, and kept thinking of games it reminded me of already. Go, certainly. Othello, as well. Also Pente. These familiar touches enhance enjoyment with the game, and (I dare say) might make the player a little better in the long run. I enjoyed this game, and will play it again. I would advise the folks at Kenzer NOT to change anything, because I plan to play it again soon. I rate this 4 out of 5.

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Gemini: The Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Game

December 8, 1999 in Reviews

One of the most unexpected recent entries to the well-worn category of
classic fantasy games is Gemini, a very dark fantasy game from Stockholm,
Sweden. It’s a fascinating study–on one hand, it’s a D+D retread game
without much to comment upon, but at the same time it subverts your
expectations again and again with some very interesting variations on
classic themes.

First, do not purchase the book unless your are willing to cut the authors
some slack for haveing to translate into their non-native tongue. Given the
state of most RPG editing, where extremely bad editing slips through from
people who are ostensibly natives, I don’t find this difficult. If you’re
sensitive to it you may wish to reconsider your purchase, or read some of
the book first to be certain it’s your thing.

The book itself is gorgeous. If you are one of those people who buys RPGs
for the art and art alone (and I can hear you breathing, so I know you’re
out there) then this is something you should pick up. The book is filled
with tortured, Scandinavian looking souls in glossy full-color plates and
ornately filigreed edgework for each page, proving that the Swedes have a
handle on darkness that the White Wolf kids would give their eyeteeth for.
Thematically, the book has Dark Ages written all over it, and the consistent
tone was a delight–even with the loopy grammatical constructions, it’s an
easier read than a lot of stuff written by native English speakers on the
market. Whether this is a sad statement on the RPG industry or not I leave
as an exercise for the reader.

The world of Gemini fits the book’s form– the Dark, Dark Ages, like the
We-all-suffer-and-God-has-abandoned-his-Faithful Darkness that makes a great
gothic novel. You have a monotheistic church that hold the only hope of
salvation, evil Inquisitors, a seeping corruption and (one of my favorites)
magic being definitely tied to the deviltry and darkness camp. In fact, in
Gemini all magic slowly warps and darkens you until you are a festering
pustule on the face of humanity. The metaplot ties directly into this, with
a rather elaborate story about the Great Seal being broken and the dark one
rising up to conquer the world. The refreshing change is that in Gemini,
due to the formal and ornate writing, the evil really does seem
overpowering–far more than the second rate evils in WitchCraft or many TSR
supplements.

A lot of this is due to the system constraints placed on piety. Gemini
closely maps your ‘goodness’, and as you fall from grace you become prey to
more and more of the filth of the world…even contact with the unnatural
will erode you. It’s a pleasant whiff of Cthulhu mixed with the kind of
controls that should have been In Nomine–you can be any way you like, but
being good is hard and being evil is ultimately a very bad idea.

The rest of the game’s system is by far its weakest quality. Although the
magic system is a notch more engaging, the resolution systems are ununified
and clunky…just figuring out how to conduct a combat round was an
extremely onerous exercise, made more difficult by how simplistic the
results were. Aside from a roughly sketched out skill system, this game’s
system is mired in late 70′s D+D mechanics–most GMs will want to tear out
the guts of this wholesale and convert to something more fluid, or at least
consistent.

The best element of the game is its take on demihumans. Dwarves are
dwarves, but they gain strength and blessings through the augmentation of
their body by piercing–the images in the book of Dwarves with horrendous
body piercings attacking the enemy are provocative, and the tales of the
dwarven race’s downfall and the horrifying Curse that many of its members
suffer from really differentiated them from other game depictions.

Likewise with the elves, who in Gemini are an artifact race created by
now-extinct masters. All elves are male, except for the Queen–who is the
giver of all life, and the bearer of every elf born. Different temperaments
and subraces of elves are generated depending on which consort the Queen
took to bed to create you. Furthermore, the elves have varying levels of
sentience depending on how much ‘caelum’ they are given by the Queen–so
elven society very much resembles an ant society, with a queen, workers,
drones and warriors. Very interesting stuff.

The Verdict

Gemini is an interesting exercise, and if you have any interest in running a
dark fantasy game with a very Catholic feel to it you should certainly get
ahold of a copy. Overall I think it’s more useful as a piecemeal
sourcebook–the poor system and choppily translated writing is compensated
by the great race and Church descriptions. Very dark and very Swedish.

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Exposé: Aberrant

November 30, 1999 in Reviews

In a time when I find myself disenchanted with many of the directions
that tabletop RPGs have been taking in terms of production values, I
have found the White Wolf Updates for both Trinity and Aberrant a
breath of fresh air. The idea is simple: small, pamphlet-sized books
made on the cheap that detail areas of a game universe that otherwise
wouldn’t get any play. With Exposé: ABERRANTS we see the very best
and worst of this production style.

Aberrants are novas (the ABERRANT version of a supernormal) who are
part of a conspiracy against Project Utopia, a seemingly civic-minded
group claiming to be dedicated to improving life for all humans.
Things are not as they seem, of course, and Exposé: ABERRANT wades
hip-deep into the central mystery of the entire ABERRANT metaplot.

So we have a 24-page book, of which the first 11 pages are flavor text.
Now, we all like flavor text on occasion…hell, some of us may have
even smoked the stuff in college. But nearly 45% of this book is
flavor text, which lends it the quality of an advertisement or news
magazine in the “Entertainment Tonight” style. I’d be incensed if
this was a $25 hardback, but in a $5 pamphlet it fits–except that
this critically injures efforts to describe who the Aberrants are as
an organization.

Greg Stolze has an impossible task, and he does a reasonably good job
at it. The place he shines are the NPCs who populate the book–a man
with no subconscious, an ancient torch singer turned young again by her
eruption–but we never really get much of a feeling for the
organization. There simply isn’t time in this thin book to cover the
topic assigned, and it certainly doesn’t show how the Aberrants should
relate to other organizations in a day-to-day fashion.

White Wolf scored a hit with the Trinity pamphlet supplements, which
focused on psionic law, Oceania and other tertiary areas that could
use development. By shifting their focus in ABERRANT to doing Exposés
on major plot points and organizations, these pamphlets become a
must-have source of information that their small size can’t fulfill.

Finally, a quibble: there are two pictures of Novas who are obviously
overweight (Renaissance Man and The Living Wreck) which the main
Aberrant rulebook goes to great pains to explain is impossible, as
Novas burn all their calories. I always thought this was a dumb idea,
but lets have some consistency, people–one or the other, please.

The Verdict

A fun read, but so light you can skim it at your local game
store and have done with it. This is material that should have seen
light as part of a larger sourcebook on conspiracies in ABERRANT.

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by EDG

Ultima Thule: Mythic Scandinavia

November 18, 1999 in Reviews

Ultima Thule: Mythic Scandinavia is the sourcebook of Norway, Sweden,
Denmark, Iceland, and Greenland in a mythic version 13th century for the ARS
MAGICA game. The ad copy for the game states, “Any roleplayer with an
interest in Mythic Scandinavia should have Ultima Thule!”, which begs the
question, “Am I interested in Scandanavia?”

Frankly, I’m not. That’s just the honest truth. When THE DRAGON AND THE
BEAR, detailing the Novgorod (Russian) tribunal came out earlier this year,
it caught my attention by finally filling in lost facts on the Order of Odin
and other long-held mysteries of ARS MAGICA. With the game still lacking an
English or French sourcebooks, the decision to go again to the north for two
sourcebooks in a row seemed strange–do you really need to know that much
about the area?

Well, yes and no. Historically the northern lands are very important for
the people we know as Vikings–their attacks on the rest of western Europe
during the Dark Ages played a pivotal role in the development of feudalism
and the spread of red hair throughout Europe. By 1220 (the year this
supplement is set in) their time and power is waning as Christianity has
begun to change the fundamental forces at work in their societies. This
part of the book is quite fascinating, and useful as text and for game
background.

What keeps the book from excelling is tense. Unlike all other Ars Magica
sourcebooks to date, ULTIMA THULE is written entirely in the past
tense…which makes all of the material in it feel fixed and unchangeable.
It also takes away the great strength of ARS MAGICA, which is leveraging the
use of real history against a possibly changing future–using 13th century
history, told as current events, to provide excellent plot hooks from which
GMs can create their own sagas. By placing all of the book in the past
tense it comes off as a too-brief, too-shallow history book…an effect to
be avoided in historical supplements at all costs.

The additional magical systems are nice, with the Finnish wind wizards being
a particularly sharp touch– they show off the versatillity of the Ars
Magica system to accomodate new traditions without stretching or breaking
rules. The vitkir (Norse rune masters) have some great thought behind them,
and so I would certainly recommend the book…if you are already campaigning
in the distant North now.

Verdict

A mild dissapointment, though ULTIMA THULE is still an order of
magnitude better than comparable sourcebooks from White Wolf or Palladium.
If you’re a completist, or you have ideas for a saga that will take you up
past the Arctic Circle you’ll want to buy it.

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by EDG

Venus: Bauhaus Forces of War

November 1, 1999 in Reviews

The many universes of the varied role playing games have led to
proliferation of detailed supplements to provide the gamer with background
information on the lands traversed by the player characters. This need for
source material quickly found an audience in the miniature figure wargames
with each new rule set being published with supplemental material. For a
fantasy or science fiction wargame rules set centered in a world (or worlds)
different from our own, these source books provide a means of enhancing the
game by giving a colorful background and purpose for the battles fought on
the table top.

I have had little or no experience with the Warzone system prior to
receiving several items for review. Now, I’m seriously rubbing my chin and
contemplating making an investment in the system, as my wife despairs. In
truth, I have little patience with BSMSs (Big Shoulderpad Miniature
Systems), but there’s a depth to the Warzone milieu that I find jaunty and
stylish.

Venus: Bauhaus Forces of War is the first supplement to the Warzone second
edition rules. As the title states, this supplement provides the details on
the planet Venus in the Warzone universe and of the Corporation of Bauhaus,
one of the five major corporations. Venus is a terraformed, jungle planet
cursed with a day of rotation longer than its yearly orbit around the Sun
leading to a Venus day that is 117 Earth days long. Bauhaus, whose roots
harken to an imperial Germany, is the dominant corporation of Venus.
Through this supplement, players will find a rich new world to fight over
and detailed information on the armed forces of Bauhaus.

Okay, so what do you get for your hard-earned shekels? The book contains
nearly 100 pages of information. After a brief introduction, the book gives
30 pages of maps and short graphic vignettes, which introduce the six
campaigns covered in the book. These vignettes provide campaign maps and
visual glimpses into the continual fighting on the jungle world. Next come
detailed sections on Venus, the Bauhaus Corporation, and the four ruling
Duke Electors. The six Venusian campaigns are outlined, allowing for combat
between Bauhaus and any of the other four Corporations or the forces of the
Dark Legion. Several new rules for Warzone follow. Among these are rules
for night fighting, including concealment, tracer rounds and flares, and for
the hazardous jungle, which can be as deadly as the enemy. The final third
of the book deals with the Bauhaus Armed forces, giving information on
various troop types, special units, heroes, weapons, vehicles, and a
thousand point army list for each of the four Duke Electors. The book also
includes two pages of punch out templates and counters for use with the new
rules. My only gripe with the book is the total lack of a table of contents
or index, making it hard to quickly locate specific information.

The supplement is visually striking with illustrations or photographs of
Warzone miniatures on every page. The graphics portray the terrain of Venus
and spark the imagination. Photo vignettes of miniatures offer inspiration
and ideas for jungle terrain for the game table. The visuals distinctly
evoke the Target Games style. In the army section, each troop type is
illustrated at least once and those types with miniatures available have
photos of the figures. The different uniforms and camouflage patterns along
with the differences in helmet types are clearly shown.

The Verdict

My overall impression is that Target has a winner. The background material
is rich and allows the reader to easily imagine the savage fighting in the
dark jungles of Venus. The Bauhaus troop types and army lists provide a
variety of units, which can be tailored for fighting on any part of the
planet and will forma basis for Bauhaus forces elsewhere in the solar
system. The supplement covers the subject and I await reading the next one
on Mars and the forces of the Capitol Corporation.

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