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Return to the Keep on the Borderlands

June 20, 1999 in Reviews

Remember Keep on the Borderlands, that module with the crazy dungeon and the
keep full of people who did not have names? Well, forget that moldy old
tome. Return to the Keep on the Borderlands (RTKB) is here. Reflecting the
developments in RPG design over the past twenty years, RTKB is a wonderful
package for DMs of all experience levels. Newbies and veterans alike will
find plenty of adventure and roleplaying possibilities in the updated Keep.
Where the original was simply adventure, the updated Keep is a 64 page
campaign just waiting for your players to dive on in.


The Adventure


Unlike the original Keep, RTKB provides a wealth of fleshed-out characters
for the DM. RTKB takes the original Keep twenty years into the future. The
Caves of Chaos are still the home of creatures fierce and evil, yet a new
menace has arrived to threaten both the Caves and the Keep. I don’t want to
reveal too much, but suffice to say that players who speak first, draw
swords second will find this a much easier adventure than those who blindly
slaughter everything they encounter. Many of the “monsters” in the Caves
make willing allies if approached correctly. This is a refreshing approach
to dungeon design, and lends itself to some great roleplaying opportunities,
especially for those who think they’ve outgrown AD&D.


The Keep itself is stocked with a nice assortment of potential allies and
foes. What I like best about this product is that John Rateliff does a very
good job of making the Keep into a living, breathing community. There is a
sense of time in the scenario. Villains appear to replace vanquished foes,
new threats appear to menace the Keep, while foes become friends and friends
become foes. The NPCs have their own agendas and goals that can change as
the characters make a name for themselves. My personal favorite is Sir Robin
the bard, one tale teller that the characters might not want to have writing
songs about them.


One of the neat things about RTKB is the references to other classic
modules. In Search of the Unknown and The Lost City both get passing
references. Not only does this bring a smile to an old timer, but it
provides some rather neat adventure hooks for newbies and oldsters alike.


One warning for Greyhawk fans: despite the label on the back cover, this
really isn’t a Greyhawk product. Outside of a few diety names, there is
nothing here that anchors this module to that world.

The Verdict



Return to the Keep on the Borderlands deserves to join the original as a
classic D&D product. To be honest, I was somewhat skeptical about updating
classic modules for the 90s. In John Rateliff’s capable hands, the Keep
comes alive as the original never did. The key to this product is the sense
of life. The Keep is not a static environment but a dynamic setting. Too
many “town and local dungeon” scenarios come off as collections of names
grafted to a map. This product serves as a great example of what is possible
with this type of adventure. If fantasy is your game, check out RTKB. Your
players will thank you for it.

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One Shots

June 17, 1999 in Reviews

One Shots is the first supporting product for Atlas Games’ excellent Unknown
Armies RPG. One Shots contains 5 stand alone scenarios complete with
pregenerated characters. Each scenario is meant to be played in a single
evening, much like a convention scenario.


The Adventures


“Jailbreak” by Greg Stolze is a spooky little number that highlights one of
my favorite themes of Unknown Armies: true horror lurks in the safest
looking places. This scenario strongly relies on intra-player conflict, as
some players take the roles of escaped convicts and others play their
hostages. With a motivated group, this can quickly become an exercise in
tension and terror.


“Strange Days” by Tim Dedopulos is an investigation scenario. The characters
are sent to find the source of a series of bizarre phenomena. While the idea
is strong, this scenario suffers from some drawbacks. First, I didn’t find
the NPC actions very believable. After emphasizing the repercussions of
character actions in the rulebook, no less than eleven NPCs are slaughtered
by various psychos over the course of the scenario, without anyone either
noticing or raising a general alarm. Second, the climax of the adventure is
a bit of a let down. Still, the ideas for playing off of H.P. Lovecraft bred
paranoia are great. If your players are into CoC, run this adventure on them
and watch ‘em squirm.


“Joy and Sorrow” by Nicole Lindroos and John Tynes is an unqualified
success, though you may have problems finding players up to the roleplaying
challenges of this adventure. I can’t really explain this scenario without
quoting about a page or two from the book, nor will a summary do it justice.
Just take my word for it: the next time some poseur slob mouths off about
his roleplaying skills, run him through this thing and put those boasts to
the test. My guess is that 90% of the gamers out there couldn’t handle this
scenario without copping out or rewriting their character. To which I say
MORE, MORE, MORE!


“Fly to Heaven” is another excellent offering from Greg Stolze. The
characters are trapped on a airliner when a disturbed adept decides that its
time to ascend as the Terrorist archetype. While not as strong as
“Jailbreak,” this adventure offers a lot of freaky happenings, problem
solving, and good old fashioned roleplaying.


“And I Feel Fine” by Geoffrey C. Grabowski is an ambitious scenario that
fails to really come together. The basic premise is that a tiny town in
Arizona wakes up to find everyone else in the world gone. No TV, no radio,
straight out of Night of the Comet. What weakens this adventure is a lack of
focus. Grabowski gives the GM three plot options for this adventure. While I
like the idea of flexibility, we’re really left with three ideas that aren’t
fleshed out quite enough. There really isn’t that much of a difference
between the three options, and one (a government conspiracy idea) is
somewhat silly. I’d much rather have one well developed, focused idea than
three underdeveloped ones.

The Verdict


This is a promising product for the Unknown Armies line. While uneven, this
collection has a solid sample of the possibilities of Unknown Armies. Call
of Cthulhu keepers will find a lot of good ideas here, as will anyone using
White Wolf’s World of Darkness.

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Usagi Yojimbo Roleplaying Game

June 15, 1999 in Reviews

Usagi Yojimbo represents yet another attempt to crossover the comic
books/TV/movie market with RPGs. But don’t let that deter you from buying
this gem of a game: Usagi Yojimbo is a very tight, efficient package. I have
never seen a product do so much with a mere 96 pages.


The Setting


Usagi Yojimbo (UY) is set in a world of samurai, ninjas, and walking,
talking animals. Think of Disney’s “Robin Hood” and you have the idea.
Sprinkle in some colorful, three dimensional characters and realistic,
sympathetic antagonists and you have more than an idea: you have UY in a
nutshell. After a period of turbulent conflict, the Shogun’s Peace has been
declared. Any daimyo (noble) who attacks another is considered to be
attacking the nation as a whole, bringing the wrath of all upon him. As an
uneasy peace settles into place, the aftermath of the previous conflict is
still evident. Many samurai are now masterless ronin, condemned to wander
the land, their masters slain in the previous conflicts. Bandits are common,
and scheming daimyo must now rely on treachery and deceit as they jockey for
power. There is plenty of opportunity for characters to makes names for
themselves in the world of Usagi Yojimbo.


All of this background is drawn from the UY comic book, which follows the
adventures of the title character, a masterless rabbit samurai. I have to
admit that while I have never read an Usagi Yojimbo comic book, I found the
setting, as presented in the RPG, very accessible and well explained.
Outside of Akira Kurosawa films, I also have little to no knowledge of
feudal Japan. Yet Greg Stolze manages to hit all of the key points of the
setting in a manner that is thorough and readable. A complete timeline of
the UY story, plus descriptions of the major characters from the comic book,
give the prospective GM plenty of inspiration for stories and adventures.
Stolze also does a very good job of getting to the heart of what makes an
effective story. Culling examples from the UY comic, he shows GMs what makes
a good story and how to translate that into a good RPG adventure.


The Rules


Character creation is straightforward in UY. Players choose one of 11 races
(rabbit, rhino, bull, amongst others) and one of 9 jobs. Race gives the
character special abilities. Pigs have a heightened sense of smell, get +1
to their physical stat, and can take more damage than other races. Jobs work
much the same way. They give the character a stat or skill bonus plus a
funky free ability. Monks, for example, can give advice to players, even if
their characters are not together. Finally, there are options for players
who do not want to use one of the pregenerated jobs, but no rules for
creating new races. Overall, I found the system easy to use. The choices
given run a wide range of possibilities. Given the length of the book and
its target audience (beginners), a truly freeform system would have been out
of place. Though I am a strong proponent of rules light, free form character
generation, I did not feel hemmed in by UY’s options. Rather, they gave me a
lot of ideas for characters, the mark of a successful rules set. The sample
character I made was a pig monk trying to follow a life of self denial with
less than stellar success, a concept I probably would not have thought of
without the rules as written. Overall, character generation guides you along
without suffocating your creativity.


Characters have four stats, Physical, Mental, Combat, and Move. I like the
idea of making a character’s combat ability a stat and then adding weapon
skills on top of that. Skills cover the usual gamut of RPG topics, from
combat to the arts. Skills and stats are added to die rolls.


UY uses the Instant Fuzion system, a slimmed down version of R. Talsorian’s
house system. The system is simple to use. To make a skill check, roll 3d6,
add any appropriate attribute and skill, and compare the result to a GM
chosen target number. Combat (as usual) requires a few more rules. Each
combatant choose one of three options, total attack, cautious attack, and
total defense. Depending on the two combatant’s choices, there may be
modifiers to damage, or it may even be impossible for one side to do damage.
I’m not a complete fan of this system. It adds some extra complications to
combat, though it does give players more options. It does, however, makes
things much more complex for the GM. I’d prefer making this rule optional or
using it only for major NPCs. UY uses hits to keep track of a character’s
health. Damage is determined by rolling a number of d6 equal to the
character’s Physical score or the weapon’s damage rating. This system is a
little too random for my tastes, allowing for a wide range of values without
accounting for the skill of the attacker.


My one complaint about the rules lies with the jujutsu (that’s jujitsu to
you foreign devils). Stolze takes the time to warn us that the rules for
jujutsu are quite complex, and then suddenly, poof, no rules for jujutsu. I
eventually found them on the combat summary page, but it was quite
disconcerting to get a big old “Complex Rules Ahead!” warning only to find
no rules in the main text.


The Adventures


UY comes with two adventures, The Haunted Temple, the tale of a young monk
who attracts attention from beyond the grave, and The Butterfly, a rescue
mission that gets messy, fast. Stolze has less than 10 pages for these two
scenarios, and does a very good job of establishing characters and plots
with limited space. Both adventures serve as good examples for newbie GMs,
showing them how to make interesting characters and how to draw out
repercussions from an adventure rather than letting them exist in a vacuum.

The Verdict


For $16, you cannot find a better bargain in the industry. The writing is
superb, the UY setting ripe with adventure. Fan of the comic or not, UY is
an unqualified success. Buy it to play it, or to simply cull this very
fertile ground for ideas. The setting is compelling enough that I have set
out on a personal crusade to find and buy as many UY comics as possible.
What better recommendation can I give you?

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Providence Main Rule Book

June 9, 1999 in Reviews

The genres of Fantasy and Super Heroes are mixed in the world of Providence, an RPG that has the catchphrase “Learn to be a hero again.”

The world known as Providence is a jungle realm spread across the interior of a sphere but geological instabilities have cracked the jungle floor, flooding the land with an ever-increasing amount of water. The world is a prison, and that is how it’s supposed to be. The inhabitants of Providence are descendants of a mass penal colony, sent to Providence due to a failed crusade. Now, the people struggle to find the gates that will lead them back home and discover how to use them.

The cities of Providence are unique in that they are built upward rather than outward, due to the fact that most characters in Providence have wings or glider membranes and, thus, the ability to fly. Which brings us to the caste system: Pure, Blessed, Gifted, Fortuned, Redeemed, and Fallen.

Pure are those who have full wings. They and the caste below them are the only members of society who are taught how to use magic (see below). Blessed are those who don’t posses full wings – theirs are smaller and don’t work as proficiently. As a result, they don’t fly to well. Members of this caste are occasionally taught magic, and are usually advisors, generals, etc. Gifted are those born with Shard abilities (see below), which is one of the few ways to move up in the caste rankings. This caste is the only one delineated by ability instead of appearance. Fortuned do not posses wings. Instead, they have a membrane that connects their arms to their torso, allowing them to glide. Redeemed have wings or glider membranes that no longer work due to an injury, atrophy, or birth defect. These people are used to work the menial functions in life (soldiers, field hands, etc). Finally, the Fallen are those who do not have wings, and are regarded as outcasts.

The population of Providence is also divided into two categories: the Seraph (those who possess feathered wings) and the Iblii (those who have leathery wings). After that, they are also separated into family classes called Troupials that are based on appearance and general function. Examples of Troupials are Bat, Dove, Gargoyle, and Dragon, with many more to choose from.

The basics of a Providence Character are the four aspects: Characteristics, Skills, Traits, and Magic (powers and spells).

There are ten Primary Characteristics that represent the physical, mental, social, and magical attributes of a character, like Coordination, Intelligence, and Strength. They range from -3 to +3, with the average human having a 0. There are also from two to three secondary characteristics, such as Agility, Memory, and Might.

Some characters may have magical abilities (called Wird). A character who has natural, Wird-enhanced abilities is called a Shard. A person who can cast spells is a Spell Caster. Shards are inherently more powerful than spell casters, but spell casters are more flexible in their field of expertise.

The Providence RPG uses the Creative System, which makes use of the d10. The number of d10s you use depends on the level of Skill a character has and their relevant Characteristic. The total may be more or less than two dice. However, only two dice are rolled; having more or less than two dice gives a modifier to the roll. For each additional d10 you have you get a +2. Fewer than two dice gives a -2 for each d10 less than two.

Example: If you have Characteristic Strength 3 and have to make a Strength roll, you would have three dice total. Roll two dice and modify your roll by +2. If you only had Strength 1, you would roll two dice and modify your roll by -2.

Alongside the basic system is a more advanced optional set of rules that can attain a greater degree of realism. Unfortunately, this optional set also brings with it a lot of math.

The Good: The system is easy to learn – with the advanced optional rules requiring some time to get used to (for example: The Modified Target Number is when the number of dice the opponent has is doubled and added to the target number [usually seven]). Plenty of examples pepper the creation and system sections of the book. The layout is very good – the pages look like old parchment and the text has no typos that this reviewer noticed. The binding is also quite professional.

The Bad: The art ranged from good to awful. The game uses a lot of number crunching which can bog down play for both novices and experienced players. And having information separated into two books (the second being the Providence World Book) has its advantages and disadvantages – one is left with the feeling there’s something missing in the Main Rule Book. Finally, do we really need 26 total characteristics?

The Verdict

This game is a decent blend of fantasy and super-heroics – worth looking at. Try it, and see if you can learn to be a hero again.

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Music in Gaming

June 9, 1999 in Articles

An often-ignored aspect of role-playing is the music that’s playing in the
background, and that’s often because it’s not actually there. While lack
of background noise can be conducive to roleplaying at some times, and
indeed switching around between CDs and cassettes can be extraordinarily
distracting to a GM, music remains a fundamental part of storytelling, and
the right music can change a game from “what we do on Wednesdays” to “the
story we’re all collectively writing.”

The first trick to use is one stolen from movies and *gasp* CRPGs – get
together with your players and decide on theme music for each character.
This helps a lot in character definition, and when one character comes into
focus, that music helps keep things that way. You can also use this as a
prelude to bringing back an NPC, as having his theme music playing just
before he walks in adds a touch of drama to the scene.

Oddly, this is greatly useful in online games and PBEMs. In a
non-face-to-face setting, naming tracks and themes can help a good deal in
setting a mood; a description of the room the characters are in needs aural
atmosphere as well as visual and tactile surroundings.

The second trick is avoiding the oldies-but-goodies. When you’re in
combat, high-speed pulsing backbeat heavy metal may be appropriate, but
it’s so clichéd it’s disgusting. Try some Holst – Mars works – or perhaps
the Rites of Spring. Combat music doesn’t have to be fast-paced; what it
has to be is forceful. On the other hand, you can use music like Vivaldi’s
“Spring” or the Skaters’ Waltz to make the combat more surreal; this often
works well in fantasy games due to the already-alien nature of the game,
and dark-and-gritty games because of the contrast it provides.

The third trick – related strongly to the second, actually – is using the
soundtrack to either lead your players on or throw them off. Building mood
is extremely appropriate, and the right kind of music might be enough to
convince players and characters that although everything seems fine,
Something’s Not Quite Right Here.

On the flip side, you can use your CDs and tapes to your advantage, “crying
wolf” with tense, pulsing music when nothing’s actually happening. It’s a
psychological trick, and often only good for use on players – but if you’re
a sadistic GM, it’s a lot of fun.

Free Trader EDG, who is way too tired to be writing something like this,
signing off.

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Starbase Jeff

June 3, 1999 in Reviews

“You need money to play.”

Starbase Jeff is a card game. It’s not a collectible card game, because
everybody has exactly the same deck, just shuffled differently. It’s not a
playing-card game, because, well, they’re not playing cards. However, Jim
Geldmacher and James Ernest do an admirable job of meshing the two.

You see, Jeff Tuttle was turned from a humble shareware programmer into the
manager of a deep-space construction firm. He’s interested in making money
- big money. He wants to create starbases as large as major cities. And
he wants you to build them.

Starbase Jeff is a game for two to four players. Each player takes a deck
of cards – twenty cards to a deck, each deck a different color – and
shuffles it thoroughly. Each player also starts out with some
money. (This can be represented with poker chips, board game money,
tallies on paper, or what have you. The designers “strongly recommend that
you don’t play for real money. Furthermore, we strongly don’t suggest a
ratio of a nickel for every credit.”) The object of the game is to make
the most money, you see.

Players draw hands of five cards from their decks. Then, each turn, each
player plays a card from his or her hand. Cards are played according to
rank, and each card has a different rank. There’s also a building cost
associated with each card, which the player must pay when playing the card;
additionally, pieces of the starbase have different numbers of directions
to which they can connect to other pieces, and if the player can’t connect
his piece of the station to another of his pieces directly, he must pay
each of the players in-between one credit for each piece of theirs he has
to pass through to build his piece.

Oh, and you get bombs, too. These take precedence over any other card, and
blow up a piece of your choice.

The game ends when someone runs out of money, at which point the person who
has the most money wins; or, when someone closes off the station (i.e. no
more pieces can be connected), at which point the player who closed it off
takes the pot (into which building fees are paid), and then the
person with the most money wins.

The Verdict

Starbase Jeff is a lot of fun, and due to its small size it’s immensely
portable – you can play while you’re waiting for your food at a restaurant,
or in the backseat of a car (assuming the seat is large enough). It’s a
lot like poker – you have to know what to play and when to play it – and a
lot like chess – in that you have to think through several moves at a time.

Plus, it’s a Cheapass Game, and that’s just fun to say.

If you want in-depth characterization and massive storylines in every game
you play, this game isn’t for you. If you don’t – then it probably is.

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Devil Bunny Needs a Ham

May 10, 1999 in Reviews

Okay, here’s the story that introduces this demented game from the folks
over at Cheapass Games: “You are a cadre of wily sous-chefs, trying to scale
a very tall building. Devil Bunny is enthusiastically preventing you from
reaching the top because he needs a ham, and because he erroneously believes
that this will help him.” With a backstory so delightfully inane, I was
certain that the game would need special help for testing, so my fiancee and
I with some friends drank Jagermeister shots for about an hour, to see what
would happen to our game comprehension and playing ability.

Luckily, this is a Cheapass Game: $2 to buy, 10 minutes to learn and
(presumably) a lifetime to master. The board is composed of two cardboard
pieces that form the building which you and your fellow players are
attempting to climb. You get a really bitchin’ Devil Bunny counter, and then
you just need some dice and you’re ready to go. I can also report that if
you spill hard liquor on the game surface, it recovers a lot better than the
old TSR Monster Manual ever did, which is a big plus in my book.

Game play is fiendishly simple: people roll dice and move diagonally up and
down, jockeying their way up the building. Devil Bunny moves in a
semi-random fashion, with some rules for how he reacts when he gets closer
to the meat…and if he encounters you, odds are you’re going for a fall
down the building. If another player is beneath you as you fall, he
automatically saves you, which leads to the weird situation that players try
not to be underneath one another so that players WILL fall far enough and
die a miserable death…which ,if you’re drunk, we celebrated by dancing
around the table.

I don’t remember a lot about the game’s conclusion, and I’m not certain what
happened to my sample copy…I think someone used it to help mop up spills.

The Verdict

I can tell you this: Cheapass makes great games that are light, inexpensive
and go great with wine, women and singing. Buy a few before your next
gaming night and take a break from the angst–you won’t regret it.

You may not remember it, but you’ll be happy.

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Conspiracy X

April 30, 1999 in Reviews

“Conspiracy X takes place in a world of dark secrets and hidden agendas where the only certainty is nothing is what it seems. The president might not be human, and the sign carrying paranoid on the street corner ranting about CIA mind control satellites may very well be right.

“In other words, a world just like yours, if you could only see beyond the lies.”

These words are from the back of the main rulebook of Conspiracy X, a roleplaying game that makes the X-Files look like the Teletubbies. Why? Because in the world of Conspiracy X, the Greys are just the tip of the iceberg.

In the world of Conspiracy X, there is a group known only as the Black Book, who are funded from Black Projects – secret militay activites of which the public, and the rest of the government, are unware. The Black Book also has ties to alien races known as the Greys – telepathic aliens responsible for “alien abductions”, and Saurians – a reptilian race of whom some members have been molecularly altered to look human, and are known as the “Men In Black.’

Another group is known as Aegis – they exist to determine the true goals and motivations of the various alien races currently on Earth, and to find ways of eliminating them should they prove to be hostile. This group will be the one that player characters work for.

Conspiracy X is a well written book – it was a pleasure to read the timeline of the Conspiracy X world, and was interesting (not to mention disturbing!) to read about some of the real-life events and what REALLY happened – at least according to Conspiracy X.

Character Creation was easy to understand, and there were plenty of options to choose from with regards to occupations, training, backgrounds, and talents. The skills were numerous, and some (like Gun Fu) were dowright cool! The creators did a good job with the character creation.

The Psychics section has two types of psychic abilites: Lesser and Greater, and Conspiracy X has one of the most interesting ways of handling psionics. There are five Zener cards in the rulebook, each with a different symbol – square, cross, wave, star, and circle. The GM shuffles the Zener cards and the player picks one of the five symbols shown on the cards. The GM then draws a number of cards specified by the ability being used. If the card the player picked is among the cards drawn, the player has managed to successfully use his or her psychic abilities.

The world of Conspiracy X also has the supernatural, which is caused by the Seepage – supernatural energies which comes from the subconcious fears of mankind. With the seepage comes Corruption – permanent mental change induced by the seepage – and eventually corruption leads to either madness or transformation into the living nightmares known as the Incarnate – embodiments of the Seepage who boil with supernatural power.

Unfortunately, the system of Conspiracy X is imperfect. The section on Forming a cell for the player characters is daunting and may confuse most starting GMs. The attribute and skill tests will most definititely take some getting used to. The combat system could use a better way to define damage. It has too many abbreviations for damage codes, but this could easily be fixed if the GM Screen has the abbreviations for the codes on hand (at this time the screen is unavailable for review). Also, the skill and variable tests look very confusing at first – too many “if X is equal/greater/lesser than” – but again “practice makes perfect.” Nonetheless, some gaming systems are easy to grasp, but Conspiracy X takes time to get used to it before the game can even begin, which slows down the enjoyment.

The Verdict

Still, with the upcoming release of Conspiracy X to the GURPS system, this game is worth checking out. It has a detailed setting, and the adventures the characters can get involved in are numerous, so give it a try, and good luck seeing through the lies to get to the truth!

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Archmage

April 29, 1999 in Reviews

Rarely has a game been as schizophrenic than ARCHMAGE, a strange
licensee RPG that has evolved from the online battle sensation of the
same name. It would appear that in light of the new movement toward
license-driven RPG intellectual properties, the second-string players
are picking up their own, cheaper and less fruitful licenses as well;
ARCHMAGE is just such a game.

There’s a lot to be said for the source game–the ARCHMAGE online game
at http://www.magewar.com/archmage is a real delight to play, and with
over 60,000 players offers a great social wargaming activity. This
week I found myself drawn to the site again and again, where my poor
Archmage Sparrow learned spells, developed armies and tried (in vain)
to start kicking ass. If you are familiar with Axis and Allies and
RISK you’ll find the online Archmage a hoot to learn and definitely
addictive, though perhaps not as much as Ultima Online and Everquest.

Of course, I’m not supposed to be reviewing THAT game…I’m supposed
to review the tabletop RPG based on the network game.

(Silence)

Well, it’s a paperback digest with cheesy layout and font type that
looks very laid out in MS Word. This might be excusable, but it costs
$20.00. $20.00! They must be betting that online Archmage addicts
are desperate to play in real life as well, because there is no
setting here.

DPI, who licensed ARCHMAGE to create the game have gotten a bum steer.
This is a simple wargame, with armies and crops and math ratios. The
material supports nothing like an RPG–I mean, the world is made up
of five types of magic which happen to be Red, Green, White, Blue and
Black. Oh, I meant Ascendant, Eradication, Nether, Phantasm and
Verdancy…you pick which goes where. The first four creatures in the
Monsters of Terra section are Lizard Man, Troglodyte, Hell Hound and
Red Dragon. No, they aren’t surprising.

I won’t go into the spell system, or combat–you roll some dice, there
are some modifiers–because there is not one thing that could possibly
be thought of as new or engaging here. If ARCHMAGE stands for anything,
it will be the foolishness of using a license for an intellectual
property that has no setting.

For some reason, this thin volume reminded me of Darksword Adventures,
a delightful trade paperback game that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
wrote shortly after the trilogy. Two principle differences stand out:

a)Darksword Adventures had a compelling setting, timeline and mood.
b)Darksword Adventures retailed for $4.95, not $20.00.
c)Take a look at b) again.

The Verdict

Really quite dull. Nothing new, nothing interesting. I
am glad I playtested this, so I could check out the infinitely better
Archmage online: http://www.magewar.com/archmage. Lack of setting
never hurt online country-building games–they do hurt RPGs without
ideas.

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by EDG

Button Men

April 23, 1999 in Reviews

Button Men is one of those rare birds: a game that looks extremely
simpleminded on the surface but in reality demands cunning and foresight. A
game of Button Men is a lot like a game of chess. The basic rules are simple,
but the gameplay is both deep and complex.

The Rules

Each Button Men pack comes with two buttons, each of which has a picture of a
Button Man and four numbers plus an X. Each number represents a die type the
Button Man uses in the game. For example, a Button Man with values of 4, 4, 6,
and 10 uses 2d4, 1d6, and 1d10 in the game. The X represents a swing die. A
player may use any die with up to 20 sides to represent the swing die.

Once players have chosen their Button Men and their swing die, it’s time to
duke it out. The basic object of the game is to capture your opponent’s dice
while protecting your own. Each player rolls all of his dice. The player with
the lowest overall roll goes first. Players capture dice by using the values
they rolled to beat the numbers rolled by their opponent. Attacks take two
forms: power attacks and skill attacks. With a power attack, the attacker uses
one die to capture one of his opponent’s dice. The die used to attack must
have a value greater than the value rolled on the captured die. Skill attacks
are a little tougher. The attacker must choose dice that sum up to the value
on the die he wishes to capture.

Sounds simple, right? Basically, whoever rolls high wins.

Well, there’s one catch: any die used to capture must be re-rolled. So, if I
have a big fat 17 on my d20, I had better make sure the attack cripples my
opponent, because I may roll a 1 on that 20 after the attack.

Players score points for capturing enemy dice and for having dice left at the
end of the game. The game ends when one player loses all of his dice.

Thumbs Up!

I cannot recommend this game highly enough. Game play is fast, yet requires
some serious mental gymnastics. There’s nothing like agonizing over your next
attack, furiously computing all of your opponent’s possible attacks, what the
current score is (and what it might become), and what the chance is that your
attacking die is going to end up captured after its attack. The game is fast
enough that you can get in a round or two when your GM takes a bathroom break
and engaging enough that you may find yourself not wanting to get back to the
RPG when he returns.

The Verdict

Hats off to Cheapass Games for a wonderful game. I’m looking forward to
see where they take this gem.

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