The Gaming Outpost

[Author's note: Before I get into the review of this game, it should be noted that I am not of the Judeo-Christian persuasion, so if I say anything that seems insensitive or flat-out offensive, please rest assured that such occurrences are entirely unintentional]



Archangel, from Visionary Games, is a Christian RPG (yes, you read that correctly) that puts you in the sandals of a man of God during a time known as the Prophet War, when the Bible is closed to history.



You can play the role of a Prophet (spreader of the word of God, like Moses), Apostle (a highly devout follower of God who isn’t a Prophet, like Jesus minus the divinity), Believer (someone who simply believes in God, like Ned Flanders), Skeptic (someone who either doesn’t believe or doesn’t care), or two different types of angel (Champion and Avenging, with the former being more suited to being a human’s guardian angel and the latter more of the “holy warrior” type).



At first the character types may seem a bit limited, but the Believer and Skeptic can cover pretty much any type of person you might want to play, as those types are expected to have some sort of profession, such a blacksmith, trader, or soldier.



Of course, the goals of the game are a bit limited in scope. As a human, you’ll probably be spreading the word of God in some fashion, whether through your own actions or by aiding others. However, a bit of a flaw in the game is that if you’re a party of only Believers and/or Skeptics you’re going to lose a lot of the flavor of the game. The focus of the game is that it concentrates quite a bit on spreading the word of God to unbelievers and defeating false prophets or fallen angels. Compared to the powers that can be wielded by false prophets (basically just “evil” versions of Prophet powers), a simple Believer or Skeptic seems underpowered, kind of like sending a party of D&D fighters against a wizard with a couple good minions.



I should note here that by “false prophet” I don’t mean to imply that such a person is necessarily evil, but the book defines “false prophet” as anyone who worships a different god. It’s explained that other gods, such as Zeus, are actually fallen angels posing as gods in order to gain power through worship by mortals.



The party will, as directed by God, carry out His will either on Earth or in AngioDem (which is the name for the spiritual plane). On Earth you will, as mentioned before, foil the doings of false prophets and spread the good word to unenlightened people. In AngioDem, which mortals can enter only at high levels, and then only if they’re Prophets or if an angel takes them along, you’ll be combatting demons or fallen angels. Sometimes a group of angels may lead an attack upon Gehenna itself if God feels that its denizens have gotten too far out of line. Even if a mortal manages to make it to AngioDem, though, they’re most likely going to have some problems in combat against evil, as supernatural creatures typically have resistances against normal weapons.



Speaking of combat, I actually like the system. It’s simple. The combat system only takes up 8 pages in the book- quite light for an RPG! The only potentially confusing bit is that attribute checks are lowball rolls on a d20 and everything else (including attacks) are highball rolls on percentile dice. Of course, as with any other RPG, there are some things that are going to slow combat down. A shield, for instance, allows the wielder to make a roll to see if they avoid the blow with their shield. The book also recommends that, because of shields, you use the optional material strength rules lest shields become a bit overpowered. Durability should have just been made a standard rule to begin with. The way it works (at least with armor) is that armor simply absorbs health levels (basically hit points) from the wearer, decreasing in strength as it does so and breaking when it reaches 0. An attack does damage depending on your attacking skill roll. The higher your skill with the weapon is, the lower you have to roll to do more damage. Basically, you just learn where to hit them to make it count. I like the mechanic of combining the attack and damage rolls, though it does result in flat damage per hit rather than a variable. Some people like this kind of damage determination, some people don’t, so I’ll let you be the judge there.



Angels and Prophets both gain access to “tiers” (levels) of powers as they rise in level. Each tier gives them access to greater God-granted powers. A low-level Prophet, for example, can only call upon powers that affect themselves, while at higher levels that same prophet can call down the wrath of God in the form of localized earthquakes, floods, or other manifestations of God’s displeasure. Angels advance in a similar fashion, though once they get to the Wrath tier they can (with God’s permission, of course) unleash His wrath on a regional scale, creating great devastation like that which was unleashed on Egypt. Prophets operate on a system of stress, which is like Strain for the Sykers or Doomsayers in Deadlands: Hell on Earth. As they invoke each power they accumulate stress on their body, which must be regained through rest. Angels, on the other hand, work on what’s known as “prayer cover”, which reflects the number of the faithful who are praying at any given time. Each angel can only call upon so many points worth of prayer cover per day except when specifically empowered by God Himself. Apostles work a bit differently, being infused with certain “Spirits of God” as they go up in level, allowing them certain inherent bonuses and invokable abilities.



The writing of Archangel is good. David Baxter made sure he included both political and geographic information for the region during the entire 400-year span of the Prophet War. This is quite handy indeed. He even notes which nations use what types of weapons and armor. The only real problems were incidental errors, rather than substantive. The problems were things like homoophone confusion (effect vs. affect, sight vs. site, and so forth) and apostrophe either being where they shouldn’t be or not being where they should be. There are also some odd spaces between words occasionally, which is probably just a printing quirk. One big issue with the book itself, though, is the font used for body text. It’s just not good for extended reading. It would have been better to just go with boring old Times New Roman, even if the font does fit thematically. It work for headings, but at the small point size of body text, it starts to run together and the 1s are rendered as Is. I do like the artwork, though.



In all, I like Archangel. Granted, the premise of the game is evocative of something Rod and Todd Flanders would play (Anyone up for a game of Good Samaritan?), but the system is very clean. The only actualy flaw in the premise is that it relies on a theological version of the old “An old man comes up to you in the tavern” cliche in the form of God telling you what to do. Players may be frustrated by the fact the, in the end, they’re not going to make it into the Bible, but the point is to make a difference and make sure that everything ends up happening as recorded. The focus of the game lies in roleplaying, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but it seems that combat is something that— angels aside— seems like one would have to force it in. That may only seem awkward because it’s so different from other RPGs (*cough*D&D*cough*), so it’s something that, like the damage system, will have to be judged by individual tastes.



If you’re a Christian gamer (and yes, I know, gamers and Christianity seem to go together like Gary Condit and intern safety), you should like Archangel. David Baxter’s done a good job with the game, and I hope it succeeds. It really does break new ground in the industry.

Maiden Voyage, from Atlas Games, is a 32-page generic adventure module designed to be dropped into any d20-based fantasy system for a group of 4-6 low-level characters. It takes place aboard the ship Albers, pitting the players against the curse of a nearly forgotten sea god.



The players begin in a sea port. A sea captain offers them positions as hired swords to guard his ship on its voyage to deliver a prisoner to justice at another port. Along the way, the PCs are afforded the chance to buddy up to the crew, gather information, and get involved in some good-natured gambling and maybe a friendly prizefight. On the third day, the Albers, adrift in fog for lack of wind, comes across an old derelict ship. The PCs are allowed to explore the sip and check things out, finding the bodies of numerous crewmen down in the hold. The ships drift apart and that seems to be that. However, that night the Albers reencounters the ship, only in a much more dangerous situation! Assuming the crew of the Albers lives, everyone is safe until the next night, at which time the final confrontation occurs. Obviously, if the PCs are successful, they get to divvy up the rewards of a job well done.



The adventure is well-written. The pacing, spread out over 4 days, will likely leave the PCs with a bit of down time over days 1 and 2, but if it were compressed it wouldn’t quite work right. The split of the action between days 3 and 4 gives a good chance for the players to get worked up wondering what’s going to happen next. There’s a new deity and a new card game in Maiden Voyage, so there are a couple things that you can use outside the adventure. If the events end up turning cabin boy Dert off to his chosen avocation the party may get a new sidekick (your call entirely— nothing’s written in for such a possibility)!



One complaint I have, though, is a big one. The sidebars all have a background consisting of a water texture. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the blue is so damn dark! Now, normally background textures tend to obscure whatever’s put over them, but generally they’re kept to a light grayscale rather than a dark color. As a result, the black text is extremely difficult to read. Unfortunately, this includes quite a good amount of important information (including a lot of notes in the normal flow of the main text), such as the information on the deity, the card game, and the Sea Maiden, including its… inhabitants.



The other issue I have is that this is a sea-based adventure. If you can fit it into your game that’s good, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve played in a session where our party was at sea and probably still have enough fingers left to do it again. Of course, if you want to get nautical, this is a good way to do it.



Readability issues aside, this is a good adventure for a low-level party to tackle. It shouldn’t be too difficult so long as most of the party is at least competent in battle. There are good GM aides in back (though the captain’s diary pages are a bit dark around the outer areas), including profiles of the major NPCs. If you’re stuck for ideas for your party and think a good sea voyage might be fun, Maiden Voyage should be worth the $10.

Grab your cross, conjure bag, and your copy of Hoyle’s, because we’re takin’ us a trip down to Hexarcana! Hexarcana is a supplement from Pinnacle Entertainment Group for the multiple award-winning Deadlands: the Weird West detailing new hexes, miracles, and favors for the more mystical of the core Weird West Arcane Backgrounds (in other words, the ones found in The Weird West Player’s Guide). Yes, Mad Scientists get the shaft here, except for the Metal Mages, but they get their own supplement in The Collegium: Perils of the New Science, which brings the popular Doomtown faction into being as a more fleshed-out part of the overall Weird West canon. Hexarcana also details three new Arcane Backgrounds- sort of.

You see, the three new ABs come from the boxed sets PEG has put out for the Weird West. City O’ Gloom gave us Metal Mages, which are basically characters who have taken both the Huckster and Mad Scientist Arcane Backgrounds. River O’ Blood gave us the Voodooists, followers of the Voodoo religion who are able to call upon the loa (individual spirits of great power) to work some heavy ju-ju. Finally, The Great Maze (a boxed set that didn’t sound Irish) gave us the popular Martial Artists. These aren’t just any kung fu fighters, though. These are Enlightened kung fu fighters, able to pull off moves you’d see in Chinese movies from cheap Hong Kong flicks to big-budget smashes like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If you have the boxed sets, then these character types should be familiar to you already. However, they were written pre-Revised, so they needed a bit of a fix-up job to ease the transition.

First, I’ll discuss the original Arcane Backgrounds. There were notes on the ones that needed notes for the transition to Revised Edition, but mostly the sections on them were used for new powers. The Blessed got new Miracles, Gifts, and Divine Interventions. One I liked in particular was Ashes to Ashes, which is only really useful if your holy soldier has a decent Fightin’ skill, but if you can get it to work, it’ll put undead beasties- at least, many of your normal, garden-variety type- down faster then you can say “Hail Mary”, crumbling them to the ground as completely lifeless as they’re supposed to be. All it takes is a called shot to the head, a la a televangelist giving someone the old, “Yew are HEEEEEEALED!” routine, though in this case it would be more like, “Yew are DEEEEEEAD!”

Hucksters got some very useful new hexes, including a rather interesting one called Stayin’ Put, which allows the Huckster to plant himself firmly so as to resist being moved out of the way by physical force. If your Huckster managed to pull a Royal Flush, he’d end up getting a total of +23 to his opposed Strength roll! With a lot of luck, you might even be able to stop a speeding train with this hex! Bear in mind, though, that the hex only helps you resist being moved. It doesn’t say anything, mind you, about impact damage! This section also details the Metal Mages. We’re treated to an explanation of how they came about, as well as hexes relating to Mad Science, not to mention some rather nice combat-oriented hexes such as Magazine, which effectively turns you into a character out of a John Woo movie (basically, you don’t run out of ammo), and Scrap Storm, which creates a whirling cyclone of razor-sharp debris around your Hexslinger. Talk about a card sharp! Metal Mages are an interesting concept, and can be rather interesting to play if done right. I included one as a pregen character in my test run of Ghost Busters, and the character was a rather effective. He had the new A Glass Darkly hex, which could potentially be of use in investigations- though poor Cyrus just couldn’t get it to go off (he got backlash twice!)- as well as Decrypt and Steganogram, both useful hexes for the rare hexslinging Agency spook..

Shamans also got their nod in the book, with new favors for each medicine way as well as three new guardian spirits. The Thunderbird Guardian Spirit is a rather potent one, allowing your Shaman to use the Cleanse Portal or Lightning Strike favors. However, this Guardian Spirit costs twice its value to buy! Still, for what you receive, both in power and prestige (you gain a bonus to social rolls involving other Shamans who know that Thunderbird watches over you), you can’t go wrong with Thunderbird. The Remedy favor (Earth medicine) allows a Shaman to cure diseases and poisons, even those caused by Abominations. Truth of the Crow (Trickster) allows your Shaman to assist in interrogations by creating a bitter taste in the subject’s mouth every time he tells a lie. In true Trickster fashion, this isn’t a very direct route, but it sure can be fun!

Now, on to the two entirely new (assuming you don’t have the booklets that came with the boxed sets, anyway) Arcane Backgrounds. First, I’ll discuss the Voodooists. I’ll preface this with the caveat that Voodooists are not a character type to play if you’re the sort who prefers playing flashy, whiz-bang characters. This is largely due in part to the fact that most of their spells are slower than than a bayou turtle in the middle of the Mojave. Voodooists are a slower, much more subtle character type to play if you want to try playing a character with a lot of flavor for a good role-playing challenge. That being said, Voodooists have some pretty useful stuff at their disposal. For instance, the spell Bite of Arignee is used to coat a weapon or piece of ammunition with a glaze of melted sugar, into which is carved the symbol of Arignee, a minor loa. The weapon, when used, causes one less die of damage on impact, but it continues to do one extra die of damage as long as it’s still in the wound. Ouch! For those of you concerned about the ability to heal as well as harm, Conjure Doctor is the requisite healing spell for a Voodooist. Granted, if the wound is life-threatening, you’ll probably want to have a Blessed Lay on Hands, but like I said, this ju-ju don’t work fast; it’s about flavor.

Finally, we have the Enlightened Martial Artists. These guys will bust some Taoist philosophy one minute, then the next bust a head from across the room using Ten-Foot Punch. MAs got the biggest workover of any Arcane Background in this update to Revised, being switched over from their Ch’i system to a Strain-based system like the Sykers and Doomsayers of Deadlands: Hell on Earth. This system is much simpler to use than the Ch’i system, plus it doesn’t inhibit character growth the way Ch’i did (you had to spend Fate Chips to regain Ch’i, and since Fate Chips are also your experience, you couldn’t really use your powers much and advance at the same time). Martial Artists have a slew of new Aptitudes to handle, the lion’s share of them relating specifically to Fu powers, such as Throwin’: Flying Guillotine (quote: “Only martial artists who want to identify themselves as Pure Evil on a Stick use the dreaded flying guillotine.”). Fightin’: Chinese Sword and Throwin’: Bullet. Throwin’: Bullet isused with the power Sieze the Pearl of Death, which allows the MA to pluck a projectile of any sort- most impressively a bullet- out of the air and throw it right back at his assailant, though if you’re going to throw a bullet back you can’t use a standard Throwin’ concentration; you must use Throwin’: Bullet. You’ll probably recognize the power Monkey Goes to the Mountain from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If those characters were in Deadlands, that’s the power they would have been using to fly around all over the place. Devastating Ape Strike, which adds to your hand-to-hand damage (not with a weapon, though), can be seen in The Matrix where Agent Smith misses Neo and takes out a chunk of a subway support pillar. Merciful Sparrow can be an interesting power to see players use just to see what they’ll try to grab from the environment around them in an attempt to block bullets/knives/what-have-you.

Overall, Hexarcana is a good book for people looking to supplement their more occult-themed characters. However, I do feel compelled to mention the interior art. The pieces for the chapter openings are great, but the rest of them, for the most part, tend to be rather, shall we say, not good. Still, I don’t tend to buy RPG books for the artwork. Granted, it’s nice if it’s good, but looking at bad art is still a bit of a letdown, especially from Pinnacle. In all, the book isn’t really a tremendous necessity for people who are just looking to flesh out their collections- tracking down a copy of Law Dogs (for guns and gunfighting info, as well as info on some famous lawmen and outlaws, as well as more hexes for Hexslingers, a more gun-oriented type of Huckster) or Rascals, Varmints, & Critters 2: the Book of Curses (just for more nasty things to throw at my posse, plus each of the Hanginj’ Judges fleshed out in detail and given individual personalities and powers) would be a bit higher on my list of priorities were I in those shoes- or if you already have all the boxed sets. However, if your posse is looking to expand its arcane sights, look no further than the ranges of Hexarcana- it’s got some great info and it’s sure to put some life back into those old, worn-out cards your Huckster’s been using. Come on down, y’all!

Strap on your six-guns, pardner, ’cause Knuckleduster’s got a book to tell you how to adapt ‘em to any Western roleplaying game. The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop is guaranteed to give you more bang for your buckshot as it details historical firearms from 1849 to 1900, with every single piece being something that was actually produced and marketed.

TKFS begins with an explanation of the terminology used in the book, including how to adapt it to systems like FUDGE. The conversion for Deadlands is actually a page of its own in the back. There’s an explanation of all the possible common mechanical failures of the weapons. This is interesting from a technical standpoint. After all, Deadlands never so much as mentions a chain fire, much less tells you what it is and why it’s a Bad Thing™. The book suggests that Reliability, a statistic for either exotic (read: product of Mad Science) or “el cheapo” gear in Deadlands, be applied to all equipment rather than just unusual or poorly-made smokewagons.

After the general introduction is a section on gunfights in general. There’s a very interesting interview with an police officer named Phil Bock who was once in a gunfight. This was included to give people some information on how it feels to be in a battle situation, which would be good for those interested in more accurate roleplaying of a gunslinger. Officer Bock relates what it felt like to be in a situation in which you’re being shot at, and it’s indeed a bit sobering. Among these are a full-page sidebar (for lack of a better term) with some general tips for Western battle. The section then closes with a small explanation of slip-hammering and fanning, common gun modifications, and a gunfighting maneuver known as the border shift, which was allegedly once used by legendary outlaw John Wesley Hardin to get the drop on equally legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickock (though this was alleged in Hardin’s autobiography, so the source is a bit less than credible).

Following the informational bits we get to the real meat of the book— the guns. These hoglegs are divided into the eras in which they were first released. There are 5 different eras, separated seemingly by important advances in firearm technology, though this isn’t really made clear. The years begin with 1849, which is the year of the California Gold Rush. The gun listings are further divided into categories, beginning with pistols and followed by holdouts (the sort of small guns you’d hide in your sleeve or pocket), then unusual weapons (such ss the umbrella gun), rifles, and closing with the section with shotguns. There’s an illustration of each gun so that you can see what it looks like, though the ilusrations of the guns (and in some cases ammo is also shown) seem to all be either taken out of catalogs or drawn as stand-alone illustrations rather than showing photos of antique guns. This is understandable, as this probably would have required licensing fees from museums, and a good drawing is still probably a Hell of a lot cheaper.

The book’s real strength is its attention to accessible detail. The author avoided using acronyms that might not be familiar to the average reader. The book was intended for the curious semi-enthusiast and the roleplayer rather than the firearms collector, which makes sense as this is a book for roleplaying games. Firearm collectors have enough books of their own, so Forrest Harris wrote it for us rather than them. For damage, they used a seven-point scale the terminology of which, according to Harris, would be familiar to FUDGE players. At the end of the section on the guns there’s a short section on Western gear, such as holsters, sights, and ammunition.

The Deadlands conversion guide is quite welcome, as Deadlands is the foremost Western RPG in the industry. However, using the Colt Peacemaker as a benchmark, the damage conversion may not be terribly accurate. The Colt is listed as doing Severe damage, which would translate to a suggested 4d8 damage. However, in Deadlands the Peacemaker is listed as doing 3d6 damage. Anyone doing conversions should look over the weapons that are listed in both the Weird West Player’s Guide or Law Dogs and The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop. Check the weapons and see if the table needs to be adjusted in a lot of cases. If it does, adjust the damage chart to something that fits your game. I know some people on the Deadlands listserv adjust Peacemakers to do d8 damage instead of d6 sdimply because they feel, as Forrest Harris seems to, that the Peacemaker is simply a bit deadlier than that. Think of the conversion chart as more of a guideline than a hard rule set. After all, this book was designed to be a generic supplement rather than a Deadlands-specific book, so we can’t expect it to be written to convert with absolute smoothness.

In all, The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop is an excellent supplement for a player of Western RPGs even if you never end up using it for your game. It’s such an informative read that you end up learning a lot about equipment and the way things really were (and in the case of gunfights, still are). If you want to learn more about guns from the second half of the 1800s and how they work, or if you feel that your game just doesn’t have enough boom sticks in it, go out and pick up The Knuckleduster Firearms Shop. I eagerly look forward to seeing a similar book from Knuckleduster on other kinds of equipment. Don’t steal it, though— the shopkeep who sells this sort of thing just might get a bit miffed and decide to clear leather, and if that happens then A) Knuckleduster won’t make any money off it and B) you’re gonna have some unwanted holes! Now, saddle up and find a friendly local game shop that carries it! If you can’t, just smoke signal Knuckleduster’s mail order department at http://www.knuckleduster.com/Mail_Order.html and have that fancy plastic o’ yours ready, because this book really hits the bullseye!

Well, slather some Vaseline on those teats because it’s time to milk more humor out of Wingnut Games’ successful Battle Cattle franchise! Wingnut has released the long-awaited expansion to their udderly humorous Battle Cattle: Second Edition, titled Battle Cattle: Quest for the Holy Pail. The game continues the cow humor and takes it a step further, satirizing the classic fantasy RPG that everyone seems to cut their teeth on. Yes, it spoofs D&D. Yes, it uses cows to do so. Yes, it’s funny. Yes, you do need the Battle Cattle: Second Edition rules to play.

To begin cow creation, you choose your cow type along with udder and harness (if any) as usual. However, this is where things get different. You must choose a class for your cow. You can choose from the Fighter, Cowvalier, Pailadin, Free Range-er, Barbarian, Moo-gic User, Bard, Rogue, Assassin, Cleric, Moo-nk, and Necowmancer. Each cow class has its specific advantages and disadvantages. Some classes can cast spells at the expense of armor availability, while others gain improved martial skill at the expense of spell use. The Moo-nk is the most extreme of these examples, being totally unable to use any weapons or modifications on a harness or udder, though this actually leaves you quite a bit of money with which to buy Moo-gical armor and enhancements to increase trample and ram damage (this is what I did for my test Moo-nk; you can download PDFed versions of the cattle that I made here). The one I built actually ended up having +5d6 trample damage! This looked overpowering on paper, but in practice, it balanced because of his lack of ranged attack ability and the fact that he can pretty much only attack by ramming, trampling, and using moo-gic items. However, this can be devastating when the Moo-nk uses his Flying Trample ability (Corriente Tiger, Holstein Dragon?).

Other classes have abilities that can seem overpowering at first, but in practice aren’t bad. For instance, the Necowmancer is listed as having no Disadvantages. At first, this looks a bit strong, but the Necowmantic spells are more limited than the Cleric or Moo-gic user spells lists (with the former of these having fewer spells than the latter), and once the minions (undead cows and golems) are gone, baby, they’re gone. However, they do make for good stalling and damage while the other cow is trying to get through them to you. One thing I do have some misgivings about (though I haven’t had the chance to test) is the Bard’s inherent ability that on an enemy cow’s turn the enemy cannot attack the Bard if the Bard’s player rolls a 1 on a 1d6. That’s a 1 in 6 (roughly 17%) chance that the enemy can’t attack the Bard while the Bard can prod the enemy where the butcher don’t cut! Granted, the chance isn’t that tremendously great, but it’s still decent for the Bard’s player. If it ends up not working for you, consider changing it to a 2 on 2d6 instead of a 1 on 1d6. Of course, remember that this was something I was unable to test (Hey, I’ve got classes!).

The weapons have become medievally-themed, and the focus has shifted from BC: 2E’s ranged weapons to close-quarters weapons (like swords, axes, and the like, though axes can also be used as missile weapons with an axe thrower), though there are still things like a primitive form of the Cattle-Pult, along with crossbows, the ballista, and the trebuchet and onager. There is much less chance of tipping with weapons in Quest for the Holy Pail You also have to buy your spells, which are one-shot items. The one-shotness of spells combined with the lmited weapon and armor selection of the Moo-gic User, while faithful to the satirized material, really make the Moo-gic User more of a flavor cow than a serious contender to win in a stand-up fight. After a Moo-gic User’s spells are gone, it’s usually on its way to being ye olde cheeseburger.

In all, Quest for the Holy Pail is a greatly amusing expansion to Battle Cattle: Second Edition If you like cow jokes and you like miniatures combat, make sure you pick of BC: QftHP. Also, make sure you check Wingnut’s website, as they now have an FAQ for Holy Pail up to clear up some ambiguities. Despite said ambiguities (and a few spelling errors/typos, but those don’t really matter- we know what Aldo’s saying!), this is another bang-up job from a company I find myself more endeared to with everything of theirs that I read. To not pick up Battle Cattle: Quest for the Holy Pail would be a definite mis-steak. If thou dost passeth this game up, go ahead and putteth thineself out to pasture, ye who calls thyself a gamer! Have at moo, er, you!

Dragon Fist is a new game from TSR along the lines of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, but the game is instead set in a place much like imperial China. Dragon Fist attempts to emulate the type of action in Chinese wuxia films- these are the type of films that you used to see on Kung Fu Theater. If any of you have ever seen the movie Prince of the Sun (starring Cynthia Rothrock), this is the genre of film that it’s based on. I could probably come up with better examples if I’d seen some . The Appendix lists some films that are representative of wuxia.

Dragon Fist is actually based on the AD&D game engine (including, in some form, each basic class), though it does give some modifications. First, it adds Stunts to the mix. There’s a type of Stunt relative to each ability score. You could use a Might Stunt to add to your hit and damage rolls or you could use an Acrobatics Stunt to improve your Armor Class for the round. However, you have to choose wisely- you can only use one type of Stunt per round, and it’s chosen at the beginning of the round. They also included something like the Feats that are in D&D 3rd Edition, in that you can use a Feat to do something like break through a door or run up a wall. When you use a Feat, you’re given a Target Number (TN) and you roll 1d20 and add any appropriate Stunt Bonus. If you roll equal to or higher than the number, you execute that Feat.

Another thing I liked was how the book contained illustrations of the various types of weapons. Due to the fact that these weapons are entirely foreign to American culture, most people would need illustrations like this to show us what these weapons look like. Of course, I’d also like to see illustrations of each weapon in D&D3, but those aren’t quite as necessary. Still, I’m reminded of a story I heard about the dwarf who wielded a pole arm of some kind because his player didn’t know that it had a six-foot shaft.

Dragon Fist also provides an interesting campaign setting, involving an emperor who was corrupted in his search for immortality. Major cities are detailed in the game, so you don’t have to make everything up yourself. This is always handy in an RPG. The beauty of the setting is conveyed well in the artwork in the Dragon Fist download. Yes, that’s right- download. The entire game is available for free from WotC’s site at http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DF_Welcome.asp . An adventure is also available on the site. The entire game is available in separate downloads or as a single ZIP file. There’s also a bit of a guide to conversion into AD&D so you can have kung fu fighting in your traditional campaign world. For those of you who’ve wanted to either try to put Kung Fu Theater into your AD&D game or play something like it, Dragon Fist is a good way to get the kind of action you’re looking for.

AutoRealm, from Andy Gryc Software, aims to meet every GM’s mapping needs. Well, it doesn’t quite do that, but it comes rather close!

From looking at the available packaged icons, you can tell that AutoRealm was designed mainly for creating fantasy maps, though it could be used to create maps for other setting with some creativity. For instance, I was able to create a map of this western town:

A variety of tools are available to users for mapmaking. One is the aforementioned icons. Granted, there isn’t a lot of variety, but there are enough terrain icons to get the job done, and the icons for buildings and markers can be sufficient, given some mojo, can be used for almost any setting. You may have to do some labeling with the text feature, but as long as the map features aren’t packed together too tightly it should be no problem. There’s also an option for resizing icons, which can come in handy.

There are also the line tools. If you’re familiar with Ray Dream, you should be familiar with the method of making fractal lines. You can create filled shapes using the line tools. All you have to do is right-click while drawing after making at least one line. You then select a color to fill the shape. There’s also a Scalpel tool for cutting points out of fractal lines. That can be handy if you suddenly decide that you don’t need a particular point there anymore.

However, there are a few gripes I have about the software. First, now that it’s a download without an instruction manual (unlike the version I received), the learning curve may be a bit steep for some people. Granted, it’s nowhere near as steep as something like Photoshop or Dreamweaver, but it’ll take a lot of puttering around with the software to figure it out.

Second, there could be more icons. There’s been enough fantasy mapping software (though, granted, most of it I’ve seen has sucked-*coughcough*Campaign Cartographer*coughcough*), but we could do with more icons for more modern structures. With the popularity of Deadlands, western icons could be a strong addition, as could icons for skyscrapers and other sorts of urban buildings (after all, White Wolf games are a very strong market force). There are generic markers for large, nation-scale maps (the star in a circle to denote a capital and so forth).

Third, and your results may vary, but AutoRealm seems to be a bit of a memory hog. I once noticed a 15% drop in available system resources when opening it! Of course, as I said, this may be specific to my machine, which can be a bit bitchy at times.

Fourth, and this is somewhat minor and may just be a bug, the bitmaps generated by AutoRealm don’t seem to be viewable by other programs, even Paint! Hopefully someday we’ll see a version that will fix this, or perhaps save as a JPG- after all, bitmap files are huge!

However, AutoRealm does have a good help file, so you should be able to figure things out. Also, it’s free, and open source to boot! Maybe with some other people working on it, the major problems (specifically the RAM problem) coouldbe fixed quickly. Mr. Gryc probably has a real job, and hence not much time to work on AutoRealm. Overall, for your money (again, none) this is pretty good software for mapping. It can be downloaded at http://www.iex.net/~gryc . Just look in the Download section!

Pinnacle Entertainment Group has done it again with The Agency: Men in Black Dusters. Written by the inestimable John Goff, this book explores the ins and outs of the Deadlands universe’s equivalent of the Men in Black. Granted, they don’t have neuralizers (a.k.a. “the flashy thing”), but they do have some neat gadgets at their disposal, which I will elaborate on later.

This book is a must-have for any Marshal planning on making even minimal use of The Agency in his campaign. It’s also good for players of an operative of the United States Special Services Agency. What is the Agency, you ask? Well, here goes, but you didn’t hear it from us. The USSSA was created by Executive Order 347 (the existence of which is classified) to take over the duties formerly handled by operatives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. President Grant believed that these duties could be better handled by a government agency than a private contractor, so he terminated the PDA’s contract, but grandfathered several top Pinkertons into the upper echelons of the Agency. These veterans were to become many of the trainers and administrators of the Agency, including Allan Pinkerton himself, who was appointed to head up the position of the Director of the Eastern Bureau. Andrew Lane, a.k.a. “The Ghost”, former head of the Pinkertons’ Western Bureau, was selected to head up the equivalent division of the new USSSA.

The Agency: MiBD covers the organization of the Agency and their procedures, as well as tips for conducting an investigation, including performing an autopsy! The book is very well-written, with its only shortcomings being in proofreading. The errors, however, are few.

As stated before, The Agency: MiBD contains several new gadgets, many of which are the spawn of Mad Scientists, for your spook’s use. These contain things from Agency versions of the Gatling rifles and shotguns listed in Smith & Robards to explosive putty to a fear detector, which is used the gauge the Fear Level in a given area. It also contains things that aren’t products of mad science, such as a sleeve-spring dagger, and objects used for “dead drops” (leaving something somewhere for someone to pick up later while making sure nobody else knows it’s there). The various gadgets are too numerous to list here, but trust me the book is worth buying almost for these alone!

There is, of course, Marshal-only information in this book as well. It lists some of the secrets of the Agency, as well as some tips for running a game with an Agent or even a game with an entire posse of Agents. It also retools the Grim Servant o’ Death Hindrance so that it’s not quite the munchkin bait that it was before. How does it work now? Well, you’re just going to have to buy the book to find out!

Microtactix Games is known to gamers as a source of inexpensive, generic roleplaying supplements (such as their Vyllage-On-the-Cheep buildings) and games (such as Budget Battlefield, a miniatures game), has come out with another in their line- Simply Roleplaying!, based on the PlainLabel game system (which I’ve never heard of, but then again I’m from South Dakota- I’m sure you can understand). Simply Roleplaying! is the first product from Microtactix I’ve ever looked at, so I don’t have the benefit of knowledge of some of their other product lines, which Simply Roleplaying! claims to be compatible with. However, given the genericness of the rules, I’d say it’s a safe bet that SR! integrates well with Budget Battlefield for detailed movement. The core rules for Simply Roleplaying! are just that- the basic rules for running a game under the SR! system. You’re not going to find fantasy spell lists or details on the various alien races that would populate a space-based campaign. Specific settings are going to be covered in future supplements such as Simply Super! (for superhero roleplaying).

The core rules for Simply Roleplaying! seem to be well-thought out and comprehensive. The basic system covers any situation I could think of that a group might find itself in. The core rules cover good old, regular, hack-n’-slash combat, two people battling each other for supremacy in a contest of skills (including rules for making such a thing more cinematic and drawn-out), as well as rules for vehicular combat and structural damage. They included a table with Armor ratings for various substances up to things like carbon-fiber and spun titanium. For weapons, printable weapon cards were included as a seperate PDF file. This is a very handy bonus, as it allows for quick reference without having to flip pages in a book, keep paging down on the screen, or look through an index.

Simply Roleplaying! seems to work well as a generic system. I can’t make any comparisons to Steve Jackson Games’s GURPS, as I’ve never had any experience with it either, but from what I’ve heard it’s bogged down with lots of specific rules, and if you decide to scrap one of them that doesn’t seem to work for you, the whole system can fall right out from under it. That isn’t so with Simply Roleplaying! . The system isn’t bogged down with lots of complexities, though there are some things that seem to be a little daunting at first. First among these are the skill levels. Ranging from Familiar to Expert, the levels determine just how much your character knows about whatever skill it is he’s using. SR! factors skill level in quite heavily when figuring difficulty for a task. It’s calculated to be part of your Skill Rating, which is the total measure of how good you are at something. You take the skill and the related stat, then add the stat and the bonus for Skill Level together to get your overall rating. It’s kind of like the system for HOL. At first glance, I thought the Skill Levels and Ratings were exclusive of each other, rather than one being a part of the other. This could probably be worded a little better in the next edition.

Second, the thing I had the biggest problem with was the section on running an RPG. Yes, it’d be helpful to the people who are just cutting their roleplaying teeth, but this could have been included as a seperate file in the ZIP. It ws 50 pages of things I’d either read before or already knew, and since this is all in PDF they could have easily made it its own file. Failing that, they could have at least put it at the end of the book. It came even before the main system for things like Tasks and combat! Now, I know it’s good advice, but I just think it was a bit ill-placed in the book. It should have gone after all of the system information, not between parts of it. Also, cutting this out into a seperate file would have cut down on the print size. Someone wanting to print out the rules would be in a world of hurt ink- and paper-wise due to this extra 50 pages, and with a lot of printers (O.K., mine- a new HP Deskjet 932c, but the thing is sweeeet… ), new ink cartridges can’t exactly be bought with couch change.

However, for all the nit-picking I’ve done over it, the system seems to be good and solid- great for people who want to roleplay in various settings without having to buy tons of different books. If you want stats for a Zenobulan Space Freighter, just make up a top speed and armor value for it, give it a handling modifier, and there you go! Granted, the Zenobulan Space Freighter may be covered in Simply Spaced! (or whatever they decide to call their space opera setting), but until then you can make it up for yourself using the guidelines they give you. Also, you don’t need tons of different dice. All you should ever need is a couple of d10s and you should be all set. All in all, Simply Roleplaying! looks to be a solid system with a lot of potential. All you need is some creativity and off you go! Overall, I’d give the Simply Roleplaying! core rules a B+ on ground of readibility and clarity. The system itself, however, is probably worthy of an A. For those of you looking for a generic roleplaying rules set and don’t want to shell out the money for the legions of GURPS products, Simply Roleplaying! is a good choice for your gaming dollar.

Somebody get a mop.

Recently while attending M.A.G.E.Con North in Sioux Falls, SD, I picked up a Deadlands book written by one of the convention’s guests of honor–one Mr. John “the walking bloodbath” Goff (the reason for the epithet is known to those on the Deadlands listserv). The book is titled Rascals, Varmints, & Critters 2: the Book of Curses. For those of you who don’t know, the original “RVC”–as it has come to be known by many fans–was a book containing fan-submitted abominations.

The original contained a few pages of Posse Territory (material for everyone to read), while the rest was divided more or less evenly between No Man’s Land (to be read with permission of the Marshal) and the Marshal’s Handbook (Marshal-only info). Well, with this you can kiss your posse goodbye, because with the exception of 23 No Man’s Land pages of this 128-page sourcebook, this is purely a plaything for the Marshal, and the one who wears the star is guaranteed to get a pretty good amount of mileage out of this supplement.

Now might be a good time for all the player-types to stop reading. Marshal, you just keep moving right along.

In this book, you’ll find rules for lycanthropic and vampiric PCs. However, be warned (and the book itself says this as well) that these character types can be a bit unbalancing (particularly the werewolves), so you may not wish to allow your players to run such characters. In fact, they state right at the beginning of Chapter 4 that the whole chapter is strictly optional. However, there are balancing mechanics built in, such as the vampiric allergy to sunlight and the werewolf’s inability to tolerate silver. Even more limiting, though, is the accumulation of Corruption points. If the players accumulates too many of these (which is quite easy for vampires) the character becomes an NPC under the Marshal’s (that’s you, or at least at this point it better be, pardner) control.

Anyway, now on the the real meat of RVC2–the abominations.

In this book you’ll find descriptions of several things introduced in earlier material, mainly Dime Novels, that wasn’t seen by many players as the Dime Novels didn’t usually sell that well. Examples include the Skinwalker as well as the Automatons and Clockwork Tarantulas of Dr. Darius Hellstromme. It also tackles some monsters from legend, such as trolls, and the monsters that children believe lurk in their closets and under their beds.

Vampires are also given the Deadlands treatment in this book, with 5 distinctly different types of vampire to throw at your posse, including the Nosferatu from the Night Train Dime Novel (a.k.a. PC Death Train, penned by the above John Goff) and a floating head known as the Penanggalen, which was taken from the legends of Southeast Asia. Detailed in the Legendary Horrors section (Chapter 3, saved for the big baddies of legend as opposed to your average Thing Under the Bed) is a particular fellow you may be already familiar with. Ghosts, too, get a fair shake in this book, with 6 types of spooks to, well, spook your posse. There’s actually 7 if you count the Living House. Yeah, you read that right– Living House. If you want the skinny, you’ll have to get your hands on the book.

Also, for you Marshals who like to use Walkin’ Dead, there are 5 new types to choose from, including Orphaned Heads, which I’m going to throw at my posse the first chance I get. There are 4 other types of undead listed, including skeletons, two forms of mummies and guidelines for undead animals.

Chapter 3, as mentioned, contains some heavy hitters of horror, including Dracula himself, as well as Frankenstein and his monster. However, tying in most closely to Deadlands is the individual attention to five of a Marshals best friends, the Hangin’ Judges. This popular abomination has sort of become Pinnacle’s unofficial mascot, and they decided to detail the five Judges individually and give them each their own flavor powers, and look on top of giving the history behind the creation of these posse killers. The Hangin’ Judge was a rather simple (though quite powerful) abomination in the masic Marshal’s handbook, but now they’ve become more fleshed out and even more formidable adversaries than they were before. RVC2 really does give these devils their due by making them out to be much more than just mindless machines of death, but rather intelligent, thinking machines of death.

In all, Rascals, Varmints, & Critters 2: the Book of Curses is a book that no self-respecting Marshal should do without. It contains scads of new horrors to throw at your poor posse, with quite a few real doozies, such as the orphaned heads–which could really throw players who’ve seen Sleepy Hollow for a loop–and the Living House. It also details denizens of the darkness that players have been crying out for, such as Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. For the Marshal who can’t come up with something to throw at the players or for the Marshal who wants to throw a true challenge at them, RVC2 is absolutely indispensable–a real Reckonersend. I don’t know how I’ve done without it all this time. If you don’t have it yet, then mount up and head on over to your local game store and pick yourself up a copy. If they don’t have it, order it. If they can’t order it, head on over the the Pinnacle online store (or an e-tailer like titangames.com or crazymage.com) and order it there.

Have fun, compadre–I know I will.