Kobolds Ate My Baby!

Kobolds Ate My Baby! is a roleplaying game created on a weak premise and built... er, weakly. Players play the part of Kobolds, those engaging little cannon fodder that were the backup bulk of a DM's bag of tricks (usually 1 or 2 hit dice creatures... we used to amuse ourselves by killing them with a slap in the face... but that was years ago. That was the bad Walter). The Kobolds in this game, however, are on center stage-starring in the role of chefs for King Torg's upcoming feast. Apparently Kobolds have a yen for human flesh, especially in baby form. The Kobold Kommunity, however, isn't discriminating& if babies don't appear on the menu, then the cooks will do. The objective of the game is to go to a human town and steal as many human babies as you can for King Torg's feast (did you know Kobolds were such gourmands? I didn't. The game is laden with koboldic recipes for serving dead babes with).

Before I get into the actual game, I have to establish my bias about the sort of humor depicted here. I'm from the generation that guffawed at Mr. Creosote exploding in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. I thought American Pie and Something about Mary were pretty danged funny. So gross-out humor per se doesn't make me flinch. When it drops below the level of good clean idiotic fun, humor ceases to be sophomoric and becomes tedious. Such were my perceptions of Kobolds Ate My Baby! (KAMB!). The game (as written) is fairly weak without a very specific premise, and the premise (I presume) is to be funny. The designers attempt to go over the top with the constant references to infanticide in the same manner, say, as Ambrose Bierce might have interlaced mention of infanticide in his more macabre humor pieces like "Oil of Dog." The intent is to titillate, to generate a cold frisson of horror simultaneous with a deep belly laugh. KAMB! does not do this& the humor is ham-fisted at best, pushing the notion of infanticide over and over again interlaced with cutsie joke mechanics like THE BABY HORRIBLE DEATH CHART ". I don't know what the designers were aiming at& a false sense of outrage? (EEK! How could they!?) Gross-out as controversy? ("Killing and Eating Babies, man& that's BULLSHIT!") The Big, big laff? ("Haw Haw& this is the funniest RPG since TOON!") It's telling that that old standby line "this is not meant to be taken seriously" along with its companion, "beer and pretzels game" are found in the text. So much UN-funny material is encompassed within those terms.

The game itself is a bit puzzling to categorzie. KAMB! bills itself as THE BEER AND PRETZELS ROLEPLAYING GAME. Roleplaying games are generally pretty generic, allowing the player to explore a wide series of adventures either created by a GM or by a publisher, taking place in a wide variety of milieus and situations. The situation for KAMB! is pretty static& you are a Kobold, you have to go Baby Raiding, You have to prepare a feast. There are not many new vistas to explore within those limitations. Maybe the setting changes, but not the basic game.

What You Get For Your 5.95

A booklet, about the size and quality of Cheapass components (and usually found on the same shelf at Cheapass). Enclosed within is a color map, about 11 X 14. This is a map of East Bumble, the town that is used in the game scenario.

The rules are dirt simple. The GM plays the Mayor of Bumble, the players play a hoarde of hungry kobolds with a simple mission: get babies.

The game is so focused, it comes off as being more of a microgame (similar to Cheapass faire, but with some roleplaying flavor) than an RPG.

Character Generation is pretty easy. Each Kobold gets these 6 attributes:

1. Strength
2. Dexterity
3. Agility
4. Speed
5. Combat
6. Intelligence
   (and Combat Dice, of which Kobolds have 2)

In a time-honored tradition going back to MELEE and WIZARD, the players build a character, custom fashion, with 5 base points per stat and 5 extra to blow on the others as they see fit.

There are a few familiar touches, possibly "influenced" by GURPS: Kobolds can get TRAITS and BOGIES (Advantages and Disadvantages). There are few of either, and mostly they are dubious items like "Animals Like You" or "You Taste like a Baby".

Combat, in fact, much of everything in this game, is skills based. To hit someone, you have to roll under the Combat score (#5 above). Since Kobolds have two combat dice, that's the number of 1d6's needed to be rolled to make the magic number. This is neat and simple, actually.

Magic is a hoot.. at least the spell descriptions are (Suggestion, guys: Make More Spells!). As far as I can determine, you roll randomly to determine what spells you have, and then just "cast the spell." The verbiage reads "You may cast the spell as many times as you like&" (page 10). There's a hook, of course. Like Metagaming's WIZARD, you have to check off a life point every time you cast a spell.

Which brings me to damage. Naturally (for RPGers), you have to fill out a character sheet. All damage points are accrued on a little record called "KOBOLD HORRIBLE DEATH RECORD" on the bottom of the character sheet. Fortunately, Damage seems to be in scale with the amount of hit points the Kobold gets on average.

The GM Section is fairly skimpy, basically containing advice for the gamemaster, some pretty funny (and of course, somewhat over the top, humor-wise) random events and tables ripped off from borrowed 'inspired' by Monty Python, Town creation notes, a list of Random Non-Player Characters, and a building by building description of the town depicted on the map that comes with the game, Brumble.

The Verdict:

I don't want the designers of the game to think I'm dumping on their game just because I found the humor of it ponderous. Actually, with a little work on being MORE generic, less focused on this one macabre setting, KAMB! could fill a niche that doesn't have a lot of contenders: A Micro Roleplaying Game. Except for The Fantasy Trip and the more recent Compact Combat (which is more of a miniatures fighting system than a RPG at this point, though it is expanding), there really aren't ANY decent RPGs at a micro scale and price&. And let me make that clear, this is a decent effort. I think the designers went for 'laffs' first because, maybe, they weren't confident that a generic RPG of this size and scale would sell. They may be right for all I know, I'm no Nostradamus of the RPG industry. With a little adapating (and a lot of expanding), this system could be used in just about any fantasy milieu for a fast and light gaming experience. For the price ($5.95) you could afford to buy it and blow your nose with it. Give it a try.