Review: Elric!

Sometimes I can’t help but feel that Chaosium has some kind of sacred mission to produce really well-done games in genres that most people wouldn’t want to play in. Compare, for example, the number of people who think that Call of Cthulhu is a well-designed game and the number of people who regularly play it. How many people think that Pendragon is well researched and designed, and how many people want to run a long-term game in a system which devotes a lot of space to dictating PC behavior? (Yeah, I know, Green Knight owns Pendragon these days. It’s the same principle). And then there’s Elric!.

I know a lot of people out there are big Michael Moorcock fans. I wasn’t for a long time, but when I finally made a determined effort to read all of the Elric novels, I discovered that I really enjoyed them. Here’s the thing, though: I enjoyed the character of Elric and the concept of the war between Law and Chaos. I didn’t particularly care about the Young Kingdoms or Melnibone. And in a setting like this one - with one huge hero and an ensemble cast of tragic victims - you don’t get to play the big guys.

In fact, you don’t get to play people who matter at all. How could you? At the end of Stormbringer, everybody in the world dies. That includes your character. Get used to it, folks: your character hasn’t got long to live. Forget Call of Cthulhu’s legendary high mortality rate. You are doomed from the get-go in Elric!, and that’s that. To be fair, there is one way out: become a Champion of the Balance, enter the legendary city of Tanelorn, and survive the destruction of this particular Sphere. This isn’t a goal that can be achieved through questing, either: it’s a metaphysical and moral condition every bit as much as it is a physical one.

Now, if you’re like me (and I know I am) this doesn’t sound like the kind of setting that appeals to you. If you’ve read the novels, you know the Young Kingdoms are kind of sketchily detailed - since the novels are basically about the relationship between Elric, Stormbringer, and a succession of victims. Let’s just say right out that if you don’t fancy the idea of being a bit player in a doomed universe, Elric! is not the game for you. To be fair, there is one way out: become a Champion of the Balance, enter the legendary city of Tanelorn, and survive the destruction of this particular Sphere. This isn’t a goal that can be achieved through questing, either: it’s a metaphysical and moral condition every bit as much as it is a physical one.

Within the confines of its genre, how does Elric! work out? Pretty well, actually. The percentile-based skill system ought to be familiar to anyone who knows Call of Cthulhu or Runequest, and the combat system is fast and easy to learn. It’s very much a system designed for swordplay, and it’s assumed that characters - even nonviolent types like thieves and merchant - are going to be carrying arms and armor. The magic system seems faithful to the novels, dividing magic into spells - prepared incantations which perform specific effects - and summonings, which call demons or elemental spirits to the physical plane.

I was worried that lack of familiarity with the setting might prove to be an obstacle for the players, but the two who had never read any of the books seemed to have no trouble assimilating. In fact, the sketchiness of Moorcock’s background descriptions made things easier for them - since the adventure was set in the decidedly un-fantastic Purple Towns, they could always just fill in standard medieval images when they didn’t know what something was. The two players who had read all the Elric books enjoyed the game’s evocation of the setting, but didn’t seem to concerned about accuracy - as I said, no one really cares about Moorcock’s setting.

The one thing that the players found odd was that the rules are designed with humans in mind - in a game based on stories about a Melnibonean, very little information is given on running campaigns with Melnibonean characters. I theorized that since Melniboneans are all essentially chaotic and don’t go out into the Young Kingdoms much, they might be rather limited, but it’s still a peculiar omission.

A quick word about production quality: like most Chaosium books, the design of Elric is unassuming and simple. I don’t find the artwork very inspiring - for one thing, there’s an obvious mistake regarding exactly what kind of weapon King Urish carries in one illustration - but occasional pieces have a nice “otherworldly” feel to them. The layout is easy to use - important for a game with a lot of rules for combat and magic.

Once again, then, we have a classic Chaosium game. If you really like Michael Moorcock, or you think it might be enjoyable to play a fantasy campaign in which adventure and derring-do served as a framework for self-discovery and metaphysical conflict, Elric! is probably the game for you. But that’s kind of a narrow market, if you think about it.