Tribe 8

I must be insane for doing this. Where am I? On Gaming Outpost, stomping grounds of the famously anti-reviewer John Wick. What am I doing? Writing a review. Is gaming swag really worth the heartache?

Swag is worth any heartache, dammit.

The swag in question is Tribe 8, a mystical post-apocalypse fantasy game from Canadian mecha guys Dream Pod 9. It seems to have a small but fiercely loyal fan base (at least on the internet), but I didn’t know anything about it other than that until it arrived on my doorstep. Let’s crack this bad boy open, then, and look at what you get for your $29.95.

Well, the book is 208 pages long - not a lot for a complete RPG. Stuck next to, say, Vampire 2eR or CoC 5.6, Tribe 8 looks a little skimpy. It’ll take a glance at the table of contents to change your mind about that - those 208 pages are packed with stuff. The typeface is quite small, and there isn’t too much art, so a lot of information is packed on a page.

The first 109 pages of this book are all setting. There is next to no game system content - indeed, most of this stuff is information which players might conceivably know. It’s divided into short vignettes, told from several different viewpoints. The first thing that struck me about this section was that it seems designed to be flipped through on a game-store shelf; if that’s true, it’s a canny decision on DP9’s part. The other thing is that the separation of setting material from rules material might help in converting Tribe 8 over to another system. In fact, I’m considering it myself.

The setting itself takes a little explanation. A long time ago, civilization just went to the dogs. This coincided (or caused, or was caused by) the arrival of the Z’Bri, strange spiritual beings who enslaved and tormented the helpless humans. The Z’Bri built huge death camps into which they herded their human playthings. The nightmare was ended by the arrival of the Fatimas, eight beings of immense power who led the humans to freedom from the Z’Bri. Of the eight Fatimas, six survive to the present day. Aided by the daughter of the seventh, they rule the seven tribes of humanity, teaching them to channel the power of the River of Dream. Joshua, the eighth Fatima - and the only male one - was slain during the final battle with the Z’Bri. His followers are outcasts and renegades - the Eighth Tribe of the title.

The seven tribes inhabit an island called Vimary. They have little idea of what goes on beyond the shores of their world. The small scale of the setting allows the book to describe Vimary and tribal society in a lot of detail; I’m sure later (or even existing) supplements will describe the rest of the world - until then, I plan to make stuff up as I see fit. Vimary was once a great city; now it is a maze of ruins and ramshackle new construction. Technology is long forgotten, except to the strange sect known as the Keepers, whose libraries and laboratories still hold many of the secrets of the World Before. Humans outside the tribes are known as Squats - barbarians whose only thoughts are for rape and plunder.

There’s a lot more to the background - this summary only scratches the surface. This is both Tribe 8’s greatest strength and one of its greatest weaknesses. The tribes are one of the most important elements of the game: the way they relate to the Fatimas and to each other determines how Vimarian society works. Player characters (who are assumed to be Fallen - members of the Eighth Tribe) begin life in one of these tribes, learning its powers. When they leave their tribe, they join a faction among the Fallen, learning new and different abilities. Almost all player characters, therefore, are going to have lived their whole lives in tribal society, necessitating a pretty good familiarity with it. Many other games with complex social structures - Werewolf, for example - allow for the possibility of starting player characters off with zero setting information and letting them learn along the way. I can’t think of a way to do this with Tribe 8.

This isn’t a fatal weakness, but it is something to bear in mind. If you are looking for a game which you can just pick up and play with a couple of friends on short notice, Tribe 8 is not it. Players will definitely have to read through the first part of the rulebook, unless you want to explain the whole setting to them yourself. This might mean that it’s a good idea for players to have their own copies of the book, as well.

On to the second half of the book, which is the GM’s section (although the GM is called the Weaver in Tribe 8). This includes not only the rules, but a section on how to a run a Tribe 8 campaign (called a Cycle) and information on the internal politics of the Fatimas and the Z’Bri.

The rules are the Silhouette System, which is (I assume) DP9’s house rules set. They’re pretty simple - players roll a number of dice equal to their skill, adding bonuses for relevant attributes and for doubles. They aim to meet or exceed a target number. The greater a margin of success over the target number, the better the outcome. Character creation is point-based; attributes average at zero; there’s an advantage/disadvantage system, and some funky powers. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Character creation may seem a little daunting to begin with, but I’m at the point where I can do the rules part of a character in 20 minutes while watching TV. That’s after creating three characters.

The funky powers deserve a little elaboration. Synthesis is a skill available to everyone who comes from a tribal background (Keepers have their own powers, which allow them to operate high tech in a non-industrial society). Each tribe has two Eminences - areas in which they can use Synthesis to change the world. Eminences are broad concepts like Devotion, Fury, Sensuality, Wisdom, or Conviction. There are some guidelines on how to use them , but it’s a system which is going to require some thought on the part of the player, and some cooperation on the part of the Weaver. Aspects are special abilities of particular tribes. They can be quite powerful, and are uncommon.

Synthesis will play an important role in any Tribe 8 Cycle, since it's available to any player character. Weavers may want to discuss its possible uses with players, since no one likes deciding whether an effect is possible on the fly.

There are a lot of other rules in Tribe 8 - for things like combat, vehicles, animals, armor, the funky powers of the Z’Bri, and so on. Personally, I can’t see using them very often myself, but they’re there if you want them.

The Weaver’s section also contains information on the Z’Bri. There are four sorts of Z’Bri, one for each of the Four Humours of ancient medical thought. The Z’Bri are fiends all right, but they’re fiends for a neat metaphysical reason, which I won’t go into here. You can even negotiate with the Z’Bri, but it’s hard to tell the ones you can talk to from the ones who want to rip your head off or the ones who want you to die a thousand agonizing deaths.

The section on how to be a Weaver is interesting; unlike many games (but like another game I really enjoyed, Puppetland,) Tribe 8 has a point. One day, the Eighth Tribe will rise, fulfilling a prophecy which Joshua spoke as he lay dying. When that happens, otherworldly heads are going to roll - and the player characters are likely to be a big part of it. I understand that this storyline has been further explored in recent and forthcoming supplements, but I don’t particularly see the need to buy them. After all, the rise of an oppressed chosen people is a story with a thousand sources to steal from. It’s a directed storyline rather than a meta-plot. It’s pretty clear where the plot is going, and it’s left to the Weaver to fill in how it happens. This means that the storyline information in the rulebook is useful even if you don’t buy supplements - a central beef for me about metaplot games.

Where I feel I could use some more information is in the day-to-day life of the Fallen. I get the impression that the Fallen live a precarious existence, perpetually one step ahead of disaster. Every day is an adventure for the Joshuans. But I must admit I’m having some difficulty thinking of an actual scenario to run my players through. That’s why I like story seeds or full-grown scenarios in RPGs. I almost never run them as is, but they always help me decided what kind of game I’m going to run. I know a lot of people won’t miss a scenario, but I did.

Bonus: There’s an index, and it’s pretty complete.

That’s about it for the objectives. Here we go with the subjective stuff. This is where the hurting commences. I like the game’s atmosphere - it’s post-apocalyptic without being Mad Max-like. It reminded me a little of Games Workshop’s Necromunda, with the same combination of medieval Christianity and post-industrial punk style. The religious stuff in Tribe 8, however, is a lot more than just a straight ripoff of medieval Christianity. It certainly has strong Judeo-Christian elements: the Z’Bri camps recall the enslavement of the Israelites by the Pharaoh, but the impact is strengthened by their sickening association with the Holocaust. All in all, I think the metaphysical element of the setting maintains the requisite amount of strangeness and mystery, while being recognizable enough that the players aren’t left entirely without a frame of reference. This is a very nicely judged thing, and I recommend having a look at the setting material yourself.

As to the society of the tribes, I applaud the game’s decision not to have a lame set of future slang. I only wish they had skimped a bit more on the Capital Letters. I think it might be interesting starting the game with the characters still in tribal society, then playing the bit where they get chucked out. It might make the tribes a little more sympathetic in the eyes of the players. There are a number of stylish touches in the tribal society. As you might expect in a goddess-worshipping culture, women are the dominant sex. The majority of decision leaders are female, mixed-gender religious orders are called “sisterhoods,” and so on. But, we are assured, men can still get good jobs. The tribes judge on merit. This point could have been made heavy-handedly, but instead it’s amusing and well-made.

I’m not sure that the rules set really works to implement the feel of the game. It’s definitely meant to “stay out of the way” rather than to integrate with the setting. The game is about redemption and prophecy and all these Biblical-type concepts, but characters are defined in terms of CRE and BLD and PSY and “System Shock” and whatnot. It’s no big thing - many people will enjoy the lack of system-setting integration. But a little voice in my head keeps telling me that I really want to run Tribe 8 with the rules from Green Knight’s Pendragon.

The Verdict

For my money, the setting's a winner - it captures an interesting blend of religious high drama, Mad Max-style action, intrigue, mystery, and horror. You ought to check it out yourself before you buy it, but don't overlook it. It might even make a good idea mine for GMs running other science fantasy or post-apocalypse games.