Reviews – Page 3 – The Redacted Files Podcast

Review: Into the Night, a Numenera Supplement

Cover of Into the Night, features a man in front of a vortex with his hands on controls

Into the Night is a new setting book from Monte Cook Games for Numenera. It focuses on expanding the world to outer space, and what terrors and wonders lie out there for the Ninth Worlders to discover.

It is a 160 page book, with the first section (about 35 pages) focusing on how to reach beyond earth and the bodies near enough to Earth for initial discovery and other exploration. The second section (about 45 pages) looks at the other planets in our Solar System. The third section (about 60 pages) looks at threats and places that adventurers can explore outside of our solar system. The book closes with 20 pages of new creatures to encounter. Throughout the book are new story seeds, cyphers, and artifacts.

Many of the existing astronomical objects are ones we can find the analogues for today: the Moon is, well, the Moon, Naharrai is Mars, Urvanas is Venus. However, there are new objects as well, like Branu’s Kiss a globe of blue-green water that orbits between Earth and the Sun. Or Calram, a small object that orbits earth, but is full of beings that have greater tech then the Ninth Worlders enjoy. There’s also a pretty great derelict ship for you to explore.

Beyond our solar system lies more planets, galaxies, and strangeness to explore. These new worlds include some of their history, distinguishing characteristics, and all kinds of ideas to build your own story from. There are also ten more planets that have rudimentary descriptions, which I think are great to use, but also give you an idea on building your own new weird planets.

Each section on a location in this book includes a handy “Using –” panel, with around five plot hooks to pull characters into a situation in that location. I think there’s a lot within the text as well to establish your own ideas for why the adventurers should be here. There’s also information on ways to get there, which can be handy when all the places are light-years apart!

I think there is a nice mix of new creatures, and the book also discusses how to re-skin other Numenera beasties to make them fit beyond Earth.

This book handily includes rules for combat between vessels – some of which was outlined in Worlds Numberless and Strange, but I think it is a valuable addition to Into the Night, especially when there’s always a risk your craft may be attacked by pirates. For ship to ship combat you first compare the levels of the ships, and if your ship is a higher level you have a reduction in the difficulty of actions involving the other ship. If it is lower, then the difficulty is increased. You still make attack and defense rolls, and things like ship weapons and coordination with other ships play into the difficulty as well. Specific maneuvers can also be accomplished by modifying the difficulty. There’s a lot going on to effect the roll, but I think the addition of ship to ship combat can make the game much more interesting.

One thing I found odd is a one place you can visit is called The Gloaming, which is also the name of the Vampire/Werewolf recursion in The Strange. Since the locations have nothing to do with one another, I think a different name would be more appropriate, even if in canon The Strange and Numenera aren’t connected.

One minor complaint I have with the book is the scattered nature of the new Numenera. It makes it a little more difficult to pull out a new artifact without them being gather in one place, and it also can make it difficult to find them again mid-play.

The art in the book is gorgeous, and there is some variation in styles throughout, but I think this serves to give a view of the Ninth World and beyond from other eyes.

I think this book brings a lot into any Numenera game, and is full of great ideas of how to bring Space into your sessions. Into the Night is available from Monte Cook Games as a PDF ($14.99) and Hardback ($39.99). It’s also available from DriveThruRPG as a PDF. You should also look into the beautiful Nightcraft glimmer, which goes into even more detail about a vessel that can by used to traverse space (MCG Store | DriveThruRPG | $2.99).

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Review: Worlds Numberless and Strange

Megan July 23, 2015July 27, 2015 #Megan #Review #The Strange

What will you find as you venture into Earth’s shoals?

Witch covens battle in the mammoth city of Halloween. Nazis struggle to master mythological relics in the Eleventh Reich. T. rexes hunt hominids on the tropical island of Mesozoica, while skyships fend off pirates and predators in the tempestuous cloud seas of Seishin Shore.

In The Strange, recursions—limited pocket dimensions with their own laws of reality—are seeded from human fiction and mythology. A recursor might discover Atlantis, Oz, the Victorian London of Sherlock Holmes, or places even more bizarre and perilous. Worlds Numberless and Strange takes you to dozens of new recursions, where supervillains, dinosaurs, space troopers, killer robots, gods, and other dangers guard wonders and treasures few people on Earth have ever seen!

This week has been an awesome time to be a fan of MCG. The PDF of for the Cypher System was sent out to those who pre-ordered, the Numenera Reliquary boxes are being shipped out, and Worlds Numberless and Strange was released. WNS is a supplement for The Strange, a game that we love quite a bit here at TRF. The Strange imagines an Earth with an unimaginable number of recursions that the adventurers can travel to, including the fantasy world Ardeyn, the sci-fi world Ruk, and more including 221B Baker Street, Innsmouth, and Crow Hollow. There are recursions for almost any imagined fictional world, and all you have to do is imagine it.

Worlds Numberless and Strange provides 70 new recursions to add to your game. Seventeen of these are very well fleshed out with detailed information, history, individuals you might encounter, and artifacts that are present within that recursion. The others are just seeds that the GM can use as a starting point for their own ideas. I really love the table at the beginning of the chapter that the GM can roll on to determine which recursion they might accidentally translate into. I think the recursion seed Aser and I were both the most excited for was R’lyeh, which you can get shot by your superiors for visiting. If you survive that is. No one wants Cthulhu gain the spark and become able to translate.

The new recursion I was most excited about is Microcosmica, which I micro described as those episodes of Magic School Bus where they go inside various students to learn the inner workings of the human body. Aser likened it to Fantastic Voyage, and since they used a quote from the movie at the beginning of the listing, that might be the more accurate representation. But if you think there won’t be a yellow school bus zooming around if I have players show up in Microcosmica you are sorely mistaken. Plus there’s the new descriptor “Becomes Bacterial” which I want with every bit of my biochemist’s heart.

Aser really enjoyed the Rebel Galaxy recursion, inspired by all of your favorite space operas. Since we just encountered Darth Vader in our Strange game, and have recently decided we need a Star Wars game in the Cypher System this recursion is full of some pretty helpful ideas in setting that up. One of the most valuable set of rules provided was those for ship to ship combat, which included ways to take out the enemies ship without necessarily shooting them down.

Other recursions include an alternate reality where the Nazis won, a steampunk Camelot, Atlantis, Zombies, Superheroes, and Dinosaurs. There are plenty more, but I don’t want to give away all of the awesomeness included. Besides this, there’s more information about regions and organizations within Ardeyn and Ruk, as well as new artifacts for those worlds. There are a handful of new descriptors that are tied to the new recursions, including Becomes Bacterial, and some new creatures.

If you’re looking for some new places to take your group, or just some inspiration for your game you should pick up Worlds Numberless and Strange. It’s a beautiful, informative book with lots of plot hooks, individuals to encounter, and worlds to explore. I can’t wait to head to some of those recursions in our own game. It is available from DriveThruRPG and the MCG Store. The PDF is $16.99 and the book is $44.99.

Categories: Cypher System, Reviews, The Strange5 Comments

TRF Favorites: RPG Systems

Megan March 27, 2015March 21, 2016 #Aser #Megan #Night's Black Agents #Numenera #The Strange #Trail of Cthulhu

Of course, we love RPGs here at TRF – and we try to dip our toes into as many systems as possible. However, some of them have a special place in our hearts, and we come back to them time and time again. So, in no particular order, here are our top 5 systems:

1. Numenera. Numenera is actually the longest running campaign we have for TRF – and for good reason. The Ninth World is a treasure trove of weirdness and creativity. The only limit to what can be done is your own creativity. For the main part I’ve only run written adventures for TRF – The Devil’s Spine and Beyond All Worlds. However, the world is open and so easy to integrate into the games. I’ve begun building my own campaign, and going through the Ninth World Guidebook, Core Book, and Bestiary have given me so many ideas of twists and turns to introduce to my characters.

I love the Cypher system as well. It’s all player facing, so the GM rarely has to roll – I only roll to see what cyphers or mutations to hand out to my players. It’s also a d20 system, but doesn’t use modifiers like Pathfinder or D&D. Instead a difficulty is set for each task between 0-10, and the players must roll above the difficulty x 3 in order to succeed. However, they are able to adjust the difficulty, by using effort, spending out of their pools, being trained in the task, or using a cypher. Players earn XP in every session, for playing and through GM intrusions, which means I as the GM offer them XP in exchange for something bad happening to them. The great thing about XP in the Cypher System is that you can spend it. So you roll a one at a crucial moment? You can spend one of your XP to re-roll. Don’t want to take that GM intrusion? Spend an XP to avoid it. I keep finding myself in other systems wishing I could spend that XP for a re-roll, or adjust the difficulty in my favor.

Character creation is also great. There are three archetypes possible: Glaive (the fighter), Nano (the wizard), and Jack (the rogue). Each character gets to pick a descriptor and a foci, so you get to pick characteristics and what is important to your character, and then get the stat bumps to make this possible. When we were going through character creation for the Mysteries of Ninth World, I told the players not to worry about having an even distribution of the character types, because it’s really the foci and descriptors that make and set apart the characters. For instance, Ilvarya and Titania are both Jacks, but they are completely different. And I can’t emphasize enough how easy I find character creation and leveling up. It feels very natural, and there isn’t too much to keep track of.

I’ve run games in a bunch of different systems, and Numenera is far and away my favorite. The world is so interesting and so deep, and like I said the only limit is your own creativity. The books are gorgeous and simply a joy to read through – the little tidbits scattered throughout are so entertaining.
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2. Final Girl. We record several episodes each week and attempt to balance about 18 different schedules to make sure we can get the whole group there each time. With that many people, it shouldn’t be a surprise that sometimes not everyone can show up. When that happens we have The Final Girl to turn to. This is GM-less system that takes about 5 minutes to set up, and all you need is a deck of cards. In a game of Final Girl, you create your own horror movie and get to wallow in all the great tropes that exist. I love horror movies, I love the tropes, and I love pulling them out in this game.

Set up is easy and fun and the rules are very simple. As the game progresses everyone gets a chance to play any of the characters as well as the killer, and it becomes more and more of a bloodbath as the game goes on. The only sticking point we’ve ever hit is that sometimes the card draws mean it takes a long time for the killer to succeed in a scene, but things are set up so that eventually they will kill their victim(s).

Worried you can’t come up with a scenario to play in? The back of the book has 52 possibilities, including “Somehow, you have been sucked into Hell. You are trying to escape because it is obviously not a healthy place to be,” “A scientist or scientists plays God and returns the dead to life. They are not grateful,” and “Dracula.”

This is our go-to game for something quick to play because it is honestly the system we’ve probably had the most wacky fun in.
Sadly the site where we purchased this from isn’t up currently. We’ll keep you updated!
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3. The Strange. A lot of the praises I sung for Numenera can just be applied here. Both games run off the Cypher system, and what works there works just as great here. What is unique and puts the game on this list is the setting. In this version of our world, other realities exist just below the surface of our perceptions where dwell the embodiment of every fictional construct people have ever believed in. Fantasy worlds where lords and ladies live in magnificent castles and knights and magicians do battle with dragons, mad science dystopias where bioengineering runs amuck and people with psionic powers are as common as graduate students, or any number of post-apocalyptic wasteland, all are not only possible but are reachable by people with the ability to interact with The Strange.

The Strange is a long since defunct dark energy construct underlying our reality that once permitted faster than light travel between the stars. Whoever built it isn’t around anymore though, so there’s been no one around to work on upkeep. What’s worse, there are things that live out there in the dark spaces beyond normal space and time, hungry things. Ever wondered why we haven’t found anyone else out there among the stars? The answer is simple: planetvores found them first.

But that’s the big picture. What The Strange means for most people is that you can travel anywhere and do anything, using characters built using the simple yet deep creation system described above. Then, whenever your character goes to another reality, translates to another recursion as they say in game, you manifest in a new body suitable for that reality and get to pick a different focus. Someone who operates undercover on Earth may channel sinfire in the fantasy kingdoms of Ardeyn, or incorporates weapons in the alien recursion of Ruk where mad science reigns. Each place they go, gives characters a contextually appropriate way in which they can be the hero they want to be. In short, The Strange is the ultimate sandbox.
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4. Trail of Cthulhu. In the second episode of The Redacted Files, our brave heroes barely escaped a terrible fate when they were chased off a mountain by its otherworldly inhabitants and their human intermediary. Then they found an entire town flash frozen, its population of 300 souls wiped out in an instant. Then they failed about half a dozen perception checks and the scenario ended because there was nothing else they could do to get the story back on track. What Trail of Cthulhu was meant to address was this very fundamental shortcoming in any system that relies on pure luck for story element. To put it simply, if you need a piece of information to move forward, the Keeper gives it to you.

Trail of Cthulhu isn’t just a straightforward modification of the Call of Cthulhu framework adapted to Robin D. Laws’s terrific Gumshoe Engine though, far from it. Trail seeks to recapitulate everything that is mythos role-playing into a system more suited to procedural investigation, so that the drama switches from will the investigator find the clue to what can the investigator learn from the clues he or she discovers. What this means is that at the end of the day, though they still probably won’t be prepared for it, the players will get to see what it is they were meant to find, rather than wandering around, looking for the plot until the world ends, sometimes literally.

This mentality of automatic success is taken a bit farther with the use of investigative skills, where point spends can be used to gain just a little bit more information, and general point spends that end up working a little like effort in the Cypher System, enabling that spectacular success just at the right moment.

All in all, Trail is a polished experience that makes searching for the truth behind the mythos and the road to insanity so much smoother.
Buy on DriveThruRPG*
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5. Night’s Black Agents. So, what could make Trail of Cthulhu more awesome? What if you replaced the investigators with spies from your favorite espionage thrillers? And what if you replaced Eldritch horrors with vampires behind a global conspiracy with links to the highest levels of the governmental, commercial and criminal elite? Then you’d have an amazingly entertaining roller coaster ride, otherwise known as Night’s Black Agents.

On top of the usual Gumshoe goodness, NBA adds modular vampire creation guidelines, a menu of thriller combat rules, bonuses for players who specialize in certain abilities, guidance on setting up cities in which your agents may wreak havoc and conspiracies whose scope will boggle the players’ minds.

In the hands of a meticulous planner, Night’s Black Agents is a tool that could easily create campaigns that are works of art. In our hands, it makes for a great way to wreck things in new and exciting ways. We can’t wait to share our first adventure at the end of April.
Buy on DriveThruRPG*
Our Episodes – Coming Soon!

*Note: If you purchase these titles from Pelgrane Press, a PDF is included with the book.

–Megan and Aser

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Game Review: Love Letter

Aser Tolentino March 25, 2015March 22, 2015 #Aser #Love Letter

If there is anything I admire most in game design, it is elegant simplicity. The exacting and realistic detail or infinite customizability possible in many games can prove extremely engaging and entertaining, but a game that manages to create a challenging and fun experience with a simple set of rules is truly noteworthy. Of course then, I was very interested in trying Love Letter from AEG, for what could be simpler than a card game for two to four players with only sixteen cards?

The aforementioned cards all represent members of a princess’s household. Each card has a point value and the quantity of that card in the deck printed above a description of its special ability. Each round represents a day in which the princess’s suitors attempt to smuggle a letter into her hands to win her favor. At the beginning of a round, each player is dealt a card. On his or her turn, a player draws a second card and decides which of the two in their hand to discard, which triggers its special ability. At the end of each round, the princess retires to her room to read the successful suitor’s letter and thus improving their chance at courtship, as represented by a small token. Players achieve this by either knocking out all competitors or holding the card with the highest point value when the supply of cards has been depleted. The game ends when a player collects enough tokens, otherwise known as winning the princess’s love and permission to court her.

Each card in the deck offers an interesting way to interact with other players, anything from letting you guess their card for a chance to knock them out, to making them show your their card or even trade cards sight unseen. Of course you could be holding the princess, a card you may only discard at the cost of losing the round but guarantees success if you can make it to the end of the pile of available cards. Megan and I played the game twice with each other and once with my sister. Rounds are typically quite fast as the straightforward set of options presented by play make for a delightfully swift experience. Rounds typically take less than a minute and it is very conceivable to blow through many games in a short sitting. While certainly not brimming with tactical depth, Love Letter manages to stay fresh and exciting through multiple play-throughs, particularly with people you know (and like to screw over at the earliest opportunity.)

This game is highly recommended. It is quite inexpensive with many flavors to choose from, including the recently released Batman version. A blind accessibility kit for the original can be purchased from 64 Ounces Games.*

Available on Amazon

* The accessibility kit from 64 Ounces Games used in this review was won by Megan as a prize in a contest run by 64 Ounces Games paired with a copy of the game donated by AEG.

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Making Games Accessible: Love Letter

Megan February 26, 2015April 30, 2018 #Accessibility #Love Letter #Megan

Recently I won a raffle and got a free copy of the game Love Letter from Alderac Entertainment Games and the accessibility kit made by 64 Oz Games. After learning about 64 Oz Games through Kickstarter, Aser and I have been excitedly following their work – we have Munchkin and Dominion assembled and ready to play and the two braille d20s Aser uses came from them as well. I wanted to show off my winnings, and when I go see Aser next week we’ll post a review for the game.

Each accessibility kit comes with written instructions and QR code to look up the instructions digitally, a set of Grade 2 Braille instructions and descriptions of the cards, plastic card sleeves, and Grade 2 Braille stickers. There’s some work involved to combine this all into an accessible game, but fortunately this game only has 16 cards, not over 500 like Dominion.

Once you have your cards and kit you cut out all of the stickers. I can read Grade 1 Braille visually, but I still ask Aser a lot of questions to make sure I’m sticking the right sticker on in the correct orientation. I made some mistakes when I tried to put together Dominion by myself and it was a pain to correct them.

Once you have your stickers cut out, you can stick them directly on the card or on a card sleeve holding the card. Aser and I decided to put everything on sleeves to protect the cards. The sleeves make the cards slippier, and the Braille causes them not to stack flatly, but that can be fixed by using card holders. The great thing is the stickers are see-through so sighted players can read the cards easily as well.

Once all the cards are in their sleeves you’re ready to go! There isn’t much text on these cards so the Braille fits on them easily. For other games, like Munchkin, the Braille is a short descriptor of the card and we were given QR code stickers to put on the back that Aser can scan to get the full description.

We’re huge fans of 64 Oz Games and the work they do to make it so Aser and I can enjoy all the board games we want. You can find them on their website, or support them on Patreon. Thanks so much for the free kit! And a special thanks to Alderac Entertainment Group for the copy of the game. We can’t wait to play and we’ll let you know how it goes next week.

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Glimmer Review: In Strange Aeons

Megan February 25, 2015August 17, 2015 #Megan #Numenera #Review

Ever sat back and looked at your cypher-wielding party battling abhumans and thought, “you know what this needs, something really weird…” If so, In Strange Aeons may be just what you’re looking for. In Strange Aeons is a Numenera glimmer released by Monte Cook Games that introduces the Mythos into the Ninth World. So it’s pretty much the best of all worlds for me.

ISA introduces new character options, Mythos monsters, creature re-skins, and mechanics for adding insanity to your game of Numenera. I added some of these to the Beyond All Worlds side quest that I ran. I also plan to pour more of it into the Mysteries of the Ninth World campaign as we continue into an adventure of my own design.

Insanity Mechanic:

I think this is handled very cleverly. Instead of adding a new pool to track (like the stability and sanity pools in Trail of Cthulhu), ISA uses the character’s existing intellect pool. Using their mechanic, when ever the party encounters something from the Mythos, they must make a sanity roll where the difficulty is equal to the level of the creature. This means upon encountering a Shoggoth they must make a difficulty 7 role. If they fail the roll, they lose a number of intellect points equal to the level of the creature. If a character moves down the damage track due to sanity loss, she immediately loses a point permanently from her pool and regains 1d6 +1 points back. If she loses all of her intellect pool, the character loses their own descriptor and gains the Mad descriptor. They also get to increase their pool to 1d6 + tier and gain an intellect edge. If they lose all of their pool again, then the character cannot recover.
ISA also offers ideas for GM intrusions for your characters as they encounter they Mythos and encourages players to decide to switch over to the Mad descriptor if they feel that is the way their character is going. You can also introduce inabilities as characters grow obsessive, which is balanced by increasing another skill, like knowledge in a certain area.

Character Option:

ISA introduces two new character descriptors – Mad and Doomed. Mad comes into play within the Insanity mechanic, and when a character drops low enough in Intelligence they take the mad descriptor in place of the one they chose at charaacter creation. This descriptor causes the character to become less mentally stable – they gain an inability in intellect defense. However, they also can be given insight by the GM that will give them information that they have no reason to know. The other descriptor added is Doomed. Doomed gives you benefits for perception and speed defense, and you have an asset to resist insanity. However you can’t refuse a GM intrusion, and you don’t get XP when you take one. To quote the glimmer, “The universe is a cold, uncaring place, and your efforts are futile at best.”

Creature Reskins:

If you don’t want to use one of the plethora of Mythos monsters given in the books, you can improve an existing one using the skins provided, which include Non-Euclidian, Squamos, Tentacular, and Unnamable. For instance, if I want to have a Squamos abhuman, they gain +1 to their armor, and have improved abilities in swimming, jumping, and escaping. However, they will have a harder time peacefully influencing people.

Creature Stats:

ISA gives stats for Deep Ones (and therein, stats for Dagon and Mother Hydra), The Great Race of Yith, Mi-Go, and Shoggoths. (The Strange Bestiary introduces even more Mythos goodness including Night Gaunts and Elder Things). I think moving forward I will edit the stats a bit – I thought the Shoggoth was too easy for my party to defeat in Beyond All Worlds. By increasing the hit points and its armor, I think it will become more terrifying.

Conclusion

I think ISA really understands how to add the Mythos to a game. Monte Cook states his intent:

Making something “Lovecraftian” doesn’t just mean adding more tentacles. It isn’t just about monsters from space. Lovecraftian horror is cosmic horror. It is the terror that comes from the realization that the universe is vast, inhospitable, and uncaring. Humanity’s desire to find our place in it is fruitless. We have no place. We are insignificant and meaningless specks in the unfathomable reaches of both space and time. Worse, there are entities so monstrous and vast that should we come to comprehend them—even a little—we would go mad, and should they ever notice us, they might destroy us with but a thought.
This fits Numenera particularly well, actually. Humans of the Ninth World who begin to think about the billion or so years behind them, and the immense civilizations that have come and gone in that time— each so much greater than the Ninth World that humans can’t even comprehend them—can easily begin to feel the grip of cosmic horror.

The glimmer is full of tips on how to run a good horror game and how to really bring the Mythos to life in your game. Making something Lovecraftian isn’t just about introducing tentacles, like In Strange Aeons says, it’s a feeling that this glimmer will help you invoke.

In Strange Aeons is written by Monte Cook and is available on DriveThruRPG and Monte Cook Games for $2.99.

–Megan

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Game Review: Lovecraftian Shorts

Aser Tolentino February 23, 2015February 23, 2015 #Aser #Lovecraftian Shorts #Review

H.P. Lovecraft, as a man and author, has inspired a great deal of controversy in the days since his death. However unpleasant his views may have been when seen from a more enlightened point of view though, he doubtlessly occupies a unique place in the world of horror fiction. From subtle psychological torment, to pulse-pounding chases, Lovecraft’s stories could easily place you up against world-destroying fiends and leave you to wonder what really just happened? Now, the rules light game Lovecraftian Shorts gives you and two friends the chance to invent such a tale of your very own: don’t forget to use the word cyclopian.

As might be expected, gameplay begins with character creation, something so simple that it can be rolled randomly. You can use as much or as little of the suggested character creation tables as you like. When combined with a d10, they can provide your character with a first and last name, an occupation, a hobby, and a signature piece of equipment. None of these details have any mechanical impact on the game whatsoever. They can help inform your decisions though in how to play your character. For our playthrough, Rob was a criminal who liked fishing and carried a magnifying glass. Megan was a writer who collected thimbles and carried a newspaper. And I was a priest who enjoyed falconry, who for some reason, carried a grappling hook. Megan and I rolled the same last name, so we played as brother and sister.

With characters established, players move onto the game proper. The story unfolds in nine scenes, with players taking turns until each has narrated the events of three. Each scene has a title, determined either at the beginning of the game or on the fly. Similar to Fiasco, the player who has the spotlight narrates the scene while he or she plays his or her character just like the other players.

Unlike Fiasco’s voting mechanic, the narrator elects a point when success or failure of his character would be pivotal to progress of the story. He or she then rolls a d10 to determine success. A score of 8 or better yields success. The score can be increased by any character choosing to employ one of their bonuses to confer a one time boost to a roll. If failure cannot be avoided, the player can elect to either be hurt or go insane. Each confers a penalty to all subsequent rolls. The twist is that insanity leads to success. If the challenge is not dealt with, it falls on the next player in turn to overcome the obstacle. The scene does not end until success is achieved. Luckily, penalties do not stack. however, if a character is both hurt and insane, and rolls less than an 8 again, they die.

When the ninth scene ends, the story is over. The game can be played in about an hour and flows quickly once the players internalize the rather straightforward rule set. This is a game best suited to smaller scope adventures, as nine scenes really isn’t much to work with all things considered. We had trouble coming up with appropriate scene titles at the outset, but did better as we went. With bonuses expended and all characters mad and hurt, the concluding scene made for a chaotic and dangerous end to the story.

Some may be put off by the limit of one die roll per scene, or the free-form nature of the storytelling. Players may veto any narration of what their character is doing, or anything that goes against the flow of the story when they are acting as narrator. In our play-through, Rob, Megan and I:

1. Went to the beach and saw Deep Ones rise from the sea,
2. Climbed up a rope with the help of a mysterious stranger to reach a car and flee,
3. Raced through a town overrun by monsters,
4. Talked our way through a military blockade,
5. Encountered the mysterious man again and noticed something odd about him,
6. Remembered the man’s true nature at the cost of Rob’s sanity,
7. Defended against an attack by the mysterious man come to silence any witnesses to his true form,
8. Convinced the military not to use Rob as a means of locating the evil entity behind the attacks,
9. Unsuccessfully failed to fight off final attack and died dragging the menace down into the sea.

When players work together in this game and are familiar with each others’ styles, it is very easy to build momentum and pile on the gory details. The game can be a lot of fun as three makes for an easy conversational feel with everyone getting a turn to pitch in their two cents. And as with other improvisational, GM-less games, it is remarkably surprising how satisfying the ending can be.

Lovecraftian Shorts makes for an easy recommendation, particularly at its very modest asking price. It makes for an ideal game when groups are short a player or three friends merely want to kill an hour with some fun, light role-play. It is highly recommended.

Our play through was released as an episode earlier this year. You can buy the game for $1.99 at DriveThruRPG.

Rob Weeks is the driving force behind the Balls and Bayonets Brigade Podcast. You can find him at @ZombieSlag on Twitter or @FireflyPodcast.

–Aser

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You gotta have FAITH (The Sci-Fi RPG)

John D'Auteuil February 20, 2015April 9, 2015 #Faith RPG #John #Kickstarter #Review

Review:

FAITH is an innovative indie science fiction role-playing game (now crowd-funding through Kickstarter that is distinguished by the use of cards rather than dice. The art is stunning and the production values are solid. The character board and replaceable tokens, coupled with Gear cards, make character sheets obsolete and save time and room at the table; a ‘paperless pen-and-paper RPG.’

If you follow me or The Redacted Files on social media, you’ve seen me spamming, errr promoting, this game hard. I stumbled across an early announcement about a month before the Kickstarter and I was intrigued. Like many role-players, I have a few die-hard games I support but I’m always curious about new games. @TRFPodcast is always trying new things, and has broadened my RPG experience; I thought I’d give FAITH a try.

The beta print and play is free to download, and is a great intro to the gritty alternate universe one thousand years in our future. The game is very simple to grasp and fun to play, and probably a good intro to RPGs, especially if the prospective players enjoy board games.

Each player and the GM in FAITH has a gorgeous custom deck of cards (the standard box set comes with four) but a standard poker deck can be substituted- a nice compromise, and the updated core rulebook will be free to download. Characters are from one of three distinct races (more may be added as stretch goals or future expansions) and possess Attributes from 1 to 3. The attribute in play (say Dexterity to shoot a gun) determines how many cards from a hand of 7 cards (8 for Humans) the player can lay down in one action. Skills from 0 to 9 (in the previous example it would be Ballistics) are added to the cards in play to determine the Action Value, or who wins in a Confrontation. The Confrontation is one of the core elements of FAITH gameplay. Actions mostly automatically succeed unless the GM wants to challenge the PC or thinks it would be interesting for story purposes for there to be a chance for failure (or dramatic success.) This is a concept familiar to the Cypher System, where the rules get out of the way to focus on building the narrative, and come into play for brief periods of excitement. Confrontations are any opposed action, whether a firefight, hacking a network, or piloting a ship through a storm. Be forewarned that combat is extremely lethal, and a key part of success in any Confrontation is to convince the GM you have an Advantage, for example hidden from view/behind cover, or that your foe is at a Disadvantage (also known as Inferiority) to avoid death or drastic failure.

The really fascinating thing about cards vs dice is that the randomness of dice is gone, and it becomes less about luck and more of a resource management like GUMSHOE. Do you spend some low cards now, and hope to succeed or possibly draw a high card next, or do you throw down cards that ensure success this Confrontation and risk failure later in the mission?

In a nutshell, that’s all you need to know! I ran through some combat simulations with my seven year old; he enjoyed it, could follow the rules, and is eager to play a full game!

So while the game is easy to learn, there is still a good deal of character customization available even before you add the high tech gear to include stealth suits and plasma rifles (special shout out to the ‘Diaperer’ gun- read the beta!)

The spin, and the reason for a sci-fi game to bear the name FAITH, is that in this game of amazing technology there is yet a group of Gods who exist within their followers and seek to expand their influence; follow your God’s rules and you may be blessed with powerful divine gifts, but know that your fate is in the hands of the God you follow. Failure to uphold the faith can cost you the favor of a God, often at the worst time. The Gods are also of course at the root of much of the sentient races’ struggles for dominance in the universe. Of concern for the PCs are the entropic goals of Ledger and its desire to bring about chaos and destruction.

The game of FAITH is open to any sort of high-tech adventure such as social intrigue, exploration, or military action but lends itself particularly to black ops infiltration, hacking, and espionage. The two powerhouse races, the Corvo and the Iz’kal, are locked in a cold war for control of the Labyrinth, a naturally occurring nexus of wormholes that is key to mastery of the known universe and expansion beyond. Humans are second class subjects, but respected for their strength, resilience and skill as mercenaries. We are wildcards and the ‘wookies’ of FAITH!

I enjoyed the sample beta materials that Burning Games provided on their website, and while it is notably very well written for a team whose first language is Spanish, I found some areas that were unclear or awkwardly worded. I contacted them offering to do some proofreading, and a collaboration was born! I’ve had the chance to make some small impact on the background and it’s been rewarding. The creative team is amazing; they are really eager to succeed, with a strong social media presence, and they are very responsive to questions or suggestions about their product.

From the revisions and evolution of gameplay I’ve seen, a great beginning is already shaping up to an excellent product that I am happy to back at the basic game level, which includes a box with 4 player decks & boards, NPC deck, Gear deck, a pile of tokens and the core rulebook for $70. I’ve never spent more than $15 on a Kickstarter before, so this should signify that I really believe in the game!

There’s no customs fee in the EU, and shipping is free in the US!

Please chip in and help a new company launch an awesome game so we can play (I promise a game on The Redacted Files Actual Play Podcast) and not only see FAITH get funded, but become a successful product line for the future!

As of this writing they are a little over 35% funded with 20 days to go; we can do this!

Thank you for reading

-John
(Known to have aided the ‘Human Liberation Front’)

Some links:

Official Website
Kickstarter Page
@burning_games
Google+
YouTube

Playtests podcasts:
@notaninn
@therpgacademy (features Carlos of the Burning Games crew!)

Categories: Blog Posts, ReviewsLeave a comment

Game Review: Mars Colony

Aser Tolentino February 11, 2015December 16, 2015 #Aser #Mars Colony #Review

Mars Colony, those two words can evoke so much, and have over the years. From frontier exploration, to colonial oppression, to an excuse to shoot things, Mars Colony has served as the canvas for a great many visions of what might be. Tim C. Koppang’s Mars Colony takes yet another approach that’s summed up nicely by its tagline: the role-playing game for two players, about personal failure and government.

This is explicitly a two player game, with one person taking on the role of the protagonist, called the Savior, and the other, called the Governor, embodying all the obstacles the Savior must overcome. The Savior is either a man or a woman, named Kelly Perkins. Much of the game centers on the impact of the games events on him or her. Since Megan played the Savior during our play-through for The Redacted Files Podcast I will refer to Kelly as her through the rest of the review.

Set up is quick and easy, but does involve some thought. The players must sketch out in broad strokes four political parties, what they stand for generally and how much power they have. Characters encountered during the story may belong to one party or another, influencing their interactions with the Savior. Each player also writes three fears he has about the government on cards which are placed face down and shuffled. Two of these are revealed and help characterize the problems besetting the colony and can serve as inspiration for scenes. The Savior selects a Sympathy, a character with whom she has a special connection. Lastly, players decide on three health indicators for the colony, the conditions that the Savior must fix to stabilize the situation.

Play is relatively straightforward. After an opening vignette, the players start taking turns. The Governor can establish either an Opposition Scene, in which he narrates how the problems of the colony are about to impede the Savior’s progress, or a Personal Scene, in which both players engage in free-form role play about the Savior’s reactions to the events of the game. The Savior can also establish Personal Scenes, or can choose to narrate a Progress Scene. In a Progress Scene, she narrates what she is doing to resolve the problem, then rolls two dice to see how well she does. The sum of the dice are points that go to the goal of stabilizing the situation. She can roll as many times as she likes, but each roll comes with the possibility of failure, represented by a 1 on either die, which erases all progress for the scene. The game mechanics force the Savior to take risks to actually achieve her goals. If she fails, she loses progress made in that scene and the colonists admiration shifts to contempt, too much of which will see her removed. To avoid contempt, she can lie, keeping the progress she’s achieved in a scene before the failure. The more she lies though, the greater the chance of being caught. After her first lie, a roll of snake eyes will lead to scandal and the discovery of her lies, a 1 and either 1 or 2 after the second, 1 and 1, 2 or 3 after the third, and so forth. Scandal erases all progress won through lies and a whole lot of contempt. After the Savior narrates the ninth progress scene or is removed by the colonists, the game is over. The Savior narrates her personal aftermath, while the governor narrates the eventual fate of the colony based on the Savior’s actions.

In our play-through, Megan stepped into the role of Kelly Perkins. Mars Colony on her arrival faced rampant corruption, out of control crime and poor nutrition. Her Sympathy was Alex McPherson, a former lover who she’d known when they worked on the initial setup for the colony and left behind to be the public face for the colonization project back on Earth. She first tried to tackle corruption, but had to lie when she failed to get the mayor on-board with her plan, rolling well on the first attempt but getting a 1 when she tried for more points. She stayed on corruption in subsequent scenes, winning over people with an impassioned speech. She then shifted to crime, trying to build people’s confidence in their government’s ability to protect them. She pushed her luck again though and had to lie to cover up just how badly that went. Corruption and crime intertwined with the last indicator when criminals stole a food shipment. Megan inspired the colonists by setting a good example and actually shamed many of the thieves to give back what they’d taken, and hoarders to share what they’d been keeping back. Along the way, she took solace in Alex’s companionship and shared her growing misgivings with him. Eventually she called in the military to seize suspected criminals identified through covert surveillance (one of the fears on the cards)in a way that kept local government’s hands clean. To clench the deal, she made an arrangement with one of the captive gang leaders to push crime out of the public eye and stabilize that indicator. The great thing about indicators is that once you solve a problem, another comes up to take its place. Megan was then beset by failing atmospheric processors. While trying to finally settle the colony’s nutrition problem though, she had a scandal and much of her success was undone just one round before the endgame. She struck at corruption with her last scene, naming names and calling out the bad apples before leaving with her work undone. The result for the colony was a middling existence, stumbling along as an expression of humanity’s stubbornness that was too big to fail. Kelly Perkins left with Alex to enjoy a quiet retirement and obscurity.

With two players who are comfortable with one another, a game like this flows out with a constant give and take that is difficult to recreate with larger groups. Both players are always on, either speaking or actively listening so they know where they’ll put the next piece of the puzzle. It’s a style of game-play that I’d highly encourage everyone to try, especially if you have a significant other who is also into the hobby or who might be engaged by a more personal experience.

This is a product very much of its time, as evidenced by the two quotes from George W. Bush and Barack Obama that introduce the game. Its elegant yet engaging mechanics can prompt some thought about bigger questions for those apt to engage in such, particularly the difficult choices faced by anyone trying to accomplish anything in the world of modern politics. Regardless though, it’s a great way for two people to spend an hour or two together, creating a powerful story.

Mars Colony was a runner-up for 2010 Indy Game of the Year. You can get the PDF for just $6.00. Find out more from the author’s website: http://www.tckroleplaying.com/marscolony/

Categories: Blog Posts, Mars Colony, Reviews1 Comment

Game Review: The Strange

Aser Tolentino January 13, 2015February 23, 2015 #Aser #Review #The Strange

One of the greatest things to come from starting The Redacted Files, though nothing in comparison to meeting Megan of course, was the discovery of just how diverse the tabletop gaming genre really is. We’ve tried something like a dozen games sofar, and bought tons more. I’m new to the whole space, so it’s not like I’ve had time to get tired of anything yet: but even so, I did start to wonder at how many games used D20, and how many did it in essentially the same way. And don’t get me wrong, it’s very fun, but how many games are there that have skills based on attributes that modify a D20 roll? There are versions of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Call of Cthulhu that work the same way as Dungeons & Dragons. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, but variety is good. And nothing seemed so different yet familiar as Numenèra.

Numenèra’s Cypher System is a marvel of elegant simplicity. Your health is tied up in three point pools: might, speed, and intellect that deplete in that order when you take damage. If a pool reaches zero, you become less capable to the point that you’re essentially only able to crawl away when you have points in just one. But that’s not all, aside from getting training, using equipment or coming up with circumstantial reasons (I have the high ground) for making your rolls easier, you can choose to burn points from your pools. It’s terrific to see it in action, as players run through the cost/benefit analysis on the fly and bet it all for the big win, trading in their half their might points for extra damage or to guarantee a hit with that superweapon they’ve been keeping in their back pocket, or ensure that official definitely sees things their way.

Aside from rolling in skill challenges and combat, the Cypher System handles everything else in a similarly abstracted but meaningful way.. How much your character is carrying doesn’t matter unless it’s important to the plot, all weapons of a given category always do the same damage be they heavy crossbow or greatsword so long as they hit. And distances are described as merely being immediate, short or long.

As far as a GM’s ability to tell an interesting story, there are a few more interesting twists. the experience system works off of discoveries and plot developments players encounter in game: and, the points they earn can be cashed in for more immediate benefits than character improvement like re-rolling a result or having the benefit of a skill for a limited time. What truly set Numenèra apart though, was that the game master does not roll. Instead she sets difficulties for tasks, which the players must roll against. Trying to bluff a town guard, roll against his ability to sense deception. Need to avoid having an angry mutant cave your head in with a maul, roll speed defense against his creature level, plus any applicable bonuses and penalties. It is one of those systems that seeks to get out of the way and let the GM and the players try to tell a good story. Where it succeeds better than most in my opinion, is that it remains a fun game while doing so.

So we all fell in love with Numenèra. The game had a brilliant system and was set in an incredibly well-realized science fantasy world a billion years in the future where high technology from past civilizations is as little understood and tenuously controlled as magic in the hands of people scrabbling to survive in otherwise medieval conditions. We played several sessions of it on the podcast and loved it: but then I began to wonder, what would it be like to run Star Trek in this? 😛 And then Monte Cook Games brought us The Strange, and we found out.

Now, we could find out what it was like to be crewmen on a starship exploring the galaxy, or knights on an epic quest, or scientists racing to discover the cure to a zombie virus, all in the same game. Because in The Strange, practically every fictional reality believed in by enough people is real, somewhere in the Strange: a network of dark energy older than Earth itself and underlying our own plain of existence. And for people who are “quickened,” going to those other worlds is as easy as closing your eyes and thinking yourself there. It’s not quite that simple of course, and there are dangers involved, not least of which is the ever present threat of planetary annihilation from residents of the Strange hungry for new worlds to devour. Ever wondered why we seem to be alone in the universe? They’re why. What’s worse, everyone who’s learned of the Strange, from greedy recursion miners to shady government agencies are out to use what they can buy, borrow or steal from handy recursions or even the Strange itself here on Earth.

So how does it play? You can hear our actual plays here. As of this writing, we’ve run half a dozen sessions and all involved seem determined to run several more. I ran the adventure included in the core book for a scratch group and have been spinning a yarn for our players ever since that I hope listeners have found entertaining. Not having to roll is very liberating, as it gies me the freedom to try to keep ahead of the players as they react to the fluid situation created by the dice rolls. I like to think this makes me less vulnerable to dramatic die rolls as I can adjust difficulty on the fly as things happen. Also, throwing in creatures to fight or NPCs to interact with is as easy as coming up with a creature level. The world provided for players to explore are well-populated with people to interact with, monsters to slay, and plenty of hooks to drag players into long sessions full of questionable choices. Unfortunately, since the book is about as long as that for Numenèra but with infinitely (literally) more worlds to cover, there isn’t as much detail, including really important things like foci specific to the different kinds of recursions you’ll encounter. Moreover, many included recursions are the thinnest of skeletons that require the GM to fill in a lot of blanks. This is the sort of thing that can be addressed with supplements though. And if the recently released Bestiary and the way Numenèra have been supported are any indication, there’ll be plenty more to chew on in short order.

In short, I’ve fallen in love with the game, but just wish there was more of it, and cannot wait for more Cypher System games and the forthcoming system rule book so I can try coming up with a setting just for TRF.

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