Tag: Review

Game Review: Lovecraftian Shorts

Aser Tolentino # # #

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 # # # #

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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!

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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!)

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Game Review: Mars Colony

Aser Tolentino # # #

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/

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Why The Cypher System is a Blind GM’s Best Friend

Aser Tolentino # # # # #

One of the principal selling points for the Cypher System is the ease with which a GM can pick it up and be running epic games of action, intrigue and suspense in just minutes. The thing is, that many of the steps that Monte Cook Games took to achieve this happens to make the game a dream to run as someone with a visual impairment.

Simplified Movement:
Distances in the Cypher System are abstracted to immediate (within arms reach), short (10 to 50 feet), long (50 to 100 feet), and beyond 100 feet. This means that out of the box, the system doesn’t rely on movement grids, map squares or require you to establish ranges. Moreover, line-of-sight and other conditions are defined solely by the narrative. This means that with an imaginative group of players involved in the story the GM is telling, combat can move smoothly without having to manipulate miniatures or tokens as part of the core experience.

Simplified Bonuses and Penalties
My Cavalier in Pathfinder often has bonuses to his attack roll from his strength, the weapon he wields, abilities he and other party members are using, and circumstances of combat: so he can have a +9 to to a d20 roll as a level 3 character. The Cypher System’s measure of difficulty, in steps ranging from 0 to 10 with training, assets and circumstances decreasing the difficulty by steps, and bonuses only ever adding 1 or 2 to a roll makes managing the math at the table a trifling concern. I grew up having to manage complex equations in my head, but I’m glad that when I’m telling players what to roll, I don’t have to with the Cypher System.

The GM DOES NOT Roll:
Accessible dice rolling apps and random number generators aren’t that hard to find, and there are now even Braille dice on the market, but what requires even less time- not having to roll at all. The GM sets targets for the players to roll against, and when non-player characters enter combat against one another, players are designated to roll for them. It’s an elegant distribution of responsibilities that keeps the story flowing nicely while preserving the gaming aspect of the experience for the players.

Braille d20 from 64 oz Games
Braille d20 from 64 oz Games

All of this makes running The Strange for the podcast a breeze. I’m still what I’d consider a novice player, let alone a GM, so I think I’m still prone to making simple mistakes. But the consequences to the experience for the players I think have been far less than they could have been thanks to the features of the Cypher System. Blind or otherwise, if you’re interested in making the jump from running a character to running a game, I’d urge you to consider Numenèra or The Strange as terrifically accessible starting points, in more ways than one.

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Game Review: The Strange

Aser Tolentino # # #

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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