Games

Minireview: Termination Quota Exceeded (Paranoia)

I’ve generally liked the new Paranoia books a lot, but I have to say this one is one of the best (or at least funniest) collections of scenarios I’ve read in a good long while.

Termination Quota Exceeded is a slim collection of three scenarios for Paranoia “Internal Security”, where the PCs play members of the Alpha Complex police force. While the action at times resembles the mayhem lowly Troubleshooters get up to, Troopers are trusted by the Computer to be professional and do their jobs efficiently (hence the Blue security rating). Of course, the Computer is also batshit insane and has little idea of what really goes on behind the scenes.

The first romp is titled “Where’s the Beef?”, and it has the PCs chasing after… something which has escaped from a (probable) biological testing facility. The fact that the “something” very possibly has rows and rows of sharp teeth, excretes acid, and otherwise in no way resembles a well-known horror movie critter is totally irrelevant (and above their security rating, anyway). It has escaped, and the PCs have to recover it. Fast. Before it causes serious damage to Alpha Complex, no to mention their prospects for advancement (and avoiding termination). To make things more “interesting”, they have various totally contradictory orders on what to do about the situation. It’s hilarious, and definitely not too serious… included are jokes about Warhammer games, including people with Spiky Chaos Bits. As the scenario states, “in Alpha Complex nobody cares if you scream”.

Next up is “The Survivor”, which is heavily influenced by The Prisoner (as noted in the scenario), even though it’s not a 1:1 Prisoner spoof. The PCs chase a suspect down twisty transtubes, all alike, until they crash in a weird subterranean village, occupied by very strange people. Perhaps mutants, perhaps commies, but decidedly lacking the protection of Friend Computer. The PCs get to decide what to do: accept fate and begin a new life harvesting mushrooms and avoiding Grues (which lurk in the darkness), try to escape (avoiding said Grues), take over the village (and do what, exactly?), or something completely different. To make things interesting, the scenario has a bunch of different explanations for “what’s really going on” for the GM to choose from, or just roll a die if undecided. All explanations get separate writeups as regards to how certain NPCs behave and what happens if the PCs do different things. It’s almost multiple scenarios in one, and pretty impressive as such. Reads like it should be a lot of fun, and it’s also a nice curve ball to throw at players who may be a bit jaded with “standard missions”. This is anything but.

Lastly there is the titular “Termination Quota Exceeded”, where a bureaucratic snafu causes the PCs to get tasked with terminating a lot of known traitors. A lot. And fast, they only have a few hours before they get in trouble for disobeying the Computer. Trouble is, they only have their standard termination quotas for the job (since said snafu is totally separate from those). So they need to terminate a vast horde of traitors without using up their termination quota, and do it on a timetable. Impossible? Bah, I’m sure the players will think of something creative. How hard can it be to “accidentally” kill someone in Alpha Complex, anyway?

Especially the first two scenarios are very strong, and the last one isn’t bad either. The first two could be converted to “standard” Troubleshooter missions without too much work, while the last one really depends on the quota mechanics in “Internal Security” and doesn’t really work outside that.

(Very) good stuff, recommended. Also funny as hell to read. […]

Minireview: War of the River Kings (Pathfinder #35)

War of the River Kings (by Jason Nelson) forms the penultimate part of the sandboxy “Kingmaker” adventure path. It’s yet anoher strong segment, in fact I think it’s one of the best parts so far. As the name implies, war comes rolling in and the PCs (as assumed rulers of a small kingdom) need to do something about it. This book presents a ruleset for running mass combat in Pathfinder; I don’t play Pathfinder myself so I have no idea how workable it is, but it does look straightforward enough. Using that ruleset, you can actually run a small-scale war, with meaningful PC input, and have rules to resolve the battles. That’s very cool.

It’s not all warfare here; in fact, things start quite peacefully. The PCs are invited to an annual tournament organized by a nearby small kingdom, and are assumed to accept (though the module does discuss what happens if they refuse, also). Various things escalate, and pretty soon the PCs will (probably) have a war in their hands. They might be able to avert it, but it’s frankly unlikely and requires them to have set up quite a formidable intelligence network… not an impossible thing, of course.

The clues found here are mostly lead-ons to the last installment, in which the major Bad Guy (assumedly) takes center stage. Since that party have been operating “from the shadows” up to this point, it’s quite suitable to leave the resolution of that to the last segment. Of course, the GM has had lots of previous opportunities to sprinkle tiny clues here and there, which would give some foreshadowing.

I wasn’t quite sure how a “sandbox adventure path” would work as a concept, initially, but I’d say that Paizo has nailed it here. There are plot hooks galore and a ton of minor and major crisis events, but the PCs are still free to explore and do things at their own pace. I also like the fact that long periods of “downtime” are assumed (multiple years, at times). This makes the formation of a new kingdom into what previously was only forest much more believable, and it also gives the players a nice sense of accomplishment; a tiny trading post they established might blossom into a successful trading hub, for example. I also like the use of NPC lower-level leaders, and the importance of appointing them wisely. […]

Minireview: Curse of the Riven Sky (Pathfinder)

There were some expectations set up for Curse of the Riven Sky, since it’s written by well-known rpg writer and designer Monte Cook. Unfortunately, it’s simply not very good, even ignoring who the writer is. Taking that into account… it’s quite a letdown, to be honest.

The plot feels like the author just threw together some “cool” ideas, without much rhyme of reason. There are spectral entities “from beyond”, rain that transforms into gelatinous cubes, flying castles (and air barges), angry giants… any of those might be fine by itself, but here it just feels like a collection of stuff that doesn’t fit together very well and is also an ill fit for Golarion (Pathfinder’s game world). It feels very much like an old AD&D module, and not in a good way. The main backstory driver is a horde of extradimensional cats, for fuck’s sake, and it doesn’t get very much better from there. It’s also extremely linear.

It’s not all bad, of course. The beginning hook is nicely open and designed to be integrated smoothly into an ongoing campaign, and many of the minor events are ok as such. It’s just that the whole here is much less than the sum of its parts.

Meh. […]

Minireview: Eisenhorn, by Dan Abnett

Game fiction is not something that generally inspires visions of quality, or even basic competence. For every decent-to-good book, there are probably hundreds of abominations that, to quote someone, should not be taken lightly… they should be hurled across the room with great force. Sure, good game fiction does exist. The Over the Edge novel Pierced Heart was pretty good, as was the Unknown Armies book Godwalker. The game Delta Green is also know for excellent fiction, as is Cthulhu in general. However, the amount of crap is still overwhelming; most of the World of Darkness stuff is mostly fit to be used as campfire fodder, and the less said about D&D books the better.

Sure, I’ve been know to read some game novels with no expectations of literary value, just to get some ideas for game plots and some basic feel for how the game world operates. Exalted fiction goes into this category; while none of the books are all that great as such (and a few are quite crappy), they do tend to be fun and fast reading and they do give you nice snapshots into the game world. Same for some World of Darkness stuff – the “Clan Novel” series for Vampire was horrible gibberish (with a few rare good moments), but it did give some fun illumination about the metaplot and I read it pretty much purely for that.

Anyway, I’m now running a small-scale Dark Heresy game, with game world info based purely on what I’ve read from the roleplay books (which do have lots of very decent information, admittedly). I’ve also heard that some of the Warhammer 40k fiction is actually quite decent, and that Dan Abnett is probably the best author in that genre. So I went out and bought the Eisenhorn Omnibus, a huge brick of a book which collects the linked novels Xenos, Malleus and Hereticus, with two additional short stories as links between the books.

Verdict? It was actually pretty good. Purely as a science fiction book, I’d rate it decent; the writing is competent but only that, and a bit too much time is sometimes spent in describing the exact weapons and armor the different characters are using (some portions feel a bit “gamish”). However, the plot is quite interesting and provides lots of twists and turns, along with a few real surprises. Bonus points go to the locale descriptions, some of the action here takes place in extremely inventive and weird locations. In short, a quite readable action romp into a weird far-future world. It’s told in first-person mode, which I liked but others might not.

As gaming fiction, this is quite excellent, ranking alongside the Delta Green books (and a few others) as among the best in that genre that I’ve read. I’m actually considering reading some other books from the same author (the Ravenor series, maybe). Also, it provided me with lots of world color and things that I didn’t get from the roleplay source material, which is a nice bonus. Of course, this is one author’s take on the 40k universe… but that’s always the case.

In Dark Heresy terms, the PCs would be Eisenhorn’s retinue of staff, his assistants. Looking at the survival rate of those… well, at least life is interesting (if short).

The books tell the story of one Gregor Eisenhorn, an Inquisitor of Ordo Xenos, tasked with rooting out vile alien corruption in the Empire. In the beginning he is a self-described puritan and hardliner, with little understanding or sympathy for the “radical” factions, those that try to compromise and possibly use alien and/or heretical means to fight those same factions. Fight after desperate fight, while members of his retinue die around him, he survives to slowly change his view on what is justifiable and what is not. Linked to Gregor’s destiny is an alien being calling itself Cherubael; probably a demon, it has plans of its own and Eisenhorn is somehow entwined in how events are meant to play out. Of course, a willful Inquisitor is not an easy chess piece to manipulate, and the hunter can easily become the hunted.

It’s a huge book, both in page count and in scope. The time span involved is around 300 years and the tone changes all the time. At times almost military science fiction, at times detective story, at times scenes of almost domestic tranquility, it shows that Inquisitors are complex people, surrounded by a staff of equally complex (and usually competent) people. It’s mostly a dark and grim affair, but there are touches of humor here and there, and near the end it almost verges on superhuman antics; the hero casually swats aside bullets with a sword, for example. It’s no ordinary sword to be sure, but still… like the whole 40k game world, it’s a strange mix of grim & gritty and overblown & campy. Mostly, I liked it, quite a bit.

The only problem here is that I’ve been given to understand that this book (or this omnibus collection) represents the best of the 40k fiction, so I’m not likely to encounter anything better later on. On the other hand, I’m quite happy with just something “as good”. […]

Minireview: The Kerberos Club (Wild Talents)

Wild Talents (published by Arc Dream) has slowly grown into an impressive “alternative superhero roleplaying” game engine. Running on the “One Roll Engine” (ORE), it consists of the base book (“Wild Talents”, now in its 2nd edition) and a number of wildly different setting books. The Kerberos Club by Benjamin Baugh is one of these settings… and it’s absolutely brilliant. Yes, it’s a superhero game, but it’s very different from what you’d normally associate with that.

To start things off, it’s set during the reign of Queen Victoria, in England; think more along the lines of “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” than anything from Marvel or DC. England (and the world) has slowly started to understand that weird supernatural things lurk in the fringes of civilization, and that some people have extraordinary powers. Collectively called “the Strange”, these people are largely unknown and mostly shunned at the beginning of the era, though later on they become accepted members of society. Queen Victoria makes deals with the Fae, and actually mounts a war offensive against them, becoming Queen of the Fae at one point. She’s also becoming increasingly… strange and inhuman. The British Empire rules the world, aided by cheap labor from the Fairy Lands and the resulting technology boom. Airships (zeppelins) start to appear, and various Strange individuals slowly step out of the shadows and join polite society. The focus of their activities is social club with an amazingly liberal policy. They allow as members Blacks, Orientals, evolved animals and even… Women. Club members are well-known for exotic ventures and exploits, though not all of those are exactly applauded by society or even strictly legal. However, the semi-official approval of Queen Victoria keeps the Club safe from most enemies – though the Queen is increasingly becoming… something else.

It’s a brilliant, weird, alternative steampunk / pulp Victoriana superhero setting. It consists of three separate eras, in a way; in the first era, the Strange (i.e. the PCs) are mostly shunned by polite society and must be careful in what they do. In the second, the Kerberus Club is open about its activities and some of its members start to enter the public spotlight. Things get a bit more “superhero-y”. In the end, the Strange are bona fide “superheroes”, openly fighting crime (or doing it) in the streets of London, fighting in the riggings of zeppelin on fire, and trying to foil the machinations of Victorian-era Dr. Dooms. This gives the GM a lot of choice in what sort of game he wants to run; simply by setting the game in a certain year of this alternative history, he automatically gets a certain kind of in-game environment.

The alternative history is fun, inventive and quite gritty. I liked that last point; many Victorian “romances” gloss over the horror that was the beginning of industrialized London, concentrating on the upper classes and their nice, clean tea sessions. No such gloss here (though you can run a strictly upper-class game if you wish). The poor are desperate and filty, and the lower-to-middle classes are almost as desperate and filthy. There is no social safety net to speak of (workhouses, prisons etc were intentionally designed to be horrifying and worse that being dirt-poor on the streets, to stop the poor from intentionally trying to gain access), and many aspects of society were quite barbaric by current standings. The various social classes considered the fact that they were strictly better than the lower ones a part of natural law, and also “everyone knew” that negroes, orientals, “brownies” etc were inferior by biology and breeding. And of course, women were all good and fine, but inferior to men in most ways. The book goes into quite a bit of detail on the social aspects of the setting, while keeping it playable for modern sensibilities – the Strange by design can ignore many social constructs, but there is always a price for doing that.

Systemwise, this runs on ORE, with some very nice tweaks. The skill system used here is a variant of the stock one, and I like it a lot. In fact, I think it’s strictly better than the stock one, so I’d be tempted to use this tweak in other ORE games, too. You need the “Wild Talents” core book to run this, though there is a very nice and cheap “Wild Talents Essential Edition” available which is a “just the rules” book (the bigger core book also contains its own setting and other stuff).

If you want to run a “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” -style Victorian superhero game, this is simply the best game book for it, bar none. The setting is fantastic, the game system is solid, and the writing is fun and witty. I cannot say enough good things about this book. Get it. […]

Minireview: Coming Full Circle (Call of Cthulhu)

Coming Full Circle is another excellent Cthulhu campaign from Pagan Publishing and the author of Walker in the Wastes (John H. Crowe III). As the author notes in the foreword, it’s almost the polar opposite of Walker: instead of large-scale globetrotting investigation, this is a very small-scale and insular affair. It’s also purposefully not a Cthulhu mythos campaign; the antagonists have their basis in New England folklore and mythology, instead of the Cthulhu mythos as such. There are notes to tie this to the mythos, if the GM wants to… but that’s purely optional. It’s also somewhat unusual in its time period, being set from 1929 to 1939, a decade after the classic Cthulhu period and under the looming threat of the U.S. Great Depression.

Like many other books from Pagan, this is brimming with detail and historical notes on the period, and NPC descriptions are extremely good. This is important since this is a very character-driven and insular campaign, talking place in a (fictional) New England town. As noted in the intro section, this thing plays best if at least one of the PCs is a noted “psychic investigator” or some such, since the opening hook has a local widow contacting the PCs regarding a haunting. It’s assumed the PCs take the bait and go investigate, of course, and the rest of the campaign depends on the PCs forming some sort of relations with the family in question. This might get tricky for the GM; if the PCs just want to do a quick investigation and move on, much of the rest of this might fall flat – so it’s important that the GM uses the piles of local and NPC detail given to try to bring the town and the locals to life.

The campaign consists of four parts, taking place years apart and all (at least somewhat) connected to this certain family (though one of them is only very loosely connected and can be run as a stand-alone as needed). In a way it’s the story of a certain family and the dark things that haunt them, and it’s up to the PCs to figure out what’s behind it all. The final part, the titular “Coming Full Circle”, finally wraps things up and returns to the source of the evil… assuming the PCs are diligent and/or lucky. The opposition is quite dangerous and clever, here.

It’s good stuff, assuming you feel like running a small-scale historical supernatural game. As noted, Cthulhu mythos elements as such are missing here, which can be a good thing to throw players expecting “familiar” Cthulhu tropes off the track. Not quite all of them are missing, though, in order to make things interesting. The amount of detail given should make this fairly easy to prep for, though the GM does need to read and re-read a lot of the information; as noted, using that to flesh out the important NPCs is critical here. […]

Minireview: Treason in Word and Deed (Paranoia)

The new format for Paranoia seems to be three core books (Troubleshooters, Internal Security and High Programmers), and then small supplement books (like this one) for each “level” of play. Seems good to me – especially since most of the older sourcebooks are still totally usable with this edition.

Treason in Word and Deed is a collection of three scenarios for the base-level “Troubleshooters” game (classic Paranoia, that is). From the intro I got the impression that the original idea was to do a single large scenario centered around the idea that the PCs are shut in a single room – but they decided that 32 pages is a bit too much for that. Or that intro may be a joke. In any case, the first scenario is the titular “Treason In Word And Deed” where yes indeed, the Troubleshooters are detained in a room and ordered to confess. Trouble is, none of them are quite sure of what they should be confessing to… not that finding something is all that difficult, or finding someone else to blame (for whatever it was). While 32 pages devoted to just this may have been slight overkill, I feel that this version could have been expanded a bit (more events, etc). It’s a fun little “in between” scenario, in any case, and somewhat different from the normal Troubleshooter mission.

Secondly we get “Heroes of our Complex”, where the PCs get the singular honor of joining an “as seen on TV!” real “Hero of the Complex” on missions. Said hero is dashing, capable, strong and brave… everything the PCs probably are not. Of course, not everything here is quite what it seems, and for some reason these missions seem to have a decidedly deadly bent. It’s good that the PCs have a real Hero at their side. Right? Right?

Lastly there’s “Little Lost Scoutbot”, where out heroes venture into the great Outdoors. With a crawler and a real map, no less (well, maybe). The goal is to retrieve a top-secret and important scoutbot, lost in the wilderness. Equipped with high-tech equipment and fully briefed on all they need to know, how could the Troubleshooters possibly fail? And what are these “tree” things our briefing mentioned?

A fun little collection, and cheap to boot. None of the adventures are quite in the “awesome” category, but all are amusing and read like they would be fun in play. “Heroes of our Complex” gets points for a nicely devious back plot, though the last one also has some nice surprises in store. […]

Minireview: Internal Security (Paranoia)

“To Serve, To Protect, To Vaporize”

The main idea behind the latest edition of Paranoia is to divide the game into three “levels” of play. First off, there’s the classic Troubleshooter-oriented game, now aptly titled “Paranoia Troubleshooters”. Next up there’s this book, Paranoia Internal Security (IntSec), detailing life among the Blue cadres of the Alpha Complex police force, Internal Security. Lastly there’s High Programmers, where you get to play an Ultraviolet, lording over the cattle…. err, the citizens, that is.

While Troubleshooters is “just” a slight revision of the older “Paranoia XP” edition, this book goes into somewhat different territory – while the base mechanics and some of the groups are the same, the focus is slightly different. Having made it to the hallowed ranks of Blue security clearance (or even higher), the PCs have had to also (gasp!) get along with each other (in addition to the normal backstabbing/bootlicking, of course). The ones that automatically shoot everything that moves and frame each other as traitors at the tiniest provocation rarely make it this far.

Of course, this is still Paranoia, so a certain amount of party-internal conflict is still on the menu. This time round, the driving mechanic is “sector indexes”… arbitrary numbers that the team has to keep within Computer-defined limits. Naturally enough, each team member is responsible for a different index, and also naturally enough many of the indexes are mutually contradictory. To raise the Security index, you often need to beat up and imprison citizens… which lowers the Happiness index, and perhaps also the Loyalty index. Of course, the PC in charge of Security doesn’t need to care about all that, after all he has his mandate from the Computer. He only needs to care about possible sabotage from his team members… but would any loyal citizen really sabotage one of the Computer’s valued Internal Security squads? You bet your ass they would.

Oh, and let’s not forget the (possible) cortex bombs installed in team members’ heads (remotely activated by the Security Officer), or the “activate or shut down all guns” main switch controlled by the Team Leader. Isn’t it fun being a Team Leader or Security Officer?

The book consists mostly of rules expansion and extra stuff to cover life in the “police force”, with emphasis on how this game differs from the base-level Troubleshooters play. A fun twist here is the option of bossing Troubleshooter teams around or ordering them on suicide missions. That’s what they’re for, after all. As noted, the emphasis here is more on covert sabotage (of the team goals, to enhance your own goals) than on direct “he’s a Commie traitor, shoot him!” action – though that’s always an option. The main hose job here are, as mention, the sector indexes, which are totally arbitrary and often contradictory. Good luck with trying to fulfill them all… so might as well concentrate on the one you need to keep on solid ground.

It’s a fun expansion of the “base” Paranoia game, and also works are an option in a campaign where the PCs actually get promoted to Blue or higher. That would probably require playing with “Straight” rules, of course. Recommended to anyone who likes the new version of Paranoia; unlike the “Paranoia Troubleshooters” book, this one is much more than a slight revision, it contains tons of new stuff (some influenced by the old “HIL Sector Blues” book, of course). […]

Minireview: The Resurrected III: Out of the Vault (Call of Cthulhu)

Out of the Vault is a compilation of Call of Cthulhu scenarios from the pages of Pagan Publishing’s “Unspeakable Oath” magazine (issues of which can be hard to get hold of nowadays), with new layout and art. Possibly some tweaks / corrections also, not sure about that; I had read almost all of these previously from the magazines, but it’s been a while so can’t say about possible differences. In any case, it’s generally a very high-class compilation. There are 10 scenarios, mosty from the “classic” 1920s era, and most of them are pretty good. Some few are only so-so, and a few are truly excellent. Many are quite deadly, as is par for the course for Cthulhu one-shots.

Highlights for me were the bizarre and deadly “Within You Without You”, the cinematic “Blood on the Tracks”… and above all, the crazy and brilliant “In Media Res”. That last one is quite unusual for a CoC scenario and is close in theme and feel to the (also brilliant and unusual) Unknown Armies scenario “Jailbreak”. It throws the PCs (and players) into a very scary situation with no warning, and also wraps up before questions are answered. Creepy and very cool, and also very suitable for a short LARP session; in fact some people have apparently run it as such. […]