Game Review: De Profundis (first edition)

I am a fan of unusual role-playing games.  I recently acquired a copy of the first edition of De Profundis; Letters from the Abyss, A Game of Mind-warping Horror in the Style of H.P. Lovecraft.  The game is credited to Michal Oraz and was translated from Polish to English by Maja Apollonia Pica.  The book is a 32 page saddle stitched book with glossy cover pages and black and white interior pages.   De Profundis is a role playing game that asks, "How would you like to play a Lovecraftian LARP by sending letters through the mail?"

This is a review of the first edition of the game which is currently out of print.  There is a second edition that was published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment.  The second edition is available as a pdf from rpgnow.  As far as I know the second edition contains most of the text from the first edition along with some expanded content.

De Profundis is written in a meta style.  The text reads partly like instructions for a game and partly as the diary of a character plunging into madness.  The narrator of the rules describes his descent into madness as he tries to decipher a text.  I thought that this style fit the game well, as the rules of the game encourage the players to try to live out their character's madness through letters.

To play De Profundis a player creates a character and then writes a series of letters to someone from the viewpoint of that character.  The person that you are corresponding with writes you back from the point of view of their character.  The rules discuss creating characters either in the 1920s or the modern era.  The author points out that there are many famous horror stories that are told using letters, such as Dracula, and shows how letters play important roles in Lovecraft's own tales.  The characters are meant to mimic the types of people who exist in Lovecraft tales, i.e. normal people who begin to notice the horrible lie of reality around them.

The author of De Profundis describes an unusual method for making sure that your character is in the mindset of an unhinged Lovecraft protagonist.  The technique is to observe the word around you, and then slowly use your imagination to allow snippets of illusionary horror to creep in.  Go ahead and space out on the bus, did that passenger who just got off look like an alien?  It is a type of method acting where you let your mind slip into the unhinged reality of a Lovecraft character and see your world through their eyes.  The writing style of the rules helps you get into this mode as the author writes many sections from this viewpoint.

The author gives players some structure and rules for making characters and writing and sending letters.  He gives suggestions for how the framework of the game should function as well as guidelines on how characters should interact via their writing.  One thing that I liked was that the author emphasized the importance of physically writing letters.  I believe that the second edition of De Profundis has rules for using email, which I think would take a lot of the soul out of the game.

The book has two appendices.  One has a character sheet and information on how to join "The Society", which was a database of De Profundis players.  I use the past tense because I believe that this information is out of date.  The second appendix is an article on psychodrama, which is a type of improv larp.  It is obvious that the author is a fan of psychodrama and that it heavily influenced De Profundis, so it is worth a read.

Overall, I really like De Profundis.  The game has more than a hint of mystery.  There is enough missing from the rulebook to let your imagination run rampant, and there is enough of a framework to provide ample inspiration.  The most difficult part of the game would probably be finding players who are willing to actually put pen to paper and send letters through the mail.  I have started a game with one player and it has been enjoyable.  If you are a fan of Lovecraft, writing letters, or bizarre games that are off the beaten path, then I recommend De Profundis.

Quick Spoiler-free Review: Wicked Fantasy Factory #0: Temple of Blood

I have been itching to run some Pathfinder games while I await the release of Starfinder.  I told my gaming buddies to have some 1st level fodder characters ready to go and whenever we had time I would run a campaign.  I have tons of 3.5 and Pathfinder material sitting around the house so I grabbed a module off the shelf for some gaming.

Wicked Fantasy Factory #0: Temple of Blood

This product is a 16 page adventure.  It was published by Goodman Games in 2007.  The cover on my copy states that the book was released for Free RPG Day in 2007.  The module is currently available in PDF from drivethrurpg for $2.  I acquired my copy for free.  The module is stated for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 and on the back cover says "Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook."  I ran the adventure using Pathfinder and I made no conversions to the stats.

The Wicked Fantasy Factory line touts itself as extreme gaming, going for a cross between Gauntlet and Mortal Kombat.  At the beginning of the moduel there are some suggested house rules to bring some extreme flavor to your game.  The most interesting one is the rules for finishing moves.  Each character is encouraged to design a finishing move that they can use on opponents.  There are also some rules to make combat with henchmen easier, changing how main villains work, and describing characters.

The module involves a series of kidnappings.  The player characters will be charged with finding the missing persons.  The adventure is a short dungeon crawl.  There is plenty of combat and a couple of puzzle-like challenges.  There is boxed-text to read to the players followed by descriptions of the areas as well as maps.  I appreciated the "E-Z Stat Blocks", which gives the bare bones stats for NPCs.  Hit points, attack bonus, damage, and a few other stats are listed for adversaries in an easy-to-read format.  Full stat write-ups are included later in the text, but I really appreciated being able to quickly find initiative and to-hit numbers without being distracted by useless skill bonus.

When I ran the adventure it ended in a total party kill (heh heh).  However, I would not hold this against the module.  The author suggests having a party of 4-6 characters with a healer and fighters.  I ran a party of 2 characters.  With more PCs and some adjustments the party could have easily survived.  I enjoyed running the adventure.  It is short and full of action.  The players get to crawl around a subterranean environment and hack things to death.  Temple of Blood has the tropes of an old D&D adventure while injecting a dose of modern video game hack-and-slash elements.  The art matches the tone of the book with black and white illustrations of adversaries and fighters defeating them.  This is a good introductory adventure for a campaign and I think it was a great Free RPG Day offering.  For $2 as a pdf I think that this is a good budget advenutre.

RPG Review: A Star Once Fallen Open Legend RPG

Special thanks to the fine folks at Seven Sphere Publishing for providing a free print copy of this module for review purposes.

This review has been a long time coming.  Work has overwhelmed me this year, leaving little time or energy for gaming.  However, I have been reading about the Open Legend RPG system and their introductory module A Star Once Fallen.  The Open Legend RPG system has one of my favorite characteristics; the rules are freely available online.  I still have not played the system, or any rpg system, since work has started but I have read through this module and I will share my impressions.

The Open Legend RPG system is an open source system that uses a central mechanic of rolling a d20 plus another die to determine results.  The publishers have released a module that teaches the game system while taking the players through a fantasy scenario.  The module is titled A Star Once Fallen and it is available on a pay-what-you-want basis from Drivethrurpg.com.  This product is a combination of game rules and module.  I'll talk about the mechanics first and the module second.

A Star Once Fallen starts explaining the rules with character creation.  Characters put points into attributes.  There are physical, mental, social, and supernatural attributes.  I definitely noticed the large number of attributes there are in the game.  There are four physical, four mental, three social, and nine supernatural ones which gives a grand total of twenty attributes.  You will not have enough points for each one, so you must decide which attributes to focus on.  This is how you can tailor your character to be exactly what you want.  Want a dashing fighter?  Put points into physical attributes with a few mental and social ones as well.  Want a magic-wielding demon fighter?  Put points into physical and supernatural attributes.  You then calculate your thre defenses (toughness, evasion, and resolve) and your hit points from your chosen attributes.

A level in an attribute gives you a die, with 1 equalling a d4, 2 equalling a d6, and so on.  Actions in the game are made by rolling against a target number, such as a character's defense or an opposed roll.  To make a roll you grab a d20 and add any dice that a relevant attribute would grant you.  For example, if you have a 2 in Deception and you are trying to bluff your way past a guard, you would roll a d20 and a d6 and add them together.  All dice explode, so if you ever get the maximum on a roll you roll that die again and add it.  This mechanic seems like it would make for some wild action scenes.  I wonder if this system would be a good fit for a Wuxia style campaign.

One rule that I particularly liked is that every roll matters.  Failed rolls can lead to the characters succeeding with a twist, or failing but the story progresses.  This makes sure that the game moves along.  Combat is fairly straightforward and if you have played most fantasy rgps you will understand the mechanics.  Again, it centers around the roll a d20 plus your attribute dice rule.  The new wrinkle that combat throws in is banes and boons.  These are special conditions that you can try to place on characters.  To successfully use a bane or boon you must have the minimum attribute level required to use it.  For example, to use the Bane "Forced Move" you have to have a 2 in either might, movement, or energy.  This allows you to explain your use of forced movement as either your super strong character throwing someone around, your swashbuckler outmaneuvering them, or your psychic character using telekinesis to push someone back.

The module's story is presented in a sort-of linear sandbox style.  The characters are shipwrecked on an island and are given a starting point.  After that there is a series of encounters and events that the PCs can engage in at their leisure.  The characters are stuck on the island and have to deal with the Mcguffin in order to get off.  I don't want to spoil anything, but I will share that the island has warring factions, evil monsters, and locations where the characters can get into trouble.

One thing that the module does that I liked is that it introduces the rules progressively throughout the adventure.  The first encounter explains how combat and basic rolls work.  As the characters explore the island new rules are added depending on the encounter.  The idea of presenting them in steps as they relate to encounters is a good one and I think more games would benefit from it.

Open Legend bills itself as a multi-genre system while this module focuses on fantasy.  With a little bit of work I could see this module run as a pulp adventure as it has tropes such as jungle adventures, lost cities, and high action.  The story works well and you could use this adventure with another system easily.  The only things that I wanted that were missing were a character sheet and some more maps for the individual encounters.  However, a character sheet is available on drivethrurpg and there is a nice map of the island.

Open Legend is currently running a Kickstarter.  They have some impressive names attached to the project, including Ed Greenwood.  If you are curious as to how the system works A Star Once Fallen is a great way to introduce yourself to the game.  I am looking forward to seeing what Seven Sphere Publishing does with this system in the future.

Check out A Star Once Fallen at drivethrurpg.

Game Review: Fantasy Wargaming; The Highest Level of All

Fantasy Wargaming is a role playing and wargaming set of rules.  The book says "compiled and editied by Bruce Galloway", as was a collabarative writing.  The blog Swords & Dorkery has a great post about the history and writing of the book.  This review is based on a read-through of the text. No attempts were made to play this game.

What is it?

This book is an attempt to create a role playing game based on the historical Middle Ages.  Characters can interact in a European medieval world with Christianity and/or the Norse gods as the dominant religion.  The authors create rules for social standing, how magic would work in Christian/Nordic Europe, combat, and monstrous creatures.  The rules are convoluted and the book feels like someone took their masters thesis on the Middle Ages and turned it into a role playing system.  The modeling of the medieval Christian paradigm into a game system (complete with stats for God and saints as well as calculations for length spent in Purgatory) is impressive.  Overall, this would make an interesting resource for game designers or those interested in the Middle Ages but the system is too complex play.  I will provide a brief synopsis of each chapter

Revelation (Introduction)

The introduction of the book introduces the concept of fantasy role playing.  The  intended audience of the book is miniature wargamers, and the author tries to convince them to give fantasy role playing a try.  The book shows its age when the author talks about how they first tried Dungeons and Dragons.  They state that they found "a fairly basic set of rules, called 'Tunnels and Trolls...'".  Tunnels and Trolls is a different game from D&D, although it began life as a D&D variant.  The authors are British and T&T was one of the first rpgs to be sold in the UK.  However, this shows how early in the hobby this book was written, as Dungeons and Dragons is at this point synonymous with fantasy role playing.

Chapter I, City, Court, and Country

This chapter describes life in the Middle Ages.  The authors write about where people live, what they did, etc.  Feudalism is described.  There is a lot of information about medieval Europe.  A GM or player will gain insight into the history of the Middle Ages.  The strength of this chapter is that the role-player will understand the medieval world better from reading it.

Chapter II, Myth, magic, and religion

In my opinion this is one of the most interesting chapters.  The authors discuss magic and present their theory as to how they can model magic and the supernatural in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages.  Magical energy comes from belief.  The Ethereal Plane exists, and this is home to Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, fairies, and the like.  There is a discussion of the Church and of how magic and magic-users were viewed in the Middle Ages.  Pagan magic is examined, as well as the differences of magic in the Dark Ages and High Middle Ages.  Actual game mechanics are not present in this chapter.

Chapter III, The Book of Physiologus

This chapter talks about monsters and fabulous creatures of the Middle Ages.  There are no stats, this is pure description.  The authors discuss how monsters appear in the stories and literature of the time period.  I particularly liked the comparison of Teutonic vs. Celtic dragons.  There is also talk about Medieval bestiaries and creatures from heraldry.   The main point of this chapter is that if one is going to run an authentic Medieval game, then the source of creatures should be the actual Middle Ages. Barrow Wights are in, orcs are out.  Dwarfs (not dwarves) are in, except they kidnap mortal women.  If it is seen on a tapestry or shield, the players can kill it.

Chapter IV, Mortal Combat

This chapter describes weapons, armor, and fighting techniques of the Middle Ages.  There are some pictures of weapons, castle plans, and a glossary.  This chapter is short and like chapter one the strength of it is in helping players and GMs understand the details and context of historical medieval combat.

Chapter V, Moorcock and More ...

This chapter contrasts strongly with the rest of the book.  From the introduction through the first four chapters the tone of the book has been one of, "Do you know what would be really cool?  D&D except if it took place in the real Middle Ages!"  The descriptions in the book strive for historical accuracy, even when discussing myth and magic of the time period.  In the section on character creation female characters are forced to take penalties to their stats and are forbidden from all combat.  Chapter V discusses fantasy literature to read and use for inspiration.  Tolkien is mentioned, as are a few series about King Arthur by T.H. White and Mary Stewart.  More than one series is mentioned that are about future civilizations and seem to cross the border into science fiction.  Anne McCaffrey's Pern series is mentioned.  The contrast is that many of the books talked about are either high fantasy or science fiction.  They take place on worlds vastly different than our own, or are fantasy tales full of strange creatures and stranger magic.  The choices seem odd for a book that spends so much time trying to ground its rules in the Middle Ages of our world.  However, we gain a glimpse into the author's taste for fantasy literature back in 1981.

Chatper VI, The Compleat Enchanter

This chapter is full of advice for the game master.  The new GM is told to use fiction and the real world as templates for the game world.  The authors reiterate that the default setting of Fantasy Wargaming is Medieval Europe, and therefore the GM does not have to create a new world.  Of course, the GM can create their own world if they want.  There are some interesting pieces of advice, such as letting a player don the role of an npc.  The idea of traps is deconstructed, as traps lying dormant in dungeons would likely be victims of rust and rot and may not work properly.  Most of the advice is useful and relevant today.

What the heck is going on in this picture?

Chapter VII, Playing Rules

Here is the meat of the game.  There are rules for character creation, doing stuff (picking locks, etc), combat, magic, gods, and monsters.  The rules for Fantasy Wargaming are byzantine and complicated.  There is a detailed chart for the character's social class, where the character can be anything from slave to emperor.  There are optional rules for rolling your character's astrological influence and how it changes their states.  Female characters are banned from all combat.  Characters can have the disadvantage of being a heretic or being Jewish (since it is the Middle Ages).  That is just character creation.  The rules of play have many idiosyncrasies.  Here is an example of how to calculate a character's leadership score.

Figuring out your character's combat maneuver bonus in Pathfinder is child's play in comparison.  Speaking of leadership, the party of characters has a leader who tells everyone what to do.  There are in game rules for challenging the leader.  There are also rules for temptation, which fall in line with the medieval view of sin and temptation.

The rules for doing things in game involve rolling on a chart with percentile dice.  One interesting note is that the charts have results for partial success as well as success.  I thought that the idea of a partial success or success with complications was a modern game design concept, and here it is in a game book from 1981.  Combat is also resolved by rolling on a chart, and there is a chart for weapons breakage.  When consulting the charts there are many modifiers that are added and subtracted in order to find the difficulty of the roll.  The book prints these modifiers as a sentence rather than a vertical list, so I found it confusing to read through them.

There are also a set of miniatures wargame rules for large scale battles.  Of all of the rules in the book, these ones seemed the most playable.  After those there are the rules on magic.  The author(s) do give a list of spells and they also give a system for creating spells and rituals.  Again, these rules are very complex and when reading them you sense that the authors knew and discussed a lot about actual medieval magical practices.  There are rules for divine magic, including how much mana a human sacrifice will get you.  You can also calculate how long a soul will stay in Purgatory.  The rules are detailed and are impressive in that the author(s) show their knowledge of the subject.  If someone mapped out how medieval people thought religion would produce spells, blessings, curses, and miracles, this system models it well.  There are stats for God, saints, demons, and Norse gods.

The chapter ends with a bestiary.  All monsters are from the Middle Ages, i.e. people actually believed in them, they were from actual myth, or there was a picture of one in a book or on a tapestry.  Therefore, dwarfs lust after mortal women and players can fight venomous sheep.  Stats are given for each creature.  If I use any part of this book for a campaign, it will probably be this section.

Overall Thoughts

This book feels like it was written by a hobbyist, however the author's voice changes from chapter to chapter as the book was a collaboration.  The best features of the book are how it turns the medieval worldview into a game system.  If you want to know how well God would respond to a cleric's plea according to how pious he was, then this game can simulate that for you.  This also means the game disenfranchises female characters and forces the players to deal with issues of antisemitism.

So who is this book for today?  Should a group try and run it (answer - no)?  Is it worth it as a reference?  Here is my opinion.  If you want to run a game based in the real Middle Ages, there are better designed games out there that will do that, such as Pendragon or Ars Magica.  I think that this book would be of most interest to the collector, game historian, and designer.  The collector and game historian can look at this book as an early attempt by amateurs to create their own realistic version of D&D.  The designer can mine the book for some interesting ideas and admire the authors passion while avoiding the confusion wrought by the game.  If you are interesting in obtaining your own copy do a quick internet search.  I grabbed a used copy off of Amazon.

Review of The Armory's 30 Sided Dice Gaming Tables

I found this gem at a used book store.  The Armory's 30 Sided Dice Gaming Tables is an interesting artifact from the early days of fantasy role-playing.  The copyright date is 1982.  The cover advertises this book as a supplement that is suitable to be used with "Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Runequest, Chivalry & Sorcery, Tunnels & Trolls, and other fantasy role-playing systems."  That is a nice selection of old school rpgs, and it is interesting to note that all of these systems are still available.  Another clue to the product's age is that the words "patent pending" appear next to the image of the 30 sided die on the cover.

The cover, complete with price tag.  I only paid $2.50.

The book is 40 pages and stable bound.  The inside front cover has an about the author section and an awesome drawing of a dragon on top of a hoard of treasure.  Page one is an introduction where the author shills the idea of using a d30 in your game.  There are also two ads for the company's dice. We then get a table of contents on page two and and instructions for reading a 30 sided die on page three. At this point I should explain that the die pictured in the book is numbered differently than other 30 sided dice that I have seen.  The d30 in the book has 30 faces.  10 of those faces are labeled -0 to -9, ten faces are labeled 0 to 9, and ten faces are labeled +0 to +9.  Negative numbers are the integers 1-10, regular numbers are 11-20, and positive integers are 21-30.  The author gives a handy chart summarizing this information.  My research found that a revised version of this book was released soon after that feature the tradition d30  which was numbered 1-30.  I found this old d30 an interesting historical oddity.  It reminded me of older d20s that had 0-9 engraved twice on their faces, where one set of numbers would be inked in a different color and would represent 11-20.  There are also instructions on how to use the d30 to create a number from 1 to 300.  This part tied my brain in knots upon the first reading but eventually I figured it out.

The rest of the book is made up of charts.  The first is a critical hit table that covers body locations. The next few tables cover lists of gems, jewelry, and their worth.  Then we get height and weight tables for humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and hobbits (yes, the term hobbit is used).  These charts are meant for male characters, and the author includes conversions for rolling for female characters by subtracting a certain amount of pounds or inches.  Apparently female adventurers where dainty back in the 80s.  

On page 23 we get the one and only table used for rolling a number between 1-300.  Oddly this table only has 150 entries.  The table is a language table and includes entries as esoteric as horse, pseudo-dragon, and yeti.  The author points out that the table can be used as an encounter table or a reincarnation table, as he has used it in his campaign.  My favorite table is next, which is mundane experience.  I will be using this table in my next game so that characters can roll up backgrounds such as tanner and gemologist.  There is a weapons table, slaves table, tables for animal skins and their value, a table listing 30 ancient civilizations, ancient ships, diseases, poisons and their severity, animal trainer tables, spell effects, and magic items.  The book ends with a bibliography, index, and price listing for the Armory's various products.  The back cover has an ad and price list for 30 sided dice (available plain or inked) and an ad for pens to ink your dice.

The book is filled with artwork by Greg Barrett.  The majority of the illustrations are of fantasy miniatures that include the company and product code of the mini (such as Ral Partha #02-102 Sea Elves).  The rest of the pictures are of dice, treasure chests, and other stuff.  The pictures of the miniatures are a cool touch.  They seem to call out and say, "Use me in your game."

Bibliography along with a picture of barbarian miniatures

30 Sided Dice Gaming Tables is an interesting piece of rpg history.  It was obviously written to help the Armory sell their d30s.  If you owned the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide then you already had more random tables than you could handle.  The author tries to sell you on the idea that increasing your choices is a good thing for your campaign, i.e. 30 options is better than 20.  The charts are conveniently laid out at one per page and this book would be easy to use at the gaming table.  In my opinion the book's main value is that is is an example of the hobbyist nature of early rpg culture.  The pictures of miniatures and ads for dice-inking pens look back to the days when playing D&D meant assembling a hodgepodge of materials from various sources.  The author's tone throughout the book says, "I made my own d30 tables, and so can you."

I am glad to have this book in my collection for the nostalgia factor.  There are a few tables that I would use in a game.  I wouldn't go searching this book out unless you are the curator of the 30 sided dice museum, but if you see a copy it might be fun to grab to open the window onto the fantasy rpg scene of yesteryear.