Tommy's Take on Barbarians Versus... 2nd Edition

Who doesn't love Barbarians? Precis Intermedia has released the second edition of Barbarians Versus... (Vile Reptilian Invaders from Outer Space), a fairly lite and light hearted rpg about barbarians versus, well, vile reptilian invaders from outer space.

Precis Intermedia 666 Sale Begins!

I do a horrible job of keeping up with all the sales and deals and bargains that people put out, but I do try...unfortunately, I'm a pretty disorganized human being sometimes. Anyway, I wanted to make a point of directing your attention to the Precis Intermedia Games "666" sale. Precis Intermedia is the maker of some fantastic games like Ghostories, Iron Gauntlets, Stormrift, Bold & Brave and Two-Fisted Tales, as well as the owners of Masterbook, Shatterzone and Bloodshadows...and their "666" sale is where their "defect" books are marked down to $6.66.

Now, I've bought a copy of Iron Gauntlets from Precis Intermedia during a 666 sale, and frankly, I wrote Brett Bernstein an e-mail to ensure that he didn't accidentally send me the wrong book, because I couldn't find anything wrong. Apparently, the text was off-center a bit or something. I STILL have no idea why it was marked down, but I got a fantastic deal for it.

The sale pretty much runs while he has "defect" overstock, and this stuff tends to go quickly, so pop on over. He's got a few things up now and more items going up later Tuesday. I recommend that you don't miss out.

Tommy's Top Six of 2011 and Birthday Blog Giveaway

Last year's Tommy's Top Six and Birthday Blog Giveaway was a pretty good idea and a pretty big success, so I decided pretty early on to revisit it again this year. I am keeping the same criteria this year for last year's selections, which are as follows: 1) Only one title from each company could be eligible. Spread the love around and all that. This year, it was much easier to do that than last year. 2) I'm not concerned with when the book was released, only when I reviewed it, which had to be between December 17th last year to December 17th this year.

Also, like last year, I have some "runner-ups" or "honorable mentions"...a seperate blog post will detail those.

Oh, hey...and this is my 300th blog post! Yay!

GHOSTORIES EXPANDED (Precis Intermedia Games)

Why You Should Buy It: Ghostories is a really misleading title, as this is pretty much an all-purpose horror game. Using the genreDiversion system, Ghostories has everything you need to play, and is also compatible with other genreDiversion games (like Mean Streets), while including conversion charts for PIG acquisitions like Bloodshadows. That's a LOT of play that you can get out of this one book. As noted, it goes above and beyond just ghost stories, providing demons, liches, shapeshifters and trolls, and then some. In addition to being able to play normal humans, the book opens things up to a number of powers, like Sorcery, Revelations (visions), Binding Lore (binding spirits), Unholy Arts (which summons Phantoms, who are reallly demons, and that's Bad), and much, much more. In addition, the book crams in nine adventures and around twenty plot seeds, so there should be very little question as to what you "do" with it. On top of that, it includes 21 ready made characters. I'm a fan of games that are a little lite while still having crunch, and the cool, atmospheric modifiers for the supernatural powers in this game qualify (like casting spells on Samhain, for instance), and the powers in the game are a fun, unique mix that help characters stand out from each other without making the game about essentially horror superheroes. I had picked up the original version of Ghostories before but really kind of overlooked it, but a side by side comparison of that one and this are wildly different. Ghostories is a meaty, 128 book with a low-powered, horror feel, and I would gladly use it in place of games like, say WitchCraft. In fact, for my next pure horror game (not the ass-kicking, monster-hunting type ala Angel or Rippers), I would look to Ghostories first before I would anything else (even Savage Worlds), and that's about the best compliment I can give. And it is worth noting that Ghostories HAS rules mods that make it a little more cinematic, but there are other games that can do that better. Stick with the low-end, investigative horror and Ghostories should shine.

Buy the PDF at RPGNow or the print version at Amazon.com.

Realms of Cthulhu (Reality Blurs)

Why You Should Buy It: The idea that Savage Worlds is only good for high-octane, pulp adventure got completely kicked in the teeth by Realms of Cthulhu. Filtering the Cthulhu Mythos through the Savage Worlds lens, Lovecraft's legendary mind-bending tales managed to impose their demented will on the Savage Worlds game system. Now, Realms of Cthulhu doesn't fundamentally alter Savage Worlds...it just provides you additional rules to fundamentally alter Savage Worlds with. For instance, Pulpy and Gritty damage as well as Physical and Mental damage. Setting rules that can make Savage Worlds MUCH harsher than most folks seem to think it is. It does up the complexity level of Savage Worlds, but only a bit, and it grows organically out of existing mechanics. The bestiary is an extensive one that covers most known Lovecraftian beasties, and it's full of random charts with which to generate random entities and corrupted people. It also has conversion notes for Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium, in case you want to use CoC materials with Realms. Magic gets twisted sideways and overhauled to fall in line with the Cthulhu mythos, and the production values are as good as any Savage Worlds book on the market. The options, setting rules and random generators in Realms of Cthulhu make this an amazing addition to any Savage Worlds library.

Buy the PDF at RPGNow or the print version at Amazon.com.

Savage Suzerain (Savage Mojo)

Why You Should Buy It: Obviously, I'm a pretty big fan of Savage Worlds. Like Realms of Cthulhu, Savage Suzerain kind of plays with the way you look at Savage Worlds. Whereas RoC takes it to harder and grittier levels than the core, Savage Suzerain expands it far beyond what most people consider to be the "upper limits" of the system. Savage Suzerain is a world-hoppping Savage Setting that actually encompasses multiple Savage Settings and dials the awesome up to 11 by making the PCs capable of ascending into Demigods, a rank beyond Legendary. The settings thus far have included fantasy warfare (Caladon Falls), Space Empires (Dogs of Hades), cyberpunk vampire apocalypses (Shanghai Vampocalypse), pulpy Depression-era investigation (Noir Knights) and much more to come. Any of the above books (especially Caladon Falls, a thing of beauty and awesome) could have qualified, but I have a One Book Per Company rule, and this is the one that expands those options to begin with and makes the rest of them possible. This is the book that lays the groundwork, providing a slew of new Edges and explaining just how Pulse Paths (which replace Arcane Backgrounds) work. Pulse starts off with basic effects, mimicking the powers from the savage Worlds rules, but eventually scales up to reality-altering (at least temporarily) levels. The Savage Tales and Plot Point campaign in Savage Suzerain is also one of the most effective I've seen at hitting all the thematic bullet points while still leaving the setting wide open at the end. I love Savage Worlds just as it is, but I love those Savage Settings that blow the whole thing wide open, like Realms and Savage Suzerain. Oh, and it has my favorite Hindrance ever: Optimist.

Buy the PDF at RPGNow or the print version at Amazon.com.

Savage Worlds Horror Companion (Pinnacle)

Why You Should Buy It: The Companion series is designed to help you expand Savage Worlds in your chosen genre. Similar to the old PDF-only Toolkits, the Companions provide new rules, Edges, Hindrances and so forth. Two of my favorite books from that line were the Horror GM's Toolkit and the Horror Bestiary....both of which did a LOT to inspire the material for this book. Obviously, horror is nothing new to Savage Worlds, what with one of the earliest settings being Rippers, to say nothing of the Deadlands connection. Even Necessary Evil had a bit of a horror element to it. The Horror Companion does a fantastic job of taking the earlier toolkit and bestiary and bringing them in line with Savage Worlds Deluxe edition. There are a number of horror specific tweaks, like Doubting Thomas becoming a Major Hindrance, but my single favorite part is the addition of Monster PCs, from vampires to werewolves to angels to demons. There are also great new powers and Arcane Items. If you're planning on running any sort of horror game for Savage Worlds, you would do well to pick this up...and even if you're not, and you like having monsters around, there are plenty of options to choose from. While I can't quite call it indespensible, I'd say it's pretty close, as a lot of this stuff is pretty easy to adapt to any Savage Worlds campaign that isn't "normal" (Deadlands Blessed totally need Consecrate Ground).

Buy the PDF at RPGNow.

Sword Noir (Sword's Edge Publishing)

Why You Should Buy It: This unassuming tome is a complete rulebook, drawing from multiple sources for inspiration, including Savage Worlds and FATE. The different pieces make the game feel familiar if you've played some of the games that inspire it, but it's very much it's own game and not just a bolted on mish-mash. The human-centric setting is a bit different for fantasy games, and magic is thematically perfect, inflicting higher penalties for your successes rather than your failures, corrupting you over time. Some of the neater aspects are how character advancement/development are tied directly to the game mechanics: Critical failures allowing you the option of improving Traits or Qualities while Critical Successes allow you to add Stunts tied to your Qualities. The Qualities are all of a "Player Defines Them" variety, which is nothing new, but Sword Noir does a very effective job of guiding the players through creation by tying Qualities to various aspects of character generation. Sword Noir is a very unique game, created from some very familiar parts, that works better than it probably should.

Pick it up in PDF or in a print at RPGNow.

Tough Justice (Postmortem Studios)

Why You Should Buy It: Easily the oddest selection on the list, Tough Justice is a historical farce RPG designed to emulate a very bloody period of England. Meant to be played as an adversarial RPG, it is one of my favorite approaches to PC vs PC games, because the PCs are on opposing legal teams, rather than actually having to do battle with each other (though that's not completely ruled out). I'm a sucker for courtrooom dramas, and that sort of thing is often abstracted down to a couple of die rolls...here, EVERYTHING impacts the outcome of the case, from pre-trial actions to witness tampering to closing statements to the jury. Most importantly, the game has an extensive list of examples to walk you through every step of the case, from arrest to execution (if applicable). You don't even have to worry about getting stumped with the creation of cases and defendants, as there are large, random charts for that. In fact, it is even possible for PCs to wind up standing trial, if you broke too many laws in their pursuit of justice. Easily the most unique game on this list, Tough Justice isn't just different to be different, it is a well-written game based off a tested system, providing one of the most unique experiences I can think of. You don't want another fantasy heartbreaker or Star Wars clone? Then pick up Tough Justice and support something truly different from the norm. Bonus points if you base characters off of the cast of Boston Legal.

Pick it up in PDF at RPGNow or in print at Lulu.

And with that out of the way, now let's get to what you really came for: Free stuff.

Today marks the second anniversary of The Most Unread Blog on the Internet. Ever...as well as my 300th blog post. Last year, we had a very successful Birthday Blog Giveaway, and this year, we will do the same!

Thanks to the generosity of the above publishers, I am pleased to announce the following prizes:

- A PDF copy of Ghostories Expanded.

- A PDF copy of Realms of Cthulhu.

- A PDF copy of Savage Suzerain.

- A PDF copy of the Savage Worlds Horror Companion.

- One (1) print copy of SWord Noir, and two (2) Complete Sword Noir PDF Bundles, including Sword Noir and two adventures. (Print copy and bundles awarded separately).

- A PDF copy of Tough Justice.

Eight great prizes, including a print copy!

To enter, simply send me an e-mail to tommyb(a)sstelco(dot)com, with the subject (minus the quotes) "Happy Birthday Blog", listing your order of preference for the prize. Once I have closed entries by 11:59 PM Central Time on January 15th, I will use a randomizer to determine the winners...#1 gets their first choice, #2 gets their first available choice (their first choice if it wasn't taken, second if it was, and so on).

Thank you once again for continuing to read the blog. Thank you to the publishers for their generous donations for the Blog's Birthday. As the New Year begins, I have made some tweaks to the blog, placing the Savage Worlds Characters Are All The Same articles linked off the front page, and I have also added an Amazon aStore as one more avenue with which you can support the blog if you so choose.

Up next, I'll discuss a handful of products that almost...but didn't quite...hit the Top Six mark and why.

Thank you, have a Happy New Year, and good luck in the contest!

Tommy

A Masterbook Bestiary

My biggest complaints about the Masterbook rules and Masterbook Companion is that they lack a bestiary. Brett Bernstein, head honcho of Precis Intermedia Games (and new owner of Masterbook) took that to heart and recently posted a mini-bestiary on his website. This is a slew of largely "normal" animals, so while it still won't help if you want, say, dragons or orcs, it at least provides a non-human reference for Masterbook.

Zip on over and check out the freebie. Thanks, Brett!

Tommy's Take on Masterbook Companion

MAN how time flies...I thought it was just a month or so ago that I reviewed the re-release of Masterbook by Precis Intermedia Games...but it was already back in January. That was my first experience with Masterbook, and while I liked what I saw, I also thought it fell a little short, support-wise...enter the Masterbook Companion.

What You Need To Know: The Masterbook Companion was originally released in 1996, and this is that same book re-released. The PDF is only $6.95, and as part of Precis Intermedia's awesome Print Upgrade program, you can kick in that other $12 to get it printed. Essentially, it is 128 pages of extra material for your Masterbook game. Of course, this means that you do need the Masterbook rules in order to get much use out of this.

Chapter one begins pushing it into Supers territory by offering up Advantages such as Elasticity, Immortality and Shapeshifting. Of course, every Advantage needs a Compensation, although the Compensation options aren't nearly so dramatic.

A whole slew of new skills are also present, culled from other Worldbooks apparently. These include magical skills like Cantrip, psychic skills, Counter-Intelligence and more. A couple dozen skills spread out over nine categories, as well as a very awesome d100 chart for Useless Skills...like curling your tongue, blow REALLY big bubbles or prying off the tops of beer bottles with your teeth. The funniest entries are definitely 76 and 77...the ability to repeat the last thing said with 100% accuracy.

There is a new equipment chapter that runs all over every era and genre, providing rules on bullwhips, animal hides as armor, powered armor, large cars, and laser pistols. The important part here is that the equipment is all itemized, with relevant descriptions and rules...and then summarized into a handy table at the end of the chapter.

The Magic chapter is a hand-holding walkthrough of spell creation, specifically pointing out areas that a GM may have issues with if a player decided to take advantage of the system. I'm guessing that somewhere between the original releases of Masterbook and the Companion, a few GMs tried to pull their hair out, hence this guide. Remember my disappointment at the Fireball being the only the spell truly "spelled out"? Those concerns are addressed with a handful of new spells, covering ground such as making yourself appear to be a few feet away from where you actually are, or filling the target with fear.

The Vehicle Combat chapter starts off well enough, with a handy guide for interpreting tabletop distances to allow vehicles to remain in play easy enough, but gets a little too overcomplicated for my tastes when it starts referring to the Movement Chart, which cross-references approximate Miles Per Hour, Kilometers Per Hour, Meters Per Second, Inches Per Phase and a Speed Modifier. My eyes kinda glazed over looking at it. Some folks probably love it, but I'm good with using a slightly more abstracted system. However, this chapter does cover most vehicular combat eventualities, including vehicle hit locations, targeting drivers with attacks, crashes and so on.

The World Creation chapter covers an extensive amount of information as it walks you through the creation of a world (complete with a map). There is a humorous artifact in this chapter regarding map making, where a sidebar notes that "many" gamers have computers and can get programs to assist them. Keep in mind this is 1996...and now I'm reading that book on a computer, I can access a number of free or pay map programs, as well as purchase ready made downloadable maps.

The last chapter is one of those beauties of a "generic" system - guidelines on mixing your genres. That is, importing characters from one setting to another. This includes a nice mechanic for "cross dimensional insanity" - when someone encounters something so jarring to their sensibilities that it threatens to drive them off the rails mentally. From discussions ranging from various ways to cross dimensions, to a broad look at genres, to specific references to the Shatterzone and Bloodshadows settings, this is a pretty comprehensive treatment of the cross genre campaign, I don't feel like it properly warns that not all groups will be terribly recepetive to a cross genre campaign, ESPECIALLY if you spring it on them out of the blue.

An extensive index as well as an OpenD6/Masterbook conversion rounds out the tome.

What Works: I don't know if it is quite indispensible, but it is certainly very useful for the Masterbook GM, especially the Spell creation guidelines and examples. The Advantages also stand out, especially for someone wanting kewl powerz for their game. While I doubt I could see myself using it for a full blown supers game, power options for another genre are always a good thing. The World Creation Chapter and the Cross-Genre chapters are very extensive and advice-heavy.

What Doesn't Work: A bestiary still feels like it is missing. Sure, they may be in setting books (I don't know), but someone who picks up Masterbook and the Companion are kind of left figuring it out for themselves. Also, I appreciate the comprehensiveness of the Vehicular Combat chapter, but my eyes glazed over when I hit that Movement Chart.

Conclusion: I didn't mention the art above, because it straddles a line: None of it is particularly great, and I'm not a super big fan of full page art pieces unless they are really good, but the book is crammed so full of material that I can't say it honestly detracts from the value. For the price, it is DEFINITELY worth it for any Masterbook GM, and those with too much disposable income (they are out there) may get their money's worth out of the Cross Genre and World Building chapters, given how heavy on information and light on mechanics they are.

Tommy's Take on Stormrift

Stormrift is the new post-apocalyptic alien invasion RPG by Peter Spahn and Precis Intermedia Games, powered by the GenreDiversion 3 rules. If you don't have the genreDiversion 3 rulebook, no problem...they are helpfully included right here.

Clocking in at 172 pages, it is completely standalone. The PDF is $9.95 while the softcover is $27.95.

The PDF is fully functional: Bookmarks, searchable, the works. Only thing it lacks is a clickable Table of Contents/index, though both are there (just not clickable).

The cover features what I presume to be a resistance fighter and some of the aliens...I'm not a fan of the cover art. The aliens don't look particularly threatening and the human just looks a bit...off...somehow.

Still, I'm not a guy who's picks are made or broken on cover art, though it helps. I do have one more, somewhat serious gripe: I don't know the font(s) they used, but they are fairly distracting, especially on a computer screen. Sometimes differen't isn't better.

INTRODUCTION

The introduction begins with an in-character, inspirational "stand up and fight" speech before we get into What Happened...which is in 2012, around the time of that Mayan prophecy everyone's all excited about, this alien race called The Korr attacked Earth and wipe out much of our technology. They pretty much want to wipe out everyone and harvest earth's natural resources.

The rest of the chapter is a pretty standard intro, defining The Director, what dice you use (2d6), etc.

CHARACTERS

Everyone is assumed to be a member of the resistance (OLs - Operation Liberty Strike), fighting against The Korr. Characters are defined by Abilities (Fitness, Awareness, Creativity, Reasoning and Influence), Pursuits (kinda like skills), Gimmicks (advantages and disadvantages), Role (their primary function within OLS) and Drive (what actually motivates them).

Abilities are typically ranked from 0 to 5, and you get 12 points too divide among them. Pursuits can go up to +3 and you get 10 points for them. You get at least one gimmick based off of your Role, and you can add more by either adding detrimental gimmicks or reducing points for Pursuits or Abilities (or use detrimental gimmicks to add points).

Health is defined in two primary forms: Fatigue and Injury. Each have a threshold based off of Fitness, though some gimmicks may modify this. Each character can also have Cybernetic or Psionic Overload, if they have cybernetics or mental powers.

There are 14 OLS Roles from Sniper to Brute to Psion to Field Medic to Holy Man. Each one lists Required and Recommended Pursuits as well as Inherent Gimmicks.

The Pursuits cover a pretty broad range of combat and non-combat skills, and Gimmicks range from the mundane (Acute Hearing, Contacts, Poor, Intolerant) to the more interesting (Fearsome, Nanoborgs and Psionically Gifted).

Drivers run the range from Anarchy to Vengeance to Excitement to less common motivations in an alien invasion such as Humor and Style. You get bonus points for acting in accordance with your Drive, and you get penalized for not.

The Roles do a nice job of helping you get into the mindset of the OLS, and are a welcome addition. It is also worth noting that throughout the chapter are a number of in character sidebars about the war. Most of them are interesting and not very long, making for a some nice pieces of the puzzle that is life in the new reality.

SCENES AND TASKS

The basic mechanic is Ability + Pursuit + 2d6, compared to the difficulty. If you roll over the difficulty, you get OVerkill, which comes into play in certain circumstances. Double sixes are Triumphs, where you add an additional die to the 12 you just rolled. Double ones is a potential Calamity...if you have an applicable Pursuit, you might be fine. Otherwise...thus, in most cases, a character should not spectacularly botch in their niche.

The chapter goes into detail about how to determine difficulty for various types of Tasks, both active and passive.

Most damage is applied after an Abatement Roll...in which a number of dice equal to the damage dealt are rolled and compared to the applicable armor a character has. Every die that rolls above it is applied to the appropriate type of Health (fatigue or injury). If damage is noted as being "absolute", such as some psionic, it completely bypasses defenses.

As damage piles up, characters do sustain penalties to their actions. Experience can be spent to add an additional die to an action, break ties or boost a character's damage resistance.

Finally, there are Exploits. If a task garners five or more Overkill, a character can utilize an Exploit...such as increasing the speed in which a task is completed, garnering trust from witnesses, or hitting a breakthrough that provides bonuses to other related tasks.

PHYSICAL CONFLICT

While the basic mechanic were covered in the previous chapter, this IS a game about aliens versus humans warfare. Distances are supplied in Spaces, and are done so to provide a happy medium among those using the Metric system and those using the Imperial system.

Damage and ranges for weapons are supplied here, as well as tactics such as Charging. Some weapons have Gimmicks of their own, like Burst or Rate (x), the latter of which determines the number of times a weapon can be fired in a turn.

Combat Exploits are also given here, and they include the obvious (Vital Hits provide bonus damage, Grapple lets you lock an opponent up and Blinding temporarily blinds the opponent) as well as some cool options (Taunt prevents the opponent from using any Experience for the next turn, Loot lets you snatch an item off of an opponent and Rampage lets you strike your target as well as additional mooks that may be in reach).

Optional hit locations are also provided, with different types of damage modifers applied if a target is struck in the head.

Finally, mass combat rules are provided, which abstract units down into stat blocks like characters...with Health instead determining the number of casualties a unit has taken. Units can also have Gimmicks, such as Hero (in which they are lead by a big damn hero), or Psions (the presence of Psions in the unit lowering the difficult for their rolls a bit).

A sidebar also lists random calamaties for combat, based on the type. For instance, a ranged calamity can result in an innocent bystander being shot, a close combat calamity can force you to drop your weapon and so on.

DIRECTING THE STORIES

This pretty much covers basic GMing, a lot of stuff you have probably read before. Nothing wrong with that...however, it DOES get into Stormrift specific material, such as specific plots and subplots like Search and Destroy Missions, Rescue missions and so on.

Though OLS Members is the default campaign, options are provided here as well: Unaffiliated survivors, resistance members outside of North America and even alien slaves rebelling against The Korr.

The author tosses a reassurance in here that, essentially, there is no metaplot and any future books for Stormrift will not officially change the setting.

Advancement is interesting: New gimmicks are assigned by the Director as deemed appropriate. Up to two Pursuits can be used to attempt advancement, but they must have been used in the just finished session. Roll a die for each, consult the table...you may boost a pursuit, gain Experience instead, or gain nothing, depending on the roll. Psions and Cyborgs get a similar roll to develop new abilities.

Permanent injuries, healing and scaling damage are provided here, though it seems a tad out of place, as they all probably should have been a chapter back or so. Still, the scaling rules are a nice way to handle, say, a cyborg staring down a tank.

Guidelines on hashing out extras is also provided, complete with a reference table that includes the scaling rules AND a list of sample extras.

VEHICLES

Vehicles are defined by Speed, Handling, Frame and Tech, as well as their Purpose and Scale. They can also gain gimmicks, and Health is replaced with Integrity, which are measured in Mechanical Stress, Structural Damage and Voss corrosion (the nasty stuff that is killing tech on earth).

A random Calamities chart is also provided, as well as pretty much anything you need for vehicle combat, including the effects of damage on a vehicle (such as reducing its top speed) and a handful of Exploits, such as a Precision Hit being used to take out an engine.

A massive list of vehicles is provided, for land, sea and air. Literally, everything from tanks to a segway(!). If a vehicle you want to use isn't in the book somehow, you probably have something darn close to run with.

ADAPTATIONS

Here are rules for cyborgs and psionics. Basically, cyborgs came about because people figured out how to take Korr Cybernetics and slap them onto humans. Now, I personally see how that might be a Bad Idea...but it makes for good game options.

Cyborgs have cool toys...but they also have to deal with Cybernetic Overload...in which their psyches can be pushed to the breaking point that can cause outbursts of rage and even force them to go so far off the deep end that they are no longer PCs.

Not only is a big list of cybernetic gimmicks present, but a random table for determining gimmicks is as well, if you want to go that route. Some cybernetics include Arm Blades, Cyber-Ear, EMP Shielding and even a "built in" Tool Set. About 40 gimmicks in all, by my count.

The Stormrift that the Korr used to invade Earth triggered psychic powers in some humans, but this obviously isn't completely natural and it shows, as psions can fall prey to a similar rage effect as cyborgs. Psions have about 26 gimmicks to choose from, with old standbys like Telekinesis and Telepathy present, as well as new tricks like Mental Revelation (which reduces your difficulty on a Reasoning based task by tapping into the minds of those around you!).

Finally, Voss is explained...the rust effect unleashed by The Korr that is slowly limiting mankind's options for warfare.

BESTIARY

We get what amounts to the Scale discussion again, as well as a word on Abilities. In addition to the number given for each ability, most abilities are given a letter code that you can roll on a table and cross reference with if you would like to randomize the abilities instead of every creature of that type having the same Fitness, for instance.

A slew of Gimmicks are provided, like Dead Stare or Kamikaze (which is instant death for the creature that has it). Others include Regeneration and Venomous.

First up is a big list of common animals, such as birds, dogs, snakes, boars, aligators and so on.

Then we get to the goodies: The Korr. The Korr are all fairly creepy looking...each entry has the proper Korr name, as well as the slang term used by the OLS.

Motherships are giant jellyfish that serve as mobile Korr bases.

Juggernauts are these huge crab-looking beasts that serve as living war machines.

Fliers look like flying crustaceans, whereas Little Fliers are overgrown bugs.

Crushers look like giant worms with ram horns.

Crab Walkers resemble big, mutated crabs.

These are the "human" names for them, of course. Dozens more entries are provided, not only filling out the ranks of the Korr, but also creatures that may find their way through the Stormrifts and into earth on their own!

INVASION OF EARTH

We get a timeline of the important events, starting in December 2012 and advancing up 189 days, with war in progress. Attacks happened all over the world, but the US was hit particularly hard, especially in the major cities.

The Korr's attacks affected the climate on the planet, and nuclear retaliation has had fallout that is affecting everyone as well.

We get into the Korr themselves...described as a capitalist society broken into four castes: Nobles, Medical Sciences, Warriors and Workers. The Korr have conquered whenever and wherever they wanted and assumed that the same would happen on Earth...but have been stunned to discover not only humanity's fighting spirit, but their knack for incredibly lethal weaponry.

The Korr's tactics (and they use the same tactics basically all the time...one of their glowing weaknesses) as well as the breakdown of their invading force is provided, alongside a full history of the Korr.

The Resistance are fighting a guerilla war against the Korr, trying to minimize their losses and make the war too expensive and troublesome for the invaders. At the head, the OLS is lead by a number of US Generals, who have organized the resistance after the President disappeared following the ordering of nuclear strikes three months earlier.

The realities of the world today are also covered: Money is worthless. There are no grocery stores. Lists of locations for scavenging and the likely loot are listed. Since everyone is having to make due with whatever they've got, we also get Jury-Rigging rules.

New equipment is provided, though it is all pretty much Korr materials...some of it being so unique to their physiologies that humans couldn't really use it.

To make matters worse, The Korr brought a doomsday device called the Akorras through the rift and it shattered in Earth's atmosphere...meaning there are shards of a doomsday weapon scattered about. A number of shard-based encounters are provided, like a shard surfacing at a meth lab.

A generalized list of factions are provided, like Humanitarian Workers, News Agencies and even Dogs (who absolutely HATE The Korr), but they don't leave it at that: Specific groups such as news agency FXNN and The Factory (formerly a beer factory, now a refugee camp) are given a paragraph or so of detail.

Other, less savory groups include jihadists, skinheads, pirates and even a mob family...this kinda clues you in on the idea that there is way more to do if you get tired of tangling with bizarre creatures from another dimension.

A full 34 plot ideas, a paragraph long each, are provided...many of them are pretty basic (rescue missing persons, etc), while another leads to the PCs having to deal with a cyborg warlord.

A lengthy sidebar details a huge list of films one can watch for inspiration (as well as what to actually watch for, in most cases), and the chapter ends with a list of random encounter tables broken up by urban and rural settings, as well as scavenging tables.

FIRST MISSION

First Mission is a basic "defend the small town" plot, with a shard of the Akorras doomsday device located in a small town and the PCs' cell present to hopefully fend off the Korr. The town is given a good amount of detail (most everything except a map), and this should serve as a perfectly fine starting point.

The book ends with a Character Sheet, a Vehicle Sheet and a Skirmish Sheet, for recording characters, vehicles and skirmish forces respectively. A one page index tops it all off.

THOUGHTS

Other than the art not doing it for me, a couple of small organizational issues and the fonts annoying me, I really enjoyed Stormrift. The author did a tremendous job of getting a lot of information into one book, and it never struck me as dull. In fact, I LOVED the in character sidebars throughout the book, because they not only provided valuable insight into the world through the eyes of the people, but they were kept short and sweet.

One idea that hit me pretty early on is using Bold & Brave and doing supers vs aliens...maybe even using the shards from the Akorras as the "why" for the super powers...the only downside is that it would overshadow Psions and Cyborgs quite a bit.

I like how the setting is painted in broad strokes as to what is going on...there isn't a detailed breakdown as to what cities have been destroyed and what haven't...but you can make a reasonable judgement call on just about everything, while having enough material to justify exceptions to the rules.

All in all, a very nice standalone product that is only hampered slightly by a few unfortunate production choices.

Tommy's Take on Mean Streets Expanded

Mean Streets Expanded is a single volume rolling the Mean streets RPG in with some supplementary material, to make a larger book, like Precis Intermedia did with Ghostories.

Powered by the genreDiversion system, which uses 2d6 for task resolution, Mean Streets is a "film noir" RPG, designed to emulate films like Gaslight, Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon in an RPG setting.

The PDF is $7.95 and, like most Precis Intermedia games, you can upgrade it to a printed version by paying the difference (in this case, $12). It is also compatible with the other genreDiversion games, most notably Ghostories, which includes a section specifically on combining Ghostories and Mean Streets.

INTRODUCTION

Pretty standard intro, serving as a primer on film noir, including six films to familiarize yourself with the film noir. Also, the six primary RPG concepts relevant to this game are listed as well (PC, NPC, Ability, Skill, Task and Difficulty).

Basic stuff...nothing ground breaking, but nothing bad.

CHARACTERS

Every character has five abilities: Fitness, Awareness, Creativity, Reasoning and Influence, ranking from 0 to 5. Skills are scaled from 1 to 8...(well, you can technically have a skill of 0, it just means you're unskilled).

Every character has a Role, which provides access to certain gimmicks and recommended skills. Roles are essentially what you do in life, such as Bank Robber, Private Detective, Gangster and Grifter. Role also determines your base Monthly Savings.

Health is measured on two tracks, ranked from 1-5: Fatigue and Injury. Fatigue makes you pass out, while Injury makes you die.

Abilities have a point buy method (12 points) and a random roll method, whichever you prefer, with an optional "heroic" method for more points. Characters get 30 points for skills, and any gimmicks dictated by their Role. You can get additional gimmicks at the cost of either one ability point or three skill points, or take detrimental gimmicks, which give an ability point or three skill points...(essentially, you can take positive and negative gimmicks at a one for one, since the points would balance out).

The skill list is pretty big, but manageable. Most of them are tied to an Ability, with Composure being the exception to the rule.

Gimmicks run through some pretty common stuff: There is an extensive list of Contacts categories, for instance, from High Society to Gangster to Hollywood to the Police. From there, you get into things like Acute Senses, Quick and Jack of All Trades, as well as interesting stuff like Criminally Insane, which lets you never fail Fear and Composure rolls.

Detrimental Gimmicks can be as straight forward as Clumsy and Gullible, or things like Dark Secret and Stooge, which puts you in debt to a gangster.

A two page chart summarizes everything for you.

THE ACTION

The basic mechanic entails adding a skill and an ability together, and trying to roll under that number with 2d6. The GM can assign a Difficulty, which is essentially the Margin of Success that the player needs to beat their Skill Total by when rolling. If the margin is 2, you need to roll under by 2 or more. If it's 4, then 4 or more. Snake eyes are automatic successes, double sixes are automatic failures. Optional rules exist for Calamities and Triumphs, which amount to critical successes and failures.

Other rules can modify attempts, such as taking a level of fatigue to reduce the required Difficulty.

Combat is handled under "Violence" tasks. Initiative is governed under "reaction", which is determined by rolling a die and adding fitness and awareness to it. Actions are declared from lowest to highest, and resolved (mostly) simultaneously. Ranged attacks go first, resolved in order. Melee attacks are resolved as contested rolls, with only the highest one winning in a given conflict. Different weapons have damage ratings, with some only doing Fatigue while others do Injury damage, and armor can negate that damage. The rules do cover common eventualities and conditions: Using off-hand weapons, called shots, hit locations, knockdowns, etc.

Chase rules are also provided, a series of contested tasks, opening and closing the Gap. If a roll fails, the person that failed the roll has to roll on the Chase Hazards chart, from potholes to traffic jams. There is also a Chase Activity chart, which determines the path and its effect on the chase.

The relevant rules and modifiers are also summarized at the end of this chapter.

EXPANDING THE GAME

These are optional rules you can use to tweak it around a bit, starting with Cliches. Cliches are cinematic abilities your characters can use, divided into categories and tied to the roles. Fighting Cliches include Bullets Unlimited (in which one firearm will never run out of bullets) and Heavenly Aim (allowing characters to ignore penalties and armor protection due to cover). Other Cliches include Master of Disguise (an uncanny knack for covering your identity with just a few moments of prep), Skeleton Key (letting you open any lock), Nothing But (a knack for forcing the truth out of people) and You Can't Do That (once per story, you can pull off an untrained task as if you had a skill rating of 6). Cliches can also be purchased the same way gimmicks are.

Character advancement rules are provided, as well as rules for quickly producing stats for extras, plus tweaks for reducing the number of dice rolls, or making it more heroic.

Drinking rules are also provided, as well as conversion rules for the Impresa and Masterbook systems that power other Precis Intermedia games, plus a diceless variant.

THE BIG CITY

This chapter provides overviews of three cities: New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, all perfectly suitable film noir settings. Each city gets an overview, including a history. Relevant locations, mood of the cities and the like are also provided, like the presence of Al Capone in Chicago and the racial tensions present in New York. Chicago also provides three new roles that are relevant to the setting, while LA provides one of its own (Stuntman).

In addition, the short essay from Ghostories is present here as well, if you wish to combine the two for some horror noir.

Half a dozen "quick locales" are also given, with basic descriptions, for use when setting up your stories: night clubs, PI offices, police precinct houses and so on.

CRIME & PUNISHMENT

Given the genre, this is a very useful chapter on crime in the 1940s. It starts with the major layers of law enforcement, from the local police, to county sheriffs and state police to the feds. Major crimes are described, including a few common defenses. The structure of the courts system is also provided, as is an 11 step system for trials, running from discovery through sentencing.

VENDETTAS

This chapter flips the coin and focuses on the American branches of the mafia. It even breaks them down by city, including information on various cities (like Philadelphia) that did not get full treatment a couple of chapters ago. It is also worth noting that this chapter doesn't just treat the mafia as adversaries: Some story seeds are provided, placing the characters in the role of black hats, rather than cops or PIs.

CASABLANCA

Thanks to the movie by the same name, the name "Casablanca" is now almost synonymous with film noir. Appropriately, this chapter details the city of Casablanca, as well as the country of Morocco, as a setting for your Mean Streets game.

Three new roles are also provided: Freedom Fighter, Refugee and War Criminal, as well as three new, appropriate, connection gimmicks.

This chapter includes three pages of incidental characters, as well as a map of the city and a quick reference of both French and Arabic phrases.

THE ATTITUDE

This is the GM section, essentially.

It starts with a discussion of the history of film noir, as well as the basics of laying out the plot, beginning with the McGuffin and building from there. The roles of both men and women are discussed, which will vary pretty dramatically, if you stick closely to the source material.

Eleven stories are included, complete with important cast members, ideas on how to involve your PCs with each story, and a series of twists for each story that you can use.

Mists of the Past involves the wife of a Congressman being blackmailed about her shady past in the pornography industry.

Suitable for Framing involves a wounded soldier who is claiming to be framed for the murder of his wife.

Raiders of the Lost Art involves valuable French art that has been sent to the US to keep it out of the hands of Nazis and has now gone missing, setting off a chase by all of the interested parties.

Angels with Sticky Fingers has a nun on the run after a woman turns up dead in a convent.

Dial H for Hitman has one of the PCs targeted by an infamous hitman...who is so good that no one knows his face.

The Dog That Wouldn't Be Fixed involves a boxer who refused to take a fall after he finds out an orphanage was depending on his victory.

Guess Who's Coming To Harlem involves a racially charged love affair featuring a mobster's daughter.

Father of the Bride has a missing inventor and his dead mistress to deal with.

We, The Jury involves the trial of a major Mafia Don and his attempts to disrupt the jury.

The First Thing We Do... sees a law firm being picked off one by one.

On an Empty Chamber features a missing judge and a missing court reporter.

Copping a Plea sees a homeless man found with the body of a murdered girl.

The chapter ends with a listing of 40s goods and prices.

THE STORIES

These are three complete scenarios, designed to be ready to run.

A Tangled Web (based off of The Big Heat) is set in 1943 New York City, and begins with the investigation of a suicide that obviously has deeper layers.

Where Shadows Fall has a poor woman in dire need of help, and only the PCs can truly help her out, of course. It starts simple enough, with a missing bracelet, which is actually the key to inflicting grievous damage on the mob.

Secrets of Casablanca obviously takes the PCs overseas, to investigate the death of a reporter, and turns into a race against time to uncover the truth and bring the situation to the head.

REFERENCE

A series of charts, featuring all of the modifiers and such that are likely to come up in play, as well as a full page character sheet, and a page that has three smaller sheets on it, as you and your group prefers.

TEMPLATES

21 templates are provides, such as Adventerous Dilettante, Classic Femme Fatale, Arrogant G-Man, Mystery Man, Bitter Veteran, Paranoid Bank Robber and Overhyped Boxer. These are ready to go (minus names) to be used as PCs or NPCs, or just as inspiration.

Finally, Disposable Dice can be printed out and assembled, if you really don't have two six sided dice laying around.

THOUGHTS

My overall impression of Mean Streets suffers just a bit from following so closely on the heels of reading Ghostories, which kinda blew me away. It is definitely a case where, to me, Mean Streets doesn't really have anything to add to Ghostories, while Ghostories probably has quite a bit to add to Mean Streets.

That said, there is certainly plenty of material here to take your game and run with it, and I really like some of the included gimmicks, especially some of the Cultural Gimmicks. The chapters on Crime & Punishment and the mafia, especially, are tremendously useful and well placed, as is the source material on 1940s Chicago, New York City, LA and Morocco.

If you wanted to play it a little more "Sin City" and a little less "Casablanca", kicking in all of the Heroic options, plus Cliches, would get you pretty close.

If you have Ghostories, and you are looking at this for mining material, I can't give it a strong recommendation...if you want a film noir game, especially one that seems like it would scale up fairly well, I give it a bigger thumbs up.

Tommy's Take on Ghostories Expanded RPG

I reviewed my first genreDiversion game last year, Bold & Brave, and found it to be pretty cool...it just got overlooked in the (ongoing) glut of supers games.

The Ghostories Expanded RPG uses the same basic game system, and incorporates the other Ghostories PDFs that had been made available.

The PDF weighs in at 128 pages, black and white, and allows for copy and pasting, searching and is fully bookmarked.

INTRODUCTION

This is a one page summary of what you're getting into with Ghostories, which are meant for Supernatural Mystery Roleplaying. You can play the supernatural as being mythical, as being real but people are unaware of it, or as being real and being an accepted part of life. Obviously, each approach will alter how your game looks.

PART 1: RULES OF PLAY

CHARACTERS

Every character has five abilities: Fitness, Awareness, Creativity, Reasoning and Influence, ranking from 0 to 5. Skills are scaled from 1 to 8...(well, you can technically have a skill of 0, it just means you're unskilled).

Every character has a Role, which provides access to certain gimmicks and recommended skills. Roles are essentially what you do in life, such as Criminal, Executive, Martial Artist or Professor.

You also need a Pursuit, which is really the driving force for you. Again, this can gain you access to certain gimmicks or skills. Some Pursuits include Faith, Magic, Science or Vigilantism. They can be innocent or tainted, and if the latter, they allow access to certain gimmicks and freakishness.

Health is measured on three tracks, ranked from 1-5: Fatigue, Injury and Dementia. The first makes you pass out, the second makes you die, the third makes you lose control of your character until he becomes a little more sane.

Abilities have a point buy method (12 points) and a random roll method, whichever you prefer, with an optional "heroic" method for more points. Characters get 30 points for skills, and any gimmicks dictated by their Role and Pursuit. You can get additional gimmicks at the cost of either one ability point or three skill points, or take detrimental gimmicks, which give an ability point or three skill points...(essentially, you can take positive and negative gimmicks at a one for one, since the points would balance out).

There are a pretty large number of skills, but almost half of them are tied to specific tainted Pursuits, which means the effective list is going to be much smaller than it looks. To me, that's a Good Thing.

Gimmicks run through some pretty common stuff: There is an extensive list of Contacts categories, for instance, from Paparazzi to Covens to Law Enforcement to the Underground. From there, you get into things like Legal Authority and Military rank, or Acute Senses.

Detrimental Gimmicks are things as basic as being Depressed or Color-Blind, to crazy stuff like having a False Destiny or even a False Power that the PC has tricked themselves into thinking it works!

Finally, each tainted pursuit has a whole number of gimmicks that allow things like channeling Divine Energy, drawing magical energy into a focal device or being able to sense if someone is truly possessed. There are quite a few options here to differentiate your characters with.

GETTING THINGS DONE

The basic mechanic entails adding a skill and an ability together, and trying to roll under that number with 2d6. The GM can assign a Difficulty, which is essentially the Margin of Success that the player needs to beat their Skill Total by when rolling. If the margin is 2, you need to roll under by 2 or more. If it's 4, then 4 or more. Snake eyes are automatic successes, double sixes are automatic failures. Optional rules exist for Calamities and Triumphs, which amount to critical successes and failures.

Other rules can modify attempts, such as taking a level of fatigue to reduce the required Difficulty. A scale is also provided for Composure Tasks, which can inflict Dementia damage...if a character hits 5 grades of dementia, he goes a little loopy and can have such reactions as hitting the fetal position, permanently blocking the memory of what happened, or attacking an ally, believing them to be a threat.

Combat is handled under "Violence" tasks. Initiative is governed under "reaction", which is determined by rolling a die and adding fitness and awareness to it. Actions are declared from lowest to highest, and resolved (mostly) simultaneously. Ranged attacks go first, resolved in order. Melee attacks are resolved as contested rolls, with only the highest one winning in a given conflict. Different weapons have damage ratings, with some only doing Fatigue while others do Injury damage, and armor can negate that damage. The rules do cover common eventualities and conditions: Using off-hand weapons, called shots, hit locations, knockdowns, etc.

Miscellaneous sources of damage, like asphyxiation, fire and even being dragged by vehicles (which wouldn't be terribly common, you would think) are included, as well as recovery rules.

TAINTED WORKINGS

And here we get into the Kewl Powers.

Second Sight is up first, and it requires a gimmick: Animal Sight allows you to sense the emotional state of animals, Innocent Sight allows you to sense the emotions of anyone who is untainted by the supernatural, Locus sight is residual emotional trauma in a location and Spirit sight focuses on any ghost or bound spirit. From there, you can learn other skills, such as Clairvoyance, Telepathic Sense and Postcognition.

Divine Arts requires either the Divine Benediction, Divine Symbol or Divine Consecration gimmicks. Divine Arts lets you channel Divine energy for several uses, such as Exorcising, Healing and even Illuminating the area.

Sorcery requires that you have at least one of the following gimmicks: Circles, Foci or Inscriptions, which dictates how you use magic. Magic itself has three major uses: Creating things, creating illusions of things and creating wards.

Revelations are visions that the character can have, which can be active or subconscious. People with this can also gain Expressions, which are special effects that they can learn to control based off of the visions. For instance, a character with Revelation of Passion can have visions relating to works of art and can use the Expression that allows them a -2Diff when attempting to seduce someone. Each Revelation also has an Overuse penalty...Passion gives a character the Guilt-Ridden, Liar or Selfish gimmicks for overuse. There are 9 different Revelations to choose from.

Unholy Arts require either the Quorums, Rituals or Sacrifices gimmick, and allows the characters to summon Phantoms, which can provide information, act on your behalf or provide you with Endowments that can range from boosting Abilities or providing new gimmicks. None of these powers are "free lunches"...they all require doing something for the phantom.

Binding Lore allows the character to infuse spirits into constructs or even creatures...making zombies, gargoyles, gremlins and creepy possessed people.

Heritage of Egis manifests among those with an overdeveloped sense of justice. There is a slight contradiction here, as one paragraph says you cannot have more than one of these gimmicks, while the other says that you can have two - in extremely rare circumstances.

Supernatural relics are the final entry, provide six sample relics that the GM can give the PCs instead of actual powers for the characters themselves.

The chapter ends with a chart summarizing the powers.

One thing I find interesting is that very few of the powers are inherently offensive abilities. A few of the Heritage gimmicks provide bonuses to attacks or damage, and you can boost your combat capabilities with Endowments from the Unholy Arts, but there is not a lot of flashy, damage dealing powers like you tend to expect from modern supernatural horror games that have such abilities. I think that is not only a nice change of pace, but also helps set the tone for the game.

TAINTED ENTITIES

As you may have guessed, this is the bestiary. It starts off with Etheria, which is the "health" for the horrors in the book, rather than the three types of health PCs have. The also have the Interaction skill here, which is what horrors without a physical form use to manifest with.

A whole slew of Special Gimmicks are present for the Horrors write-ups, explained at the end of the section. The entries are divided up into larger sections, with subsections as needed, and sample stat blocks.

Ghosts are the spiritual remnants of the deceased, and are bound by their unfinished business.

Embodied Spirits are the kinds of things you can make with the Binding Lore. Gremlins, golems, imps, zombies and dybbukim, which are spirits bound to electronics, masses of solid material, animals, dead humans and living humans respectively.

Phantoms are not unlike demons, and come in a few variants: Twilight bogies appear in people's nightmares, beguilers are succubi and incubi, kinders appears as children, fiends try to push people into violence, unholies appear as clergymen and hordes are just creepy, creepy monsters.

Banes possess people, and come in four varieties with specific M.O.s.

Brownies are fairies, and have the interesting variants of dwarves, elves and gnomes.

Liches are also known as vampires and have four variations, including an Asian vampire variant, classic nosferatu, modernized vampires, and more "classic" vampires.

Lost souls are mortals who lost themselves in meditative trances and are now twisted, disembodied remnants of people who can only take physical form from humans breach their domain.

Skinwalkers are a catch-all for shapeshifters, from werewolves to the bizarre fetches - which take on the form of a person and use it with little thought as to the consequences of what wearing their chosen face does to the person they stole it from.

Trolls are big, violent brutes that come in five varieties, most of which are just variations on a theme, but do also include hags.

Misguided Innocents are humans that may cross your path, either relatively well-meaning types like ghost hunters, clueless innocents like goths, and deranged serial killers.

Misguided Tainted are humans with powers who are likely to get in your way, like mad scientists and evil sorcerers. No stats are given for Innocents or Tainted, as you can use the standard character generation rules to build them.

Nearly 70 special gimmicks are detailed to give the horrors that extra necessary punch.

THE WORLD AROUND US

This is pretty much the GM chapter, but it does go further than just "how to run horror" and the like. While it does get into the elements of horror, it also focuses on making sure to make the most of gimmicks and pursuits, and talks about the reactions different groups, like police and media, are likely to have to the supernatural.

A section is included on investigations and research at various levels of the setting (Myth, Fantastic, Reality), and twenty or so plot seeds are provided, from a small scale zombie rampage to cult activity to hauntings.

EXPANDING THE GAME

Here we have character advancement rules, abstracting down extras so you don't need full stat blocks for every cop, thug, etc...variants to town down the dice rolling or ramp up the level of "heroics", lasting injuries and a few more optional gimmicks for "extreme" horrors.

Precis Intermedia has a couple of systems it supports, and while this game is powered by the genreDiversion system, conversion rules for Impresa (which powers Iron Gauntlets) is included, as well as the Unbidden RPG (which I'm pretty sure got the genreDiversion treatment in the genreDiversion 3 book...ah, yeah, there it is...I read the rules in that book, but didn't make it to the setting stuff). Precis Intermedia also purchased Bloodshadows and Masterbook recently, and conversions from there to Ghostories are also included, as well as updating from the original release of Ghostories to this one.

So...even if you didn't have enough options (and there are quite a few), you have more. Plus, it's compatible with other genreDiversions games, like Mean Streets, for some horror-noir fun. In fact, a page or so is dedicated to just that, and not from a rules standpoint, but meshing the two implied settings.

Diceless rules are included, as well as a very cool system for tracking "The Veil" between realities and its effect on magic and such...(for example, Samhain gives all Sorcery and Unholy Arts rolls -2DIFF, Horrors get a similar bonus on Interaction rolls, and Second Sight rolls get a +2DIFF penalty.

THE STORIES

These are actually nine complete adventures for you to us. Since the game only has an implied setting and not a concrete setting, these should be fairly easy to drop on somewhere.

Not Forgotten is a ghost story murder mystery meant for beginning characters, and sets up a potential recurring NPC. It is laid out in scenes, so you can skip ahead if the PCs fail to take the bait somewhere, so it's not an extreme railroad. It also provides another ghost that you can use for inspiration, especially with it's hauntings being in action in the adventure.

Desecration is in a different gear, as the PCs should be known troubleshooters, and this time they get to face a mad scientist and his zombie minion. This one leaves the end game open enough that it could prove more or less difficult depending on when the PCs find and confront the bad guy.

Web of Seduction is an interesting blackmail case flipped on its head...and no, it doesn't matter if the PCs don't deal in blackmail normally, as a connection to the case is built in for them.

Dark Tremors has potential to turn into a cataclysmic affair if the PCs don't work quickly and correctly, in a nice change of pace showing a much larger scale than the earlier adventures worked on.

From the Past is the first that requires a given character type, as one person must be a medium for the adventure. This one features an old friend of one of the PCs who has inherited a haunted estate, and is much more location based than event based as the previous adventures were.

Amends is meant for Innocents with no supernatural experience at all...meaning it should make for a decent introductory adventure...and thus should probably have led off this whole section.  Although, it isn't quite as fleshed out as the others.

The Reverend also requires a medium and leadsin interesting conflict with a cult leader...who is over 150 years old.

The Cup Runneth is meant to have some extra compatibility with Mean Streets if you feel so inclined...pitting the PCs against a killer who has found the key to eternal life.

Tears of Joy is probably the best of the adventures, and is a suitable introductory adventure as well, complete with pre-generated characters (if needed). If nothing else, it is worth the GM reading for some ideas on how to incorporate meditations and visions into their game.

REFERENCE

This section is a series reference charts (shockingly!) for the game, as well as a full page character sheet, a smaller, "3 to a page" character sheet, and a "3 to a page" set of sheets for recording your horrors on.

TEMPLATES

21 ready made characters, with the first 15 having template names instead of character names, with the final six being named characters designed for the "Tears of Joy" adventure. Some of these templates include Vigilante Cop, Millionaire Magician, Medium Housewife, Upstanding Sorcerer and Stalker by Night.

Finally, if you lack dice, you can print off and assemble Disposable Dice from the back of the book.

THOUGHTS

If I had to pick on something, I'm not a big fan of some of the naming conventions with the Horrors...especially in cases such as Phantoms, which invokes a certain type of imagery...but they are pretty much demons. It's not a HUGE quibble, mind you.

Honestly, I am surprised at the depth of the book, given the title. It really is pretty much an all purpose horror game, hitting most of your major "monster types", while giving you plenty of tools and example to expand even from there. If anything, it's got me excited about cracking into Mean Streets (my next review, which I was already excited about) and seeing just what kind of mixing and matching can be done...(yeah, there is a section in this book about it, but it lacks the proper context for me, since I haven't read Mean Streets yet). Toss in being able to convert Bloodshadows and using the Unbidden material from the genreDiversion 3e manual and this is a *really* impressive product. While I don't think it's just BRUTALLY lethal (actual play could certainly prove me wrong here), it also certainly isn't high powered (especially with the Tainted powers having so few combat applications), making it a great horror game with a real sense of danger.

Comparing the content from the first Ghostories release to this one is a pretty dramatic step up, with this one feeling far more complete, and far more impressive. A great amount of information for the price, especially since there is no hard setting, so you can easily drop any elements you don't like. Strong recommendation.

Tommy's Take on MasterBook

I actually had no prior experience with Masterbook, so color me interested when Precis Intermedia Games saved it from death and obscurity after the complete collapse of West End Games.

Masterbook is a toolkit system designed to use a series of cards to alter and affect gameplay...honestly, it's right up my alley, at least in concept.

This review is of the PDF version, which is a 262 page PDF, fully bookmarked and searchable and all that...and, it is worth noting, including both a complete set of printable black and white MasterDeck cards, and a complete set of color ones. For those who don't want to print their own, Precis Intermedia just announced that the MasterDeck is back in print.

AN INTRODUCTION TO MASTERBOOK

This is pretty much what it sounds like, an introductory chapter explaining roleplaying games (complete with the Cops and Robbers "I shot you! No you didn't!" explanation), as well as explaining what MasterBook is (a generic setting designed to be played in multiple genres).

There's not a lot here that you haven't seen before, and I don't know if any of this was off the well beaten path even in 1994, but honestly, you just kind of expect to see that sort of thing in RPGs anymore.

BASIC RULE OVERVIEW

Counting a two page character sheet and a full page piece of art, this clocks in at about 16 pages or so and, honestly, I think an experience GM could almost run the game off of those pages, believe it or not.

CHARACTER CREATION

Characters have eight Attributes: Agility, Dexterity, Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Mind, Charisma and Confidence, and 68 points to spend. The scale, oddly, runs from the normal minimum of 5 to the human peak of 13...although the benchmarks chart curiously drops from 5 to -5. I started playing RPGs around 1994, and I don't think I would have questioned the scale back then, but it's just a bit odd now.

Once that is completed, you get Derived Attributes, like Toughness and Movement Rates. While Skills aren't TECHNICALLY Derived, you do get your skill points from your Intellect and Mind. There are a number of rules governing the spending of skill points, and while Specializations are present, they are annoyingly on a half point system...that is, each level (or "add") of a specialization is half a point. As a rule, I don't like bean counting in my games, and half points are more tedious than I like to deal with.

It is also worth noting that skills do not run on the same scale as Attributes, starting at 1 (if they are trained at all, of course) up past 16.

BACKGROUND GENERATION

Here we get a lot of common background questions to flesh the character out, but we also get Advantages and Compensations. Now this, I really like. Rather than assigning point values to the Advantages and Compensations, they are placed in Columns, with the effects being more and more extreme, the higher you go. Every Advantage that you take requires taking a Compensation from a corresponding Column. There is an optional rule for mixing across Columns...such as trading in a Column III selection for Column I selections...this requires taking a Column III Compensation still.

Five genres (High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Real World, Science Fiction and Pulp) are provided, with recommended Column selections.

Column I Advantages are pretty basic: A snitch you can call on, an extra skill point, etc. Around Column III, you start getting into things like having a Danger Sense, while Column IV gives you options like Godlike Contacts and Natural Weapons.

Every Advantage is detailed, with notable restrictions and notes spelled out.

The Compensation Columns start off fairly light: Owing a small debt or having a minor enemy, and scale up to Employed - meaning you don't have a lot of autonomy - or being a victim of Prejudice, to having a powerful Enemy hunting you, or being so Infamous that you are doggedly pursued. There are no Column IV Compensations...at that point, the player and GM get to work something out that is suitable.

You can get rid of Compensations, just as you can lose Advantages, and they are often linked.

Guidelines are also given for making new races and species for your games, generally by mixing and matching Advantages and Compensations.

THE RULES

The core mechanic of the game involves rolling 2d10 and comparing them to a Bonus Chart, giving you a number that you add (or subtract) from your relevant skill to gain a total for your action. And yes, I did say subtract: If you roll below a 9, your "Bonus" is a penalty. Most people are familiar with the concept of Exploding Dice, but Masterbook has a very interesting variant: You can reroll and keep your 10s rolled - but ONLY if you have adds in the relevant skills or specializations. It is thus IMPOSSIBLE for a completely unskilled, lucky shot to explode and blow out someone gifted at a given action.

Well...normally. There are exceptions, through the use of the MasterDeck and the expenditure of Life Points (kind of like Fate Points/Action Points/Bennies/whatever).

If you beat the Target Number for the action, subtract your total from the Target Number, compare to the Success Chart, and see precisely what the effect of the action is.

Damage is handled under a Wound system that goes from Lightly to Moderately to Heavily to Incapacitated to Mortally to Dead. You can also gain "K"s and "O"s...if you have a K AND an O, you're knocked out.

A little sidebar I love is descriptive elements for the Wound types, such as Lightly Wounded being a bruise, while Incapacitated being a heavy concussion.

With the basics of combat out of the way, Combat Options such as Hit Locations (providing more or less damage, depending on the targeted spot) are given, plus options like capping melee damage based off of Strength, and providing different bonuses and penalties for different tricks and tactics with a gun.

Damage options are also given, if you want to incorporate bits such as bleeding out.

Rules and guidelines are given for Interactions as well, with these being old standards such as Intimidation, Taunts and Tricks, Con, Persuasion and Interrogation.

There are two sets of Initiative Rules, one using the MasterDeck and one using standard die rolls. In the former, you essentially draw a MasterDeck card and it tells you who gets to go when.

Pretty much most of the rules staples you would expect round out the chapter, such as Falling damage, multiple actions, dealing with gang-ups and so on. A Value Chart is also given, reminding me a bit of the benchmarks from the old Mayfair Games DC Heroes RPG.

SKILLS AND SKILL USE

The skill list is kinda huge, though not every one will even be available in every game: For instance, in a 1930s Mob War setting, Energy Weapons probably won't be needed.

Some skills require specific foci, such as Faith or Beast Riding, and specializations are given for each skill. while I generally like smaller skill lists, at least there is nothing that just drives me nuts here, like Beautician. Every skill is tied to an Attribute, because some skills can be used untrained (defaulting to the attribute), though others cannot...and being a skill based system, it is much cheaper to raise skills than to improve attributes.

THE CARD DECK

The MasterDeck is 108 cards, and the number of cards given out is dependent on the number of PCs in the game...(one PC gets way more for their own use than a group of 5 gets, individually speakning).

There are three types of cards:

Enhancements generally provide some manner of specified bonus, such as Breakthrough allowing a PC to roll a skill as if they are trained, and add +3 to their roll, but only if they otherwise have no adds in it. Haste gives an immediate extra action, and so on.

Subplots are in-game effects that come into play over the course of the adventure, like Martyr (which can let your hero go out in a blaze of glory...if you choose), or Mistaken Identity - which means that you have been confused for someone else. The Campaign card is used to make a temporary subplot permanent, perhaps gaining you an enemy for life!

There are four Picture cards (Wild, Interloper, Disaster and Opportunity) that each also have their own very specific effects if they come into play.

Oh, and there are blank cards, if you want to make your own.

Card based initiative is given more detail here, showing you just how to read the cards for initiative. For instance, certain conditions may come into play, such as Flurry, which may allow all PCs an extra attack that round, or Up, which means that side gets to automatically reroll all dice as if they had rolled 10s.

The initiative card also has "approved" actions...if the PC succeeds at those, they get an extra card from the MasterDeck for their use.

Lastly, cards are also used for Critical Skill Resolution, which are multi-step crisis situations, like defusing bombs or freeing someone from a trap without killing them. A few pages of examples follow, using cards in each type of situation.

CREATING AND USING SPECIAL EFFECTS

Magic, Miracles, Psionics and Super-Science mainly.

Rather than provide a laundry list of abilities and forcing you to shove everything into those, MasterBook devotes a chapter to making your effects piece by piece (with a few examples).

In fact, the book constructs a magical Fireball spell, piece by piece, to show you how it works, and includes a worksheet that you can use to track your FX construction. Be warned, special effects run the risk of harming PCs! They have a Feedback Value that can be reduced by high rolls when casting the FX. You don't necessarily FAIL if you get Feedback...you may just take out yourself and your opponent.

The plus side is, it's versatile. The downside is, other than that fireball, you don't start off with many FX written up, so there's some work ahead for you and your players in that first few go arounds.

BASIC EQUIPMENT

This is pretty much an equipment chapter. Most modern weapons are given static damage ratings (handguns, etc), while most melee weapons and muscle-powered missile weapons are given "STR+" damage.

Armor is handled in a pretty straight forward manner, adding to Toughness.

Certainly not the greatest equipment chapter I have ever read, but it gets all of the necessary information across.

GAMEMASTERING MASTERBOOK

This section gives a very broad overview of World Creation, emphasizing the five genres that it pointed out earlier in the book. There's some good, if not great, advice in here. A beginning GM without a setting book would probably be fairly lost, while a moderately experienced GM could probably suss it out.

A pair of character templates are included, one for fantasy and one for sci-fi, to show you what a couple of completed characters look like.

MASTERDECK

As mentioned above, the MasterDeck is included as printable pages (fronts and backs, both color and black and white), for those who want to get rolling right now. Some very helpful instructions and tips are included up front (such as recommended paper stock).

THOUGHTS

Honestly, a character sheet would have been nice, but the accomodations in the PDF for the MasterDeck were GREAT.

The system itself is almost 20 years old, and it shows in some places. I'm not a huge fan of skill-based systems, but that is a personal preference and not a knock on the quality of the system. I do really like the Advantages/Compensation system, and I think the MasterDeck is pretty neat.

I hope it gets some support setting-wise, whether in the form of reprints or new material, because it feels a bit hollow right now...I mean, for a fantasy game or the like, at least some kind of examples to eyeball for a bestiary would be gold.

I don't see enough here to have me clamoring to ditch Savage Worlds as my go-to "generic" game, but I certainly wouldn't be opposed to taking it for a spin in a game or two.

Tommy's Take on Bold & Brave

Bold & Brave (hereafter B&B) is the first supers release by Precis Intermedia Games, better known for such releases as Two-Fisted Tales (the best standalone pulp game, IMO), Iron Gauntlets and GnomeMurdered among others.

Powered by GenreDiversion 3E, B&B is uncharted territory for PIG, and it's been kind of overlooked due to the hype and release of other recent supers games.  So, we're gonna take a look and see if it's been unfairly overlooked.

A little background on me: My first RPG was the Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set...my favorite RPG of all time is Marvel SAGA...I own a lot of supers games and played even more.  Supers is my favorite genre.  Heck, I labor endlessly producing small press comics as fast as I can find artists to draw them.  I love supers...so I'm willing to give any supers game at least a good read through.

B&B is a 57 page book available in PDF format for $6.95, which can be upgraded to a print book for an additional $6.54 at PIG's website, http://www.pigames.net .  It is not a standalone game, requiring the GenreDiversion3E game book, which provides the core rules for the game, both of which are written by PIG's own Brett Bernstein.

The PDF has a very nice cover by Scott Harshbarger, featuring a man in a black and blue bodysuit flying through the air and hurling electricity at a knight garbed in red who is riding what looks an awful lot like the Goblin Glider.  I am assuming the man in black and blue is The Shocker, who was the first super in the game's setting, Prudence City.

The PDF has a table of contents but no index, but is fully bookmarked, fully searchable and allows copy and paste.

Basics of the System

I'm only doing a rough overview of the system, since it's not included in the book.  Characters have five abilities: Fitness, Awareness, Creativity, Reasoning and Influence, which are rated on a scale of 0 to 6+ (6 entering “unimaginable” territory).  Character creation options allow for random rolling, assigning scores of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to the abilities or a point buy.

You customize characters with pursuits (skills) and gimmicks (advantages and disadvantages).  Options include either 10 points spread out among the pursuits (you can take an incompetency for bonus points), or a system where you pick one incompetency, two proficiences, three specialties and one mastery.

Each character gets one free gimmick, and pays for the rest through lowering abilities or pursuits, or taking detrimental gimmicks.

The basic mechanic is rolling 2d6, adding the relevant ability, as well as any bonuses or penalties from a relevant pursuit and comparing it to a difficulty number set by the Director.  Pretty straightforward stuff.

Introduction

B&B's setting, Prudence City, seems to have been inspired by Marvel's Civil War, in that the default assumption is that the government requires registration of heroes as sanctioned agents.  However, “unlicensed” heroes are generally given a pass, so long as collateral damage is kept to the minimum.  The introduction provides an overview of this, as well as a discussion of the additions B&B makes to the game system, and a very nice breakdown of supers types, from Pulp Heroes to Silver Age style to starting in a world with no heroes at all.

It's a good introduction, providing a solid summary of the setting and never drags.

Characters

This chapter gets into making characters for B&B, focusing on the additions to the rules.  First up is origin, of which there are five: Paragon, Gadgeteer, Mutant, Alien and Construct.  The one that's going to be the most confusing to fans of games such as Mutants & Masterminds is going to be Paragon, which isn't your Supermans in B&B, but your Batman-esque highly trained types.

B&B also adds Acclaim and Heroism meters, which are rather cool and remind me of the Popularity and Karma mechanics from Marvel FASERIP, in which your heroes can boost their profile through their deeds...Acclaim can provide bonuses when interacting with people, while Heroism fuels things like gaining powers.

The Powers section is about 15 pages long, running the gamut from enhancing your abilities to firing blasts of energy to being freakishly large.  With some of the more basic powers not running more than a sentence or two in description, there are a LOT of powers in the section, allowing for some broad customization.  Interspersed throughout this section are several sample characters, some of whom are kinda cheesy, but not as bad as I've come to expect from non-licensed supers games.  Some of the powers are simply layers, such as Extra Protection, Super Protection and Epic Protection, each of which provides more and more defense from attacks.

The powers are more flexible than, say, Savage Worlds (or maybe it's just that there are more of them), while also being simpler than Mutants & Masterminds.  The game includes Power Limitations as well as Weaknesses, the former of which limit powers (as it sounds), the latter being broader limitations for characters above and beyond detrimental gimmicks.  A character with Dark Presence, for instance, has trouble trying to interact with animals and children, while a guy with Rotten Luck will almost always be the target of an attack or insult.

New gimmicks include Alter Ego (of the Captain Marvel kind), Sidekick, Nemesis and more...filling in the standard superhero tropes, really.

It's a simple, workable system with enough depth to keep a guy like me interested.

The chapter ends with the specific character generation rules for B&B, which I definitely would have put at the beginning of the chapter instead of the end.  You can randomly roll your origin, or choose it.  You can use any of the three Ability generation methods listed above.  The standard options for pursuits remain.  Gimmicks have a random roll table, or you can use the standard method.  With Powers, you can either use a set number based off of campaign scale, or you can do random rolls based off of campaign scale.  In either instance, the origin selected impacts the number of powers.  A random background chart is available as an option, and certain origins require specific limitations on their powers.  In addition, the player has to roll one die for each power and, if it falls in the range listed on the chart, must select a limitation based off of the origin.  Weaknesses are handled in a similar fashion, you roll the dice listed and, if they fall in the range listed, you gain a weakness for each die that does so.  Alternately, the Director can allow players to select up to three weaknesses, gaining a new power for each weakness.

The chapter ends with information on damage, and scaling it by campaign scale, as well as how characters of different scales mix, as well as a handy chart listing all the Powers, Gimmicks, Limitations and Weaknesses.

My main gripe is definitely that I would have put all the character generation info at the beginning of the chapter, before Gimmicks, Powers and so forth.  This is how it's laid out in the core, and it's more intuitive.  That said, the system seems to have a good amount of flexibility without being overwhelming, which I certainly appreciate.

Jurisprudence

Prudence City is detailed in this chapter...filling in about nine text heavy pages.  It starts with the city's founding and moves through the various sections and quirks of the city.  City Hall, for instance, is rumored by some to rearrange its corridors and cubicles at night, when no one is around.  The old City Hall is now home of the Prudence City Police Department, and despite being a weathered and decrepit building on the outside, is always somehow kept up with the cutting edge technology on the inside.

This chapter provides three newspapers, news networks and major corporations, each with their own identities.  Some poor folks have been left in houses that have had highways built over and around them, and the police largely leave them to their devices...the wealthy have their own neighborhoods, complete with a distinct architectural theme, and rumors of a Romeo & Juliet story in the making between an old money family and a new money family.

The author does a really nice job of painting the city in broad strokes, while still leaving plenty of room to play around with it.  Of the three networks, for instance, only two reporters are even named, giving ample room to fill the roster out as need be.

The city section is interspersed with a couple of more sample characters, as well as a very nice “random crimes & disasters” chart that you can roll on for inspiration.  Results are divide by scale (ranging from local to global down to personal) and have results like rioting, cats stuck in trees, slave trading, dinosaur attacks and abducted relatives, with 60 results in all.  A very nice addition.

The next section talks about being a hero in Prudence City, including the Hero Registry & Oversight Committee, as well as the pros and cons of being a registered hero, or an unregistered vigilante.  The author takes a morally relative approach to matters of justice and what is an acceptable breach of law by the heroes, and a slightly cynical stance that heroes are fairly likely to slide into villainy.

A handy breakdown of types of heroes is listed in a sidebar, from tragic heroes to righteous ones, as well as vengeful heroes (vengeful villains surface later, with a note detailing their one notable difference, namely that a vengeful villain is more likely to take their mad-on out on the whole world).

The section also provides a discussion of forming teams, which has the benefits of pooling resources, but has the downside of the actions of one reflecting on the entire team.  A page or so is devoted to villains, from the types of villains to a discussion of villains using henchman and lackeys, villainous masterplans and so on.

There's some good advice in the latter part of this chapter, a lot of which you've heard before (if phrased differently) if you've read too many supers RPGs...but the author never really gets full of himself, so it's not a hard read or hard to digest.

Jurisidiction

The book veers back into the crunchy stuff at this point, starting off with areas of character advancement, as well as guidelines on how to create new powers, in case your favorite oddball power from some other supers game isn't present.

A handy subsystem is detailed here for making gadgets, ranging from typical gadgets through suits and into large industrial machines.  However, only Paragons or Gadgeteers can make gadgets, for better or for worse.  This section also talks about damaging and repairing gadgets.  It wraps up with a collection of rules and guidelines including benchmarks for guesstimating difficulties on actions you're not expecting.

Finally, a character sheet rounds out the book.

Conclusion

The book says a lot, in not a lot of pages.  Admittedly, this is a sourcebook and not a rulebook, but the 57 pages or so are crammed with text and not a lot of filler.  As with most all of PIG's games, you can spring for the PDF, and if you like it, upgrade to the print copy for a little more.  The layout isn't the flashiest, but it also doesn't feel bland.  The setting information provides a lot of leading statements that it then leaves open ended for you to fill in as you like, and most of the setting information is system neutral, to boot.  Now, while I don't think the 8 pages of setting is worth getting just to port into your own favorite system, if you're already a fan of PIG's games, or if you're looking to try something new, this (and the GenreDiversion3E manual) are well worth looking at.