REVIEW: Wulfwald

A common early complaint about Dungeons & Dragons was that the game's three little brown books failed to provide much in the way of a cultural or social context for its "fantastic medieval wargames campaigns." Correcting this perceived shortcoming was part of the impetus behind the creation and publication of several early RPGs that appeared in OD&D's wake, most notably Empire of the Petal Throne, Chivalry & Sorcery, and even RuneQuest to some extent. All of these games (and others) place much greater emphasis on the ways that culture and society not only intersect with but can offer a justification for adventuring than Dungeons & Dragons did at the time or, in fact, has ever done. 

I was reminded of this when I started reading Wulfwald, Lee Reynoldson's superb roleplaying game set in a world inspired by the folklore and legends of pagan Anglo-Saxon England. I say "inspired by," because, as Reynoldson explains, "Wulfwald is not set on our Earth," but rather is set on "another world," where "the myth and magic that was superstition in Earth's history is a real, if rare, force." As a game, Wulfwald should be almost immediately familiar to anyone who's played D&D or one of its descendants – not merely in terms of its rules but also in terms of its play. All the usual activities you expect in Dungeons & Dragons, whether they be delving in the dark, fighting monsters, or looting treasure, are supported in Wulfwald, but are given a new and compelling context.

Before proceeding further, I'd like to elaborate briefly on Wulfwald's relationship with D&D and its rules. Wulfwald is not "complete" game in the sense of including all the rules you need to play yet another retro-clone of Dungeons & Dragons. Reynoldson assumes you already know what hit points, armor class, and saving throws are, for example. When these and other familiar concepts come up in the text, there's no explanation of them or how they work, except when Wulfwald offers a new take on them that deviates from the way anyone who's played D&D generally understands them. I don't see this as a problem, but it might be surprising or even off-putting to those used to the approach adopted by most other old school D&D-derived games. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to Wulfwald itself. The game comes in a thin, sturdy box, inside of which are five staplebound A5 booklets and a cloth(!) map depicting the land of Wulfwald, as drawn by the late, great Russ Nicholson. The booklets have a clean, simple layout that's easy on the eyes. The covers of each booklet features artwork by Katie Wakelin, while the interior art is done by Stefano Accordi. I like the cover art much better than the interior art, but all the illustrations evoke the dark, early medieval period in which the game is rooted. Nicholson's cartography, of course, is gorgeous and a joy simply to look at and wonder at its details.

The premise of Wulfwald is that all the characters are "wolfsheads," who are outsiders and outlaws who exist outside the law's protection. Their status means that anyone can harm or kill them without fear of retribution. To avoid this fate, the game assumes the characters have banded together in the service of a Thegn or warrior-lord and act as his service. In exchange for such service, the wolfsheads can expect gifts of beauty and value that reflect their newfound honor and status within the setting. This set-up is a clever way to recontextualize adventurers, making them simultaneously rough outsiders but also having a place, albeit an unusual one, in society. 

Unlike "normal" D&D, Wulfwald has only three levels, corresponding (more or less) to the veteran, hero, and superhero levels from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. However, there is a rules appendix that provides for a greater number of levels for those referees and players who prefer them. Characters belong to one of four kindreds: Eorðwerod (Men), Ælfcynn (Elves), Dweorgas (Dwarves), and Réðealingas (Outlanders). Each kindred has three unique classes, each belonging to one of three archetypes: warrior, skirmisher, and wizard. For example, Men have the Scildmægden (warrior), Sperebróga (skirmisher), and Scinnlæca (wizard), while Elves have the Wuduheald (warrior), Scytta (skirmisher), and Gealdor Sangere (wizard). All classes have their own advancement tables, as well as unique results for criticals and fumbles. Warriors also have an ability called "heroic effort," an unusual feat of arms that can be employed once an adventure.

An aspect of Wulfwald that could, I imagine, discourage some potential buyers is its regular use of Old English, complete with odd letters like æ or ð. Speaking as an old Tékumel hand, I know that a lot of people don't like words that require the use of a pronunciation guide to say properly. I can only say that Old English, once you know the rules, isn't all that difficult to pronounce. Moreover, its use in Wulfwald goes a long way toward investing the setting with a distinct flavor. In many cases, the text does provide alternate, contemporary words to use instead of the Old English ones for those who find the others a bit too flavorful, but I much prefer the Old English ones. Your mileage may vary.

Flavor is a big part of what separates Wulfwald from "standard" D&D, even if it makes use of all the expected elements of the game, like magic, monsters, and treasure. I've already noted that each of the character classes is distinctive. The same holds for the systems of magic some of them use. Wulfwald includes four different systems, from runic fateweaving and spell singing to the Forbidden Path and wicce cræft. Likewise, magic items are all unique items, each with its own history and powers. Monsters, too, include a fair number of unique beings, like the draca (dragons) and eotenas (giants).

"Unique" is a word I've used a lot in this review and with good reason. What sets Wulfwald apart from many old school fantasy products is that it's very specific in not just its inspirations but also in the way it's chosen to make use of them. While I'm on record for saying there's nothing wrong with vanilla fantasy, there's also, in my opinion, a distinct pleasure that comes from roleplaying according to the culture, customs, and beliefs of a particular society, whether real or imaginary. That's why my House of Worms campaign has been so enjoyable: the players get to be, if only for a little while, people who inhabit another world with its own rules and ways of looking at things. This is something Wulfwald does very well, too.

The game's five books cover character generation, magic (including magic items and religion), the setting of Wulfwald (including a sample scenario and skirmish battles), monsters, NPCs, and more. Taken together, they provide enough for the referee to kick off a campaign while still leaving lots of room for individual creativity. Wulfwald isn't Tékumel or Glorantha; there isn't an encyclopedia's worth of information to digest. Rather, the game's five books do a good job of painting a compelling big picture with plenty of room to add detail here or a splash of color there. It strikes a nice balance between too much and too little. In short, it inspires, which is exactly what I want out of a product like this.

If you're looking for a well presented new setting for your favorite D&D-alike that draws on real world folklore and history in a fun way, I'd highly recommend yout take a look at Wulfwald. It's one of the best things I've bought this year.

REVIEW: Ordure Fantasy

Since its inception more than a decade ago, the play/design/esthetic movement that has come to be known as the Old School Renaissance has had several notable successes, among them a greater appreciation of mechanical simplicity. Indeed, one might reasonably argue that a driving force behind the creation and promotion of retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord or Old School Essentials is the recognition that simple, even open-ended, rules are very well suited to the activity of shared fantasy on which the hobby is built. Remember that the hobby's foundational work, Dungeons & Dragons, ended the third volume of its 1974 edition with the sage words to "decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!" Improvisation and extrapolation from a loose rules framework has been at the heart of the hobby from the very beginning and the OSR has championed such an approach as worthy of consideration (and, occasionally, as superior to others).

It's with that in mind that I approached Michael Raston's Ordure Fantasy, "a simple d6 roleplaying game." Available only as a 19-page PDF, Ordure Fantasy, as its name suggests, doesn't take itself too seriously, but that doesn't mean its a joke. Rather, its title is a humorous allusion to an earlier simple RPG on which it is partially based. Both games employ six-sided dice for all necessary rolls, usually only one. The goal is to tie or roll under a value rated from 1 to 6. For easy tests, the player rolls 2d6 and takes the lowest result; for hard tests, he rolls 2d6 and takes the highest. It's very simple and easy to remember mechanic and everything in the game uses it. The only other "rule" is the Ordure Test. Whenever the referee isn't sure what might happen – such as whether wandering monsters appear or if a hidden trap is sprung – he rolls 1d6 and, on a roll of 6, "ordure happens." The purpose of this mechanic, according to Raston, is "to ensure the PCs feel constantly endangered and that the world is trying to kill them." There's a delightfully spartan forthrightness to the entire game, which delighted me, but may not be to everyone's taste. 

Player characters have three attributes: Body, Mind, and Luck, all rated from 1 to 4 (or 5, in the case of bonuses from magic items). There are also four classes: Mercenary, Conjurer, Scoundrel, and Curate, each of which broadly corresponds to the classes of Basic D&D conceptually. Classes provide four skills (of which only three may be chosen to start), plus a boon, which is a special ability. For example, a mercenary's boon is the ability to choose one target per turn and, if the attack against that target is successful, the target is instantly slain. On the other hand, the curate's boon is augur, which allows him to ask the referee one question which must be answered truthfully. Characters advance in levels (to a maximum of 6, as you might expect) whenever they survive "something interesting, dangerous, exciting or entertaining," which results in one attribute or skill increasing by 1. At level 3, a character can choose his fourth class skill if so desired. 

Combat consists of a series of tests, with NPC enemies (including monsters) being handled slightly differently. The first test uses a combat skill to determine if an attack is successful. A PC struck in combat gets to defend, using either Body or Mind, as appropriate (with armor providing bonuses to Body tests). If the defense roll is also a failure, they get one more test, against Health. If this too is a failure, the character loses one Health. At 0 Health, the character is dead. NPCs have only a single attribute, Health, which doubles as their other combat skill. If Health is above 5, NPCs automatically hit, dealing 1 damage per hit. They never defend and always take 1 damage per hit by a PC (since all attacks deal 1 damage, unless increased by some other means). Since all player characters have 5 Health, I expect that combat is fairly deadly, particularly against NPCs with Health scores above 5.

As presented in the rules, magic takes the form of magic items, which typically improve attributes or skills, and the class abilities of the curate and conjurer. The curate, as a cleric analog, possesses healing magic. The conjurer, meanwhile, can summon emotions, elements, and beings. These magical summonings are only loosely described, with few mechanical features, meaning that their effects are open to negotiation between the player and the referee. If I were to find fault with Ordure Fantasy, it's here, since I imagine that a little more explicit guidance on how to handle these abilities would be appreciated by many readers, including those already comfortable with improvisational play. 

The bulk of the book consists of six examples of various useful "components" for a game, whether they be monstrous adversaries, equipment, or even haggling with merchants. Raston's overall approach consists of embracing randomness as a springboard for creativity. He makes that very clear at the start of the book, when he lists among the requirements for play "a willingness to play and see what happens." To my mind, that's a refreshing perspective and one that I see as key to the continued appeal of what has come to be called, rightly or wrongly, the old school style of play. If that style appeals to you, I'd recommend picking up a copy of Ordure Fantasy. 

REVIEW: Mothership Player's Survival Guide

The early history of the Old School Renaissance was dominated by the publication and dissemination of retro-clones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords & Wizardry. This is completely understandable, given the pre-eminent position played by Dungeons & Dragons in the history of the hobby of roleplaying. But there has always been a significant percentage of gamers who either outright dislike D&D or who want something else. These attitudes, I think, limited the initial appeal of the OSR, which was, somewhat unfairly, seen as being little more than a fan club for older editions of D&D and thus having little to offer those with differing tastes.

True or not, this perception of the OSR lingers. This is a shame, because, since the beginning, there have been games that stepped outside D&D, both mechanically and thematically, that are nevertheless broadly within the "old school" camp – or, if one prefers, the "do it yourself" sensibility that characterized the early hobby. Stars Without Number is a good example of what I'm talking about, though there are many others.

Which brings me to Mothership Player's Survival Guide, the science fiction horror RPG published by Tuesday Knight Games. Released in 2018, the Player's Survival Guide (hereafter PSG) is a 40-page black and white rulebook written and illustrated by Sean McCoy. Inspired by science fiction movies, television, and literature where the protagonists are trapped in space and facing inscrutable, relentless enemies – think Alien, Event Horizon, or even The Black Hole to cite a few cinematic examples – Mothership is not a game for the faint hearted. Much like Call of Cthulhu, characters can and do die, often horribly. Also like Call of Cthulhu, dying is part of the fun in Mothership. In my own play of the game, characters regularly undertook dangerous and foolhardy actions without concern, which is as it should be in a game that so gleefully takes inspiration from the classics of sci-fi horror.

Character creation is quick and easy (as it should be in a high lethality game). Stats (Strength, Speed, Intellect, Combat) are generated randomly by rolling 6D10 and adding up the results. There are also four character classes (Teamsters, Scientists, Androids, Marines), each of which is differentiated by its saving throw bonuses and starting skills. It's worth noting here that the character sheet is incredibly useful, since it doubles as a flowchart for the character generation process. A player armed with the sheet needs nothing else to create a new character. The game's back cover likewise consolidates all the basic mechanics of the game for ease of reference. Helpful features like this appear again and again through the Mothership PSG. It's an exceptionally well presented book, one of the best I've ever seen and a model for others to emulate.

Mothership uses ten-sided dice exclusively, something used as percentiles and sometimes simply as D10s. Skill resolution is percentile, with criticals (both successes and failures) being the result of rolling doubles (22, 77, etc.). The game also makes use of the advantage/disadvantage system of rolling two sets of dice and taking the best/worst result that seems to be commonplace these days (popularized by the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons, I believe). Saving throws (Sanity, Fear, Body, Armor) are a key aspect of the game, with, as noted above, each character class having certain strengths and weaknesses. Relatedly, characters can also suffer stress and panic and the PSG covers these effects and how they can be relieved. 

Combat, equipment, hiring mercenaries, and starships are also detailed, all topics of importance not just to any RPG but specifically to a science fiction horror RPG like this one. In each case, the presentation is every bit as important as the content. Mothership excels in presenting rules in a way that are easy to use and remember. In most cases, everything relating to a particular topic is placed on a single page. For example, all the rules for combat are included on page 9, while all the damage rules are nearby on page 10. This makes it easy to find what you're looking for, which encourages a fast-moving, nimble style of play – exactly as it should be in a game in which your characters regularly find themselves fleeing from extraterrestrial horrors.

I struggled with this review. No enumeration of the contents of the Mothership Player's Survival Guide can adequately convey its strengths or what makes it so compelling. In play, the game runs smoothly, simultaneously providing a solid mechanical foundation for players and the referee (called the Warden) and serving as a spur to one's own creativity. Mothership is not a mechanically complex game nor does it present a fully-fleshed out setting of its own, leaving that to each Warden to create. For example, its starship design rules are not long – just a couple of pages – but they are presented in such a way that they enable the designer to produce a deckplan at the same time with little effort. Likewise, there is no lengthy history of the future or discussion of interstellar society, but there are random tables of trinkets and clothing patches that are highly suggestive and inspiring. Sample trinkets include pamphlets entitled Against Human Simulacrum and Android Overlords and there are patches saying "I am my brother's keeper" and "Smile: Big Brother is Watching." Much like the game's rules, these little touches of flavor punch well above their weight, giving Mothership a unique and compelling voice.

The Player's Survival Guide offers not just a tight, well-oiled little game engine but also imagination fuel for creating your own dark tale of truckers in space, which, as we all know, is where no one can hear you scream. I can't recommend Mothership highly enough. I've had a great deal of fun with it and I expect you will too.

REVIEW: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

In certain quarters of the online world, Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (hereafter AS&SH -- an infelicitous abbreviation if there ever was one) will no doubt be viewed as "yet another retro-clone" and dismissed out of hand. If so, that'd be a shame, since, while there's no doubt that that AS&SH borrows more than a few pages from Gary Gygax's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons -- as Talanian freely admits -- its specific content and presentation transcend its origins. In particular, as Stuart Marshall notes in his foreword, this game

is a return to some of the literary roots of the hobby, to the thrill and wonder of weird fiction. You will find the pages that follow are overflowing with references to the golden age of Weird Tales: the Picts and the Atlanteans, the Amazons and the barbarians, of Howard; the Colour out of Space and the Plateau of Leng, from Lovecraft; and Hyperborea itself is, of course, a name familiar from Smith, though he did not invent it.

The pulp fantasy roots of D&D is a subject near and dear to my heart and one that, I hope, is now more widely understood, if not necessarily widely embraced. Consequently, I was predisposed to like AS&SH before I'd even read a word of it, though I am happy to say that it more than lives up to my predispositions.

Before getting into the meat of the game itself, I'd like to discuss its physical qualities. AS&SH is available in two formats: a PDF version and a boxed set. The PDF version is, frankly, a steal at $10.00, while the boxed set sells for $50.00, which I also think is a very good price for what you get. The game consists of two books, each made up for three "volumes" (i.e. large sections). Each book is around 250 pages, spiral-bound, and measures 7 x 8.5 inches. The books use a single-column layout that's very easy on the eyes and are profusely illustrated by the gorgeous black and white artwork of Ian Baggley. Also included in the boxed set are a six precision polyhedral dice, a pad of character record sheets, and a poster-sized map of the titular Hyperborea. The box itself is nice and sturdy with a suitably pulp cover by Charles Lang.

The two integral books are the Players' Manual and the Referee's Manual. The Player's Manual covers character creation, character classes, equipment, spells, movement, combat, saving throws, and related rules. At 252 pages, it's the larger of the two books. Players already familiar with any version of D&D should find the basic rules familiar  -- six ability scores, alignment, etc. -- but AS&SH introduces several new wrinkles. First, this is not merely a humanocentric game but one where playing anything other than a human is impossible. In AS&SH, "races" refers to various human cultures, many of which are modeled on ancient Earth cultures (Kelt, Kimmerian, Pict, etc.) while others are legendary in origin (Amazon, Atlantean, etc.). The other area where AS&SH differs from its inspirations is its character classes. The familiar four -- cleric, fighter, magician, thief -- are all here, as are many traditional sub-classes, but there are also many new ones, like berserkers, warlocks, pyromancers, and shamans. AS&SH has 22 classes in all.

Magic and spells are much as one would expect, though all classes have only six spell levels. That's something I like a great deal, perhaps because I already do something similar in my Dwimmermount campaign. Other rules, like combat, are very similar to what you'd expect from a game inspired by/derived from AD&D. The rules generally differ from their inspirations in two ways. First, they are clearer and better explained. Talanian has obviously taken great pains to ensure that every rules in AS&SH is easy to understand. Second, as part of the process of clarification, they've been regularized and, in many cases, simplified. For example, there are still five saving throw categories, but they're death, transformation, device, avoidance, and sorcery. Likewise, what were percentage chances in AD&D, like thief abilities, are now D12 rolls. None of these changes are bad or indefensible ones, but they are changes and they give AS&SH a distinct feeling compared to AD&D.

The Referee's Manual is 236 pages long and covers monsters, treasure, and a gazetteer of Hyperborea. The monsters should mostly be familiar to most D&D players, though many are presented with Hyperborean twists. Golems, for example, are called "automatons" (though they still come in clay, flesh, iron, and stone varieties) and are presented as much as robots as magical creations.There are also many new creatures, like leaper camels, tentacular horrors, thew wagons, and many others derived from the tales of H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Treasure is similarly "familiar yet different," with magic items given slight alterations here and there for flavor. New items include a variety of science fantasy weapons, such as laser swords (presented as Atlantean artifacts). Both these sections highlight Talanian's overall approach: hewing closely to D&D "tradition," while giving it his own personal touch.

The setting of Hyperborea is a "micro-setting," which is to say, a place of limited geography that can be used either on its own in conjunction with an existing setting. The gazetteer provides ample information for using it, regardless of its nature. There are details on astronomy, the calendar, history, climate, flora and fauna, races, geography, and gods. Though original, Hyperborea draws strongly on the pulp fantasies of Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith; it's hard to miss the borrowings and homages from these as you read the gazetteer. I really like it myself, but then I share Talanian's love for these early fantasy authors. If you're not as keen on such things, you may find the gazetteer of less use, particularly since it presents more of an outline for a setting than a fully-realized one. Again, I see that as a positive rather than a negative.

Taken as a whole, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is an impressive product, both as a physical product and as another interpretation of old school Dungeons & Dragons. As I've stated throughout this review, AS&SH reminds me most of Gygaxian AD&D, albeit a clearer and more rationally presented version. Normally, I'd consider clarity and rationality to be enemies of the kind of quirkiness that makes for a good old school game, but, in this case, I think Talanian's strong, pulp-influenced voice comes through strongly enough to make up for anything lost. The result is a solid, well-designed, if occasionally baroque, class-and-level fantasy roleplaying game that is imbued with a distinctly pulp feel. It won't appeal to everyone but it's well-written, attractively produced, and fills its own distinct niche well -- all marks of a RPG worth a look in my book.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 8 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for either a fantasy RPG that in the vein of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons but more clearly and rationally presented.
Don't Buy This If: You're not interested in a complex fantasy RPG, no matter how presented or written.

Mail Call

Mail service having resumed this week after a two-week strike, I've been receiving a number of packages that had been trapped in limbo. One of them was the Black Blade edition of OSRIC, which, so far as I know, is nearly identical, content-wise, to its predecessor, but is much more sturdily bound and contains more artwork.

Here's a shot of the cover.

Looking at its spine, you can see this one is one thick (386 pages) and solid tome.

And here's just one of the new pieces of art included in the book (by Brian "Glad" Thomas).

All in all, it's an impressive package, all the moreso because it sells for a mere $26.00. I'm not much of an AD&D guy these days, but I can't deny that, reading through this today, I felt some of the same electricity I feel when I first opened up my Players Handbook way back when. I'll be talking more about this edition of OSRIC in the days to come; it really is a remarkable piece of work.

Epées & Sorcellerie in English

Thanks to the efforts of David Macauley, Nicolas Dessaux's old school fantasy game, Epées & Sorcellerie is now available to those unschooled in la belle langue. I reviewed the original over two years ago and liked it very much. It's not exactly a retro-clone, as the term is usually employed, since it's not attempting to faithfully reproduce the mechanics of a previous game. However, E&S is strongly inspired by LBB-only OD&D with a goodly dash of Chainmail to boot and so ought to be of interest to many readers of this blog.

Thank You, Ryan Dancey

I had several people send me links to this post over at the Paizo forums, which I otherwise would never have seen. In it, Ryan Dancey, formerly of Wizards of the Coast, talks about the rationales behind the Open Game License, one of which was:

I also had the goal that the release of the SRD would ensure that D&D in a format that I felt was true to its legacy could never be removed from the market by capricious decisions by its owners.

I can attest to the fact that this particular rationale is not an ex post facto justification on the part of Dancey. I very distinctly recall his having used words very similar to this back in 1999-2000, during the run-up to the release of D&D III (and I'm sure those more Internet savvy than I can dig up the quotes in question). Likewise, the history of the last few years shows that the combination of the SRD and OGL did in fact help to ensure that "D&D in a format ... true to its legacy" would survive "capricious decisions by its owners."

I won't go so far as to say that we'd never have seen retro-clones/simulacra without the SRD and OGL, but, without them, the process of creating them would undoubtedly have been more difficult, both creatively and legally. I've frankly never understood the belief that the SRD and OGL were mistakes on the part of WotC. To my mind, they're probably the company's greatest contribution to the hobby, which is why, despite my disinterest in D&D IV and the burnout I experienced with its predecessor, I still feel indebted to the company -- and to Ryan Dancey, who, in the words of Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, "champion[ed] [them] through the halls of WotC when all of us thought that you were insane."

Thanks, Mr Dancey. The old school renaissance owes you a lot.

Spanish Old School RPG on the Horizon

My apologies for this pics-heavy post, but this is a case where I think it's justified to bombard you with lots of photographs. The Spanish old school RPG Aventuras en la Marca del Este is about to be released and one of its authors, Pedro Gil, kindly sent me some pictures of this boxed set and its contents that I'd like to share with everyone.

Here's a nice shot of the box itself. As you can see, it's a large box.

Here's the box opened, so that you can see its contents: a rulebook, some dice, a referee's screen (which isn't easily visible in this shot) -- and plenty of room for more stuff.

Here's a better shot of the rulebook, which is a little over 140 pages in length, I believe. Bear in mind that those 140 pages cover the same ground as Moldvay/Cook's 128 combined pages, plus a setting overview, and introductory adventures.

Here's the back cover:

Here's a photo of the character generation chapter.

Weapon and armor illustrations:

The monsters chapter:


And here's the map from the setting chapter. I really like the style chosen for the cartography.

As you can see, La Marca del Este is a very attractive game, certainly one of the nicest looking retro-clones published to date. I'm not sure why RPGs from outside North America almost universally look better than what we get over here, but this game does little to make me think any differently.

There are rumors of a possible English-language version in the future, which, if they prove true, would be of interest to me. I read, to the extent my meager facility with Spanish allowed me to do so, a pre-release copy of the rules and I was quite impressed by what I saw. La Marca del Este is a complete game under a single cover and, while a lot of its content should be familiar to long-time fans of old school D&D, there are some nice new wrinkles of interest even to experienced players, such as a non-spellcasting ranger known as an "explorer," for example. And of course there's the artwork and graphic design, which is in a class all by itself from what I have seen thus far.

All in all, this is good news for old school gaming, particularly in Spanish-speaking countries. I hope Aventuras en la Marca del Este proves successful and exceeds the expectations of everyone involved.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

I'd meant to draw this to everyone's attention last week, but, as was typical throughout October, I was distracted by other things and it slipped my mind until Joe Bloch reminded me of it. Over at Cyclopeatron, there's a post describing an in-store playest of Goodman Games's upcoming (scheduled for late 2011 release, I believe) Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game with Joseph Goodman.

I have to admit that, until now, I was unclear on just what the purpose of the DCC RPG was and what niche Goodman intends it to fill. Fortunately, the Cyclopeatron post answers some of that, the most intriguing part being the following:

According to Joe, his personal motivation behind DCC is to offer an RPG that can, as closely as possible, emulate all of the books presented in the Appendix N of the original AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Joe said he is systematically reading every book in Appendix N in order to formulate the game mechanics for DCC. One specific example of this is turning. Joe replaced the traditional cleric’s turn undead ability with a more general turn unholy in order to more closely mirror turning as envisioned Poul Anderson and Lord Dunsany. Another example is the totally revamped magic system where the success and/or side-effects of spellcasting can be unpredictable:

That alone piques my interest, but I'll need to know more before I stand up and cheer just yet. One of the fascinating things about D&D is that, while its inspirations are clear, it was never designed to emulate those inspirations in a slavish way, which is why, "Vancian" spellcasting no more faithfully mirrors what we see in The Dying Earth than does the alignment system map perfectly onto Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions version of the same. So, it'll be fascinating to see exactly how Goodman uses the early hobby's literary inspirations to create a new fantasy RPG.

S&W White Box: An Appreciation

In the midst of my work on the Dwimmermount book I'm trying to finish up for publication early next year, I often find myself idly flipping through the books and games I have close at hand. Recently, I've found myself spending a lot of time re-reading the Brave Halfling edition of Swords & Wizardry: White Box. Over the last few weeks, I've come to think that it's probably the most under-appreciated product of the old school renaissance, which is why it's a pity that it wasn't released more widely.

Marv Breig's redaction of Matt Finch's original rules was well done to begin with, but Jesse Rothacher's layout for the BHP edition makes it shine in a way that the initial Lulu.com version did not. Likewise, the artwork, from Mark Allen's covers to the interior pieces by Matt Finch, Edward M. Kann, Jeff Preston, and Chad Thorson, add to what's already a terrific (and reasonably priced) introduction to old school gaming -- probably the best one there is.

I'm often critical of the ways that Swords & Wizardry deviates from OD&D and I won't deny that they still bug me a lot, particularly given the way the game is advertised as "0e," but the fact remains that White Box is an amazing piece of work nonetheless. It's a wonderful, unpretentious, and accessible little game and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to someone who's never roleplayed before. So, my hat's off to everyone involved in its creation. Here's hoping Brave Halfling is successful enough to get it back into print again soon. It'd make a great Christmas gift for friends and family interested in finding out more about this crazy hobby we all love.

REVIEW: The Sanctuary Ruin

The Sanctuary Ruin by Eric Jones is the first adventure module released by Ludibrium Games. Like James Raggi's adventures, it's not written for a specific old school fantasy game system, although its text references both Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC as examples of the games for which it was written. Judging from the actual stats included in the adventure (which are few), I'd say that The Sanctuary Ruin was written using Labyrinth Lord for its rules, but it could easily be used for almost any class-and-level system.

The Sanctuary Ruin is available as a 10-page PDF selling for $2.99 or as a similarly lengthy printed volume selling for $6.99. The module's layout is simple and clean, using two-columns broken up with some atmospheric black and white spot art, also by Eric Jones. The cartography is similarly unpretentious and attractive. The text itself is straightforward, clear, and free from any obvious editorial problems. From a purely technical point of view, The Sanctuary Ruin is very well done.

As its name suggests, this module describes a ruined sanctuary not far from a wayshrine in a wilderness area known as the Ironwood within the Margravate of Blackmarch, which would appear to be Ludbrium Games's house setting. Not many details are provided about the Margravate or the Ironwood, making it easy for referees to drop the dungeon and surrounding locales into another setting. Indeed, the bulk of this module is taken up with the eponymous ruin, so it's really a dungeon module rather than a wilderness one, never mind a sandbox. Given that it's designed for characters of levels 1-3, that only makes sense.

The dungeon is small, consisting of 20 rooms inhabited primarily by goblins and vermin. Like everything else in this product, it's well presented and straightforward, but it lacked a hook or unique angle that made it stand out from the many other humanoid lairs I've seen in other adventure modules over the last 30 years. The same must be said of the inn, the rumors, and the wilderness encounters also included with this module and I feel bad for saying so, because The Sanctuary Ruin is well written and presented. Reading it, you can tell that its author really took his time to get everything right and he largely succeeds.

Unfortunately, what Eric Jones got right is something lots of other people have gotten right repeatedly since the dawn of the hobby. This is a standard introductory adventure and, while I can appreciate that not everyone who starts a new campaign will want to press The Keep on the Borderlands or The Village of Hommlet into service for the umpteenth time, it becomes increasingly hard for me to get excited about yet another humanoid lair on the borders of civilization, even if it's presented as lovingly as The Sanctuary Ruin is. Of course, newcomers will likely have a different reaction, particularly those who aren't as jaded as I am when it comes to the old standbys of introductory dungeons. For old timers, though, there's not a lot that makes The Sanctuary Ruin noteworthy other than its excellent production values and the obvious care to which its creator went to create it. Here's hoping we see more work from Eric Jones in the future and it will be a bit more daring in its content.

Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 5 out of 10
Utility: 6 out of 10

Get This If: You're either new to old school gaming and looking for a well-done intro module or are an old hand who simply wants a different presentation of the classic humanoid lair dungeon module.
Don't Get This If: You had your fill of humanoid lair dungeons decades ago.

S&W Complete Contents

Over at the Swords & Wizardry forums, Matt Finch has provided a list of some of the most important additions to the upcoming "Complete Rules" version of the game:

Here's the basic scoop, though I may have forgotten something:
Siege rules
Aerial combat
Mass combat (already there)
Naval combat

Order of combat - splits movement and attacks, but very close to Core Rules
Holmes Basic order of combat as an option
Eldritch Wizardry order of battle method (revised) as an option (rotating initiative based on what characters are wearing and doing)
Core Rules order of combat as option

More descriptions of things like wolfsbane
Wilderness adventuring, including getting lost, and monster encounter tables
Dungeon encounter charts now have specific monsters instead of just a CL listing
Dungeon encounter charts can also be used to generate mixes of different monsters (the orcs have a pet gelatinous cube! Run!)

No more wild boards in the monster listing

Building strongholds - prices for walls and keeps and such

Original saving throw numbers are listed as a chart in a side-box in case people want to use those.

I'm glad to see a lot of these changes, particularly the addition of the multiple saving throws. Taken together, many of these things bring S&W much closer to OD&D than any of its existing versions. Just how close I can't say without seeing the additional text, which I hope will be made available as a free text file as was done in the past. Looks like some interesting times ahead for Swords & Wizardry fans.

REVIEW: B/X Companion

These days, I'm more than a little swamped with things to keep me busy. Between posting to the blog, working on Thousand Suns, keeping up correspondence, and the responsibilities of parenthood, a lot of stuff gets pushed aside on to the "do it later" pile, including, I am embarrassed to confess, a lot of the books and PDFs people kindly send me for review. I was steadily working my way through them, hoping to have a couple more (at least) done this week, when a friend of mine stopped by this weekend and asked if I'd bought a copy of Jonathan Becker's B/X Companion. I admitted that I hadn't yet, for various reasons, but that I hoped to get a copy sometime soon, perhaps later in the month as a birthday present to myself. My friend told me I could read his copy and so I did -- in a single sitting, into the early hours of the morning.

It's rare that a gaming product, even a very good one, holds my attention long enough that I read it cover to cover in a single session but the B/X Companion did just that. For those of you who don't know, this book is an attempt to produce one of the "lost" products of the hobby, the fabled D&D Companion mentioned in the Cook/Marsh Expert Rules. As described there, the D&D Companion would have dealt with characters of levels 15-36, providing new spells, magic items, monsters, and other material intended to extend a campaign into higher-level play. The D&D Companion, alas, was never written, although a boxed set calling itself Companion Rules did appear as part of Frank Mentzer's re-write of the game line in the mid-80s. But, good as that boxed set was in some respects, it wasn't the D&D Companion we'd been promised in 1981, a feeling Jonathan Becker obviously shared, leading to his writing of the book under review.

The B/X Companion is thus written as if it were an add-on to the 1981 edition of Dungeons & Dragons (Moldvay/Cook/Marsh or "B/X"). It is thus not a complete game in its own right but rather presumes the reader also owns the original B/X volumes or, as a substitute, Labyrinth Lord from Goblinoid Games. Its compatibility with Labyrinth Lord is close but not perfect. The B/X Companion cleaves very closely to the original rules, so certain tables in LL, such as combat or saving throw matrices, to cite but two, don't match up with those in this book. It's not a huge issue, but it is worth noting. Likewise, the B/X Companion doesn't appear to have been written under the OGL, which is odd, given how much material it uses from D&D. I honestly don't know on what basis it was released at all, since every retro-clone I've seen to date, including some that stray quite far from the source material, make use of the OGL as a legal bulwark, if nothing else.

Purely as an artifact, the B/X Companion is an amazing piece of work. Though its beautiful cover art is by Brian DeClercq rather than Erol Otus, it nevertheless manages to capture the look and feel of the B/X ruleset. The same is true of the interior artwork by Michael Cote, Kelvin Green, David Larkins, and Amos Orion Sterns, all of whom have produced some excellent pieces here. I was particularly taken with Green's work, whose homage to a piece from the LBBs is very nicely done (and it reminds me that I really must procure his services in the future). The layout and presentation of the book is a very good match for its illustrious predecessors, as is the voice in which it is written. The B/X Companion can therefore be called a nearly pitch-perfect evocation of that 1981 D&D rules.

Of course, what really matters most of all are the rules and it's here that the book shines. Though I could enumerate literally dozens of areas where I disagreed with Becker's choices or would have done something differently, the fact remains that the overall approach of the B/X Companion is one with which I heartily agree. The whole book is only 64 pages in length and adopts the same lean elegance as Moldvay/Cook/Marsh. Spell and monster descriptions, for example, are rarely more than a couple of paragraphs in length, with each paragraph being only a sentence or two. Magic items are even more spare in their presentation. Despite that, Becker packs a lot of punch into his descriptions and the new material he presents should serve as excellent spurs to the imagination of referees and players alike.

What's particularly interesting to me, though, is that the B/X Companion contains a lot of genuinely new material. Yes, there are the requisite nods to OD&D's Supplements and to AD&D staples, but what I immediately noticed was how many new spells, monsters, and magic items were included in this product, thereby increasing its utility even to players of other versions of D&D. Likewise, the simple but effective mass combat and domain management rules ought to be easily portable into other rulesets. Truth be told, there's a lot here that could be transported elsewhere with only a minimum of work and, believe me, I am sorely considering doing so.

Taken as a whole, the B/X Companion is nothing less than an alternate take on what high-level play means in Dungeons & Dragons, a take that eschews the absurdities of both Mentzer's quest for immortality and WotC's vision "epic level" campaigns. In its place is a lower key but nonetheless heroic style that has a much more "human" scale, if that makes any sense, one that is a plausible outgrowth of the world implicit in the B/X rules. About the only place where I think Becker strays from this vision is his cop-out regarding demihuman characters, who, while they can no longer gain levels, can still accrue experience and thus improve their combat and saving throw chances. It was an approach I didn't much care for in Mentzer and find even less agreeable in the context of Moldvay/Cook/Marsh, but it's easily ignored.

All in all, the B/X Companion is a triumph, both as a physical product and as a work of the imagination. It's probably one of the best things to come out of the old school renaissance this year and I can't wait to snag my own copy to sit proudly on my shelf alongside my dog-eared copies of the B and X rulebooks.

Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 10 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10

Get This If: You're a fan of the B/X rulebooks or are looking for an alternate approach to play above 14th level.
Don't Get This If: You don't have any interest in the B/X rules or prefer high-level characters to be more over the top in their power and ambitions.

OD&D Cloning

After my recent lament for a close clone of OD&D, I was remiss in not drawing everyone's attention to John Laviolette's excellent "Clone Project" series of posts, in which he presents a very insightful analysis of OD&D's underlying mechanics. There's some excellent food for thought in there, particularly for anyone interested, as I am, in seeing a close clone of OD&D made available to gamers, old and new. I've been catching up on some of John's posts that I'd missed and it's pretty clear to me he's on to something.

I Want an OD&D Clone

I know I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: in my ongoing Dwimmermount campaign, I'm using Labyrinth Lord as the base for my ruleset, but I am modifying it by using bits of both Original Edition Characters and Advanced Edition Companion to bring it closer to the LBB + Supplements flavor of D&D I prefer these days. It works pretty well, all things considered, but, even so, I still find there are things I need to house rule in order to bring it closer to what I want out of the game. That's not a knock against Labyrinth Lord by any means. It's a very good game and I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that Original Edition Characters is probably the closest we've yet seen among the clones to a "pure" re-statement of the original rules.

I still think it'd be nice, though, if there were a stand-alone volume that (perhaps with a single supplemental volume) gave me OD&D without any contemporary accretions, so far as that's legally possible. To a certain extent, simply taking Labyrinth Lord, swapping in the material from Original Edition Characters and making a few other changes here and there (like ditching certain spells -- know alignment, I'm looking at you) gets you about 80% of the way there, maybe more. But I can't point my players or other interested parties toward a single book or PDF that gives them all the goods. OEC isn't a complete game but rather a supplement to LL and, while I appreciate the reasons for that, I think it'd be very helpful to have a complete-in-one-volume OD&D clone. It'd be really useful too for newcomers interested in the origins of the game, so we can all point them toward this clone and say, "OD&D was like this."

In the course of working on Dwimmermount, I've been slowly producing a document, one that uses Labyrinth Lord as a base and then makes changes to bring it as close to OD&D as I can under the terms of the OGL. When I'm done with it, I'll pretty it up a bit and make it freely available as a text file. Maybe some day I'll even give it a proper layout, some art, and sell the thing, but that's not my immediate plan. I already own the LBBs + Supplements, so there's no need on my end for such a clone, but I don't imagine every gamer out there interested in giving the original game a whirl owns them all. So, I think there's utility in such a project, even if it's limited to a few weirdos like me.

The Retro-clones and I

There were lots of good comments to yesterday's Open Friday question. Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts.

I personally see clones serving two purposes. The first is to provide a legal means to support older RPGs that are no longer in print. While this primarily benefits publishers who want to sell new supplements or adventure modules, it's also quite useful to hobbyists who want to post such things to blogs, websites, or forums. Remember how TSR treated online resources produced by amateurs in the 90s? Retro-clones, operating under the OGL, obviate that concern. The second purpose is to ensure that, rather than relying a dwindling supply of older gaming materials, newcomers can purchase old school RPGs easily and cheaply.

As time goes on, it's inevitable that the retro-clones will replace the original games of which they are clones. As I mentioned above, there are a finite number of original games still available for purchase and that number will only decrease with time. You can already see this principle in action with regards to OD&D, whose LBBs and supplements are both increasingly hard to acquire and to acquire without spending a small fortune. Twenty years from now this situation will only be worse. This is why I'd like to see more close clones of older games rather than games inspired by them. I have no objection to original games that draw on older ones for inspiration, but, without close clones, certain games will become ever more inaccessible to players who lack access to the originals.

I'll add that, while I think it'd be terrific if WotC again made older products available in PDF form, their doing so doesn't affect retro-clones in any way. The ability to get hold of Moldvay/Cook again would be great, but I wouldn't ditch Labyrinth Lord if it ever happened. Why? Well, I seriously doubt that WotC would release its older materials under any form of open license and, yes, one can legally make support materials for these materials without an open license, it's less legally safe than doing so under the auspices of something like the OGL. More importantly, a PDF, useful as it can be, is no substitute for a printed product. Without actual physical books available from your local hobby store, you can't easily attract many newcomers to these games, thus the need for retro-clones.

Now, some old schoolers don't actually care about attracting newcomers. They're quite content in their existing gaming group and online communities and, for them, retro-clones, PDFs, and support materials are only important to the extent they support them and their interests. I can understand, even respect, that position, but it's not one that I share. I have no illusions that the ongoing old school renaissance is going to make tabletop RPGs, let alone old school ones, mainstream again the way they were in the 80s. We're never again going to see 12,000 copies of any game being sold each month. I'm fine with that. Nevertheless, I think it's vital that close clones of many of these older games exist and be available in local game stores. Without them, this segment of the hobby is only going to shrink further and I certainly don't want that. For me, clones are a way to ensure a future independent of the whims of game companies.

Open Friday: The Role of Retro-Clones

I'm out for the day as usual, but I thought this week I'd dispense with the softball questions and go for something with a bit more substance (and possibly contention): do you feel it's the role of retro-clones to supplement or replace the games on which they're based? Both? Neither? Should they be viewed as distinct games in their own right, publishers' copyright work-arounds, or something else entirely?

I realize this question was chewed over a lot in the early days of the old school renaissance, but a lot has happened over the last three years and I suspect the perspectives of some might have changed in light of how things have played out and I'd like to hear about it.

More Spanish RPG Art

Pedro Gil over at Aventuras en La Marca del Este sent me previews of some of the artwork to be used in an upcoming Spanish language retro-clone and I posted them here a few months ago. Recently, he sent along some more previews and they're every bit as eye-popping as the first batch. Whereas the initial set focused on character classes, these new ones are mostly monster illustrations, along with a piece illustrating a scene from the game's default setting.

Enjoy!

REVIEW: Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (Part II)

From reading other reviews of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (hereafter WF) and from stray comments about it, I think people are most impressed with the Referee Book (which I'll review in Part III). I agree that the Referee Book is good, but, for my money, my favorite component of WF is actually the Magic Book. This 52-page book covers everything you need to know about magic and playing spellcasters in the game and manages to do so succinctly but without losing an ounce of flavor. Indeed, one of the more remarkable achievements of the Magic Book is that shows just how easy it is, with a little thought and imagination, to turn D&D's rather bland magic system into something colorful and evocative of the weird tale.

The book begins with an overview of clerical magic, including how to prepare and cast spells. This is fairly standard stuff but it's good to see it spelled out clearly nonetheless. This section also includes rules for creation scrolls and holy water, as well as how to research a new spell. These rules are simple and straightforward and, I think, strike a nice balance between the vagueness of OD&D and the tedious specificity of later editions. There's also an overview of magic-user magic as well and covers much the same ground, along with rules for creating potions, staffs, and wands. Again, the rules are simple and straightforward, making the creation of these items easy enough that a character might conceivably consider doing so and yet not so easy as to make them commonplace. Raggi has found a healthy medium here and I may well swipe some of his rules for use in my own campaign.

Where the Magic Book really shines, though, is in its spell descriptions. The bulk of the Magic Book consists of individual spell descriptions of all seven levels of clerical spells and all nine levels of magic-user spells. These descriptions are much lengthier than those found in OD&D or Swords & Wizardry, though not because of additional rules. Raggi's spells are (generally) just as mechanically simple as their OD&D counterparts. What's different, though, is that he's fleshed out each spell with some compelling details. Take, for example, a favorite of mine, contact other plane:

The stars are repositories of all knowledge. By means of this spell, the Magic-User enters in communion with the star of his choice to receive wisdom and information. The caster asks questions of the star, and the star answers. The stars resent such intrusions and give only brief answers to questions, and they often lie.

The description also includes a chart of possible stars to consult to replace OD&D's rather uninspired "3rd plane," "4th plane," etc. Included amongst these stars are some familiar to regular readers of various old school blogs -- Fomalhaut, Algol, the Hyades Cluster. In WF, contact other plane still works more or less exactly as it does in OD&D, but it's presented in a way that's much more interesting and evocative.

Indeed, I'd go so far to argue that the bulk of WF's implied setting can be found in these spell descriptions, most of which are really well done. Here are a few more examples to give you a better sense of what Raggi has done:

• conjure elemental summons a spirit from the nether realms to inhabit one of the four elements.
• dark vision gives the ability to see 60' in the dark (as per infravision) but transforms the caster's eyes into "demonic pits of utter black."
• hold person "unleashes millions of thread-thin spectral worms on the target(s)," which burrow into his brain and keep him from moving.

Not all of the spells in the Magic Book are flavorful and I think that's a good thing. If every spell had dark and creepy effects, I think it'd be overkill, undermining the uniqueness of the spell's that do have such effects. Nevertheless, I find what Raggi has done here praiseworthy. Simply by providing a new description of old standbys, he's managed to make them feel fresh and new, in the process painting a picture of what he means by "weird fantasy." It's very effective in my opinion.

On the downside, if you're not interested in the picture that Raggi's painting, you'll find the Magic Book less useful. Of course, if you really aren't interested, you probably wouldn't be buying WF and certainly would have little use for the Magic Book, which, underneath all its chrome, is really just a compilation of the standard D&D spells. Well, not all of them. Noticeably absent are spells like raise dead, reincarnation, restoration, wish -- all those powerful spells that make death, level drain, and other nasty afflictions a little less nasty. WF is definitely not a game that coddles its players and that's quite clear in the Magic Book.

In any case, no one should expect anything revolutionary from the Magic Book. It's a great book, but its virtues are in its presentation, not its mechanical originality. This is where Raggi gets to show off his ability to spin gold from straw and, more often than not, he succeeds. Even if one doesn't like the particular sheen of his gold, one can't help but admire his talent and be inspired by it. Magic in my own Dwimmermount campaign is, in general, pretty bland and matter-of-fact and that's by choice; I think it works well within the setting I've constructed. I can't deny, though, that, after reading the Magic Book, I did reconsider my choice, if only for a moment. I suspect I won't be the only referee out there who'll do so after reading the Magic Book.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 9 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for an imaginative presentation of the classic D&D magic system and spells.
Don't Buy This If: You prefer your spells less flavorful or would rather inject your own flavor into them.

REVIEW: Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (Part I)

I generally try to avoid doing multi-part reviews, but, sometime, there are products that demand such an extensive treatment. James Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (hereafter WF) is such a product, which is why I'll be devoting five days to discuss it, one to each of its integral books -- I've already covered its intro adventures here and here -- and a final day to discuss other components of the boxed Deluxe Edition and to sum up my feelings about the entire thing. I will be providing ratings for each book of the game, as well as for the complete product, since there are likely to be some people who are interested in only the Rules Book or only the Magic Book. In a similar fashion, I'll be discussing the physical and esthetic qualities of each book separately in each post.

I start with the 48-pages Rules Book rather than the Tutorial Book, mostly because I thought it a better book overall and wanted to start positively but also because I think discussion of the Tutorial Book makes more sense once the rules of WF are better understood. The Rules Book's layout consists of two columns of dense text, broken up with black and white artwork by a variety of artists. I was pleased to see Laura Jalo's artwork in the Rules Book, though there's too little of it for my tastes. Newcomer Amos Orion Sterns is a welcome addition; many of his pieces are excellent. Cynthia Sheppard's cover is very striking, though a little stiff. All in all, the Rule Book looks good and is easy to read. I noticed few editorial or typographical errors in the text, which is another point in its favor.

WF uses 3d6 roll in order for ability score generation, but the abilities are listed in alphabetical order rather than something more traditional. It's a defensible decision, particularly as Raggi has dispensed with any notion of Prime Requisites or XP bonuses based on high Prime Requisites. Still, it's a bit jarring to see Charisma top the list of abilities. WF uses a standard set of modifiers for abilities that's identical to that in Moldvay/Cook (or Labyrinth Lord). Interestingly, Raggi has made Intelligence and Wisdom mirrors of one another in terms of the mechanical utility, with the former affecting magic-user spells and the latter affecting cleric spells.

There are seven character classes in WF, four human and three demihuman. The cleric is much like his OD&D counterpart, except that he gets a spell at 1st level and turning is no longer an inherent ability but instead a spell. Fighters are likewise as in OD&D. Unlike OD&D, they are the only characters whose ability to engage in combat improves with level. All other classes fight as well at 1st level as they do at 15th. It's a bold design decision on Raggi's part and one that certainly makes fighters much more formidable, but it's also sufficiently divergent from D&D tradition that many may not approve it (I'm not sure that I do, for example). Magic-users are more or less the same as in OD&D. Specialists (aka thieves), on the other hand, are quite different than their OD&D counterparts and are better for it. Aside from the name, which I strongly dislike, I consider the specialist the best implementation of this class I've yet to see and will likely adopt it in Dwimmermount campaign. The class is so brilliant because its special abilities -- climbing, searching, finding traps, etc. -- use the same mechanics as other classes when attempting those same actions. The difference is that the specialist is better at these activities, increasing his chance of success as he advances in level while other classes cannot. This is the approach I've long preferred and one that I feel is much more in line with the way the pre-thief OD&D rules worked.

The demihuman classes are dwarf, elf, and halfling. They're not notably different from their OD&D counterparts other than the fact that their racial abilities are tied into the same "skill" system as the specialist. I have to admit that, on one level, I half-expected Raggi to drop demihumans from WF entirely. I won't say they "don't fit" the game, but they do feel mildly out of place nevertheless, not that I'm complaining about their inclusion. It's worth noting here that nearly all 1st-level characters start with 1d6 hit points + Constitution bonus, even if at 2nd level they use a different hit die. This puts all 1st-level characters, PC or NPC, on an equal footing and ensures that even a 1st-level fighter is potentially quite vulnerable.

WF retains five saving throws, which I appreciate, the lack of such being one of my primary beef's with Swords & Wizardry, although Raggi has simplified and rationalized them somewhat. There are three alignments, as in OD&D, but WF assumes that most non-supernatural beings are Neutral, with the exception of elves and magic-users, who must be Chaotic, owing to their use of magic. WF's equipment list is extensive, with lots of specific gear, vehicles, services, food, and lodging in its pages. Interestingly, weapons are mostly schematized, according to the categories of small, minor, medium, and great. I can appreciate the desire not to distinguish overly much between, say, varieties of maces or axes but something doesn't completely sit well with me about this approach, even if that something is likely purely irrational on my part.

WF provides a large but easy to use section detailing the rules for "adventuring." Everything from opening doors to gaining XP (by defeating monsters and recovering treasure, of course!) to dealing with traps is covered, along with some unusual topics like foraging, sleep deprivation, and tinkering. WF's encumbrance rules are elegant and I'll likely be swiping them for my own campaign. Rather than keeping track of specific weights, WF instead tallies the number of items, adding points for wearing certain types of armor, carrying oversized items, and so forth in order to determine a character's "encumbrance points" and thus his movement rate. It's probably not the most realistic system but experience has taught me that undue realism results in encumbrance simply being ignored entirely, which is even less realistic than what Raggi has provided here.

There's a surprisingly extensive set of rules (3 pages) dealing with maritime adventures. Rules for retainers are even longer (4 pages) and there's also a section about "property and finance." Taken together, you can see that WF is very much in line with OD&D, arguably even going farther than its predecessor by providing clear, complete rules for these important activities. Combat is well covered, with elements such as reactions and morale given appropriate coverage. WF also introduces a few simple attack and defense strategies (such as "press" and "defensive fighting") in order to make combat less of an I-roll-you-roll sequence. Disappointingly, WF uses ascending armor class but more perplexing is that its version of it is different than any others of its kind, with an unarmored character possessing AC 12. There are rules for a wide variety of common combat circumstances, but these rules are far from exhaustive, so there's plenty of scope for house rules. Concluding the book is a keyed character record sheet in order to make it easy to understand how to fill it out.

The WF Rules Book is an impressive package -- a cleanly written, well presented set of rules that are at once very familiar and yet fresh. Consequently, WF feels doesn't really feel as it's a "new" game but, at the same time, it also doesn't feel like a rehash of stuff we've seen a dozen times before. In this age of a retro-clone-a-minute, that's an impressive achievement. Even if you don't intend to use WF in its entirety, as I do not, there's enough here, such as the specialist and the encumbrance rules to cite but two examples, that one might be interested in picking it up for ideas to adapt to other rules sets. And, of course, as a rules set in its own right, WF is remarkable as well, far moreso than I'd expected. It's well worth a look, even if you already have a set of old school rules you like.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 9 out of 10
Utility: 9 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for an original yet familiar take on old school class-and-level fantasy.
Don't Buy This If: You've got no interest in seeing yet another iteration of the OD&D rules, no matter how clever or well-presented.