Death in Tabloid!

Etrurian Minchiate.

The Tabloid! Weapons Table assigns damage amounts to various circumstances, not just weapons.  A few examples are provided below.

Chainsaw:  3d6

Chinese water torture:  1d2/hour

Electroshock therapy:  1d4 (But you have a much nicer character)

Mad doctor's operation:  0 (Brain transferred, create a new character)

Paper cut with lemon juice:  1

Processed meat by-products:  1d2

Radio in tub, portable:  0

Radio in tub, wall socket:  2d10

Rifle:  1d10

Star, exploding neutron:  1d6 × 10³⁰

Straw, in tornado:  1d12

Any given source of damage has a 'lethality rating' which acts as a success margin rating; if the one's digit of a successful attack roll is equal to or less than the lethality rating, the damage amount is subtracted from the afflicted character's body.  Otherwise, damage is subtracted from the character's stamina.  A character loses consciousness when his or her stamina points are reduced to zero; a character dies if his or her body points are reduced to zero.  Once a character is unconscious, additional attacks automatically cause body damage.  Exactly how body points and stamina points are determined varies among the Amazing Engine games, but body points are derived from the Fitness ability and stamina points are derived from the combination of Willpower and Reflexes.  For Tabloid!, there are no instructions for determining body and stamina, not even in the character creation example or the character worksheet.  However, for another Amazing Engine game, a player character's body points are equal to one-third of Fitness; stamina points are equal to one-third of the sum of Willpower and Reflexes.

Unlike other Amazing Engine games, weapons (and other sources of damage) in Tabloid! do not have an assigned lethality rating.  Instead, any given source of damage has a lethality rating based on how newsworthy a character's death would be should the circumstances turn out to be fatal.  To this end, Tabloid! presents a Death-to-Copy Ratio Table; the more attention that a death would garner, the higher the lethality rating of associated damage.  A “normal” death (e.g., old age, heart attack, etc.) has a lethality rating of “0.”  A death which is 'one for the records books' has a rating of “8.”  Each whole number between those extremes represents a distinct level of news item and lethality.  For instance, a 'filler bit' death (e.g., eaten by crocodiles, victim of a voodoo curse, etc.) has a rating of “4.”  A 'front page news' death (e.g., getting torn apart by Bigfoot, being killed in a mob-style execution, etc.) has a rating of “6.”  Evidently, the normal death rating is meant be zero; however, with a rating of zero, damage is not fatal (except in the instance of an unconscious character).  This is in conflict with the Amazing Engine damage rules:  “Lethality ratings can never be less than 1 or greater than 10 (0 on the die).”

Zeb Cook provides several examples of deaths that qualify as 'one for the record books', some of which are fictional and some which are not.  Among the factual examples, there are people killed by cheese, molasses, and beer.  We might suppose that drowning damage (1d10/minute) applies to molasses and beer, but guidance for cheese damage is lacking.  In any event, we encounter something of a paradox; common ways of dying are less dangerous than more unusual circumstances.

Editors are encouraged to permit player characters “to heal faster than the rate allowed by the rules [otherwise] ...their wounds are going to become a burden.”  This can be accomplished through appropriately tabloid methods:  “vitamin therapies, allergen tests, orgone reactors, inhalants, aromatherapy, herbal mojo bags, all-lemon-rind diets, and cortex manipulation groups!”  We also learn that...

With just a touch if creativity, characters almost never have to die.  Unless, it'd be hilarious, of course.  Then you should stick it to them – just this once.

Should a player character actually die, the situation need not be permanent.  We learn, “There's nothing that says the character's spirit can't hang around for a while.”  Existence as such a ghost “lasts until the player gets a chance to create a new character – or gets the old one restored via some unknown means.”  As ghosts, player characters...

...are limited in what they can do.  They can't directly talk to other players, and everything they do is a psychic power.  That means they have to manipulate things to get their message across and that means making Psyche checks to accomplish anything.

With the consent of the Editor, a dead character can come back to life.  However, no character can return without being changed.  “Maybe the character has amnesia (retains all skills but gets a new name and no knowledge of the other PCs),” the rules suggest, or “Maybe he or she just loses some skills.”  Of course, the mechanism of reincarnation must be considered.

So how was the character miraculously returned?  Aliens, clones, mad scientists, Atlantean super-science, or just good clean living – you name it.  That's the point – getting returned should be an adventure in itself.

 

Comedy in Tabloid! (et al.)

A public domain photograph of the King which TSR could have used for Tabloid!

Tabloid! has a four-page chapter on death called 'The Final Byline,' beginning with the phrase, “Dying Is Easy...”  The following chapter, 'Anything for a Laugh,' begins with the conclusion of the aphorism, “Comedy is Hard.”  In this two-and-a half-page chapter, designer Zeb Cook attempts to explain how to instill comedy into playing Tabloid!

Cook writes:

This is not a game where the mighty, brave, or even the cynically mani-pulative profit.  In this universe, success goes to those who are willing to risk their characters on the stupidest, most lame-brained, and ill-thought-out plans possible.  It's kind of like real life in that way.

Thereafter, Cook supplies “a few rules of comedy.”

1. Get Physical.  This rule has two parts.  First, “Comedy is action – it's called slapstick.”  (Evidently, Cook did not want to address cerebral humor.)  For inspiration, Cook recommends that the prospective Editor “watch some cartoons... and some Three Stooges.”  (The TSR lawyers may have missed this.  Given that they censored B*g B**d, I would have expected them to give the same treatment to the T***e S*****s as well as R**d R****r and W**e E. C****e.)  The other part of this rule encourages the Editor to be active during the game.  (e.g. “Pretend you're the airplane spinning into a dive.”)

2. Maintain a Manic Pace.  Essentially, this means keep the action going and don't let up on the humor.  Cook says not to give the players a break.  “If they players have time to think,” he comments, “then they won't get themselves into stupid messes.”

3. Steal Shamelessly.  These first five rules actually come Mike Pondsmith's Teenagers from Outer Space.  We know this because Cook tells us he stole them from said game.  Cook also explains that he “stole” the rules with Pondsmith's permission.  Of course, having permission defies the notion of stealing, but I suppose Cook wanted to provide an example of incorporating – “stealing” – outside material.  Anyway, Editors should take jokes “and give them a whole new spin” to keep players from anticipating the punch line.

4. Use Running Gags.  According to Cook, “every adventure should have at least one or two set-ups that always seem to reoccur.”  However, “An important part of a running gag is that it can't always be the same.”  Again, this keeps the players on their toes.

5. Dare to be Stupid.  “Your players aren't going to be stupid if you aren't.”  I beg to differ.

6. The Innocent Must Suffer.  “It's undeserved stuff happening to any character,” Cook tells us.  “If they deserve it,” he continues, “it's a comeuppance” and therefore not funny.

7. More is Better.  “There's no such thing as too much,” Cook says.  He advises adding complications to any situation.  This echos Rule 4 from Cook's Bullwinkle and Rocky Role Playing Party Game ; namely, “The Good, The Bad, and The Funny” or “Bad is Good, the Worse the Better.”

8. Plot?  Cook tells us that plots “give the characters some motivation to do things,” but this should be secondary to fun.  “Just throw out the encounter that's not working,” Cook writes, “laugh, and get the characters toward the goal by whatever means.”  Cook uses the word “Improvise,” which ought to have been the name of this rule.  Contrary to what is said at the beginning of the chapter, Cook reveals the “real secret” is that “Comedy is simple.”

After these rules, Cook provides a concluding section to the chapter, part of which reads:

Because this is a silly game, you've got a freedom referees don't get in other games.  You don't even have to be consistent.  You don't even have to make much sense.  By their very nature, silly universes are illogical! That's part of their fun... Just don't worry.

Cook presents four words in large, bold font and in capital letters, presumably to emphasize their importance:

MAKE IT ALL UP.

This should have been a coda to the last rule rather than a separate section called, “Some Other Extremely Useful Advice.”

I might be inclined to add another rule, Embrace Absurdity.  Regardless, humor is subjective and what might be funny to someone might be tasteless to someone else.  Back in the nineties, one could still get some comedy mileage from disturbed people going on shooting sprees.  Result #10 on the Work table for character generation begins, “Co-worker comes in and plays disgruntled postal worker.”  Yet even twenty-five years ago, there were some things that just weren't funny.  Result #16 on the Journalism School table for character generation reads in part:

Killing the neighbor sure livened up a slow news day.  With good behavior, character gets out after five years.

Yikes.

Character Creation in Tabloid!

Cartography by Dennis Kauth

Included in the back of the Tabloid! rule book fold-out poster map of “The Real Weird World,” a portion of which is shown above.  It's incorrect to call the map a selling point since there's no mention of it in the cover copy.  I suppose it was meant to be a source of inspiration, but it just seems like a mistake.  If anything, it exemplifies some of the things I find off-putting about the game.

Apparently Tom Wham was unavailable to draw the map, not that there's anything wrong with Tom Wham.  However, having Dennis Kauth draw the map in the style of Tom Wham seems such a waste.  Speaking of waste, the map for one of the included scenarios is attributed to Dave Sutherland.  If you have Dave Sutherland on tap, why limit his contribution to drawing a house plan?

Attention to accuracy is somewhat lacking.  Roswell is, of course, in New Mexico and Hangar 18 (not 'Hanger') is in Ohio.  In the rules, author Dave Cook refers to the Trilateral Commission as Trilateralist Commission and Nostradamus as Nostrodamus.

The map refers to Lake Geneva as the location of a “secret mind control base.”  This is interesting given the degree of caution with which TSR's lawyers approach other portions of the game.  Elvis is a beloved staple of tabloid journalism (or was in the twentieth century, at least) and any game regarding the tabloids cannot ignore the King.  However, Tabloid! scrupulously avoids direct mention of his name.  Instead, we get a sequence of asterisks – E***s P*****y.  One image of Elvis in the game as a 'censored' block over his eyes and another image is a bust, but with everything above the mouth is cut off.  Other entities that get the asterisk treatment include Burt Reynolds, Big Bird, Geraldo Rivera, Michael Jackson, and Satan.

Tabloid! has no pre-generated characters.  In other games, this may be cause for me to complain, but this doesn't pose a problem in Tabloid!  There are sufficient examples in the System Guide and the components specific to Tabloid! comprise a clearly described career path mechanic.  To begin with, there are “Résumé Steps.”  The first step is to select a post-high school option:  College, Journalism School (to be “an idealistic reporter – like G*****o R****a”), Work, or the Beach.  Each choice is represented by one the remaining steps; however, after the first step, the steps are not followed in order, nor will every step necessarily apply to a given character, and a character may repeat the same step multiple times.  Each time a character engages in a step, a year passes.

A player character in Tabloid! is entitled to a number of skills equal to Intuition / 15 (rounded up) plus Learning / 10 (also rounded up).  Skills are divided into seventeen pools called schools.  Some examples include the Institute of the Secret Truth, Lawson's Absolute Center of the Universe School, and the G*******d Tour Guide Training Program.  Most skills are only available from a given school; however, there are some skills that are available from more than one school.  For instance, Photography is available from both the CIA University of the Air as well as the Forbert School of Celebrity Nude Photography.  Unlike the CIA, however, the Forbert School offers the specializations and enhancements of Video Camera, Paparazzi, Darkroom, and Photo Retouching.

For the College step, the player chooses one of the schools.  If a Learning roll is successful, the character enrolls.  If the roll fails, the character can try to enroll in another school.  If the second attempt fails, the character must go to the Work step.  Assuming the character successfully enrolls in a school, the player selects one of the skills from that school's pool.  Each time the character engages in the College step, the player rolls 1d10 and adds the number of times the character has taken that step.  A roll of ten or more means the character develops a quirk; specifically, the player rolls 1d20 on the quirk table.  Possible results include tinfoil user, alcoholic, and paranoid.

The Journalism School step is similar to the College step, except the character automatically enrolls in the Columbia School of Journalism (and the player selects a skill form that pool).  Instead of developing a quirk, a character can acquire “one of those wonderful traits that so endears journalists to the rest of the world.”  The 'trait' table requires 1d12 and possible results include irritating whiner, caffeine addict, and one set of clothes.

With the Work step, the player rolls 1d20 to determine the character's job.  If the character engages the Work step more than once, he or she can keep the job or roll for a new job.  Most jobs are listed with a school from which the player can select a skill.  Each job also has a Savings Account modifier.  (In Tabloid!, finances are abstracted into a Resource Rating derived from a character's Savings Account.  Characters start with a Savings Account determined by 1d4.)  We are informed that, “All of the jobs described below (save one) are real and were held by people the designer knows...”  Examples include, Chicken Defroster - Night Shift (School of Hard Knocks), Convention Organizer (Kult College), and Fishmarket Gopher (San Diego Cryptozoological Society).  Additionally, in the Work step, at the cost of one point from his or her Savings Account, a character can attend night school and chose a skill from any school.

For the Beach step, the player selects one skill from either the School of Hard Knocks or Louie di Chang's Dojo and Shooting Range.  The character's Savings Account is also reduced by one point.

The College, Journalism School, Work, and Beach steps each have a 'life event' table.  Each time a character engages in a given step, the player rolls 1d20 and the result is checked on the table.  Any given result offers a bit of color commentary and describes an effect which may grant an additional skill, require the character to switch to a different step, or cause something else to happen.

Result number 9 from the Journalism School table reads:

Playing the D&D® game at work does not count as “reviewing.”  Character learns RPG Mind Control skill but takes a pay cut.  Lose 1 point of Savings Account and roll again on this table.

RPG Mind Control is distinct from Army Mind Control.  The description of the RPG Mind Control skill occupies half of a page; Army Mind Control is described in four sentences.

Result number 5 from the Work table reads:

The one-armed man did it – really!  The cops aren't buying it.  Your character barely gets away in time and is now Hunted by the law for a crime someone else committed.  Lose 2 from the character's Saving Account but immediately gain Disguise and Survival Instinct.  Go to Step 5: The Beach.

The process of engaging in the various steps continues until the character fills all of his or her skill slots.  However, the last step must be followed to the end; this may mean the character acquires skills in excess of the nominal maximum.

Some skills are more useful than others, but if they lack utility, at least they are interesting.  Tabloid! is likely the only game where Smug Liberalism is a skill (with Secular Humanism as an enhancement).  Having the Predictions skill means a character “has studied famous predictions – biblical, astrological, oriental, alchemical, mystical, and whatnot” and can relate them to current events.  Additionally, the character “can fashion predictions for every occasion.”  Cook provides the following advice for cruel Editors:

If you really want to have fun with your players, secretly make a skill check for every prediction made.  If a success margin of 1 is rolled, secretly make note that the prediction is real.  Then use it later to build an adventure for the player characters.  Have fun – make them sorry.

The AMAZING ENGINE System

After an unintended hiatus due to computer issues, your humble host is back.  Before we were so rudely interrupted, we were discussing the two 'tabloid journalism' role-playing games from the early 90s.  TSR's contribution to the genre – the aptly named Tabloid! – was the last Universe Book for the AMAZING ENGINE^® system.  Therefore, we must understand the AMAZING ENGINE in order to understand Tabloid!  According to the System Guide :

          ...the AMAZING ENGINE system consists of two parts.  The first part is this book, the System Guide.  Here one finds the basic rules for creating player characters and having those characters use skills, fight, and move.  These rules and procedures are found in all AMAZING ENGINE settings...
          The second part of the AMAZING ENGINE system are the different settings to play in.  Each setting is called a universe and is described in its own book, naturally called Universe Books.  Each Universe Book is a complete role-playing game and only requires the System Guide to play.  It is not necessary to buy every Universe Book in order to play in the AMAZING ENGINE system...

Obviously, a Universe Book cannot be a “complete” role-playing game if it requires something else in order to play.  The System Guide – credited to David “Zeb” Cook – provided the essential mechanics of a role-playing system but required a Universe Book to flesh out the rules for any given setting.  Eventually, such as in the case of Tabloid!, the System Guide material was included in the Universe Books.  While the System Guide as a distinct product was 32 pages, in Tabloid! the material takes up 16 pages.  This is can be attributed to a small font and a lack of illustrations.

In the AMAZING ENGINE system, player characters are primarily defined by four ability pools of two attributes each.

• Physique:  Fitness (“bodily strength”) and Reflexes (“reaction speed and hand-eye coordination”)
• Intellect:  Learning (“knowledge in areas requiring long training and study”) and Intuition (“ability to remember random trivia, innate wit, street smarts, comprehension, and worldliness”)
• Spirit:  Psyche (“potential to perceive and manipulate the spiritual and metaphysical world”) and Willpower (“mental fortitude”)
• Influence:  Charm (“rates the characters' personalities and the way others are disposed toward them”) and Position (“a rough rank for characters on the ladder of social advancement”)

When a player first generates a character he or she assigns a rank to each ability pool; Rank 1 being the most favored pool and Rank 4 being the least favored.  The player then selects four attributes to receive 4d10 each; the remaining four attributes receive 3d10 each.  For each attribute, the player rolls the set number of dice and records the total.  The player the allocates fifteen points between the two Rank 1 attributes, ten between the Rank 2 attributes, and five between the Rank 3 attributes.  The result is the basis of not only the player character, but also the “player core” (infrequently referred to as “character core”).

The concept of the player core is the AMAZING ENGINE's claim to fame (such as it is).  A player can use the player core as the basis of subsequent player characters in other AMAZING ENGINE campaigns, or even the same campaign universe with the Gamemaster's approval and “only if the previous character is dead or permanently retired.”  Experience earned by one character can be transferred to a new character based on the same player core.  Specifically, when a character earns experience, the player “must immediately assign the xps to either [the] current player character (the one who earned the xps) or to the player core from which that character was created.”

Aside from experience, a player core consists of the original Rank scheme and, for each ability pool, a dice rating.  To determine the dice rating for an ability pool, add the values of the constituent attributes, divide by ten, and round up.  This is the number of dice that the player can allocate among the two attributes when generating a new character.  For example, a first – or “prime” – character with a Learning of 23 and an Intuition of 28, would mean the player core would have an Intellect dice pool of six.  ( [23 + 28] / 10 = 5.1)  New characters based on a player core receive seven “free” dice to allocate among the eight attributes.

The maximum ability value for a beginning character is 50, even after allocation points from the ability pool's Rank.  As such, no more than five dice can be assigned to a given attribute and an ability's dice pool cannot exceed ten.  Different settings may allow for a base adjustment for ability pools or specific attribute.  Such adjustments can cause an attribute's starting value to increase beyond 50.  In Tabloid!, “All player characters...add +30 to their attribute scores.”

To determine if an action (such as skill use) is successful, percentile dice are rolled.  A result equal to or less than the applicable attribute value indicates success.  Depending upon circumstances, an attribute's value may be modified, making success more or less likely.  “A skill check always fails on a roll of 95–00,” we read, “but there is no corresponding chance for automatic success.”

The AMAZING ENGINE system also incorporates the notion of margin ratings.  There are success margin ratings (“noted as S#: S2, S5, etc.”) and failure margin ratings (“noted as F #: F8, F7, etc.”).  If a skill roll is successful and the one's digit of the percentile result is less than or equal to the success margin rating, the result is a critical success.  Similarly, if a roll is failed, and the one's digit equals or exceeds the failure margin, the result is a critical failure.

For player characters (as opposed to player cores), experience can be used to permanently increase a player character's attribute value.  The experience points necessary to increase an attribute value by one point varies from setting to setting.  Regardless, no attribute can be increased beyond a value of 90.  Experience points can be used to purchase new skills for a character, also at a rate depending upon setting.  Finally, experience can be used to 'tax' an attribute, a temporary increase for the purpose of a single roll in a dire situation.  In multiples of five, a player may increase the value of an attribute to a maximum of half of the attribute's normal value.  The decision to tax, and the number of experience points to expend, must be determined before the roll is made.

Karen S. Boomgarden, credited with AMAZING ENGINE “Project Management, System Guide development and editing,” contributed an article to Dragon #195 (July 1993), “The little engine that could: the AMAZING ENGINE™ story.”  Most of the article is about For Faerie, Queen, & Country, the first AMAZING ENGINE Universe Book; however, it begins thus:

          When the members of my product group first suggested the concept of the AMAZING ENGINE™ system, I was skeptical.  A stand-alone rules set, usable with any kind of fantasy or science-fiction setting we could dream up?  Complete basic rules in only 32 pages?  Whole game settings (with attendant rules modifications and specifics) in only 128 pages?  Sure.  Right.  Oh, and one more thing:  The players earn the experience points, not the characters, and they can take those experience points along to other game settings within the system.
          It'll never work, I thought.

It turns out that her initial assumption was correct.  TSR supported the AMAZING ENGINE product line for about a year before giving up on it.  The world wasn't ready for such a concept and I guess it still isn't.  Nonetheless, the System Guide and the various Universe Book are available at Drive Thru RPG.

Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space

Art by Ed Emshwiller

TSR offered three 'accessory' products for Star Frontiers.  The first such product was a book of official character record sheets; the second was a referee's screen.  Lastly, we have the subject of this post, Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space (hereinafter Zebulon).  The conceit of Zebulon is that it is...

...an encyclopedia compiled by the University of Zebulon documenting all the known flora, fauna, cultures, devices, and history of the Frontier in one place. The handy Ceretronix Pocket 1200 version quickly became a necessary piece of equipment in every pioneer's and spacer's kit.

Zebulon, of course, is one of the star systems in the Frontier (and doubtless named after Dave “Zeb” Cook).  Specifically, the Zebulon system contains Volturnus.  The university is based on Anker, another planet in the system.  According to the Zebulon timeline, Professor Alorne Zebulon discovered the Zebulon system 61 years prior to the establishment of the United Planetary Federation (and 66 years prior to the creation of Star Law).  Four years after discovering the Zebulon system, the professor established the University of Zebulon.  However, Crash on Volturnus states that, “The Zebulon star system was first investigated... by an unmanned exploration probe” and this “probe indicated that Volturnus was the only inhabitable planet in the Zebulon system.”  Also, Crash on Volturnus takes place within a year of the first manned expedition of that system – an expedition that did not include Professor Zebulon.  There is no attempt to reconcile these conflicting facts.  It's almost as if the Star Frontiers creative team did not anticipate that – 30-40 years in the future – people with nothing better to do would use a global communications system to nitpick the continuity of the game's milieu.

Despite the claim above, Zebulon documents neither flora nor fauna.  Zebulon has “Volume 1” as its subtitle, suggesting further volumes.  Perhaps flora and fauna would have been covered in one of these anticipated volumes.  However, published in 1985, Zebulon was one of TSR's last Star Frontiers products.  More than a mere accessory, Zebulon was hailed as a “major new rules expansion!” in the coming attractions of Dragon #102.  In effect, Zebulon was a new edition of the Star Frontiers rules.  Unfortunately, it was also Star Frontiers' swan song.

Zebulon offers a universal resolution system based on a table with nineteen columns.  Generally, each column represents a skill level; however, there are columns for both positive and negative extremes (above +10 and below -5 respectively).  There is also a “/0” column to the right of the “0” column. 

In the original rules, skills have a maximum of six levels.  With the Zebulon rules, the maximum level is eight.  Percentile dice are still rolled, but instead of percentile modifiers, there are “column shifts” on the table.  Each column represents a modifier difference of 10.  “For example, a + 20 bonus in the Alpha Dawn rules now becomes a + 2 column shift.”  Use of the table allows for degrees of success, each degree conforms to one of four colors.  In order of decreasing result, the colors are:  cobalt, blue, green, and yellow.

In terms of combat, damage is determined by the color result of a successful attack.  A cobalt success inflicts maximum damage.  Other possibilities include blue (¾ damage), green (½ damage), and yellow (¼ damage).  A character without training in a given weapon can attempt to use the weapon on the “0” column; positive modifiers cannot improve a roll to the right of the “/0” column.

The original rules offered a selection of thirteen skills (with associated subskills) among three Primary Skill Areas.  Zebulon treats each subskill as a distinct skill and adds many new skills so that over 120 skills are now available for characters.  In terms of character creation, a beginning character has twenty experience points “gleaned from years of study, practicing, apprenticeship, or whatever.”  These points are used to join a profession and acquire skills.

Professions are a new concept in Zebulon.  We learn that, “A character must belong to one of these professions and may not leave it at a later date.”  Each profession has a list of skills associated with it.  Entering a profession costs ten experience points and a character “must spend his remaining experience points on any of his profession's skills.”  Rather than having twenty experience points and necessarily spending ten of those to enter a profession, why not have characters join a profession at no cost and give them ten experience points to spend on profession skills? 

The main professions are:  Enforcer, Techex (“Technical Expert”), Scispec (“Science Specialist”), and Explorer.  A Mentalist profession is discussed separately in Zebulon.  The Spacer profession is “for campaigns using the Knight Hawks game rules.”  There is no other mention of the Spacer profession.  The spaceship skills are not defined in the Zebulon skill section and there is no discussion of how to conform the spaceship skills to the Zebulon paradigm.

Each profession has an automatic skill:  Enforcer - Endurance, Techex - Agility, Scipec - Intelligence, and Explorer - Charisma.  Each of these automatic 'skills' gives seven points to be allocated between a given ability pair:  Endurance (Strength/Stamina), Agility (Dexterity/Reaction Speed), Intelligence (Intuition/Logic), and Charisma (Personality/Leadership).

The cost of learning and improving skills is indicated on the Zebulon Skill Cost Table.  There is a column for skills within one's profession and a column for skills outside one's profession.  The first level of a profession skill costs one point, the second level costs an additional two points.  Each level after the second costs an additional two points.  Thereby, the eighth level of a professional skill has a cost of fourteen points.  The cost for non-professional skills is double that of professional skills.  Some skills do not have levels beyond the first; success is automatic if these skills are purchased.  Examples include 'Climbing' and 'Chef'.

Some skills appear on more than one profession list.  For instance, 'Body Speak' is both an Enforcer skill and an Explorer skill.  (Body Speak “allows a character to use exaggerated body movement as a form of communication with others possessing this skill.”)  Some skills aren't on any profession list, meaning that anyone who wants to learn or improve such a skill must use the non-profession cost progression.  Examples include 'Disguise' and 'Bluff'.  Some skills require continuous training; they must be re-purchased at first level every six months or the benefit they provide is lost.  Examples include 'Pumping Federanium' and 'Running'.  ('Pumping Federanium' allows a character to “carry [up] to one and one-half times his Strength score” in kilograms.  This is due to the character working out with federanium, “the densest element known.”  However, the drawback is that the character's physique is so developed he “may have trouble fitting into suits and equipment normally disguised [sic] for his race.”)

Join The Galactic Task Force...Or The Galactic Legions

With Dungeons & Dragons, TSR started and fomented the fantasy role-playing game phenomenon and during the early years of the hobby, it was the pre-eminent RPG publisher.  It was only natural that TSR would leverage its status to promote a science fiction / space adventure role-playing game.  TSR released its effort, Star Frontiers, in the summer of 1982.  After 1985, TSR published no more Star Frontiers supplements.  Granted, the game still has its fans, but its published lifespan was only 3½ years.  This is not a long-term success considering the amount of support TSR could employ (if only in terms of marketing and distribution).

William A. Barton (who would – among other accomplishments – co-author GURPS Space) wrote a review in The Space Gamer #60 wherein we learn the original name of Star Frontiers was to be Alien Worlds.  A hint of this is captured in the game's subtitle, “Exciting Adventure on Alien Worlds.”

Lawrence Schick in his Heroic Worlds states, “In 1982 TSR waded into the pool with Star Frontiers, a game that had unfortunately been crippled in development by too much committee design.”  Schick was one of the original designers (along with David “Zeb” Cook), so his insight is cogent.  Schick continues, “The systems were originally designed for players aged 14 and up, then heavily redesigned (without play-testing) for younger players, resulting in some very muddled rules.”  (Star Frontiers was marketed as a game for “ages 10 and up.”)  Schick does not list Star Frontiers among Heroic Worlds' Top Five Science Fiction: Space Adventure Systems recommendations.

Dragon #65 includes an article (“Blastoff!”) that offers a first look at Star Frontiers :

The STAR FRONTIERS™ game project was ambitious from the start. The problems that appear when designing three complete and detailed alien cultures, a huge frontier area, futuristic equipment and weapons, and the game rules that make all these elements work together, were impossible to predict and not easy to overcome. But the difficulties were resolved, and the result is a game that lets players enter a truly wide-open space society and explore, wander, fight, trade, or adventure through it in the best science-fiction tradition.

Article author Steve Winter was also credited as the editor of Star Frontiers and he provides more detail about the game's development:

          Design work on the game started in the summer of 1979.  Dave Cook and Lawrence Schick, full-time designers for TSR Hobbies, were assigned to the project.  Their goal was to create a wide-open science fiction role-playing game with a solid scientific base.  TSR wanted a game that would satisfy fans of hardcore science fiction, and still be easy to play.  Dave and Lawrence started by designing a character-generation system and simple rules for movement and combat.  Then they started playtesting, adding and revising.
          The game grew and changed for two years, until it was finally submitted for review in the summer of 1981.  During those two years, TSR Hobbies grew tremendously.  The company had discovered that its games appealed to a much broader audience than wargamers and fantasy fans alone.  D&D® and AD&D™ games, for instance, were selling to people who had never played a wargame or a role-playing game before.  In order to tap this huge market, TSR decided to restructure the STAR FRONTIERS game so it would appeal to people who had never seen this type of game.
          This decision meant most of the game needed to be rewritten and reorganized so persons with no gaming experience could buy it, take it home and play it without learning a lot of rules.  The number and types of dice in the game were changed, the maps and counters were added, and many realistic but complex rules were sacrificed for playability.  In general, there was an overall softening of the game’s “hard core.”

Additionally...

          In order to meet the game’s scheduled release date, this revision work was split up among different members of TSR’s product development staff.   The project was completed in time for its scheduled release at the GEN CON® XV game convention.

Making Star Frontiers an introductory game and crafting it for a younger audience was a sensible if not necessary choice; splitting up revision development and foregoing playtesting, less so.

Winter claims, “The rule book includes detailed guidelines for creating adventures, alien planets and the plants, animals, and intelligent creatures that live on them.”  However, this is not entirely true; no rules for creating alien planets were included.  Zeb Cook would eventually provide planet creation rules in the final issue of Arēs (Spring 1984).  Also missing from the initial set are “rules for spaceship design [and] combat.”  Winter admits that these things are a “very important aspect of science fiction.”  However, according to Winter, “We didn’t want to insert a weak set of starship rules, or raise the price of the first set by increasing the size of the rule book.”  This is eminently reasonable.  An in-game rationale is that “most starships in the Frontier are owned by large corporations, planetary governments or starship travel companies.”  Therefore, player characters will not own starships.  (A separate set of starship rules, Knight Hawks, was published in 1983.)

The setting of Star Frontiers is “a region of space called the Frontier Sector.”  (Perhaps the game should have been titled Star Frontier.)  According to the basic game rules, this sector is...“Near the center of a great spiral galaxy, where suns are much closer together than Earth's sun and its neighbors.”  According to Winter, the volume of the frontier is “1,500 cubic light-years [and] contains 38 star systems.”  Although Winter says “cubic,” the map of the frontier is 34 light years × 44 light years, which is 1,496 square light years.  The distances among the various populated systems (i.e., the “established travel routes”) suggest they are all on the same plane.  Therefore, the setting is effectively outer space in two dimensions.  Did TSR think that three dimensional space would be too difficult to represent for their target demographic?  This 'simplicity' of space is one of the problems I had with the setting.

Players could choose among four races for their characters, including “a Human race...not identical to the Humans of Earth, but they were not very different, either.”  Basic D&D allowed for four player character races, so a variety of four races for Star Frontiers is tenable.  Fortunately, the non-human races are neither anthropomorphic animals nor humans with merely cosmetic differences.  They are alien, but sufficiently compatible with one another.  Separate from the player races, the Sathar are “an evil race of worm-like aliens” about which very little is known.  We are told they “should be NPCs only.”  Yet, on the Racial Reaction Modifiers table, Sathar are listed as a player character race.

Given that the player races have fought a war against the Sathar in the Frontier, it seems unlikely that the United Planetary Federation would have left any systems in the sector unexplored.  However, Winter says, “Only 17 of [the 38] systems have been explored and colonized when the game starts.”  This is another of the problems I had with the setting.

It is unclear if the home systems of the player races are represented on the Frontier map.  I assumed as much because (1) each race exclusively controls at least one system near the edge of the map and (2) no “established travel routes”  are indicated that would lead to systems off of the map.  Assuming that the home systems are along the edges of the map, why would the races engage in exploration only toward one another and not in an omni-directional fashion?  This is yet another of my concerns.

“With the frontier as its background,” Winter tells us, “the action in a STAR FRONTIERS game focuses on exploring new worlds, discovering alien secrets or unearthing ancient cultures.”  Contrary to Winter's notion of “a truly wide-open space society,” the setting of Star Frontiers is constrained compared to the vast environments to be found in competing products like Traveller and Space Opera.  This is another deficiency of the game.

Instead of having an abbreviated frontier, perhaps interstellar travel could have been accomplished via star-gates linking systems to one another.  In this way, the physical position and proximity of star systems would be irrelevant, only relative positions within the star-gate 'network' would matter.  No star maps would be required and the extent of 'known space' could be limited or expanded as needed for any given campaign.

Not Quite Gamma World

Art by Martin King

In 1987, TSR published the board game GAMMARAUDERS, “a wahoo brawl of world conquest and spiffy weapons with fins!”  Inspired in part by the Gamma World franchise, GAMMARAUDERS takes place in the post-apocalyptic Gamma Age.  As the above quote suggests, the premise was not entirely serious.  In the game, players control giant, cybernetic animals called bioborgs.  The bioborgs fight one another as well as more conventional military forces (known as 'popcorn').  Cryptic Alliances are also part of the game; functioning as factions.  However, the GAMMARAUDERS Cryptic Alliances are not the same as those in Gamma World.  Included with the game was a twenty page booklet “of bioborg background, Cryptic Alliance news, and world history.”  It was an interesting decision to include twenty pages of unnecessary background details for a board game.  It's almost as if the publishers had additional plans for the setting.

Given the reasonable assumption that a significant amount of overlap exists between comic book readers and RPG enthusiasts, DC Comics published a few official Dungeons & Dragons titles in the late 80s.  Also published was a GAMMARAUDERS comic book, initially written by Peter Gillis.  How many comic books have been based on board games?  Anyway, the early issues included rules for The GAMMARAUDERS (Extremely Tiny) Roleplaying System authored by Zeb Cook (or, as he introduced himself, Major Zeb of the Gammarauders Science Patrol).  So, we have a role-playing system published in a comic book based on a board game partially inspired by a role-playing game.

Included in the first issue was an essay by Jim Ward explaining role-playing games.  The essay began:  “We at TSR freely admit we do not have all the answers on what role playing is or isn't.”  He also offered:  “Role Playing at its simplest is putting yourself in someone else's shoes.”  Naturally, Ward took the opportunity to plug various TSR games.  Cook also made an effort to “explain what roleplaying games are all about.”  In his words:  “It's simple – roleplaying games are make-believe.”  He continued, “The rules are supposed to tell you who shot whom and settle arguments and the like.”

The GAMMARAUDERS (Extremely Tiny) Roleplaying System (hereinafter GETRS) version of a Game Master is called the Boss in the first installment, but the Keeper thereafter.

Each Player Character is a bioborg handler with five abilities.

Abilities are the things that tell you what your Character is like.  Each ability is rated 1 to 6.  A 1 means you're just not very good in that area.  A 6 makes you about the best there is with that ability.

Science – “your understanding of things – well, scientific.”
Style – “your ability to make an impression on others, the way you want it to be made.”
Rumble – “your skill in a fight.”
Bod – “your muscles and size”
Control – “your ability to keep your cool commanding your bioborg in the heat of action.”

Roll 1d6 (ignoring rolls of 6) for each of five ability scores, assigning those scores as desired.

Each player chooses a Complex for his or her Character:

It can be anything you want.  Perhaps he can't abide the color red.  Maybe she is touchy about her height.  He can even loathe his own bioborg, forever envious of the fine creatures other handlers have.  Choose something you can have fun with.

Roll 1d6 to determine the severity of the Complex.  Finally, “Decide all the other stuff, like appearance, dress, accent, and anything else that seems interesting.”  (A handler's name and gender are decided upon before any other step.)

Player Characters “are assigned bioborgs according to the whim of the Keeper...”  Similar to abilities, bioborgs have “numerical stats.”

Bod – “measure of size and fighting ability.”  (Roll 1d6 and multiply by 10)
Brains – “general smarts of the bioborg...(roll 1 die and divide the result by 2, rounding fractions up).”
Control – “the bioborg's willpower to ignore the orders of its handler and even make him do things he doesn't want.”  (Roll 1d6)
Armament – the number of weapons the bioborg can have at one time.  (Bod / 10)
Power – “the number of pods the bioborg can eat without becoming seriously ill.  Pods are the all-important fuel source for the bioborg's weapons (and 'most everything else).”  (Roll 2d6)

Bioborgs also have Complexes.  “These are secretly decided by the Keeper.”

The Gamma Age is populated by “factoids” that look like CRT terminals with robotic feet.

They answer every question – completely and literally.  Never, never ask a factoid what's new.  It will follow you for the rest of your existence, displaying every new thing on its screen.  Attempts to find out where they come from have proven equally futile.  It is quite possible that factoids know everything in the universe.  The problem is finding the right questions to ask.

In game terms, “A factoid will be able to answer any question on a die roll of 1 - 5.”

GERTS uses “the scientific principle known as Fistsfulls of Dice.”  When a character “tries to do something difficult,” roll a number of dice equal to the appropriate ability.  If the result of at least one of the dice equals the ability score, the character succeeds.  Easier tasks increase the number of dice to be rolled; harder tasks reduce the number of dice.

With regard to fighting, “You can do just about anything reasonable (and some things unreasonable).”  However, “You can only do one basic thing (shoot, run, shoot and run, etc.) in a turn.”  Initiative is determined by rolling against Control.

The person who makes the most successful rolls (i.e. rolls his Control score) goes first and so on until everyone has a chance to act.  If no one rolls his score, the person who rolled the most dice goes first and so on.  If it is a tie, those characters do everything all at once.

A weapon inflicts damage according to the results of a number of dice indicated in the weapon's description.  For instance, a “Handy-Dandy Blaster Pistol” inflicts two dice of damage.

When punching, kicking, or otherwise using your body, you do 1 point of Bod damage for each successful die roll you make.  If your Bod is greater than your Rumble, you add one to this result.

When a character's Bod is reduced to zero, that character is “out of play (until the next Big Scene Change).”  (Cook neglected to discuss the topic of scene changes.)

To determine a handler's running speed (in yards) for any given span of thirty seconds, roll a number of dice equal to the handler's Bod score and multiply by ten.  “Bioborgs use the same method to determine how far they move, but multiply the result by 50.”

Handlers enter into Contracts.  Small Contracts have a value of 1 to 6, “good Contracts are 7 to 12, big Contracts are 13 to 18, and Whoppers are 19 or more.”  The value of a Contract is representative of “its difficulty or length of service.”  A handler must fulfill a contract before he or she can enter into a new Contract.  “The Keeper will have fun negotiating contracts with the players.”

If a handler purchases an item, his or her current Contract value is reduced by the item's cost.  When the value of a handler's Contract is reduced to zero, “he's broke (a common situation).”  (The aforementioned “Handy-Dandy Blaster Pistol” has a cost of 1 while “Laso-Binoculars” cost 2.) 

In GERTS, there are two types of equipment; handlers have Personal Equipment while bioborgs have Fittings.  “Both types of equipment are governed by one basic rule:  You have to make things up.”  Each bioborg Fitting is either a Weapon or Defense.

In creating a Fitting:

Give the item a great name by combining meaningless phrases to make something that sounds really powerful.  Choose one term from each of columns A and B, and combine these with the appropriate Weapon or Defense name.

Weapons are assigned “a number of dice of damage (from to 2 to 12)” and a range “from 0 (hand-to-hand) to 1000 yards.”  A defense “confers complete immunity to one type of weapon” and “reduces the damage done by other attacks by a set number of dice, from 1 to 6.”  Every Fitting has a Pod Use Number ranging from one to three.  Whenever a Fitting is used, roll dice equal to the Pod Use Number.  If the result of any of those dice equals the Pod Use Number, “one pod carried by bioborg has been drained of power.”  The cost of a Fitting “is equal to the number of dice of damage or protection plus one die roll.”

Art by Martin King

Original Characters in The Adventures of Indiana Jones

Art by Rafael DeSoto

Something of an afterthought, character generation rules for The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game (hereinafter Adventures) were provided in the Judge's Survival Pack.  The eight steps for “generating characters for adventures” appear on a single page (with enough space left to display a sizeable publicity still of Harrison Ford).

The first step is to make a percentile roll for each of the six Attribute Ratings.  The second step involves allocating “30 points” among the Attribute Ratings; however, “no Rating can be raised higher than 70.”  In a previous post, we noted that the Attribute Ratings of the seven characters supplied with Adventures ranged from 44 to 92.  Also, each Rating was divisible by four in order to accommodate ×½ and ×¼ values for purposes for Modified Checks.  In fact, the third step is to record the Modified Columns.  “Round all fractions to the nearest even number,” the rules state.

The fourth step in generating a character involves the player choosing “what [the character's] background was before he got caught up in wild adventures.”  There are three “categories” of background.  Each background has a list of skills associated with it.  The rules use the terms “skill” and “Knowledge” interchangeably.

Characters with an Education background choose one Education skill.  Then 1d10 is rolled, modified by +1 for each ten points of Instinct the character possesses.  If the result of the roll is at least ten, the character has an undergraduate degree and another Education skill.  With an undergraduate degree, a character can attempt to attain a doctorate and a third Education skill.  Another d10 is rolled, “but only add 1 point for every 20 points of Instinct greater than 70.”  A result of at least ten is necessary to receive a doctorate.

Characters with a Soldiering background receive +10 Prowess and a percentile roll is made on the “Soldiering Knowledge list.”  There is also “a 10% chance that [the] character has an additional knowledge” chosen from the Soldiering and Real World lists.  The result of “91 – 00” when rolling on the Soldiering list reads “Choose 1 and roll again.”  Therefore, it is possible for a character with the Soldiering background to have three skills in addition to the bonus to Prowess.

The only other available background is the Real World.  This indicates “a variety of jobs.”  Characters with this background have a choice of two skills from the Real World list.

The actual choice of skills (or random determination of skills in the case of the Soldiering background) is the fifth step in generating a character.  The Education Knowledge list includes Archaeology, Medical, Photography, and Surveying.  Three other items appear on the list:  +10 Appeal, +10 Instinct, and “Any language.”  None of these options appear on the Soldiering or Real World lists.  Soldiering skills include:  Driving, Explosives, First Aid, Heavy Weapons, Karate, Mechanical, Parachuting, Piloting, and Sailing.  (Medical and First Aid are distinct Knowledges; however, First Aid is subsumed into Medical.)  The Real World can confer Driving, Entertainment, First Aid, Hotwiring, Lockpicking, Mechanical, Picking Pockets, and Sailing.   Adventures describes five Knowledges that none of the seven provided characters possess:  Explosives, Heavy Weapons, Medical, Photography, and Sailing.  Presumably, the designer (i.e., David Cook) thought that likely non-player characters would have these skills Knowledges.

The sixth step is called “Select Your Languages.”  However, “first you should decide what nationality your character is.”  A character knows his or her native language.  Additional languages – aside from those acquired as Education Knowledges – can be gained with each successful Instinct Check.  The first Check is made at ×1, the second at ×½, and any others at ×¼.  When an Instinct Check fails, no further attempts may be made.  Only languages “of the known world” may be chosen.

The seventh step regards obtaining equipment.  Each character “has a reasonable wardrobe of clothing and a place to live.”  The amount of  funds available to a character is determined by the formula:

(1d10 + # of skills + [1 per 10 points of Appeal over 70] ) × $100

After acquiring equipment, “you are ready to adventure.”  The eighth step – “Final Details” –  is evidently optional; the exact terms are, “you could do a few other things.”  These optional, other things include:  “give your character a name, decide whether it is male or female, decide what he looks like, and how old he is.”

Two of the seven provided characters have “Irrational Fears,” the mechanics of which are described on pages 40 and 41 of the rules.  The character generation rules do not address the possibility of contracting such a fear.

While it is not reasonable to expect Adventures to have a background system as extensive as that of Daredevils, three background options seems rather meager.  With the availability of skills such as Hotwiring, Lockpicking, and Picking Pockets, I can easily imagine a 'Criminal' or 'Illicit' background.  Other possible backgrounds may not be feasible given the paucity of skills, but “Your referee can create additional knowledge areas if he desires.”   If the Soldiering background offers a bonus to Prowess and the Education background offers bonuses to Instinct and Appeal, why can't other bonuses be available?  Should there be minimum Attribute Rating requirements for certain backgrounds?  Would a character with a Strength or Backbone of 01 be admitted to the military?  Would a character with an Instinct of 01 be accepted into academia?

Indiana Jones and the Attribute Checks of Peril

Modified Check Table

It's most important to me that a game be fun and simple to play.

– David “Zeb” Cook

Characters in The Adventures of Indiana Jones role-playing game (hereinafter Adventures) have six Attributes:

• Strength – A measure of “muscle power.”
• Movement –  A character's movement rate.  This Attribute is also used for determining initiative, whenever a “character tries for that extra boost of speed...tries to do something acrobatic, or when he drives a vehicle.”
• Prowess – Represents a “character's coordination in a fight.”  Any attempt to hit an opponent uses Prowess.
• Backbone – Represents a “character's determination and guts.”  This Attribute is used “whenever he encounters something that tests his willpower – torture, drugs, or some terrifying sight.”
• Instinct – Perception, including “gut” feelings.  In certain sections of the rules, Instinct is used for intelligence and memory.
• Appeal – This Attribute indicates a character's personality; specifically, “how non-player characters react to” the character.  This is specifically a human concept; animals do not have this Attribute.

Among the seven provided characters, Attribute Ratings range from 44 (the Instinct Rating for both Short Round and Wu Han, as well as the Strength Rating for Willie Scott) to 92 (the Appeal Rating for both Willie Scott and Marion).  (Digression:  Is there a tendency in role-playing games to assign higher 'charisma' values to women characters?)  All of the ratings are divisible by four (for reasons soon to be explained).

The basic mechanic of Adventures involves rolling percentile dice against some multiple of an Attribute Rating.  Rolling equal to or under the specified multiple indicates success.  Regardless, a roll of 96 - 100 represents failure and a Bad Break – some complication to the situation.  A roll of 01 - 05 is not only a success, but also a Lucky Break – “something good has unexpectedly happened.”

Aside from Lucky Breaks, there are degrees of success; the better the roll, the more successful the character is.  The Modified Check Table shown above demonstrates four 'colors' of success (including Lucky Breaks).  We see similar concepts implemented in contemporaneous TSR products such as the Marvel Super Heroes RPG and the Star Frontiers adjunct, Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space.  Unlike these examples, the 'degrees of success' in Adventures are formulaic – they are based on multiples of the Attribute Rating being checked.

In other games, there can be a plethora of numeric modifiers to a roll (e.g., +x for aiming, -y for darkness, etc.).  The Modified Check Table for Adventures has only four columns because there are only four possible 'states' in which an Attribute can be checked:  the normal Rating of the Attribute, a less difficult circumstance (×2 Attribute Rating), a more difficult circumstance (×½ Attribute Rating), and a much more difficult circumstance (×¼ Attribute Rating).  “Using ropes or levers” would be a ×2 modifier for a Strength check and “Shooting at a moving target” would be a ×½ modifier for a Prowess check.  Modifiers are cumulative (two ×½ modifiers would result in a ×¼ modifier; a ×½ modifier would cancel out a ×2 modifier).  A check cannot be greater than ×2 nor can a check be less than ×¼ (and still be possible).

The Character Dossiers list the ×2, ×½, and ×¼ values for each of a character's Attribute Ratings.  As such, it is a relatively simple matter to determine success for any check as well as the degree of success.  Evidently, some concern was expressed that the system was not sufficiently efficient.  The Judge's Survival Pack includes a “combat computer you assemble, to speed your adventures along.”  This contraption is shown below.  A sleeve is positioned along a narrow sheet to a selected Rating; values exposed by the sleeve indicate the percentile ranges of various degrees of success.  The so-called computer is not limited to combat (i.e., Prowess checks), but is usable for any of the Attributes; results for Instinct and Appeal checks are clearly listed.  It “works,” but it's hardly an aid to simplicity.  If this is an improvement, it's time to go back to the drawing board.

The ×¼, ×½, ×1, ×2 progression is a workable system, but I would use the terminology of “levels” (Level 1 = ×¼, Level 2 = ×½, etc.).  Modifiers would then be -2, -1, and +1.  With “Level 3” being the default Rating, everything would work like it should, but we forgo fractions and the non-intuitive ×1, ×2, ×½, ×¼ Character Dossier display.

DVD shown for purposes of scale

Playing the Heroes of Pulp Fiction

Art by Jeff Dee

Game design for The Adventures of Indiana Jones is credited to David “Zeb” Cook, who is perhaps best known as the lead designer for the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.  Other RPGs for which Cook did design work include Bullwinkle and Rocky, Star Frontiers, Conan the Barbarian, and Amazing Engine.  According to the TSR Profiles of Dragon #104 (December, 1985)*, “Zeb is perhaps the most versatile game designer at TSR, having created role-playing games, modules, family board games, card games, rulebooks, and party mystery games.”  After more than fifteen years at TSR, he left for the more lucrative field of computer games.  However, according to RPGGeek, he seems to have kept a hand in writing for table-top RPGs.  When Cook applied for a game designer position at TSR, “He completed the designer test that the company then used.”  I would be interested in finding out what comprised that test.

Anyway, while still at TSR, Cook said, “Whenever there's a licensed game or project in trouble, they throw it on my desk.”  This would account for his association with The Adventures of Indiana Jones.  Regardless, Cook was an appropriate choice for Adventures because he had previously designed a pulp-era adventure RPG.  Crimefighters was included in Dragon #43 (March, 1981), published a few months prior to the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  In this post, we examine Crimefighters in anticipation of comparing it to The Adventures of Indiana Jones.

Excluding flavor text and the sample adventure, Crimefighters has sixteen pages of rules (including illustrations).  Much was excluded from the version provided in Dragon.  According to the Afterword, “Many sections were dropped from the original outline, including rules for airplanes, swimming, more weapons, security devices, special gadgets, exotic adventures, and more detailed contacts.”

Crimefighters characters have seven attributes:  Physical Power, Mental Aptitude, Willpower, Accuracy Left, Accuracy Right, Agility, and Presence.  Scores are determined by rolling percentile dice.  The die rolls for four of the attributes (Physical Power, Mental Aptitude, Accuracy Right, and Agility) are modified to prevent dismal results.

An attribute can be increased by one point for every five experience points spent.  Interestingly, “The use of Presence requires an exertion of the character's Willpower.”  Sleep allows recovery of Willpower expended in this way.

Crimefighters is a skill-based system.  Skills are 'purchased' via pools of points.  A character's Mental Aptitude score represents the number of points available for Mental Skills while Agility represents the number of points available for Agility Skills.  In increments of (at least) ten points, skills cost from ten to sixty points.  Examples of Mental Skills include:  Language (10 pts each), Lockpicking (20 pts), Stage Magic (30 pts), Engineer (40 pts), and Legal (60 pts).  Examples of Agility Skills include:  Juggling (10 pts), Stealth (20 pts), Tightrope (30 pts), and Judo (40 pts).

Starting Crimefighters characters have a 5% of having a randomly determined mysterious power.  With experience points, a character can 'study' to obtain a mysterious power (perhaps chosen by the player with the GM's approval).  For every ten experience points, a character has a 1% chance of acquiring a power.

A character with the mysterious power of 'foresight' gets a +1 modifier to initiative.  Additionally, the character may...

...ask 3 yes-or-no questions of the GM per adventure.  These questions must deal with some action that the character plans to take, or be based upon information that the character might realistically know or suspect...The questions have a 10% chance of being answered incorrectly; this is secretly determined by the GM.

For any given adventure, a character with the mysterious power of 'luck' has a 50% chance of having 'good' luck, a 40% of having 'normal' luck, and a 10% chance for having 'bad' luck.  (The GM rolls for this in secret.)  Good luck grants a +10 modifier in combat while bad luck causes a -10 modifier.  “Furthermore,” the rules state, “the character is allowed a die roll to see if he or she succeeds in doing anything that would be feasible or remotely possible, even in situations where such success would normally be considered nearly impossible.”

In combat, ranged attacks are resolved by a roll based on the appropriate Accuracy of the attacker; hand-to-hand attacks are resolved by a roll based on the average of the attacker's Physical Power and Agility.  The formula for determining Hit Points is:  1d8 + ( [Physical Power + Willpower] / 10).  There are two types of wounds in Crimefighters :  (1) missile/edged weapon and (2) hand-to-hand.  If a character suffers missile/edged weapon damage in excess of his or her Hit Points, death ensues.  Otherwise, “missile/edged weapon wounds in Crimefighters can become more serious if they are not tended to.”  Hit Points lost due to missile/edged weapons “are recovered at the rate of 1 hit point for every two days of rest.”  If a character suffers hand-to-hand damage in excess of his or her Hit Points, he or she falls unconscious. Hit Points lost because of hand-to-hand damage “may be recovered at the rate of 1 hit point per hour of rest.”

All Crimefighters characters have three contacts determined randomly.  For each contact, the GM secretly determines an Effectiveness Rating.  Crimefighters goes into detail about what sort of information each type of contact is able to provide.

Each Crimefighters character has an 'Experience Type'.  (In order to distinguish the concept from experience points, I would have called it 'Style' – or in a more pretentious mood – 'Paradigm'.)

• The Defender “attempts to uphold and protect the society he or she belongs to.”  Defenders do not intentionally kill or torture.  They receive no experience points “for criminals he or she might kill, but is given double the amount of points for those whom he or she captures without assistance.”  Defenders have an extra police contact.
• The Avenger “only believes in the system when it works to his or her best interests.”  They receive no experience if they have “notable assistance in bringing villains to justice” nor do they receive “experience for criminals captured unless that person confesses (to witnesses) his or her guilt of a serious crime.”  Avengers can have, at most, one police contact.
• The Pragmatist “will normally attempt to abide by the laws of society and operate within this framework.”  They “receive normal experience for criminals captured and half normal experience for criminals who meet their demise.”  Pragmatists have an extra underworld contact.

There are also two optional Experience Type 'modifiers'.

• Technological characters receive additional experience when they use “a device to create a significant result.”
• Anti-technological characters “receive no experience for a result if [unusual technology] items are used to aid his or her efforts.”  However, if an anti-technological character “manages to destroy an opponent’s technological device, he or she will receive experience points as if a criminal of similar power had been overcome.”

A GM can assign 'negative' experience points when “the motives of the character...are generally evil or selfish.”  However, a player can have his or her character 'turn bad' permanently.  If so, negative experience is thereafter treated as positive and positive experience treated as negative.

* All quotes about Cook in this post come from this source.

The Book that Appendix N Forgot

On this date, twenty-five years ago, Barbara Ninde Byfield passed away.  She was an author and an illustrator.  More to the point of this post, she wrote and illustrated The Glass Harmonica: A Lexicon of the Fantastical, since re-published as The Book of the Weird.  The complete subtitle reads:

Being a most Desirable Lexicon of The Fantastical, Wherein Kings and Dragons, Trolls and Vampires, to say nothing of Elves and Gnomes, Queens, Knaves and Werewolves, are made Manifest, and many, many further Revelations of The Mystical Order of Things are brought to light.

The back of my copy describes the book as “a treasure chest of hidden knowledge for those who fancy venturing into the twilight worlds of the Heroic, the Occult, and the Romantic.”  It is, in effect, an encyclopedia of fantasy and fairy tale tropes.  Doubtless, it is the book to which Zeb Cook refers in his foreword to The Dungeon Alphabet.  Cook says, “...I cannot remember the title or artist...It fueled my imagination with possibilities and led me to incorporate that fantastic whimsy into my own games – to want to create worlds with those touches of detail, irony and just out-and-out wonder.”

As an example of Byfield's whimsy, here is a portion of the entry on Hermits:

          ANCHORITES show a preference for thorns, drought, and meditation.  Certain that the next world will be without the above afflictions, they relish their present discomforts, which may include beds of thistles.

As examples of Byfield's illustrative prowess, see her 'Castle' diagram below and her 'Landscapes' diagram at the close of this post.

When I say, “The Book that Appendix N Forgot,” I am referring to the Dungeon Masters Guide Appendix N; Byfield's book is given due credit in the RuneQuest Appendix N.  This is curious in that the influence of The Glass Harmonica is more apparent in AD&D than in RuneQuest.  Some other blog does a capable job of demonstrating the artistic similarities between Byfield's work and 1e AD&D, so I will not duplicate the effort.  However, I will speculate that, in the absence of Byfield's entry on Trollops, Trulls, Bawds, Doxies, and Strumpets, the DMG 'harlot table' would be much less colorful or might not exist at all.  Also, I must wonder if “Rods, Staves, & Wands” would have been so grouped by Gygax in AD&D if not for Byfield's categorization of Wands, Staffs, and Rods.