Cthulhoid Choices: Cryptid Creeks

Call of Cthulhu is the preeminent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and has been for over four decades now. The roleplaying game gives the chance for the players and their Investigators to explore a world in which the latter are exposed, initially often indirectly, but as the story or investigation progresses, increasingly directly, to alien forces beyond their comprehension. So, beyond that what they encounter is often interpreted as indescribable, yet supernatural monsters or gods wielding magic, but in reality is something more, a confrontation with the true nature of the universe and the realisation as to the terrible insignificance of mankind with it and an understanding that despite, there are those that would embrace and worship the powers that be for their own ends. Such a realisation and such an understanding often leave those so foolish as to investigate the unknown clutching at, or even, losing their sanity, and condemned to a life knowing truths to which they wish they were never exposed. This blueprint has set the way in which other games—roleplaying games, board games, card games, and more—have presented Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as many as there that do follow that blueprint, there are others have explored the Mythos in different ways.

Cthulhoid Choices is a strand of reviews that examine other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror and of Cosmic, but not necessarily Horror. Previous reviews which can be considered part of this strand include Cthulhu Hack, Realms of Crawling Chaos, and the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game.

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Shingleford is in danger from manipulation and catastrophe. It is not the first time that this happened to the town which stands on the mouth of the Clawfoot estuary. It happened in the autumn of 1962 and was stopped, but can it be stopped this time? The enigmatic, if friendly, figure of the Peddler has come to town, selling the townsfolk what they want in the form of little Trinkets he takes from his travelling case. When the owners of these Trinkets sleep, the Trinkets take their deepest resentments and twist them into Curses, and in this way, their owners become Cursekeepers, exhilarated by the eldritch power granted by their Trinkets and now capable of casting their Curses on others, whether that is an individual, their family or other group, or an establishment. These curses will grow and threaten to overwhelm the community. If these Curses and the influence of the Peddler were stopped in 1962, how can they be stopped today? Simply through the efforts of the River Scouts, the stories of Hilda Buckle, and the careful eye of The Watcher. The Watcher is an intelligent animal or cryptid, a spirit of the river who will inform the River Scouts of new Curses and keep a watch over them. Hilda Buckle is an old woman who lives in a shack on Bulrush Island further upriver and who has a reputation for telling fanciful stories, fanciful stories that begin to look very much the events that are occurring in Shingleford and up and down the river. The River Scouts are local teenagers who discovered the old River Scouts clubhouse, abandoned after the events of 1962, and upon turning it into a den, were visited by the ghost of a young girl who told them of how she helped lift the Curse in 1962. Other ghosts asked them to read the River Scout Pledge and provide protection for the Clawfoot and Shingleford once again, presenting them with Sashes that will help them defeat the Curses.

This is the set-up for Cryptid Creeks, a roleplaying game of eldritch investigative horror, that takes its inspiration from films such as The Goonies and Stand by Me, television series like Gravity Falls and Stranger Things, and graphic novels such as The Lumberjanes. Although a roleplaying game of eldritch investigative horror, and thus adjacent to it, Cryptid Creeks is not a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and does not involve the Cthulhu Mythos. Which means it offers a similar style of play, but without the familiarity with or issues of anything Lovecraftian. Further, in keeping with its inspirations and with the age of its protagonists, it is designed to be played, if not necessarily run, by a teenage audience. This does not mean that it cannot be enjoyed by more mature playing group, but it is in keeping with the publisher’s other roleplaying game, Inspirales, aimed at a similar age group. Published by Hatchlings Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is described as ‘Cosy Horror’, meaning that it is suitable for a family audience. Cryptid Creeks is also ‘Carved from Brindlewood’, which means that it is a Powered by the Apocalypse system roleplaying game, but one using the lighter, more investigative-focused variant of Brindlewood Bay.

A River Scout in Cryptid Creeks is defined by five attributes—Athletic, Smart, Cool, Smooth, and Attuned—which range in value from ‘-3’ to ‘+3’, and are used to modify dice rolls. He will be defined by a Playbook, which defines the base value for the attributes, a gift from the Watcher, provides Moves or actions particular to each Playbook, gives Setback and Perks, and offers ways in which the River Scout can improve himself. The six Playbooks are Athlete, Medic, Musician, Bookworm, Sailor, and Misfit. For the most part, they conform to high school type roles, though with a couple options which fit the setting of Cryptid Creeks. These are the Sailor, who will help the River Scouts get up and down the Clawfoot, and the Misfit, who is a little bit special because he is the Watcher’s champion and can work with the Eeries, the chaotic, tiny cryptids which watch over Shingleford for Curses and deliver messages to and for the Watcher. Each Playbook also suggests touchstones, or characters from films and television, that fall within the Playbook.

To create a River Scout, a player selects a Playbook and assigns one point to his attributes. He also picks one ability as well as the Watcher’s Gift. The process is simple and straightforward.

Every Scout has access to six Basic Moves in addition to the Moves of his Playbook. The Scout Move is carried out when a River Scout wants to do something risky or face a fear; the Eldritch Move is rolled when facing or dealing with the supernatural; the Snoop Move is for searching for Clues or conducting research; the Crew Move is for clearing Misfortunes and for strengthening bonds between the River Scouts; the Hilda Move is used when a River Scout wants to do something based on a story that Hilda has told him; and lastly the Answer a Question Move is made when the players feel that their River Scouts have gathered enough clues to discuss and then attempt a hypothesis about the nature of a Curse. As Cryptid Creeks is an investigative roleplaying game, the Snoop Move is a strong focus of the game, there is a certain delight in the Hilda Move which enables a player to add detail to the setting through play.

Mechanically, Cryptid Creeks is quite straightforward. To have his River Scout undertake an action, a player rolls two six-sided dice. On a roll of six or less, the result is a miss with a reaction; a roll of seven to nine is a hit with a complication; a roll of ten or eleven a straight hit; and a roll of twelve or more a triumph with a benefit. A player can also roll with Advantage, meaning he rolls three dice and uses the two highest, or Disadvantage, meaning that he rolls three dice and uses the two lowest. Advantage may come from a Move, the situation, or a useful item from the Clubhouse Collection. Disadvantage can come from the situation or a Misfortune.

In addition, each River Scout has access to a Sash, given to him by the ghosts in the Clubhouse. These can be used—and the roleplaying game advises that the players use them when a Curse is near its peak and the situation is much tougher—after a roll has been made to increase the success rating rolled. Narratively, a Sash has two effects, one that is out of game and one that is in game. The out of game effect is that it enables a player and his River Scout to view one dangerous path, represented by the poor roll, but as advised by the ghost who gave it to the River Scout, chose a path with better outcome that pushes them towards defeating the Peddler. The in-game effect depends upon whether the player chooses to lift his River Scout’s Sash as ‘The Sash of Ages’ or ‘The Sash of Endings’. When ‘The Sash of Ages’ is lifted, it invokes a nostalgic memory of a time before the character joined the River Scouts, whilst when ‘The Sash of Endings’ is lifted, the River Scout suffers from dark visions. For example, a ‘Sash of Ages’ for the Sailor Playbook is ‘A flashback showing your earliest memory in a boat’, whilst a ‘Sash of Endings’ might be ‘Ends in Ruins’ in which, ‘The townsfolk desperately search through the charred remains of the dinghy, even as the mast collapses.’ Each Playbook lists several of both types of Sashes which are crossed off as they are lifted. When a player crosses off the last Sash, his River Scout must retire.

Given its ‘Cozy Horror’ genre and the age of the River Scouts, it is no surprise that Cryptid Creeks has no combat system. Technically, it does not even have a damage system. Instead, a River Scout can suffer Misfortunes that can be physical, psychological, or supernatural, such as an allergic reaction, sprained ankle, being confused or horrified, or feeling a buzzing in the brain or being drawn to the Peddler. These can come about because of a player’s roll, of a River Scout’s action, and so on. A Misfortune means that River Scout’s player rolls with Disadvantage, and worse, when a River Scout suffers his fourth Misfortune, his player must mark off a Sash without the benefit of Lifting it. Narratively, Misfortunes and their mechanical effect can be negated by the Crew Move, played whilst travelling or at the Clubhouse.

Cryptid Creeks is played in four phases—the ‘Beginning of Episode’ Phase, ‘Investigation’ Phase, the ‘River’ Phase, and ‘End of Episode’ Phase. The ‘Beginning of Episode’ Phase includes a recap, a clubhouse montage, and the Navigator—as the Game Master is known—introduces a new Curse. In the ‘Investigation’ Phase, the River Scouts search for clues and gather information, which takes up the majority of play. The ‘River’ Phase is triggered whenever the River Scouts travel up and down the Clawfoot and enables the Navigator and players to expand the setting by adding and detailing new locations, the Navigator to showcase the setting and its eldritch elements, and the River Scout to share more emotionally touching scenes. In the ‘End of Episode’ Phase, the River Scouts claim the rewards for breaking a Curse, play out any scenes linked to Sashes lifted during the session, gain Experience Points for answering ‘End of Episode’ Questions, and in the appropriately named ‘Smores & Dreams’, the players can discuss that they liked about the episode and want to see more of.

For the Navigator, there is good advice on running the four different Phases, how to handle clues, locations, and side characters, and how to interpret the various Moves. There is also a breakdown of what a Curse looks like and the principles of being a good Navigator. These include rooting for the River Scouts, following their lead as they explore and expand the setting of Clawfoot and search for Clues, shift the spotlight between River Scouts, balance the cosy versus the eldritch, bring the world to life, embrace the otherworldly nature of Clawfoot, and keep collaboration with the players in mind. Although there is advice on how to run Cryptid Creeks as a one-shot, it is made clear that the roleplaying game is not intended to be run in a ‘monster-of-the-week’ format, but rather as a series consisting of several episodes. What this means is that although the River Scouts will initially be facing one Curse, the likelihood is that they will be facing two or three as the campaign progresses. A Curse consists of a main threat and several ‘tendrils’, associated dangers such as eldritch horrors and difficult Side Characters that typically want to stop the River Scouts. A Curse also has its own Sash, which can be Lifted like the River Scouts’ own, but without needing to tick their own off.

Beyond this, Cryptid Creeks provides the Navigator with tools and advice to create her own Curses, from concept and themes to presenting the Curse and clues to it and more. Almost half of Cryptid Creeks is devoted to the eight-part campaign or series, ‘The Peddler’s Revenge’ in which the River Scouts discover the threat to Shingleford and Clawfoot, investigate the Curses being laid upon the region, and ultimately uncover the secrets behind the Peddler. The campaign is supported by descriptions of various places in Shingleford and along the Clawfoot, but best of all, there is a pilot episode that the Navigator can use to kick-start her campaign. It provides a step-by-step guide that helps the Navigator teach the rules of Cryptid Creeks and explain what the roleplaying game is about to her players and then again, step-by-step, shows the Navigator how to show her players how to play and the flow of the game. Up until this point, Cryptid Creeks looked to be a good roleplaying game to run for a group of younger players who were new or relatively new to roleplaying games, ideally by a Game Master with some experience under her belt. Yet, the ‘Pilot Episode’ really shifts Cryptid Creeks away from this. It is very well done and really helps the neophyte Navigator—whether new to being a Game Master or new to Powered by the Apocalypse—grasp how Cryptid Creeks is run. The advice and step-by-step introduction of the ‘Pilot Episode’ make what was already a good starting roleplaying game for the players, into being a good one for the Navigator too.

Physically, Cryptid Creeks is brightly, breezily presented with engaging cartoonish artwork. The depiction of the Peddler in particular, looks like a version of David Tennant’s Doctor Who, but with tentacles coming out of his Mod suit! The roleplaying game is also well written and far from a difficult read.

Cryptid Creeks is not an introductory roleplaying game, but it definitely can be used to introduce players to the hobby and it can be a Navigator’s first roleplaying game as a Game Master. The advice to that end is very well done and this is combined with the accessibility of both the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics and the setting of Clawfoot with its cosy familiarity and the unsettling nature of the threat that the River Scouts and their home face. If looking for a ‘Cosy Horror’ roleplaying game or a Game Master’s first roleplaying game, Cryptid Creeks is a good choice. If looking for both, Cryptid Creeks is the perfect choice.

Winning is the Name of the Game

Subtitled ‘A Co-operate Roleplaying Game (with only one winner)’, Two Sides To The Coin is a light storytelling roleplaying game that can be pitched as ‘being like a LARP, but played at the table’. It is a simple game, best suited to one-shots and convention games in the players will roleplay through a particular story, whether that is robbing the train coming into town, stealing a painting before it can go on display at a museum, solving a murder at a country house, conduct peace negotiations, or surviving long enough being stalked by a monster from outer space which is slowly killing off your crewmates to escape the spaceship and escape certain death. It is played just like a standard roleplaying game with everyone sat round the table, roleplaying their characters as they work towards a shared objective, but played like a LARP—or ‘Live Action Roleplay’—in that every player and every character has multiple motives and personal objectives. Some in game, some out of game. Achieving some will score a player points at the end of the game, but achieving one, his character’s ‘Ulterior Motive’ will not only score the player more points, but will win him the game. Yes, this is a roleplaying game in which there is a winner, so it is unlike almost any other roleplaying game. However, the group’s overall objective must be completed as well for there to be a winner!

Two Sides To The Coin is published by Osprey Games, better known for its more traditional roleplaying games such as Hard City: Noir Roleplaying and Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, so it is different in comparison to the roleplaying games it usually publishes. To play the game, at least one eight-sided die is required as well as ten Coins per player and some pens and notepads, as the players will be passing notes back and forth between each other and themselves and the Narrator. (This aspect makes it more difficult to run online.) The Narrator will decide upon a scenario—there four included in the book—and decide what Motives use and negotiates with her players as to what Motives their characters will have for the scenario.

A Player Character is simply defined. He has eight stats. These are Academics, Alertness, Close Combat, Dexterity, Ranged Combat, Resolve, Social, and Streetwise. He has ten Coins, one Ulterior Motive, and six Lesser Motives. To create a character, a player divides thirty-five points between the eight stats and rolls randomly to determine what his character’s Lesser Motives. These are in game and out of game Motives. The Ulterior Motive is decided upon through negotiation between the player and Narrator to fit the set-up that the Narrator has created for her scenario.

Ruud van der Aar
Occupation: Fraud Investigator
Academics 5 Alertness 4 Close Combat 4 Dexterity 4
Ranged Combat 4 Resolve 5 Social 5 Streetwise 4
Coins OOOOOOOOOO
ULTERIOR MOTIVE
Prove that the painting is real, because you already replaced it with a forgery!
LESSER PLAYER MOTIVES
Get a player to give you something to drink
Get a player to say the word ‘umbrella’
Get a player to pass a note to you
LESSER CHARACTER MOTIVES
Get a character to sing something
Get a character to give your character something to eat
Get a character to lie to another character

Mechanically, Two Sides To The Coin is simple. To have his character undertake an action, his player rolls an eight-sided die and adds the appropriate attribute to beat a Difficulty Number, ranging from eight for Simple to fifteen for Arduous. A player can expend Stat points to boost the roll and make sure that he beats the Difficulty Number. There are no set means of determining how good or how bad the outcome is, but the Narrator is encouraged to reward really good and punish really bad rolls. In addition, each player begins a session with ten Coins. These can be played heads up to add one to a roll or tails up to subtract one from a roll. They can be played after the roll and after a player has decided to spend Stat points on the roll, but they can only be spent by a player to affect the actions of another player’s character that his character is watching. In other words, a player can use his Coins if his character is in the room with the other character. There is nothing to stop the players negotiating the expenditure of Coins, whether that is for promises of help later on, the lending of equipment, suggesting the formation of an alliance, and so on. The Coins are way to signal a Player Characters intent, as in, “I need you to succeed right now, probably for all our sakes, or least mine” or “I need you to fail, because I need to succeed where you must not”.

Where Coins spent cannot be recovered, Stat points spent can be. This requires the Player Character to fulfil his Motives, gaining two points for each Lesser Motive Point fulfilled and five points when his Ulterior Motive is fulfilled. However, no other player can suspect or have reason enough to point out that a player and/or character is attempting to fulfil either type of Motive. If a Player Character does fail a Motive, whether from a bad die roll or another player pointing it out, the Player Character loses a Stat point. If a player points out that another player is trying to fulfil a Motive and it is not actually true, he will lose Stat points. Stat points can also be awarded for good roleplaying.

There are barely any combat rules in Two Sides To The Coin. Primarily because the focus of the roleplaying game is not combat, but interaction between the Player Characters in their push to achieve their overall objective and then their personal objectives. When combat occurs, the amount rolled above the Difficulty Number, modified by the weapon used, determines how much damage is inflicted. This is deducted from a ten-point track and it gets lower, the greater the effect the damage has on the Player Character.

Lastly, a player can flip a Coin once per session to attempt an action. If successful, the Player Character succeeds and gains a bonus to all attempts to do it again that session. If a failure, a Player Character cannot attempt it again and suffer a penalty to a stat. An alternative rule is the ‘Rule of Sabotage’ which turns one of the Player Characters into a saboteur, attempting to undo or prevent the objective of the other Player Characters being fulfilled.

All four scenarios in Two Sides To The Coin include a main objective and a winning condition, as well as several character concepts and their ‘Beginnings’ or introductions for the players and their characters. Some sample Ulterior Motives are also suggested. The scenario details follow, including plot, maps, NPCs, and so on. There are pointers too—on ‘Post-it Notes’—for the Narrator on how to run each scenario. The four scenarios include ‘Moving a Masterpiece’, in which the Player Characters must move a painting from a museum to a storage facility; ‘Finding Fluffy’ casts the Player Characters as an adventuring band commissioned to find a wizard’s missing pet; in ‘Stranded’, the Player Characters are Starfield Industries recruits assigned to recover a missing merchant starship and her crew; and in the Edwardian-era set ‘The Mansion of Murphy Mahoney’, the Player Characters need to find an heir for Lord Mahoney. The second first two scenarios are lighter in tone than the second two, but show off some of the situations and genres that the roleplaying game can handle.

Physically, Two Sides To The Coin is decently written and nicely illustrated with some cartoon artwork that tell the stories of several capers. There is advice and examples of play for the Narrator throughout, all of it appearing on more ‘Post-it Notes’.

Two Sides To The Coin is written to be a relatively easy introduction to roleplaying, taking its time to give an example of play and notes for both player and Narrator as to what they are expected to do. In the case of the Narrator, this includes keeping track of the machinations of both the players and their characters, determining whether their Motives have succeeded or failed, in addition to what you would expect of a Narrator. For the player, the book extolls the pleasures of roleplaying as much as roleplaying Two Sides To The Coin.

Two Sides To The Coin is not quite the perfect introduction to roleplaying as it could have been—as written. It is a better introduction for the player than the Narrator, who ideally still needs some experience of the role, but taking that into account, Two Sides To The Coin is light enough in terms of its mechanics and familiar enough in terms of the stories it is designed to handle, to introduce a player to the hobby. Or introduce an experienced roleplayer to storytelling style roleplaying. In general, experienced roleplayers will be able to pick up and play Two Sides To The Coin without any problems. Light and easy to prepare, Two Sides To The Coin is perfect for one-shots and convention scenarios, and can even be added to a Narrator’s library of pick-up games.

Unseasonal Festivities: Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024

The Christmas Annual is a traditional thing—and all manner of things can receive a Christmas Annual. Those of our childhoods would have been tie-ins to the comic books we read, such as the Dandy or the Beano, or the television series that we enjoyed, for example, Doctor Who. Typically, here in the United Kingdom, they take the form of slim hardback books, full of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games, but annuals are found elsewhere too. In the USA, ongoing comic book series, like Batman or The X-Men, receive their own annuals, though these are simply longer stories or collections of stories rather than the combination of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games. In gaming, TSR, Inc.’s Dragon magazine received its own equivalent, the Dragon Annual, beginning in 1996, which would go from being a thick magazine to being a hardcover book of its own with the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. For the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024—as with the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2022, and the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023—the format is very much a British one. This means puzzles and games, and all themed with the fantasy and mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, along with content designed to get you into the world’s premier roleplaying game.

Despite what it says in the introduction, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is not quite a book for everyone. This is because its content is really geared to towards players new to roleplaying and Dungeons & Dragons, with lots of advice on how to get started and what choices to make, and overviews of many different aspects of the roleplaying game, its settings, and history. This is not the only content in the book though and there is some of it that will be of interest to more experienced players, especially the community creators content. As usual the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is replete with excellent artwork drawn from the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, a handful of puzzles, and spotlights thrown on some of the baddest villains in Dungeons & Dragons.

Published by Harper Collins Publishers, Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 opens with a ‘Quick Start Guide’, a flow chart that takes the reader step-by-step how to get into the hobby and start playing. This begins with finding your people and deciding who will be the Dungeon Master before moving on through character creation, session zero, and all the way to the first session and afterwards. It is simple and it is clear, and it begins a guide that runs through the pages of this annual. It continues with ‘A History of D&D’, a fairly broad timeline that brings the roleplaying game up to today, when its future remains unknown as we await the arrival of a new edition later this year. ‘Finding a Game’ under ‘Roll for Inspiration’ suggests options for finding other players, such as playing by post, playing at a games store, or playing online, again giving each option a thumbnail description, a starting point rather than full advice. ‘Roll for Inspiration’ also suggests ‘Playing in Alternative Settings’, including Science Fiction, Steampunk, Noir, and more. Some of these suggestions point to actual Dungeons & Dragons books such as Curse of Strahd for a Gothic setting. Other entries under ‘Roll for Inspiration’ give a guide to combat, creating your own campaign settings, and more.

The guide to playing and getting ready to play, really begins with ‘Character Creation’, which breaks down the character sheet for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and details the very basics of the process, whilst the ‘Classified’ feature examines the various Classes in the roleplaying game, explaining what they do, their skills, why they are so good, and so on. Thus ‘Casters’ does this for Arcane spellcasters, ‘Tanks’ for fighting types, and ‘Utility’ does it for the Bard, the Rogue, the Ranger, and the Cleric. The descriptions are basic, but their aim is to sell what playing a member of each Class is like and in that it succeeds.

The ‘Heroes & Villains’ section begins big with ‘Vecna and Kas’, the first look at some the signature figures in Dungeons & Dragons. The descriptions are short, but to the point, and richly illustrated, but each comes with his or her own story, a fact file, pertinent points, and so on. In the case of ‘Vecna and Kas’, this includes both the Eye of Vecna and the Hand of Vecna, and his cult. What is really great about the description of Vecna is that it includes a sidebar about the ‘Head of Vecna’, a non-magical item that would lend itself to a great gaming story and gaming legend. It is a great story, but it is not necessarily a familiar one. So, what it shows about Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is that its author knows or understands the world of Dungeons & Dragons—or at least, has done his homework. Of course, ‘Vecna and Kas’ is also looking forward to the now recently released Vecna – Eve of Ruin. ‘Tasha’ does the same for the Witch Queen, famed for her spells like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, as does ‘The Raven Queen’ for the divine interloper from the Shadowfell.

‘Mapping the Multiverse’ explores some of the major locations and settings for Dungeons & Dragons. The first location is ‘Candlekeep’ in the Forgotten Realms, presented in rich colour and nicely annotated. It does seem an odd place to start, just a single location, as none of the other entries copy this. Thus, ‘Eberon’ includes a full map of the continent, again nicely marked up, whilst ‘The Sword Coast’ returns to the Forgotten Realms in similar fashion. The world of ‘Krynn’ is treated in similar fashion. ‘Anthologies’ looks back at the last decade of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition by highlighting some of the scenario collections that Wizards of the Coast has published, such as Keys from the Golden Vault or Tales from the Yawning Portal, whilst ‘Shadow of the Dragon Queen’ in ‘Campaign Spotlight’ looks at the return of Dungeons & Dragons to the world of Krynn and Dragonlance. The other entry in the ‘Campaign Spotlight’ sort of brings the numerous settings together with ‘Spelljammer: Adventures in Space’ which takes Dungeons & Dragons into deep space, and potentially to anyone of the settings presented in Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024.

The ‘Bestiary’ feature looks at numerous types of monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. Every entry tells the reader how dangerous the monster is, where it is found, what to watch out for, and their battle plan. The monsters covered include the undead, Illithids—Mind Flayers and the like, giants, and what it terms ‘The Classics’. These consist of the signature creatures of the Dungeons & Dragons game, the Gelatinous Cube, the Mimic, and the like.

The biggest features in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 are ‘Meet the Creators’. These profile and interview players and creators who have taken their hobby and brought into the public sphere with a podcast. They include Shamini Bundell of RPGeeks, a podcast which combines Dungeons & Dragons with science and Science Fiction; Daniel Kwan from The Asians Represent Podcast is interviewed about Asian creators, representation, and what an Asian perspective brings to Dungeons & Dragons games that he runs; and Connie Chang, of the all-transgender, Person-of-Colour-led podcast, Transplanar, talks about running a campaign about love, yet set in a dark, apocalyptic world. All three of these podcasts have lasted more than the one season and the interviewees have a chance to reflect on how they started, the Player Characters, games played, and their opinions on Dungeons & Dragons. At four pages each, these interviews are the longest features in the annual—and easily its highlight, providing a different and far from unwelcome aspect on playing and creating for Dungeons & Dragons.

Elsewhere, ‘Beyond the Tabletop’ does what it says and look at the hobby away from the table. So ‘Conventions’ gives a very quick guide to the hobby’s big events like Pax and Gen Con, and though it is nice to see Dragonmeet, a convention in the UK, it seems curious not to include UK Games Expo, and ‘More Than a Game’ looks at aspects of the hobby in a similar fashion—cosplay, listening to actual play, miniatures, and more. Perhaps one of the most entertaining entries is ‘D&D in a Castle’, which looks at the event which takes places three times a year at Lumley Castle, a fourteenth century, hosting a long weekend of playing Dungeons & Dragons. It looks a lot of fun and perhaps the apogee of the progress made by the reader of Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 from his reading the first few pages, starting with ‘Quick Start Guide’. ‘Level Up Your Table’ suggests ways to enhance play, such as including ‘The Deck of Many Things’, though it does come with a warning about the derailing effect of its cards. It also ties into The Deck of Many Things release from Wizards of the Coast.

Like all British annuals, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 has puzzles. In previous editions, such puzzles—or ‘Activities’ as they are titled here—have been the simplest of retheming of perennial standbys, such as having to move the minimum number of matchsticks around to solve a puzzle or a maze or… To be blunt, they did not look much different to the puzzles found in other annuals for other intellectual properties. The puzzles in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 are better and more strongly themed. They begin with ‘What Type of Player Are You?’, a classic quiz which determines what type of person you are, or this case what sort of roleplayer you are. It is a bit broad in its definitions, but that is the nature of such quizzes. There is also a maze, which is not easy, the wordsearch is done as a ‘Hex Crawl’ in which spell names have been hidden, the Sudoku-style puzzle substitutes symbols rather than numbers and comes in two levels, ‘Cryptograms’ provides a Dungeons & Dragons code-breaking task, and there is an ‘Intelligence Check’, a quiz about the roleplaying game’s lore, much of which is previously detailed in the book. In comparison to previous editions of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual, there are fewer puzzles and not only are they of higher quality, but they are also better themed. In the past the puzzles have always felt like a waste of space, but that is not the case here.

Physically, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is solidly presented. There is plenty of full colour artwork drawn from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and the writing is clear and kept short, so is an easy read for its intended audience.

In past years, entries in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual series have proven to be decent enough introductions to Dungeons & Dragons, but did not always feel as if they were not written by authors who knew the world of Dungeons & Dragons very well. Fortunately, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 feels different. There is a strong focus on the worlds and worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, its settings and its villains, but coupled with a decent guide to getting started and taking the first steps. The interviews with the podcast creators really standout as showing how the hobby embraces and has the space for such a diverse range of creators, which means that players of different backgrounds can see themselves reflected in the hobby. Of course, for the veteran there is less in the pages of the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 that will be new and unless they are a collector of all things Dungeons & Dragons, this is not a book that they need on their bookshelves. As something to receive at Christmas (or not) in your Christmas stocking (or not), the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024 is the best yet to be published by Harper Collins Publishers. It is informative and it is engaging, providing more and more useful details about the world of Dungeons & Dragons before the reader takes his first steps into actual play. It will be very difficult for the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2025 to improve on the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2024.

Unseasonal Festivities: Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023

The Christmas Annual is a traditional thing—and all manner of things can receive a Christmas Annual. Those of our childhoods would have been tie-ins to the comic books we read, such as the Dandy or the Beano, or the television series that we enjoyed, for example, Doctor Who. Typically, here in the United Kingdom, they take the form of slim hardback books, full of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games, but annuals are found elsewhere too. In the USA, ongoing comic book series, like Batman or The X-Men, receive their own annuals, though these are simply longer stories or collections of stories rather than the combination of extra stories and comic strips and puzzles and games. In gaming, TSR, Inc.’s Dragon magazine received its own equivalent, the Dragon Annual, beginning in 1996, which would go from being a thick magazine to being a hardcover book of its own with the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. For the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023—as with the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2021 and the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2022—the format is very much a British one. This means puzzles and games, and all themed with the fantasy and mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, along with content designed to get you into the world’s premier roleplaying game.

Published by Harper Collins Publishers, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 moves on from the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2022 in a surprising nod to recent events—it acknowledges the effects of COVID-19 and the Lockdown, and how that changed our gaming practices, many of us moving online to play Dungeons & Dragons and other RPG, for example, via Zoom. It suggests means of doing so and what those means offer in terms of play and interaction, making the point that it is still a viable option even though in-person play has returned. This is explored a little further in ‘Virtual Play Weekend’, which looks at events organised online by Wizards of the Coast.

However, where the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 starts with ‘Welcome to the Multiverse’, an overview of some of the settings explored in official releases for Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast. This itself begins with the Forgotten Realms—because it always does—but it includes some of the lesser know worlds such as Exandria of Critical Role and both Strixhaven and Ravnica from Magic: The Gathering. These are only thumbnail descriptions, so they are all too brief, leaving the reader wishing that any one them of had pages of their own in the book. Thankfully, several of them do, but not all. The three that do each receive this attention via a series of articles, sometimes paired, sometimes not. One is from the ‘Heroes & Villains’ series and the other is from ‘Mapping the Realms’. The first is Ravenloft, and its ‘Heroes & Villains’ entry is a description of Strahd, the Darklord of Barovia, one of the lands of Shadowfell. Included here too, are descriptions of his allies and enemies, such as the vampire hunter, Doctor Rudolph Van Richten, and Strahd’s rival, the Sun Elf vampire, Jander Sunstar. Van Richten receives more attention in the accompanying, paired ‘Mapping the Realms’ entry which also highlights Castle Ravenloft and its location on the map. Acerak, the villain of Tomb of Annihilation is given similar treatment, whilst the other ‘Mapping the Realms’ entries explore ‘The Feywild’ and its unpredictable, primal magic—later detailed in its own section in ‘Wild Magic’, ‘Gewhaawk’, the original campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons, and ‘Avernus’, the first level of hell explored in Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. The heroes described in the ‘Heroes & Villains’ series are Mordenkainen and Volothamp Geddarm.

Community is not ignored in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 as it highlights the generosity of players in playing and donating to good causes. Being British means that one of these covered in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is Comic Relief, a big event very other year in the United Kingdom. It is a sign of just how far Dungeons & Dragons has been accepted into the mainstream that it is part of such a big event. Other events highlighted are Extra Life and Playing D&D for Mermaids. The spotlight here is on the ‘Three Black Halflings’ podcast, ‘Girls Guts Glory’ streaming group, and even an interview with renowned Dungeon Master, B. Dave Walters in ‘Meet the DM’, which together showcases the appeal and diversity of the Dungeons & Dragons community.

Even if the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 has no stats or adventures or anything mechanical for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in its pages, it does talk about the basics of getting ready to run the game. ‘Planning a Dungeon Delve’ looks at all the elements of an adventure, whilst ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Homebrewing’ suggests ways in which Dungeons & Dragons can be modified, including characters and worlds. There is a guide too, to ‘Writing a Backstory’ as part of a character creation checklist, whilst ‘Session Zero’ examines how a pre-campaign session works and sets out eveyone’s expectations, and ‘One-shots’ suggests alternatives to longer multiple sessions of play and how they work. That said, describing a one-shot as a self-contained campaign is absurd. Lastly, ‘Level Up Your Table’ suggests ways to enhance play, such as using maps and miniatures and secret messages and even physical puzzles. Thus there is a mix of advice and suggestions for both player and Dungeon Master across the volume.

Beyond play, the ‘D&D Bookshelf’ suggests fiction to read, starting with the adventures of Drizzt Do’Urden, but also mentioning the Dragonlance and Ravenloft series. ‘Loot Table’ suggests gifts and collectible that a Dungeons & Dragons devotee might like beyond the core rulebooks and dice. This notable for the inclusion of ‘Crocs Jibbitiz’, official Dungeons & Dragons-themed adornments for your crocs. Thankfully, there are no official Dungeons & Dragons Crocs, but the Jibbitz are daft enough as it is.

The ‘Bestiary’ series covers otherworldly creatures. So, in ‘Fiends and Celestials’, it is Imps, Balor demons, Pegasi, and Solar Celestials. ‘Aberrations and Undead’ such as the Intellect Devourer, Aboleth, Ghoul, and Death Tyrant, and ‘Elementals and Fey’ like Mephits, Fire Elementals, Dryads, and Quicklings, are given quite detailed descriptions. Conversely, the ‘Gem Dragons’ only receive descriptions in comparison, so there is not really enough of an idea who they might be used in a scenario.

Of course, Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 being a British annual, it is not without its puzzles. So there are mazes, spot the difference, word searches, and more. In comparison to previous annuals, the theming is more generic Dungeons & Dragons than a specific campaign world or characters, so not as engaging as in past years.

Physically, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is snappily presented. There is plenty of full colour artwork drawn from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and the writing is clear and kept short, so is an easy read for its intended audience.

In past years, entries in the Dungeons & Dragons Annual series have proven to be decent introductions to Dungeons & Dragons, but the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is beginning to push against the limits of what it can explain and showcase without actually showing what Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition actually looks like. It has moved on since the earlier introductory annuals to look at more advanced aspects of character creation with character backstory and play with a discussion of Session Zero, but it constantly feels as if it is preparing the reader and potential player for something that it can never show. Which is any actual element of the doing of Dungeons & Dragons, so consequently, it is all description, all tell, and no show. Of course, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is intended to showcase the numerous aspects of the roleplaying game and its setting, and this it does, but it constantly leaves the reader wanting to take the next step and not quite sure what that is. Taking that step is big one and perhaps a solo adventure would give the reader a better idea of what play is like?

To be fair, this is not a book or supplement that a dedicated player or Dungeon Master is going to need, or even want, to read. After all, much of this will be familiar to either. For the casual reader, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is reasonable starting point, but the casual reader will quickly want more. For the collector, the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is an attraction addition to his bookshelves. Still as something to receive at Christmas (or not) in your Christmas stocking (or not), the Dungeons & Dragons Annual 2023 is an attractive product, informative about Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and whilst its own limitations can only help the reader so far, a stepping stone from they can look for further starting points from which to play.

Friday Filler: Critical: Foundation – Season 1

It is the year 2035. The digital age has been surpassed by the nanotechnology age and the USA is already colonising and terraforming Mars. On Earth, huge multinationals have extended their reach and power so it is also the Age of Corpocracy. Europe has regressed into totalitarianism and protectionism, Asia remains in lockdown after the Third Pandemic, South America dominates global banking via cryptocurrency investment, and there is war in Africa. As the power of the corporations has grown, the power of nation states has dwindled, leaving often unable to deal with emergent threats. This is where Icarus steps in. Sanctioned by numerous states and given freedom of movement and legal authority beyond local governments, Icarus fields highly effective agents from the diverse backgrounds. They have to be the best and they cannot fail, because some day they have to be ready to save humanity.

This is the set-up for Critical: Foundation – Season 1, a roleplaying game which looks like a board game, is designed to introduce roleplaying to the board game playing hobby, and plays like a ‘filler’ game, intended to be played in between or before longer games. It looks like a board game because it uses a lot of cards as reference, much like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition—but very much without any of the complexities. As an introductory roleplaying game, it uses simple mechanics, introduces the rules and concepts in a step-by-step fashion to make learning easy, and it uses a familiar set-up. This is near-future Spy-Fi action, with a team of specialists working together to investigate mysteries and deal with threats, but Spy-Fi action as a television series—and that leads into the ‘filler’ game format. Critical: Foundation is designed to be played in episodic fashion, the box including a total of nine episodes each with an estimated playing time of thirty minutes. Thus, a game of Critical: Foundation is designed to be played over several sessions rather than one, and with the physical nature of its components, around the table rather than online. From a roleplaying viewpoint, Critical: Foundation is like the equivalent of a starter set, complete with rules, four pre-generated Player Characters, dice, rules, and an adventure, all designed to introduce the setting and rules of a roleplaying game. Except that Critical: Foundation is a complete roleplaying game designed to showcase the roleplaying experience rather than a particular game or setting.

Published by Gigamic and available via Hachette Games, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is designed to be played by between two and five players, aged fourteen or more, one of whom is the Game Master. Although there are suggestions as to how to adjust if there are fewer players, the roleplaying game really works best with a Game Master and four players. Its board game like design means that it has plenty of components. For the Game Master, there is the Game Master’s Screen, the What is a Roleplaying Game? sheet, a Synopsis Booklet for Season 1, nine Episodes, thirty-four Episode cards, eight NPC cards, ten Clue cards, eight Wound card, fifteen Status cards, plus thirty-two 32 Narrative tokens, five Clue tokens, and two six-sided dice. For the players there are four Character cards, eight Background cards, 19 Equipment cards, four Hero tokens, one eight-sided and four twelve-sided dice, a dry-erase marker, and for Name cards. The What is a Roleplaying Game? Sheet provides a brief explanation of roleplaying, whilst the Synopsis Booklet for Season 1 gives an overview of all nine episodes of the first season, some background to the setting, and the epilogue to the season. The Episode cards are used to illustrate scenes and locations within each Episode; the NPC cards detail the other members of the season’s cats the Player Characters will encounter; and the Narrative Tokens to track everything from the passage of time and escape attempts to equipment use and NPC health points. Clue tokens and Clue cards are used to reveal further information during play.

For the Game Master, the highlight of all of these components is the Game Master’s Screen. Although quite low as Game Master’s Screens go, it is very sturdy affair, with all of the rules on the inside for easy reference. It also has handy little pockets to slide NPC cards into so that the Game Master can see the details for the NPC whilst her players can the picture of the NPC on the other side.

The dice consist of a mix of six-, eight, and twelve-sided dice. The six-sided dice are black and marked with various keyed to the NPCs, and are used by the Game Master. Both the white eight- and twelve-sided dice are white and numbered differently. Both are average dice rather than being marked with the full range of numbers as standard polyhedral dice. For the twelve-sided die, this also includes a zero and an ‘×’, the latter indicating a critical failure when rolled.

The four Character cards are double-sided, male on one side, female on the other. They consist of an Analyst, Coder, Scientist, and Military. Each has a quality and a flaw, four—Dexterity, Mental, Physical, and Social, a quick description, and a quote. Each is fully illustrated. One attribute is marked in red to indicate that is a Character’s specialisation. Unlike any other roleplaying game, the attributes do not have an associated value, although they do have linked skills. So the Physical attribute covers Athletics, Combat, and Stealth, whilst Mental covers Knowledge, Investigation, and Perception. The Background cards further define the Characters, there being two per Character. For the Analyst there is Profiler and Private Detective, for the Coder, Hacker and Programmer, for the Scientist, Researcher and Forensic Physician, and for the Military, Mercenary and Special Forces. The Equipment cards include a short range of arms and armour, plus various pieces of technical gear like a Medical Drone or Holo Tablet.

Character creation in Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is fast and easy. Each player selects a Character and chooses which side of the card he wants to use, then chooses one of the two Backgrounds for the Character, plus the associated equipment. He uses the dry-erase marker to write his Character’s name on a Name card, and that is it.

Mechanically, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is also fast and easy. To have his Character undertake an action, a player rolls the twelve-sided die to get a result equal to or more than a Difficulty Level. The Difficulty Level ranges from one for Easy to six or more for Impossible. The bonus from the die ranges from zero to three, and further bonuses can from a Character’s Specialism for an Attribute, if appropriate, his Background, and the Equipment he is using, for a maximum of three. A Critical Success is achieved if the roll is double the Difficulty Level, which doubles the outcome of the action, but if the ‘×’ is rolled, the attempt is a Critical Failure. This also applies if any player rolls an ‘×’ on a group check in which everyone rolls. When a Critical Failure is rolled, the group earns a Hero Token, up to a maximum of four. Hero Tokens are expended to add the eight-sided die to a roll. Some items of Equipment also allow a reroll of a check.

Combat is likewise kept simple. Initiative is handled through simple Perception checks and when a Character acts, he can do one action and use one piece of equipment. There are just four combat actions—Attack, Help, Take Cover, and Find a Weakness. NPC actions are determined by rolling the Game Master dice and referring to the card for each NPC. A Character can suffer a maximum of two wounds. Any damage after that and the Character suffers an ongoing penalty indicated by a Status Card, the most common of which is ‘Exhausted’, which leaves the Character unable to act until the next scene. Whilst Wounds can be healed, the effects of Status Cards typically need time to heal.

The Episodes are four-page leaflets and start with an episode zer0—the equivalent of a pre-credits scene—before running through to the finale in episode eight. Each includes a Set-up guide, an Episode Synopsis, and then an Introduction followed by two or three scenes and an epilogue. Throughout icons are used to indicate which sections are narrative, involve action, investigation, or roleplay, or require a dice roll by the players or the Game Master. There are also notes running alongside the scenes which give the Game Master pointers on how to portray various NPCs and describe various situations, the latter primarily drawing from action movies. Preparation requires the Game Master to study an episode and make sure that she has all of the cards and tokens ready. Some of the scenes are more complex than others, primarily the action or chase scenes, and these will require more preparation than others. So preparation can take anywhere between five minutes and twenty minutes depending upon the complexity of the scene. Set-up and take down is easy, the latter made easier because the game includes envelopes that each player can store his Character’s cards in.

As a roleplaying game, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is simple and straightforward and easy to grasp. For the experienced player and the experienced Game Master, it is really easy to pick up and play. The experienced player can start with the simplest of explanations and start play with almost no preparation, whilst the experienced Game Master really only needs to learn the rules, ready an episode, and then run the game directly from the really great Game Master’s Screen, it is that simple and straightforward. For the player and Game Master who have not played a roleplaying game before, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 does its very best to present a direct and accessible roleplaying game. This shows not only in the simplicity of the mechanics, but also the easy-to-grasp televisual, action-orientated style of its story and the fantastic presentation in terms of the NPCs and the Episode cards which help the players visualise the antagonists and other members of the cast, the various locations, and clues. (Further play aids, including music and maps, are available from the publisher’s website. More content has also been promised.)

One aspect missing from Critical: Foundation as a roleplaying game is the scope for the Player Characters to learn and grow from their experiences. In part, that is due to the simplicity of both the Player Character design and the mechanics, but if Critical: Foundation is viewed as something akin to the traditional starter set for a roleplaying game, this is not always an aspect covered anyway. More potentially problematic is the directed, quite tightly scripted nature of the episodes, which do not give the players and their characters a lot of freedom in what they are expected to do. For the experienced roleplayer, this can feel constraining, less so for anyone newer to the hobby, though they may find it so should they return to Critical: Foundation after trying other roleplaying games. That said, Critical: Foundation is designed to be the equivalent of a television action series so a certain degree of scripting is to be expected.

Critical: Foundation – Season 1 could be played as a traditional roleplaying game starter set and the episodes all in one go. However, that would be to miss the episodic nature of the design, which although runs counter to today’s prevailing practice of having all episodes of a television series released at once and everyone binging on them, leaves room for anticipation and a sense of mystery from one episode to the next. The episodic nature also means that each session is focused and never outstays its welcome. Beyond the limits of Critical: Foundation – Season 1 core box, there is advice on using the contents again to create other episodes, though again, the more experienced Game Master will find that easier than the one that Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is actually aimed at.

Physically, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is very well presented. The quality of the components are uniformly excellent, the artwork as good as any modern board game, and the writing decent too. Still, the standout piece is the Game Master’s Screen.

Although there is nothing to prevent either from enjoying playing through it, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is possibly a bit too light a roleplaying game for the experienced player or Game Master. The campaign and design of the game does not quite support the introduction for the players as much as the Game Master and it is likely that players new to roleplaying may need more of a hand or preparation than is given here. However, once they get started there is plenty keep them involved, but not overwhelm in terms of rules or mechanics. A more experienced Game Master will have no issue with easing her players into the play and roleplay of Critical: Foundation – Season 1, and that is probably how starting to play will best work.

Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is clever idea, one executed to give what is actually an introductory roleplaying game not just much more of a visual appeal, but also a physical, tangible presence that the players can hold and inspect. Hopefully there will be expansions because there is plenty of story to be told and because roleplaying in the short sharp bursts of drama and action provided by Critical: Foundation – Season 1 deserves future seasons rather than cancellation.

—oOo—

Hachette Games will be at UK Games Expo

from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Mongoose Misfire

Traveller is one of the hobby’s oldest Science Fiction roleplaying games and still its preeminent example outside of licensed titles such as Star Wars and Star Trek. It is the roleplaying of the far future, its setting of Charted Space, primarily in and around the feudal Third Imperium is placed thousands of years into the future. Since its first publication in 1977, Traveller has been a roleplaying setting built around mercantile, exploratory, mercenary and military, and adventuring campaigns. Inspired by the Science Fiction of fifties and sixties, the rules in Traveller can also be adapted to other Science Fiction settings, though it requires varying degree of effort depending upon the nature of the setting. The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is presented as introduction to the current edition of the roleplaying game, published by Mongoose Publishing. It is designed for scenarios and campaigns that focus on exploration beyond the frontier and provides the tools for such a campaign, including rules for creating Player Characters, handling skills and challenges, combat, spaceship operation and combat, plus equipment, animals, and the creations of worlds to explore.

The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition begins with a quick explanation of what it and roleplaying games are before diving into game conventions—rolling the dice—and creating Player Characters. They are by default Human, and in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition, have had past careers as either Scouts or Scholars. Character creation primarily involves a player putting his character through a series of four-year terms during which the character will gain and improve skills, be promoted, experience events and mishaps, make connections with his fellow characters, and at the end of it, be older, wiser, and experienced. A Player Character will typically be aged anywhere between twenty-two and forty-two by the end of the process—and if older will have suffered the effects of aging.

The skill system for Traveller is straightforward. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls two six-sided dice and adds a Dice Modifier from the appropriate characteristic as well as a skill value. If the result is eight or more, the Player Character succeeds. The skill explanations are clear and easy to understand and include plenty of options as to how they might be used and how long a task might take. For example, for the Astrogation skill, “Plotting Course to a Target World Using a Gas Giant for a Gravity Slingshot: Difficult (10+) Astrogation check (1D x 10 minutes, EDU).” All of the skills are listed for the Traveller roleplaying game, so there are skills mentioned here that the Player Characters cannot obtain during character creation. Combat uses the same basic mechanics and covers both ranged and mêlée combat, and allows for differences in technology and weapon traits. Damage is directly deducted from a Player Character’s characteristics—Endurance, followed by Strength and Dexterity. The rules also cover environmental dangers such as gravity and radiation, whilst encounters are with various animal types.

The equipment lists just about everything a mission will need when out exploring the galaxy. This includes arms and armour, augments, communications and computers, medical supplies, sensors, survival gear, and tools. The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition also explains how spaceships are operated and space combat is conducted, although it should be noted that the rules for the latter cover use of skills that the Player Characters cannot obtain during character creation. For example, the Tactics (Naval) which helpful for initiative and then the Gunner skill for actually operating the ship’s weapons! So using the rules in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition means that any spaceship combat the Player Characters get involved in, they are going to be at a severe disadvantage from the start. Plus, there is only the one spaceship given in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition and that is the Type-S Scout/Courier, which for an exploration campaign makes sense. However, there are rules for space combat, but no other ship stats or details in the rulebook. So, what exactly will the Player Characters be fighting in space combat in their Type-S Scout/Courier? Other teams of explorers and scientists in their Type-S Scout/Courier?

Lastly, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition includes rules for subsector and world creation. This cover world distribution followed by how to create a world profile, including Starport type, planet size, atmosphere, hydrographic percentage, population, government type, Law Level, and Tech Level. Much like creating a character this consists of rolling on tables and some of the ramifications of the numbers are detailed. These include Law Level and the likely types of goods banned and potential legal ramifications. In comparison to the earlier rules for character generation, the rules for world generation will provide for a wide range of possible outcomes and world types, but then these are tried and tested rules.

Physically, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is an attractive product. It is well written; the artwork is decent and the layout is clean and tidy. It also includes an index.

There is one fundamental question which has to be asked about the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition and that is, who is this book for? It is certainly not for the seasoned Traveller player or Game Master, both of whom will already have access to the content in this rulebook. Is it for the Traveller fan and collector who will want to have it to add to the collection? Possibly, but the rulebook does no more than add to that collection and again, that collection, that Traveller fan, and that Traveller collector will already have access to the content in this rulebook in the collection. Is it for the player or Game Master new to roleplaying? Is it for the player or Game Master new to Traveller? The answer to that question is yes, but very much not an unqualified ‘yes’. There can be no doubt that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition presents all of the rules necessary to run a game with an exploration theme, from creating scouts and scholars as Player Characters and equipping them and detailing the core rules to animal types, operating a spaceship in and out of combat, and creating worlds and sectors. However, go beyond that and an awful lot of problems begin to appear for the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition.

The Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is not written as an introduction to roleplaying. Its description of roleplaying is cursory at best and there is no example of what roleplaying is. Similarly, its introduction to Traveller as a setting is equally as cursory. It acknowledges the existence of the Imperium—but no other polity—and explains that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is set beyond the borders of the Imperium. So, in a sense, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is set entirely away from the classic setting for Traveller, and thus arguably not actually an introduction to Traveller as a setting at all. Also similarly, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition ignores Traveller as a roleplaying game. First in ignoring that the roleplaying game has any sense of history going back decades, and second—and more importantly, as an introduction to Traveller, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition, by not having anything that asks, “What’s next?”. There is no page or text saying, “If you played and liked this game, here is what you should look at next.” This is a ridiculous omission for what is designed as an introductory product.

As an introduction to the rules and mechanics of Traveller, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition does a better job. All are clearly and serviceably presented, but no more. This lack of a ‘more’ is where the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition best showcases its real inadequacies and omissions. For an introductory product, there is severe lack of examples in the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition. What examples there are amount to no more than a handful—an example or two of the core rules and an example world. There is no example Player Character, no example of space combat, no example subsector, no example of what a world actually looks like in Traveller, and so on. So nothing that would help the prospective player or Game Master—whether new to roleplaying or Traveller—with what these look like in the game.

Then there is the advice for the Game Master. Or rather, the complete absence of advice for the Game Master. To be clear, in a product that is intended to introduce a player to Traveller and provide him with the tools necessary to create adventures or even an entire campaign as the Game Master, and do so for years at a time, there is no advice whatsoever. So no advice on running a roleplaying game. No advice on running a campaign. No advice on running Traveller. No advice on running an exploration-themed campaign, let alone a scenario. No discussion of what an exploration-themed scenario or campaign would be like. No discussion of what threats might be encountered. No advice on what mysteries might be found. No advice on what discoveries might be made. No advice on what alien life might be encountered. All of which is compounded by a lack of a scenario, a lack of a setting in terms of a world or subsector, or even a lack of scenario hooks or ideas or even encounter tables. If it were a case that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition was designed to introduce the rules to Traveller and exactly that—no more, no less—then this would not be so much of an issue. Yet it clearly states that it is intended to do more than that, that it is intended to be used to run a campaign, a scenario, and so on. Then the rulebook completely ignores this whole aspect of its stated remit. Of course, this is a large subject to cover and the likelihood is that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition could not have covered it all, but none at all? It is as if there are twenty or extra pages that are actually missing from this rulebook. That fact that the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition completely ignores the role of Game Master beggars belief.

Then there is the matter of the price. This varies wildly depending upon format and retailer. As a PDF, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is less than a pound or a dollar, but in print, it costs £15 ($19.99) direct from the publisher, and a wallet gouging £25.99 ($24.99) in retail. The PDF than, can at best, be seen as a bargain—an attractive rules reference if you will. In print, the exact opposite is the case. The purchaser is simply not getting enough content for the money that he paid for it.

Ultimately, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is an astounding showcase for a staggering lack of vision and imagination. Overpriced, over produced, overly utilitarian and technical, but underdeveloped, the Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is a nothing more than a ‘cut & paste’ job that does not so much miss the possibilities of its title and theme and subject as ignore them all together.

1999: Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

Pokémon is one of those huge intellectual properties and franchises that has never had a roleplaying game. Arguably it is too big to have something as small as a roleplaying game and arguably a roleplaying game is too small a vehicle to really push the brand or really expand its reach. Yet, whilst Pokémon has never had a roleplaying devoted to its world of Pokémon Trainers catching and training Pokémon to battle other Pokémon for sport, it has had a storytelling game designed to be played by children aged between six and eight and run by their parents. Published in 1999, the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game was designed by Wizards of the Coast with the publisher planning to release twelve titles in the series. Unfortunately, despite it be a big seller for the publisher, only the first entry in the series, Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency was released.

Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is designed to be played by a Parent and one to six players aged between six and eight. It employs simple, easy-to-understand mechanics, makes every player a Pokémon Trainer and gives them a checklist of Pokémon to capture and train, and has them participate in a lengthy story which will take them from Professor Oak’s laboratory to choose their first Pokémon to going out into the wild to find more to facing Team Rocket and a whole lot more. Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency comes in a tiny box which contains twenty-six Pokémon ‘Power Cards’, six ‘Pokémon Trainer Checklists’, two ‘Pokécoins’, 48 ‘Hit Tokens’, a sixty-page ‘Rule & Story Book’, and a single six-sided die. 

For the players or Trainers, the twenty-six Pokémon ‘Power Cards’ are the heart of the game. Bar a double or two, each one represents a different Pokémon and designed to be look like a data entry on a Pokédex. Each is double-sided. On each side there is a picture of the relevant Pokémon, an ability and how much damage it does to another Pokémon, its Hit Points, an extra effect when the ‘Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped (though not all Pokémon have this), and a little information. For example, Pikachu is depicted on his happy side as having nine Hit Points, a Thunder Wave attack that hits on a roll of five and six, inflicts more damage if the Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped, and a note from Professor Oak telling the owner that Pikachu does not being inside Poké Balls. On his unhappy side, his Growl Roll attack hits on a three, four, five, or six, and inflicts a point of damage, allows an extra attack if the Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped, and Professor Oak telling the owner that Pikachu can be moody and shy. 

For the Parent, as the Narrator, there is the sixty-page ‘Rule & Story Book’. This is not as intimidating as it sounds as the rules run a few pages and the bulk of the book is devoted to some sixteen stories or episodes which would enable the Narrator to run a mini-campaign. The ‘Rule & Story Book’ even opens with with ‘A Note to Parents’ explaining what the game is, and that is a game in which they and their children tell a story together, the children exercising their imagination and their minds, with the game emphasising reading, mathematics, and creativity. It advises the parent to encourage questions and interaction, to praise everyone’s efforts because there are no wrong answers in the game, and above all to ensure that they all have fun. Its last point is that the parent should have fun too, especially as it is time with their children and to use voices and to get into character. So it is pitched very much as a collaborative storytelling game in which everyone has fun, but not as a roleplaying game. In fact, roleplaying is never mentioned in Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency, and so the spectre of Dungeons & Dragons is avoided…

Play starts with each Trainer selecting their Pokémon from the basic six— one Charmander, one Squirtle, and two each of Bulbasaur and Pikachu. Each child ticks the box for their Pokémon on their ‘Pokémon Trainer Checklists’. The Narrator selects a story from the ‘Rule & Story Book’ and play begins. There are sections for the Narrator to read aloud and sections with staging advice, both of which are clearly marked, with prompts in the narration where the Narrator asks the Trainers what they want to do or say. For example, in ‘Episode 2: Gotta Catch ’Em!’, the Trainers go outside to the edge of Pallet Town to catch their first Pokémon in the wild. When they have done so, the Trainers are attacked by a Spearow flock and must work together to defeat it. Afterwards, Police Officer Jenny arrives on her motorcycle and thanks the Trainers for helping her out. At that point, the Narrator says to the Trainers, “What do you say to her?” It is designed to be simple and direct and to encourage a response.

Although play starts with the Narrator and her narration, from there it proceeds around the table, starting with the player on the Narrator’s left. This avoids any one player dominating the story and gives everyone their turn, and in addition, using the prompts, allows the players to build the world around their Trainers. Primarily, this will be drawn from their having watched the Pokémon cartoon series, but it also allows space for the players to go beyond this and bring their imagination into play.

The rules of Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency focus on Pokémon duels as you would expect. Each Trainer selects his Pokémon and chooses which side of the card he will use—this can be switched at the beginning of the round. Pokémon duels are simultaneous, both Trainers or the Narrator and the Trainer rolling to successfully activate and hit the other Pokémon with their Pokémon’s ability, inflicting hits and reducing their opponent’s Hit Points in the process. Some Pokémon have an extra ability when the ‘Pokécoin’ is successfully flipped, such an extra attack, inflicting more hits, healing Hit Points, or even doing damage to the attacking Pokémon. When a Pokémon’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, it faints rather than dies, and if a Pokémon Hit Points get too low and the Trainer has other Pokémon in his Pokédex, he can bring one of them into play instead.

The ‘Rule & Story Book’ is sixty pages long, but it is a small rulebook and the rules—such as they are—take up less than a quarter of the book. The rules for sixty-page Pokémon duels are clearly explained and are supported by a good example of how they work. The remainder of the ‘Rule & Story Book’ consists of stories, ranging length from one to four pages. Depending upon the number of players the playing time for can be as short as five minutes or as long as thirty. Essentially, none of these should challenge the attention span of the players too much and the chance to explore the world of Pokémon and capture more Pokémon to add to their collection should keep them interested (this essentially also being the equivalent of Experience Points in the game).

Physically, Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is bright and cheerful. The various Pokémon ‘Power Cards’ are nice and sturdy, as are the game’s various counters. The rulebook uses lots of illustrations from the cartoon and is well written, its language direct and simple for the then-Parent with no previous experience with the storytelling type of game to grasp the rules, understand how the game is played, and run it for her children and their friends. Then in a few years, an older child could easily read through the rules and run Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency for his friends. An obvious issue with Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is that there are only twenty-six Pokémon ‘Power Cards’. Enough to play through the stories in the ‘Rule & Story Book’, but not beyond. Had there been more entries in the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game series, then that would have solved that issue, but it was not to be.

Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency is a bright, cheerful, and simple game. It uses the basic elements of the Pokémon cartoon to draw the players into the world and get them imagining themselves doing all of the things that they see Ash and his friends doing on screen. It obviously then uses these to inspire both the Parent and the children interact and work together to tell a story and develop a world as they play the game. In the process, it gets everyone roleplaying very quietly and without even mentioning the word. Two decades on in 2020s, there are more than a few roleplaying games designed to introduce younger players to the concept, but what got there first was Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency—and with little in the way of fanfare. It might have very different had the Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game series not been cancelled. It might have been a case of Pokémon Jr. Adventure Game #1: Pokémon Emergency having been many players’ first adventure game, first storytelling game, and first roleplaying game.