Party of One: Kalgor Bloodhammer and the Ghouls Through the Breach

In order to play Open Design's new adventure, Matthew J. Hanson's Kalgor Bloodhammer and the Ghouls through the Breach, one only needs a pen, some paper, and a standard assortment of dice (actually just 1d6, 1d8, 1d12, and 1d20). That is because it is part of their new series, Party of One, a (Pathfinder-compatible) collection of choose-your-own-adventure style solo adventures. Anyone who has read this blog long enough knows that I have major affection for choose-your-own-adventure solo missions, so when I became aware that this had been released, it was an easy buy. Add to that that it was only $3, and it was even easier. I ended up printing it out so I could flip through it more naturally than scrolling up and down in the pdf; it is a shame that the pdf was not linked, so when it said "go to 73" you couldn't click that and be taken to 73. It is also a shame that, despite there being a "character sheet" attached at the end with abilities, it does not have check boxes for the additional items, secrets, and abilities you pick up along the adventure, as that would have greatly have streamlined the process. It also makes a major mistake in indicating that only a d6, d8, and d20 are required: d12 rolls are quite common, and as we all know 1d12≠2d6.

Minor complaints aside, however, KBGB (that name is far too long to type out each time) is a surprisingly nuanced, engrossing adventure. The premise is simple: you are a dwarf who has just joined an elite guard for your city, and the night of your celebration it turns out that you will be pressed into service much sooner than you expected. There is a ghoul attack in the street, and it very quickly turns out that it is not an isolated incident. Through tracking clues, you learn more and more about the attacks and their implications for your entire city. And, of course, you can pick up items, information, and allies along the way.

I say that this is (Pathfinder-compatible) because it doesn't really seem, to me, to distinguish itself as really at all distinctly "Pathfinder." It presents rules as they become relevant, and always gives you a small stat block for you, your allies, and your enemies each time you must be pressed into battle. It has the overall flavor of any generic, vaguely OGL-compatible adventure out there, and at least to any part I discovered that was about where the comparison stopped. I suppose that's why it is labeled as Pathfinder "compatible," since anything OGL can be easily adapted for that system. Nevertheless, I don't want to be bogged down by semantics before I can say that I did, in fact, really enjoy the adventure.

By the time I am writing this, I have run through it four times; each time managing to get a little bit further into the mystery and intrigue that is KGBG. The first couple of times I managed to succumb, rather early, to terrible dice rolls, rather than end up making any sort of terrible decisions on my own. However, as I pressed further, a shocking betrayal resulted in my death once, and then my imprisonment again. KGBG ends up being "hard." Frequently you have to go up against multiple enemies, and you are limited to only one attack per round. Battles rapidly turn into attrition and prayer (o spirit of the dice, hear my call: turn up below 12 on the enemy's turn). Your armor class is high, which makes ordinary attacks endured by the ghouls a bit easier to weather, but there are enough other enemies that you are constantly on your toes. The adventure seems to reward audacious and brash behavior (befitting of a dwarf) over caution and stealth; ghouls are, after all, pouring into the city, and the sooner you can do something about it, the better. Each decision you make seems to have major ramifications, and I feel like I have probably only skimmed the surface of this ten page adventure, so up to this point I'd still label the replay value as "high." Plus, depending on the choices you make, it might be all over for you in under ten minutes, so you can knock it out while you're waiting for something else. All in all, I'd give this one a solid B+, and I look forward to further entries into the Party of One series (and maybe a bound book containing all of them at some point in the future? eh Mr. Baur?).

Rogue Space: The Dark Frontier, by Christopher Brandon

After receiving my copy of Rogue Space: The Dark Frontier in the mail from lulu and reviewing its contents, I have some additional comments to make about Rogue Space. Unsurprisingly, there is very little different from the PocketMod-sized basic rules, but some differences do, I believe, require comment. The most obvious change right away is in hit points. Rather than getting a set amount of hit points, as in the basic rules, you instead get a set+HD sort of mechanic. Though, the die type doesn't change (as this game exclusively uses d6's), but the base number does. Warrior gets 1d6+6 on one end, and Technician gets 1d6+2 on the other end. It averages out to about the same in the long run, but adds a little bit more variability. I'm not sure which version I prefer. It definitely adds survivability to the Rogue and Technician type characters.

Before launching more into the substance of the book, I'll address some cosmetic issues. First, regarding the art: half of the art is great. It was custom-made for the book by the author's wife (?). It's got a consistent style, she's a great artist, and it's of a sufficient resolution to not look off when printed. The other half of the art, I can't be so positive about. It's largely public domain, low-resolution 40's/50's pulpy-style art of generic space exploration sort of settings. It's reminiscent of the art that's plastered all over the covers of my Alan Nourse and Theodore Sturgeon novels from that time period. This is not necessarily a bad thing; I happen to love pulpy space art (and the genre), and that's why I've collected those sorts of novels. However, the problem is the resolution. The problem is that these are obviously low-quality, compressed, low-resolution pictures that have been expanded to fill the space on the page, and the result is aliasing, pixelation, and a generally washed-out appearance. Too bad. I think that a lot of that could probably be solved by rinsing the pictures through the posterize tool in GIMP since they're pen-and-ink or lithograph style pictures; fewer levels of grey, cleaner appearance. But I digress.

I really hope that the stock art is just placeholder material for when the artist (Valerie Brandon) can replace it with some more of her great, stylized, distinct artwork. Though I've spent a whole paragraph complaining about it, I'll conclude by saying that it's not even that bad. There are only a couple pictures that are bad enough to groan at, and that's a better track record than even Chaosium (some of the art in Call of Cthulhu is shameful, and has been reprinted for 20 years). If Rogue Space ever gets another update, with more art from Valerie Brandon and any rules updates, I'd probably buy another copy. Valerie Brandon's art is also pulp-influenced, so it's at least not inconsistent with the stock art. However, in parting for the art section, it does decidedly lead the reader to assume that the game is "supposed" to be run in a pulp style, which is not necessarily the case. I'm honestly not sure what the long-term plans are for this game, but I'l say that, even despite these reservations, I'd categorize everything in the book, visually, as "good enough." You can download most of the relevant stuff for play from the website anyway, so the low resolution doesn't hinder that.

The book itself is standard lulu fare: 8.5x11" printer sheets perfect bound between a high-gloss light cardstock cover. I managed to spill my tea on it shortly after opening it, but the glossy cover was able to resist all of the potential liquid damage, and cleaned up well. I got a little bit of waviness on the bottom where the tea touched but I clamped it and it looks fine now. I honestly feel like, given the amount of material and the thinness of the book, I'd have preferred it to be in a different format, like 6x9" like the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition; but I have no idea what options are available from lulu and what that does to the cost. I'd probably have preferred, overall, for there to be less art as well. There's at least some sort of graphic on nearly every page; some is helpful as it directly reflects something written on the page, but a lot of it is filler. Anyway, at this point I think I'll take off the editor hat at this point and put it in the drawer. And then lock the drawer. And give someone else the key for safe-keeping so I don't get any ideas about putting the hat back on. Oh, before I put the hat away, I will say: I did not spot any spelling or grammar anomalies, so at least in that regard Brandon's got a leg up on some major RPG publishers. Ok, hat away.

On to the rules. For the purposes of this review, I will distinguish between the two rule sets. The original, the PocketMod Basic Rules, I'll call PMB. The expanded, book-sized rules I'll call TDF (for The Dark Frontier). There is not terribly much different between the two, but there's enough that the distinction, I think, is reasonable to make. There are a couple conflicting concepts regarding initiative in the book. In PMB, initiative is determined by 2d6+current HP. In TDF, on one page, it says there is no initiative and players all declare their actions resolve them simultaneously. On the following page (under the Combat heading) it has the PMB rule of 2d6+HP. I guess (thanks to a commenter for pointing it out) that I'd still stick to the 2d6+HP rule under Combat for combat situations, and relegate the simultaneous resolution system for noncombat situations where time is still a factor. However, I'd still be tempted to break that into initiative order (since two people might be working on the same thing, and the order by which they perform their actions would have an effect on the time it takes to complete the task), and in which case I might make the initiative count current HP+relevant skill bonus. But that might be a bit too simulationist for an otherwise pretty easygoing and "abstractified" game, so nevermind. :)

Other additions to the combat system, plus a greatly expanded weapons and armor section, plus even more non-combat and supplemental items, are all very welcome. These sort of details, while not exactly necessary, are great starter ideas and I'm glad to see them. TDF also includes rules for disruptor-type weapons (remember how I was talking about that in my PMB review?), which includes a save-or-die mechanic that I really like. I can't off the top of my head remember any instance where someone survived a direct blast from a Klingon disruptor, but I'm sure it happened at some point because Star Trek is like that.

Reading through The Dark Frontier, perhaps on account of the pulp art, I was thinking that it would be more appropriate for a Star Trek: TOS sort of game, rather than a TNG sort of game, as I was thinking with the PocketMod rules. This might be also because of the sorts of items which are described as well, but I think it just goes to show how very subtle changes and details in the writing can (inadvertently?) lead the reader off in different directions.

In reading the PMB rules, I was constantly thinking that modding the game with some elements from Diaspora would probably make it more fully-realized, and give it more of that old school Traveller sort of vibe. Upon finishing the TDF book, which includes details on ships, sectors, and space travel, adding in any Diaspora elements seems less necessary. But, since 2d6 (which Rogue Space uses) and *dF (which Diaspora uses) both map out in a bell curve, the two are probably pretty easily compatible; one could probably even adjust Rogue Space to utilize 4dF instead of 2d6 and have to change virtually nothing else.

You can occasionally track the influences that Brandon had while he was writing the book, and that helps to give an idea of the sort of directions he was thinking of going with the game. For instance, in the example for how to develop an alien playable character, he outlines a sort of "Space Elf." However, it sounds remarkably like a Vulcan (and not an Eldar, shame on you for immediately thinking that when I said Space Elf!). In the section on developing alien enemies, he outlines an Alien Xenomorph, from the eponymous science fiction film trilogy (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of Alien: Resurrection, or either of the AvP films). In the section talking about psionic characters, he refers to them as psykers (which may or may not lead to complications from Games Workshop).

A few more notes, in brief. There is a choose-your-own-adventure style sample adventure in the book. I've already expressed multiple times how much I love these and encourage their inclusion as gameplay-introduction tools in RPG books, so I won't go on about that in length, but suffice to say, it's great, and almost has a Lamentations-of-the-Flame-Princess-in-space sort of feel to it. There are rules on building NPC robots, putting together and statting out ships, creating PC and NPC alien races and threats, and creating unique sectors, star systems, and worlds (remember how I said Diaspora was no longer necessary to augment this?).

Brandon does seem to love his anagrams for stats. PC stats are abbreviated FASER (Fighting, Acquiring, Scientific, Empathy, and Repairing. Ship stats are abbreviated SHIPS (Structure, Howitzers, Interior, Propulsion, Shields). Alien types are abbreviated HAIKU (Humanoid, Animal, Insect, Known, Unknown). Alien sizes are abbreviated TSARZ (Tiny, Small, Average, Really big, ZOMG!). Alien stats are abbreviated PTTPSZMVARDMHPSP. Ok, thats not an anagram. No, alien (enemy) stats are one-liners highly reminiscent of any retroclone you can probably name, so it's very easy to understand even without immediatly knowing what the letters are for. I think that "Howitzers" as a stand in for "Ordnance" is a bit forced, especially because "Howitzer" to me very highly suggests a particular kind of light artillery between a full-sized cannon and a lighter-still mortar. Plus, having two S's, tsk tsk. When I was reading it, I was thinking, why not HOLES (Hull, Ordnance, Logistics, Engines, Shields), or HOPES (Personnel). That's a joke; SHIPS is fine. It's self-referential, which is a kind of punning that I can get behind. Additionally, ZOMG! as a size for comparison is something I will be laughing about for a really long time. Anagrams are memorable, and I bet without even trying anyone who reads this will be able to remember those stats now. It's certainly better than Shadowrun's shameful "BARSCILWEdgeEssMInitIP" (which I remember, in part, as "Bar Skill? Ew!).

Lastly, there's a brief section (reminiscent of the Savage Worlds books), on a "sample" setting, Pirates & Peril, plus a short adventure within that setting. These two things help tie together all the pulp artwork throughout the book with a pulp setting. The book ends with links to other bloggers who have developed their own Rogue Space material, which is, I think, a fantastic touch. Shout outs make the world go 'round, plus, as I've said again and again, the style of the game is pretty limitless in the kind of setting you can create with it.

As Savage Worlds is my go-to for just about any sort of homebrew, inpromptu modern fantasy sort of game I'd want to run, I think Rogue Space will take that role for any sort of spacefaring, heroic kind of game. Warhammer 40K, Stars Without Number, Diaspora, Traveller, and others I think have their place, but for me, Rogue Space rises to the top as a great little universal system for playing among the stars. The rules take about 5 minutes to explain, creating a character takes even less time, and then you can just get right in to it and start having fun (without 400 pages of special conditions to wade through). All in all, I'm glad to have randomly downloaded the original a few months ago, and I'm doubly glad there's a book to buy with expanded rules. I'd recommend checking it out to anyone who likes spacefaring sci-fi.

Edited to add: The PocketMod rules that I have been referring to are apparently an outdated version. There is practically no difference between the "big book" TDF rules and the PocketMod Basic rules in terms of damage, hit points, or armor at this point, so the distinction between PMB and TDF is less important now, upon review of the most recent PocketMod version. I downloaded the basic rules some months ago, read them, forgot about them, and then only recently decided to revisit them. I must apologize for any confusion related to pointing out differences where there are, in fact, no longer any differences.

Rogue Space Role Playing Game, by Christopher Brandon

I like the simplicity that is Christopher Brandon's mini-RPG Rogue Space. The Basic Rules are available free for download, and you can print them out in a clever little pocket-sized mini-booklet. There is a "complete" rulebook available for purchase on lulu (a bargain at $7.10), but I haven't received it yet.

Rogue Space is a rules-light RPG system that allows for a great variety of play styles, and great flexibility for running one-offs, or pick-up games. You can boil the rules down into just a couple minutes of explanation, and then every test is just 2d6+relevant attribute against a target difficulty, and then you succeed or fail. It utilizes a more abstract, modern approach to abilities; rather than having an ability score which then has a derived score to apply to the roll, all you have is your "modifier," which is probably just 0 or 1. The result is very similar to the method used in FUDGE or FATE at its core: a roll of 7 (after modifiers) is a success for an average difficulty test, and mitigating circumstances can raise or lower the difficulty by one or more degrees. Opposed tests are similar: both sides roll, the higher number wins. There are options for adding in more boiled-in modifiers for combat, but at its core that's all there is to it. Weapons deal a fixed amount of damage when an attack hits, from light (2 dmg) to extra-heavy (8 dmg). Armor reduces weapon damage by a fixed amount along similar lines.

Personally I think that this system lends itself most readily to a Star Trek style game style; landing on alien worlds, interacting with intelligent species there, occasionally having to get in a phaser fight or rapid flight back to the shuttle. Star Trek, though, in particular, is pretty loose with consistency in what phaser hits are deadly, and which are ultimately grazing blows. A great example of this is the Next Generation episode "Starship Mine" where Geordi LaForge and a Red Shirt both get hit by the same weapon in a similar location. LaForge is fine (though in pain and temporarily disabled), but the other guy is dead. This can pretty easily be explained under Rogue Space mechanics: neither character was armored, and let's say the phaser was a "medium" weapon and dealt 4 damage. If LaForge (a technician) had 4 hp, then the damage would have knocked him out, but he would not be dead (represented by negative hit points). But if the other guy only had 2 or 3 hp (not unreasonable for an NPC), that would have reduced him to below zero hp and he would have perished. Additionally, Rogue Space allows for nonlethal damage. One could also houserule in that, since the other dude was severely drunk, the alcohol would have dealt a point of "nonlethal" damage that made him more susceptible to phaser fire, and it dealt more damage than it more than usual. Most rules modifications are like this: you add one here, subtract one there.

I'm stacking lethal damage on top of nonlethal here, rather than keeping them in separate tracks. My reasoning is essentially that it makes more sense, to me, that if someone was beaten to a bloody pulp with fists and clubs they wouldn't be in great shape. It might not be deadly, but they're not going to be able to do the same things as an uninjured person. And certainly, if that pulped person were to take another hit from something more nasty, they'd probably have a much more high likelihood of going down than someone fresh. Given that initiative in combat is determined by the dice roll plus your current hp, severely injured characters are mechanically "slowed" as well, which supports this assumption about damage stacking.

One can easily get lost in details at this point; if a character is wearing light armor, for instance, and is shot by a gun and the damage is all soaked by the armor, do they still take a point of nonlethal damage from the kinetic force applied to their bodies through the armor? Are there different types of armor to protect against kinetic damage, piercing damage, burning damage, etc.? Using Star Trek as an example again (can you tell I've been watching it recently?), Star Fleet does have "riot gear" when they send in the heavies, but it seems a direct phaser blast still takes someone out, armored or not. Klingon disruptors add another level of complexity, since they seem to ignore armor completely, or at least are powerful enough to pierce through anything less protected than a tank. A disruptor is a small, handheld weapon, which means it probably only qualifies as a "light" or "medium" weapon at the most, but the damage is certainly much more severe than the average phaser setting. Shadowrun and other games have "armor piercing" values for weapons; perhaps certain kinds of energy weapons would ignore a certain number of armor points when figuring damage.

Rogue Space Basic only has three classes: Warrior, Rogue, and Technician. I don't like these names. For a science fiction game, the fantasy roles of Warrior and Rogue don't really "fit" for me; especially because Technician, given the other ones, just seems like a stand in for "Mage." I propose changing the names to Soldier and Scoundrel, for a more archetypal Star Trek or Star Wars sort of feel. Technician is fine, since it hearkens to someone who works in a more scientific or technical station on the ship. Plus, there are psionic rules available optionally as well, so you could easily build a Jedi (for a Star Wars style game) or an empath (for a Star Trek style game). I believe that some people have even developed a 40K addon for this system, which I think just goes to show exactly how flexible it is. For this reason I can't imagine even doing something like Mass Effect wouldn't be unreasonable.

One rule I would change, however, is luck. As it stands, the luck rule (which is optional) dictates that a person can re-roll one dice roll per session. This seems a bit underwhelming. I propose having either a luck "points" system, or else tracking luck and experience with the same points. In order to level, as the rules are written, your character must survive 3 adventures and then can add 1 point to any of the attributes, or to the hit point total. So in other words, one adventure is worth 1 xp, and you need 3 xp to level. Under a unified mechanic, players could "burn" one of their xp (or more) to add a point to their result. It might mean that they don't level with everyone else, but if the other option is dying, it's a small price to pay; it's representative of that character escaping from the deadly situation, but not unscathed. It would also allow the characters to burn a whole level in order to survive from a situation (equal to 3 xp) and, optionally, take a defect to represent their narrow-miss, or a "permanent injury." This makes it a bit grittier than Star Trek usually is, so I don't think many people would miss it if it wasn't there. Regardless I would want luck to play a larger role in a Star Trek (or Star Wars) style game, just because of the nature of the types of heroes in those shows.

Using the experience-burning method of figuring luck could also be applied to more than just dice rolls. Perhaps someone takes lethal damage that would kill their character. They could burn some experience to reduce the damage until they are merely unconscious. This would support a Star Trek style "main cast" character approach, where the characters can survive very unlikely situations relatively unharmed, unless they are Tasha Yar. Although... if a character is going to die, there's not much reason to not burn levels to keep them alive, since if they die those levels are lost anyway. Some sort of constraint might have to be imposed to limit runaway abuse of this system. The up side to character death is that a character can be rolled up in literally seconds, and then could easily be introduced as a new ensign, smuggler, or technical staffer to pick up the slack.

Anyway, this was only intended to be a more or less brief overview of one of the possibilities for adding on to the very smart and simple efficient rules that is Rogue Space, but I got a bit carried away. I'd love to actually run a game of this, either as a one-off or longer, to see how it works, especially how some of these proposals for add-on rules I've made in this work. I have already ordered the extended rules, and I'll have another review of the complete set once I get that in my hands.

One additional note: Apparently this PocketMod version that I am reviewing here is an older version than what is currently available now. In my version, damage is all set values. In the most recent version, they are randomized (light, instead of just 2 set damage, is 2d6, drop lowest, for instance). There is not a date on it, but it says "Copyright 2011 C.R. Brandon." Hit points are the same; random in the present version, set in the previous version. I'm honestly not sure which version I prefer.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy RPG review

Taking advantage of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess anniversary sale on RPGNow.com, I was able to get the PDF "Grindhouse Edition" for $1.35, instead of the full price. I've been meaning to read this game for a long time, partially because James Raggi has graciously linked to my blog from his since nearly immediately after I started this blog. I suppose the "Carcosa" in the name was what got him; I've also noticed that there is a new edition of the (in)famous eponymous RPG being released by Lamentations of the Flame Princess Press. If a PDF copy of this book were to mysteriously appear in my inbox, I would definitely feel honor-bound to write a review of it; just saying.

The "Grindhouse Edition," according to the LotFP Press site, is a box set, available for purchase online for about US$40, and which comes with three books (a total of some 360 pages), a set of dice, and some pre-printed character sheets. I'm assuming this is how it distinguishes itself from the "regular edition," which, incidentally, seems to be between printings? Two of the books are pretty standard: there is a player's guide and a GM's guide (called the Referee Book). The third, however, is labeled "Tutorial," and walks a new player through the mechanics of the game by a couple linked solo adventures. The PDF version of the Grindhouse Edition only has scans of the box cover, the box back, the three books, the OGL, and the character sheets; alas, there are no scans of dice.

The tutorial book, I think, is a phenomenal touch. Rare is the RPG solo adventure to begin with, and the "choose your own adventure" style, I think, is particularly compelling. I think that this tutorial guide really does well to introduce new players to the "world" that this game takes place in, which is a bit darker and grittier than run of the mill fantasy RPGs. Most importantly, the adventure is LONG; it will keep you occupied for quite some time, which is a huge plus if you're forced to "game alone." There's also a very long "example of play" which does what most similar, shorter versions in other RPGs fail to do: actually give you an idea of how the game works, by working through multiple encounters, start to finish, and not just a sampling. Before even reading the player or referee guides, I'm already getting a sense for how the game works, which is great.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess advertises itself as a "weird" fantasy game. This is, to say, that some of the fundamental assumptions about fantasy role-playing will be perverted, subverted, or just plain wrong. It is a far more dangerous, unsettling, and unnerving world than "mainstream" fantasy, and, at times, it may seem that the "impartial" GM might be acting against your best wishes as a player. Sometimes, this might also be true. It encourages horror, violence, and mystery, and does not shy away from unsettling imagery or situations. It is, therefore, self-consciously a "mature" RPG. Much like other "weird" role-playing games (and I'd throw Cthulhutech, Trail of Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu, and other games including the word "Cthulhu," for instance), misdirection on the part of the GM should be assumed. However, just as in those games, this should not automatically mean that there is a competition between the players and the game master; the game master presents a challenge, and the players have to be smart and clever and just damn lucky to overcome it. This being said, the Referee's Guide presents a pretty good collection of tips for how to encourage this sort of play, as well as a pretty detailed run-down on how to pave the way as the game master to ensure that adventures in the world of the Flame Princess are memorable. And, of course, the tips don't only apply to this game.

There are a few things to note for anybody who might be transitioning from having played Dungeons and Dragons, 4th edition. First and foremost, levelling takes a lot longer. The next thing to note is that there really is not much of an implicit setting, "points of light" or otherwise. Much of the referee's guide consists of tips on how to develop your own game world; even past the introduction, there is not even much on encouraging GMs to keep it "dark." That, if anything, is the implicit part. The adventure included at the back of the referee's guide provides a very good case in point: at one point, a player may not even know whether they are actually in control of their character or not. LotFP succeeds when it tries to disarm the players' assumptions; it fails as soon as the players begin to suspect that the GM is actively acting against them.

A brief mention of something else entirely must be made at this point. Throughout all of the books, there is very graphic (both violent and sexualized) art peppered in among the pages. LotFP apparently wants to make it very clear that this is a "mature" RPG, and inappropriate for children. This is a sharp contrast to Dungeons and Dragons, 4th edition, which markets itself to ages 12+, and Pathfinder, which markets itself to ages 13+. However, both Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder are very mainstream titles. Lamentations of the Flame Princess, decidedly, is not. But this also distinguishes it from an RPG which I'd consider to be both "mature" and "mainstream," Cthulhutech, which certainly includes "racy" imagery, but nothing to this degree. As far as "read an RPG in public" day is concerned, you might want to leave LotFP on the shelf, as it may raise more than a few eyebrows. Some people may find the imagery offensive, distracting, or objectionable, but for the most part it is not outrageous or over the edge. But all the same, do consider this fair warning.

One very prominent feature in character creation is starting off PCs with a static number of hit points. Dwarves get 6, clerics get 4, fighters get 8, and so on; essentially they get their maximum HD score. Then, after level 1, hit points gained are the designated class hit-die, plus constitution modifier (for a while). There are a few funky irregularities about HP gain, but those are well noted. Functionally this means a level 1 fighter will always have 8 hit points, and a level 20 fighter will have between 49 and 113 hit points, unless I severely flubbed my math skill check. More or less, though, once players reach level 10, they will be gaining HP much more slowly than they were before that point. The overall effect here is that characters gain HP early on a bit faster than similar games, but then after level 10 they gain them more slowly. One would expect this to level off at the end, but I'm not going to actually do the math. Lower-level characters will definitely need this little boost, as creatures tend to be a bit more devastating when they hit.

Experience is gained primarily through the acquisition of wealth. The players' book notes that a game where the characters get most of their experience from vanquishing foes is not ideal, and in fact, labels those sorts of characters "psychotic." Furthermore, not all styles of wealth acquisition were created equal; there is a list of what nets XP and wealth, and what simply nets wealth. To me, this seems a bit unbalanced. If you are told that you aren't supposed to go out killing monsters, but you only gain XP from collecting mineral wealth off of enemies' bodies, out of their lairs, and out of abandoned habitation structures, it creates a game where the adventuring party does more scavenging than fighting. Of course, in a game world where, with all else being equal, most characters of any level will probably not survive the encounter with any given eldritch horror, this almost seems to be a necessity.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess takes place in a "magic poor" world, where magic-users (why can't they just be called wizards?) are inherently dangerous (and probably insane), and magic items are vanishingly rare. Characters will not go on a quest to find a +1 sword, they will be on a quest to find the +1 sword. Magic items, by their definition, give characters an advantage over situations tilted against their favor, and when considering that an adventuring party may only see two or three magic items over the course of their entire lives, the loss of this advantage will be palpable. Also consider that the world of Lamentations of the Flame Princess is considerably more deadly than the "stock" fantasy RPG setting, and the absence of any advantage will be even more obvious. Players are told to not become too attached to their level 1 characters, and to not mourn their loss if they die, but, all the same, characters will stay level 1 for a disproportionately longer time than with similar RPGs, given the slow levelling inherent with the system. But where guile is preferred, if for not other reason than self-preservation, it seems that players playing certain classes might be underwhelmed by the experience. This seems to be especially uninteresting to the "fighter" class, where it says in its description in the book that fighters live for fighting. If they're not supposed to go out and get into fights, what do they do? Spoils should be secondary; a side-effect of doing what they want to do, and players will probably be loath to send their characters in to a situation where they are quite confident they are going to die, just because it makes sense for the character's personality.

Experience is evidently also not gained by hunting, scavenging for food, or succeeding on skill checks, and it is not mentioned (or if it is, I don't see it) whether there are experience bonuses above and beyond wealth accumulation for succeeding on a particular quest. Not only do individual classes not gain special experience for taking advantage of their own particular class traits, they still level at different rates. Since experience is always divided evenly between all player characters, there will always be an imbalance between what the characters are capable of, which is aggravated by the fact that the others will not level quickly enough to catch up before getting thrown into a situation that is above their ability. The ideal situation would be to have 2-3 fighter characters, 2-3 specialists, and a cleric and/or wizard to pad out the battle capabilities of the group, plus a paid retinue of hired thugs to help if things get grim, who nevertheless will probably flee in terror at the first sign of anything remotely unusual. Strength in numbers seems to be almost a necessity.

Returning to wealth for a moment, it is, at least, very easy for clerics and magic-users to find ways to spend their vast stores of wealth gained from adventuring. There are myriad opportunities in creating magic implements, potions, scrolls, and the like, as well as researching new avenues of religious or magical knowledge. Less certain is what other classes are spending their dough on, but it seems that hiring henchmen, as well as maintaining a household with appropriate staff, is the intention. There are even rules on how to invest money, and what the returns will be. Capitalism, industry, and commerce are heavily emphasized in the players' book, but one also must maintain the knowledge that the individual handling your investments might, at any moment, mutate into a fish-faced monster that sprays black acid out of its eyes, and its croaks cause paralysis. Suffice to say, not all financial gambles will be lucrative.

But perhaps all of these critiques are just based upon a bad imagination on my part. It is obviously an adventure game, obviously styled after AD&D and what came before, and the system seems pretty streamlined and straightforward, with no major surprises (Death of THAC0 Day should be a real holiday). Most of the skill tests are resolved by rolling one or more d6's, rather than rolling a d20 against a chart; many other incidentals are resolved with a d% check. For the most part it is a "chart-lite" book; players will be able to tell whether they have succeeded or not on an endeavor just by the result of their roll, more often than not. Perhaps a better comparison would be to one of the early James Ward games like Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World, where instead of "save or die" your option is simply "die."

Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a "tough" RPG. There is very little opportunity for advancement, advancement progresses very slowly, and there is a high likelihood that any given adventurous endeavor will end in failure and/or death. Ordinary incidents can turn deadly at the drop of a hat, and seemingly benign situations can (and will) turn bizarre and dangerous without any provocation. "Winning," as far as LotFP is concerned, is "not dying this session," and by that definition winning seems to be very hard to do.

Does all this mean that I don't particularly like the game? No. I'd be willing to try it.  I don't think this is going to replace my "default" fantasy RPG any time soon, but I think, much like with Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, it would be a fun diversion to run in a one-off, or 2-3 session adventure setting. "Weird" works for me, and in a "weird" game, deadly is very often necessary. In a Weird World, there are entities that can destroy the world without even taking notice, not to mention the puny things that may be crushed underfoot in the process.

One last comment to make is that there is no standard set of stock monsters to choose from, and this is explicitly mentioned in the books as intentional. To keep the world as "weird" as possible, the GM is encouraged to create custom monsters for every situation (and is given guidelines to do so). However, LotFP does concede that it is compatible enough with other OSR/OGL games that many can be reskinned and dropped in to it without too much modification. There is even a conversion guide between several other d20-based games for how this might be managed, but if you're expecting to use it completely stand-alone, you don't want to be in for a shock here.

In conclusion, Lamentations of the Flame Princess (though at the end I still have no idea who the Flame Princess is, nor why she is so upset) sets out to do something specific, and makes no apologies nor pulls any punches concerning what it's trying to do, and I have to, at least, give it props for that. The world is rough around the edges, to say the very least, and I can imagine that quite a bit of houseruling would be necessary for a lot of situations, but the product that is presented is well-organized, well-presented, and imaginative. Perhaps the most important contribution that LotFP provides to the RPG world is a reminder that nothing is sacred and that all plans, no matter how meticulously wrought, have a habit, in the end, of unravelling.

Fantasy Flight Games' Warhammer 40,000: Black Crusade review

One of the biggest complaints I saw about Dark Heresy was that the starting characters were way too underpowered. While I sort of like the idea of starting off with seriously weak characters and having them either get tougher or perish, just like so many of the characters in the Warhammer 40,000 novels, I also understand that a lot of people aren't going to want to go through the pretty long process of building a character, and then having them geeked in the first encounter with anything larger than a rat.

Black Crusade does not have this problem. In fact, most Dark Heresy characters would be absolutely pulped by a starting-level Black Crusade character. I'd love to roll up one Chaos Space Marine, and 3-4, maybe even 5 Dark Heresy characters, and run a PvP match. Corruption by Chaos seems to have some pretty powerful benefits as far as overall power is concerned, even if you're not winning any beauty contests when you're done..

Character creation is very complex in Black Crusade, given that you have to track what Chaotic abilities are associated with which of the Ruinous Powers. As you're creating the character, every time you tack on an ability or a trait, you have to check to see where it falls on the Ruinous spectrum; certain chaos gods are opposed to each other, so as you build allegiance to one god, you set yourself in opposition to others, and therefore taking powers granted by those other gods will end up costing more. As the game goes on, and you continue to grow your character, your allegiance to your god from character creation may shift to another one, which might even earn the ire of the first god. It's hard being evil. It does, however, lead to a lot of possibilities in game play. the powers of Chaos are forever forming allegiances with each other, and then stabbing each other in the back.

The chapters on equipping your character are pretty big, if for no other reason than they have to provide materiel for both the heavy-duty Chaos Space Marine armaments, as well as the more practical equipment for human characters. Then of course they also need to provide cybernetics options for corrupted Adeptus Mechanicus characters alongside everything else. One of the most exciting sections of the book, however, is the (unfortunately) short section on daemon weapons. I sincerely hope that they release more options and traits for daemon weapons, because this was one of the most anticipated sections of the whole book for me. What is there, however, does not disappoint: you get fun traits like "Impossibly Sharp," "Fuelled by Slaughter," "Enfeebling," "Shrieking," "Mind Eater," and "Sorcerous Force." The bulk of the text is an outline of the process of actually creating a daemon weapon by summoning and binding a daemon into the blade (paving the way for characters to attempt to make their own, an awesome roleplay possibility), then it ends with five example daemon weapons that can be dropped straight into the game.

Honestly one of the coolest chapters in the book is the one on options for psykers. As with everything else, psy powers are divided by evil god, with of course no section for Khorne, who hates psykers. Beyond that, there are the standard categories of "divination," telekinesis," and such. Players who want to play corrupt psykers I don't think will be disappointed, but all the same I hope that they release another book with expanded psyker options. There is, however, absolutely no reason why psy powers can't be lifted from other books and given their own "evil" spin.

Fully the final third of the book is dedicated to covering matters of interest to the GM. There are tips on managing compacts between characters and non-player characters (including daemons), handling balance (since the PCs are quite powerful), managing crossovers with Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch, and how to handle terror and insanity.

The rest of the book contains a chapter on daemonic corruption and boons granted by the Dark Gods, a setting guide (including a rough overview of the Imperium, the Calixis Sector, the Koronus Expanse, the Jericho Reach, the Screaming Vortex, the Ragged Helix, etc), and then a short section on monsters, and a sample adventure. The background chapter is thorough enough that I don't think one would need significantly more information to start a game, but probably most people who would be willing to drop sixty dollars on this book are probably also in to 40K to begin with.

I would imagine that Black Crusade characters would probably have a much larger chance of running in to xenos forces out of the gate than Dark Heresy characters. Fortunately, indeed there are some sample enemies statted out for eldar and necrons, but probably running a xenos-heavy game would require some Rogue Trader supplements. I'd say that probably the least complete-feeling section in the book is the enemies chapter, but at the same time I understand where they are coming from because practically everything within the Imperium and abroad are opposed to those aligned with Chaos. That being said, any GM running a combat-heavy game (I sort of can't imagine a Black Crusade game that wouldn't be combat heavy), will probably need some Deathwatch or Rogue Trader books to pad out their collections, or else get really creative with statting out their own enemies. You do get stats on many different agents of the Imperium, so those could probably be pretty easily skinned over to create a pretty broad spectrum of meat (or blood for the blood god, if you're of the khornate persuasion) to throw in the way of your Black Crusade players.

Overall, I'd say that Black Crusade is probably the best of the four sourcebooks, as far as I'm concerned, and it seems like it will mesh especially well with Dark Heresy, no matter what side your players are rooting for. If you're running a Dark Heresy game, you could use Black Crusade to create very complex, interesting, and dangerous villains, just as if you're running a Black Crusade game, you can give your players the opportunity to crush an aspiring band of acolytes, perhaps even corrupting them and forcing them to become unwitting minions of Chaos (did I mention there's a whole section on creating and running minions?).

Pathfinder Beginner Box

This article has been edited from its original form.
I've been interested in Pathfinder, based mostly on the hype about it across the blogosphere, and when I learned that they were releasing an Essentials-style Beginner Box for the game, I planned on getting it. There was a stack of them on the counter at my FLGS, so I figured that there was no time like the present and picked it up. The first thing that I noticed about it was that it was heavy. The cardstock of the box seemed very solid, and it seemed to be quite full of contents. This was a good sign; 35 dollars is about the limit on what I'll pay on impulse, and it turned out to be worth the money.

The first thing I opened in the box was the baggie of dice. I was pleased to see a full set of 7: d4, d6, d8, d10, percentile, d12, and d20. The Essentials box only came with 6; percentile rolls are generally not part of D&D4, so it's not surprising that they did not include one of these dice. The next thing I noticed about the Pathfinder dice is that they just felt like ordinary Chessex dice, whereas the Essentials dice felt less substantial, like knockoffs. To test this, I weighed them.

	PF	D&D4	Chessex
d20	6g	6g	6g
d12	6g	6g	6g
d10	6g	4g	6g
d8	4g	4g	4g
d6	6g	4g	6g
d4	2g	2g	2g

For the most part, they were pretty similar. But, as you can see, the Essentials dice were actually made out of lower quality material; they feel less substantial in the hand, less dense. Just as a "test" I also weighed a Chessex set that I bought at DragonCon; they were identical in weight to the Pathfinder dice. I think, without any other evidence, that the Pathfinder dice are just Chessex dice rather than cheaper knockoffs.  The only other baggie in the box was a set of standee bases, for the cardboard standees. I set that aside.

On top of the stack is a sheet which suggests to new players which book to read and which book to avoid, whether they want to be GM or player. One of the remarkable things about this set immediately is that directly on the inside of the front cover of the "Hero's Handbook" is a step-by-step checklist, with page numbers, on how to build a new character. I don't think Wizards of the Coast has ever discovered how useful this is; even in the Gamma World books, which are relatively well laid out, you have to dig through half the book to find the character building process. Having an easily located and organized guide for building characters is very useful, especially for a beginner's guide such as this, to make generating characters more quickly and easily just in case their lower-level beginner characters don't survive the process. Like in older versions of D&D, character death is a lot more common in Pathfinder than it is in 4e.

Identical to D&D Essentials, the "Hero's Handbook" starts off with a choose-your-own-adventure style setup in order to help new players get an idea about how the game works. Unlike Essentials, however, the Pathfinder starter adventure does not help you select your class, only get a feel for how the play works. It is, therefore, entirely optional. It is well written, easy to follow, and exciting as a solo adventure. It does help bring the game alive; immediately after it is an "example of play" using stock characters going through an ordinary series of actions, which also gives something for new players with which to compare their experience with the game.

The bulk of the book is dedicated to explaining what a role-playing game is, what races and classes there are, and then how to level the characters up to level 5, very similarly to how the pregenerated characters for the D&D4 quickstart rules had instructions for leveling them up to level 3. It has very thorough descriptions of skills and feats, as well as decent lists of spells and prayers to customize wizards and clerics a little bit from the get-go. Finally there are equipment lists for the sorts of things that might be available to first level characters, but what impresses me the most is that each item has a small icon next to it of what the item would look like.

The book ends with a "crunch" section; how to actually play the game, the mechanics and format of play, combat, etc. Miniature relationships, as relevant in combat, are presented very similarly to how they are in the D&D4 books, and players of 4e should have very little trouble understanding that part of the rules. I have a suspicion that the crunch section was written with a D&D4 audience in mind, based on the remarkable similarities in appearance. I would place myself within that audience as well, since I never played D&D3, and I can say that to me, it is very easy to follow.

Overall, there is a lot more art in this Pathfinder starter set than appeared in the Essentials box, and the binding is stronger; the books have glossy covers, instead of just paper. It was also 15 dollars more than the Essentials box. The Pathfinder box has gate-folded folios with prefilled character sheets, with helpful descriptions of what each field on the character sheet means in the (sizeable) margins; then there are blank character sheets with which to actually build characters (although it is completely feasible to just use the prebuilt characters right out of the folios). The folios do have a lot of description about what sort of things that type of character tends to do, what skills they excel at, and what sort of people might want to play that sort of character, which is helpful. It's a different technique from what was employed by the Essentials box, but I don't think it's necessarily better or worse.

However, Essentials really was the "bare essentials" to start a game; you are required, nearly immediately, to buy the Rules Compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Lands (another 40 dollar investment at the bookstore) as well, whereas the Beginner Box for Pathfinder guides characters through level 5 and, though the characters' progress is "tracked" exactly as in Essentials, there are flavor options that were lacking in the Red Box. The adventure in the Red Box was a good enough introduction to the world of Dungeons and Dragons, but seemed more as a "teaser" than any attempt at an immersive experience.

The Game Master's Guide contains a moderately well detailed starter adventure, quite detailed tips on how to start, prepare for, run, and continue an adventure, how to build maps, run encounters, develop your own "game world," how to use terrain, traps, hazards, and exploit NPCs effectively. There are many magic items and monsters to peruse, again with helpful icons and images to help visualize what the items look like. All in all, it was a very nice, concise way to get GMing explained, without having to buy a separate Dungeon Master's box.

Next in the box is a large, thick, glossy folded cardstock double-sided map. The creases are very well-set, and I am finding them nearly impossible to smooth out, which is a liability for the very light-weight standees that will be set upon it. Here at least I think there is a point for Wizards of the Coast's thinner paper foldout maps. They flatten effortlessly, though they deteriorate much more quickly. Besides trying to carefully reverse the creases and work them out, or place a large pane of glass over the top to keep it flat, I can't really see much utility in the map, and since the cardstock is very thick it seems like the printing around those creases will get overstressed very easily and very quickly begin to look bad. I can't see myself ever using this map though so I am just going to leave it there. I like the idea of printed maps more than I actually like the actual utility of them. Usually I prefer to draw a diagram out on my Chessex mat and try to fill in the details verbally.

The rest of the box has die-cut cardboard standees for male and female characters of each race and each class, so no matter what sort of character you generate using the Hero's Handbook, you have an individual standee to represent them. Which would only be a problem, I suppose, if you have two people who are dead-set on being a male human fighter, or something like that. I really do genuinely like how they have individual standees for each player character possible, and it also helps that they are all very distinctively dressed, and the art is phenomenal. The rest are monster standees, similarly styled.

Overall, I would like to laud the extremely high quality of everything in this set. It would have been nice, at very least, if they could have also included a cheap dice bag to keep the dice in, but for 35 dollars you do actually get a lot of really good looking material. The game, which has a reputation for being a bit complex, is presented in a remarkably simple format, and it seems like beginning to play the game from this box set would be quite effortless. I'd say that everything, from the art, the books, the writing, what is actually contained, the box itself, is of a higher quality than the Essentials Red Box, although the price is 15 dollars higher. I do have a preference for standees over tokens, because to me they look less out of place mixed with actual pewter or plastic miniatures than the flat tokens do.

I can't see how a product like this would be at all useful to people who already had the Pathfinder core rulebook, but then again that is not the target audience. No matter what, this is intended to be a "gateway drug" for the significantly more expensive core book, and there would be, I expect, quite a bit of adjustment from the Beginner rules to the "full" rules. One thing Essentials has going for it is that, between Heroes of the Fallen Lands, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, the Dungeon Master's Kit, the Rules Compendium, and other "Essentials" line products, you can play an entire 1-30 campaign without ever leaving the protective Essentials Umbrella. The Pathfinder Beginner Box provides very simplified rules to begin the game, but provides no transition guide for moving on to the "big kid" book.

I do not think the scope of it would justify any further comparisons to Essentials, although the presentation is very similar. Instead, I would say that the Pathfinder Beginner Box provides an extremely thorough set of "quick start rules" for both the player and the game master, as well as tools to set up and run a game with only like a half hour or hour of prior reading and preparation (generating characters, reading rules, etc). It is more detailed than the Essentials Red Box, and probably makes running a game without any other material much easier.

In my original version of this, from nearly 2 months ago, I was reviewing a damaged copy of the box. Many complaints I had were not about the content of the product, but the appearance of the product. Later I contact Paizo, who suggested to first contact my FLGS owner and see if he would be able to replace the damaged merchandise, and then if I was unsuccessful there, to contact them again. This is noteworthy because I received an email from their customer service representative less than two hours after I had sent my original email; fortunately the game store owner had opened a copy of the box for himself as a "demo copy" and he swapped out the undamaged books from his copy for the damaged versions from mine, saying that he didn't care so much what the books looked like since they were just going to get damaged anyway by customers manhandling them. Nevertheless I appreciated Paizo's very quick and courteous response, and that (combined with the quality of the product) encouraged me to buy the Pathfinder core book a week ago (it is now January 2). It hasn't arrived yet, but I have been enjoying reading the online SRD (another very useful feature of the Paizo product constellation).

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Beta Rules: The Demi-Human Classes

For my final installment of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG races, I will look at all three of the "demi-human" races. In DCCRPG, we see the retroclone-classic race-as-class construction. In other words you can be a cleric, a fighter, a thief, a wizard... or an elf, halfling, or dwarf. Apparently all elves, halflings, and dwarves act the same, much like how in science fiction humans are incredibly diverse, but all aliens have monolithic, undifferentiated cultures. Additionally, with the "character funnel" mechanic in DCCRPG, if you want to potentially have a dwarven, halfling, or elven character, you need to preselect those races for your 0-level characters, because, as far as they're concerned, dwarves, halflings, and elves have no job prospects besides their prescribed roles.

As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the ways in which the character funnel fails most utterly. You're supposed to start with generic townspeople sort of characters, which you then assign a class to should they survive, but dwarves, halflings, and elves don't get this option. You already know what their class is going to be; it's a dead end situation, no different than if you had just simply chosen, without the character funnel, that you wanted to play a dwarf, halfling, or elf. In fact, you can easily abuse the character funnel by just making all your 0-level characters dwarves, halflings, or elves. Or you can just skip it. DCCRPG seems very dedicated to making everything random, which is just not something that everybody playing it is going to want.

Dwarves themselves do not have much to distinguish themselves. As a class, they are remarkably similar to warriors, having the same attack die mechanic, as well as also having access to Mighty Deeds of Arms. In fact, under "Mighty Deed of Arms" in the dwarf section, it doesn't even bother describing it, referring instead to the description under the warrior entry. Dwarves have a racial ability of "shield bash," which deals negligible damage against a harder threshold (d14 instead of d20 to hit), as well as the ability to see in the dark. However, they are slower than humans. Of course, it also says that dwarves can smell gold and gems, and can navigate underground flawlessly without a compass. While this would likely be pretty handy in a dungeon crawl, it seems a bit... strange. Dwarves are limited, lastly, in their ability to spend Luck.

Like warriors, dwarves have to specialize, at character creation, with one weapon, and then can only use Luck towards attacks with that weapon for the rest of their lives. Overall, dwarves are very similar to warriors in skills and mechanics, only they are slower, weaker, and spend a lot of time sniffing gold. They have +1 on Willpower saves compared to the warrior at any given level, but that is basically where they distinguish themselves. Dwarves only crit on a 20, use a lower crit die per level compared to the warrior, and do not have access to most of the abilities that make warriors really stand out. Additionally, they have fewer hit points and gain fewer hit points per level, but I suppose this is supposed to be balanced out by the fact that they all are running around with shields and are therefore marginally more difficult to hit. Dwarves, at the end of the day, are just a crippled version of the warrior class. They are described as being "demi-human," and one must assume that is in abilities as well as appearance.

Elves are described as being older than humans, yet also as "demi-humans" (but wouldn't that mean that humans are demi-elves?). It is said that they can cast spells as competently as human wizards, but that they will usually wear mithril armor, despite the fact that it gimps their spellcasting ability. Elves can see in the dark like dwarves, but in fact also have all other senses heightened as well. Elves can only spend Luck on one specific level 1 spell, no matter how long they live and no matter what all their other abilities are. They can't be magically put to sleep or paralyzed, but also can't touch or wear anything made of iron. This doesn't matter though, because it says that at character creation, elven characters can just buy mithril armor instead of steel armor at no additional cost. Elves are sort of like thieves in their mechanics, only are better at casting magic (and have an innate magical ability). They favor lighter, longer weapons, don't deal much damage and have very limited critical hit abilities, but are also much better at fighting than wizards, so overall are a much more balanced class than dwarves are.

Halflings are small, good at sneaking, can see in the dark, remarkably lucky, are great at fighting, and are the only other class in the game that can recover spent Luck. In fact, Luck is where halflings shine, since they can spend luck on other party members, as well as act out of initiative to do so. Additionally, halflings get a +2 bonus on spending luck, rather than a +1 bonus (although it is still +1 when spent on other characters). The problem with halflings is that only one halfling in the party gets all of these special Luck features. If there are any other halflings in the party, they don't have access to any of this. It doesn't say what additional halflings' Luck features are, but, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, one has to assume that they will still recover Luck, get the +2 modifier on their own rolls, but can't help allies. Halflings are said to excel at two-handed fighting, but not in any way that is very far superior to warriors fighting two-handed. I don't see any modifiers for halflings or dwarves being any more difficult to hit on account of their small stature, so there doesn't seem to be any advantage, as far as combat is concerned, to being short. One only gets a penalty in speed.

In short, there is no reason in DCCRPG to play anything besides a warrior. Wizards get transformed into tentacle beasts, sweat excessively, and grow tails and gills and have to cut large pieces of flesh out of their bodies in order to continue casting magic. Clerics have to destroy all of the party's possessions in order to keep getting boons. Dwarves are like wizards with chronic fatigue syndrome and bad knees, elves are like wizards suffering an identity crisis, halflings are particularly incompetent thieves who have a tendency to come after you with two knives. Thieves and clerics end up getting off the easiest, but there is absolutely no reason in DCCRPG to play a magic user, or any sort of demi-human. Warriors get a whole extra chapter to describe all of their incredible abilities, but wizards end up looking like pustule-covered frog-octopus versions of Peter Pettigrew, finding it harder and harder to cast spells or read scrolls on account of the fact that their hands turned into flippers several weeks ago, and they are constantly exuding large amounts of sweat from all parts of their bodies. While this could all potentially be ripe material for roleplaying in a zany, off-the-wall one-off adventure setting, DCCRPG makes it difficult, in my opinion, for players to become too attached to their characters, because there are too many random penalties for playing any class besides warriors (who all look like Conan the Barbarian and get laid every night, or so it seems).

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG: The Thief

Returning to the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, today I'm going to talk about the Thief, as written in the July 2011 "Beta" rules of the game.  I'd read a lot of people were critical of the thief, but as you will see, I think those reservations are unfounded. I will be comparing the DCCRPG to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition Thief, for no other reason besides that's the book I have at hand, and the thieves from these two RPGs are mechanically comparable.

Thieves in DCCRPG have quite a few innate abilities, most of which are directly drawn from the D&D "stock." For example, consider things like Thieves' Cant, backstab, pick lock, read spell scroll, find trap, hide in shadows, climb walls, etc.; all of the thiefy things like you'd want. In fact, all of the thief abilities, like in AD&D2, are percentile rolls, rather than d20 rolls. In such a d20-heavy system, this seems a bit odd. A few people have commented that this was one thing they didn't like about AD&D, and wished that DCCRPG normalized the system a bit. Personally I am also baffled why you'd need percentile rolls for thievery checks, rather than just a straight d20 check like in D&D 4.  Since all percentile values are given in multiples of 5, could someone just set a d20 DC on the roll? certainly. 25% chance turns into a DC of 15; 5% chance turns into a DC of 20. Kill any modifiers on the roll (for now), and you have a straight n-in-20 chance of succeeding just as the Twin Gods Dogar and Kazon Gygax and Arneson intended.

I'm no statistician, but my gut says that the only reason for rolling two dice across a larger spread than one die across a smaller one is that it SEEMS like the d% system would give a slight statistical advantage of succeeding. It might be thought fallacy, so I did an experiment. I rolled a d20 against a DC15 threshold, and d% against a roll-under 25 threshold 30 times, each (successes in bold).

d20	d%
6	5
15	86
19	6
8	9
20	55
3	88
18	98
7	17
16	67
8	72
9	31
6	95
8	16
20	65
14	54
10	70
19	57
7	52
10	44
6	59
2	95
20	9
11	61
10	48
3	19
7	54
4	21
3	52
11	71

As you can see, in my experiment (I was rolling GameScience Precision dice on a hard wooden table covered in a thin cotton tablecloth), for both configurations I got 8 successes out of 30 attempts or...  roughly a 5 in 20 chance of succeeding. DCCRPG DOES concede that the Thief's agility modifier affects the success rate, where every +1 earns another 5% chance to succeed. AD&D2 is much less forgiving. Given the statistical harmony between a d20 roll and a d% roll, I see no reason, personally, to not houserule in substituting one for the other; instead of the agility modifier bonus being +5%, just leave it at the modifier value and add it to the d20 roll. The only caveat to this is that, while most skills improve at a rate of 5% a level, "Climb Sheer Surface" improves at 1%. But, given that it's a skill rated at 90% at level 1, I hardly think an improvement of a 92% chance would mechanically have much different than an unmodified DC of 2.

Another significant difference between AD&D2 and DCCRPG is the Thief ability to read spell scrolls. At level 10, Thieves gain the ability, in AD&D2, to read spell scrolls at a 75% accuracy. Failures result in the spell backfiring. In DCCRPG, Thieves gain the ability to attempt reading spell scrolls at level 1, albeit with an almost impossibly high rate of failure. Good and Chaotic thieves can make a spell check, but must use a d10 for the check die; given that the spell check DC is 10+(spell level x2), a first level Thief would not be able to cast a first level spell from a scroll, since their maximum roll would be 10, and the minimum DC is 12. It does say that clerics add their Personality modifier, and Wizards add their Intelligence modifier to spell check rolls, but it does not say that Thieves add any modifier to spell checks, so therefore though the possibility exists, and considering that there do not appear to be 0-level spells in DCCRPG, it is actually impossible for a first level Thief to succeed on a spell scroll. This quickly changes, since by level 5 Thieves may use a d14 (usually) to attempt a spell check. Neutral Thieves apparently have an easier time casting from scrolls, because at level 1 their check die is a d12, and by level 5 they have already advanced to a d16.  The pattern set from the level 1 to 5 table is every other level the check die improves, so at level 10, if the pattern continues, the Good and Chaotic Thieves would be rolling a d20.

Backstabbing is not particularly different between DCCRPG and AD&D2, despite some apparent opinion to the contrary. The only rule is that "when attacking a target from behind or when the target is otherwise unaware, the thief receives an attack bonus." This is actually more generous than the AD&D2 provision, which also states that the victim must be humanoid.  Additionally, AD&D2 only has a damage multiplier for backstab successes, whereas DCCRPG automatically awards a critical hit.  Critical hits reward a roll on the crit table, which can occasionally be very damaging, but also can be uneven. The luck of the dice can mean the difference between an additional 3d3 or 2d4 damage, or a result of "Foe is reduced to making wet fish noises" without a real benefit (except, perhaps, that it can't call for help?). Being a longterm fan of MERP, rolling critical hits on tables is very appealing to me, but I can also see why many people would just want an additional attack die, or a damage multiplier.  It's hard to hit with a backstab in DCCRPG; but so it is as well in AD&D2.

The last thing to discuss regarding the DCCRPG Thief is the issue of Luck. All DCCRPG characters have Luck, and all can burn Luck points (permanently) in order to avoid something particularly sticky from happening on a failed or botched roll. Thieves luck out (heh heh) on this one: they are the only class that can (slowly) recharge Luck points; evidently to be more in accorance with their Tricksy™ nature. Additionally, the Thief gets to add a die roll modifier to checks when burning luck, instead of just 1:+1 like for every other class.

Besides all that, the D&D Thief and the DCCRPG Thief are more or less similar. Overall, I like the DCCRPG changes to the Thief, and I think it makes the class more playable and more interesting.

Wizards of the Coast's Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium fulfils a need that D&D 4e has had since its inception: cursed items. While I could go on and on about how it has tons of really great new weapons, weapon powers, weapon feats, magical items, and flavor text, what you're really buying it for are the cursed items. I suppose I should back it up just a little bit. MME is presented, loosely, in the fom of a book written, but then later redacted and then destroyed, by the archmage Mordenkainen. He adds in some nods to his archmage buddies (including Tenser, of Tenser's Floating Disc fame, and Bigby, as in Bigby's Grasping Hand), but mostly pontificates about himself. It's a nice stylistic flourish that makes the book more fun to read, and also is an excuse for the authors to have a bit of fun in writing it. All throughout the book, there are little sidebars with knocks about certain items by Mordenkainen, which, for the most part, are pretty entertaining, and each chapter is introduced with a longer monologue about the topic in Mordenkainen's distinctive style.

The book does have some good mundane and magical items in it. It unlocks the "superior" training feat, as well as specific weapon-based special attacks utilizing superior weapons training (and superior weapons); along those lines was something I suggested myself in one of the early days of this blog. It goes into much more detail with arcane implements, with new wands, orbs, holy symbols, tomes, staffs, foci, and totems, for all sorts of character classes that can utilize such things. Up to this point, one could easily call Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium "Adventurer's Vault 3" (which it is) and be done with it. However that would completely belittle the fact that this book is organized and presented in a far superior way to either of the Adventurer's Vault books, and is ultimately a lot more useful than those books (when it comes to wondrous items, and other magic doodads). However, my favorite thing about Adventurer's Vault 2, immurements, did not make it back to MME, which was a bit of a disappointment.

The last part of the book concerns itself with artifacts and cursed items. It defines artifacts, broadly, as those sorts of items which are more important, narratively, than mechanically. Many of the examples they list are items created by or formerly owned by the gods, and which possess extremely potent innate abilities. However, the introductory piece on artifacts makes it clear that their proper place is as the "McGuffin," an otherworldly item which moves the plot in the adventure forward, and so therefore the PCs' possession of that item may be very brief. This is a concept which I think is pretty cool, and I think the only thing lacking is variety in examples. I think there were about two or three items per tier listed.

But the cursed items are exactly as you'd expect. Many are an obvious nod to earlier, more deadly editions of D&D, recreating some infamous items for the 4e world. One of the best comments that the book makes, however, is for DMs to consider: cursed items, by and large, are extremely powerful magic, requiring a lot of time and effort, and sometimes a lot of resources to bring together. Therefore cursed items should not be used lightly, or indiscriminately. Because of the considerations involved with the manufacture of cursed items, one must assume that most are made, specifically, for the torture and punishment of one specific individual. Cursed items for cursed items' sake, therefore, would be gratuitous. But this warning about considering the cursed item's past also is a very strong reminder to justify why you, as DM, are inserting this item into your adventure; what is its background, why is it there, who was it intended for, was it successful? The best part about cursed items is that they are virtually indistinguishable from the item that they are intended to copy until the curse is activated, in which case it is too late. Mercifully, though the cursed items usually cannot be removed after they've been triggered, it is not unnecessarily difficult to remove them outside of urgent situations.

Overall, a fan of older editions might criticize Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium's cursed items as not being nasty enough. But, overall, they fit well into the general schema of how things work within 4e. I believe it is by far the best in the "loot" series of books, but is also not remarkable when compared to the others. However, a completist will find it more than satisfactory, and if one were to only buy one of the three loot books, I would argue that the Emporium would be the one to choose. There has been a clear evolution of thought and style over the course of 4th edition's publishing history, and Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium reaps the benefits of this.

Wizards of the Coast's Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale

The first time I read it, i was ready to declare Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale the greatest book ever published under the Dungeons and Dragons, 4th edition moniker. While my feelings at this point are much less enthusiastic, I will still readily declare that it is a fantastic book. By the title, one can identify that it probably is in line with the "Essentials" line of products, which to many people will probably make it sound next to worthless. While I do have my own reservations about Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, I do not believe that wholesale disapproval of the Essentials line is justified, since there are a few products (this included), that stand out, even above many "non-Essentials" books published over the last few years.

The title of the book suggests both that it is a sequel to the first Monster Vault (which it is), and that it will focus primarily on the Nentir Vale (the default setting for Essentials). Unlike the first Monster Vault, it does not come with a prewritten adventure which utilizes the monsters contained within, but instead takes a more organic approach, which I think is much more successful. The book begins with an introduction of some of the "powers that be" within the Vale, and then goes in to descriptions of the sorts of monsters found there (to build upon the first Monster Vault), and, in doing so, takes a narrative approach to describe why and where these monsters might be encountered within that setting, including often multiple adventure hooks to go along with them.

There are a few monsters in the book that seem a bit "tacked on," in that they initially seem inappropriate for the locales of the Vale, but through narrative description, their presence is justified. Many of these "tacked on" monsters were classics or peculiar ones from previous editions that had not yet been statted out, so their inclusion in the book I can understand, but the fact that the authors went out of their way to try to coax them into the narrative of the rest of the book made them really believable and appropriate. Foremost among these, for example, are the Cadaver Collector and the Penanggalan, which are pretty out there as far as creatures are concerned, but with the descriptions one can quite easily come up with ways to use them. Still, most of the statted enemies in the book are ones mentioned specifically in the introductory area, so that they are not just vague background noise, but actual, legitimate "threats." So therefore many of the described enemies are factions.

To me, the best part about the entire book are all the factions.  Factions are not a new concept in 4e; they've been used, with varying success, in almost all of the location guides (Hammerfast, Vor Rukoth, Gloomwrought, etc.), but I thought that the factions presented in this book were particularly colorful, interesting, and believable. Upon reading about many of them, I immediately had ideas in my mind about how to create an adventure featuring them as allies, antagonists, or even both at different times, as well as ways to transport them "out of" the Nentir Vale into my own game world and use them independently.

This last point brings up another aspect of the book: modularity. While it is ostensibly set in the Essentials world, in the Nentir Vale, there is not one creature, faction, construct, anything, that couldn't be lifted out of its "set" location and used elsewhere. There are a whole flock of creatures who dwell in and around the Witchlight Fens. Got room for a swamp in your campaign? Drop them there, even in the Shadowfell, in the Oblivion Bog.

The dragons in the book take a tack which has been more common in more recent D&D publications. Namely, that rather than ascribing them a color and a demeanor, the dragons are all given names and personalities. Calastryx is a three-headed red dragon; Shadowmire is a black dragon changed by his long residence within the Witchlight Fens. Dragons are among the most interesting (and enduring) enemies in the Dungeons and Dragons universe (they're even part of the name!), and so therefore the recent emphasis on individual dragons, who could be poised to be one-off adventure-ending opponents, or just as easily tier-long orchestrators and more distant threats, makes the seem a lot more interesting, alive, and, most importantly, usable.

A personal favorite from the book are the Felldrakes, low level monstrous drakes magically mutated by the corrupt wizards of Bael Turath to serve the empire and their Tiefling masters. These creatures specifically would feel right at home in Vor Rukoth, and actually I think would significantly improve the playing experience of a party exploring that city. Vor Rukoth by itself didn't seem unique enough; it had lots of locations and lots of adventure hooks, but still nevertheless didn't feel very populated, since there wasn't any time spent really getting in to the sort of things that had taken up residence there. Adding in marauding Felldrakes, gone wild from being abandoned for so long, would be a great looming threat for adventurers exploring the ruins there, and would be a great go-to creature to throw in to just about any encounter that needed a few extra jaws to chomp on the good guys. While the Felldrakes themselves are only levels 1 to 4, there are special ones described, Dark Drakes, that go up to level 8. Combining them in different ways and scaling the numbers up, one could pretty easily come up with felldrakes of any heroic or low paragon level.

Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale is probably the best Essentials-keyed product on the market, and even a strong contender among all of the monster manuals among the 4th edition products. Oh, and it comes with a two-sided fold out map (as everything seems to these days), and 8 sheets of die-cut tokens (ditto). All of these things are enclosed in a sleeve, rather than a box, so you have to be careful if you want to keep everything together to squeeze it well while you're taking it off the shelf, or else things might slide out the bottom. I could dock points for the packaging, but I'm sure they expected most people to throw the map in whatever box they have that has all their other maps, pop the tokens out and throw away the sheets, and to just file the book on the shelf. I don't use tokens, so I just keep all of it together for propriety's sake.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG: The Cleric

This is apparently going to be part two of me talking about Dungeon Crawl Classics classes. Today, we're going to be talking about the DCCRPG cleric.  Let me just start this off by saying that I love clerics, and I am happy to see DCCRPG handle them in a way that is honestly pretty great.

First, clerics have a "failure" table just like wizards do. Unlike wizards, clerics do not suffer horrific, permanent mutations and deformities. Rather, they receive relatively minor, temporary effects to reflect the fact that, in failure, they have earned their deity's disapproval. Typically the time required to gain a deity's approval back is just 24 hours, but for some effects it can take up to 1d4 days. But like the wizard, it is resolved randomly, and so occasionally the required atonement action would not make sense with the character (for instance, would an evil god really want an evil cleric to go on a quest to heal the crippled?).

Also unlike the wizard, there are myriad ways for clerics to get around disapproval, and it results in them feeling like much more multifaceted, interesting characters. The base mechanic is that a cleric can cast a spell once per day, but then each additional time the spell is cast it is at a cumulative -1 penalty, ostensibly to represent the increasing burden on the cleric's deity to "intervene." And, of course, each time risking disapproval again.  Penalties can, additionally, be shaved back off by the cleric making sacrifices, usually to the tune of goods worth 50gp, per -1 penalty removed. Additionally, the GM can judge a "great deed, quest, or service to a deity" to be a sacrifice as well. In short, clerics are far more useful than wizards.

Clerics also have some neat little additional abilities for flavor, like how laying on hands works better on characters who share a similar alignment to the cleric than those of opposite alignment; additionally, healing someone of an opposed alignment can count as a "sin," which can curry disfavor from the cleric's deity. For some reason, on the deities list, Cthulhu is there, as a neutral deity, as "Priest of the Old Ones." Clearly, this is not your mother's Cthulhu.

The last perk of DCCRPG clerics over D&D clerics is that turn undead doesn't just turn undead. It has been reskinned as "turn unholy," and then you refer to your deity list to determine what, exactly, the deity constitutes as unholy.  Apparently Cthulhu doesn't like mundane animals OR monsters, OR werewolves, OR perversions of nature, in addition to undead, demons, and devils. So, in short, be a neutral cleric, since your "turn unholy" repels just about everything (...). Hopefully the finished product will have a LOT more details on the deities, because this is pretty sketchy.

The only thing I might add to the DCCRPG cleric would be, on the theme of making sacrifices to stave off penalties, for the cleric to be able to take a stricture which limits or constrains their ability to perform a kind of magic.  For instance, a lawful cleric might worship a god who specifically hates demons, might have an unlimited ability to utilize turn unholy against that specific kind of enemy, maybe at the expense of using any other kind of magic in the interim. Something, at least, to play with. Since there is no paladin in DCCRPG, the cleric sort of functions as both, and should be satisfying as either. The ability to play a neutral or evil cleric is an added bonus.

I went into this expecting to cut into the cleric like I did the wizard, but I'm surprised that honestly, with the system the game sets up, I feel like the cleric works pretty well. I have been reading, by the way, a lot of other people complaining about how single-minded the corruption table is, and a lot of people suggesting building their own custom corruption tables based on the wizard's patron... which seems like a lot of work, at the beginning, but also probably a lot more satisfying in the long run for the player.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG: The Wizard

There are many things that I like about Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game (the name is not one of them). Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (henceforth DCCRPG, blech) is, to a degree, a retroclone, in that it intentionally harkens back (in book art as well as rules) to the early days of Dungeons and Dragons. But it is a particularly deadly, dangerous game, even compared to others of its relative ilk.  This being said, probably the "worst" type of character one could play in DCCRPG is the wizard, based purely on the degree by which bad things can and will happen to the character.

The game world supposes that magic is inherently an extremely dangerous, alien, and corrupting thing, so that the more often someone uses it, the more likely it is that they will be permanently changed, maimed, or worse. When a wizard PC rolls a one on a spell check, the player must first roll on the spell fumble table, which can be as innocuous as a small explosion nearby, or as bizarre as a torrential rain of iron ingots (it doesn't say that they will necessarily cause damage, but I can't imagine a situation where heavy metal suddenly begins raining down upon your head and it NOT hurting). But ADDITIONALLY, the wizard character must also face a roll on the corruption table, since when magic goes wrong, it goes very, very wrong. Corruption is, for the most part, permanent, and also very obvious.  It can be the character's ears falling off, their limbs turning into tentacles, a permanent case of weeping pustules all over the face, one's mouth being replaced by a beak, or growing a tail with a third hand at the end. One can only imagine a very old wizard to being a repugnant, shivering mound of flesh, worse than a chimera and hardly able of speech of locomotion. Furthermore, one wonders why anybody, in this world, would want to be a wizard at all. Given, there is only a 5% chance of failing, and given that many corruption effects are not that bad, over time, the probability becomes staggering. Pair this with the fact that when a wizard learns a new spell, it is possible that it will be difficult to cast, requiring the use of a d14 or a d16 rather than a d20, raising the likelihood of corruption to 6 or 7% every time a spell is cast.

In analysis of this, I can only guess that this system was put into place as an alternative to the Vancian system of older editions of D&D. Typically, in DCCRPG, if a wizard succeeds on a spell, it is not lost and can be cast again. This is a great improvement, in my eyes, over the set-and-forget one a day Vancian system. However, if the spell fails, one suffers all of the effects above, plus the loss of the ability to cast that spell anymore for the rest of the day. So even after all that, you still fail. Unless, of course, you perform some horrific act of self-mortification called "Spellburn" to regain the spell, which can even result in temporary stat loss (there is a picture of a wizard stabbing a knife through his hand) until the wound heals. All of these things, corruption, mercurial magic, spellburn, spell fumbles, are completely random. You have to roll on tables.

This is completely insane, to me. It completely takes away the roleplay aspect of the wizard, and makes it seem like the character is not in control of their own actions. Especially in regards to spellburn, it seems like it would make a lot more sense for the player to be able to choose what type of self-mortification they would like to engage in, for a similar level of effect in regaining the spell. For instance, maybe the player only wants to burn some of their hair; maybe then that the spell would be regained, but instead of a d20 you can only roll a d12. The most bizarre spellburn action is if you roll a 1 on the table: "The wizard sacrifices one pound of flesh per spell level, which he must carve from his own body with a knife that is holy to a powerful outsider." WHO CAME UP WITH THIS? One, if you cut a pound of flesh out of your own body, YOU WOULD ALMOST CERTAINLY BE MORTALLY INJURED, and even if you weren't, you'd be bleeding so badly you couldn't do anything except lay there for a while until you died or passed out. Secondly, where would this holy knife suddenly appear from? What if you rolled a one, but shucks you were fresh out of holy knives to powerful outsiders? Would you have to roll again to try to get another result? This doesn't seem to be a very well thought-out system, and honestly if I ran a DCCRPG game, I would not include this rule, period. Losing a spell on a failure is fine. You get it back the next day, you'll just have to use your crossbow until then.

Let me take a second to recompose myself here. Anyway, this is not a case of "he who summons the magic, commands the magic." This is a case of "he who summons the magic is completely screwed." Though magic comes from immensely powerful and ineffable extraplanar entities who obviously do not have much stake in humans besides as playthings, the onerous punishments for being an ordinary wizard doing ordinary wizard things seems a bit extreme; the idea is great, but I can't imagine an actual person playing a wizard in this game and having fun for long, as they become less and less able and more and more hideous, while the Fighter literally can do no wrong. If I were to run a game like this, I would be very tempted to highly modify the wizard rules in order to make the class more playable. I can't tell whether DCCRPG wants to be more deadly and serious, or more zany and goofy, since it seems to want both, and it creates a very jarring experience in the process.

Foremost, I would allow a willpower save against the corruption every time a spell is failed. Spell misfires are fine, I can deal with that, I just wish the table was more expansive. I would also allow for the possibility of the corruption effects being reversible, however at great cost or very difficultly is completely fine. An alternative to that would be from within the rules themselves: many effects from misfired spells wear off after 1d7 days, 1d7 weeks, 1d7 months, etc.; an arbitrary and random amount of time, that'd be fine.  Rather than the wizard becoming an increasingly disfigured mound of undifferentiated flesh with tentacles, beaks, claws, and wings sticking out of it like some miniature toy breed of shoggoth with bad acne, give the guy a break.

Wizards receive their magical power from extraplanar patrons; why can't they try to appease their patrons after failing a roll by accepting this... alteration, but then after a period of time they are returned to (mostly) normal. Or maybe they can remove a sign of corruption by giving something up; a spell, one point off a stat, something to the tune of the spellburn table. Or maybe they can even just temporarily lose the use of the spell that caused the corruption altogether, until they can overcome the corruption it caused. Give the player a little bit of control and a few choices, or else the forced randomness only creates a different kind of rails for the game to follow. Warriors deal more damage, more easily, with fewer penalties for failing, and look better while doing it. There is no mechanical reason in this game to be a wizard, and in fact players will probably end up feeling like they are being punished for playing one. There has to be a better way to handle a world where magic is inherently dangerous that does not involve systematically (and randomly) deconstructing a character and transforming it into something that the player wouldn't want to play anymore.

Postscript: I suppose it should be mentioned that these are the beta rules, so the wizard might be much less unplayable in the final form. I am a little disappointed that the publication date for the final rules was pushed off until February, this is one of my most anticipated new games, despite my less than generous attitude in this article. Even with these rules, I would love to run a game in which there was a wizard, maybe even two wizards, to see how the rules actually play out in practice, so all of my comments above are purely on a theoretical level having just read the rules.