Tagline: Another excellent, if not so cheap, Cheapass Game.

Cheapass Games has created quite a reputation for itself. Producing games from the cheapest materials possible, they create highly affordable games with highly original premises. Almost all of their games have catchy titles and/or taglines, and their concepts are usually intriguing and amusing enough in their own right so that, even if the gameplay doesn’t catch your fancy, the product is still well worth the cost of entry.

And I say that as if their gameplay is usually poor. Quite the opposite is true – Cheapass Games doesn’t just have a reputation for their cheapness, they have a reputation for the high quality and playability of their game concepts. In short, Cheapass has ushered in a breath of fresh air to game design. Because they can produce games with such a low overhead they can experiment in many different directions very quickly, and with comparatively low risk. As a result you can see Cheapass play with and discard innovative game mechanics that other companies would be forced to milk for years, if they ever tried them in the first place.

Which brings us to Falling, an innovative and relatively unique card game. As with all of Cheapass Games’ products the first thing I heard about it was the tagline: “Everyone is falling, and the object is to hit the ground first. It’s not much of a goal, but it’s all you could think of on the way down.”

Instantly intrigued I surfed over to the Cheapass Games website and went digging around for more information. I came across an article written by James Ernest, the game’s designer and the driving force behind Cheapass Games, discussing some advanced tactics he had recently discovered… long after releasing the game.

I knew right then and there that I had to possess a copy of Falling. Most games, you understand, are like Sorry or Candyland — what little strategy and tactics there are in such games was known by the designers before the first playtest. It is the games which take on a life of their own, which have hidden complexities and dynamic interactions between their components which result in strategies and tactics which the designer never dreamed of, which are the very best games. Games like Chess and Diplomacy. If Falling was truly that type of game, and it contained the same type of powerful innovation found in other Cheapass Games, it was definitely packed with potential.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find Falling anywhere. I scanned the Cheapass racks (with their distinctive white envelopes) in, literally, half a dozen stores without any luck.

Why not? Because Falling is sold as a card pack, in one of those little cardboard boxes, on playing-card stock, for a price of $9.95. From Cheapass Games? What the heck?

Well, after playing the game it has become quickly apparent why this is the case. The cards simply have to be of a higher stock than your typical Cheapass game because, as the box says, Falling is a “frenetic” card game. Without the durability of an actual playing card, anyone owning Falling would quickly find themselves in need of a new deck.

So is this Cheapass Game worth a not-so-cheap price tag?

Hell, yeah.

THE RULES

Falling reminds me of another favorite game of mine, Twitch (from Wizards of the Coast and reviewed elsewhere on RPGNet). They’re both copyrighted for 1998 and therefore I won’t engage in pointless speculation as to which came first – it is far more likely a case of simultaneous inspiration (or drawing from some primal source with which I am wholly not familiar).

I say they remind me of each other, because both of them are “turn-less cardgames” – instead of following a set play order, like your typical card game, both Twitch and Falling feature simultaneous play by all the players at the table. No lazy downtime from these games (I actually managed to work up a hefty sweat while dealing for Falling).

In Twitch, simultaneity is accomplished because the basic mechanic of the game is determining the play order – the card one person plays determines who goes next, and if anyone else can play before that person can, then that person has to pick up the discard stack.

Falling, on the other hand, does it in a completely different fashion. One player is the dealer. Throughout the game all that the dealer does is deal cards, he doesn’t play at all. In fact, the dealer is dealing cards continuously throughout the game, proceeding sequentially from one player to the next. While the dealer deals, the players are all playing cards on themselves and against each other all at the same time.

Cool, huh?

In an unmodified situation (such as the very beginning of the game), each player starts with a single “stack” of cards. The dealer will deal one card to each player’s stack, and then move onto the next player (remember, once he starts dealing, he deals continuously). As the players receive cards, they can pick up one card at a time (and only the card on the top of a stack), which they can play on themselves or on another player.

As cards are played, however, things will change very quickly. The main mechanic in Falling are cards known as “riders”. Essentially, a rider informs the dealer how to deal to a player. There are three types of riders:

Split. A split card tells the dealer to start a new stack for the player (so he would deal one card to the existing stack, and then deal a second card to start a second stack). On subsequent turns, the dealer will deal one card to each stack (however, a player can get rid of a stack if he can play through all the cards in that stack before the dealer returns to him – a dealer only has to deal to stacks he can “see”, unless there are no stacks present in which case he automatically creates one).

Hit. A hit card tells the dealer to deal an additional card to each of the player’s stacks.

Skip. A skip card tells the dealer not to deal to that player this time around.

A player can only have one rider on them at a time. The dealer picks up the rider when he finishes its instruction (so a rider is only in effect for one turn).

In addition to the riders there are also “action” cards, which can be used to manipulate the riders in various ways:

Stop. A stop card destroys the rider. Put the rider in the discard pile, along with the stop pile.

Push. A push card takes a rider which has been played on you, and “pushes” it onto another player.

Grab. A grab card takes a rider which has been played on someone else, and “grabs” it – applying the rider to yourself.

Finally there are the Ground cards, which are placed at the bottom of the deck before the deal begins. If you are dealt a ground card you have hit the ground and are out of the game. The only way to avoid this is to “Stop” the ground card as soon as it is played (in which case it is placed back in the deck by the dealer). Because the ground cards are all grouped together once they start coming out it is generally useful to “Skip” your turn and to “Hit” other people (since having them dealt more cards makes it less likely that they can avoid the ground cards or stop them effectively).

There are a couple of extras (including, ironically, the “Extra” cards) – but that’s the core of the game.

DOES IT WORK?

Yes. Absolutely, positively. We had a rough start-up, since we had several neophytes who couldn’t quite get their heads around the “simultaneous play” portions of the game, but after a few trial runs (during which the dealer dealt very slowly and stopped often so that people could ponder how the game worked) we were able to quickly vamp things up to speed.

And at that point the game rocked. Just like Twitch people became speed demons around that table.

One thing we found of particular interest, though, was the differences in gameplay based on the speed of the dealer. We had a couple of very methodical dealers, who would deal at a steady, even pace. This allowed a bit more of personal reserve and tactical consideration. On the other hand, the speed demon dealers – who would race around the table as quickly as possible – inspired a rapid-response style of play in which you did your best to disadvantage the other players while keeping your disadvantage as limited as possible.

IS IT FUN?

You’re kidding, right?

I have a very large shelf of games (which, coincidentally, is coming to be dominated more and more by Cheapass Games). However, there is a small, select handful which get played time and time again. After one short evening of play, Falling has joined that select list. It is fun, it is engaging, and it is captivating. We were playing at a sizeable family gathering, and our initially small group had soon maxed out my deck many times over. Falling was drawing people to it from across the room.

So get out there. Scour your store for it (it may very well be in the last place you look, as it was for me). Buy it. You won’t regret it.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: James Ernest
Company/Publisher: Cheapass Games
Cost: $9.95
Page Count: n/a
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/08/16

I absolutely adore real-time card games. They are so much fun! Unfortunately, most of the people in my immediate circle of gamers are completely disinterested and I almost never get to play them any more. They also seem to have fallen out of fashion. It makes me all frowny-faced.

It should be noted that Paizo reissued this game. I don’t own the new version, but my understanding is that the rules have not been changed and the only difference is that the game has been re-themed to feature Paizo’s crazy goblins.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Little Dead Riding Hood is a cute little game where little girls wearing multi-hued hoods and wielding high caliber glocks race their way to granny’s house through werewolf-infested woods.

The game has, for all intents and purposes, been universally panned. The reason for this is simple: The rulebook is very bad.

Actually, let me be clear here: The use of the word “bad” here is completely inadequate. It’s like saying, “The Earth is bigger than a basketball.” It’s technically true, but completely misleading in its lack of scale. It needs to be understood that the rulebook for Little Dead Riding Hood is simply dire: It includes two different sequences of play which contradict each other. It has inconsistent use of terminology. It has an illustrative “board explanation” which contradicts the written rules. And, to provide the cherry on top, a significant number of common game play scenarios can’t be resolved using the rules as written. It’s a twisted and essentially unplayable mess.

BUT…

… there’s actually a pretty fun little game in there.

Once you muddle your way through the rulebook’s morass the game actually proves to be interesting, clever, and dynamic with some unique ideas lurking under the hood. (Pardon the pun.)

So I decided to write a revised version of the rulebook in an effort to both clarify the rules as written and also supplement them as necessary in order to resolve key mechanical problems. Hopefully the result will be to make the game both easier to learn and more enjoyable to play.

The revised rulebook does NOT include the clarifications of how specific helpers and cards are resolved. You should reference the original rulebook for that information.

You can also download this file at Boardgame Geek. (You can also find the original rulebook there if you’d like to compare them.)

Revised Rulebook (PDF)

I’m fairly blessed with good fortune when it comes to having people to play games with. My work in theater serves to introduce me to a constant procession of intelligent, creative, wonderful people. (This carries with it the associated curse that it can often be hard to actually find time to hang out with all these intelligent, creative, and wonderful people when you’re all on mutually incompatible show schedules. But as curses go, that one’s not so bad in the grand scheme of things.

Intelligent, creative, and wonderful people make for excellent gaming compatriots. And, as a result, I frequently find myself in the position of needing to introduce new people to the sort of games that aren’t Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, or Pictionary. (Although I’ll often discover that a lot of these people were already dedicated gamers or used to be gamers and would love to be again; I just had no idea until I broached the subject. How many people do you know that you could be gaming with if you just talked to them about it?) Over years of experimentation, I have found that there are effective ways of doing this and less-than-effective ways of doing this.

PICKING A GAME

What I’m specifically going to be talking about today is introducing people to nontraditional, theme-rich boardgames. (Introducing new players to roleplaying games is a different, albeit similar process.) So which game should you use? In my opinion, there are three key factors to consider:

(1) Find a game with a theme that appeals to the new player.

This is pretty basic and should be fairly self-evident. If they like science fiction, introduce them a science fiction game. If they like Victorian London, introduce them to a Jack the Ripper game. And so forth.

(2) Know the game well and practice your introductory spiel.

Don’t try to learn a new game at the same time you’re teaching it to a new player. Study the game and know it well. You need to be completely comfortable with it so that you can quickly answer any questions they might have about game play without delaying to look it up in the rulebook. Your introductory spiel for the game, on the other hand, is the real lynchpin for successfully introducing people to the game. We’ll be delving into that in just a minute.

(3) Co-op games are generally a better way of introducing people to non-traditional gaming.

The advantage of a co-op game is that it’s not necessary for a new player to understand every tactical nuance of the rules: You can introduce the more nitpicky depths of the rules during play without prejudice. (In a competitive game, by contrast, a player needs to basically understand all the rules in all their variations because otherwise they can’t actually compete: It’s not fair for you to suddenly reveal that Queens can move in any direction half-way through a game of Chess. A lot of non-traditional competitive games also feature hidden components, which can make it more difficult or impossible for you to coach new players mid-game.)

All of this is only true, however, if you make sure the new players are included in the decision-making process of the co-op game. If you’ve got a table that defaults towards alpha-quarterbacking (in which the most experienced player makes all the decisions), then virtually all co-op games suck in general and completely suck for new players.

THE INTRODUCTORY SPIEL

For most of the co-op game sin my collection — Arkham Horror, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Knizia’s Lord of the Rings, Level 7: Escape, etc. — I’ve therefore perfected a presentation of the basic rules for the game which generally takes no more than 5 minutes. As an example of this, let’s consider Arkham Horror. (And I’m picking Arkham Horror specifically because I recognize most people would consider it impossibly complex for new players. Whereas, with this approach, I’ve actually found it ideal for introducing new players to theme-rich games.)

Here’s what my introductory spiel looks like. Some of this is visual or physical, so in this text-based format you might need to already be familiar with the game to really follow what I’m talking about. (Fortunately, I’m not actually trying to teach you Arkham Horror; I’m trying to demonstrate how you can break a game down and efficiently present its core components in a way that will easily make sense to new players.)

Welcome to 1920’s Arkham. (point to the board) These are locations and these are streets areas. You can move between these areas by following the lines.

This is your character sheet. At the bottom you’ll see your skills: You can see that each set of skills is paired (Fight and Sneak, Lore and Will, Speed and Luck). You’ll use these sliders to indicate your current level in each skill, trading one against the other. During play, you’ll be able to adjust these values but you can pick you initial value for each skill pair right now. I recommend values in the middle of each range because you don’t really know what you’ll be facing right off the bat.

Note: If you can, get them “hands on” with the game right away. Arkham Horror is great for this because the skill sliders are easy to contextualize and allow the new player to make a meaningful decision less than 30 seconds into your spiel.

You’ll use your skills to make checks. To make a check, you roll a number of dice equal to your skill. 5’s and 6’s are successes. So, for example (roll the dice) on this roll I’ve scored two successes. Generally you just need to score one success in order to succeed on the check, although some checks may be more difficult.

Note: In your spiel you want to drive quickly to the core mechanic and then build up the rest of the game around it. As much as possible you want to avoid saying “I’ll explain that in a minute”. Instead, you want to introduce all the concepts necessary to understand a mechanic before you need to describe that mechanic. This isn’t always possible, of course, but it’s a good goal to strive for because it makes it easier for the new player to build a coherent understanding of how the game works.

Your character also has a special ability, which is described right on your characters sheet.

Note: At this point, I’ll use those special abilities to discuss whatever rules are involved with them. For example, Charlie Kane has an ability related to drawing allies, so I’ll show them the ally cards and point to Ma’s Boarding House on the board. This is useful because it’s personalized and it gives them something concrete to focus on.

The game is broken down into turns. Each turn is broken down into five phases. During each phase, everyone will take their action for that phase in order starting with the first player. Once everyone has gone, we go onto the next phase. Once all the phases are done, the first player token will move to the next player and we’ll start the next turn.

This is our Ancient One: She’s trying to break through into this world and destroy everything. Our job is to stop her.

Note: At this point, I’ll sometimes grab a Call of Cthulhu manual and read the pertinent descriptive text for the Ancient One. It takes a little extra time, but it can help to draw players unfamiliar with Lovecraft into the Mythos.

During the game, gates will open between Arkham locations and the Other Worlds. We’ll need to jump through these gates, journey through the Other World, and then close the gates. When we do that, we’ll collect a gate trophy.

There are three ways to win: When we close a gate, we can spend five of these clue tokens to seal it. If we seal six gates, we win. That’s the easiest way to win. Alternatively, if we can close all the gates on the board and we collectively have a number of gate trophies equal to the number of players we win. Finally, if all else fail and the Ancient One awakens, we’ll have a chance to fight them in a final combat. But that’s painful and difficult, so what it really boils down to is that we want to seal gates.

SAMPLE TURN

At this point, the opening spiel is done: Short and simple. The introduction isn’t quite over yet, but at this point we can start actually playing the game while the explanations continue through a sample turn.

Note that the progression to the sample turn only works if the introductory spiel has conveyed enough of the game’s core structure that the players can understand exactly what’s happening during each turn (and why it’s happening). To put it another way, the new player has to be able to make meaningful decisions about the game.

For example, if you were teaching someone Chess and all you did was show them how each piece moves the new player would be able to select a piece on their turn and move it. But they would still lack the understanding necessary to make a meaningful decision about which piece to move and why to move it. (On the other hand, making a meaningful decision doesn’t necessarily mean understanding the deep strategies of the game. A new Chess player who knows that the goal is to put the opponent’s King in check has enough information to make meaningful decisions. They don’t need to know the difference between a King’s Gambit and a Queen’s Gambit.)

In Arkham Horror you can actually blend the transition between spiel and sample turn a little bit because the last phase of set-up is drawing and resolving a Mythos card (which also happens during play). So let’s draw a hypothetical card now and continue:

(1) Open a gate. We’ll draw a gate token and place it face-up at the location shown on the Mythos card. This gate leads to a specific Other World. (point to that Other World) Whenever a new gate opens, we add a doom token to the Ancient One’s doom track. The Ancient One will awaken when their doom track is full.

(2) Spawn monster. The other thing that happens when a gate opens is that a monster spawns and comes out through the gate. We draw a monster token from this bag over here and place it on the gate.

Note: At this point you might take the time to discuss how you fight monsters. But you can usually wait for that.

(3) Place clue. Next we place a clue token at the location given on the Mythos card. You can pick up all the clue tokens in a location by ending your movement phase on the location. Like we talked about before, you can use five clue tokens to seal a gate. You can also use a clue token to roll one additional die on a skill check.

Note: I use this opportunity to reinforce the basic goal and strategy of the game (“sealing gates”). I might also take the opportunity here to roll another sample check (“For example, if Laura were to make a Lore check she would roll three dice…”) and then demonstrate how a clue token could be used. Finding ways to reinforce/repeat key mechanics, goals, and basic strategies is useful.

(4) Move monsters. If a monster’s symbol appears on the Mythos card, it moves one space following the arrow with a matching color. (For example, on this card hexagon monsters would move along the white arrow.)

(5) Activate Mythos ability. Read the card text aloud. Do whatever it says.

WRAPPING IT UP

And now you’re in the home stretch: Simply walk through the first couple of turns step by step, breaking down each action for the new players. By the end of the second turn, the new players will basically be completely up to speed and fully engaged.

As a final note: You should never tell a new player in a co-op game what they should do. Instead, discuss the strategic situation in the game and present them with options. Let them make meaningful choices. Let them actually play the game.

For example, in Arkham Horror on their first turn might ask, “What should I do?” Don’t tell them something specific like, “Go get that clue token.” Instead discuss broad strategic considerations: “Well, at this point in the game we need to have one or two people collecting five clue tokens each so that they can jump through gates and close them. We also need somebody to fight the monsters to help us keep the board clear for movement. It can also be useful to get $5 and go shopping for an Elder Sign at the Curiositie Shop — that’s an item that will let us automatically seal a gate.” If they decide they want to collect clue tokens and still want more guidance, try to still present them with multiple tactical options: For example, you could show them three different locations that they could move to in order to pick up a clue token and then let them decide which one they want to go to.

For Arkham Horror, I’d also recommend the Arkham Companion app for Android devices. It’s compatible with all of the expansions and completely automates Arkham location and Other World location cards, which massively declutters the table and simplifies game flow. You can read all about it on the FFG forums and you can grab it from either Google Play or Dropbox.

Tagline: A visually stunning, clever game… which is also overly complicated and of questionable purpose.

I was of two minds over reviewing Video Fighter. It is a product which is long out of print – dating back five years to a time when Dream Pod 9 was still just a design studio at Ianus Publications. On the other hand I did just pick it up (new) yesterday, so I have firsthand experience that it’s still sitting on game shelves in some places.

But what really sealed this review’s existence was when I got an e-mail today accusing me of being (and I quote) “a corporate shill” for Dream Pod 9 because of my recent reviews laced with superlatives for the Heavy Gear game. You see, I was honestly disappointed with this product, despite its many positive qualities. The e-mail, combined with the fact that I had previously jested that I was on a “quest” of sorts to find a bad Dream Pod 9 product (see my review of the Heavy Gear Character Compendium), meant that I felt this review had to be done.

Video Fighter 1: Dragons of Fury is the second Card Fighter game (the first was Heavy Gear Fighter, based on the same basic system concepts and also defunct). It attempts to simulate video games like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. As Jean Carrieres describes in his introduction to the 32 page instruction book, it was designed by people with a fix for these types of games… who also happen to get their chronometers cleaned at the local arcades by young kids willing and capable of “spending their last quarter” squeaking out every possible method of annihilating the competition.

Which is, of course, the first problem with this game. It’s a card game attempting to model a video game. It doesn’t try to be a fighter card game. It doesn’t take characters from your favorite video game and do something else with them. It doesn’t try to be abstract, nor does it attempt to model reality. Instead it attempts to model the gameplay of a video game.

Maybe I’m off base here, but what’s the point? I could see creating a card game which is similar to a typical video fighter game – you’d have one-on-one fights, flamboyant characters, etc. But the mechanics would be a model of actual fights. In the case of Video Fighter, on the other hand, you have a card game modeling video games which, in turn, model actual fights. It’s weird.

About the only possible utility a game like this would have is that it would allow you to play these games with a greater reliance on the strategy of combining various moves, rather than having your plans ruined because the other guy can punch buttons faster than you.

I guess if you’re into that type of thing. I, personally, think that this is about as worthwhile as a Monopoly: The Roleplaying Game which attempted to model the mechanics of the boardgame in a format which would allow you to explore the character potentials of being a shoe.

Basically if I wanted to pay a video fighter game I’d turn on the N64 or the Sony Playstation.

Back to Video Fighter. It comes packaged in a video amray (the plastic cases that rental places put the tapes in) with a beautifully illustrated insert. Inside is the aforementioned 32 page rulebook, eight fighter character cards, 108 playing cards, a reference sheet, and counters. The fine print on the back claims that these are all in “full color”, but the rulebook isn’t. Everything is beautifully illustrated by Ghislain Barbe (Dream Pod 9 is so lucky to have him).

This is a really beautiful game. Really fantastic.

Basically the game works like this:

1. All the players pick one of the fighter character cards. Each card has a name and is rated for his hits, action points, stun points, and toughness (for high, torso, and low attacks). Each character also has a selection of “moves” which they can perform.

2. Each player gets a hand of 10 action cards.

3. Play is broken into turns.

4. Whoever has the most action points is the Attacker and the other person is the Defender. So at the beginning of the turn the person with the most action points goes first and continues taking actions until his action point total has become lower than the other player’s, at which point he becomes the Attacker.

5. Attacks are initiated by playing an action card. The attack action cards each an action point cost, damage done, stun, a color, and also a symbol which identifies it as a specific type of attack (such as a punch or a kick). Okay? Now you need to match the symbol and the color to one of the moves printed on your character card. The moves will, themselves, modify the action point cost, damage done, and stun of the action card. There are also tricks which can be played with each move. The colors also determine whether the attack is aiming high, at the torso, or low.

6. You can defend against an attack by playing a blue card. Defense action cards block against either high, torso, low, or all attacks – obviously your defense card has to defend against the appropriate location from which the attack is originating.

7. If an attack hits, you subtract the toughness (from the appropriate location) from the damage done. If you lose all your hits you lose. If you lose all your stun points you can’t take any more actions for the rest of the turn.

8. A turn ends when all of the action points for both characters have been expended. New cards are dealt to bring each hand back up to 10 cards and play continues until someone is defeated.

Phew. That gameplay, in my opinion, is about as complicated as I want to get. Unfortunately there’s far more to this game. There are Trumps. The Tricks take up an entire section of the rulebook by themselves. The possible combinations between moves and action cards and defense options (only one of the many defense options is listed above) are dizzying. Then there are the optional range rules. Heck, there are even exceptions and clarifications to the initiative rules. Plus the rulebook, defying Dream Pod 9’s subsequent record, isn’t organized effectively. Nor are the concepts clearly explained.

Argh!

This is one of those games, I realized, that you get together with a group of your friends and spend about six hours playing (with the rulebook always close at hand) until you’ve finally gotten a fairly firm grasp of the rules… and then you never play it again because by the next morning you’ve forgotten how to play the damn thing and who wants to go through the hassle of learning it again?

Here’s the catch though: It’s fun. I found the gameplay to be fairly snappy once we finally got over the steep learning curve; the initiative system was fun and very effective; even the strategies you could build once you began to get a feel for the various combinations of moves and cards were interesting.

Okay, the sum up: It’s fun. It’s also more complicated than it needs to be (my friends and I both agreed that if we ever play it again we’ll cut a lot of the needless complication and write up a cheat sheet to help us get over the poor quality of the instruction manual). Plus my friends and I still think that the general purpose of this game (to model video fighter games) is questionable – quite a bit of the excess baggage we plan to trim comes in the form of rules attempting to get the card game to behave more like its video equivalents.

Personally I’d suggest picking up Heavy Gear Fighter over this game. It has similar mechanics, but doesn’t share all of the same flaws.

So there you have it: Dream Pod 9 was capable of producing a product I was less than happy with. Of course, it was five years ago. And it’s still visually pretty cool. And the gameplay is quite good once you get through the complicated learning curve. Sure, it’s still above average. Sure, you’ll probably still find me pulling it out from time to time to play. It just wasn’t up to the Pod’s normal quality level. I’ll still be buying their stuff sight unseen – assured of their quality before the book ever leaves the shelf.

(Okay, so maybe this won’t entirely satisfy that anonymous e-mail writer. Tough.)

[ Video Fighter 1: Dragons of Fury was originally, as the numeral in the title might suggest, supposed to be the first in a series of Video Fighter products. This was called the “Wolf” deck (Wolf being one the characters in the game), with decks specialized to the other characters coming later. These sequels never appeared and Dream Pod 9 has now abandoned both Video Fighter and the entire Card Fighter line. ]

Style: 5
Substance: 3

Author: Jean “Mr. Chun Li” Carrieres with Alexandre Racine
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $29.95
ISBN: 2-921-573-20-2

Originally Posted: 1999/05/28

I knew the word “amray” because I was working at Hollywood Video when I wrote this review. As the defunct nature of that particular business might suggest — along with the references to the N64 and Sony Playstation-sans-numeral — it’s been a long, long time since I wrote these things. Since then I’ve found quite a few Dream Pod 9 products I’ve been unhappy with, but my opinion of Video Fighter hasn’t changed: It spends too much time aping one medium within the constrictions of another. Shortly after this, Cheapass Games would release the superb Brawl card game which similarly approached the “fighter” genre. But whereas Video Fighter spent its time trying to model a video game, James Ernest’s Brawl instead captured the furious intensity of a fighting game using mechanics which are uniquely suited for the tabletop.

If you ever want to be a game designer, I recommend comparing Video Fighter and Brawl side-by-side until you fully, completely, and utterly grok the difference.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

In my review of the Magic the Gathering Official Encyclopedia yesterday I mentioned how Magic cards can be used to great effect as a quick source of inspiration. Here are a couple quick examples of this from my own campaigns.

ARBORETUM GROTTO

“Clay Golem” – Magic the Gathering: Fourth Edition

• A thick, tiered cleft. Magical lights clinging to the ceiling seem to cast daylight down onto the thick pleats of overgrowth choking the miniature, underground veil.
• SPINDERS: 8 spinders roam through the overgrowth. (These can be found in the Book of Fiends, one of the best bestiaries ever produced.)
• STATUE OF LIGHT: In the middle of the grotto sits a squat statue of clay clasping a bowl which seems lit from within. (See visual handout, above.)
  • LIQUID LIGHT: The bowl is filled with liquid light. Anyone touching the liquid will cause it to flow up over their hand (or hands). From that point forward, their hands will permanently glow white — producing the effects of a daylight spell.
• ALCHEMY (DC 25): Recognize that most of the plants growing here are actually valuable alchemical ingredients. 6 hours harvesting could yield 5,000 gp of raw ingredients.

THE GLASSWORKS

“Urza’s Power Plant” – Magic the Gathering: Antiquities

• A twisted morass of glass piping filled with flowing fire.
• THE ARTIFURNACE: Near the center of the twist labyrinth of glass is the Artifurnace. Eight large valves run around its circumference . (See visual handout, above.)
  • CRACKING THE ARTIFURNACE: If all eight valves are released, the Artifurnace can be opened.
  • HELM OF FIRE ELEMENTAL CONTROL: Suspended within the Artifurance is a helm of fire elemental control (crafted from brass and gold). But it doesn’t work: One wearing the helm can summon a Large fire elemental, but anyone wearing the helm will instantly provoke rage from any fire elemental.
• FIRE ELEMENTALS: If any of the glass tubing is broken or the valves of the Artifurnace opened, the fire elementals trapped within the tubing will break free in a rage.
  • 1 Huge Fire Elemental, 2 Large Fire Elementals, 16 Small Fire Elementals
• DM BACKGROUND: The idea was to create a magical item through entirely sympathetic rituals (by controlling the fire elementals physically, imbue an item with the ability to control them). Instead, the item became imbued with the rage of the imprisoned elementals.