Tagline: Possibly the funniest gamer-related cartoon of all time, Knights of the Dinner Table has well-deserved its position as a cult classic. All true gamers should be reading this. Hoody hoo!

I would now give the title of “funniest gamer-related cartoon of all time” to the early strips of Order of the Stick. I have long since let my subscription to Knights of the Dinner Table lapse, but these early strips are still hilarious good fun.

Although this review purports to focus primarily on the reprint volume Bundle of Trouble it’s really going to be a general assessment of the Knights of the Dinner Table (KODT) strip as a whole.

KODT debuted in the pages of Shadis several years ago when its creator, Jolly Blackburn, was still serving as the editor of the magazine he had created. Jolly would eventually leave Shadis and KODT would make the transition to the back of Dragon Magazine. More recently KODT has become its own stand-alone comic/magazine and is now well over the twenty issue mark. The first few issues have become scarce and impossible to track down, which brings us to Bundle of Trouble — a reprint volume of the first three issues.

Although gamer-oriented comics have had a place in the hobby for years, KODT was the first strip to truly take the humor of those strips out of the game settings and place it on the gamers themselves. It focuses on the escapades of B.A. Felton, the GM, and his players: Bob Herzog, Dave Bozwell, Brian Van Hoose, and (more recently) Sara Felton (B.A.’s cousin). In addition, a large supporting cast has been established, including Gary Jackson (the creator of the HackMaster(TM) game); Nitro Ferguson (infamous for his LARP involving steam tunnels and college students); and Weird Pete (everyone’s favorite game store owner and Keeper of the Lore).

It has become clear over the years of KODT’s growing popularity and success that Jolly Blackburn has successfully tapped into the gamer’s consciousness. His strips repeatedly strike far too close to home not to elicit peals of laughter while raising the question, “Where has he hidden the camera he’s filming my gaming group with?” Again and again Jolly succeeds at pinioning the classic stereotypes and realities of gamers in a hilarious fashion. His quirky, amateur style – which he constantly pokes fun at himself – only serves to heighten the effect. It has well-deserved its reputation as a cult classic and is quite possibly the funniest gaming-related comic every produced. All true gamers should be reading this strip, and Bundle of Trouble would be an excellent place to start.

Hoody hoo!

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Jolly Blackburn
Company/Publisher: Kenzer & Company
Cost: $9.95
Page count: 96
ISBN: n/a
Originally Posted: 1998/12/14

No offense to my former self, but this is a terrible review: It summarizes content without explaining why the summary is significant, and it spends far too much time saying “it’s really funny!” without explaining why I think it’s funny. It starts to pull itself together in the last paragraph, but then abruptly stops instead.

Ah, well. Can’t win ’em all.

On the other hand, I am going to go pull my collections down off the shelf.

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

Part of my general dissatisfaction with Geoffrey McKinney’s Carcosa is certainly due to a difference of opinion when it comes to methodology.

First, whether we’re talking hex keys or dungeon keys, I’m extremely skeptical of key entries that consist of nothing more than a list of monsters. This is particularly true of published products, and yet a depressingly huge number of Carcosa’s key entries consist entirely of things like “17 Diseased Guardians”, “13 giant lizards”, and “5 Mummies”.

It’s bland and it’s boring. It’s also virtually useless.

Unfortunately, this generally remains true of Carcosa‘s key even when more details are proffered. For example, massive chunks of the book consist of, “[Settlement type] of # [type of human] ruled by [insert title], a [alignment] [level] [class].” (For example: “Village of 400 Green Men ruled by ‘the Peerless Will,’ a neutral 8th-level Fighter.”) And even more are dedicated to describing the particular physical characteristics of various Spawn of Shub-Niggurath, all of which were generated using the charts found at the back of the book with no additional creative thought applied whatsoever.

And that, ultimately, is probably the biggest indictment against Carcosa’s hex key: Virtually all of it could have been more usefully rendered as a half dozen random tables.

Second, even when the hex key shows greater creativity, it usually takes the form of material which is non-actionable during an actual game session. For example, hex 2004 is keyed:

A Brown Man, dressed in immaculate white robes fringed with golden embroidery, rests quietly by the side of the path. He acknowledges with a barely perceptible nod. It would be wise to return this show of respect with a dignified bow or curtsy.

… or what? He’ll attack? He’ll shed his skin and reveal himself to be a Spawn of Shub-Niggurath? He’ll curse them? He’ll turn out to be a demi-god? He’ll betray them to their worst enemies?

The argument can, of course, be made that the purpose of the key is merely to serve as a creative seed for the GM. But, if so, why is McKinney so delightfully enamored with the words “cannot” and “never”? Let’s proffer hex 2105 as an example:

Drums, the clash of war cymbals, and the deep clangor of a mighty gong can be heard coming from the desert. The sounds taper and crescendo with the bluster of the wind, but their source can never be found.

Even if this wasn’t the umpteenth time I’d read some variation of “there are mysterious sounds and you can never figure out what they are“, you can’t try to defend half the hex entries by saying “just ideas to develop” while the other half of your hexes are trying to stifle the development of those ideas.

I recognize that many of these elements are historic qualities of classic hex-based supplements like the Wilderlands. But Carcosa is a particularly bland and repetitive instantiation of the form, and I also think 1976 was a long time ago. Similarly, while I may find Palace of the Vampire Queen a fascinating historical oddity and revolutionary for its time, anybody trying to sell me a dungeon designed like that today is not going to win my applause.

TO THE GOOD

One point of particular interest in Carcosa are the sorcerous rituals. These have received a good deal of attention because many of them require specific vile acts in order to perform them (murder, rape, and so forth), but that’s largely a tempest in a teapot. (Although the critics would lead you to believe that they’re graphic snuff pornography, the reality is that the vile acts — while specific — are not detailed or described in any sort of lurid detail. If rape or violence against children are trigger words for you, you should probably avoid this book. Otherwise, you’ll find more graphic stuff in a Clive Barker, Jacqueline Carey, or Stephen King novel.) What I actually find interesting about the sorcerous rituals is that they provide an innovative method for motivating and directing the exploration of the hex map.

For example, the Approach of the Farthest Rim, “can be performed only in the lost fane in hex 2401”. Whether the PCs are trying to stop a sorcerer performing this ritual or playing villains attempting to complete the ritual for themselves, this kind of specificity will drive them out into the wilderness of Carcosa: They have to find that fane. In fact, even if the ritual is not being performed (by the bad guys or the PCs), learning the details of the ritual inherently provides a hook: What else might be inside the fane?

That’s a clever structure for delivering scenario hooks and I’ll almost certainly be lifting it in the future.

In a similar vein of derived utility, the random charts for Spawn of Shub-Niggurath, Space Alien Armament, Random Robots, and Mutations are all fairly well done.

All of this, unfortunately, is fairly brief in character and scarcely justifies the purchase price for Carcosa. Which regrettably brings us…

TO THE FURTHER BAD

Overwhelmingly, my disappointment with Carcosa stems from the lack of anything truly weird or creative in the setting. The book bills itself as a “Weird Science-Fantasy Horror Setting” and I was expecting a creative burst of the unique, the bizarre, and the alien. What I got instead was “9 Tyrannosaurus Rexes”. (And, no, occasionally adding the words “mutant”, “radioactive”, or “fungoid growth” to the tyrannosaur doesn’t actually make it notably more interesting.)

Adding to the supplement’s weakness is the extremely questionable quality of McKinney’s house rules. Basically, the book starts by detailing a lengthy system in which you use a d20 roll to randomly determine what type of dice you roll before rolling them (d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12). If you squint hard enough, you can almost have this make sense for Hit Dice (which McKinney has you re-roll at the beginning of every combat), but when he goes on to do the same thing with weapon damage (so that every time you make an attack you roll one of every die type and then use the d20 to determine which of the other dice count) all you can do is start backing away slowly.

Unfortunately, you won’t be quick enough to avoid the next page where he lays out the statistical analysis which demonstrates that, on average, all of this extra complexity and dice rolling has virtually no effect whatsoever.

And then there’s a whole related mechanic where you have to keep track of multiple hit point totals for each character… But I digress.

Finally, although other options are proffered, the supplement largely bills itself as a place to run full campaigns. (The book even includes an introductory adventure.) But there’s no place on Carcosa that’s accessible to new characters. Virtually every keyed encounter in the book is aimed at mid-to-high level play. (And most of those seem to be heavily inspired by the Tomb of Horrors “save or die… actually, screw it, just skip the save: you’re dead” school of design.)

For example, the starter adventure is set in hex 2005. Despite being specifically and explicitly aimed at 1st level characters, this module includes random encounters with 10 HD monsters. (And the hexes immediately surrounding hex 2005 are no better: Hex 2004, for example, contains five aggressive 10 HD monsters. If you follow the standard hexcrawling practice of automatically triggering the keyed encounter when the group enters a hex, anybody who strays too far north during the intro adventure is going to get TPK’ed.)

IN SUMMARY

There’s really no question that Carcosa is a truly gorgeous volume. Lamentations of the Flame Princess have lavished the volume with fantastic illustrations by Rich Longmore; the paper is thick and luxurious; the binding is superb; the layout and cross-referencing are excellent. (The PDF is somewhat flawed by the decision to de-synch the page numbers and make it unreadable on e-readers and tablets, but this is somewhat compensated by the encyclopedic cross-linking.) It even comes with a cloth map, which — as an old fanatic of the Ultima computer games — is a decision I absolutely adore.

But, ultimately, all of this glitzy extravagance surrounds a hollow core. Most of the book is nothing more than rote mediocrity, large chunks of the rest are unusable in any form, and, when all is said and done, you will come away with nothing more than a dozen or so decent ideas that might be useful if you polish them up a bit. That’s a good showing for a blog post, but for a $40+ supplement? It’s a disappointment.

Style: 5
Substance: 2

Tagline:In the spirit of Capture the Flag and Paintball, but with twists all its own, Killer definitely deserves the title of Best LARP of All Time.

Running Just as I’ve never had a chance to run the Darkness Revealed trilogy, I’ve also never managed to get a proper game of Killer set-up. Yet another some day…

The history of Killer: The Game of Assassination dates all the way back to 1981. This new edition, released in 1998, continues the nearly 20 year tradition admirably.

Killer’s basic concept can be summed up very simply (in the words of SJG): “Wipe out your friends.” Basically Killer gives you a set of guidelines for setting up a competitive structure in which, yes, you go around killing your friends. This shouldn’t be confused with something like Paintball – where you go out into the wilderness and spend a few hours blowing each other away in a fairly harmless manner. No, as the full title (“The Game of Assassination”) suggests this is more subtle than that – a typical game can stretch over weeks, months, or even (although I pale to think of it) years. You don’t walk up to somebody and shoot them, instead you have to plot ingenious and crafty ways of knocking them off. You’re not a soldier, you’re an Assassin.

With such a simple concept, you might think, you don’t have to even buy the book. And why is it 80 pages long – there must be a lot of fluff, huh?

Wrong.

This is a great manual giving you giving a set of guidelines and a handbook to playing the game. It starts by giving you a general set of rules which you can use to vary the specific nature of your game (examples vary between allowing access to living places or times of day when killing is allowed). From there it gives an exhaustive list of fake weapons which can be constructed and used (and cautionary notes against many which should not be used) – from guns to bombs to poisons to sci-fi contraptions.

From these basics the book provides several optional versions of the game, some general words of advice and caution, some pre-built scenarios which can be used, a scoring system, and a set of photocopiable faux documents for the use of the playing group. And let’s not forget the hilarious illustrations which accompany the text.

All in all by the time I finished reading this manual I was itching to set up a game. Definitely give this book a try, at only fifteen bucks you won’t be disappointed.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: Steve Jackson
Company/Publisher: Steve Jackson Games
Cost: $14.95
Page count: 80
ISBN: 1-55634-351-5
Originally Posted: 1998/12/14

I actually had no memory of reading this book or writing this review until I started converting it for the website; then a flood of memories came rushing back. It was after a few experiences like this that I started keeping a log of books as I read them. Human memory is a really fickle thing.

I do remember now that my interest in this book grew as a direct result of my first experiences with paintball (which I was properly introduced to by members of my D&D group at the time). I was never able to get that group interested in Killer, though.

Has anybody reading this participated in a round of assassination? How was it? Worth the time for me to try to get one set-up?

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

Tagline: An excellent story which, unfortunately, has some flaws as a module, which are further compounded by some truly baffling design decisions.

Running the Darkness Revealed trilogy in its entirety is on my bucket list. I’ve tried on three occasions, but have never managed to actually make a campaign congeal. Some day…

(In other words, if you’re potentially one of my players you shouldn’t read this review!)

Note: This product is a module. In the following review there will quite likely be spoilers of various sorts. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Descent into Darkness is the first of a three-part adventure series for White Wolf’s Trinity. It contains three separate adventures which are joined thematically, thrusting the PCs into the heart of a major development in the Trinity universe. At $15.95, its a great deal in this age of $20 single-sheet modules and $25-$35 sourcebooks.

That being said, this product possesses some serious – although not irreparable – flaws.

GOOD STORY, WEAK MODULE

The adventure is based on some rock-solid material. The vast conspiracy plot being described in this adventure is nefarious, wicked, and cleverly conceived – my mouth was practically salivating thinking of running players through this puppy and having them slowly piece the puzzle together. Unfortunately I discovered that, having this rock-solid material in place, the writers then fell down flat in presenting it. In two of the adventures the full picture has absolutely no chance of being revealed until the very end – where we are instructed to have the PCs discover what’s been going on by looking at the minicomps possessed by the NPC conspirators. In the third you might be able to discover some of what’s going on, but only if you possess a specific psi power and make a specific die roll which will send you down the right path. Otherwise you have to wait until the end and disseminate the data files. The writers here wanted a mystery, but apparently didn’t have either the skill or the patience to see it carried out properly – so instead the PCs are onslaughted by forces they don’t understand in a series of segues they can’t comprehend, until the end where the GM is apparently supposed to lecture them for several minutes explaining the really excellent story they didn’t understand while experiencing it.

COLORED SECTIONS

This problem is further compounded by the three glossy color sections found in the book. These are designed to be given to the players as briefing files from the Aeon Trinity organization. Besides the obvious problem that these three sections are spread throughout the book so that you are faced with a decision of (a) ripping them out and completely destroying the product; or (b) xeroxing them (and thereby removing the entire reason for having them in color to begin with), these sections also successfully serve to completely destroy the plots of the adventures and suspension of disbelief.

For example, in the first adventure the PCs are supposed to be investigating shady activities of the Aesculapian Order on Luna. Eventually they will discover that this secret “biorg project” is being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Jerzy Grabowski, that it is using Aberrant taint to genetically alter psions in order to greatly increase their power, and that these new bioapp-enhanced psions were field tested in destroying Freak Alley while fighting Aberrants at a Lunar Base; and, finally, that a Dr. Malachi Ross was tested with these bioapps, escaped, and is now hunting Dr. Grabowski.

Reading the color briefing section for this adventure (to be disseminated to the players before the adventure starts) we are given the following pieces of documentation: (1) A transcript describing the attack on the Lunar Base in great detail; (2) An autopsy report of a John Doe found at the site of the attack who died of bioapp-feedback and then subsequently had all the bioapps removed from his body before the docs arrrived at the scene; (3) a hand-written note at the bottom of this autopsy report saying (essentially), “Jerzy—this guy knows too much, we need to transfer him to a place where he’ll never bother us again”); (4) excerpts from the diary of Dr. Malachi Ross which not only tells us his name, but also that he’s involved in the “Huang-Marr” bioapp project.

Do we see a pattern of similarity here? By the time the players finish reading their mission briefings they already know everything they need to know; they just have to go through the motions. Not only that, but the material found in these Aeon Trinity briefings pretty much invalidates the PCs actions: If you are wondering whether or not Jerzy Grabowski is involved in something fishy, is it really necessary to have the PCs look for that something if you’ve already got a memo with an incriminating note on the bottom of it?

BREVITY

The other major problem I was having with the adventures as described is that they are awfully brief and light on character activity. The first adventure, for example, has the players go to the clinic where Grabowski works and accomplish very little. Then they go to the site of the Aberrant attack, look around, and find nothing of much interest. Then they go to Freak Alley and find (you guessed it) little of interest. Then they go back to the clinic and, for some reason, they are now supposed to have enough evidence to arrest Grabowski (despite the fact they have uncovered NO evidence that wasn’t already in the briefing report, unless they randomly decied to hack into the clinic’s computers and discover the completely non-incriminating evidence that Grabowski is scheduled to go to Earth soon). Assuming they do this, Ross breaks into his cell and Grabowski is killed. Once Grabowski’s dead they hack into his minicomp and find out the details.

At no point (as a result of the color inserts) do the PCs really learn anything, nor do they really accomplish anything (the real work is done by the people they’re supposed to call in to arrest Grabowski), nor is it really ever explained to us what drives them along the course they’re supposed to take. However, the module does imply that they are supposed to waste great quantities of time (for example, when going to Freak Alley it is apparently assumed that they will spend great amounts of time talking with those who saw the accident… but no one will know anything of any interest).

The second adventure is the strongest of the three, but still suffers from unsubstantiated leaps of “logic” which the PCs are supposed to be making. In my experience, this type of module design inevitably leads to a necessity of dropping “subtle GM hints” in order to prod the players along the railroad.

PLOTTING BY LOCATION

No, the book doesn’t have location-coded maps, but one of the more egregious plotting stupidities they pull takes place in the third episode. The PCs arrive at Summit Center, a giant complex which literally circles the peak of Olympus Mons on Mars on a rail. Once there they are apparently supposed to wander around the place accomplishing absolutely nothing until such time as they end up standing in front of the power core (which, for some idiotic reason, is located at the very center of the complex and is highly visible to the public). At this point a would-be assassin launches a grenade at them.

Why? Because it’s necessary to blow up the power core so that Summit Center will collapse and go rolling down the side of Olympus Mons. Huh? The number of things ignored in this railroaded plot (what if the PCs split up? what if the PCs never go anywhere near the required location?) is mind-boggling.

INVOLVEMENT

One nice touch is the way in which the designers don’t simply gloss over PC involvement. Throughout the work several different methods are mentioned as to different ways PCs can become involved (fresh starts, skipping certain episodes, etc.) and then these are actually followed up later on, with pointers on how various PC involvement strategies will affect the way certain sequences play out.

This is a nice touch, especially in comparison to many other adventure products out there (which either leave the work up to the GM entirely or gloss over a few weakly inspired ideas and then drop them – as if why the PCs are involved in an adventure has no impact on how they will approach the events which envelop them).

ARTWORK AND TEXT

The quality of the artwork is quite excellent in some cases, and never worse than average. However, in several cases little connection between what the art is representing and the text can be made (although often you will realize that the art was depicting something that would be discussed later in the text), and is often recycled several times through the work (confirming that no connection is actual, although often it is implied).

The text is very readable, full of information, and nicely laid out on the page. Even the sidebars are placed in such a way that they are informative and easily digested (too many products just stick the sidebars in any old place, and it becomes difficult to assimilate what they are trying to tell you).

CONCLUSION

Having said all these negative things about the plotting and construction of these adventures I’m going to do a rather surprising thing: I’m going to suggest that you buy this product.

No, White Wolf isn’t paying me sizable amounts of cash to say this (or even insignificant amounts of cash). I say it because the background-material on which these adventures are based is, as I said at the beginning of this review, rock-solid and highly worthy of your consideration. Naturally they need a bit of work. Here’s what you’ll need to do to make this product worth your while:

(1) Don’t hand out those color sections.

(2) Redesign the flow of the adventures so that they operate like true mysteries. Only a hack designs a mystery where everything is discovered at the last minute: Have the PCs gather clues slowly throughout the process, and then have them put it together before the big finale (not in the aftermath by finding a handy minicomp).

(3) Seriously work at the connective material. Right now the modules are driven along a railroad; find a reason for the PCs to progress. Better yet, find many possible reasons, and many possible routes. Your players will probably still thwart you, but at least you’ll be better prepared to deal with them.

So I guess that’s my conclusion: The adventures are crummy, but they rest on such a fascinating, rock-solid set of background information that the product is still worth picking up (particularly at $15.95 – great price!). Just be aware you’re going to have to put a little bit of elbow grease into making this one serviceable.

Style: 4
Substance: 3

Author: Bruce Baugh and Richard E. Dansky
Company/Publisher: White Wolf
Cost: $15.95
Page count: 120
ISBN: 1-56504-751-6
Originally Posted: 1998/12/11

For several years after writing this review, Bruce Baugh would publicly cite me as his favorite reviewer and credit the useful critiques of this specific review for greatly improving the second and third volumes of the series. (And they were, in fact, very much improved, as you’ll see in later reviews.) I enjoyed Baugh’s work before, but after that I respected him greatly. Not because he was praising me (although that was nice), but because he was willing to take a critique that wasn’t sugar-coated and grow from it.

I wrote this a few years before formulating the Three Clue Rule, but you can already see some of its roots here. I’ve had a long dislike for the “mysterious shit happens and the PCs have no way of figuring it out” method of adventure design, though. It goes all the way back to reading the Touch of Death module in junior high, as I describe here: Stop playing poker with your players!

I’m also faintly amused by the quaintness of my complaints vis-a-vis xeroxing the color sections of the modules. These days, of course, I’d just pop open the PDF and use my color printer to crank out as many copies as I thought might be useful. (I wouldn’t in this case, of course, because they really do suck as handouts. Although it should be noted that a few pages can probably be salvaged.)

Read the review of Darkness Revealed 2: Passage Through Shadow

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

Tagline: It’s FUDGE. It’s the 1^st edition DMG. It’s a campaign. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It is worth the money.

This review requires a bit of history to put it into its proper context.

Multiverser became the first game to become an official RPGNet Pariah, a status which actually originated on various Usenet groups. Basically, the game was released, the creator pitched it as the greatest thing since sliced bread (using basically all the same rhetoric you’d expect from a fantasy heartbreaker), and was then sandbagged by the internet.

Hilariously, one of the biggest complaints was that they were charging $50 for the core rulebooks. $50! (This was hilarious partly because this included two books totaling 710 pages, and even in 1999 $50 was hardly an outrageous or unusual price for that. In retrospect it’s even more hilarious, because within a couple years the entire industry was finally forced to accept that they had been undercharging for their products for at least a decade and $50 core rulebooks became relatively commonplace.)

In response to the sandbagging, Mark Young, the creator of the game, asked for reviewers. I volunteered. He sent me a digital copy of the rules. This is what I found…

Note 1: It is important to note right up front that the price of $50 represents not only the core Multiverser rulebook, but also a volume called The First Book of Worlds. This review only deals with the core rules. A future review will deal with The First Book of Worlds.

Note 2: Secondly, I want to explain how this review came about. It sprang from a series of debates regarding the Multiverser system which took place on the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.frp.misc. Following the debate several people, including myself, stepped forward to offer reviews of the system in order to prevent some solid facts regarding the system in a debate which had otherwise consisted largely of unfounded supposition versus extravagant claims. Valdron, Inc. provided me with an electronic review copy. Valdron, Inc. did not solicit this review; nor do I feel in anyway indebted to them – but you deserve to know from whence the review came.

The first thing I should say regarding this game is that it was extremely difficult to get a grasp on it in order to review it. With most games that I review its relatively simple to quickly catch onto what the system and setting are attempting to do and then proceed from there. With Multiverser I had an amazing amount of difficult doing this. I think this is because I had some extremely incorrect expectations coming into this game, and then had to completely change my POV before it began to make sense.

Here, then, is my conclusion:

Multiverser is a campaign game wrapped up in an extremely complicated system which is a fascinating mixture of FUDGE and the 1st Edition AD&D DMG. It is completely unlike anything I’ve seen before – and that either means its a game perched on the edge of breakthrough success, or instant obscurity. It’s not for everyone, but it just might be for you.

IT’S A CAMPAIGN, STUPID

The first, and biggest, breakthrough for me was the realization of exactly what this game was attempting to be. The title and various discussions concerning the system had completely mislead me into believing that Multiverser was a generic gaming engine in the spirit of GURPS, Hero, and others. It took me nearly fifty pages before I realized this wasn’t what their goal was at all – rather what was being presented was a very basic, very broad multi-genre campaign in the spirit of Sliders or GURPS Alternate Earths.

What distinguishes this particular campaign is the idea of scriff – possibly the most original and thought-provoking concept I personally found within the covers of the book. The basic idea is that all the PCs are imbued with a substance known as scriff. The concept of scriff makes Multiverser possibly the only RPG on the market where the PCs are expected to kick the bucket on a regular basis – because whenever they do so they reappear in an alternate universe. This mode of play obviously has certain drawbacks (for one thing no long-term development of setting or NPC interaction), but these are common limitations of the dimension-hopping genre.

Another interesting facet of this campaign is that Multiverser positively goes out of its way to encourage the GM to have the players split up – reawakening in separate universes – before finally reuniting together in a single universe after several side-trips. This, of course, makes for much more difficult campaigns to run – but Multiverser states right up front that this game is not for amateur GMs and that this concept, in particular, is much more difficult to run than a standard RPG environment where all the PCs stick together. In many ways I was reminded of the type of campaign described in the Amber Diceless Roleplaying System. There is, of course, no requirement that you play your games in this manner – although I would then suggest figuring out some reason why the players always seem to appear together and go places together. You will also need to define a much tighter plot since it will be necessary to kill off all the PCs in a fairly narrow section of time in order to have them all be in the same place at the same time.

A far more nebulous decision for the campaign comes in the form of having the players play themselves. Although I have known some campaigns based on this premise to work, these success stories are vastly outnumbered by horror stories – particularly of the variety wherein the GM doesn’t seem to think that Joe Average Player is as intelligent as Einstein. The decision to stress this as a campaign necessity, rather than simply an option, is even more puzzling considering that character creation is entirely descriptive – you assign whatever you feel to be appropriate without worrying about points, classes, levels, or other balancing mechanisms. This is so completely easy to ignore, however, that is little more than an irritating artifact.

FUDGE?

Reading my summary of the system probably left many of you with a serious question: “Wait a minute, its a complicated system which is like FUDGE? Is that even possible?”

Well, not quite. But the methodology is more than slightly similar: Provide a basic system which can be extrapolated, changed, and added to as the GM sees fit. Of course with a complicated system its a far more difficult to “fudge” things than in a simple system like FUDGE, but the Multiverser designers more than compensate for this by providing you with a wealth of options as well as a peek into the game theory which went into designing the system.

To give you an idea of the type of material included let me point towards Appendix 3: Basic Dicing Curves. This Appendix deals exhaustively with how the probability curves of dice work. This information is provided because the central resolution mechanic is designed in such a way that the GM is expected to modify the type of dice used to resolve an action, in order to obtain precisely the result they want.

Sound familiar? It should. FUDGE uses an identical methodology. Of course FUDGE’s system is so simple that it’s not necessary to explain probability distribution. I, personally, prefer FUDGE, but it is also easy for me to see how the Multiverser system could hold appeal – it has a precision which the extremely low granularity of FUDGE will never possess. This precision, of course, comes at the cost of complexity – and you should ask yourself which compromise you want to take.

FIRST EDITION AD&D?

Another question which probably sprung to your mind was, “The First Edition DMG? And you think this is favorable review?”

In short: Yes.

One of the things which came out in the discussion on rec.games.frp.misc was that the Multiverser designers considered the DMG1 to be one of the greatest gaming manuals ever produced. This naturally baffled quite a few people, myself included. It was only once I saw Multiverser that I understood why they had said that and why they believe that.

First, you won’t find much artwork in this book. The thing is 515 pages long and all but a dozen or so of those are packed full with words and nothing else. Those of you who have been bemoaning the rise in art-content in books to the detriment of practical gaming content would rejoice to see that the Multiverser creators have embraced this spirit as well. Information is what the gamer needs, the thinking goes, and information is what we’ll give him.

In fact, the only art in the book is a full-page piece at the top of each chapter. If you’ve seen the art in the 1st edition of AD&D you’ll know what to expect – plain ink drawings, with often humorous content (my personal favorites include the robotic hand dropping a set of dice into a three-fingered alien palm, and the two pilots sitting next to their crashed ship of fantastic technology attempting to light a fire by rubbing two sticks together).

Second, as I’ve said before, this book is packed with information. Sure we all laugh at Gygax’s Table of Courtesans, but some of the stuff in the DMG1 was invaluable for those who like having a separate, specific rule to cover everything. The Multiverser designers, again, took this to heart. Again, it’s not a style I personally enjoy – but it is a style I can easily appreciate the appeal of.

Multiverser of course does this without adopting Gygax’s atrocious and opaque prose style.

$50?!?!?!

The biggest concern, by far, concerning the Multiverser system is the price tag – you have to spend $50 to get the basic book.

$50?!?! Forget it, right?

Well, first realize that the basic book isn’t actually $50. Included in that total is the First Book of Worlds, which (as its title suggests) contains several different worlds which your players can travel to. The reason you can only buy these two books together is because the Multiverser team feels very strongly that everything you need to play a game should be found in one book – and although they couldn’t print everything in one book for various reasons, they thought they could at least include it under one price tag.

Personally I think they’re nuts. It’s a good philosophy, but frankly everything you need to play Multiverser IS in the core book and the First Book of Worlds strikes me as completely optional. They should separate the package and, thereby, lower the price to a level where gamers would feel much better about sending money to them in order to try their game system. This become even more true since you can’t get Multiverser in stores to my knowledge, only through mail order.

To be fair in judging the value of the core rulebook though, let’s judge it at a cost of $25 (split it evenly right down the middle between the two books). Is Multiverser worth $25?

The answer is, “Hell yeah!” If nothing else this system is exhaustive in the detail and options it provides – providing ammunition and material for other games you may choose to run. Of particular use, I’ve found, is the aforementioned Appendix 3 – which very nicely summarizes probability theory concerning dice and allows easy calculation of the probability spread in any system you might choose to run.

Compare the densely packed text of these 515 pages to the $30-$35 game books that are coming out now from other companies, and you can clearly see that if nothing else, you’re getting your money’s worth.

(I will be reviewing the First Book of Worlds at a later date when I have had time to more properly study it. Allow me to state again that $50 for this two book package is not at all a bad price when compared with the rest of the industry. For example if you look at Heavy Gear (one of my favorite systems) a comparable purchase there would be the core rulebook and the Life on Terra Nova sourcebook, a combined total of approximately $55.)

A FEW SUGGESTIONS

All that being said, Multiverser does possess a rather sizable flaw and it’s a flaw which is large enough to suggest that a second edition of this game would be well advised. My suggestions if such a thing were to ever come to pass:

1. As mentioned before, drop the “play yourself’ requirement from the rules. At most offer it as a suggested method of play, but also include other suggestions.

2. The book is in need of reorganization. Clearly delineate your various ideas into separate, distinct sections. This need is particularly poignant since the primary strength of the system, in my opinion, is the way in which you can mix-and-match elements.

3. Clarify your system mechanics. They are good mechanics and achieve what they are aiming for, but they also vaguely expressed in some places.

A further suggestion which might be immediately implemented, and has already been implied, is that you begin selling these books separately. There’s no real need to mandatorily sell them together, and I believe you are doing nothing but injuring your sale potentials by marketing the books in this fashion.

SUMMARY

The quick-and-dirty summary of this product?

The content is great, the lay-out and presentation need some work (although there’s nothing wrong with the information-heavy approach, clarification and distinction is particularly needed considering how much material is present). This system is not for those who dislike complicated systems – you will absolutely hate it. Those who do like more complicated systems will, however, find a plethora of ideas to use elsewhere even if they don’t like the system itself.

Style: 2
Substance: 4

Author: E.R. Jones and Mark Young
Company/Publisher: Valdron, Inc.
Cost: $25 ($50 for both books)
Page count: 551
ISBN: n/a
Originally Posted: 1998/09/25

At the time, this review seemed to have the effect of quashing Multiverser’s pariah status. I don’t think it won the game any particular fans, either, but people stopped treating it like a trampoline. (So it served a kind of inverse function to Darren MacLennan and Jason Sartin’s review of F.A.T.A.L., which righteously ensconced that game into a private hall of eternal infamy.)

Looking back, I’m somewhat bemused by my discussion of the 1st Edition DMG. At the time, it really was basically impossible to find anyone online who would profess any particular love for that book. It really is remarkable the degree to which (a) 3E rehabilitated D&D’s online reputation and (b) the OSR has rehabilitated that book in particular. My own opinion of the book has grown a little fonder in light of its assistance in stocking my OD&D hexcrawl, but is largely unchanged: A lot of useful stuff in there, but the idea of trying to actually run a game from that disorganized morass is completely abhorrent to me.

Multiverser still sits on my shelf today. Much like the 1st Edition DMG it is a treasure trove of nifty utility which I value but will never actually play. I can’t actually recommend it in good faith. But what I can recommend whole-heartedly is The First Book of Worlds. That review, however, will have to wait until another day…

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