Tagline: The hit of GenCon ’98. The hit of your gaming table.

I know I used this word just last week, but I’m afraid I need to use it again: Unique.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a unique, high quality product. In twenty-four pages James Wallis – excuse me, Baron Munchausen has created one of the most memorable game manuals I’ve ever read. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say it was one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had, period.

(Allow me to slip into the idiom of the game itself.)

The game was designed by the famous Baron Munchausen himself in the year 1798 while staying with a friend of his, the publisher John Wallis, in London. After receiving the manuscript – one of the most expensive he had ever paid for (the Baron had a habit of going through the best liquor in anyone’s house) – Mr. Wallis realized that the manuscript was simply unacceptable for its time period. Instead he sealed the manuscript until such time as one of his descendants thought the time was finally right to release it. His descendent James Wallis, the current director of Hogshead Publishing, has finally decided that such a time has come and has released the game on its 200th anniversary.

(Yeah, right.)

The game basically breaks down like this: You get together with a number of other compatriots (making sure to keep the number of commoners down to a minimum) and gather around a table at your favorite bar. Make sure you bring your purses and a good supply of coins because wagering will be involved (the Baron points out that all the coins should be of the same value in order to keep arguments to a minimum). The game begins when one of you turns to another and says, “So, Baron, tell us of the occasion when you gave birth to an elephant.” (Or some other outrageous circumstance.)

At this point the person may either say, “Ah yes, of course…” And begin to tell his tale. Otherwise he may say, “No, I’m afraid my throat is dry…” At which point he must buy a round of drinks for everyone else in his party and ask the person next to him tell a tale of his own.

During the telling of the tale others may interrupt the storyteller with objections such as, “But, Baron de Neuvillette, it is well known that the fire-breathing llamas on the moon are strict vegetarians.” (The key here is that these are potentially amusing complications, not serious nit-picks.) When doing this the objector pushes forward a coin from their purse. The storyteller may then accept the objection (“Ah, yes, but this llama was merely fetching food for the young wolf cub she had taken under the fold of her wing…”) and take the wagered coin. Otherwise the storyteller must put forth a coin of his own and decline the objection (“You must be thinking of the goats to be found upon the moons of Venus, for it is well known that the llamas of the moon are of no such character…”). The objector may either take both coins on the table, or he may add a third coin and renew his objection.

That is the basic mechanic of the game. There is also dueling, companions, methods of finishing a story, various drinking rituals, and (finally) the wrap-up of each round of storytelling. The book itself also includes an appendix with over two hundred suggestions for stories and another appendix which sums up the rules on a single page (which is useful since the Baron does tend to ramble in a thoroughly enjoyable manner).

(Okay, so why should you buy it?)

First off, the game is just plain fun to play. Swapping the outrageous stories which form the centerpiece of the game is great. Add on the ritualized drinking which is incorporated into the game (plus the elaborate wagering system which – in the end – makes no one and everyone a winner) and you’ve got an irresistible night’s entertainment.

Second, the book is a treat to read. It is written in the voice of the inestimable Baron himself. He is constantly wandering off the main track of the narrative in order to recount various snippets of his own outrageous tales (although none should doubt the honesty of his own stories, for he would take offense at this insult to his honor). The illustrations are by Gustave Dore, the “greatest illustrator of the nineteenth century”, who died in 1883 (I really hope I can trust this section of the book).

(Coincidentally the Baron himself died in 1797, which is revealed in his biography in the back of the book. Leave it to the Baron to write a game about himself the year after he died.)

Finally, the title of the game is no joke: This is truly a “Role-Playing Game in a New Style”. Wait a minute, you say, nothing that you’ve described sounds like the roleplaying games I know.

Well, duh. It’s in a new style!

Let’s break it down. First, it definitely involves roleplaying: Namely you assume a character who is inspired by the Baron Munchausen himself. You may find this limiting at first, but then I realized that the only important thing here is the element of your character which involves being the type of person who goes on outrageous adventures and then tells stories about them. Beyond that things are pretty wide open. I don’t consider that any more restricting than being told to “design a character who will go on fantasy adventures” or “design a character who happens to be a vampire”. Plus you get to play the character at two levels simultaneously (something “traditional” roleplaying games don’t let you do) – both at the immediate level of “telling the story” and in the events of the story being told.

Second, it’s definitely a game. What makes this unique is that inherits a different tradition than other roleplaying games do. Most RPGs stem from the traditions of wargames and boardgames. The game elements of Baron Munchausen are derived more from card games – involving bidding and wagering.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is definitely a game you should buy. It was the hit of GenCon ’98, and it’ll be a hit at your game table… or, heck, the bar you go out to have a drink at afterwards.

[ Make sure you read the disclaimer on the title page. The quotes on the back are good, too. Save the “Table of Contents” for last, as some of the comments foreshadow pleasant jokes in the text; but definitely make time for it after finishing the book. Be warned that “you will require pencil, paper, imagination, a manservant, money, a selection of fine wines, noble blood, a sense of flamboyance, and at least one attractive member of the opposite sex (optional).” ]

[ I have been informed that the game was actually conceived in 1792 or 1793, with the explanation of its existence being written in 1798. Which is, of course, unfortunate because it ruins the perfectly good joke found above. In the interests of absolute accuracy I have, of course, attached this note to clarify my earlier mistake. ]

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Baron Munchausen (James Willis)
Company/Publisher: Hogshead Publishing
Cost: $5.95
Page count: 24
ISBN: 1-899749-18-7

Originally Posted: 1999/05/28

At the time this review appeared, there was a massive debate raging at RPGNet concerning whether or not The Extraorindary Adventures of Baron Munchausen qualified as a roleplaying game or not. You can see my thoughts on the matter, circa-1999, above.

Today, my opinion on the matter would be quite different.

The discussions surrounding Baron Munchausen in 1999 caused me to formulate my definition of an RPG as “a game which involves roleplaying”. Applying the definition gave a clear-cut verdict in favor of Baron Munchausen, case closed.

But not really. Because when I found myself applying that definition beyond the confines of that narrow debate, it quickly became apparent that its semi-circular nature was only part of the problem: It also created far too many false positive, reporting that everything from Risk to Super Mario Bros. was a roleplaying game.

It took several more years before I evolved a better definition of “roleplaying game” that accurately encapsulated the history of the medium without simultaneously including a bunch of other games that clearly weren’t RPGs. You can read more about that in Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games. (The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, for the record, is an STG, not an RPG.)

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

This is a fun little dice game I recently re-discovered in one of my desk drawers. I picked it up a couple of years back, so its probably still kicking around. It actually predates the collectible dice games (such as Dragon Dice) which followed in the wake of Magic the Gathering, and instead descends from older traditions.

Cosmic Wimpout comes in a small plastic tube containing five dice, a sheet of instructions, and a “Cosmic Wimpout” sticker. Four of the dice are white and the fifth is black. The four white dice are printed with a 5, a 10, and four symbols. The black die comes repeats the 5 and the four symbols, but replaces the 10 with the “Flaming Sun” symbol.

At the beginning of the game you decide on the game goal (usually 300 or 500 points) and the first player roles the dice.

Three matching faces (on the same throw) are known as a flash, and score various numbers of points depending which symbols or numerals you’ve matched up. Five matching faces (at any time) is known as a Freight Train and, naturally, scores far more points. Unless you roll five 10’s, in which case you’ve scored Too Many Points (a Supernova) and you automatically lose the game. (There’s also a Freight Train combination which automatically wins the game.)

The Flaming Sun is a wild card. The Flaming Sun Rules states that you must use the Flaming Sun to complete a flash if it is at all possible.

A “5” or a “10” by itself scores 5 or 10 points (respectively). A Flaming Sun can also be used to simulate these, unless (of course) the Flaming Sun Rule is in effect.

If you don’t score any points on a role that’s a Wimpout. Your turn is over and you’ve lost all the points accumulated in that turn. Wimping out with all five dice is called a Train Wreck. Unless you Wimpout you can continue rolling any non-scoring dice.

You can stop rolling at any time, scoring the points you’ve accumulated, unless:

1. You haven’t rolled yet.

2. You May Not Want To But You Must — if you’ve scored with all five dice you must roll all five dice again before stopping (risking a Train Wreck).

3. The Futtless Rule states that all flashes have to be cleared – meaning that if you’ve just scored a flash you must score additional points by rolling the non-scoring cubes. The Reroll Clause states that you cannot clear a flash while matching any one of the flash faces when clearing. (So if you roll three fives you’d flash; at which point you’d have to reroll the remaining dice and score additional points… but if one of the dice comes up a five you’d have to roll all the remaining dice again.)

Finally, once a player has reached the game goal everybody else gets one last chance to catch up and surpass their score.

It’s a fun little game. It fits easily in a lapel pocket I’ve found and is easy to teach to your friends quickly. Any number of people can play and it’s appropriate for just about any social gathering.

I don’t know how available this game is any more, so I’m going to include the address found on the instruction sheet:

Cosmic Wimpout
P.O. Box 3199
Greenfield, MA 03012

That’s current as of 1993 – which is, of course, an eternity in this industry. I hope you have luck finding it.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Company/Publisher: C3, Inc.
Cost: $4.95
Page count: n/a
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/05/28

In the years since this review appeared, Cosmic Wimpout has appeared on the web!  You can find it here. Apparently the game has been around since the 1970’s.

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

I remember a time when dice were far more important than they are today. It used to be that a “true gamer” attempted to find as many different types of dice as he possibly could. You started your collection by getting the essentials – the d4, the d6, the d8, the d10, the d12, and the d20. You usually got these in the boxed set along with your rulebook. These were generally cheap. You’d later upgrade these cheapies so that you had marbled or gem dice. Then you’d begin to add on the more exotic types. My first exotic die was the fabled d100… which, if you rolled it in 1988, would probably still be going if it hadn’t gone off the end of the table and hit the wall. My second was a purple d30. I once knew a guy who had a d12 printed with the digits 1-6 and 95-00. I never did figure out what the hell that thing was for. But it was cool.

Of course, then again, perhaps it’s only in my circle of gaming friends that this slow deemphasization has taken place. Perhaps other groups are still possessed of massive dice infatuations. Perhaps. I think it far more likely that the maddened collectors in this industry have all turned to CCGs for their fix. Certainly roleplaying games themselves seem to have retreated to a “single type of die” philosophy over the past decade. It’s no longer common to see a discussion of the differences between d6s, d4s, d8s, d10s, d12s, and d20s comfortably squeezed in between “An Example of Play” and “What is a Roleplaying Game?” in the first section of your rulebook.

All of this palpable nostalgia I have summoned up is only for the purpose of explaining where this “product of time” came from. DeathDice from Flying Buffalo, Inc. is a plastic tube of five six-sided dice – three of which have one side printed with a skull, two of which have one side printed with Grimtooth’s head (Grimtooth, of course, being their semi-cute trollish creature made famous by the Grimtooth Traps volumes… which, of course, you youngsters probably don’t know either… sigh…). The small sheet which comes with the dice is printed with advertisements for other Flying Buffalo products on one side and the rules for a simple dice game called Skulls on the other (which only requires two skull dice – no rules are given which explain why you’d need three… let alone two Grimtooth dice). The rules for Skulls basically consist of rolling the dice over and over again until you either decide to  stop or roll a Skull on one of the dice (which causes you to lose all your points for that round).

The skull prints on the dice are blurry and don’t seem to be based on particularly good drawings to begin with. On the other hand, Grimtooth looks as handsome as ever.

I can’t recommend this product to you… unless of course you’re looking for some truly unique dice to add to your collection. (And don’t deny it: You’ve still got it, even if you don’t use it all that much any more.)

Style: 3
Substance: 2

Company/Publisher: Flying Buffalo, Inc.
Cost: $4.50
Page count: n/a
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/05/28

About a year after I wrote this review, I had a backpack stolen which contained my entire collection of WEG Star Wars sourcebooks and my dice bag. I had built the collection of Star Wars supplements up because I was playing in a really great Star Wars campaign run by my friend Dave Blackmer. In the years since then, I’ve only replaced the core rulebooks.

My collection of dice, on the other hand, had been built up from the very first day I bought the BECMI Basic Set. It included the dice that came with the Basic Set (including a truly ugly pink-and-black d12), but it also included a complete set of waxed dice from the original Basic Set, the d100 and d30 talked about in this review, and countless others that represented an eclectic adolescence of gaming. And the dice bag was actually one that I had inherited from father. It was literally irreplaceable.

These days I own a lot of dice, but I don’t collect them: I own several varied sets, but they’ve all been purchased for explicitly utilitarian purposes. The exceptions are a hodge-podge of d10s which I received as a donation from my brother-in-law and a set of three d6’s which were wedding favors at my brother’s wedding. (I keep those in my bag to breed good luck… which is ironic, because my dice are frequently being used to kill the characters of my brother and sister-in-law.)

On a similar note, one last dice-related anecdote: The first dice I bought to replace my stolen dice bag was a set of black dice with red numbers. To supplement this set, I purchased additional, matching d6’s (’cause D6 Star Wars). Within only a few weeks of purchase, one of these d6’s shattered in my dice bag — leaving one big chunk and a number of shards. I still keep this entire d6 (in pieces) in my dice bag to soak up all the bad luck.

I may not be a collector, but I wouldn’t be a gamer if I didn’t have dice superstitions, right?

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

Tagline: Dream Pod 9’s chance to celebrate their mascot, with spectacular results.

If you’ve read any of the reviews of the Heavy Gear game you’ve probably heard a familiar theme: Sure, there are mecha… but the game isn’t about the gears. The reason you’ve heard this is because, well, it’s true. The gears are definitely cool, and they’re definitely the most realistic mecha you’ll probably ever encounter, and they are definitely eye candy without par. All that being said, however, the game is really about characters. The Gears aren’t even the “Gods of the Battlefield” the way mecha are usually portrayed. As a result, the sourcebooks tend to deal with the gears in a fairly secondary matter, focusing instead on generalized world-building. Even the vehicle compendiums offer a generalized mix.

Welcome, then, to The Duelist’s Handbook, Dream Pod 9’s chance to celebrate their mascot. And what a celebration it is.

The other heritage which The Duelist’s Handbook inherits is that of the defunct Heavy Gear Fighter card game. HGF was the first Heavy Gear product released by Dream Pod 9 and introduced the dueling concept. As Phil Boulle details in his Behind the Scenes for the book, Into the Badlands allowed the concept of dueling to be expanded from affairs of inter-regimental into the underground, competitive dueling of Khayr ad-Din. The Duelist’s Handbook, as a result of this heritage, details the ritualized rules of Gear dueling; provides a look at the stars of the dueling world; examines the lives and duties of military duelists; provides a host of new weapons and options for Gears; and, finally, serves as a sourcebook for the city of Khayr ad-Din.

Normally I wouldn’t like a book like this. Typically when a roleplaying sourcebook is primarily a technical one (i.e. the title of the book includes the technical term “duelist” rather than a location name like “Khayr ad-Din”) and then includes a setting of some sort, that setting is usually merely tacked on. It is almost never given the justice it deserved, if it deserved any justice at all (more often than not such settings are a poorly conceived set of stereotypes which apparently exists only to highlight elements found in the technical section of the book).

Would it really surprise you if I told you that Dream Pod 9 avoided falling into that trap? First off, the technical aspects of the book are handled with grace and style. Military dueling, competitive dueling, and the worlds which surround both are described in great detail. Additional weapons, gears, and detailed rules for small scale tactical combat are given. Second, the setting of Khayr ad-Din (a shadowy city built in an around a massive dumping ground) is detailed with typical craft and style of Dream Pod 9, with an eye always pointed towards providing not only a living, breathing, believable setting of incredible depth, but also a setting which provides countless adventuring possibilities. Plus there is nothing “throwaway” about Khayr ad-Din or its duelers (as anyone who has perused the latest offerings of the storyline books knows).

Beyond the quality of the material itself, Dream Pod 9 continue to demonstrate their enormous talent at putting a book together to make it not only practical, but beautiful. The Duelist’s Handbook was one of the transition products where the Pod slowly developed their lay-out skills from the earlier works which were possessed of a slight “page crowding” sensation (although still exceptional by the standards of the industry) into a cleaner feel. Again, one of those differences between being “one of the best” and “true excellence” which the Pod has demonstrated mastery of time and again. The information is always grouped in an intuitive manner and the index is detailed in all the right places. Typically, the Pod demonstrates that they are capable of “throwing away” artwork which other companies would gladly use on their front covers.

Although the Pod is apparently letting this one slip out of print for at least the moment, you should still be able to find it in stock somewhere. Grab it up, you’d be missing out on a good thing if you let this one pass you by.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Philippe R. Boulle
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $19.95
Page Count: 128
ISBN: 1-896776-07-8

Originally Posted: 1999/04/26

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

Tagline: Into the Badlands was one of the first Heavy Gear supplements. It set the pace of excellence which we’ve come to expect from Dream Pod 9.

There comes a point in reviewing Dream Pod 9’s work, I’ve realized, that you begin to run out of ways to say, “This is really great stuff.” After you’ve run through the synonyms of great, brilliant, sublime, creative, innovative, and brilliant (did I say that already?) you begin to worry that people will think of you as nothing but a broken record. I can almost hear your thoughts as you sit there reading through one review after another thinking, “This man has been bought off by Dream Pod 9. Nobody can be that good every single time.”

Ah, but apparently they can.

Let me say it simply one more time: Dream Pod 9 is great. Heavy Gear is great. If you aren’t buying these books you’re missing out on a great thing.

To explain just how great these books are, let’s time travel back to the summer of 1997 and take a look around. In 1997 I’d been into roleplaying games for nearly a decade. Despite the fact that I still loved the games dearly and checked in on the Usenet newsgroups from time to time I hadn’t bought more than one or two roleplaying products in over two years. Nothing in the industry was really getting under my skin the way it used to and my interest was slowly waning.

In the summer of 1997 – nearly two years ago now as I write this – all of that changed. Despite having withdrawn my cash into other areas I had become aware of various titles over the years that had interested me to one degree or another: Feng Shui, CORPS, Theatrix… and Heavy Gear. None of them had caught me interest enough, however, to actually take the time to go out and buy them until one day I happened to spot the first edition of the Heavy Gear Rulebook on the shelf of the local hobby store. The cover, with its gear in extreme close-up, drew me in and the professional lay-out and clarity of the interior sold me. I bought the book there and then.

Over the next few days I devoured it in my free time. By the time I was finished I had become impassioned by roleplaying once again. I travelled back to the hobby store, but they didn’t stock any other Heavy Gear products at the time, so I picked up Feng Shui instead.

Heavy Gear brought me back to roleplaying, and its kept me here ever since. That’s how good it is.

All of which, in a rather roundabout manner, brings us to Into the Badlands — the latest Heavy Gear product I happened to read after running out of ways to say “buy this game dammit!”.

Into the Badlands is the sourcebook covering, as the name suggests, the Badlands: the broad equatorial deserts of Terra Nova. The Badlands are an excellent example of how Dream Pod 9’s ability to incorporate uncommon depth into their products gives the GM a broad palette and selection of tools in creating his adventures. Broadly speaking the Badlands are a mix of the American Wild West and the Middle East. If another company were handling this material it is easy to see how the Badlands would quickly be reduced to this common denominator. There would be a number of different cities, but at heart they would all be mere variations upon this simple theme.

Into the Badlands, on the other hand, takes the simple theme and (rather than simply varying it) begins creating whole new themes which are supported by the basic theme, but also subtly supplement it. Hence you get the frontier qualities of the desert oasis towers, you get the corporate politics of Peace River, you get the militaristic refugee community of Port Arthur, you get the visionary unity of Jan Mayen, you get the religious fervor of Massada, you get rover gangs and dueling circuits and smuggling cartels and gambling communities and polar influence and cold war and… well, you get a lot. Plus you get all the fringe areas where those different cultures come into contact and conflict with each other. All of which is supplemented by a plentiful amount of information about how life is actually lived on a day-to-day basis. (Ever sit down after reading a wonderful setting and realize that you have no idea how to actually get inside the mind of a character living in that setting because everything was dealt with at a macro-level? You’ll never have that problem with Terra Nova.) Tack on a couple of chapters on practical adventuring advice – including a dozen adventure seeds, some NPCs and archetypes, and a look at the creatures who make the Badlands their home – and you’ve got a well-rounded sourcebook.

About the only bad thing about the book is the lack of an index, but I could wax rhapsodic for a while longer about many things (like the way that they manage to cover everything you’d expect in a regional sourcebook, plus about twice as much that you wouldn’t – particularly in a book this size), but I won’t because it would be largely repetitious of my other recent reviews of Heavy Gear products. Buy the book.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Philippe R. Boulle
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $18.95
Page Count: 108
ISBN: 1-896776-02-7

Originally Posted: 1999/04/26

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