You need this book in order to play Lejendary Adventures. You have my sympathies.

Review Originally Published in Games Unplugged Webzine – July 14th, 2000
Republished at RPGNet – May 22nd, 2001

Gygax, who you can always count on to deliver by the bushel, has crammed a ton of material between the covers of this book – over two hundred densely-packed pages give you details on over 500 creatures. Unfortunately almost all of this material can be characterized by a blandness that is truly depressing to behold, compounded with poor execution, sloppy design, and a host of inconsistencies.

The creatures themselves combine both an astounding lack of originality with an incredibly shallow depth of coverage. For example, centaurs are expanded into a family of three different creatures – with the bucentaur and stacentaur replacing the equine portions of their anatomy with other animals. Unfortunately, the book neglects to tell us what animals the bucentaur and stacentaur are derived from, instead opting to throw at us a plethora of numbers.

Opening the book to any given page will leave you instantly confused: Dense text is made nearly unparseable thanks to the fact that nearly identical fonts were used for both headings and sub-headings. Pictures of the creatures are strewn haphazardly, sometimes appearing on entirely different pages from the descriptions of the creatures themselves (and some creatures, usually the ones most in need of them, seem to be lacking pictures entirely). The listing practices for information are inconsistent – sometimes with information appearing only in the chart at the beginning of a section; sometimes only in the creature’s description; and sometimes in both. Some entries refer to other entries which, as far as I can tell, simply don’t exist.

Adding to this confusion, Gygax has repeated his old trick of pulling mythological names out of a hat and then randomly creating new creatures with little or no connection to the original entities that bore those names. To this bag of tricks he has also added some new ones: For example, there is the Gryf, and then there is the Gryffon. Both are creatures created by mixing up the parts of lions and giant birds, but the former is used to describe the mixture that every other fantasy game in existence describes as a “griffon”.

Mixed in amongst this chaos of chaff are some genuinely worthy bits and interesting concepts: The section on Dragons and the section on Living Dead, in particular, are first-rate idea mines.

But don’t be fooled: This one just ain’t gonna fly. Pass it by.

As with Lejend Master’s Lore, Hekaforge Productions has expertly kept the price of this book a deeply concealed secret. The Illuminati itself is not privileged to know this information.

Grade: C

Writer: Gary Gygax
Publisher: Hekaforge Productions
Page Count: 202
ISBN: 1-930377-06-1

Bucentaurs have the hindquarters of an ox. They’re a “real” creature from medieval literature. Stacentaurs? Your guess is as good as mine. (I’m guessing the hindquarters of a deer; i.e., a stag-centaur.) 

The bit at the end about pricing was due to the complete lack of MSRP. The price wasn’t listed on the book. It also wasn’t listed on the publisher’s website. Neither I nor Games Unplugged could get an intended price from the publisher. I believe Games Unplugged eventually got a “cover” price ($24.95) when the book appeared in distribution catalogs.

Over the years I’ve sampled many of Gygax’s post-D&D games. Describing them as “unplayable drek” would, frankly, be doing them a kindness. Some of their faults can be laid at the feet of the increasingly byzantine measures Gygax would take in an effort not to be sued by TSR, who were apparently terrified that the cult of personality around Gygax could pose a meaningful threat to D&D’s popularity. But for the most part they were just fundamentally bad.

When I was younger, I would wonder, “How could he possibly be running this stuff?”

When I got older, I realized that the ultimate root of the problem was that he wasn’t.

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

Brindlewood Bay is a delightful Powered by the Apocalypse mystery storytelling game where no one knows the solution until somebody makes it up. It combines classic mystery TV shows like Murder She Wrote, Twin Peaks, Remington Steele, Columbo, and Magnum PI with Lovecraftian Mythos. Solve Agatha Christie-like cozy mysteries while the the Midwives of the Fragrant Void slowly unravel your reality.

Featuring Kristina Fjellman as super sleuth Amanda Delacourt. Visit Kristina at kristinafjellman.com.

Subscribe Now!

Tactical Space Support is filled with a plethora of high-quality material – including two complete tactical systems – providing a breadth and depth of coverage that make this an invaluable resource for any campaign that gets within spitting distance of orbital velocity.

Review Originally Published in Games Unplugged Webzine – June 16th, 2000
Republished at RPGnet – May 22nd, 2001

The title is Tactical Space Support, but make no mistake: This book provides as much support, if not more, for a roleplayer as it does for a tactical Heavy Gear player.

In the fashion which their fans have become quite accustomed to, the Podsters have crammed more material into this slim, 96-page volume than most publishers include in massively oversized tomes. The short list: A history of space travel in the Heavy Gear universe; campaign background material; coverage of hardware, spacecraft, outposts, and space life; along with a vehicle compendium of specific vehicles – all discussed with a depth of understanding and breadth of coverage that makes this book absolutely invaluable for a Heavy Gear campaign which gets within even spitting distance of orbital velocity.

In addition to all this, roleplayers will find adventure seeds and NPC archetypes, plus expanded rules covering common space hazards — such as lack of atmosphere, effects of gravity, and exposure to radiation. In constructing these rules Vézina, the author, demonstrates what good game design is all about: A wealth of scientific research is boiled down to a set of formulas simple enough to be used at the gaming table, while still bringing with them all the reality you need.

The tactical player, on the other hand, will find two complete tactical systems, along with expansions for the VDS (Vehicle Design System) and additions to the standard Heavy Gear tactical game. Both of the new tactical systems use the core of the Silhouette system, but in a radically different way than a standard tactical game. The first, and primary, space tactical system abstracts the entire process – eliminating hex maps and miniatures altogether. This is due to the nature of space combat in the Heavy Gear universe, where secrecy, stealth, and first strike capability are of key importance. The second system is optimized for simulating a lightning strike combat situation – where two fleets pass each other at extremely high velocities and the entire combat lasts for a few fractions of a second.

Unfortunately, a couple of problems with recent Dream Pod 9 releases also crops up here: Specifically, a continuing fight with typos and copy-editing errors and the decreasing size of the average Pod release (from 112 or 128 pages down to 96 pages over the past year). In the former case, I am happy to report, the battle is obviously being won – Tactical Space Support is (almost) typo-free. The latter, however, makes its presence keenly felt in the total absence of tactical scenarios, and the shallowness of some of the other game-oriented resources (only four adventure seeds and NPC archetypes, for example). These slimmer books are still high quality products, and well worth the price of admission, but those dozen or two dozen pages make all the difference between a product being sublime and merely excellent.

While bearing some reservations in mind, there can still be only one verdict where Tactical Space Support is concerned: This is a fantastic book. If you have any intention of taking your Heavy Gear campaign to the stars, then you’d be making a serious mistake to pass this one up.

Grade: A-

Writers: Marc-Alexandre Vézina
Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Price: $18.95
Page Count: 96
ISBN: 1-896776-68-X

In 2001, I used RPGnet to archive a review which was no longer available on Games Unplugged’s website. Now here I am, finding new ways to archive it and make it available. It seems that much of a writer’s life — and perhaps any artist’s life — is finding new ways to enshrine and distribute their work.

I think I was a little too kind with my grading on this one. Or, rather, I was grading on a curve reflective of the other reviews appearing in Games Unplugged at the time. Proper scenario support feels really essential for novel mechanics/structures like this, and its absence here probably drops the book down to a B in my own grading scheme.

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

Go to Part 1

Most of the Mothership adventure reviews I’ve written have focused on the wealth of trifold and other pamphlet modules, but there have also been many zine-style adventures published for the game. Here’s three of them.

THE EARTH ABOVE

James Hanna’s The Earth Above is set on the fast-rotating planet or moon (it’s unclear) of Cor-9. The Helios corporation has lost contact with their mine for unrefined starship fuel and the PCs are sent in to figure out what’s happening and/or get the mine back online. It can be as simple as delivering a new communications array!

… but you’ll probably be unsurprised to discover that hostile alien monsters are the real problem.

In this case, the hostile aliens are the Pest. These are clearly heavily inspired by the Alien xenomorphs, but there’s a dash of the psychic bugs from Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers movie in there, too, and some unique twists to their multi-stage life cycle. One of these twists is that the Pest can adapt to a wide variety of food sources, but then become hyper-focused on their chosen source. In this case, they’ve hyper-focused on starship fuel, including the unrefined ore, and infested the mines.

Round that out with a great isometric map of the mines and you’ve got a solid ‘crawl.

But Hanna doesn’t stop there.

Some of the miners survived the initial attack, but are now being held prisoner in the Hab City mining camp by the android miner workers, who have suffered a malfunction due to their core directive to “protect all intelligent life forms.” The directive was meant to apply to humans, but once the androids realized that the Pest were intelligent life forms, they needed to not only protect the humans from the Pest, but the Pest from the humans. And they decided locking everyone up was the best way to do that.

This adds a completely different threat vector to The Earth Above, while also introducing a rich social component to the adventure with a diverse cast of strongly motivated NPCs (human and android alike). And Hanna’s still not done! There’s also a rogue mercenary team loose on the planet who have been dispatched by Xenos Unlimited to secure biological samples of the Pest!

These additional layers add an exponential complexity and depth to the scenario. It’s a good example of how you can take two fairly simple, straightforward adventure ideas, add them together, and get something much greater than the sum of its parts.

The only thing holding The Earth Above back is a patina of strange holes and continuity errors. It’s a difficult to nail this down, but it’s stuff like:

• The mercenary team is both close to the action and 9,000 miles away “on the other side of the planet.”
• The PCs need to deal with threat of the malfunctioning androids… so how many are there, exactly? What security measures have the androids put in place?
• How many survivors are there?
• The adventure assumes the PCs are stranded here without fuel (which ultimately motivates them to journey down into the mine), but it’s unclear why. (The Pest are shown to have drained other ships of their fuel, so perhaps one could imagine adding an attack on the PCs’ ship at some point?)

This stuff is pervasive. Even why the adventure is called The Earth Above is unclear. And the net effect, in actual play, is to throw a bunch of grit in the gears. Unless you take the time to address them in your prep, these countless little snares are going to keep catching you out at the table.

But with a little extra polish, I think The Earth Above can be a really great addition to your Mothership campaign.

GRADE: B-

THE VIEW AT THE END OF TIME

At the end of the universe, an intelligent species evolves, expands, and discovers the cruel trick played it on by fate: They have been born in an era of unimaginable scarcity, as the last stars burn out and the fabric of space-time itself is stretched thin. They look back with envy at the civilizations which were free to plunder galaxies of abundance they hatch a plan: They create a machine capable of ripping a portal through time, but they lack the energy to activate it. What they can do is send a message back in time and hope that some younger race will discover it, decipher it, and open the portal. Then they will be free to journey back and claim what should have been theirs.

Is humanity foolish enough to open a temporal Pandora’s Box?

Of course we are.

And now the PCs have been hired to step through the portal and gaze upon the end of time.

To be honest, you can just inject this one straight into my veins. Everything about The View at the End of Time is aimed straight at my heart, and Elliot Norwood does a very good job of delivering on an incredibly challenging concepts.

As the PCs step through the portal, they find themselves in the preserved ruins of an alien civilization, gazing out on the death of all things in the lurid red glow of a dying sun. Exploring those ruins, they’ll have a chance to begin unraveling the secrets of the Morrow — the name given to these future species by human xenoarchaeologists. As the aliens begin waking up from the long sleep in which they awaited their “saviors,” the PCs will find themselves caught up in the strife

If they’re lucky, they’ll realize in time that their only chance at survival — and perhaps humanity’s only chance — is to flee back through the portal and shut it down from the far side before aliens can use it as a temporal beachhead.

The View at the End of Time is beautiful and horrifying and wondrous all at the same time. I’m very much looking forward to sharing its haunting vision with my players.

GRADE: B

BRACKISH

On the strength of Norgad’s Dead Weight, which I very much enjoyed and have previously reviewed, I immediately grabbed a copy of Brackish, written by Norgad and C. Bell. I recommend you immediately do the same, because I love everything about this adventure.

The basic scenario hook is pretty typical for a Mothership adventure: A corporation has lost contact with a research outpost. They’ve hired the PCs to figure out what happened.

Where Brackish shines, however, is in concept, execution, and detail.

First, they provide a player map of the facility. This seems like a small thing, but it’s literally the first thing at least ninety percent of my Mothership tables ask for when they’re sent on a mission like this: Obviously the corporation would have a map of their facility. Obviously that would be useful. Can we have it please? Brackish anticipating this need and providing what I need is just one example of how Norgad and Bell are intensely focused on the experience of actually running and playing this adventure at the table.

For the GM, the map is supported by an excellent key. The rooms are detailed and evocative, and their descriptions well-organized and easy to use. The layout cleverly uses box outs to provide rich detail while keeping the core presentation free of clutter, and the whole thing is supported by a cleverly compressed version of the map on every spread so that you always know exactly where you are. (So clever that it was only on the second reading that I realized what it was. So bear a wary eye, but once you spot it, it’s invaluable.)

Second, they elevate the generic trope: The corporation doesn’t just want a generic “investigation.” They want the PCs to account for the whereabouts of all station personnel, and the adventure immediately gives the PCs a staff manifest including names, jobs, and descriptions:

But the corporation doesn’t just want a verbal report: They want evidence. So they provide the PCs with a cryptographic camera that they can use to record secure visual and audio evidence, and to track this the players are given a worksheet:

The concept is that the PCs will track the recordings they make, keep brief notes on what the recordings contain, and draw a sketch of what they’ve filmed.

I’ve never seen this concept before, but it brilliantly pushes the players to creatively engage with the game world in a novel way while simultaneously using notetaking to force an attention to detail, sucking them into the scenario and immersing them into the environment.

They wrap up this whole aspect of the adventure with a detailed breakdown for the GM of every NPC — their current whereabouts (dead or alive), what happened to them, and the specific evidence the PCs can use to discover (and document) their fate. In other words, a comprehensive revelation list. I’ve seen so many published adventures screw this up, effectively forcing the GM to solve the mystery for themselves before they can run it for the players, but Brackish again gives you exactly what you need.

But there’s still more!

Third, Brackish makes the environment dramatically dynamic: A malfunctioning pump is causing roughly half the facility to flood, then drain, and then flood again in a forty-minute cycle. The idea is to track this in real time, using the environment to put pressure on the players and create a sense of urgency.

This element would be a little smoother if the key provided some clear insight into flooded vs. non-flooded rom conditions, but even without that, it gets the job done.

Finally, we have the monster of the week. “A bloated corpse, skin taut and silver-smooth like a pregnant mirror.” A strange, alien artifact transforms those around it into guardians with two key features: It can pass into, through, and out of reflective surfaces. And its touch gives flesh the texture of wet clay, allowing the creature to wipe away the features of its victims. The result — gliding unnaturally and relentlessly through the murky waters — is a truly terrifying nemesis that will haunt your players’ nightmares.

After one round in the tentacles’ grip, the features of the face are left crooked. After two, spun like a whirlpool. After three rounds, the face is polished away completely. The eyeballs are still in there somewhere, sunken beneath the surface.

Then, on top of all this, Brackish rounds things out by providing a custom soundtrack (that you can also use as a countdown clock for the flooding) and a bevy of print-and-play handouts for our players.

Very few published adventures reflect what my complex adventure prep actually looks like. Brackish does. Not because I’ve done something exactly like it — I haven’t! — but because Bell and Norgad have layered multiple scenario and scene structures together to create the desired situation and effect. It’s a technique that not only lets you prep and run complex scenarios with confidence, but delivers truly unique experiences — experiences like Brackish! — for the players.

GRADE: A

Go to Part 7: Rimbound Transmissions

Review Originally Published in Games Unplugged (July 2000)
Republished at RPGNet – May 22nd, 2001

Heavy Gear is headed for the stars.

Activision’s Heavy Gear II computer game focuses upon the trial by fire of the 1^st Black Talons, the inaugural squadron of a new Terranovan fighting force designed to take the fight against the Terran aggressors back to Caprice. The Black Talon Field Guide, designed as a companion to this game, serves as a massive campaign resource for setting your own Heavy Gear games within the auspices of the expanding Black Talon program, or the wider struggle against Earth as a whole. The book is more than capable of standing on its own, but will be strengthened for some campaigns with the use of Tactical Space Support (detailing specialized rules for space combat) and Life on Caprice (the core sourcebook describing the planet of primary operations for the Black Talon program).

The only serious weakness of this book is a slight confusion over the time period when the material is set – the book is primarily presented as taking place after the events of the Heavy Gear II computer game, but some sections of the book instead seem to slip back to a time period just before the first Black Talon mission was launched. This is combined with numerous instances of copyediting errors and typos, which continue to make their debilitating presence felt in Dream Pod 9 products.

But these minor flaws are far outweighed by the sheer wealth of material which is present here. Some sections of the text will be familiar to veteran Heavy Gear players (but this is to be expected since the book is designed for new players brought to Heavy Gear by the computer game), but even they will be able to wade hip-deep in this one. When you can turn the page of a roleplaying supplement and say, “My god, there’s more?!” you know you’ve got a winner. This one’s a winner.

Grade: A

Writers: Marc-Alexandre Vezina
Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Price: $20.95
Page Count: 128
ISBN: 1-896776-63-9

This review is shorter than my typical reviews because it was written as a non-featured review for Games Unplugged magazine and I was writing for a very specific word count. One of the interesting things about GU reviews is that they would publish short recap versions of the review in subsequent issues, providing a much larger wealth of information in each issue. These recaps were written by the original review authors. Here’s the one I wrote for this review:

Recap: Heavy Gear is headed for the stars. The Black Talon Field Guide, serving as a companion to Activision’s Heavy Gear II computer game, serves as a massive campaign resource for setting your own Heavy Gear campaign within the auspices of the expanding Black Talon program. A sheer wealth of material makes this a highly desirable book for neophytes and veteran players alike.

I found that the recaps were an art in themselves: How to capture the key points in a VERY limited space, while still being a comprehensible to new readers.

Revisiting these older reviews really makes me want to run all the Heavy Gear campaigns I never got a chance to when I was younger.

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