To paraphrase somebody famous, there are two ways to handle a meta-story: The right way and the wrong way.

When handled correctly, a meta-story adds depth and complexity to a roleplaying game. Instead of merely describing a setting as it physically exists at some given point in time, a line of products becomes capable of describing dynamic relationships within the setting as they evolve over time.

When handled incorrectly, a meta-story becomes a marketing gimmick – stringing the customers along from one product to the next, always keeping some essential piece of information just out of reach in the “next release”. Buy Product A, which will only work if you buy Product B, which will only work if you buy Product C… Instead of serving as a spice, the poorly managed meta-story becomes a flaw: Existing customers get frustrated with having to purchase books they don’t want in order to keep up, while new customers get lost in a flurry of books whose interrelationships are murky and unclear.

And then there’s Dream Pod 9’s Heavy Gear: The standard by which all other meta-stories are to be judged. The meta-story of this game is clearly presented, compellingly conceived, and brilliantly executed. No other game has come close.

There are three keys to this success. First, there is the Timewatch system. On the back of every single Heavy Gear product there is a date printed: The date in the game setting which the material in the book describes. This idea is so simple and elegant that it would, literally, cost absolutely nothing for every single producer of roleplaying products to mimic it – and yet the effect it has on the Heavy Gear game line is profound: The Timewatch system strips away an entire level of complexity and potential confusion and resolves it in the easy reference of four digits.

The second key is the strength, clarity, and flexibility of the methodology underlying the Heavy Gear product line. “Clarity” because the purpose and scope of every supplement is clearly communicated to its audience. “Strength” because of the interlocking levels of detail and coverage, combined with strong, continuing support across the board. “Flexibility” because each supplement is truly modular – requiring nothing more than itself and the core rules to be fully useable. The importance of all this cannot be understated: The ability for a newcomer to be able to look at a shelf of products and know exactly what each book covers and which books they should buy, and the ability to buy only those books which contain precisely the information they need, makes Heavy Gear the most accessible and durable line of RPG products on the market.

This second key leads directly to the concept of the Storyline Book: Instead of spreading the development of the meta-story across a myriad array of unrelated products, Dream Pod 9 has instead concentrated the story into this single set of books. The information to be found here, of course, is supported in other products – but it’s supported in the same way that other game lines support their standard world information. In other words, if you want more information about, for example, the Black Talon program you’d pick up the Black Talon Field Guide. But if you weren’t interested in having detailed coverage of the Talons, then the information found in Return to Cat’s Eye would be more than sufficient to let you know what the major developments with the Talons are. This gives you the ability to follow the meta-story of Heavy Gear without having to buy every Heavy Gear product that the Pod produces (regardless of whether or not you actually want the information found in that product). The Pod will make you want to own the books, but will never require you to own anything more than a tightly controlled set of core resources.

And the third key? Mind-blowing quality. The story being told by Dream Pod 9, the first part of which appears in these three books, is one of the best you’re going to find, in or out of the gaming industry. Intrigue, power, politics, war, love, murder, mayhem. You name it – Heavy Gear’s got it.

This story is so good, it’s worth reading even if you don’t play the game – and it’s accompanied by a visual tour de force that fans of the Pod have come to recognize as par for the course. There is no other company in the industry that can feast your eyes the way the Pod can (supported, as they are, by the astounding talent of Ghislain Barbe) – and all the while doing it with exactly the right balance: The art is always there as a supplement and companion to the writing, never overpowering it or distracting from it.

These books actually are designed to stand on their own. The Heavy Gear universe, and this story, were conceived as a whole. They were not produced, specifically, as a “roleplaying setting” or a “tactical scenario”, but rather as a product which could stand on its own. Its creation was a collaboration, combining not only the written word but also the visual elements of the world as an organic whole. The result is a universe broad in scope and rich in detail, driven by a story which is epic in proportion and gripping in the telling.

Crisis of Faith begins the story in TN 1932, as the world of Terra Nova begins to spin towards global war. Told through the collected notes and intelligence data of Nicosa Renault – a “retired” master spy who still keeps tabs on the powerbrokers of her world – the story of Heavy Gear begins to unfold before you through the thoughts, conversations, video logs, and journals of actual Terranovans. As the book nears its conclusion things begin to spiral hopelessly out of control, ending with a shocking surprise ending.

If the last six pages of Crisis of Faith hit you with the power of a sledgehammer, then the first two pages of Blood on the Wind will send you reeling across the room… and the thrills are just beginning: The world goes to hell and Dream Pod 9 is taking you along for the ride. If you thought the beginning was surprising, just wait until you see the end: A grand mystery is left unsolved and a new crisis looms on the horizon.

Return to Cat’s Eye brings the first part of the Heavy Gear storyline to a conclusion. The pieces left hanging from the first two books are slowly brought to their resolution, but just as you think you’ve figured out the rules of the game, new players begin to appear… and old players do the totally unexpected.

These books are masterpieces. They make me proud to be a gamer. They are something which I can point to and say: “Why do I roleplay? Because things like this are possible.” You’ll use them. You’ll read them. And then you’ll read them again. They are treasures to own, and joys to appreciate. They are something you simply must not miss.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Philippe Boulle, Marc-Alexandre Vezina, and Hilary Doda
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $19.95 / $17.95 / $17.95
Page Count: 112 / 80 / 80
ISBN: 1-896776-21-3 / 1-896776-27-2 / 1-896776-59-0

Originally Posted: 2000/10/14

When I wrote this review, I had previously written reviews of both Crisis of Faith and Blood on the Wind. I am honestly uncertain at this point whether I had simply forgotten that I had written those review or if (more likely) I decided that a review of Return to Cat’s Eye would have been rather slim by itself and that it would make more sense to look at the collective effect of Heavy Gear‘s “first act” (so to speak) in a single package.

I had originally intended to follow this up with a review of the next trilogy of Storyline Books, but four days after submitting this review to RPGNet (and several days before it was actually published) I received an offer from Dream Pod 9 to revise material from an unpublished supplement I had written for them so that it could be incorporated into the fourth Heavy Gear storyline book. That prompted me to post a rather weird “I’m biased now, but I wasn’t biased when I wrote this” notice shortly after the review went live.

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

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

In my remix of Eternal Lies, there are two major document dumps: The first are the individual volumes of Echavarria’s cult library. The second is Savitree’s research into the true identity of the Thing With a Thousand Mouths.

My first goal with these document dumps was to create a trove of immersive Mythos lore. Not all of my players are steeped in Lovecraftian lore, and these documents created a way for them to become familiar with the material through play. And for the experienced Lovecraft scholars in my group, these documents simultaneously created a flak cloud: There’s enough material here drawn from a large enough body of sources that, hopefully, they won’t be able to immediately zero in on the pertinent clues to what’s really happening. (So often you end up with Mythos adventures where you say “artist with weird dreams” and the experts immediately know it’s a Cthulhu scenario. That’s generally non-optimal for creating a sense of mystery and horror; and it’s really important that it doesn’t happen with Eternal Lies.)

My second goal was to enrich the final revelations of the campaign (as I explained here). Echavarria’s library exists to (a) create a “suspect pool” for the true identity of the Thing With a Thousand Mouth and (b) hide the Gaze of Azathoth (which provides an explicit solution to the campaign) in plain sight. Savitree’s expedition reports similarly create a “suspect pool” for the location of the Maw of the Mouth to which the clue “it’s a mountain” can be applied.

My third goal was to give the players the experience of actually performing Mythos research. I wanted them to feel like they were pawing their way through dusty tomes, tracking down particular leads, and drawing their own conclusions. (Instead of just saying, “You spend a couple of days looking through Savitree’s notes and now you know X, Y, and Z.”) This can be a little risky because, of course, that carries with it the risk they won’t be able to figure it out. But fortunately (a) I’ve built redundancies into the campaign and (b) if all else fails, they can always use Cthulhu Mythos to rend their sanity and figure it out.

USING THE CULT LIBRARY BOOKS: When the PCs gain access to a particular lot of books from the cult’s library (either the UCLA lot or the books in Trammel’s mansion), give them the list of volumes they’ve obtained. They can now choose which volumes they want to skim. (I used a guideline of 1d3+1 days per volume, modifiable by the Library Use spends listed in the core rulebook. You could also assign a specific number of pages to each book and use the official guideline of 1 hour per 100 printed pages or 10 handwritten pages.) Skimming a volume gives them access to the one page handout describing the contents of the book. The skimming might also trigger Mythos stability checks or give them access to dedicated pool points, as described.

Most books, you’ll note, also has a section describing the benefits of Poring Over. The standard rules for poring over apply (it happens between sessions): They could generally pore over 1 book per week between locales. (Or during significant down time during a locale, although that never came up.) Echavarria’s library was incredibly well-stocked and patient players can actually rack up a pretty impressive Cthulhu Mythos score by taking the time to study it in full. (I believe the maximum possible gain is +15 Cthulhu Mythos.) Of course, they’ll pretty much drive themselves insane in the process.

USING SAVITREE’S RESEARCH: Savitree’s Research is broken up into 16 briefing documents. These mostly consist of summaries of the various expeditions of the Emporium of Bangkok Antiquities, but also include letters from other cult leaders, and also a summary of her attempts to reconstruct Echavarria’s 1924 ritual.

For each day that the PCs spend studying this notes, give them ONE of the briefing documents. The first briefing document they receive will be random unless they proactively go looking for some specific topic right off the bat, and I strongly encourage you to actually randomize it. (Shuffle the papers up; pick one randomly.) Now that they’ve stuck their toe in the water, however, you should prompt them as they continue their work, “Is there any particular direction you want to follow in your research?” Or pay attention to their discussion and see if there’s a particular topic mentioned in the first briefing document that they sound particularly interested in and ask if they want to pursue it.

If they don’t have any particular topic in mind, then go ahead and give them another random document. But if the do, then give them an appropriate briefing document and continue from there.

For example, let’s say that you start by randomly giving them the briefing document for Hang Maden. In that document, it’s mentioned that Carsten Braunlich died in 1927. They want to know how he died, so the next briefing document they get is for the 1927 expedition to Tunguska. The reference to “Echavarria’s Gol-Goroth” reminds them of something they saw in the first document, and they notice that Savitree mentions her “studies of the Black Stone”. They follow that and you randomly select between several briefing documents discussing it and they get the 1934 report on the Obelisk of Axum. (Only later do they eventually track down the original reports on Braunlich’s 1927 expedition to Hungary to examine the Black Stone itself.)

The idea here is that, instead of just getting a big linear narrative, the players will actually crawl their way through the research. They’ll forge their own connections and create their own narrative connections through the material.

(PDF)

SAVITREE’S LIBRARY: Savitree’s actual library (as opposed to her research notes) is a completely different monster. It’s even more impressive than Echavarria’s library. As described in Eternal Lies, poring over this library is impossible within the timeframe of the campaign (it would take years). Skimming the library takes considerable amounts of time (as described in the campaign), but rewards you with a massive set of dedicated pool points.

(Note: Although the campaign suggests that the players will have to return to Ko Kruk Island in order to access the full library, you should be prepared for them taking the time to crate the whole thing up and ship it to a safe house somewhere. It’s not difficult, however, to argue that it can’t all fit on their plane in a usable/accessible form. Because it won’t.)

One specific tome that can be found in the library, however, is the 9-volume Matterhorn Press edition of the Revelations of Glaaki. I’ve prepped a specific handout for that and you should pass it over as soon as they’ve spent any amount of time perusing the library’s contents. (The relationship between various versions of the Revelations is one key way in which the remix allows the PCs to figure out the true identity of the Thing With a Thousand Mouths and succeed where Savitree failed. But there’ll be more details on that when we reach Severn Valley.)

Go to 2.1.1 Severn Valley

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

Campaign Notes – Diorama – Props Packet

Bangkok is probably the most complicated locale in the Eternal Lies campaign: There are a lot of moving pieces for the GM to juggle and the investigation to unravel the Bangkok cult is difficult and dangerous for the players. This is probably even more true in the Alexandrian Remix because I ended up transforming the city into a second hub for the campaign.

From a structural standpoint, I ended up adding enough material to Bangkok that it now functionally “doubles” for Los Angeles. In the original campaign, the PCs hit Los Angeles and gain clues pointing them to all the other locations. In the remix, you could skip Los Angeles entirely and accomplish the same thing in Bangkok. Clues from Bangkok point to Malta, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Ethiopia. (There’s even a subtle clue that might get the PCs to the Yucatan.)

But Bangkok is also a second hub thematically: Savitree stands largely independent from Trammel’s network of Nectar dealers, and where Trammel eagerly rushes forward to embrace the strange power behind the Mouths, Savitree is paranoically cautious in her approach to it. And the cult leaders in Malta and Mexico City are caught between these two centers of power. (Which you’ll see reflected in the differences between the correspondence they exchange with Trammel and the correspondence they exchange with Savitree.)

INVESTIGATION ORGANIZATION

The other thing that I think makes Bangkok a difficult location to run out-of-the-book is that the material has been primarily organized by the goal the PCs are currently pursuing instead of the thing they are doing. This leaves the GM flipping back and forth through the scenario trying to find all the information relating to the thing that’s happening right now.

A simple example of this is the character of Siripong: He’s encountered in the scene “Shadowing Lowman” and about half of the information he can impart to the PCs is included there (because it relates to Lowman). But then you have to jump ahead several pages to get the other half of the information he can provide (because it relates to finding the fights in “I’m Looking for the Fights”).

For my remix notes, I’ve tried to group information together tactically. Hopefully I’ve managed to do this, largely through the expedient of splitting locations from NPCs to keep the information less cluttered.

MAPS

The other thing that makes Bangkok a difficult location to run is the lack of maps. This is a point where I and the authors of Eternal Lies have strong philosophical differences. They repeatedly and explicitly lay out their opposition to the idea of using maps as a reference tool:

Maps of the Bangkok cult’s sewer stronghold are not provided in order to eliminate your temptation to turn an exploration of the sewers into a traditional RPG dungeon crawl.
(…) You should never find yourself saying things like: “You go another 30 feet and find a doorway on your left. You can see prison cells through the door.”

Instead, they want you to say things like this:

“You slink down a curving, flooded passageway awash in feces. Through a rough doorway that looks like it was hacked from an older tunnel with a pickaxe, you spy a rough iron grate with a hinged door in it. Through the grate you see what look like they might be cells, but the light in there is thrown by a few meager scattered candles, so God knows whether you’re right or what else might be waiting in there.”

Whereas I wouldn’t recommend saying either one of those: The first is obviously bland pap, but both descriptions are inadequate by virtue of failing to give a complete vision of the situation necessary for the players to make decisions as if they were their characters. (Most notably: Does the passageway they’re currently in continue or is the door their only option for moving forward?)

The authors’ primary point is this: “Describe the area as the Investigators experience it, not (necessarily) as it actually is.”

Which is good advice. But, to be blunt, it’s how you should be running your dungeon crawls.

And, more importantly, has nothing to do with the utility provided by maps. This GMing advice is a little like claiming that you shouldn’t give NPCs names because then bad GMs won’t describe how they look.

In any case, the primary effect of this strident declamation that they don’t know how to run a dungeon crawl is that pages and pages of largely unorganized text are spent trying to communicate information that could be instantly conveyed to the GM in a single glance via a map. Which is why you’ll find a whole bunch of maps in the campaign notes. And if looking at a map suddenly makes you want to break out a Chessex map and miniatures and convert your characters to D&D so that you can start throwing fireballs around… well, don’t do that. Bad boy. No cookie.

SCENARIO FLOW

The other thing you’ll note in reading through the Bangkok chapter of Eternal Lies is that the authors feel strongly that Savitree’s mansion has to be the big finale for the chapter. For example, in “Finding the Island” they write:

You should avoid staging this scene until after the Investigators have had the opportunity to infiltrate and investigate the death-fights. Otherwise, it’s possible that they’ll miss the valuable information that they can learn there (and, of course, that they’ll avoid the grim circumstances and experience you can inflict on them in that constellation of scene).

The concern seems to be that the PCs will short cut to Savitree, take her out, and then leave because they’ve finished Bangkok. But this argument ends up being circular: They’ll have finished Bangkok after dealing with Savitree because dealing with Savitree is the last thing they’ll do in Bangkok, so you need to make sure that Savitree is the last thing they’ll do in Bangkok so that they’ll leave after dealing with her.

In running the locale, I think you’ll find it more useful to think of it roughly in terms of a triangle: One corner of the triangle is the initial investigation in Bangkok as they follow up on their initial leads. Another corner is Ko Kruk Island (where Savitree is). And the third corner is the arena where the fights are held.

If they go to the fights first, then they’ll learn that there’s a shadowy mastermind behind the Bangkok cult and they’ll have to deal with her. Taking out the shadowy mastermind is the conclusion of Bangkok because it’s the pay-off for their entire investigation (having crawled up through the cult hierarchy).

If they go to Ko Kruk Island first, then they’ll take out Savitree only to learn of the horrible things that her cult is doing in Bangkok. Taking out the Major Mouth underneath the arena of death will be the conclusion of Bangkok because it’s a huge action scene ripped straight out of pulp fiction culminating (most likely) in a giant explosion.

If the PCs take out the Major Mouth but don’t deal with Savitree, she’ll summon another one and the assassins she sends after them will make it clear that they’ve left unfinished business behind them.

If the PCs take out Savitree but not the Major Mouth, then Savitree’s caution will be thrown to the wind and violent Bangkok nectar will begin flowing out of Siam. As the PCs continue their investigation, the dangerous rise of Bangkok nectar will make it clear that they’ve only made things worse.

This is one of the big tricks with node-based scenario design: Instead of trying to predetermine what the “big conclusion” is in a given scenario, you instead want to look at the box of tools the scenario gives you and figure out which tools you can use to provide the conclusion that the players create for themselves.

PROP NOTES

Savitree’s Research: The props file for this location does NOT include Savitree’s Research. Those are being presented separately (see link below).

Scrap of Correspondence with Donovan: This prop has been designed with the intention of actually burning away the edges of the paper you print it on. For best effect, don’t be afraid of burning away some of the words (or parts of words) along the edges. The only essential element of the clue is “Montgomery Donovan – Valetta, Malta”. (Although keeping the word “sacrifice” is also thematically a good idea.)

Go to Savitree’s Research

Let’s cut to the chase on this one.

Why you should buy Lighting Strike – Behind the Veil: Twenty-eight vessels of the Venusian fleet – including exo-armors, capital ships, and drones – are described technically, narratively, and in terms of rules. This information is supplemented by a number of special case rules which modify the performance of Venusian ships in the game to match their actual strengths and weaknesses. That makes this book pretty much invaluable for anyone wanting to use Venus in their Lightning Strike games.

Why you shouldn’t like this book: In addition to the special case rules modifying Venusian vessels, a number of additional rules are presented for universal use in the Lightning Strike game – providing for grappling, new weapon characteristics, railguns, cluster munition missiles, stealth and cloak vessels, and external cargo. These are good rules, but their presence here suggests that Dream Pod 9 has decided on a design philosophy which will require you to pick up all the supplements for the game in order to have all the rules for the game. This type of methodology is extremely irritating to anyone on a limited budget – if I don’t want to play Venusian vessels, then I shouldn’t have to pick up a supplement on Venus in order to get four pages of rules.

And, now, the wrap-up: Ships and new rules. Although I may have some reservations about the direction the Lightning Strike product line seems to be taking, there’s really no doubt that this book does exactly what it’s supposed to do. A very solid product, and well worth the attention of Lightning Strike players.

Players of the standard Jovian Chronicles game interested in Venus might also want to check this one out: The Venus sourcebook for JC is still somewhere out on the horizon, so Behind the Veil (along with the Venusian volume of the Ships of the Fleet supplements) represents the only solid information on the second planet. This is delivered in the form of current political and military developments, including some tantalizing summary of the break-up of Bank power which took place in mid-2212.

Style: 4
Substance: 3

Author: Wunji Lau
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $15.95
Page Count: 32
ISBN: 1-896776-61-2

Originally Posted: 2000/10/14

As I mentioned in a previous review, the Jovian Chronicles universe took a weird turn with the Chaos Principle sourcebook by choosing to fast forward the setting by 3 years while not actually providing a full setting guide for the radically transformed solar system. Then Lightning Strike came along and decided to fast forward the setting again while also, inexplicably, flipping the entire premise of the game so that the Jovians were now the moustache-twirling bad guys. I largely point to this as the moment when Dream Pod 9 put a gun to the back of Jovian Chronicles and blew its brains out.

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

Go to Eternal Lies: The Alexandrian Remix

Campaign Notes – Props Packet

I’ve talked in the past about how useful it can be to build a second track of events into your campaign. Although Eternal Lies does not contain a fully-developed second track, it does include a large number of what it calls “floating scenes”. I’ve broken these floating scenes down into two types:

FLOATING SCENES: The ten floating scenes can be freely dropped into most or all of the locales in the campaign. Their primary function is to allow the GM to flexibly play out the cult’s (increasingly hostile) reactions to the PCs. This is particularly useful in Eternal Lies because the various locales are non-linear: By divorcing these floating scenes from any particular location, the authors allow the GM to independently ramp up the pressure being placed on the PCs. This is both naturalistic and effective storytelling.

SOURCE OF STABILITY SCENES: Eternal Lies doesn’t specifically separate these scenes from the other “floating scenes”, but I’ve done so for utilitarian purposes. The Source of Stability scenes are generally designed to be used between the various locales visited by the PCs: They’re the interactions they have with their friends and loved ones during their moments of respite. (Although, of course, many of these scenes are specifically designed to threaten that respite.) In my running of the campaign, these inter-locale scenes were played out either via PBeM or as a sort of “before the credits” montage at the beginning of the next session. (Or some combination thereof.)

The primary reason I separated the two types of scenes is that it made referencing the floating scenes during play easier: I wanted to be able to quickly reach in and grab a floating scene whenever I needed a cult response or a thematic cattleprod. And I didn’t want to have to sift through the Source of Stability scenes (which are generally not designed for mid-session use) in order to find what I wanted.

Go to 2.1 Bangkok