Tagline: If you haven’t read Dragon Magazine in years you should definitely think about picking up a copy. If you’ve never read it at all, come on in and join the party.

Those who have been into RPGs for a long time now can look back and remember a time when Dragon Magazine was not only king of the hill, but rightfully deserved to be. It was a time when you felt like the articles you were reading were actually contributing significantly to your roleplaying experience (instead of just being a list of new treasures and magical spells). It was a time when Dragonmirth was funny, and classic strips like SnarfQuest, Phil and Dixie, and (of course) Wormy were all in the midst of their runs. It was a time when, thanks to the Forum and the letters column you felt like part of a community.

Dragon Magazine rocked.

I, on the other hand, pretty much missed all that. I entered the hobby in 1989, right along with the second edition of AD&D, and Dragon (while still a great magazine) was on a declining slope. The classic comic strips were all gone, the big names had picked up their bags and moved on, and things were beginning to slip. But I came in at such a time that I could appreciate what I had missed through discussions with others (plus I’ve read quite a bit of that older material in various forms over the years). There was a significantly long period of time in which the only reason I wasn’t cancelling my subscription to Dragon was, first, because I had always had a subscription to Dragon; second, Yamara was still worth reading; and, third, I was too lazy to send in the cancellation card.

Recently, however, a couple of things cropped up:

1. Because I was involved in a lot of other commitments, a stack of recent Dragons stacked up – from #257 to #262. When I finally sat down to read them, therefore, I was able to devour a total of six issues over the course of a couple of days. While doing so a fact which had been tickling my subconscious for well over a year now suddenly sprang into my conscious mind: Dragon was good again. Actually, Dragon was great.

2. Issue #262 was my 100th issue. My first was #162 way back in 1990.

Put those two little factoids together and I decided it was time to write a review.

IN THE BEGINNING

Issue #162 is still one of my favorite issues of Dragon — a fact which, I have no doubt, is inspired largely by nostalgia. Still, when it first arrived in the mail and I looked down at the skeletal rider upon a living steed done in tones of brown (it was the October issue), I knew I had something special in my hands. Issue #162 is one of only a handful of Dragons which I can honestly say I read cover to cover (the double-sized issue #200 was the last one which sticks out in my memory) – I remember the tome which contained unspeakable spells of undead magic; the article on how to manipulate a game so that your players feel horror and not just their characters; the short story of an undead monster haunting a fantasy village; the peals of laughter from Dragonmirth; and so much else.

That was a lot of fun.

About a dozen issues later things began to taper off for me though. It’s possible my excitement was merely dying (or that overexposure to the same old formulas had finally worn thin), but given not only my feelings but the expressed feelings of many others regarding the magazine I think a serious dip in quality was taking place (along with the rest of TSR’s product line).

THE HERE AND NOW

There was a long span in the early 200’s of Dragon where I was barely even flipping through the issues. The majority of the articles were based on tired formulas (and here’s the monsters of the month, the items of the month, and the spells of the month); I hadn’t read a short story in over fifty issues; and even Dragonmirth had lost its edge.

Then things started to turn up slightly, shortly after Dave Gross took the helm as editor. I still wasn’t reading it a lot (and an impulse to simply cancel my subscription kept cropping up from time to time), but things weren’t as bad as they could be. (Now there’s sterling praise for you.)

Then TSR went belly-up and Wizards of the Coast bought the company.

Which leads me to an interesting digression. It is a testament not only to how little attention I was paying to Dragon, but also my total lack of involvement in the greater RPG community of the time, that it took me three or four months to realize that my issues of Dragon weren’t showing up. Then one day an issue of the Comic Buyer’s Guide showed up with news that TSR had gone bankrupt and been bought out by WotC. Huh. Whaddya know?

Long story short: Curiosity brought me back online to find out the hoary details, which lead me to Heavy Gear and Feng Shui, the former of which (and the latter to a certain extent as well) revitalized my passion in roleplaying games, which, in turn, is why you’re reading this review.

End of digression.

In any case, when Dragon came back things started getting better at a very rapid pace. Indeed, in my opinion, TSR started improving as a whole. But it took awhile for the fact to catch up to my brain (for those of you old enough to have been around then, you’ll remember that for several years prior to the buy-out, TSR was pretty much at the bottom of the barrel in terms of product quality).

Which brings me to the here and now. You already know what I think (because I mentioned it above): Dragon rocks. Let’s take a look at the last ten issues and find out why.

THE GOOD STUFF

ART

Let’s start on the outside. For the longest time Dragon Magazine was cursed with covers depicting nothing but dragons. While at first this seems appropriate, in truth it was just repetitious. And while I like dragons, a steady diet of them is like a steady diet of anything else: Boring.

I bring that up because the cover art of the last ten issues hasn’t only been of fantastic quality – it’s been creative, original, and (at times) cunning. Ten issues ago, on the cover of #253, we have Brom offering us up the seemingly serene image of a young beauty dipping her feet in a river while playing on the harp. It is only after admiring the picture for a few moments that you realize that her eyes are mysteriously filled with an unexpected sadness. Then you see that the riverbed is composed of skulls. Finally a shocking truth reveals itself to you: The young woman is chained to the rock upon which she sits. The initially tranquil, peaceful vista gives away to a frightening scene, made all the more horrific by the subtle, hidden nature of it all.

Issue #254 has the incomparable Jeff Easley (famed for his dragons) exercising his comedic talent, with the picture of a hill giant who has obviously been knocked unceremoniously onto his rear by the fighter who, although he and his mount are clenched in the giant’s palm, still struggles to slay the poor fellow. (And for those of you disappointed that Jeff wasn’t depicting a dragon, you might notice the silhouette swooping across the sky in the background.)

We’ll skip ahead now (noting that there “be no dragons here”) to issue #258.

Oh. My. God.

It is, quite simply, gorgeous. So gorgeous you just sit there staring at it for a few moments, and then you open up to the interior page where they reproduce the cover art full-size and uncluttered with text (a very nice feature, I might add) to stare at it some more. Todd Lockwood, the artist, deserves every piece of kudos possible for this stunning, haunting image of a young female mage, clenching a green-glowing staff, after slaying some sort of mechanical monster. Inside you discover that the image was an office favorite; so much so that it inspired Bruce Cordell to write an article based on the cover.

(Coincidentally, I mentioned above that issue #200 was the last issue I read all the way through. That is, up until this issue; and I’ve been reading all of them since then the same way (except for any game-based fiction, I have a weak stomach).)

Skip up to #260, where Jeff Easley returns with a stunningly rendered dragon steed (complete with rider) – excellent stuff – and then onto issue #261.

Oh. My. God.

Did I say that already? Well, it bears repeating. Fred Fields’ dark interpretation of Boticelli’s “Birth of Venus” is every bit as stunning and evocative as Lockwood’s cover for #258. You should track down these two issues just so you can see these covers, if for no other reason. They’re that good.

We’ll wrap up our tour of the recent covers with the most recent: Tony DiTerlizzi’s painting for #262 (of a halfing holding a lantern while walking under a fallen tree as fairies dance in the shadows) is simply heartwarming.

Since I’ve waxed on and on (and on) about the covers, I will simply say of the interior art that it matches the exterior step for step. Undoubtedly this is the finest Dragon has ever looked.

LAYOUT

And speaking of that, let us move onto the sterling interior lay-out. Let me keep it brief and sum up: Clear presentation. Easy to read. Finding information is a simple task. Graphically rich (complementing without overpowering the text). Best looking magazine I subscribe to – in or out of the industry (and I subscribe to, literally, dozens).

GENERAL CONTENT

Keeping it general: The overall quality of the articles, columns, and features has improved tremendously over the past couple years — I’ve already mentioned that I’m reading the issues cover-to-cover again. Some specific features I’ve taken note of are discussed below.

THE SPINE

Another quickie: In the past couple years Dragon has adopted a squared-off spine. This, in itself, was a good idea. It makes storing and stacking the magazines a lot easier. Then they made it even better by printing the number and the theme of the issue on the spine – which means you can find the issues you’re looking for very quickly and very easily. Kudos.

THEME BALANCE

And speaking of themes, let me say that the balance between theme related and non-theme related material in each issue is balanced very nicely. When the theme idea became particularly prominent in the 190’s and early 200’s there was a tendency to put far too much themed material in each issue – so that if, for example, the theme was “Dark Sun” and you didn’t run a Dark Sun campaign there would be next to nothing in the issue of value to you. In response to complaints regarding this Dragon then entered a stage where, although the issues still had themes, there was almost no theme-related material in the issues. This defeated the purpose. They seem to have found an appropriate balance now where you can pick up an issue just for its theme and get enough material to make it worthwhile; while subscribers who don’t have any use for the theme won’t feel jilted.

My one problem with this, however, is that I used to like the fact that the April issue was all comedy and the October issue was all horror. The “balance” here is actually, in my opinion, out of balance: I encourage them to return to a practice of having those two issues “overburdened” with themed material.

D-MAIL/FORUM

Properly handled letter columns are the life-blood of a magazine – particularly in fan-oriented publications. In the 1960s Marvel Comics had a multiple page letter column for each of their comics, in which Stan Lee (and, later, the other editors) engaged in active dialogues with the readers (and allowed the readers to engage in active dialogues with one another). Since then Marvel has continuously shrunk the size of the letter columns in synch with limiting their content – reading a letters page today you get 2-3 letters of congratulation and little else. It is a noticeable loss. (You can chart a similar decline, and disappearance, of the letter columns in F/SF magazines.)

Similarly, during its early days, and at its height, Dragon’s letters pages were one of the focal points for gaming fandom. Reading them (and perhaps participating in them) you really felt like you belonged to a community of people. During Dragon’s darkest days, on the other hand, the letter columns declined into a self-congratulatory mess (with the occasional exception). It was sickening watching people fall all over themselves congratulating a magazine of such poor quality through pure ignorance of their other options (except, of course, when they were congratulating other crappy TSR products through sheer ignorance of their other options).

Under Dave Gross, this has all turned around. He restructured the mail columns (and renamed the primary column to D-Mail) and then added the “Question of the Month” to the Forum. The most noticeable demarcation point between the old school letter columns and the new ones came when the question was asked, “What would you want to see in a third edition of AD&D?” (paraphrased). Critiques of AD&D were suddenly allowed and, with them, serious critiques of the magazine re-entered the columns as well. Gross has allowed a feeling of community to ferment and grow once again in these pages, making them one of the strongest features in the magazine instead of one of the weakest.

DUNGEONCRAFT

Starting in issue #255 a new department started in Dragon: Dungeoncraft, written by Ray Winninger (an active freelancer in the industry and the creator of the defunct Underground game). Since then Dungeoncraft has been presenting a step-by-step procedure for creating a new campaign world for AD&D — starting with basic elements and slowly building up to a world of great complexity and depth. Although most of the stuff in the articles is going to be old hat to the old hands of the industry, Winninger has done an excellent job of packaging and presenting the material in an easy-to-use manner for newcomers.

Personally I’ve had a great time reading it for a couple of reasons: First, Winninger occasionally comes up with a new way of doing something that I hadn’t thought of before. Second, it’s a great nostalgia trip. Who can’t remember grabbing a pencil and graph paper for the first time and sketching out a crude dungeon and a home base for the PCs? Great times.

WYRMS OF THE NORTH

For years now Ed Greenwood (creator of the Forgotten Realms) has been writing the Wyrms of the North column for Dragon. The concept for the column is simple: Every couple of issues Greenwood dedicates an extensive discussion to one of the dragons which lives in the northern parts of the Forgotten Realms. I have to admit that I didn’t think this column would last anywhere near as long as it has (or, if it did, that Greenwood could keep it interesting for very long), but I was wrong. I have to admit that there have been quite a few clunkers that had me skimming after a couple of paragraphs, but there have been plenty of times when Greenwood’s ideas are original and creative – showcasing the great depth and breadth of possibilities which dragons have.

A couple of additional points. First: Whatever faults it may have, Wyrms of the North is ten times better than its preceding Greenwood column (in which Elminster and major mages from the Greyhawk and DragonLance worlds got together for a chat at Greenwood’s house while he hid in a suit of armor and listened in). That column was just painful.

Second: Wyrms of the North would probably benefit if it became simply Wyrms — opening the discussion up not only to other sections of the Realms, but also to other TSR worlds (including generic write-ups). Since Greenwood doesn’t fill up every issue, it might even be conceivable that other people could do some of the columns (while Greenwood remained focused on the Realms).

PC PORTRAITS

Unfortunately I can’t pinpoint the exact issue when this feature started (as several of my back issues are stored in boxes elsewhere), but it is comparatively recently. Essentially, in each issue of Dragon you get a page full of thumbnail sketches which can be used for PCs (or NPCs, for that matter). Photocopy the page, cut ‘em out and you’ve got a quick visual reference for your players (or your DM, if your the player). Personally I’m far more likely to use these as a DM, since when I’m a player I tend to have a very specific image of my character (which is one reason why miniatures are usually a tough buy for me).

ROLE MODELS

Speaking of miniatures: Dragon has a miniature column again! Role Models is a monthly column written by Jim Bishop and J.D. Wiker which started up in issue #256. Personally I thought the loss of Through the Looking Glass (the old miniatures column) was a major blow to Dragon (although, at the time, I also felt its quality had dipped to such a low point that the blow had been struck anyway). Bishop and Wiker are doing a great job as they introduce a new generation of fans to miniatures on their way to dealing with more advanced techniques.

PROFILES

The Profiles feature has been around for quite awhile now, but it’s something I like quite a bit. On the last page of every issue we get a mini-biography of one of the people “behind the scenes” at TSR. This has introduced me to several creative personalities who I otherwise wouldn’t have taken notice of, and given me new insights into others whose works I already followed.

DRAGONMIRTH

The comic pages of Dragon have always been a mainstay – the single panel jokes cemented themselves into the D&D tradition, in my mind, with their inclusion in the original AD&D PHB and DMG. Not only has the quality of the two page Dragonmirth feature picked up over the past few years (from a lull in the mid-‘90s), but Gross has decided to include (tastefully and appropriately) several jokes elsewhere in the magazine.

Besides Dragonmirth the regular comic strips and series have also left an impression on AD&D and its fandom. From Wormy to SnarfQuest to Yamara these have become well-known icons in fandom. Right now Dragon has two strips, one of which definitely deserves its place among the greats, and the other which is quickly earning it: Knights of the Dinner Table and Nodwick.

Knights of the Dinner Table, of course, started in the pages of SHADIS, then moved to Dragon, and is now ensconced in its own comic book/magazine. Jolly Blackburn, its creator, however, continues to produce a two page feature for every issue of Dragon. Excellent stuff, as you well know. (And if you don’t know, you’re sadly missing out. Read my dedicated review of the Knights elsewhere on RPGNet.)

Nodwick, by Aaron Williams, has been around for awhile – focusing on the title character, a henchman for a group of adventurers. Nodwick is much put upon by his employers (as every henchman is): A wizard with a dry wit; a hypocritical chivalric knight who can’t live without treasure; and a short, near-sighted priestess who uses duct tape to heal Nodwick whenever he is dismembered by the monsters (which is often, but always off-screen). It grew out of Williams’ single-panel work for Dragonmirth (the same way almost every other major Dragon comic has). It has always been funny, but only recently has it begun to sit comfortably in my mind alongside the other classics of the RPG comic legacy. Nodwick appears in every issue as a four panel strip on the letters page. In the most recent issues, however, Williams has been doing full page features (in addition to the four-panel strip) with his main characters going through the classic AD&D modules ((They Might be) Against the Giants, (Little) Tomb of Horrors, and so on). A tie-in with the Silver Anniversary products TSR is releasing this year, these are absolutely hilarious. Anyone who has played through those old classics will be rolling on the floor (and even if you haven’t, Williams’ talent still makes the strips enjoyable).

THE BAD STUFF

Dragon Magazine is good. Case closed. There are only a couple of things which are serious drawbacks at the moment:

ECOLOGY ARTICLES

I used to really like these – and I still do, when Johnathon M. Richards isn’t writing them. The “Ecology of…” articles focus on one particular monster or creature, expanding what we know of them from their Monstrous Manual entry. Instead of being in dry prose, however, they always have a “hook” – they’re excerpts from an adventurer’s journal; or from a traveller’s tale; or a military spy; and so on.

A couple years back, Johnathon M. Richards wrote an Ecology article which used a meeting of the “Monster Hunters Association” as its hook. These comedic bumblers were hilarious… the first time. Maybe twice. Since then they have grown into a sort of franchise in which their bumbling, punning, and comedic missteps (particularly with spell-casting and obviously poor assumptions regarding the monsters) overshadow the useful information concerning the monsters being discussed (although the footnotes are still quite good… usually). Richards took what used to be one of my favorite columns and rendered it into a perpetual April Fools’ version of itself.

ISOLATION

Dragon has never been an industry-wide magazine, but over the course of the last year or so it has cut itself off entirely from anything which isn’t related to TSR or Wizards of the Coast. First, their industry-wide news column became TSR News. Then they proceeded to abolish and abandon their review columns. Considering that Dragon is the last major print magazine with an RPG focus in the United States (with the exception of Dungeon, which approaches the field from an entirely different angle) this is a sad loss. It is even sadder when you consider that Dragon services the AD&D audience – an audience composed of newcomers to this industry, many of whom are ignorant of their options beyond AD&D. Effectively, by isolating itself from the rest of the industry, Dragon is losing an excellent opportunity to bring people deeper into the industry. If we want to keep the industry alive and vibrant, we need to make it so that people stay here longer than one or two years – and the best way to do that is to show them the diversity of products which are available, so that they can grow into new games as they grow into new tastes.

The first time I became really aware of the non-AD&D games available was when I read a review of the fourth edition of Champions in Dragon Magazine. It was a major revelation – first, that a superheroes game existed; but, second, that a generic engine was possible. It opened whole new vistas (although through a completely bizarre chain of events it would be years before I got Champions, after I had purchased nearly a dozen other games, including GURPS, first). It would’ve taken me years to get involved in other games without that single review; and, the shocking thing is, I probably wouldn’t have maintained an interest in RPGs solely through AD&D that long. If it hadn’t been for that review, drawing me deeper into the RPG field, I wouldn’t be writing this review today. Nor would I be buying Dragon Magazine and half a dozen other TSR and WotC products every year.

We’re talking about ten pages an issue – that would be all it would take to expand TSR News back to an industry-wide news sources and to include a reviews column with 2-3 major reviews and a handful of short insights. Several of these reviews, of course, would be of TSR-related material, but I want those reviews, too. There are many TSR products which I own, which I wouldn’t if I hadn’t read a review of them in the pages of Dragon (or, more recently, here on RPGNet).

CONCLUSION

The Dragon Magazine of yesteryear is back – providing an exciting experience not only for old-timers in the industry, but for newcomers as well. In fact, I’m going to go out on a controversial limb here and say that Dragon has never been as good as it is right now. The quality of writing, artwork, layout, and vision is at the finest level I’ve ever seen it (and between my own tenure with the magazine, and through back issues, I’ve seen a lot of it).

If you’ve let your subscription lapse (and have any interest in fantasy at all), pick it up again. If you’ve never had a subscription, get one.

(Okay, okay… you might want to pick up a couple of sample issues before taking me at my word and subscribing. I won’t complain. Really.)

In short, again: Dragon rocks.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Various
Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast / TSR, Inc.
Cost: $5.95
Page count: 112-128
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/08/06

The thing I remember most about this review is a pair of responses it received: First, there was the guy who was upset that I considered the “fattie” on the cover of Dragon #261 attractive. Whenever someone talks about the bad stereotypes that cling to gamers like the funk of a man who measures the span between showers in weeks instead of days that guy always pops to mind.

Second, there was a guy who was angry because I said that people should get a subscription to the magazine. Why? Because he didn’t like fantasy. Ergo, the magazine wasn’t for him, so where did I get off telling him to buy it? Let’s ignore for the moment that the review specifically talks about that limitation of the magazine and get down to the heart of the matter: Any review inherently assumes a basic level of competency on the part of the person reading it. If you need someone to tell you that you won’t like Dragon Magazine because you don’t like fantasy gaming, then what you need isn’t a review: It’s a psychiatric evaluation.

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

Tagline: Learning from their previous mistakes, Bruce Baugh and Richard E. Dansky deliver one of the finest adventures ever as they bring the Darkness Revealed trilogy to a conclusion.

[ Ascent into Light is the third book in the Darkness Revealed adventure trilogy for Trinity. Plot points and spoilers are discussed. Do not read this review if you have any intention of playing in this adventure. I also encourage you to read my reviews for the first two books in the trilogy, as I will be including and concluding thoughts and arguments from those earlier reviews. ]

This is how it is done.

With Ascent into Light the Darkness Revealed trilogy not only establishes itself as one of the finest adventures to ever be published for an RPG, it also becomes a textbook case of how designers who remain willing to learn from their previous mistakes are the best at what they do. It is also an excellent example of how to design and implement an adventure which gets the PCs involved in the highest echelons of a game world. Plus, Ascent into Light throws more shocking surprises into the Trinity universe than you typically expect from a year’s worth of White Wolf products.

High praise is deserved all around.

THE STORY

First, let’s recap the basic story as told in the first two volumes of Darkness Revealed: The PCs, working for Aeon Trinity, get assigned to investigate suspicious activity on Luna. They discover evidence of an illegal conspiracy within the Aesculapian psi order to conduct Aberrant-related experiments on human subjects – something called the Huang-Marr Project. They follow this trail to Mars and then back to Earth, where they uncover evidence that not only the Aesculapians, but also members of Orgotek are involved. The second volume, Passage Through Shadow, ends as they root out the last of Huang-Marr’s corrupting influences on an orbital station… but as they do so, the alien Chromatics appear in Earth orbit and assault the station! The PCs assist in the quick dispatch of these alien invaders.

Thus the stage is set for Ascent into Light: Humanity has learned the psions are not the pillars of virtue they have been portrayed as (raising old fears of “Aberrants among us”) and, as internal dissension begins to grow, we are suddenly threatened from the stars.

The first adventure in Ascent into Light, “Heaven Through Iron Gates”, starts just after the UN instigates a commission to investigate not only the implications of the Huang-Marr project, but also the possibility of more widespread corruption among the psi orders. Meanwhile, Aeon Trinity, in response to the Chromatic attack, dispatches the PCs with a strike force to Karroo (where humanity is in direct conflict with the Chromatics) in order to capture and interrogate Chromatics in an effort to find out where their homeworld is, how they found out where Earth was, and to figure out what they’re up to. (The hidden reason behind this is that Aeon Trinity wants the PCs, who are the key players in the revelation of Huang-Marr, out of the way until they can come up with a synchronized strategy for downplaying and spinning the anti-psion news.)

The PCs go to Karroo and succeed brilliantly in their mission, in the process making two startling revelations: First, that the Chromatics are preparing for a massive assault on Earth. Second, the true reasons behind the Upeo wa Macho’s disappearance (which ties into the Chromatic threat in a completely unexpected way – and, no, I’m not going to tell you; buy the book). Returning to Earth however, the PCs are told by their Aeon Trinity bosses that they shouldn’t warn the world of the Chromatics’ impending invasion – the Trinity wants time to prepare and take advantage of the situation.

“Heaven Through Iron Gates” ends as the PCs rebel against the Trinity and escape. Cliffhanger.

The second adventure, “Climbing to Tartarus”, picks up at the end of the cliffhanger. The PCs finally make their way to the UN headquarters on Luna, where they burst into the ongoing Huang-Marr inquiry and make their stunning announcements on interstellar holovid.

And that’s when the Chromatic invasion force shows up.

If the implications and pulse-pounding potential of this storyline doesn’t have you at, the very least, intrigued, then you might want to check your heart – it may have stopped pumping. And I’ve only covered the major, major stuff here; other major stuff (can you say “Doyen”?) I’ve left out entirely.

THE SETTING

A brief digression: In all my reviews of the Trinity product line I’ve never really mentioned how utterly stunning the setting is. By this I don’t mean just the detail and political intrigue (although they’re certainly there, and I’ve mentioned them before) – I mean that the imagination of Bates and his design team have cooked up some startling vistas which, when you capture them in the mind’s eye, take your breath away.

The Darkness Revealed trilogy has showcased some of the best – from orbital stations, to Luna bases, to the Summit Center which rotates around the top of Olympus Mons (until the PCs are involved in blowing it up), and much more.

One of the more startlingly original pieces is the mining colony Karroo – which, as mentioned above, appears in “Heaven Through Iron Gates”. Karroo is located in a “pocket” of the Crab Nebula. When the nebula, formed from the expanding remnants of a supernova, encountered a nearby planetary system the system broke apart into a massive asteroid field; but like a river hitting a rock, a “calm” was created behind the remnants of the system. This asteroid field is now known as “the Shield”, and Karroo is located in the (relatively) small, empty space on the far side of it. When you picture this small enclave of humanity, nestled among the “greatest aurora borealis in the galaxy”, it’s an awe-inspiring thing.

THE IMPLEMENTATION

Those of you who have read my previous reviews covering the first two volumes of the Darkness Revealed trilogy know that my estimation of the story underlying each of the products has always been high. On the other hand, you also remember that I felt each product was severely flawed in its implementation.

In particular I felt that Descent into Darkness was fatally flawed as an adventure – to take advantage of the outstanding story you would need to completely rework the adventures in order to make them playable. However, with Passage through Shadow I concluded that many of these problems had been fixed between one book and the next, leaving only two main concerns for me:

First, the color sections in the books (designed to be read by the players) actually succeeded at destroying the story (in one case by containing plenty of proof to arrest several of the characters the PCs were supposed to be investigating before the adventure had even begun; in another by giving the PCs information on a location they couldn’t possibly know they would be going to until midway through the adventure).

Second, that some of the transitions required specific conclusions to be made by the PCs – if those conclusions weren’t reached, you would be off course without a compass. (This was a fairly minor concern in Passage Through Shadow; noticeable only because the flaws in this area had been completely crippling in Descent into Darkness.)

Happily I can report that Ascent into Light solves both of these problems: The color sections not only have been stripped of their plot spoilers, but the second one actually serves as an intriguing plot point (as they are mysterious transmissions of information received from an unknown source throughout the adventure).

Besides the generalized excellence, there are a couple of features I want to point out in particular: First, the inclusion of insertion points; second, the in-built capability of alteration.

I have commented in my previous reviews on the great amount of effort put into making each and every adventure in the series accessible to any group of players – even if they haven’t played through the previous ones. These “insertion points” (as I call them) give the Storyteller multiple ways to bring his PCs into the story at any point during the Darkness Revealed trilogy. I was impressed by this before, I was flabbergasted when they managed to pull it off for Climbing to Tartarus.

If you noticed, above, Heaven Through Iron Gates ends as a cliffhanger, which Climbing to Tartarus picks up on. As I reached the end of Heaven I was convinced that the traditional insertion points would not be included for Climbing — this was not a bad thing: Climbing is the last adventure of a seven adventure series. Why would any Storyteller necessarily want to start there?

Unbelievably, however, an insertion point is introduced. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work just fine. Works incredibly well, actually. I can see exactly how Climbing could be played as a one-shot adventure.

I have also commented previously on how Baugh and Dansky have given extensive amounts of time to discussing how the basic structures of their adventures can be modified in various ways. Definite thumbs up on that. Once again, however, Climbing to Tartarus takes this to a new height – as the presented story is made accessible not only if the PCs betray Aeon Trinity at the end of Heaven Through Iron Gates, but also if the PCs decide to stay loyal to the Trinity.

Simply amazing. Based on a rock solid story, these adventures are flexible, dynamic, and enjoyable.

THE VERDICT

Ascent into Light, as the concluding volume of the Darkness Revealed trilogy, is one of the finest adventures you can buy for any roleplaying game. It possesses no weaknesses, only strengths. It only costs $15.95.

There’s absolutely no reason for you not to buy this book.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Bruce Baugh and Richard E. Dansky
Company/Publisher: White Wolf
Cost: $15.95
Page count: 120
ISBN: 1-56504-751-6
Originally Posted: 1999/08/06

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

Tagline: A simple vehicle construction system. An oxymoron? Not so. Big Robots, Cool Starships succeeds at the impossible.

Big Robots, Cool Starships, the first supplement for the Big Eyes, Small Mouth roleplaying game, is perhaps the most surprising gaming product I have read all year.

Did I say surprising? I meant mind-blowing… as in “mind-blowingly good”.

Why is it surprising? you ask. (We’ll get to “mind-blowing” later.) Very simple: This book should not be anywhere near as good as it is.

First off, it is a vehicle construction system for a simple game. And when I say “vehicle construction system” I mean “vehicle construction system”. BRCS doesn’t cut corners and it doesn’t fudge (any more than BESM does). It is a concrete, dynamic, flexible system with precise definitions and seemingly limitless potential. This type of thing should not exist. And yet it does. BRCS not only succeeds at being a true system, it also manages to pull it off without becoming far too complex for the basic game. We’ll get back to how this is all possible in a couple seconds.

Second, BRCS is written by David L. Pulver. I also discovered (by reading Mark C. MacKinnon’s Foreward to the book) that Pulver signed on as Associate Line Editor and Senior Staff Writer for Guardians of Order back in November of ’98. This would, of course, be the same acclaimed David L. Pulver who wrote GURPS Biotech, GURPS Mecha, GURPS Vehicles, and the forthcoming revision of GURPS Space. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that Pulver can turn out products of sterling quality. What is surprising is that Pulver is working on BESM. I can’t imagine a longer, or stranger, jump than the one taken from GURPS to Big Eyes, Small Mouth. What is even more surprising is that Pulver, one of the Founding Fathers of vehicle construction systems in my mind, could have turned out BRCS — which is unlike any VCS I’ve seen before.

Then again, maybe that isn’t so surprising either.

By this point I’ve either tantalized or bored you enough. What the heck is this Big Robots, Cool Starships thing, anyway?

THE SYSTEM

Big Robots, Cool Starships is – in its own words – “a mecha/SF supplement for Big Eyes, Small Mouth”. It expands the basic BESM system to allow for more dynamic mecha play – “mecha” being used in its more broad-based definition of “any mechanical device found in anime”. To sum up, therefore, BRCS is a vehicle construction system (plus some general campaign info) for big robots, combat cyborgs, really cool cars, cybernetic body armor, starships, fighters, tanks, and just about anything else you can think of with two gears to rub together.

Note the word “expand”, above. It’s there for a very good reason. When most games have a book described with the blurb “new rules for XXX!” what that really means is “the system in the core rulebook for XXX was so crappy that we’ve completely ripped it out and are starting over from scratch; plus we’re charging you extra for the privilege of having decent rules”.

BRCS isn’t like that at all. The system for “giant robots” and their ilk in the core BESM rulebook works just fine. BRCS is, literally, an expansion of that basic system. It doesn’t replace; it adds to.

“But wait,” you say, “If the basic system works just fine, why does it need expanding?” The answer is simple: It doesn’t need expanding. But some people might want it expanded. If you’re running mecha-oriented campaigns, then the rules in BRCS will provide you with more options, more detail, and more innate potential. Think of it like this: In first grade you learned about addition. It wasn’t until later on that they taught you multiplication. Was the system you had learned for addition incomplete because now you had this new thing called “multiplication”? Of course not. Multiplication was simply an expansion of your mathematical concepts – more useful for some things; less useful for others. Same thing applies here.

BRCS accomplishes this expansion in a five-step process: First it redefines the “Own a Big Robot” attribute from the basic BESM rulebook to include all sorts of mecha. (“Ah ha! They did change something!” Oh, calm down. Would you have preferred it if they added a whole new attribute which accomplished nothing at all? Sheesh.). Second, they made it so that both “Own a Big Robot” and “Cybernetic Body” give you a pool of “Mecha Points”. Third, they added the attribute “More Powerful Robot” to get you some additional Mecha Points. Fourth, they added the “Personal Gear” attribute to cover situations where a character has access to gear your average person probably wouldn’t (okay, this isn’t really all that important, but I wanted a “five-step” process not a “four-step” process — so sue me). Finally, they inserted a six-step mecha design process between Step Five and Step Six of character creation as described in BESM. These steps are conveniently numbered 5A through 5F.

Basic character creation in BESM is an eight-step process. Half of those had nothing to do with the system at all (they were entirely conceptual). Similarly, three of the six steps to mecha design as described in BRCS are conceptual in nature, not mechanical – Step 5A is “GM Discussion” (self-explanatory); Step 5B is “Mecha Outline” (get your concept); and Step 5F is “Mecha Background” (when all the numbers are hashed out, your write up the details to “personalize your creation”). Therefore it’s steps 5C, 5D, and 5E which are the meat of this system. Let’s take a closer look.

Step 5C: Mecha Sub-Attributes. The BRCS system for mecha creation is extremely similar to the basic BESM character creation system. Not only is BRCS an expansion to the BESM rules, it is a seamless one – the system naturally fits right into the existing character creation process, as if it had always been meant to be there. To avoid not only the “let’s replace everything” syndrome, but also the “tacked on rules” syndrome is, quite frankly, amazing (have I used that word and its synonyms often enough to make this review’s conclusion clear, yet?).

Character creation in BESM starts with the purchasing of Attributes (with five discrete levels). BRCS mecha creation starts with the purchasing of Sub-Attributes (with six discrete levels). These are things like “Super Strength”, “Space Flight”, “Artificial Intelligence”, and so on. Like BESM character creation, BRCS is very much an open-ended effects-based system – you purchase “Space Flight” in order to build intergalactic battlecruisers and 20th century spacesuits alike. The system is incredibly dynamic and resilient, although it tends to scale poorly: You can build BMW’s and intergalactic cruisers; but you can’t have them face off against each other very well. This isn’t a major issue, and can easily be worked around in the rare circumstance when it actually crops up (for example, by giving the intergalactic cruiser appropriate action resolution bonuses based on its size, etc.; or you could just GM fiat the situation out of the way, the necessary difference between the technology levels before the problem crops up being large enough that there is really only one logical conclusion in most of these situations).

Step 5D: Mecha Defects. The next step in BESM character creation is the selection of Defects – which give you Bonus Points to spend on additional Attributes. Similarly, Mecha Defects (“Exposed Occupants”, “Hanger Queen”, “Start-Up Time”) give you additional points to spend on Mecha Sub-Attributes.

Between purchasing additional levels of “Own a Big Robot” or “Cybernetic Body” (which give you big chunks of extra Mecha Points); purchasing “More Powerful Robot” (for smaller chunks of extra Mecha Points); and Mecha Defects (for very small, precise chunks of extra Mecha Points) you should be able to tweak things for your character in just the right way so that there is little or no slop in the number of Mecha Points you purchased versus the number of Mecha Points you need to build your mecha.

Step 5E: Mecha Derived Values. Finally you figure out the mecha’s “Armour”, “Health Points”, “Energy Points”, and “Combat Value” based on its attributes. Action resolution proceeds normally.

As I said with character creation in BESM: It don’t get much easier than this.

OTHER STUFF

So Big Robots, Cool Starships is a vehicle construction system, focusing on mecha. Right? Right.

But wait… there’s more! The book also contains:

1. A brief, two page overview of the history of mecha in Japanese anime. It is surprisingly detailed considering its short length (particularly considering the broad definition of “mecha” with which the supplement is working). Noticeable oversights (at least to me) included Bubblegum Crisis and Armored Trooper Votoms. Plus, Pulver tends to ignore manga entirely (even when the series he is talking about was manga before it was anime). I was also upset that he referred to Robotech as the English translation for Super Dimensional Fortress Macross — if you don’t have the space to detail the controversy regarding the relationship between those two pieces of animation, then please don’t mention them at all.

2. A chapter on “Mecha Combat and Other Actions”. You might be thinking “new rules”, but you’d be wrong. With the exception of a couple of charts on “Falling Damage” and “Crash Damage”, health points for buildings, and a list of suggested mecha-related resolution modifiers the section is pretty much ruleless. This is for the best: The basic BESM resolution mechanics are more than capable of handling mecha. This is a testament not only to the strength of BESM’s mechanics, but also the strength of Pulver’s design system (insofar as it remains completely compatible). So what is in this section? Guidelines. Stuff you might not think of, but which Pulver takes the time to mention and bring to your attention. Excellent stuff. With a system like BESM I don’t need a rule for every occasion, and by simply bringing the stuff to my attention Pulver has done more than enough. Kudos for this restraint, which leads to a far better product than if these twenty pages had been packed full of useless rules (which would have ruined the simple elegance of BESM).

3. And we’re still not done. Pulver includes a short section on potential mecha campaign settings (from Ancient Japan to High Fantasy to Modern Day to Far Future); a game seed for each of those campaign settings; and a sample adventure.

4. Finally, I just want to make note that with this product Guardians of Order has moved up my list from “company which produces interesting stuff” to “company whose stuff you should buy”. The minor quibbles I had with their production values in their first publication (the core BESM rules) have evaporated; their general art quality has improved tremendously (although I’m still spoiled by the folks over at Dream Pod 9, so I’ll say they could be even better); their writing remains spotless (particularly with Pulver at the helm); their product conception is elegant; and their future plans look bright (with Dominion Tank Police and Demon City Shinjuku RPGs in the future as well as additional supplements for BESM).

5. To end on a weird note: BRCS has a two-page index with an entry for just about every major concept in the book. This is great, right? Wrong. Every single entry has exactly one (and only one) referenced page number. According to this index, for example, “Big Eyes, Small Mouth” is referenced only once: On page six. Not only is this, of course, inaccurate, it’s actually mentioned on page five and page seven as well. This is completely bizarre. Out of curiosity I went back and checked the core BESM manual. It’s the same damn thing! I don’t get it. This is not how indexes work!

CONCLUSION

Big Robots, Cool Starships is, in my estimation, one of the best supplements of its type I have ever read. I’ve never seen a rules-based supplement mesh so seamlessly and effortlessly with its mother product. BRCS doesn’t leave you feeling as if you were ripped off by the mecha rules in BESM; yet at the same time once you own it you know you wouldn’t want to play without it. On top of it all, Pulver has thrown in campaign seeds and a fairly interesting adventure.

When I need a simple system which is, nonetheless, a solid game engine (so that I don’t have to fudge a lot of different things to make it work) BESM has become the game I look to. BESM is the best game of its type I have encountered. The same holds true, now, for BRCS — even if I’m not sure there is another product like BRCS out there.

In short, Big Robots, Cool Starships is not only an excellent product, it is a solid product. You won’t be disappointed.

Style: 4
Substance: 5

Author: David L. Pulver
Company/Publisher: Guardians of Order
Cost: $15.95
Page count: 110
ISBN: 0-9682431-3-4

Originally Posted: 1999/08/06

As I mentioned in my review of Big Eyes, Small Mouth, the second edition of the game remains a go-to system for me. And BRCS remains one of the best vehicle construction systems I’ve ever used (although it has been awhile since I had cause to actually pull it out and play around with it).

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

Tagline: Hogshead is quickly becoming one of those companies I continually look to because of their consistent high quality. Hogswash, their sorta annual “newsletter/fanzine/thing”, not only helps you to keep an eye on them, but also has some pretty solid material in it.

I got subscribed to Hogwash one day while I was perusing Hogshead’s website. It wasn’t particularly difficult – all I had to do was drop them an e-mail with my home address in it and, before I knew it, I had the current issue of Hogwash (#4) sitting in my mailbox. Hogwash, you see, is a “newsletter/fanzine/thing” for Hogshead – it’s self-promotional content is rather high, so its distributed freely.

So why am I reviewing a “newsletter/fanzine/thing”? Because, having read it, I want to encourage all of you to drop Hogshead a line and get subscribed to it. And why do I want you to do that? Basically two reasons.

First, Hogshead tosses interesting tidbits of free game-stuff into each issue (mini-modules, monster write-ups, etc.). This is the “substance” of the issue, and it’s quality makes it well worth the handful of minutes it will take you to read through it. Its more than worth the price (since there is no price).

Second, Hogshead is quickly setting itself up as one hell of a fine game company. It’s finally beginning to produce original material for their licensed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying line of products (having gotten almost all of the original line back in print), and the stuff that’s coming out looks like its going to be absolutely fantastic. On top of that they’ve released The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (which I’ve reviewed elsewhere). In the near future they’ll be releasing Violence (by anonymous author who we all know) and Puppetland (by John Tynes), among other projects. Hogshead is hot, and Hogwash is an excellent way to keep an eye on the company.

Let’s take Hogwash 4 as an example. It was released in August 1998 (but I didn’t get it until just a couple of months ago, when I signed up). If you had gotten it in August 1998 you would have been treated to a sneak preview of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Marienburg: Sold Down the River, and the Enemy Within campaign.

The main substance of the issue is a mini-module for WFRP, Bad Tidings, set in Marienburg and written by James Wallis. For eight half-pages, James packs in a lot of plot and background (involving a murder mystery, a Chaos cult, and even a handful of interesting adventure seeds). Very nicely done, and well worth the absolute nothing you paid for it (since, even if you don’t like the world of WFRP, it’s easily adaptable to any fantasy campaign).

In addition an “exclusive interview” discussing The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (which is as cleverly done as the game itself), and a two page article explaining the changes which Hogshead will be making to the legendary Enemy Within campaign. Plus you get the “Not the WFRP FAQ” FAQ, and a rough pencil preview of the cover to Marienburg: Sold Down the River.

All in all, I strongly advise signing up for a free subscription.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Author: James Wallis
Company/Publisher: Hogshead Publishing, Ltd.
Cost: Free!
Page count: 16
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/07/26

I really miss Hogshead. They were daring and clever and James Wallis was always marvelously kind to me as both a reviewer and a freelancer. James’ is still around, of course. You can find his blog over here, and he continues to share marvelous games with us on an entirely-too-infrequent basis.

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

Tagline: Heavy Ordnance is an irreverent little game with a strong set of mechanics and a quirky sense of humor. Best of all… it’s free!

“On this playground, dumb luck carries a gun…”

With the dawn of the Internet millions of creative souls who had never before been able to distribute their creations beyond a select group of friends suddenly found a cheap and inexpensive way of distributing them to millions. I think it can be safely said that the online RPG community remains one of the most vibrant creative communities around – due, in no small part, to the fact that RPGs have been on the ‘net far longer than most of the people reading this review have. I could wax into nostalgia at this point regarding long hours spent combing through FTP sites for fan-produced AD&D supplements, but I won’t.

It comes as no small surprise that among the many fan-created RPG products which have found their way onto the ‘net, homebrewed systems should be among them. It has often been said that there is not a serious gamer alive who has not, at some point in his life, modified his favorite game or endeavored to create a brand new one. Previously these things were played by you and a few of your close friends (if you were lucky), and did little else. Now you can type them up and post ‘em – and many have done so.

It also comes as no small surprise, however, that a good 95% (if not more) of these systems are of more than questionable quality. Even if the engine is good, the setting usually isn’t. (Or vice versa.) On the other hand, there are exceptions.

FUDGE, of course, remains the pre-eminent example of how a good “freebie” system can make the transition into a “serious system”, being the first such system to be “picked up” by a publishing company and published in actual book form (by Grey Ghost Games). Designed by Steffan O’Sullivan with help from Usenet newsgroups, FUDGE was the original modular system – GMs are expected to swap in and out whatever components of the system they want to use and to modify it all to their heart’s content. Someday I’ll get around to giving FUDGE the review it deserves, but until then I’ll attempt to control my passion about this game.

But there are other games (including many which have not been picked up by “legitimate” publishers) on the ‘net which are worth a second look… perhaps even some play time. Heavy Ordnance is one of those.

SETTING

“Disclaimer: Heavy Ordnance is not real. It should not be treated as such. The people here in aren’t real, demons aren’t real, and the author in no fashion condones the use of firearms to solve conflicts with K-12 instructors. Of course, if they’re drooling acid and eating your best friend’s brains, come back and talk to me. We’ll see what I can do…”

You are a prepubescent teen. The meat loaf in the cafeteria has suffered a runaway nuclear reaction and the fallout is that anyone who has hit puberty has been possessed by demons whose meals consist of a single course: Human brains. Fortunately your school was built next door to the National Guard base and you managed to break in and load yourself down with some serious armaments. Naturally you know how to use all these things… you’ve played DOOM.

“Believe it or not, but there is the opportunity for some kind of plot in Heavy Ordnance. It’s not all blood and guns (yeah, sure, right, whatever…). You’ll have to do some work, but a game of Heavy Ordnance could be quite enriching. (chuckle)”

Heavy Ordnance, as you can tell, is an irreverent game. It’s setting isn’t designed to make sense, it isn’t designed for epic campaigns, and it isn’t designed for “serious roleplaying”. It’s designed to be fun. And it works. If you’ve read the comic strip Sluggy Freelance (and if you haven’t, you should) then you know exactly where this game is at. Now that I think about it, adding a psychotic bunny might be enough to make Heavy Ordnance a perfect game. But I digress…

The first two paragraphs in this section basically tell you everything there is to know (although there are several interesting points which I’m not going to mention because they’re of a spoiler nature). This is laid out in a couple of teaser paragraphs at the beginning, a relatively large section on the world background (a significant chunk of which is dedicated to a “wouldn’t it be neat if…?” series of adventure seeds), and an intro module — “Stupid is as Stupid Does” — wherein the PCs go on a combat mission to the junior high to see if there are any enclaves of resistance left there. (Actually “Stupid is as Stupid Does” is a sequel to the generic first adventure wherein the PCs play through the cafeteria blowing up and the first appearance of the demons, which is merely outlined for the GM.)

SYSTEM

Most systems for freebie games are one of three things: (1) Rip-offs; (2) Bad; or (3) Both. Those that fall into the first category aren’t exactly heinous offenders considering that a good 75% of all games have systems which are “ripped off” from other sources. Those that fall into the latter can usually be replaced easily enough with something else if the background makes it worthwhile.

Heavy Ordnance’s “Reflex System”, on the other hand, is generally quite good. Although it does have a handful of drawbacks and design flaws (which are noted below), it is peppered with good, original ideas.

The other nice thing is that after ever single rule (and I mean every rule) an informative and humorous example is given. Kudos.

CHARACTER CREATION

Character creation in Heavy Ordnance has always stuck in my memory for the following quote: “Due to the intensive study methods employed by the American school system, characters in Heavy Ordnance are amazingly skilled for their age. (You there, stop laughing, this is serious!)” It doesn’t really have much to do with the system itself, but it does (in the quirky, humorous style which is found throughout the game) explain the type of characters you’re going to end up with at the end of your character creation session.

The first thing that becomes obvious is that this is a dice pool system – your attributes and skills give you a number of dice which you roll (this is discussed in more detail below). One of the more interesting concepts in Heavy Ordnance, however, is the method by which this is handled: Attributes and skills are not quantified by a number of a dice; rather they are quantified by “pips” – a number between 1 and 150+. The number of pips you have then determines how many dice you get for that attribute or skill. A table is provided on your character sheet for easy reference, but it breaks down like this theoretically: For 10 pips you get 1d. To get additional dice you have to get n+10 additional pips, where n is the number of pips you had previously. Hence at (10 + 20 =) 30 pips you get a second die; at (30 + 30 =) 60 pips you get a third die; and so on.

This is nice. It allows for a dice pool system without the extreme coarseness of character advancement which is typical of a basic dice pool system. Additionally, it avoids the clunkiness of dice pool systems which have you assign different numbers of “points” to different elements in order to gain additional dice during character development. Plus, it is a tiered system so that it becomes more difficult to advance the more skilled or talented you get.

The next thing you have to determine is you age – which you simply pick. The game notes that if you’re older you can pick on younger kids; but that if you’re older you are that much closer to turning 14 and becoming a slavering, brain-eating demon. Part of me wishes that they had made this concrete (so that picking an older character would give you higher attributes and skills, for example); another part of me realizes that this would be ridiculous. Heavy Ordnance doesn’t exactly lend itself to campaign play, so the “threat” of turning into a demon in a year isn’t a threat at all.

You nine attributes – three Mental, three Physical, and three Averaged. Mental and Physical attributes are generated randomly by rolling 2d100 and dividing by two. The Averaged attributes are associated to one Mental and one Physical attribute – add those together and divide by two to arrive at your Averaged attribute.

Once again I’m of a mixed mind on this. As a general rule I really hate random character generation. On the other hand, for some reason it didn’t really bother me too much in this case. Possibly because of the throw-away, one-shot nature of Heavy Ordnance.

Skills are allocated, with each player getting 200 pips to distribute through them. There is a limited sub-skill system whereby the primary skill is rated based on the total number of pips (for example: Linguistics, 30 pips, 2d), while the pips are then distributed between the various sub-skills. For each set of 10 pips in a sub-skill you subtract one difficulty from any action attempted using that sub-skill (for example if you put all your Linguistic pips into Spanish and were attempting to speak to a Frenchman your difficulty might be 9; but speaking to a Spaniard your difficulty would only be 6). A relatively clever system, in my opinion, with many of the advantages of a skill-tree without the bureaucratic hassle.

Exceptional and Detrimental abilities bear a strong resemblance to the Advantages and Disadvantages of games like GURPS and Hero, although in this case the game designer has apparently decided to take a day off and leave things in the hands of the GM: The players come up with concepts and the GM assigns point values. The number of points a character has in Exceptional Abilities must equal the number of points he has in Detrimental abilities.

The most interesting section of Heavy Ordnance character creation are the personality quantifiers: Morality, Method, and Drive. Each of these is a dichotomous set of traits (Morality: Charitable-Selfish; Method: Conformist-Rebel; Drive: Pacifist-Militant). These are used in two ways: First, they are actually very useful in determining how a character will react to a particular situation – far moreso than an AD&D-style alignment system (they are greatly helped in this because they are not supposed to be a dogma of any kind). Second, they are used for determining when Hero Points (you may know these by the names of Luck Points and Fudge Points from other systems) at the discretion of the GM.

All in all this character creation system is clean, fast, and creates exactly the right kind of characters in exactly the right way for Heavy Ordnance. Plus it coins a couple of original ideas, and modifies old ones. Two definite thumbs up.

BASIC RESOLUTION MECHANIC

The biggest weakness of Heavy Ordnance is its resolution mechanic – largely because it’s showing its age. That’s kind of a weird thing to say about a five year old game, but Heavy Ordnance is a dice pool system which still suffers from the complete lack of statistical coherence which the early Storyteller system did – while even White Wolf has moved on and fixed many of those problems. Perhaps it isn’t entirely affair to hold a 1994 game to modern standards, but since I am writing this review today and not five years ago I don’t think I’m really being that unfair in noting the problem.

On the other hand, Heavy Ordnance does take advantage of some unique properties of an unfixed dice pool system which – if they had fixed it – they would not have been able to do. All in all, I’d have to say it ends up being a pretty fair trade-off when all is said and done. But then statistical coherence and accuracy has never been a high priority for me, particularly in games of this nature.

The basic resolution mechanic is this: The GM sets a target number. You roll a number of dice equal to your Attribute + Skill. Each die which is higher than the target number is a success, the others are failures. Each action takes one “round” of variable length (anywhere from a few seconds to hours to days, depending on the action) – this is primarily important for combat and extended actions.

First Complication: One die in every pool is the Fortune Die. If a roll of 10 comes up on the Fortune Die it counts as a success and you roll it again – if a success is rolled you add one to your total number of successes, raise the difficult by one, and roll again. You repeat this process until you roll a failure, at which point you stop rolling. If, on the other hand, a roll of 1 had come up on the Fortune Die you would roll it again – if a failure is rolled, you subtract one from your total number of successes, lower the difficulty, and roll again. You repeat this process until you roll a success (which does not count), at which point you stop rolling. Disregard any 1’s rolled while rerolling a 10 (although it still counts as a failure and you stop rolling).

Second Complication: Opposed actions are resolved by having both participants roll. The greater number of successes succeeds.

Third Complication: Extended actions (which take place over a long period of time) are resolved by the GM setting a specific number of necessary successes and having the player roll until they get that number of successes. Teams of characters may be able to work together to get the necessary number of successes, where appropriate.

Fourth Complication: To attempt multiple actions in a single round (or simultaneously at any time) you can split your dice pool. Only one Fortune Die is rolled, and the player decides where successes are added or subtracted.

I’ve always loved the elegance with which a dice pool system handles extended actions and multiple actions. Say what you want to against the statistical variance, you just can’t find a more intuitive way for handling those situations.

(Having said that, of course, I realize that it will now be a matter of minutes before someone does just that.)

COMBAT

Heavy Ordnance really shines in combat. It’s here where the system makes some serious claims to innovation, creating a nice, smooth system with a ton of tactical options.

Initiative. After declaring actions for the round, everyone assembles their dice pool (based on what action they’re taking). To determine initiative you then bid dice from your dice pool. For example, imagine that you’re squaring off against a demon. You bid one die to gain initiative. Then the demon bids two, so you bid three and get to go first. The trick, of course, is that the more dice you bid the lower your chance for ultimate success. When I first read this I was disappointed – it seemed like a bit of a gamist trick, with no correlation to reality. Then I realized that it was modeling the results of rushing an action. This is strengthened by a complementary system which allows you to raise difficulty to get additional dice. The dice you bid are placed in the “hero pool” (see below).

Overall I like this system: It connects skill to initiative, plus the bidding mechanic is an interesting idea. On the other hand, there are a couple of problems I have with it. First, the system isn’t entirely clear on whether or not you can raise your difficulty to get additional dice without actually bidding those dice on initiative – nor is it entirely clear (given the statistical nature of a dice pool system) what impact it would have. Second, while the system works very well for one-on-one and small group situations, as the number of combatants increases the system becomes crippled – if you’ve got, for example, ten combatants (a not unlikely figure when you total PCs and NPCs together) to determine clear initiative lines for everyone involved will exhaust everyone’s dice pools. The solution to this (undiscussed in the rulebook), I think, is to only worry about initiative between discrete groups in combat (hence you only worry about whether you or the demon you’re fighting goes first; not whether or not your friend who’s fighting a different demon is going before or after you). This only breaks down if a “chain forms” – you’re attacking a demon who’s attacking your friend, who’s attacking another demon, and so on (i.e., any situation where you can’t break the combat down into discrete groups).

Basic Combat System. Combat action resolution is identical to normal action resolution – roll your dice pool and count successes. The system is unclear about how you assign a target number for the roll, but apparently it’s left to the GM’s discretion based on the situation.

If you hit successfully you roll an additional d10 and compare it to a hit location chart (broken down into “Head”, “Torso”, “Abdomen”, “Left Arm”, “Right Arm”, “Left Leg”, and “Right Leg”). The most interesting part of this mechanic, though, is that additional successes allow you to “bump” your result – changing where on your target you hit by “one location”. The only confusing thing about this is that the language they use is imprecise, so you have to interpolate in order to conclude that “one location” refers not to the order on the hit location chart, but on the human body – thus you bump from “legs to abdomen” not “legs to arms” (which is the order they appear in on the hit location chart). I really like this system, which eliminates the need for a clunky “aimed shot” mechanic. The only problem is that you need to interpolate the damage system to realize that the hit location system is generalized for all types of combat, not just for the ranged combat section under which it is first described.

Finally damage is determined in one of four ways: (1) For ranged weapons you roll a die type which corresponds to the weapon you’re using (1d8 for 10mm pistol, 2d6 for a 12-guage, etc.) and then add your successes; (2) For Hand-to-Hand situations your damage equals your number of successes; (3) For Melee weapons your damage equals your number of successes plus a static damage modifier based on weapon type; and (4) Explosives have a die-rating like a ranged weapon and also a radius stat (e.g. a grenade has 4d6,2). This means that the grenade does 4d6 damage within two yards, and at every multiple of that radius (4 yards, 6 yards, etc.) the grenade will do one die less of damage (3d6, 2d6, etc.).

However, it isn’t quite as simple as you think. Each location has a number of hit points equal to the number of dice you have in the Well Being attribute – so if you have 2d Well Being, you have 2 hit points in each location. The type of damage in a location you take is based on the multiple of your hit points – for any amount less than your total number of hit points you’re Scratched; for any amount up to 2 times as many you have a Flesh Wound; 3 times as many and you’re Injured; 4 times, Seriously Injured; 7 times, Critically Injured; 10 times, Area Destroyed. For some reason the easy reference chart for this isn’t duplicated on the Character Sheet; it should have been. In any case, the system works like a charm – an intuitively clever handling of hit location damage. About the drawback is that the term “hit points” is misleading and unnecessary.

Ranged. Ranged Combat is the most basic combat resolution – declare action, form dice pool, determine initiative, roll, bump hit locations if necessary/wanted, and determine damage. Done deal. From a defensive standpoint, you cannot dodge a bullet – however, if you get initiative you can dodge the barrel of the gun with an Agility-Gymnatics roll, opposed to the shooter’s roll.

Automatic Fire is handled quite well. For a single target shot you determine how many rounds you want to/can fire in that round and then roll for the first shot. If that is successful, roll one die for every additional bullet that was fired against the same difficulty – your number of hits equals your first bullet plus the successes in the second group (so, essentially, 1 + your number of successes in the second roll). Hit location is determined by the first roll, bumping as appropriate.

Spraying an area is slightly different. You get a number of dice equal to the number of rounds you’re firing, and then subtract one for every 10-degrees of arc you’re attempting to cover. Roll these versus a difficult two higher than normal, divide successes evenly among the possible targets. Note that you aren’t using the dice from your dice pool, although these are still the dice you bid with for initiative (one die must remain at the end of initiative bidding). At first I thought this was unfair, then I realized that suppressive fire doesn’t take any time to set up (with aiming) – you just squeeze the trigger.

Explosive are also dealt with in this section, however, and they aren’t handled so well. The damage mechanic is simple and intuitive (as noted above), and a I like it a lot – the only problem is that the system doesn’t tell you how to determine how many yards away an explosive device is from a successful throw. I can think of several potential systems for resolving this, but this is a painful oversight.

Hand-to-Hand/Melee. Hand-to-Hand and Melee combat are only differentiated by the way damage is figured (dealt with above). They are both determined in the same way as basic ranged combat, with one catch – you can spend dice from your dice pool to raise the opponent’s difficulty on a one-to-one basis (spending one die, for example, would raise an opponent’s difficulty from 6 to 7). This is a really incredibly clever way of handling it: You want to go with an All-Out Defense? Just put all your dice into raising the other guy’s difficulty. All-Out Attack? All your dice into the attack. Plus any mix between those extremes.

Armor/Cover. Basically this simply absorbs damage (having a specific point rating depending on the type of armor/cover involved) – since a hit location system is used there’s no need for any frills here.

Hero Points. The dice you (and everyone else) bid at initiative are put into a “hero pool” for that round. By spending a hero point you can pick up that hero pool and add it to your roll for that round. Hero points are also the mechanism for character advancement – by spending one hero point you get 1d6 pips to spread around your skills and attributes.

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

A few small points which I’ve discovered have been left over and don’t really fit in well anywhere else.

First, I am reviewing the PDF version of Heavy Ordnance. I don’t think that makes a whole lot of difference to this, but I thought I should mention it.

Second, this entire manual could have used a good editorial check. There are proliferous spelling and grammatical errors. I’m not one to get overly touchy about this sort of thing, but this was so over the top that it occasionally interfered seriously with my ability to enjoy the book.

Third, the cover art (by Lee Harrison) and general layout is superb. It captures the attitude and spirit of the game perfectly, drawing the reader into the product in a way few freebie RPGs have managed (and which many commercial ones completely fail to do). The interior art by Christopher Blankley (the author) takes the form of gag-line comic strips drawn from the source material. Their artistic quality is… uh… questionable, but they are quite clever – although their humor is several years out of date. (Barney jokes? Oh well, it was 1994.)

CONCLUSION

Heavy Ordnance is a really fun game. It seems to be possessed of much the same dynamic as Paranoia (although the PCs don’t die routinely and the humor is of an entirely different flavor) – you usually play it for one-shot fun, but occasionally a decent-sized campaign will tickle your funny bone as well. I think it would probably be ideal as a relaxing back-burner campaign setting you could step back to you while relaxing from your more intensive campaigns.

On top of that, the rule system (while possessed of editorial flaw and a couple of drawbacks) is fun, creative, and innovative. It’s a perfect match with the setting.

And hell, it’s free, so at the very least you should take a look for yourself.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Author: Christopher Blankley
Company/Publisher: Reflex Systems
Cost: Free!
Page count: 50
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/07/26

“As a general rule I really hate random character generation…” Well, 1999 me is obviously not the me of today. Last year I actually spent a significant chunk of time trying to figure out how to randomly generate characters for Shadowrun as part of my aborted efforts to structure an open table for the system. The obvious disadvantage of a random system, of course, is that it doesn’t allow you to design or play the character that you want to play. And sometimes I really like to have that level of control over my PC. But I’ve also come to appreciate that random character generation (a) radically speeds up the process by which new players can be introduced to a system and (b) can serve as a really effective improv seed that you can use to create stuff you’d never dream of on your own.  (Like, say, the OD&D character at my open table whose background included being cursed by a witch to have two hearts because he had broken hers; the strain of the second heart was the explanation for his incredibly low Constitution score.)

I always wanted to play Heavy Ordnance, but I think I missed my opportunity. This is a game that would have been a lot of fun when I was still a teenager. As a thirty-something? Not so much. If I did play it, the game would be a very different kind of fun — a nostalgic sort of fun as opposed to a purely gonzo escapist sort of fun.

I’m also, unfortunately, uncertain where you can obtain a copy of Heavy Ordnance these days. It used to be hosted on a number of different sites, but they appear to all be defunct. If anyone knows how to get in touch with Christopher Blankley, I would be more than happy to host his games here on the Alexandrian if they can’t find a home anywhere else.

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