Tagline: A masterpiece. ‘Nuff said.

This book is a masterpiece.

First, let us look at the design philosophy of the Heavy Gear line of products. Like any other roleplaying game on the market the first product you are expected to buy is the rulebook. Currently in its second edition as I write this, the rulebook contains a regrettably brief coverage of the world of Terra Nova, the setting of the game. ‘Regrettably’, I say, because the very best thing about the game (despite the fact that the Silhouette engine on which it is based is one of the best on the market today) is the rich and inspiring world in which it is set. This isn’t much of a shortcoming, however, because the main rulebook contains not only a complete roleplaying game but a complete tactical game as well (which is beautifully based on the same basic system and principles). The rulebook is a masterpiece of system design in its own right.

After purchasing the rulebook your next step should be to pick up Life on Terra Nova (also in its second edition as I write this). Life on Terra Nova is the key to a magnificent, layered, believable, living world. It is without equal in terms of its originality, depth, and potential. Don’t be fooled into thinking that because the game is called Heavy Gear that the primary focus of the game is necessarily on the gears – the primary focus is on the characters and the world. The gears (as DP9 likes to point out) are merely the coolest selling point available. Like the rulebook, Life on Terra Nova is a masterpiece.

Once you own these two books you have the core of the Heavy Gear product line in your possession. At this point (as a roleplayer) you can go in several directions: You could purchase the host of technical supplements for the game (primarily for Tac use, but also useful for roleplaying campaigns with a technical or gear-slant to them). Or you could look at buying one of the regional sourcebooks (some of which, like The Paxton Gambit, double as campaign jumpstart kits). Either way you’re on firm ground. I have yet to buy a Dream Pod 9 product that has come anywhere near to disappointing me – even their Character Compendium is an intriguing, exciting product for god’s sake! How do you pull that one off?

But the most original aspects of the Heavy Gear product line (in my opinion) are the storyline books and the Timewatch system. To understand why I feel this way you must first understand why I get frustrated with many other roleplaying game lines – such as Trinity or Fading Suns. While I feel both of those games are some of the strongest competition to Heavy Gear’s title as reigning champion of setting design, those settings are damnably difficult to keep up with. Trinity, for example, requires you to purchase adventure supplements in order to keep up with the developments of the world with any cogent completeness. Another excellent example of this trend is Shadowrun, a campaign setting which has developed through several years of “game time” and which intrigues me deeply, but which will never be able to attract much of my money because trying to buy enough product to untangle what the setting is and where it has been is simply too gargantuan a task for me.

Not so with Heavy Gear (which is to Shadowrun what X-Files is to Babylon 5; both have over-arcing storylines, but only one was worked out in advance… and it shows). First, each product (with one exception where they screwed up) has a date printed on the backcover: the cycle in which the product is set. This simple innovation (known as the Timewatch system) seems simple and obvious, but it is has never been done before. It means that it is possible to figure out when each product is set in the timeline of the setting with a simple glance – you don’t have to wonder, as you stare at a shelf full of product, which ones you should buy first in order to coherently understand the development of the fictional world. You know right off the bat.

The second element which makes Heavy Gear better than Shadowrun or Trinity, however, are the storyline books (of which Crisis of Faith is the first – see I’m going to get to an actual review of this product eventually). The storyline books cover the major developments in the meta-story of the world over the course of a couple of cycles (the Terranovan equivalent of years). This means that you don’t have to buy, for example, the campaign sourcebook The Paxton Gambit (which might be of negligible or nonexistent use to you) to know about the BRF uprising in Peace River in TN 1935; it will be summarized in the second storyline book (Blood on the Wind) just as the events in the campaign book The New Breed are summarized in Crisis of Faith. Other games have occasionally issued updates or new editions of products, but nothing of this methodical nature. In addition the meta-story of Heavy Gear is like that of Babylon 5 (as noted above) – it was worked out in advance and as a cohesive whole, instead of merely being thrown together as things develop. If some development is hinted at and then carried out later it isn’t because someone had a really cool hint and them somebody else had to ad hoc a solution to it, it’s because the guys down at Dream Pod 9 are really on top of the ball. (The closest I’ve seen anyone else come to this currently is Andrew Bates and Trinity — I heartily encourage him to embrace the storyline book concept from Dream Pod 9 in developing the very intriguing meta-story he is developing there.)

I could go on and on about other brilliancies in the design of the Heavy Gear product line (such as the chesspiece system which tells you at a glance how important DP9 NPCs are to the storyline – allowing you to gauge how much freedom you have in manipulating their lives in your own campaign), but instead I’m going to fulfill my obligation to you and start talking about Crisis of Faith in particular now that you understand the design philosophy which gave it birth.

As I mentioned above, Crisis of Faith is a masterpiece. It also has the potential of being a very misunderstood one.

Specifically, Crisis of Faith can be misunderstood due to its size and due to its content. The first is simple to understand. Like Making of a Universe (a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the Heavy Gear setting and reviewed by myself elsewhere on RPGNet), Crisis of Faith is a half-sized, 112 page book. It simply looks small on the shelf and the fact that it is no cheaper than your average roleplaying product made it look skimpy for the dollar value. Personally I have no problems with this format – particularly since it allowed the inclusion of multiple full-color sections (more on the art below).

The second misunderstanding arises because, quite frankly, this book doesn’t have any immediately applicable usefulness in a roleplaying (or tactical) campaign. Your average sourcebook gives you floorplans or NPCs or something of immediate, tangible use. Crisis of Faith gives you a narrative of events. This has led some to ask, “What good is it?”

Those of you who have read my review of Making of a Universe have probably already figured out where I’m going with this – in short, Crisis of Faith is being judged as something which it is not. Like attempting to judge your daily newspaper in terms of how well it succeeds at being the Great American novel, judging Crisis of Faith as a traditional roleplaying sourcebook is a waste of time. Crisis of Faith attempts to do two things, and it does these things very well:

First, as detailed above, it is primarily useful to the roleplayer or tactical player by providing a narrative of events transpiring in the setting of the Heavy Gear game in a single resource – meaning that you don’t have to buy every product released for the game in order to keep up with the major developments in the world as a whole. The storyline books (along with Life on Terra Nova) free you from that necessity, allowing you to pick and choose the products you need to buy (as much as you “need” to buy any form of entertainment). Naturally if you want a more comprehensive look at a particular event or a particular location then you buy the applicable sourcebook. The key here is that Crisis of Faith (and its sequels) means that you can keep track of the world without having to religiously deposit your weekly paycheck at the hobby store in order to keep up with every release. This is a good thing in my opinion. (The only flaw in this plan is that the Heavy Gear setting is so fantastic that it can prove addicting – forcing you to buy all the products anyway. Oh well. That’s a flaw I, for one, can live with.)

The second function of Crisis of Faith, however, is to tell a good story. The design team down at Dream Pod 9 have realized the simple truth that roleplaying games provide a medium for telling stories in a way which no other medium does – both at the meta-level and at the personal level. At the meta-level the story is the comprehensive development of the world. At the personal level the story is that of the particular PCs. Both stories by themselves (if the particular campaign in question is a good one) can be enthralling and entertaining, but when you weave them together (the personal story taking place in the backdrop provided by the rich, evocative, intriguing meta-story) you have a dynamic process taking place.

And the story being told by Dream Pod 9, and as epitomized in Crisis of Faith, is one of the best. Intrigue, power, politics, war, love, murder, mayhem. You name it and Heavy Gear has got it.

And if that’s all there was to it, Crisis of Faith would already be one of the classics in this industry. But I have yet to deal with another pillar of strength in the Heavy Gear: The Artwork.

[ A brief aside: Heavy Gear is a game seemingly possessed of no weaknesses and excellence in everything. No other line of games in the history of this industry can boast of such a consistent level of quality throughout their entire product line. Usually you can find, even in the best of games, some throw-away product or another where the writing or the art or the basic concept simply wasn’t all that strong. Not so Heavy Gear (or any other Dream Pod 9 product). The strength of their product methodology and their writing has already been dealt with, now let’s look at the artwork. ]

Quite simply no bad artwork has ever appeared in a Dream Pod 9 product. Ever. And that’s a pretty impressive thing considering the dozens of products they’ve produced and the hundreds of illustrations which accompany each one. Quite simply this excellence can be ascribed to Ghislain Barbe. His style for Heavy Gear has been heavily influenced by anime and this has led, occasionally, to the mislabelling of the game as an “anime game”. It isn’t. It is, however, superb – you merely have to flip through any Dream Pod 9 product to see that. It’s simple line art which is crisply inked and then colored by computers (even when the artwork is produced in black and white for the actual book), producing a rich depth to every piece.

The reason I bring this up is that Dream Pod 9’s products are the most visually dynamic and consistent products in the industry ever. And Crisis of Faith is, quite simply, the best of the best.

(To fully appreciate this you should note that Dream Pod 9 “throws away” artwork which most companies would give their left arm’s for by making them smaller on the page in order to produce a visually rich and dynamic whole. Crisis of Faith is an excellent example in which almost every page has three small illustrations (smaller than my thumbnail) in the upper corner – each of which directly reinforces the text. Some of these pieces are recycled from other works, but most of them are originals created specifically for Crisis of Faith.)

Every page in Crisis of Faith shows a brilliancy of lay-out and artistic design which, if everyone else in this industry possessed only 1/10th as much skill, would improve product quality exponentially. Unlike many “artistic designs” almost no element on the page is there merely for the sake of its own existence. Despite that simple utilitarian elements (page numbers, the date of the material being discussed, the line which separates the columns) are beautifully blended into a powerful whole in a masterful display of raw talent. Then there are the color sections, which you can just stare at for extended periods of time.

Did I mention that the last six pages contain a surprise, cliff-hanger ending so shocking that you will be begging for more?

So, to sum up: Crisis of Faith is part of the best game line in existence today. Crisis of Faith is the first in a series of “storyline books” which, if there is any justice in the world, will revolutionize the way in which game settings are developed in this industry. Crisis of Faith tells one of the best stories ever created, taking advantage of the full potential the roleplaying medium has to offer. Crisis of Faith is quite possibly the most visually dynamic and powerful roleplaying product ever designed. Crisis of Faith is one of the best roleplaying products ever. Period.

I know I’ve said it before (and I will undoubtedly say it again), but if you aren’t involved in Heavy Gear you’re missing out on one of the best things this industry has ever had. If you haven’t already done so, go out and buy the second edition of the rulebook, the second edition of Life on Terra Nova, and Crisis of Faith. You won’t be disappointed.

[ One final note: You should read Crisis of Faith before reading the second edition of Life on Terra Nova. This is due to the biggest mistake Dream Pod 9 has ever made, which is detailed in my review of the second edition of Life on Terra Nova elsewhere on RPGNet the Alexandrian. In short if you don’t read Crisis of Faith first the ending will be spoiled. (But then again, if you paid attention to the Timewatch system you’d already know that – since the second edition of Life on Terra Nova takes place in TN 1935, the cycle in which Crisis of Faith ends. ]

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Dream Pod 9
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $29.95
Page Count: 112
ISBN: 1-896776-21-3

Originally Posted: 1999/04/13

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

Tagline: This is a beautiful book which some will find useful but which all should find wonderful.

The Making of a Universe: Heavy Gear Design Works is something which has never been done in the roleplaying industry: A peek behind the wizard’s curtain. Fans of speculative fiction have seen this type of thing before – the worlds of Middle Earth, Pern, and the Wheel of Time (among others) have all been subjected to visual tours, atlases, and looks at the “research materials” their creators produced before sitting down to write their stories.

What makes Heavy Gear unique, however, is that the universe was conceived as a whole. It was not produced so that a story could be set in it, 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 in an organic whole (unlike Middle Earth, Pern, and the Wheel of Time wherein artists would come in after the author finished and conceive visually off of a finished concept). The result has been widely touted as one of the most original and creative settings ever designed – not just for roleplaying games, but period. And, in my opinion, the world of Heavy Gear deserves every one of those kudos.

And The Making of a Universe gives us a look at the design process which led to the creation of this wondrous place. That’s a pretty cool concept.

Indeed, this book lives up to it. It’s cool. Despite its half-size format (which has since been abandoned by Dream Pod 9 after the complaints associated with Crisis of Faith) The Making of a Universe is a visual tour-de-force showing in great detail the gradual development of the style, the Gears, the tech, the culture, the architecture, the creatures, the characters, and an entire living world. It’s breathtaking.

So that’s what this book is – a wonderful guided tour of how a universe was made (check out the title!); so what is it not?

The Making of a Universe is not a roleplaying supplement. It was not designed to be useful to a roleplaying session in the same way which a sourcebook or a campaign book would be. It treats the Heavy Gear universe as being separate from the roleplaying or tactical games – as something with a legitimate existence outside of “gaming”. It does so deservedly, but this has lead to some confusion over this product. Understand that if you are looking for something which would be useful for your gaming experience this book is probably not going to be your best buy. If you love the Heavy Gear universe as much or more than you love the actual game (and I know this statement applies to a lot of Heavy Gear players), then you’ll love The Making of a Universe. Buy this book.

Before closing, let me say that The Making of a Universe isn’t entirely worthless as a resource. In much the same way which the Illustrated Guide to Pern would be useful in running a Pern game, so The Making of a Universe is useful to a game set in the Heavy Gear universe. For example the Gear Showcase groups together a lot of information which I occasionally use as an uber-resource in referencing the broad spectrum of Gear technology (similar sections exist for ground and air vehicles). The section which shows detailed, isolated pictures of weapons, sensors, and other technical equipment has proven to be ocassionally useful in the extreme. So this book isn’t useless for such applications – that’s just not what it’s primary goal is and it shouldn’t be judged as a roleplaying resource.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Dream Pod 9
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Page Count: 112
ISBN: 1-896776-31-0

Originally Posted: 1999/04/13

In many ways, this is a book without a clear identity. (And, as my review tried to explain, that’s more than okay.) But that lack of a clear identity also posed a challenge for me in reviewing it. I remember struggling mightily with that challenge. And, in retrospect, it’s a challenge that I ultimately didn’t conquer.

Still a good book to check out if you’re a Heavy Gear fan, though.

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

Tagline: Terra Nova, the colonial world in which the Heavy Gear game is set, is the best setting for a roleplaying game ever. Period. Life on Terra Nova is your key to that wonder.

I had a difficult time with this review. The back of mind kept getting plagued with the notion of marking down one or both of the scores for various shortcomings. Eventually, though, commonsense won out: This book may have a couple of problems, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the best sourcebooks you’ll ever buy.

So what were the problems?

Okay, first off Dream Pod 9 needs to seriously look into how their proofreading procedures are being carried out. This book was just plain sloppy. When I encountered two significant typos in an early discussion of what is probably the most signficant event in recent Terra Novan history I realized I was in trouble; it was a little like having “ROSEBUD” spelled wrong at the end of Citizen Kane. When I realized that they had actually succeeded in missing the insertion of italics (the editorial marks are still present in at least two locations)… well…

Second, I continue to hold reservations about their second edition products. One of the things which I really liked about the Heavy Gear product line was the fact that you picked up the rulebook and it gave you a baseline to the way the world was in TN 1932. Then you could pick up other sourcebooks (which were conveniently labelled with the date on the backcover) to supplement that baseline as you needed it, relying on the storyline books to advance the world for you. The second edition rulebook advanced the clock to TN 1934, effectively eliminating most of the first storyline book. This second edition of Life on Terra Nova advances the clock again, this time to TN 1935. I just don’t like it. Where I initially praised the Heavy Gear line of products for the clarity of its presentation and development, now there’s a muddle. The primary sourcebooks are set in TN 1934 and TN 1935 – but the regional sourcebooks published to date all take place before those dates. This taking a general survey course in physics which covers the cutting edge of development, but then spending the rest of your college career studying the Aristotelian worldview. Although there’s nothing you can do about the past, I’d encourage Dream Pod 9 to stop this here. I think I speak for all Heavy Gear fans when I say that we’d much rather have new stuff produced in a coherent and progressive order, rather than continually revamping the core products. The “baseline and expand” approach you’ve developed means you don’t have to do that the way most other systems do; and, in fact, if you do follow that course you end up making things worse.

Third, although many things have been expanded in this version of Life on Terra Nova (including a complete mini-sourcebook of the Port Arthur area), several things have also been excised. The new material is (of course) superb, but some of the nice touches of the original – particularly in the history section of the product (stuff that can never be effectively presented elsewhere) – are no longer there. The devil is in the details, and so is the strength of roleplaying settings. Particularly this one.

Fourth, although much has been added, much has ben changed, and some has been lost, there is some stuff which has been copied verbatim. Unfortunately not a lot of thought was apparently always put into this. For example, in the section on the city-state of Exeter the following passage appears in both the original Life on Terra Nova (set in TN 1932) and this new version (set in TN 1935): “Exeter’s most notable export is ‘Pride of Exeter’ brand premium ice cream. Numerous Pride of Exeter shops have opened up all around the CNCS over the past forty years. However, sales recently decreased after the Norlight Inquirer reported that Pride of Exeter brand ice cream was laced with mind-controlling substances. The ice cream’s manufacturer is currently suing the Norlight Inquiry for libel and lost sales.” Uh huh…. Apparently the definition of “recent” is different on Terra Nova.

These may all seem like nitpicks to you – and you’d be right. So why am I spending so much time commenting on them? Because Dream Pod 9 has set a very high standard for itself. And because there’s nothing else bad to say about this product. It’s fantastic.

The setting for the Heavy Gear game, primarily the planet Terra Nova, is possibly the best setting for a roleplaying game on the market today. Some other settings may come close – and some may even be its equal – but none exceed it. And Life on Terra Nova is the key to it all.

What makes this setting so special?

Well, for example: That small quote about Pride of Exeter brand ice cream mentioned above (however out of place it may be in this new product) is simply one minor example of all the important little details which Dream Pod 9 has carefully and consistently sprinkled across their work. This is a world where actual recipes are available for cooking with the indigenous life of the alien planet.

Next realize that the world they have developed is not composed of bland vanilla, it is an onion with layer upon layer which can peeled off. Most roleplaying settings can be reduced to a single feeling and style. Some (if you’re lucky) have a selection of styles, carefully separated across the map. Not Terra Nova. Here you have a planet broken into two hemispheres and a broad equatorial region. The equatorial region (the Badlands) is generally characterized as a sort of Wild West meets Arrakis, but within that broad characterization you have a myriad variety of unique communities – from the city composed of outcasts left behind when Earth’s invading forces retreated to the corporate arcology to small villages to raiders to wandering nomads.

In the southern hemisphere you have the Allied Southern Territories, a confederation composed of four leagues: the Southern Republic, Humanist Alliance, Mekong Dominion, and Eastern Sun Emirates. The Southern Republic is generally imperialistic and tending towards decadency – but within it there is the bureacuratic capital of Port Oasis, the rebellious city-state of Saragossa, the university city of Newton, and nearly a dozen others; each unique, each part of an integrated whole. The Humanist Alliance is a designed utopia, again ranging from carefully planned communities to a city completely beneath the surface of the earth. The Mekong Dominion is a corporate culture; the Eastern Sun Emirates are feudalistic and debauched.

In the northern hemisphere you have the Confederated Northern City-States: the Northern Lights Confederacy, the United Mercantile Federation, and the Western Froniter Protectorate. Again each is unique (from the religious orientation of the NLC to the industry focus of the UMF) and is composed of many different communities which are equally unique. Everything blends together into a synchronous whole, just like the real world is composed of disparate parts.

Each community is given a distinct architectural style and culture. Each government is formalized in a unique way – a way based on firm historical reasons. The people live and breath because you are given the details which make up their collective lives. Each city exists for a specific reason, not just because someone put some dots down on the map. The roads go places because the patterns of trade and industry say they should, not because someone needed to connect two towns with a line. The guys at Dream Pod 9 have done such a great job that you even accept the existence of mecha – because they’ve made the Gear technology believable and then proceeded to realistically integrate it into the society. Add to all of this a complex web of politics and intrigue and a developing meta-story that leaves you drooling in anticipation of the next release just so you can see where it’s all going.

What more can I say? You simply can’t find a better game setting. Period. If you don’t own this book you’re missing out big.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Philippe Boulle, Gene Marcil, Guy-Francis Vella, Marc-Alexandre Vezina
Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Cost: $23.95
Page Count: 160
ISBN: 1-896776-40-X

Originally Posted: 1999/04/13

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

Tagline: Best game of the year.

The opening paragraphs of this review launched a subtle salvo against what can only be described as the insanely bad reviews for UA which were getting posted to RPGNet at the time. These were reviews which, for example, were excoriating the game for not being as complex as GURPS. Or claiming that the game was completely unacceptable because its systems for magick were not practiced by real people in the real world. Seriously mind-numbingly bad reviewers.

Unsurprisingly, this salvo was not warmly welcomed by some.

I wish the original discussions had survived. They were… lively.

Reviewers should always keep in mind the creator’s goals.

It doesn’t matter what you’re reviewing – whether its a novel, a play, a movie, or a roleplaying game – the first thing you should ask yourself is: What was the creator trying to create? The reason you ask yourself this is because it is as pointless to judge Independence Day as a serious attempt to comment on the burdens of the presidency as it would be to judge Hamlet as a children’s story. Often you will hear a negative review of something not because it failed to accomplish what it set out to do, but because the reviewer didn’t like what was being attempted. Such a review is useless. Because it attempts to judge the creation as something which it is not it is as useless as a review of poker which explains why the game fails terribly at being the Great American novel.

Figuring out what was being attempted isn’t always easy. Sometimes you’re forced to ask yourself whose creative impulses you should honor. For example, if you’re reviewing a production of a Shakespearean play should you judge it based on how well it accomplished the director’s goals or how well it accomplished Shakespeare’s? (Personally I feel the director’s goal should be to fulfill the playwright’s goals – otherwise he should be doing a different play; hence I would go with the latter.) At other times it is necessary to call into question the surface goal itself and dive beneath the surface – for example an artist might fully intend to create a giant pink phallic symbol in Times Square, but you have to ask whether or not this is a good idea based on the underlying goals of art and the function Times Square. Nor is it always easy to figure out what a particular person’s goals were in creating something. More often than not you must rely on intuition to ordain what was intended.

Sometimes, though, you get lucky. Something in the work will clearly state was being attempted. You know that GURPS was designed to be a generic, universal system not only from the title, but because the designers included a short explanation of what was being attempted and what they hoped the game would accomplish.

The reason I bring all of this up is because after taking a look at the varied extant reviews of Unknown Armies I think it is necessary to explain where this review is coming from. Knowing where Unknown Armies is coming from is easy: Greg Stolze and John Tynes tell you specifically what their design goals were in the conveniently titled section “Design Goals” on pages four and five. Despite this several reviewers have flown in the face of commonsense and judged intentional decisions as “mistakes” or “flaws”.

So, just to be perfectly clear: If you don’t like simple systems, you won’t like Unknown Armies. (“Pages and pages of rules for ballistics-based damage and a complete flowchart-governed sub-system for picking locks are just some of the realism-focused rules you won’t find in UA.”) The fact that there is a detailed tracking system for character personality in this game is intentional, not a mistake or an anachronism. (“If your character occasionally kills someone, it’ll be up to you to justify why this is okay – and if you can’t, the game’s rules will penalize your character by hardening him against the notion of murder.”) If you don’t like roleplaying settings which attempt to be completely original (I’m not kidding – I actually saw someone complain because the game setting was too creative), then Unknown Armies isn’t a game you want to be playing.

“It’s time to stop playing games.”

OVERVIEW

Atlas Games has become a pretty impressive company. The 1990s have seen the origination of a couple of trends in RPGs: One, the World of Darkness and the host of games which have been inspired by it. Two, the simple, cinematic rule systems packed full of action-potential (usually with an anime or John Woo/Jackie Chan/Hong Kong influence). Atlas Games now owns the two games which providing the lightning rod to these two trends (Ars Magica and Feng Shui), and with the production of Unknown Armies they may very well have created the game which provides the perfect merger between them.

Let’s cut to the chase: I love this game.

UA is, I’ll be the first to admit, possessed of some flaws – but it bubbles with such creativity, originality, potential, and brilliance that it overwhelms those flaws. There are games which fail because of their flaws; their are games which are tolerable in spite of their flaws; their are games which suffer slightly from their flaws; and then there are games where the flaws are beside the point. UA is the last of these.

More on this in a bit.

THE SETTING

Unknown Armies is the Illuminatus Trilogy.

This is an analogy which I have not seen broached before, but the tone of the Trilogy resonates throughout the game. I don’t mean that this is a setting inspired by the World of Darkness with elements of the Trilogy incorporated into it – for that game you should take a look at the disjointed Immortal. I mean that when you first enter the world of UA it feels very much the way it does when you first enter the world of the Trilogy: All the half-crazed conspiracies and crack-pot theories and urban legends you’ve ever heard are true at one level or another, but in a way completely alien to anything you might have expected. For the first hour you keep thinking you’ve got it figured out, only to have the rug ripped out from under you. Even by the time you’ve finished exploring the place you’ll still find things hidden in the corners that’ll make you doubletake (or run screaming in terror).

The basics concept is this: Magick is real and the world is a much more unnatural place than your common mortal ever imagines. The only people who know this are known as the “Occult Underground”, sharing only the common trait that they all know “the truth” (or at least parts of the truth).

The Big Truth is this: Karma and Reincarnation exist, but only at a universal level. When the world comes to an end it is reborn in a way consistent with its karma – we get the world which we deserve. The mechanism by which this takes place is the Invisible Clergy, who unite into the Godhead as the universe is reborn, guiding its creation. Humans “ascend” to the Clergy by fulfilling the role of an “archetype”. Each archetype represents some primal element of human society; these archetypes are not set in stone, but are rather mutable from one incarnation of the world to the next. To make things more interesting humans still on earth can follow in the footsteps of ascended archetypes, gaining powers through the association. Sometimes an archetype can be replaced, but that’s a story for another time. There are other big truths out there (such as the conflict between Entropy and Order which drives all of this), but that’s the barebones of what’s going on.

There are three other important elements: The Unnatural, the Unexplained, and Magick (technically you could consider Magick part of the Unnatural, but its important enough we’ll spin it off by itself). The Unnatural are those things caused by otherworldly forces. The Unexplained are things which, at first glance, may appear to be unnatural, but in truth have rational explanations (these are fun because they’re red herrings which keep you from being completely comfortable – you can’t just dismiss anything unknown as being mystical).

Magick is one of the areas where UA really shines. It is based on three Laws: Symbolic Tension, Transaction, and Obedience. Symbolic Tension means that all magick is “based on some form of paradox” – a central irony or contradiction. For example, entropomancy (where you have to injure yourself to create a magical effect) has a paradox in that to gain control (power) over the universe you have to surrender control over yourself.

The Law of Transaction is the magical equivalent of Newton’s third law: Magick doesn’t let you get something for nothing; what you get out is equal to what you put in.

The Law of Obedience means that no one can follow more than one magickal path. This makes logical sense in the game setting because magick is driven by your personal convictions about how the universe functions – being able to follow more than one magickal path would mean that you were simultaneously holding two incompatible convictions about how the universe functions. It’s like believing totally and completely in both creationism and evolution; it can’t be done (you can fake it – but faking magickal discipline gets you nothing but fake magick).

Those may seem familiar to you, but trust me when I say that magick in UA is about as unique as you can get. Each school of magick requires some form of sacrifice to build up a charge and then you can use these charges to cast magick. The schools themselves are the unique part though – pornomancy, for example, requires to engage in very specific sexual acts (but not to take pleasure in them); plutomancy requires you to earn money (but not spend it); etc.

(A brief side note: Some have raised complaints about the magick system because an adept (one who can practice magick) can attempt to do anything. It has been insinuated that this means that those with experience are no better than those who are newcomers. Anyone who has actually bothered to read the rules, though, would realize a couple of things: First, the game assumes anyone playing an adept is just that – adept in the use of magick; if you want to play someone who isn’t optional rules are provided. Second, those with a higher skill in magick are capable of succeeding at more difficult magickal tasks and doing more with them – saying that they are “both the same” is like saying that AD&D possesses no differentiation between 1st and 20th level wizards because they are both capable of casting damaging spells, despite the fact that 1st level mages cause 1d6 damage and 20th level mages cause 20d6.)

THE RULES

The basic rules for UA are dead simple. But unlike many other simple systems on the market they don’t require GM fudging to fill in the gaps – these are a solid set of rules. Here’s the breakdown of the page and a half of core game mechanics – the shortest chapter in the book.

1. Roll percentile dice.

2. A roll of 01 is an extremely great success.

3. A roll of 00 is a complete failure.

4. If result is equal to or less than your skill you succeed. The higher the role, the better the success. Some tasks will need a minimum roll to succeed (so, for example, you’d need to roll higher than 30, but under your skill).

5. If the result is less than your skill you fail.

6. Matched numbers are exceptional results – either extremely good if it was a success or extremely bad if you fail.

7. In some cases (such as you “obsession skill” – the skill you specialize in essentially) you can “flip-flop” a bad roll to make it good (turning a 91 to a 19, for example).

8. The GM may apply “shifts” to your roll – changing the number you rolled. (A -10% shift, for example, would turn a roll of 50 into a roll of 40.)

Combat, as usual, adds a few extras. Most importantly damage is handled by adding the two dice together from your skill roll (if you rolled a 43 and succeeded you would do 4+3=7 points of damage). Firearms are a special case in which your damage is equal to your skill roll within a certain range (so that if you succeeded with a 43 you would do 43 points of damage, unless the weapon’s maximum was 40 or its minimum was 50) – hence a shotgun can do a lot more damage than a .22, but not always.

Character creation embraces the same standard as the core rules – simple, but complete (with a noticeable exception, see the note below). It breaks down into the following steps:

1. General Brainstorming.

2. Personality.

3. Obsession: What your character is very good at – the skill which defines who your character is.

4. Passions: There are three passions – Fear, Rage, and Noble. You create your own passions, each passion causing the appropriate reaction in your character when it is encountered (unless, of course, you can give good reason otherwise). Hence your character might be frightened of spiders, enraged at the sight of a child in pain, and committed to saving the environment. In addition to being able to flip-flop your obsession skill, you can flip-flop any skill when it is being employed in regards to one of your passions.

5. Attributes: There are four attributes – Body, Speed, Mind, and Soul. You split up 220 points between them.

6. Skills: The skill system is almost entirely freeform (see note below). Essentially you can take as many points in Body skills as you assigned points to your Body stat.

7. Obsession Skill: Pick a skill which is related to your obsession and make it your obsession skill. If you want to practice magick your magick skill must be your obsession (because unless you are devoted to magick you won’t be able to make it work).

8. Cherries: Cherries are “special effects” which are attached to the matched double results of combat and magic skills. This has caused some complaints, but when you realize that violence and magick (the unnatural) are the focus of the game it makes sense that these are the skills which are given particular attention. Nothing stops you from assigning cherries to other skills, per se – especially since the cherries are designed in a freeform manner.

9. Your Wound Points equal your Body score.

(Another side note: Several reviews have taken exception to the fact that the skill system is almost completely freeform – a handful of “freebie” skills are detailed and a list of suggestions is given, but nothing is laid down in a concrete fashion. Some have claimed this to be a weakness, but actually it gives a huge amount of power to the player in terms of finely tuned control over their character. Since everything is veto-able by the GM it can’t have any drawbacks except that you actually have to think about and personalize your character. Even new players find this type of system easier, in my experience, then attempting to pick and choose from a list of skills they don’t fully understand. I wouldn’t want to try it with a detailed, complicated system; but for a simple system like this it’s the perfect fit. As for the whacko who complained about overlapping skills – what drugs are you on?)

There’s one other important mechanic to consider: The Madness Meter. The situations you encounter as a member of the Occult Underground are fully capable of driving your average person beyond the bounds of sanity. A character’s Madness Meter keeps track of five distinct areas – Violence, the Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self. Each area has ten “hardened” slots and five “failure” slots attached to it. When a character encounters an abnormal situation (such as someone’s head being blown off in front of them or their first encounter with magic or being held captive or losing all your friends or being forced to take actions which you previously believed you would never be capable of) they make a check – if they succeed they become hardened to that type of event; if they fail they react either with “panic, paralysis, or frenzy” (at the player’s discretion) and gains a failure slot. The more hardened you become the more extreme situations have to be to cause a check, but the negative drawback is that you become less connected with the world (and this has a very real game impact). If you max out any of your failure bars you go psychopathic – which is not to be confuse with riproaring insanity or any such stereotype. This is a subtle and evocative game, not a slaughterfest.

I like the Madness Meter mechanic because it never forces a character action, it merely provides a guideline. Like the rest of the game it is simple, but powerful and effective at reinforcing its designers intents.

ANALYSIS

Every so often I come across a game which is so amazing that it makes me sit up and take notice of who was responsible for designing it. Jonathon Tweet for Ars Magica, Robin D. Laws for Feng Shui, the team of Dream Pod 9 for Heavy Gear — these are a few of the games and designers which immediately earned my respect and appreciation. They are the designers from whom I would pick up a new porduct simply on the basis of their name being on the cover.

With Unknown Armies Greg Stolze and John Tynes join that list. Not only the simple, powerful masterpiece which the engine of the game is. Nor for the rich and original world which they have created. No, what really raises this game to the next level is the immense expertise and masterful understanding of the foundations of roleplaying design which they demonstrate.

Stolze and Tynes are masters. I knew I had something in my hand which had been designed in brilliance when I read the Definitions of Roleplaying which are included in the introduction (one from each designer). Tynes’ definition — improvisational radio theater — particularly struck me. I had gotten the “improvisational theatre” part down, but the “radio” bit was the simple label which had escaped me for distinguishing between the table-top structure and the live action structure (and, sure, you might be able to say “that’s obvious”, but you didn’t say anything before, did you?). They then proceeded to confirm my impression by laying down in very precise terms what their design goals for the game were – something far more designers should take advantage of.

And it just didn’t stop. Throughout the entire product Stolze and Tynes expertly provided guidance without falling into the trap which Rein*Hagen did in designing Vampire — formalizing their suggestions and guidance into rules. When Stolze and Tynes provide a set of personality guidelines based on the signs of the zodiac they put them aside into an optional box – a convenient shorthand for NPCs, a potentially useful tool for new players. Rein*Hagen institutionalized it into a set of necessary labels.

Indeed the entire character creation system is an excellent example of this – by subtly encouraging character creation with killing the creative process through formalization — but this isn’t the only place it happens. The chapter on Campaign Creation, for example, does the same thing for the GM’s creative process – encouraging, guiding, but never “mandating”. The chapter on “Running the Game” is actually a useful summary of rules which are gathered together in one place along with concrete examples of how to handle common play situations, not a hodgepodge of questionably vague advice.

Finally the layout is great – with information clearly laid out an important information emphasized and isolated for easy reference during gameplay. Although the artwork is occasionally less than perfect it is expertly crafted and placed. The whole product is rounded out by what I consider to be the the most brilliant introductory scenario I’ve ever seen.

And all of this brings me, regrettably, to the weaknesses in UA: First, several key concepts lack an explanation. Specifically the concept of “synchronicity”, the astral plane, and the age of hermeticism are all mentioned in relation to other things several times in the text, but never given a description of their own.

Second, the flip-flop mechanic (discussed above) becomes less and less effective once a skill has gone beyond 50. This is odd for a mechanic which is meant to reflect a character’s intense devotion to a particular skill or cause.

Third, the index is lacking, although this ameliorated slightly by a detailed Table of Contents.

Finally, a set of very simple core rules is marred in a couple of places by unnecessary complication.

None of these weaknesses are particularly serious (especially if you’ve read the Illuminati Trilogy for the discussion of synchronicity, played any pseudo-mystical RPG including AD&D for the astral plane, or taken a gander at Ars Magica or the World of Darkness for the general feel of what the age of hermeticism must refer to) – even the flip-flop mechanic is little more than a slight annoyance which crops up only occasionally and is still generally intuitive.

CONCLUSION

Unknown Armies is the best game of the year. If all goes well it will be remembered as one of the best games ever. If you don’t put down the $25.00 for this treasure trove then you don’t deserve to call yourself a roleplayer.

‘Nuff said.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Title: Unknown Armies: A Roleplaying Game of Transcendental Horror and Furious Action
Writers: Greg Stolze and John Tynes
Publisher: Atlas Games
Price: $25.00
Page Count: 225
ISBN: 1-887801-70-7

Originally Posted: 1999/04/13

In retrospect, was Unknown Armies really the best game of 1999?

Yup.

As I mentioned in “UA-Style Rumours for D&D“, the fact that Unknown Armies didn’t catch on the way it deserved to remains one of the great mysteries of the roleplaying industry. But when you look at all of the other games which have pilfered its pockets in the last decade, its importance and its quality becomes very clear. If you’ve never seen it, then you should really, really take the time to check it out.

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

Tagline: Who can resist a card game where you’re competing to see who can decapitate and execute the most people?

I have to admit that I sickened of the collectible trading card market before getting beyond my first addictive encounter with Magic the Gathering. After spending $70 to get a complete set of one of the early supplement sets I realized I had spent $70 to get a bunch of cards which, if WotC wasn’t actively attempting to rip off its consumers, should have only cost $15 to get and wouldn’t have created a detritus of cardboard. I also thought about how much potential enjoyment I was going to get out of that $70 investment and realized the money could be better spent just about anywhere else I cared to think about spending it. As a result of these bad experiences I ignored the card section of the roleplaying store entirely.

Ironically, however, it was Wizards of the Coast which brought me back over there once more with their highly addictive game Twitch. I am very glad they did this because in addition to the other three games in the WotC’s line of “family card games” this was also where my store was keeping the excellent line of Atlas card games (Once Upon a Time, Lunch Money, Spammers, etc.), but also all of the Cheapass Games. So, although I have not since returned to CCGs (and never will, although I am occasionally tempted to just pick up the starter decks – which would render them into normal card games for all intents and purposes) I have discovered one positive spin-off from them: They’ve gotten people experimenting with alternate types of games and they’ve also (re)introduced a number of mechanics which have been adapted into many interesting uses (notably the concept of having cards with unique instructions guide gameplay).

So when I picked up a copy of Guillotine I was looking forward to getting a chance to play it. I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s the basic mechanics:

Each player represents an executioner during the French Revolution. Your goal is to be the guy with the best bragging rights when you go back to the locker room at the end of things – so you want to be responsible for bagging the biggest heads around. The game is made of up three days. On each day twelve nobles are lined up for execution (twelve noble cards are laid down sequentially from left to right). Play goes around the table and consists of each player playing a single action card (if they so desire) and then taking the noble card which is first in line, so to speak. When all the nobles have been executed the day comes to an end. Each noble card has a point value and the action cards modify gameplay in various ways (changing the order in which the nobles are executed, effecting point totals of nobles, etc.). The goal, therefore, is to play your action cards in such a way that by the end of the three days you have the highest point total.

The game, it must be admitted right from the start, will never be addictive enough in the way that RoboRally or Twitch are in order to get a strong following of support. The concept is original and intriguing, but the mechanics (while being very good and providing strong gameplay) simply don’t grab you strongly enough.

The place where this product really shines, though, are the card designs. Illustrated by Quinton Hoover and Mike Raabe under the direction of Christopher Rush the cards are cartoony in style, original, creative, and (most importantly) funny. The action cards are more than amusing, but the caricatures of the noble cards are drop-dead hilarious, if you’ll pardon the pun. The Piss Boy card, in particular, became the favorite of the group I played with.

Overall I can say that I strongly recommend this game. Although it can’t be counted among the “best of the best”, it definitely deserves recognition.

Style: 5
Substance: 4

Writers: Paul Peterson
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Price: n/a
Page Count: n/a
ISBN: 1-57530-534-8

Originally Posted: 1999/04/13

Unlike Before I Kill You, Mister Bond…, which I reviewed around this same time, Guillotine still sees occasional play at my house. Of the other games I mentioned in this review, Twitch, RoboRally, and Lunch Money still get played a lot. Looking at my reviews for these games with the benefit of a decade’s hindsight, I’m actually quite pleased that I was generally fairly accurate in picking out the long-term winners from the short-term losers.

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