EN5ider Magazine Issue 9 Release!

EN5ider Magazine #9, image belongs to EN Publishing 

Another awesome experience with the writing team on EN5ider Magazine #9, for the December issue on Spaceship Crash! My contribution is a Villain Spotlight on Krurcain the Conqueror, a psionic warlord, marooned on your campaign world after a ferocious space battle. He is mean, nasty, and coming for magic items to rebuild his ship! Please consider checking out EN5ider Magazine, where you also gain access to the entire backlog of ten years of EN5ider materials by subscribing to their Patreon.

Like many fantasy TTRPG fans, I initially had some mental barriers on having sci-fi in my fantasy setting, but I think the articles in this issue can sit faithfully alongside classic 5e monsters and themes. 

Advanced FASERIP Reactions

As I gradual work through my massive “to-be-read” pile of RPG materials. Advanced FASERIP caught my eye.

Advanced FASERIP is the second edition of a retroclone based upon the mechanics of the original 1980s Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game from TSR. This game is produced by Gurbintroll Games, which appears to be a single creator adapting legacy materials as retro clones under the OGL. The best thing about this is that the creator has released the book along with the first edition of the game as free products on DriveThruRPG. So there’s no reason not to grab your own copy after this article.

It’s noted in the intro that, like many retro clones, this version differs in several ways, such as allowing for more player choice in character creation, and other things to make it easier to play. I’ll note I have no previous experience with the original licensed game that FASERIP draws inspiration from.

While it took a couple read throughs of the basic rules for me to really grasp it, I was struck by how simple the core gameplay really is. Every attribute or ability is rated on a relative scale. How good a character is determines where they consult the x-axis on a universal resolution chart at the end of the book—this can be modified by various powers or circumstances. The y-axis result depends on your percentile die role. Then different categories of success drive interpretation by the GM. While tables aren’t most modern players preferred action resolution system, this isn’t a bad way to go, particularly considering the complexity of other options available when the original game was created. Though not from TSR, my thought often turn to Classic Traveller’s lack of such a common resolution mechanism in its skills application. As what many might consider an OSR game, Advanced FASERIP seems easier to both teach and implement as a GM for modern players to me.

The available powers provide a diverse set of options to create most popular superhero archetypes. As the book notes, it doesn’t seem difficult to design new powers or reskin existing ones either if you find a particular niche lacking. The rank system ensures that they should maintain parity if you model custom ones on those in the book.

NPCs are built on the same mechanics as player characters, which coming from modern asymmetric monster and NPC design, seemed odd to me. However, since all actions are based on the same core resolution mechanic, once NPC villains are made, it seems relatively easy to use them—certainly easier than some 5e stat blocks! The book provides some helpful stats for regular persons or bystanders that might appear in adventures, along with simple goons for those more bespoke supervillains. There are also options for random character creation that I imagine could be used to quickly create a group of villains.

The GM advice section is also worthy of some praise. It provides some useful general advice on creating adventures using the system while threading the needle on avoiding language or examples treading too close to its copyrighted inspiration.

Overall, I found this to be a retroclone I could actually use and teach players—which is perhaps the best praise I can give. The reference tables at the back make this even easier, however not all the info for action resolution and interpretation of the various color categories of success and failure are contained on those sheets, so those might need modifications for some GMs until they become familiar with them. My major criticism is that some of the explanations of rules are inconsistent in using their own mechanical definitions, making some sections more difficult to parse. There are also some tables within the rules that probably should have also been included in the consolidated reference sheets at the end for easy consultation.

These aside, Advanced FASERIP offers rules-lite superhero game for perhaps the best price point possible. With such a low barrier to entry, I recommend at least giving it a look.

Review: The Big Hoodoo

I finally played Trail of Cthulhu!

Looking around for an initial adventure, the premise of the self-described “film noir” adventure, The Big Hoodoo, by Bill White, seemed like it would be a good start. I was sadly disappointed.

The adventure fails largely in facilitating a quick and easy understanding of its structure and critical clues connecting the scenes together. I’d have expected better particularly as this is highlighted as a good adventure for convention play. I’d feel so sorry for the GM who had to do a low prep, or no prep session for convention players. The writing and inconsistent formatting throughout is really what makes it extremely difficult to get through. In some places, NPC names are bolded, while other names within the same sentence are not, and the reasons why are difficult to discern. Other difficulties stem from lack of clear distinction of read aloud text. Some body text is clearly written to be read aloud as descriptive text for players, but often the format does not differ significantly from clues. Clues are inconsistent as well, with some featuring the skill and point spends denoted in bold and at the beginning of paragraphs, which others are buried in body text. 

Neither connections between scenes nor a flowchart of this information is provided in a standard manner, such as putting a scene that leads from a clue in parentheses or signaling some other way to the GM. In my case, it was difficult to figure out that an invitation to a named address corresponded to another scene, since there was no information in the next scene referring back to the context of the clue. The address was the only link, and that information was buried deeper in the scene description. The lack of robust and multiple connections threatened to cause exactly the roadblocks that Trail of Cthulhu attempts to avoid, particularly with new players unused to matching their clue abilities to a given situation.

While I do enjoy the themes of alternative history, and the tie into classic science fiction, I was also let than impressed at some of the execution. Some clues seemed more red herrings or distractions than anything. The impression was more of a pastiche of various occult or ancient religious bits, then loosely, but not explicitly, tied to the Cthulhu Mythos. The puzzles that did exist were such that my characters would not have been able to solve them.

After more than a couple read throughs, I did have the opportunity to run the adventure. Despite the issues, I managed to muddle through most of it (the linkage to the climax is totally lacking, and the climax is its own mess). At the least I accomplished my initial goal of exposing some of my players to a very different system than they normally try. I would not recommend The Big Hoodoo as an adventure to much people though.

Player’s Secrets of Roesone Review

Glancing over the map of Cerilia, I chose to read the Player’s Secrets of Roesone first out of the many other Player’s Secrets products. Each of these supplements is designed for players to be able to read, gaining information so their character can act as a regent, controlling the domain detailed within. Because this product was intended for players, there are no spoilers. It is credited as designed by Rich Baker.

So to be up front, I really like this supplement overall. I get tired of the in-character NPC narrator voice—in this case the Lord Seneschal of Roesone. However, the details in these 40 pages are a wealth of material to spur both GM and player creativity. 

Built into this domain you have so much game potential—for real political intrigue. The lands of Roesone were claimed by Daen Roesone, a bit of a sell sword and brigand also called the “Black Baron.” There’s some muddied succession and intrafamilial violence that casts a shadow over the current baron’s reign and legitimacy. If you have a player who is interested in creating a character to play the current Baron of Roesone and integrating this rich backstory, there are tons of hooks and interesting story bits to integrate. There’s a bastard cousin who is the only child of the current Baron’s uncle (the original heir to the title) who could try to make some play or at least complicate things for the regent. Another cousin is the only wizard named in the domain, abet a minor one. This Count Bellamie feels historical and personal affinity for Roesone’s neighbors, along with a desire to gain power—does he commit treason against the barony? Other characters can have interesting things built out too—whose side did their family take in previous succession struggles? 

Along with all this intrigue for roleplaying drama, there’s plenty of interesting things to play around with on the regent and domain side of play. There’s tensions on all sides, from the threat of Ghoere, a massive domain to the north with aspirations to reunite Anuire by claiming the Iron Throne. Gavin Tael, the regent of Ghoere, does not align in his vision with most other rulers of Anuire, and rules his realm ruthlessly—and he has a huge army. Serenade and Diemed, though not ruled by harsh regents like Tael, might find themselves drawn into conflict with Roesone over old territorial disputes, or disagreements between their faiths. Meier and Ilien are neighbors and friends to Roesone, but also must see to their own divergent interests. Rogr Aglondier, regent of Ilien also controls half of Roesone’s magical sources, while the other half are held by a wizard of Aerenwe—a great source of tension with friendly neighbors if a party magic wielder seeks to create their own network of magical sources. Finally, there are the old forests of the untamed Erebannien in the south, which could harbor unknown threats, and the long dormant awnsheghlien ruler of the Spiderfell, the mysterious and powerful Spider. 

So we have all the ingredients for political intrigue, within and without the realm. Inter religious conflict, and competition for magical influence. Then there’s the plenty of ancient crumbling ruins within the domain, beckoning exploration. If none of those appeal, the potentially catastrophic threat of the Spider and his armies of goblins and gnolls remain under the shadowy boughs of the Spiderfell.

It may be a bit too much to hope that the average player will read any or even most of this book, but I don’t think the Birthright setting is built for the average player. In any event, the Player’s Secrets of Roesone is a great resource for GMs and players looking to create a collaborative campaign or use Roesone in a domain game set in Anuire.

Why Read so Many RPG Magazines?

A few months back, I read Anatomy of an Adventure by M.T. Black. Then I also noticed Black’s highly viewed posts on EN World looking at old issues of Dragon Magazine. He practices what he preaches in terms of adventure and game design—read and copy the masters, and when you finish you’ll have discovered your own style. So though I was reading both old and new RPG magazines before this, it gave new impetus. 

In fact, based on what I’ve read about this hobby, the zine predates the game, and provided a common forum for discussion of ideas and concepts. Later descendants of the fanzine format were and are the official magazines of various publishers. 

These types of products play an important role in continuing to develop the hobby, I think even to this day. Take a look at the names in many of the magazines, old and new, for newer and more established publishers. Then take a look at the writers and designers in their books on your shelve or in your digital library. Magazines provide a place for new freelance writers and designers to cut their teeth in a more traditional publication space. Anyone can make a product and put it on DriveThruRPG (that’s not to diminish the self-publishing route, which is very hard on its own). But the process of working with editors and other designers fostered by magazines seems to fuel the larger TTRPG industry, and is the path towards authors credits in hardbacks from established publishers. 

Take a look at the early publishing credits of most of Wizards of the Coast’s design team if you don’t believe me. Experienced designers learned their craft writing then editing for Dungeon or Dragon magazines. More recent designers have some of their first publication credits in MCDM’s Arcadia. You’ll see En5ider authors in the author and designers credits sections of hardback titles from MCDM, Kobold Press, Ghostfire Gaming, and more.

So if you want to understand this hobby, find great ideas for your home games, or even start writing, take a look at EN Publishing’s En5ider, or Gate Pass Gazette. Learn from the work in Wildmage Press’ Horizons. Read the magazines from decades past and you’ll find things that inspire you, and you’ll drive your own creative energy.