• Bathtub Review: Hull Breach

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

    Hull Breach is a 230 page anthology of modules for Mothership, produced and edited by Ian Yusem, but with an ensemble set of authors and a flashy layout by Lone Archivist. It’s a unique and broad product, and one that hopefully will open the floodgates for similar ones that will further it’s innovations.

    Hull Breach has multiple levels of organisation. Superficially, we have a series of Intels (advise for running specific challenging aspects of Mothership), then a series of directed Missions, then a series of Locations, and some Entities and Assets, and an Appendix. There are dense front and end papers, the front papers giving instructions on how to read this book. This structure for me, wasn’t successful. It starts very dense, and the front papers did not direct me successfully in how to approach the book. The Intel at the front made me feel as if I needed to wade through the entire chunk of advice before getting to the rest of the book, even though, to be clear, I don’t think this is the intended way to read the book. The front papers just don’t present a more straightforward approach with sufficient clarity, and so I bounced off Hull Breach a few times (hence the delayed review, I think I teased it in August?). For me, different structural approach might have have made this a less intimidating read.

    But Hull Breach has a second, more innovative level of structure, which is how the articles are woven together, using the front papers, which connect campaign styles to matching articles, missions and locations, maps of systems that represent how the articles are connected spatially, maps of corporate relationships, and events that trigger when other events occur. This is a clever way to tie an anthology together, and I just wish it had been centralised and forefronted, because it’s not given enough breathing space in the front papers (I’d like just a little more guidance there), and a lot of important elements of running the campaign and relegated to appendixes (and hence easy to miss or dismiss). I think this would’ve been better as a first chapter, all put together and presented as campaign tools. This would place everything that came after in clearer context, and would have made for a less overwhelming read, especially for someone like me who isn’t going into this with “I want to run a rim space survival campaign”. It feels to me there was a tension here in the production team, between “these articles should be good enough to stand on their own” and “these articles should be interconnected”, and for me, what makes Hull Breach unique from other Mothership releases would’ve been better off leaning into the latter.

    The “intel” section is mixed for me. There are two significant rules forks here: Manhunt and Wardenless. I’m unlikely to use the Manhunt or Wardenless rules, and they take up a considerable chunk of space. Wardenless is a solid referee-less (or referee-ful, as some style it) fork of Mothership using a standard card deck for randomisation; it provides mainly rules to arbitrate the wardens role in their absence. I haven’t playtested it but it reminds me of the best parts of other referee-less games like Ironsworn. I actually think a better approach to referee-less games are sharing roles more consistently (Galactic 2e provides a strong model here in my opinion), but this works, and to a degree fits the more traditional high lethality dungeon-crawl mode better. My main criticism is that I’d love more direct and specific prompts, and more of them, but that’s a personal preference, and the chosen prompt approach would be less likely to end up with strange contradictions; I understand the choice even if I don’t disagree with it. Manhunt on the other hand is plainly not the same game as Mothership; it’s not compatible with other modules, but comes with one of its own. I actually like it a lot on its own merits — it reminds me of the videogame Carrion, which I am a huge fan of — but where the strength of Mothership and of Hull Breach is the breadth of material and the worldbuilding, it feels wholly out of place.

    The direct advice, on mysteries, hand-offs and describing terror, are excellent advice and provide concrete actions in the form of procedures, tables and generators. My favourite section though is the water piracy article, which provides a decent pirate crew and which feels modular in a way that I can see actively incorporating into a campaign or a series of encounters. In addition, it’s got some really fun writing: “Beanpole with boxy haircut and silver cybernetic eyes. Irritated by Lu’s constant mess in life support.” Juicy, fun stuff, just it really belongs in the Entities section.

    The missions section is even moreso a mixed bag. Bones and Videotape is a pretty cool concept for an inter dimensional alien puzzle dungeon in the vein of Aberrant Reflections, but is hampered from an absolutely incoherent structure and layout. Helium Hysteria is a fun time-limited conspiracy crawl, with solid and clear layout and maps, and some excellent characters (“Apolitical ‘anarchist’ and self-proclaimed ‘rock star.’ Shaggy hair and custom patched uniform. Desperate to impress. Goes along with whatever the majority believes. Foam Gun.”, most of which are held in lists (the best use of a list in my opinion). Residue Processing is an evocative funnel with a dark humour that brings a lot to the horror scenario. Road Work is a fascinating experimental module that is an absolute organisational mess, but has the PCs exploring a small murder dungeon across multiple parallel universes. 1000 Jumps Too Far is a faction crawl upon a generation ship that best reflects the kind of play I’d like to see in a Mothership campaign, although its writing isn’t as punchy as some of the others (there’s still gold in them there hills, though: “Sabres sleep on bedding of crumpled reprimands and mission documentation.”). My favourite in isolation, though, Vibechete, is a slasher film homage with a spectacular point crawl; it winks at the referee flavourfully (“Exsanguinated, well dressed teenage corpses—all missing both hands— impaled upon scaffolding bars driven deep into hardwood. A (working!) bulky Flashlight bulges from one’s distended mouth.”) and leans into its pulpy inspirations, but also stands out considerably in vibe and aesthetic, and I don’t really see it fitting into the Corespace Intrigue campaign vibe it’s plugged into because of this. For all of these, though there are excellent modules in their own ways, but my main concern is that they’re mostly designed as slaughterhouses, which is contrary to the overall campaign goals of Hull Breach. I know absurdly deadly is Mothership’s modus operandi, but I think these missions needed to take an alternative approach to support the Hull Breach campaign.

    Locations are consistently excellent, and use other risks than death as leverage: Escape Clause threatens servitude (and features some evocative word choice , “A lime green antiseptic pit. A jaundiced but energetic Prosecutor, Jaimye Novak sits behind a desk cluttered with pneumatic canisters and paperwork.”), for example. The Interstellar Mega Mart leaves interesting questions (like is it alive?). Procession is a procedurally generated megadungeon, built by repair robots gone awry, that falls flat due to the focus on procedure, and I really like the framing of the dungeon as completely unplanned. Terrifying Terraforms is a horrible planet generator that falls a little flat to me (I’d always prefer a module to give me a list of bespoke planets than a way to generate them). Wonderland is a resort cruise come living nightmare, which comes inadequately mapped in my opinion, and would be difficult to run even though it’s full of flavour. My favourite is a pirate station, Siesta-3, which is packed with hooks and interesting, self-interested factions, and well written descriptions (“Melancholic offworld musician. All-black fashion. Seeks spiritual experiences. Cannot keep a secret.”). I could base a campaign out of this location, it’s basically a lite version of A Pound of Flesh (which makes it doubly disappointing that the mystery Intel refers to A Pound of Flesh rather than this).

    It’s fascinating reading an anthology of Mothership horror. It’s five times the Mothership content I’d usually read in a sitting, and it reveals that the number of angles taken on horror scenarios here are far broader than those taken in fantasy horror scenarios. Recently, on Between Two Cairns, Yochai Gal raised the idea that science fiction modules requires more thorough detail than fantasy modules, because we don’t have as clear a genre framework for sci-fi to improvise on. I wonder if this works the other way, here: The lack of a clear genre framework makes for more potential scenarios to envision, because the conventions are less restrictive. Certainly, everything here is horrifying in a different way, humorous in another, in a way that I suspect wouldn’t come across as compelling in a fantasy version of this anthology. If you’re looking for imagination, here is a good place to find it.

    The Entities and Assets sections truly feel like accessories, but they’re excellent, especially the NPC lists. They probably deserve more pride of place, because some (advice on dealing with explosives, and teleportation rules, for example) feel like they belong in Intel. Appendices similarly are excellent, but I’ve discussed most of them already; they deserved more centrality as well.

    Hull Breach comes in a beautiful A5 hardcover, fully illustrated and in colour, with a bookmark. If I were going to run a campaign, I’d want it in hand. The layout is not as flashy as Lone Archivist’ work on Another Bug Hunt, but is less consistent, with some sections needing a lot more coordination between writer and layout. Maps range from exceptional to empty connected boxes, which leaves me disappointed in the weaker links. I recognise the desire to make everything visually unique, but I don’t think it helps keep everything usable in an already complex piece of writing. [Edit: It’s been drawn to my attention that I misunderstood the credits, Lone Archivist didn’t do all the layout, just some of it. Potentially this is contributing to the variety of approaches I clashed with here].

    Overall, there’s a whole lot of excellent words and modules in Hull Breach. Taken individually, there isn’t anything here that isn’t worth reading, and little I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend to bring to table. Taken as a campaign, I think many of the modules miss the mark with regards to lethality and a lack of imagination regarding consequences of failure. On the other hand, if I wanted to run Mothership regularly, I could build a world out of Hull Breach, and that brings something to Mothership we haven’t really seen before: a campaign setting. And when taken as the Forgotten Realms of Mothership, while I’d have made some different decisions had that been my goal, this is an excellent resource. I also think that, while there’s a lot to be learnt from the flaws in Hull Breach, there’s much more to learn from its structural successes and how it ties disparate articles together into a cohesive working class horror setting. A volume 2 of Hull Breach that leant harder into interconnectivity and collaboration would be a must buy for me.

    For you, there are a lot of reasons you might find this worth looking at: You want a Mothership setting? This is excellent fodder. Want advice on being a better referee? There’s some great advice here that supplements the new Warden’s guide. Want more Mothership modules, but sick of your zine pile always falling down? Consider Hull Breach, this will give you a years worth of content if not more. Hull Breach is a hell of an anthology, and only flawed in that it doesn’t lean harder into its conceits and innovations.

    22nd September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

  • I Read Heart

    I Read Games reviews are me reading games when I have nothing better to do, like read a module or write or play a game. I don’t seriously believe that I can judge a game without playing it, usually a lot, so I don’t take these very seriously. But I can talk about its choices and whether or not it gets me excited about bringing it to the table.

    I was going to playtest my new module Hiss today, but I couldn’t get numbers, so instead I’m going to read Heart: The City Beneath. Heart is a large format hardcover game by Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor, that uses the Resistance system popularised by Spire and is set in the same world, but this isn’t a game about rebellion, it’s a game about dungeon delving. I heard great things about Heart, and I’ve been excited to sink my teeth into it. My first exposure to it was the heavily modified version played by Friends at the Table for their Sangfielle campaign, which was exceptional, but which I admittedly burnt out on after a dozen episodes as I do with most FATT seasons.

    Heart, like Trophy Gold, believes that dungeon delving is inherently an existential horror fantasy: “Each player character is fundamentally doomed, as most of the high-level abilities kill the user when triggered. This isn’t a game about long-term exploration and growth. It’s about flawed, obsessive people making bad decisions.” I love horror dungeon crawls, but my concern with the storytelling about the inevitable doom of your characters approach is that it removes the kindness and optimism from the game that usually exists in the form of your characters actions: They are brave, they think they’ll be ok, and in traditional dungeon crawling, the game is born of those who survive, not those who are doomed. Here instead of retirement, they always die.

    Heart is wordy as all get out, from the get go. The writing isn’t punchy, but it’s good. It’s written for people new to the hobby, so a page on “what does a player do” numbs me a little, especially as, and I’m sorry about this Grant, I find it hard to believe any new players are picking up the horror dungeon crawl spin off of the dark elf rebellion game as their first roleplaying game.

    It’s also pretty. Striking colours, well set out for a dense multicolumn layout. It could use space, but the claustrophobic choices, if perhaps not intentionally, are evocative of the theme. The art is consistently excellent by Felix Miall. There’s something exciting that occurs whenever a single illustrator does a whole book.

    The basic rules to the resistance system are six pages in the book, and are summarised in 1 page at the end of the book. It’s a resource management game at its core, with five resistances, which are basically hit point pools, and a some skills, and areas of knowledge. You make a pool of dice, roll it, and act accordingly. The interpretation of the dice roll is a little fiddly, but nothing if compared to, say, the Genesys system which I’ve had successful games in, so I dare say you’d get used to it quickly.

    Most of the rules are character creation, and most of that are classes, which are not even slightly generic and are flavourful in a way that isn’t to my taste: “the Vermissian Knights do their level best to understand the parasite reality and protect others they find there” is a great class, but both the knights and the Vermissian itself get a decent amount of exposition. I’d honestly rather this be a “Psychic maelstrom” of Apocalypse World type of vague amorphous concept, which is something this book does with the Heart itself. The class powers are interesting and flavourful, stuff like “You get everyone out alive, if not intact” and “Incarne’s presence thrums through you; you are resplendent, terrible, and hard to look at directly.” with mechanics attached to these excellent descriptions that are admittedly, far less exciting although useful (“Once per situation, if you are wearing your Debtor’s Reds and incur stress, you can mark stress to Supplies instead of another resistance.”).

    The Rules in Detail section takes a relatively elegant ruleset and completely murders it. Suddenly the tier of challenge relates to different dice sizes of stress, there are two ways to determine the results of actions depending on how many dice you roll, healing stress occurs in different ways, combat has actions, fallout is in a huge multi page list of specific types that you’ll have to remember eventually. It’s a mess. I don’t mind a complex game, but the complexity here feels like flaw and not something that will contribute to strategic decision making. There are a few positives, though, like the structure for “delves” (off-road travel) which are neat and well structured, akin to a GM driven variation on skill challenges which make them very easy to run.

    I despise the Running the Game section in Heart. It needs to read and learn from Apocalypse World 2e, because it’s a solid 20 pages of tips, that probably should have been reduced to half of that more more likely a quarter of the length. If it’s all truly that important (it’s not) it needs structure instead of paragraph after paragraph of conversational text. Technically, it appears there are large swathes that you can ignore, but I still have to scan it all and it’s a huge incomprensible drag. It even ends the advice with “you’ll never stop being nervous”, which is supposed to be reassuring, but honestly fails to be after twenty pages of things to remember while you run a massive complex book, and it’s not true at all,at least for games that aren’t Heart.

    I rail against gazetteers on this blog all the time, and the World of Heart section here is no different. I was first exposed to Heart in Sangfielle, an actual play where the players all designed the world together and hacked Heart to fit it. That world had absurd amounts of lore and depth, but they made it themselves. It had power. The best thing in this section is the summary, because I’d actually use it, but it’s also the driest piece of writing here. I want it to be like this but dripping with flavour! That said, I do like the general usability of the individual landmarks, and if I limited myself to preparing to run 1 tier (equivalent to levels) and the delves between them, maybe it would be manageable.

    The bestiary is five-star, honestly. Buy the pdf just for the bestiary ideas. There’s a hive of flightless owls, and burning pitch people. It’s good stuff. The legendary creatures — bosses — have generic names but fascinating descriptions and power sets, which is a weird choice I usually associate with science fiction, and I think undermines the world building elsewhere in the book.

    The problem with Heart is that by reading the rules, I can’t see what the complexity adds, given at it’s heart (no pun intended) it’s no different to the skills system of, say, Trophy. Complexity is necessary and beneficial when it adds strategy and tactics to the game. Blades in the Dark and Lancer do this in different ways, but the complexity very clearly behooves them. I cannot see, nor get excited, about the implications of the complexity here.

    Back when I read Spire, my impression was “this is cool, but it’d be better if it were Blades in the Dark”. The forged in the dark system just would have worked better for the story it was trying to tell, which was aptly demonstrated by Brinkwood using forged in the dark to tell a story of rebellion. As I read Heart, and am increasingly bewildered by its slow-drip rules that keep appearing the further into the book I read, I think something similar: Why don’t I adapt the good bits to some other elfgame with better rules?

    Because there are good bits. The locations are good, and the spontaneous pointcrawl is a good idea that feels the mutant offspring of Nick L.S. Whelan’s flux space and Emmy Allen’s Gardens of Ynn depthcrawl. The vibe is Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer meets megadungeon. I like that encumbrance and equipment is all folded into a resistance, it’s an elegant solution. But I don’t want to play these rules. They’re cumbersome eggs to begin with, and then they start to scramble them.

    If you’re willing to put up with a wretched ruleset, or you’re already familiar with and enjoy the resistance system, and you like the idea of Annihilation meets megadungeon, the vibes here are impeccable. If not, I wouldn’t rush to buy this, although it’s a beautiful product. Listen to Sangfielle, which nails the vibe, read Annihilation. Buy Wet Grandpa or another module with annihilation vibes. Or if you’re really keen, and you loved the world of Spire, maybe buy this with the aim to adapt the contents to your game.

    17th September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Bathtub Review: The Rumbling Forest

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

    The Rumbling Forest is a 32 page module for Cairn and Mangayaw, by Benj “Goobernuts”. It explores a Philippine fantasy setting, in a manner seemingly inspired by the work of Zedeck Siew and Cockamania.

    Design here is amateur but clean. It uses public domain art, uses hexkit and dungeon crawl for its maps, and uses Clayton Noteskine’s classic explorer template to good effect. It uses a good but not jarring variety of spreads, and reserves sidebars sensibly for single column pages. This is exactly the type of module it was designed for, and I’m not sure any benefit would’ve been had in modifying it, except to assuage my unnecessary fears of homogenisation.

    It opens with a flavourful timeline of events, placing us in a folkloric colonial Phillipines, facing off against cruel conquistadors and a horde of angry boars. I really like the smooth transition from the timeline to hooks used here. The writing is evocative, and alternates between poetic and functional in an appealing way. “A rumbling wave of boars, gracefully weaving in between trees.” I especially like how alien the conquistadors architecture is made to feel.

    Information is very succinct, with structural sections serving multiple purposes: The timeline also provides factions with aims, for example, and sets them against each other. I admire this brevity, although I could use a little more formatting for it to stand out if I need to flip back through the zine. It’s brief enough that it may n out be necessary; Benj regularly posts session reports so I suspect this has been playtested at least with one group.

    The hex map is a little unwieldy, though functional. It would benefit from having full location names on the spread, or having the empty hex landmarks and the random encounter table condensed. As is, it’s spread out over three and a half pages and I’d probably resent flicking to and fro here.

    The keys however, are terse, brief. Absolute fire. Easy to run. I’d rather a denser layout here so that one location is fit to a spread, but it’s a nitpick, I could make this work without any prep at all. I’d like less tables in the village of Barangay Tindigan, mainly because you could have fit a whole cast in the space it took for the generators, and it would’ve been more useful at the table. This village is the least useful section of the book; I’d have trouble running it and making it a bustling village without adding a fair bit of prep. But it’s still flavourful as all get out. The forest and the dungeons in it keep up the quality and the pace. The hooks involve hunting, but I’d prefer clearer hooks to specific hexes when it’s so exploration driven.

    A brief aside: I’m not a fan of false rumours, although I like partial truths. I don’t think there’s ever enough player good faith or time to waste on aimless lies. One false rumour here points you to a key location, Sunken River, but deters you from visiting, if you’re playing either major faction as the superstitious folk they are suggested to be. Not a great choice in my opinion.

    The Fates of the Forest and Folk section comes towards the end comes with a huge amount of ammunition for the ongoing campaign and the finale, as well as the flow on effects. It’s beautiful and flavourful, but I’d have loved to have this all happening so simultaneously with the rest of the module. I see where you’d want to have a leisurely exploration here, there’s so much to explore. But I think more pressure would only be a positive thing when the outcomes are only apocalyptic. I also don’t think these co sequences are clearly laid out in the text; for example, the Kamagong Diwata is must be killed to game the forest, but this isn’t signalled anywhere else in the text. Some more clarity around these would be better folded into the main text or the character descriptions.

    Overall, this is a fantastic effort. It’s mostly playable straight from the zine, you get at least two or three sessions out of the box, and it definitely has room to expand into a larger campaign. It’s got a unique flavour, as well, as most of the south-east asian stuff I’ve read is folkloric rather than leaning on colonial times for its inspiration. Cool stuff. I would definitely make time to run this. It’s affordable and there community copies for the marginalised, I don’t see any reason not to pick this up if you like the idea of playing an apocalyptic dungeon crawl on an island being invaded by Spanish colonisers.

    14th September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

  • Trick Monsters

    This post is cool, and communicates three principles:

    1. Trick Monsters are easy to defeat if you know the trick
    2. Trick Monsters are arduous to defeat if you don’t know the trick
    3. Vary the trick so that it makes other, harder monsters easier to beat later.

    This is fun and cool. Think about video game bosses. Pikmin 4 does this well. You could build this into anything:

    The Wizards of Millinery wear pointed hats from which they gain their powers. They are stunned for a moment when they are knocked off, and cannot cast spells until they regain it. They are lead by a two-headed giant who wears a hat on each head, and also wields a club.

    Dragon-tortoises are iron shelled and breath interdimensional warp. They are invulnerable to all damage, unless they are knocked on their back by a charge, grapple, or similar. Their belly is highly vulnerable to damage. The father-tortoise exists in five dimensions; he must be knocked onto his belly twice in a row, and hence onto his fifth dimensional belly, to be damaged.

    Cookie Monsters are devouring monstrous giant cookies. Remove their choc chips to weaken them. The Titan Cookie has raisins, indistinguishable from choc chips. Which ones do you attack?

    Bombardier Worms are burrowing brutes that blow boulders out their maws after sucking a spectacular vacuum through a blowhole. Blocking their blowhole renders them impotent until they clear it. The Bombardier Queen has three blowholes, each on a different side of her body. Only one must be blocked, but you must position yourself to be able to see it.

    Serpent guards have snakes attached to their necks. Remove their snake, and they are rendered inert robots. The Serpent Queen appears a titan in golden armour, with thirteen giant snakes for hair. Kill the snakes, not the giant.

    I’m sure you can do better and be more creative, but this is cool and fun. More trick monsters!

    10th September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

  • Torches and Escaping the Dungeon

    Ok, I’m iterating on my supply chip idea for the megadungeon I’m planning on running. Currently I’m thinking I’ll run this in Cairn, mainly because people understand Cairn and it’s easy to onboard people, and it has a hazard dice.

    Let there be light!

    But this got me thinking to how I could reproduce the risk/reward loop of traditional play better while maintaining my rules-light improvisational style. I’m thinking:

    • You spend a torch to advance a room, or to search the room.
    • Whenever someone spends a torch, there’s a 1-in-6 chance of a wandering monster.
    • Three torches fit in a slot, as per standard Cairn rules.

    In classic play, it’s not too different: On average, you use a torch every ten in-game minutes, and on average, you spend ten in-game minutes per action in a room. On average, you encounter a wandering monster every 6 rooms (although this can vary). So I can a smush all these conveniently base six facts together to convert the existing economy into a token exchange.

    I imagine at the table we’d have a stack of poker chips and cash them in to move deeper into the dungeon. I like the tension that would build, as your parties piles of poker chips grow smaller and you realise you need to figure out how to safely get back.

    It does leave a dilemma: If you run out of poker chips, how do you escape the dungeon? The obvious answer is that remaining torches impact your roll to return. So, what would a roll to return look like in Cairn? My gut feeling is it should be a save that doesn’t rely on your stat for success. So:

    • A roll to return is a roll to avoid bad outcomes from returning home from the dungeon.
    • A representative PC rolls a d20 and compare the results to the total number of torch uses in the party’s possession (including hirelings; for the purpose of this lantern and oil can be used). If they roll equal to or under that number, they pass. Otherwise, they fail.
    • A 1 is always a success, and a 20 is always a failure.
    • If the return home was dangerous, on a fail, all PCs take 1d6 damage per point over the target.
    • If the return home was instead arduous, the party drops 1 slot of inventory per point over the target.
    • PCs reduced to 0 HP are left behind but may not be dead, depending on the nature of the danger.

    Five Torches Deep inspired the arduous and dangerous distinction. The intent here is that if a dragon was between the party and home it would be dangerous, but usually it would be an arduous journey. I’m not sure if the possibility of taking 19d6 damage is likely, or if I should instead just say 1 damage (which is as deadly as 19 damage at the extreme, but far less a deterrent on a narrow fail).

    The main unintended consequence of this rule set is that small parties are at a disadvantage, which is why I added the “including hirelings” parenthesis.

    The totality of these rules is clumsy, but I like a lot about how it simplifies the Dungeon Events table. I’m not sure if it’s worth the trade off, though: Is it better to give the players more control over their risk and more understanding of their rewards?

    9th September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • I Read Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

    I Read Games reviews are me reading games when I have nothing better to do, like read a module or write or play a game. I don’t seriously believe that I can judge a game without playing it, usually a lot, so I don’t take these very seriously. But I can talk about its choices and whether or not it gets me excited about bringing it to the table.

    I was going to start layout for Bridewell today, but instead a pre-release copy of Fantastic Medieval Campaigns by my friend Marcia B of Traverse Fantasy arrived on my doorstep, and so I cancelled everything to have a read of this beautiful hardcover book. If you haven’t heard, Fantastic Medieval Campaigns (hereafter FMC) is an effort to reorganise and clarify the original three books published published by Gary Gygax in ’74. It’s a challenging book to write about, because if you aren’t already familiar with the rules inside it, I can’t imagine you’re likely to be buying it; and the rules have been pored over by fifty years of wargamers and roleplaying gamers, and so I have only a little to say about the rules themselves. I’ll start elsewhere though.

    I don’t have a photo to post of the actual book in my hands (I tried to take one myself, but it didn’t do it justice).

    This book is a beauty. Square-format, hardcover, with gorgeous paperstock coloured separately for each chapter of the book, and a warm, soothing pastel palette, it looks amazing on your shelf and even better on your coffee table (the rainbow block colouring looks excellent enough that I wish I could have it spine facing in on my bookshelf). The layout is big, chunky and retro, consistent and happy to let the words have space, and this generosity of page count brings with it clarity of structure and intent. The monochrome art is by an all-star cast, but is charming, sketchy and janky in a way that feels true to the source material (special mention goes to the exceptional maps by Gus L). All in all an exceptional effort from a largely one-woman show.

    The text is split into the original three sections that came in separate booklets and two appendixes, concluding with a short postface that provides a thesis statement for the whole project. Throughout we have a dry reading of the original text, rearranged and with a gentle editorial touch, with Marcia’s sly humour slipping through at regular intervals (the recurring typographic balrog joke deserves an award for best in-joke). I can’t overstate the value in the rearrangement (it has an index!!!), but more important is the editorial touch: Light enough at the beginning that a side-by-side reading might be difficult to differentiate; examples of Marcia’s voice and that of her artists shine through piecemeal initially (such as the delightfully bizarre Red Queen’s Catacombs). By the end, Marcia’s voice is more insistent.

    FMC communicates more clearly than reading the original booklets that the included combat rules are second-grade dross and should be ignored in favour of the first appendix, Chain of Command. I think that incorporating these rules directly into the text of the first three chapters would have communicated that better, although Marcia explains herself well in the first appendix and her fidelity to the original text in that regard is admirable. Subtly, the case is presented that Chain of Command is an essential aspect of the ruleset, and lays bare the fact that this is a miniatures war game intended to not only be played as heroes but also the allies they command, in a much more transparent fashion than I previously realised. This brings to light a number of misadventures that the hobby has undertaken over its history, releases like DL7: Dragons of Glory, Battlesystem, and Birthright, and it repositions the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons in my esteem as the edition most faithful to the spirit of the original 1974 version of that game.

    FMC also communicates to me something more palpable: Despite the beauty of the book in my hands, Dungeons and Dragons was a DIY project from the beginning. Marcia’s interjections (like the implication that the hydra was a kitbashed tyrannosaur on Gygax’s field) remind me of the suggestion that the owlbear was based on a Japanese figurine bought at a garage sale. The leaps and gaps present in the text, even with Marcia’s thoughtful reordering (it has an index!!!) and targeted appendices make it clear that this was not and never will be a complete game, but rather a springboard for your dive into roleplaying as a hobby. It clarifies why Gygax felt the urgency he demonstrated when he released the first edition of the game, minimising and excluding players of earlier and parallel versions to capitalise on his accidental DIY success. More wistfully and hopefully, it makes me imagine a world where, instead of following the example of wargames-in-an-envelope, the hobby had followed the path of DIY zine culture that sprung up at the same time: I imagine what we could have had, a history of disposable punk DIY aesthetics.

    Marcia’s postface is placed in the second appendix, as a gesture to the fact that in this second appendix she suggests options not present in the original text, and hence that her own voice as a game designer shines through the strongest. I think, however, overstates how much space she succeeds in placing between her and the earlier text, although not as a game designer, but rather as a writer: Where reading the original texts is an exercise in blinking and refocusing each turn of the page, Marcia’s dry wit and familiarity with the history of the hobby as it came to be, brings more (admittedly academic) joy to the material than Gygax could ever conjure. I don’t think the presence of her editorial voice here is a bad thing at all, after all, this entire project is effectively (and I’m projecting a little here, but not a lot) an opportunity for Marcia to avoid reading those books and read something better instead. I want that too.

    In game design, I consider a lot the perspectives that we bring to our design. I often see the perspective of popular culture (those that bring Lucas-esque and other worlds to our modules and systems) and those that borrow from the direct legacy of Gygax (everything published by WoTC for 5e in the pejorative, but also innovators on that legacy like Gus L in the approbatory). I see in some of my favourite modern authors, like Luke Gearing and Ben Laurence, the perspective of a novelist bringing a fresh and new angle on how we might arrange and describe the worlds we play in. And I see in some, like Luca Rejec’s work, the perspective of a visual artist. Zedeck Siew brings a poetic perspective to bear on the field of roleplaying game design; something I’ve seen alluded to by others, like Brad Kerr of Wyvern Song. But what Marcia does in FMC is to come at game design from the well-informed, accurate but still subjective perspective of works of history. It’s a unique voice, and I cannot but welcome any fresh approaches to game design that come my way. It’s akin to a translation in many ways: It’s not the original authors voice, but sometimes it communicates new things and clearer.

    I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t familiar with the original rules are likely to be buying this, but if you aren’t familiar with them, and you’re interested in them, this is assuredly a much better place to start. If you’re interested in running those original rules, this is also probably the best place to start, as all the hard work has already been done for you. Has Marcia persuaded me to run the ruleset? No. I’ve failed to run them multiple times before, and they’re interesting as a historical artifact more than they are as a viable playstyle for me. But nevertheless, I go back and read those original books regularly, and FMC will definitely replace the originals for me, as they’re clearer, easier to locate information in (it has an index!!!), and more enjoyable to read. Fantastic Medieval Campaigns is an exceptional work, making sense of a hash of rules split over many books and supplements, bringing a much needed lightness of touch to the proceedings.

    I’ve stated my biases here, but as a remarkable insight into diy elfgame history, I couldn’t recommend it more.

    8th of September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

    ,

  • Bathtub Review: Fangwitch’s Falls

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique well-regarded modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited harsh critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

    Fangwitch’s Falls is a 24-page pointcrawl written and illustrated by Em, for Cairn. It’s about a pending flood that will crush a local village if the supernatural cause is not investigated. But it’s an adventure that is not so crass as to say that outright, and I like the degree of You’re Not An Idiot present in this module a lot.

    Cover art

    The writing here is often good, sometimes great, “A coiled and spined thing the size of a baleen whale. Destructive, though not necessarily malicious. It resides behind the Falls.” This is the whole description of the big bad. I love this brevity and evocativeness. More authors need to trust in their words and audience like this. The details behind the nature of the Fangwitch and the weapon to defeat it with are randomised. For me, I’d rather these be set in stone; I’d rather a single excellent idea than a dozen less interesting ones. Random tables and lists are best used for things that are effectively quantum in the first place: people you encounter along the road, loot, magical effects and the like.

    The locations are summarised in ten or so words each, and all fit in a single page. This page also has rules for events and the events themselves. This is excellent work. Then the locations are expanded, each with a single page summary and occasionally with an extra page of NPCs or something like that. These are uniformly pretty good, although the elimination of redundancy here means some flipping to and from the summaries.

    It finishes off with NPCs, loot, and gear packages for Cairn. These are whimsical and designed to match the fairytale vibe of the rest of the module.

    Overall, this module is absolute fire. This is the kind of module I wish I saw more of, and at a larger scale. I prefer it when it veers from fairy tale into horror (which it does in parts), but f you and your table appreciate dark fairytale vibes, terse evocative writing, and you don’t mind improvising appropriately or the lack of dungeons, this is a great small pointcrawl.

    7th September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Moralising and manipulation in tabletop roleplaying games

    Edit: This post was nominated for a Bloggie Award! Thank you for all your support everyone!

    My hill to die on this week, is just we need to stop moralising the type of games people play. This overly long post is a summary of the ideas I’ve spoken of the last day or so on the topic. Bits have been taken from a bunch of conversations, and honestly I can’t remember what I said to whom. It’s not a response to any three-hour long video essays, but rather the discourse that they may have generated. I, like Marcia, am vagueposting the discourse.

    Part I: It’s fine to just not like it

    Here are some basic points that I’m just going to lay out there without any argument because I’m not interested in getting into discussions about what evil is.

    • Scaffolding isn’t inherently evil and guilty of coercion or “mind control”.
    • Playing free of scaffolding isn’t inherently inferior and players who prefer it are not allergic to narrative.
    • Bad creators do not equate to bad design.
    • Bad design probably doesn’t exist, and if it does, it is entirely subjective.

    I am becoming frustrated with defending uninspired PTBA games and 5e because people on the internet keep criticising them on dubious moral or “bad design” grounds instead of the primary valid grounds to criticise them: I don’t like it.

    It is super valid to not like something. It doesn’t need moral justification. Here’s some reasons we might not like a game:

    • “I don’t like 5e because it’s hard to DM”
    • “I don’t like 5e because I don’t want to support WOTC”
    • “I don’t like OSE because i want my characters story to be more supported”
    • “I don’t like Dread because i think jenga blocks are childish”
    • “I don’t like Unspeakable Power because it doesn’t adapt Apocalypse World’s themes to the new setting and genre”
    • “I don’t like Mausritter because i hate little cardboard backpacks”
    • “I don’t like Lancer because the lore is too white person”
    • I don’t like D&D because it’s a petit bourgeois race war fantasy

    Honestly it’s fun and liberating to just not like things rather than moralise them. I can like or dislike anything for any reason! Or for none! I have never read the Wretched but I don’t like it (sorry Chris). Furthermore, I can still criticise you for liking something I don’t like! It just doesn’t grant me the moral high ground! It just makes me a snob!

    Don’t moralise the games people play or the players of those games. You’re allowed to have design preferences. You don’t even have to justify them. Neither does anyone else.

    Part II: But the designer is coercing me!

    No they’re not. Claims that designing to incentivise my acting like a rogue or a superhero or whatever are “mind control” are overblown and short sighted. Wanderhome playbooks are not a form of coercive abuse.

    Like, be a high school debater for a second and google the definition of coerce. I’m opting into the game, so it sure isn’t against my will. What’s the actual threat here? If I don’t like how your game makes me feel I won’t be coerced by it, I’ll change the rules or play another game. There are already too many damned games on my shelf, let alone in existence. These are inherently absurd statements and we need to make some less absurd claims (see “Reasons Not To Like Games”).

    The terms “coercion” “low trust” and “mind control” are at best hyperbolic, and at worst attempts to erect straw men. But they do refer to something, which is something I prefer to call scaffolding or maybe scaffolded design (oh shoot, bad essay design, I mentioned this at the top didn’t I? too late to rewrite).

    Scaffolded design are design decisions that are both supportive and restrictive. I mightn’t want that — I usually don’t and hence I am resentful I’m even writing this damned post — but plenty of players do and honestly it’s rude to assume they’re bad people or stupid or whatever derogative we’ve chosen today for players of games we don’t like.

    Tangential aside: “I’m not criticising the players just the game” or “just the designer” whatever imaginary theorist, stop applying moral judgements based on someone’s theory of game design. Game designers are utterly impotent the moment they go to print, half of them tell me to ignore their rules (an apparently arrogant or negligent act), and games have no capacity to enforce anything. Neither designer nor game have any actual agency in this situation, so the judgement being cast falls on the player, even if we’re pretending it doesn’t.

    The Monomyth Thread is one interpretation of a very long discussion, but suffice to say one valid interpretation of that discussion is that, in fact, some players feel unsafe when exposed to unscaffolded play (or at least feel safer when exposed to scaffolded play). Again, not me, I chafe against highly scaffolded play. But it’s just preference. It’s all just preference.

    Preference is really really important. I think, for example, that 5e is not popular because it’s got Hasbro and it’s got Stranger Things and Critical Role (of course they’re factors), but primarily because it scaffolds original character design in a really satisfying way. So people really like playing it. It’s their valid preference. See part I for valid reasons not to like 5e that aren’t Bad Design or 5e Ruins Indie Designers Finances.

    We’re allowed to have design preferences and not only is scaffolding not coercion, it’s actually essential for some people to enjoy themselves.

    Part III: A digression, I don’t even like rules

    I mentioned that I’m resentful I have to write this damned post, and that’s because I’m not even particularly interested in scaffolded game design (sorry my scaffolded design friends). C’mon ya’ll know this, I review modules and the modules that I write (go buy Hiss!) are dynamic, interconnected networks of locations and people designed with as few rules as possible, because the crowd gasps rules elide. I can build a sculpture out of knives, but knives are better used to carve the sculpture. It’s all art though. It’s all sculpting.

    I play with as little scaffolding as possible. At the end of the last session I played in, completely without planning or forethought, a heroic knight questing to redeem himself but down on his luck, sacrificed himself to save a village from soon. I love the serendipity of Ferdrek dying heroically which both suited his character and happened without any design, but fate conspired to make him a hero, and that’s so cool! For me, it is less significant and satisfying when it is designed. A “Final Move” called “Sacrifice Yourself” could never be as cool as that, for me. That’s why I don’t like heavily scaffolded games as much as lightly scaffolded games. Not because they’re immoral. That would be an absurd connection to draw.

    Whatever inflates your balloon floats your damned boat. It’s a preference. I’m not a bad person for disagreeing with you. I’m not coercing you or controlling your mind by putting that move into my game. I’m using a different and equally valid design theory that applies rules in different ways to different ends.

    I don’t like running Lancer. Too many moving parts. But I like playing a mech pilot in it. Because different theories apply different rules to different ends. And that’s fine. It’s not a competition and it’s not a damned moral judgement, it’s a design approach. Words are not our only tools as game designers, as if painters only use paint and don’t use theories of colour and mind.

    We’re allowed to have design preferences; not only is scaffolding not coercion, it’s actually essential for some people to enjoy themselves; I can just use different design theories and approaches to make different things and that’s valid.

    Part IV: Manipulative Design

    What if the game designer designs the game to do something that is morally bankrupt? Honestly I think this is possible. I call it manipulative design rather than mind control because I don’t want to be hyperbolic. Even this kind of design is subject to the whims of the players; designers may sometimes make bad decisions but are never gods, and even WOTC does not enforce its games rules with a private army (at least so far, although the fact that they have one is disconcerting to say the least). Design I feel is manipulative is specifically design that’s aimed at making players (not their characters) act a certain way rather than rely on them being humans.

    I don’t consider games with a rigid premise or structure manipulative. Bluebeard’s Bride is an incredibly challenging text, but if you’re fully informed regarding what you’re getting into, I don’t think it’s manipulative. I don’t regard games with that encourage antisocial play manipulative. In Paranoia characters are encouraged to betray and backstab each other but if I snuck back to a friends place, slept with their spouse, and stole their valuables you can’t say Paranoia made me do it. I’d reserve manipulative design as a term for places where it’s aimed at the players as people.

    Zedeck wrote at length of an example in Torchbearer, so if you’re not sure these design approaches exist, please read that. I think I personally can draw a line in the sand to say “I’m not going to use game mechanics to manipulate the behaviour of my irl friends”, and I think we need a category so we can be critical of these kind of design choices. But even so, maybe that line is harder to draw if you primarily run tournament or cons or store-based drop-ins? I can’t speak to that, but even then I question your knowledge of the human condition if you think you can design games to make people be kinder.

    Conclusion: You’re Not An Idiot

    We’re allowed to have design preferences; not only is scaffolding not coercion, it’s actually essential for some people to enjoy themselves; we can just use different design theories and approaches to make different things and that’s valid; I personally draw a line in the sand at making rules that dictate how players (not characters) act outside of the game. That’s the conclusion.

    I write my modules (buy Hiss!) and other stuff based upon the design principle The Player Is Not An Idiot, which accompanies any other design principles I have (none of which are “game design is like dog training but with people”, because it’s not compatible with The Player Is Not An Idiot; allow me a little snark in closing). It’s a good principle, and if everyone treated everyone else in the hobby as not idiots, I probably wouldn’t have spent my afternoon writing this ridiculous post instead of taking a bath.

    Thanks for reading it, though, if you got this far. Read Marcia’s post on incentives for another perspective.

    2nd September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • New Release: Hiss!

    Today I hit “publish” on the small module I’ve been playtesting the last few weeks, Hiss!

    Hiss is a horror module featuring a doomed village for your diy elfgame. It’s short, dense and flexible, and features simmering tensions that could explode over a short two or three sessions, or could become a mysterious feature of your campaign if you chose to base your adventuring party out of it.

    My goal with Hiss was to write a short module (after spending six months just writing Bridewell, and it’s probably not going to release before Christmas), that benefited from a lot of the lessons learnt from Bridewell while presenting it in a more traditional and compact manner. Hiss, therefore, has what I think are excellent maps (although I wish I could have fit text keying onto them), it has incredibly terse description, it has a large and interconnected cast, and it has tools to help the referee connect all the disparate elements together on the fly without more familiarity with the zine other than a read-through (although I’d strongly encourage you take notes as things occur). I write my modules with a strong The Player Is Not An Idiot philosophy: I expect the referee to be able to springboard off the terse descriptions and interconnections to create a fun time. But in exchange, you get something dense. There’s a lot more content here than you’d expect from a 30 page module; our playtests got almost seven hours of play out of five or six locations, and there are thirty in total.

    I fully expect some people will bounce right off my terse style and my reliance on the referee’s intelligence, improvisation and skill, but that’s ok. I think if you work with what I’ve given you, you will probably grow as a referee, and if you are already experienced, you’ll find something that leans towards your strengths. That said, all my readers were impressed. Sandro said with this I was “Legitimately creating the lexicon for what I look for in good adventures” and Marcia said “I am blown away by Idle Cartulary’s adventure design!”. I’m pretty proud of it, although it’s a low-key release compared to the scope of the upcoming Bridewell.

    If you’re still reluctant, I’ve posted two session reports for Hiss (session 1, and session 2), although it definitely has spoilers in it.

    You can buy it here! Community copies are available for those who experience marginalisation or economic instability!

    1st September, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

    , ,

  • Bathtub Review: In Carmine

    Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique well-regarded modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited harsh critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

    In Carmine is a 17 page module for Mothership written, designed and illustrated by S. Murphy, a mysteriously nameless kiwi. In Carmine is a fairly typical set up for a Mothership module: A team of grunts are sent to a deadly planet in the far reaches of space with little to no information. Mothership, to me, is best as a horror scenario (despite many excellent Mothership modules focusing on different things), and so I don’t mind the lack of a novel setup at all.

    The actual front cover.

    The art here, while sparse, is great, and fits the humorous bent on body horror that the module leans into. The layout is clear, although the choice of warm browns as the primary palette clashes a little with the map colour choices and the art in a way that isn’t to my taste. In the spirit of Mothership modules, there is nary a white space left on the page and this module even spurns front and back covers, which is a choice that confused me at first, but was an excellent one.

    The reason it was an excellent choice, is that the cover instead is a one-sheet on the planet of Carmine. It ends in “But those who know what Carmine truly is would tell you a different story.”, and then as soon as you turn the page it launches into the set up for the module. Now, that set up is far wordier than I like it to be, and a change in the nature of the villain occurs in a few pages that renders some of it unnecessary information. But the unconventional structural choices propelled me forward through the exposition anyway.

    Running the adventure has a solidly excellent technique in it that most single-track modules could use. It provides three descriptors: wet, pulsating, falling apart. “If all else fails, stick to these and you’ll be fine“. It’s a genius move, and makes it very easy for the warden to lean into the horror of the scenario without reaching for the thesaurus or relying on the text of the module. More modules could use key universal descriptions like this. The introductory section also has the best appendix N I’ve ever read, mainly because it conjures a very specific atmosphere that I don’t even need to search for me to apply to the module. Again, more modules could apply a creative, evocative appendix N in the same manner to great effect.

    The next section is a hex-crawl I’m not so sure about. I love the simple iconic map, and the names are evocative on that first page. It uses polyhedral dice for weather, which departs from Mothership wisdom (it uses them to good effect, but nevertheless); the weather for this strange planet is weird and fantastic though. You have a 1-in-3 chance of a terrain specific encounter, but the direct route to the laboratory means you’re more likely to only visit each terrain twice, reducing your chance of finding the most interesting encounters. I would run this as a point crawl, because there are eight unique encounters and seven hexes, so I might as well generate them ahead of time. Part of my reasoning there is because you’re not exploring, but rather you’re heading directly from the drop off to the lab. The encounters themselves are overwritten but excellent. Most have two paragraphs when they could be one. They’re not excessive, irregardless, I’d just rather they be shorter and punchier, knowing that my taste in brevity and punchiness is higher on the scale than most.

    The lab, however, nails it. Generally pretty brief and punch descriptions, using bolding to highlight important points, but not excessively. I question why loot is highlighted here, because it’s something you’d search the text for, and it’s better used to jog your memory that there’s an airlock here and tendrils extend along the roof. The stuff is quite evocative and provoke good responses from me: An elevator “when it’s in motion it grunts like it’s struggling against something” which makes me want to describe the sound of flesh unpeeling around the steel cable and blood oozing through the elevator roof. The maps are simple and effective, although given the exceptional artistic ability apparent, it would be useful to have more detail to improve the fluency at the table. It’s always easier to refer to a visually engaging map when possible.

    The final boss is a humorous and sudden twist, with multiple clear ways to defeat it that the players are highly likely to shoot themselves in the foot over, which is exactly how it should be. More foreshadowing and temptation around these consequences would be beneficial, but ending a Mothership module with a philosophical discussion about predestination and free will is something that will be memorable for years, if it does eventuate.

    Overall, In Carmine is an absolute banger of a short module. I’d love to run this as a one-shot (although it recommends two sessions). I wouldn’t recommend it to those averse to body horror or to meat and gore-themed visuals, but despite my criticisms, I’m not very mixed in my view on In Carmine: I can’t recommend it highly enough, and it’s (foolishly in my opinion) free, so you don’t have an excuse not to.

    August 31st, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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