Time got away from me this weekend, so I wasn't able to finish my planned post for this week's RPG Saturday column. So let me leave you with this excellent video from Seth Skorkowsky giving advice to game masters on how to get your players more invested in their characters and the NPCs. If you like the Monster Hunters Inc. books by Larry Correia, you will probably enjoy Skorkowsky's "The Valducan" book series.
VIDEO: "Getting Players Invested - Running RPGs"
Seth Skorkowsky (16 min.)
The Daily Mail reports that "Supergirl braces for a $100million loss: Milly Alcock's movie misfire marks a major setback for the rebooted DC Universe as it bombs at the box office." The article states that the film cost $170 million to produce with $120 million in marketing costs, but then states that "[t]he film would need to earn $300million - $375million to break even[.]" I do not believe this is correct because it doesn't consider the split between studios and theaters, which is typically around 50/50. If the production and marketing costs totaled $290 million, the film would need to earn around twice that--$580 million--for the studio to break even.
Interestingly, despite the studio spin that it was misogynist haters that killed interest in the film, it was women who avoided the film. Metro News pointed out:
You need only look at the demographic for this weekend’s audience, as reported by Deadline – 59% of the audience was male, and 65% was over the age of 25 – which shows that young women, surely the target audience of this particular entry, simply didn’t show up.
The Critical Drinker offers his own thoughts on why the film didn't succeed in the video, below. I haven't watched it, but my sons--who are big superhero film fans--all went to see it this past weekend. And the best they had to offer was that it was "okay". Even my son who is consistently the biggest defender of the actors and directors of these films wasn't that impressed.
VIDEO: "Supergirl - The Most Predictable Of Disasters"
The Critical Drinker (12 min.)
So I watched Citizen Vigilante this past weekend. I was mildly disappointed, probably because I was expecting something more like Nobody, The Punisher, or Death Wish, or perhaps something more focused on migrant crime. The film spent as much time on three delinquents that refused to pay for bus tickets and, later, were beating up a teenage boy in a park, as it did on the Muslim "youths" which gang raped a girl (probably based on this incident from Germany, but could have been describing dozens of other such incidents across Europe and the UK, and which still continue to happen). The film also suffered from a disjointed time line. And for goodness sake, the main character acted like he wanted to be caught: no gloves, no attempt to disguise his features, and constantly carrying an operating cell phone.
But my point is not to review Citizen Vigilante but to point out that the film--which purportedly only had a budget of between $5 million and $9 million had grossed more than $67 million some 5 days ago and has topped Amazon's charts for purchased movies since its release on Amazon Prime--is performing better than Supergirl of which the Daily Mail reports: "Supergirl bombs at the box office: Milly Alcock's 'surly' superhero fails to entice viewers with a flop opening weekend after lacklustre reviews." That article indicates that Supergirl's production costs were $170 million or more (and that does not include advertising costs) and opened with $38 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters. It added $30 million in overseas markets. It is pretty obvious which movie will provide its investors a greater return on investment (ROI). Using the high end budget of $9 million and only considering the $67 million that it had raked in as of a week ago, Citizen Vigilante had a ROI of 7.44. In order for Supergirl to provide the same ROI--just using the production budget and ignoring marketing costs--it would need to gross $1.27 billion.
I don't know why Supergirl did so poorly as I haven't seen it. But I would guess that it failed like so many other big budget superhero films of late: it was written and/or directed by people with essentially no experience writing or directing (and absolutely no experience in the genre) who were picked because of DEI or some other reason having nothing to do with merit; and who provided a crappy story with unlikable characters rather than heroes.
Whatever you might think of Sanders in Citizen Vigilante, he was a type of hero. On the other hand, Supergirl, based on what I've read and heard, was just another self-obsessed, immature girl boss.
Space: 1889 was a Victorian Era era role playing game released by Game Designers Workshop (GDW) in 1989. It did not see the commercial success that GDW wanted and was quickly cancelled by GDW in 1990. This is somewhat amazing to me, as interest in the game has held on with subsequent versions (same setting but different game mechanics) being published by several companies over the intervening years.
The game is an amalgam of the science fiction of Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, and Edger Rice Burroughs, combining the fantastic elements of their stories with the scientific theories of that day and age, giving an early steam punk vibe. It reflects an alternate history of the Victorian Era where Mars and Venus are habitable and interplanetary travel is possible. The result is the colonial revelry of the Great Powers extending to include the inner planets of our solar system.
The basic background of the game is informed by certain theories of the period: that Mars was a world slowly dying from lack of water, crisscrossed by canals; that Venus was a hothouse world covered with thick jungles, swamps, and oceans much like a primordial Earth, hidden under a permanent haze of clouds; and that space was filled with the Ether--the medium which transmitted light waves and gravity.
The alternate history used by the game begins with Thomas Edison inventing an Ether propeller that can move a craft through space. However, the propeller will not work until a craft is lifted to altitude of 24,000 feet on Earth. Once a working device was developed, Edison and a Scottish adventurer named Jack Armstrong set off for Mars in 1870. The initial lift was provided by a hydrogen balloon after which the Ether propeller took them to Mars where they made first contact with the Martian inhabitants. With their return to Earth, the race to colonize Mars and the other inner planets took off. Because the power for the Ether propeller comes from solar boilers, Ether ships are limited to the inner solar system, so the outer planets remain unexplored.
While Zeppelins and dirigibles are used for airships, one of the most valuable exports from Mars is liftwood--a naturally occurring tree wood that when correctly harvested and shaped has antigravity powers. By a system of louvers made of lift wood, a ship can control its lift and maneuver above a planetary surface. So the best airships use lift wood.
There is other "mad scientist" type technology that you can incorporate into your game--lightening cannons, freeze rays, and mechanical men, for instance--but other than the Ether propeller and other technology necessary for space travel, most of the other technology in the game is either technology that existed or extensions of the same that could have been possible if the right inventor (and investors) had come along.
 |
| One of the three main types of Martians |
But this is also a skill based game system. Characters can gain skills in three ways: default skills which are associated with certain attributes, with the character receiving one for each of the attributes (plus "throwing"); skills awarded by virtue of the character's career; and skills "purchased" by use of skill points or experience points.
There are two basic game mechanics in the game. In one method, the player rolls a number of 6-sided dice equal to the score of the attribute or skill being used and compares it against a target number based on the difficulty of whatever the character is doing. For instance, if a character was trying to force open a door and had a Strength of a 4, the player would roll four dice and add up the total. If it was equal to or greater than the target number--say, 12 because the task was "difficult"--then the character would succeed in forcing the door. However, for quicker play for things of a "standard" difficulty, the player would roll a single die, and if the result was equal to or less than the appropriate attribute or skill level, the character would succeed in what they are doing.
Combat has special rules. In Melee combat, each weapon has a number of hit dice that are rolled to see if the target is struck, which number may go up or down depending on certain modifiers. The person controlling the character being attacked also rolls a number of dice to block or parry blow. Each successful blocking die cancels out a successful attacking die. If the number of successful blocking dice exceeds the number of successful attack dice, not only has the attack been stopped, but the extra die or dice can be used for an immediate attack (e.g., a parry and riposte with sword). This seems complex and slow, but I believe the intent was to try and capture the feeling of two opponents trading blows.
Missile attacks (e.g., shooting a rifle, throwing a spear) are resolved similar to the basic game mechanic, but with modifiers to reflect different situations or the distance to a target.
And there are special rules for mixing both melee and missile attacks (e.g., Martians armed with spears attacking a British officer armed with a revolver). And the game has fairly detailed rules on fights between airships, fighting animals, using heavy weapons or explosives, and so on.
If you want a more detailed explanation of the rules, see the video at the bottom of this post.
But beyond the rules is the setting of the game. There is a lengthy chapter just describing the Victorian Age, space travel (including rules on creating Ether ships), different types of equipment and weapons, inventing new devices, and, of course, the descriptions of the different bodies that the characters could travel to: the Earth's Moon (including a sample adventure), Venus, and, of course, Mars.
I have to admit that I haven't really played this game much. It was published during a period when I was living overseas. Sometime after I returned, a friend of mine had bought it and, looking through it, I was intrigued. But I think we only played through one adventure ... and I'm not sure we even finished that adventure. This friend like buying a game, playing one or two adventures and then, seemingly bored, would move on to something else. And that seemed to be the case here.
But the setting intrigued me, so when I came across a copy of the game a couple years back, I picked it up. Later I stumbled across a copy of the Referee Screen which I picked up as well. In addition to the actual screen, it also included a booklet with some additional or expanded rules.
I still haven't put together an adventure--time and other commitments--but as I look through it again while writing this, I sure want to give it a try.
There were a surprising number of supplements and adventures published for Space: 1889 including rules for a miniatures war game. A computer game was even released. The rule book, supplements and adventures are available as PDFs on Drive-Thru RPG.
Interestingly, someone even produced a full length fan film based on the game setting (see the video at the very bottom of the post).
VIDEO: "Rules Breakdown: Space 1889"
RPGGamer (9 min.)
VIDEO: "Space 1189 - The Secret of Phobos Full Movie"
Orkenspalter TV (2 hrs 33 min.)
The Realist has informed me that Elon Musk has posted the full movie of Citizen Vigilante on his X-account. I don't know if this is just for a limited time or not, so you might want to hurry if you want to watch it in that format. I'm sure that his reason for doing so is primarily to get around the European censors who want to ban the movie.
I'm planning on watching it this weekend and so will probably rent it from Amazon.
John Wilder has watched it and has some thoughts about it at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. But for those that felt let down by some of the older vigilante movies, such as Death Wish, with its statistically improbable cast of criminals, John writes: "However, I’m going to make a bold statement: this film is more red-pilled than Death Wish. It is garlic to Hollywood’s© vampire."
I recently learned about the just released movie "Citizen Vigilante" from Black Pigeon on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch
I'm not going to give any spoilers in this review.
The movie opens with the following blocks of text:
"ALL BEHAVIOR CAN BE TRACED BACK TO INSTINCTS."
"WHEN JUSTICE IS DENIED, INSTINCTS TURN TO VENGEANCE. - ANONYMOUS"
The main themes of this movie are taken right out of the headlines, unless you only consume mainstream media news sources that never deviate from the official narrative. The story focuses on migrant crime in Europe, and a soft-on-crime judiciary that constantly makes excuses for the horrible crimes committed by migrants and refuses to punish those migrants for their crimes. Nothing is sugarcoated. It does not try to talk around the political sensitivities of the "Migrants Welcome" left. It does not avoid the racial and religious characteristics of the migrants committing these crimes.
The main character, Sanders, is a wealthy American with business interests in Europe. He becomes disgusted with judicial leniency toward migrants and the unwillingness of the politicians to do anything about it. He has the means and ability to take action, so he starts taking action against some of the criminals and the judges who refuse to punish the migrant criminals.
There is nothing subtle about this movie. It was produced to make a point. It makes the point in action, in monologues, and by showing the senseless brutality of violent migrant crime.
There were only two things about the movie I didn't like. At one point Sanders visits a brothel and employs the services of one of its ladies. This seemed rather gratuitous and I felt like it added very little to the story. The second involved technical defects relating to firearms - a silenced semiautomatic
pistol that was too quiet and never ejected any spent brass.
If you are disgusted by the the violent migrant crime in Europe and America, and are disgusted by a soft-on-migrant-crime judiciary, I believe you will enjoy this movie. I enjoyed this movie, but the women in your life will probably not like it, and it is definitely not a movie for children to see.
The battered book from above is titled The Arcanum, first published in 1984, which was supposed to be the first volume of a three part series called The Atlantean Trilogy. The other volumes were The Lexicon and The Bestiary. The three were intended to be a complete fantasy role playing game system and setting; and to serve as supplements for other games (i.e., D&D since it was, like today, the overwhelmingly most popular RPG of the time).
The Arcanum was the rule book for the Trilogy, containing rules on character creation and the game mechanics, including combat; and detailed rules for magic (including spell lists) and alchemy. The Lexicon was described as "the complete atlas of the antediluvian age" containing "detailed maps of the legendary continents, countries, and cities of the Atlantian World, plus information on trade routes, the history of Atlantis' First and Second Ages, and much more ...". And The Bestiary, as the name indicates, was "a compendium of the fantastic beings and creatures of the Atlantean age."
I probably purchased The Arcanum book in 1984, because there were some problems with the editing which were quickly corrected in a second edition released in 1985. Some of the issues were inconsistencies between rules in different parts of the text and references to skills that apparently never made it into the final product. Nevertheless, the issues were not insurmountable. I never purchased (or even came across copies) of the other two books until much later.
My interest in the book was originally for use as a supplement, particularly the rules on alchemy (of which D&D had virtually none) and the expanded list of character classes (of which D&D only had a handful). I had thoughts of trying to use the rules, but I don't believe I actually had an opportunity to do so while still in high school. It was only years later, after I was married, that I was able to get a group together and give it a shot and it worked fairly well. I still did not have the other two books, so I used my own setting and borrowed monsters from D&D.
Eventually, I found a PDF of The Bestiary from 1986 which I printed up and crudely bound (see the photo above) but have never come across a copy of The Lexicon.
My oldest son at one time expressed an interest in The Arcanum, and in trying to track down a copy, discovered that the author had published a 30th Anniversary edition of the game, incorporating the rules from The Arcanum and the contents of The Bestiary into a single volume published in 2019. There was a third edition that apparently was published in 1996 by a different game company.
According to the author's forward, this 30th Edition uses the rules from the second and third editions. But the rights to the artwork and the setting (i.e., The Lexicon) are owned by another company and so, necessarily, not included. However, much of the layout has been rethought and other edits made to correct errors and make the book more usable.
But there have been other changes I've spotted. For instance, the first edition has 8 character races/species, while the 30th Anniversary book has 10. However, one of the races from the first edition--Druas--is missing from the 30th Anniversary book, while it adds gnomes, halflings, and selkies.
This 30th Anniversary edition has many more illustrations, also pen and ink, but the style is very different. For instance, below are the illustrations for elves from both books, the first edition on top and the 30th Anniversary edition below:
And as between the 1986 version of The Bestiary (the top illustration) and the 30th Anniversary Edition (the bottom) looking at the illustrations of undead skeleton warriors as an example:
Unfortunately, not all of the creatures or beasts are illustrated in either edition.
The rules for these games are definitely old school, but differ from other games from the 1980s like AD&D or Basic D&D. Although this game uses similar attributes (strength, speed, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, will, charisma, and perception) with the same basic range of 3 to 18 for a starting character, and professions which are largely analogous to the character "class" system in D&D, it is also a skill based rule system. Although D&D was limited to just a handful of character classes (i.e., professions or callings), The Arcanum had 27 total professions, all of which were compatible with or easily transferred to D&D.
Professions are also categorized as to whether the characters in those careers are "untrained fighters", "skilled fighters", or "highly trained fighters". This is important both for gaining hit points and because "skilled" and "highly trained" characters gain "to hit" and "damage" bonuses as they reach certain levels in their Professions.
Character creation in the first edition follows these steps: (i) selecting a character race; (ii) selecting a professions; (iii) selecting a background (which gives certain skills and, potentially, other benefits); and (iv) determining attributes. What skills a character has is a matter of his background and his career. As a character advances in a career (that is, achieves higher levels) he or she will obtain additional skills. Professions may also special abilities.
It appears that character creation is similar in the 30th Anniversary Edition.
Because this game system uses skills, much of the rules are found in the skill descriptions. For example, the skill "Evade Pursuit" describes the skill as "the ability to confound pursuers by moving with speed and stealth, leaving false trails, etc." And it gives rules for the chance of success (rolled with a percentile dice) and modifiers if he or she is being pursued by someone skilled in tracking. Of course, that is a basic skill rules. Some of the skills have tables or much more detailed rules to determine whether the character is successful. And others grant certain abilities, such as the skill "weapon training" or "weapon" allows a untrained character to use a weapon without the non-proficiency penalty, but grants no other special rules or options.
Combat is fairly straightforward. Players roll a 1d20 and their role plus (or minus) applicable modifiers equals or exceeds 11, they hit their target. If a character has a non-proficiency penalty, the sum of their roll and modifiers is divided by two before determining a success. Characters can also employ special tactics such as making an "unarmed attack", seek a "specific hit" (i.e., a special attack allowing special effect or dealing double damage) but with their odds of a successful hit halved; or defensive tactics such as dodging or parrying a blow, taking evasive action, etc. Cover makes it more difficult to hit someone with a missile weapon, and there are other modifiers depending on the character's attributes or due to situational factors (e.g., it truly is easier to hit something as large as a barn door).
Unlike D&D where armor makes it more difficult to strike a target, this game uses armor to subtract from damage. Of course, the amount of damage that can be dealt depends on the weapon. For instance, a dagger might only deal 1d6 of damage while a long sword will cause 1d10 of damage.
I don't generally like playing magic users, but this is a fantasy role playing game after all and, so, there are various spell casting professions such as magicians, shamans, witches, sorcerers, etc. Besides, in combat, with the right spells, a magic user essentially acts like a support weapon, able to deal heavy damage but only for a limited number of rounds.
Unlike D&D, where a magic user must relearn spells each time he wants to cast one--the act of casting a spell erases it from memory--this game does not have a similar limitation. Rather, the character is limited to casting a certain number of spells per day based on his level, or else resort to using a magic item or casting from a scroll.
In addition to, or as a supplement to, the magic system, the game also has detailed rules on alchemy, which actually covers everything from making herbal remedies to poisons to potions. There are also rules covering the manufacture of magical devices or magical/alchemical processes.
So the basic question is whether this game would be worthwhile playing today. It is "old school" in a real sense that there is no universal resolution system. Many skills and checks are determined by rolling a percentile die, while combat uses 1d20 with a target number of 11+, and there are many tables that have to be consulted for other matters. That said, it is no harder to use than the first edition AD&D, and offers more options for players. I think if someone were looking for an old school style of play and a game to go with it, this game would work well.
The options make it easy to customize for a particular setting as well. For instance, if you wanted something like Middle-Earth or classic D&D, you could limit characters to being humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings, and go with that. If you want something different, ditch the elves, dwarves, and halflings and use the other races included; or just limit the characters to humans. The variety of professions also allow you to have a balanced party such as D&D encourages for general adventuring. But if you wanted a campaign focused on rogues, you could have a party of various rogue type characters (charlatan, rogue, spy, pirate); or an outdoor type party could be made made up of a beastmaster, hunter, and druid. Similar theme, but different enough abilities that the characters are not just copies of one another.
The 30th Anniversary Edition is still available from LuLu for $39.99 which is pretty good for a complete game.
Last week I covered Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role playing game which used what became Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying game mechanic and basic rules. Larry Niven's Ringworld roleplaying game (Ringworld for short) was another game using that same basic game mechanic as the foundation for the game.
Ringworld was released in 1984 and I probably purchased it that same year because it wasn't in print all that long. A supplement--the Ringworld Companion--also came out in 1984 and I was able to pick it up as well.
As some of you may guess, the game was based on science fiction author Larry Niven's books Ringworld and The Ringeworld Engineers--the only two novels he had written about the Ringworld at that time--and set in his Known Space setting. I was a big fan of Larry Niven's Known Space short stories and novels, including the Ringworld books, so of course I bought the game.
For those unfamiliar with the setting, the Known Space setting covers the next 900 or so years of history, tracking mankind's expansion into space, the eventual discovery of FTL drives, contact (and war) with alien species. In the 29th Century, when the Ringworld books take place, Known Space (the part of space known to humans) was a rough sphere of 80 light years in diameter (and with Human Space being about half of the that volume).
At the time of the Ringworld books, humanity was aware of several ancient intelligent species that had died out. The most important of these for purposes of the books and this game were the Slavers and the Pak (or Pak Protectors). The Slavers had psychic powers that allowed them to enslave whole worlds of other intelligence species, and had sown life and strange life forms all across the galaxy, but had been wiped out in a long and bitter war resulting from a uprising led by one of their slave species. The impact of this is that some of their technology has survived and been found (and copied) by humans and other species: things like stasis fields and disintegrators (used both as excavation tools and weapons).
The other significant species are the Pak which originated on a planet near the galactic center. They are the ancestors of the human species. They went through three life stages: children and breeders which are like primitive hominids, and an adult stage where they consume a the root from the "tree of life" which contains a symbiotic organism that triggers the transformation into an adult Pak with its long centuries of lifespan, incredible intelligence, armored skin and super-human strength. Pak are very protective of their breeders (hence, the Protector moniker) and very violent toward any perceived threats to breeders, including breeders of other bloodlines.
Occasionally Pak would leave the core worlds they had colonized near the center of the galaxy and travel out to remote worlds to begin new colonies. (They did not have FTL technology, so this was all done at relativistic speeds). Earth was one of these colonies where, unfortunately for the Pak Protectors, the tree of life organisms died off. So the Pak eventually died and the breeders evolved into modern humans. Humans of the right age can still transform into adult Pak, but due to evolutionary changes, the resulting adult is not as strong as a regular Pak, but is more intelligent and better able to view all humanity as its "breeders" rather than just ones just within its bloodline.
Another significant alien species for purposes of the game are the Kzin--a very aggressive alien predator species--that has gone through several cycles of vicious wars with humans. The humans always won, but the wars eliminated the most violent of the Kzin such that they have essentially been bred to be slightly more docile. Think of them as the Klingons of the Known Space universe.
And then there are the Puppeteers. Puppeteers are a herbivore based species with three deer like legs, a central body that is larger than expected because it contains the brain and other vital organs, and two long slender necks ending with a mouth and eye. The lips of the mouths have lumps that sort of act like fingers, and allow the Puppeteers the fine manipulation we get from our hands. They are highly intelligent, manipulative, and greedy, but extremely cowardly as well. Although they had carried on quite profitable trade with humans for several centuries, at the time of the Ringworld novels they had been absent for 200 years, after abruptly pulling up stakes and disappearing (other than a few individuals that occasionally return to wrap up business contracts and resolve other issues). The Puppeteers always kept the location of their home world a secret.
The reason that the Puppeteers disappeared is that they learned of a chain reaction of super-novas that detonated at the center of the galaxy sending out a blast of radiation that will sterilize every world that it impacts until almost the edge of the galaxy. Although it will take tens of thousands of years to reach Known Space, the Puppeteers are deathly afraid of using FTL technology and so they must travel at relativistic speed. And so they withdrew from Known Space, used their technology that can move whole worlds, and arranged the worlds of their solar system in a stable formation that is being accelerated toward the edge of the galaxy. Their expectation is that when they reach a safe zone they will encounter humans and can reestablish their trade empire.
The novel Ringworld follows the adventures of Louis Wu (from Earth), Speaker-To-Animals (a junior Kzin diplomat), Teela Brown (Wu's young lover), and Nessus (a crazy Puppeteer) on a journey to an artifact well beyond the bounds of Known Space--an artificial ring almost the diameter of the Earth's orbit around the sun, and a million miles wide, with walls a thousand miles high to hold the air in, and spun to provide Earth like gravity. The material of which it is made is, of course, extremely strong and dense. Dense enough that it could protect against the radiation blast.
In any event, the characters in the novel travel to the Ringworld, are shot down by a meteor defense system, and do exploring, and meet a variety of hominid species (with hominids filling many of the environmental niches on the Ringworld), including the remains of an advanced human-like species (the City Builders) that apparently spread across a substantial portion of the Ringworld until their civilization collapsed. Eventually they figure out how to launch their ship off the ring so they can return to human space--except for Teela Brown who has met a warrior whom she falls in love with and decides to stay with rather than leave.
The Ringworld Engineers has Wu and Speaker-To-Animals kidnapped by another Puppeteer, the Hindmost, and traveling back to the Ringworld. There they discover that the Ringworld was apparently created by ancient Pak who wanted to create a super Pak world, but the Pak had died off at some time, allowing their breeders to evolve and, as mentioned, fill many niches in the ecosystem. But they also discover that the City Builders, in order to explore solar systems near the Ringworld, had removed giant fusion drives used to stabilize the Ring to use as engines for their starships, with the result that the Ring had become unstable. Thus the story follows our travelers attempt to restabalize the Ring.
The game has no set time, but apparently is supposed to take place between the first and second novels, although it could easily take place concurrent with or after the second novel. The characters are explorers to the Ringworld sent there to explore, and discover and recover technology or other valuable items (perhaps biologicals that can be used for new drugs, or some other high value cargo).
The game comes with four main rule books. The Explorer Book covers character creation, skills, the basic game rules, natural hazards (everything from abrupt pressure changes and ageing, to the effects of radiation, thirst, and zero atmospheric pressure, and much in between), descriptions of the major human worlds, and special rules on creating a Kzin or Puppeteer character.
The Gamemaster Book contains a great deal of information about the Ringworld--information that the Gamemaster must know but the characters (and players) will have to discover. It also has advice on designing an adventure, some rules that apparently could not be fit in the Explorer Book, and an introductory adventure.
The Creatures Book details the aliens of Known Space, details the Pak and Pak culture, a large number of hominid species that can be encountered on the Ringworld, and then a sampling of animals and flora of the Ringworld.
The Technology Book, as the title suggests, describes the computers, equipment and tools, vehicles, and weapons available within Human Space.
In addition to the rulebooks described above, the box set came with some cutouts of people and creatures to use as game markers (in lieu of miniatures), a booklet with some basic information about the Ringworld (the auto-pilot printout) and character sheets; a booklet entitled "Reference Sheets" with commonly used tables; a catalog of Chaosium products, a list of what is in the box, and an information card to send to the publisher. The game originally came with dice, but I've long lost or given those away.
Similar to Call of Cthulhu, the characters in Ringworld have 8 attributes: Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Appearance, Intelligence, Power, and Education. Players roll 2d6 and add 6 for the score for each attribute. Characters can come from various worlds within Known Space which might have some impact on the character creation; or, as noted above, players can create Kzin or Puppeteer characters. Characters are further developed by going into careers and obtaining skills.
The basic game mechanic is to roll a 1d100 (or percentile dice) with the goal of rolling under a certain target number. If using attributes, the game uses a Resistance Table that provides a target number. Otherwise, the skill score (or fraction thereof) will provide the target number.
There is very little artwork in the rule books, although what little there is is generally high quality (see, e.g., the Kzin illustrated above). But otherwise there is a lot of small type sized, dense text and occasional tables.
The game was not a commercial success and was quickly out of print. I don't know if this was because there was not much demand for the product, Niven pulling his license, or both. There is not much information about this game online.
Although I greatly enjoyed the essays about the Ringworld and Known Space, I'm not too surprised that it did not find much of a following for several reasons.
First, as noted above, the game books are dense with lots of information and small print, which was probably overwhelming to most people that might have been interested in the game. It wasn't helped by a lack of clear examples of how the rules worked to help game masters and players.
Second, although I was familiar with the setting, it just wasn't a well known setting for the majority of people that would have been playing the game. The game manuals had all the background someone would need that hadn't followed Niven's works, but this goes back to the first point about the sheer volume of material to read and it being overwhelming.
Third, the setting was overwhelming. The Ringworld is too huge for a good game environment. I realized this when running a scenario where the players were traveling from one point (where their ship had crashed) to another and I was checking for random encounters every 1,000 miles, but then had to increase it to once every 5,000 miles because otherwise I was having to check too often. But the idea that they might only encounter something once every several thousands of miles seemed weird. And yet even at that scale, it was still infinitesimal compared to the size of the Ringworld. The consequence is that you are forced to operate on unimaginable scales if you wanted to feel like you are impacting the whole of the Ringworld; but otherwise, you are operating at scales that are too small to be of any importance.
Fourth, the types of scenarios seemed limited. After all, you are not playing characters that belong to any of the cultures on the Ringworld, but humans (or other aliens) traveling to the Ringworld to explore. And that is basically all you will be doing. I'm sure that with more time my friends and I could have come up with other ideas for adventures, but it just seemed that adventure options were limited.
This could have been helped by setting adventures more generally in Known Space. There is sufficient background for doing that if you wanted, but it was not the subject of the game; and it shows by the general lack of rules or information on space travel and starships.
That said, with a group that was already familiar with Known Space and the Ringworld novels, this game has a lot of promise. But I think it would make more sense to set the game more generally in Known Space with the Ringworld as a merely one location to potentially adventure, rather than be the focus of the game. To borrow from another set of books, adventuring only on the Ringworld makes about as much sense as limiting adventures in Middle-Earth to just the mines of Moria. Yes, you could play a whole campaign in Moria, but it would ultimately be limiting; and, likewise, focusing on the Ringworld is limiting as well. In this regard, although Niven wrote a couple additional Ringworld novels, it is informative that most of his subsequent Known Space novels have not involved the Ringworld. Rather, there is a whole series of books focused on the Man-Kzin Wars, and Niven has a series set around the Puppeteers and humans they have been using to explore ahead of them as they journey toward the edge of the galaxy.
So, if I were to try this game again, I would either shift the focus to Known Space more generally; or if focused on the Ringword, make it more epic and impactful than just the character's starship crashing and the adventurers exploring, which was the focus of the two scenarios that came in the game rules and companion book.
Call of Cthulhu, from Chaosium Inc., is one of the most popular table top role-playing games on the market, being either number two or three most popular in the United States and, I've learned, the top selling TTRPG in Japan. The game is based on the cosmic horror stories by H.P. Lovecraft, more particularly the stories set in his Cthulhu mythos, although other stories, including his Dreamland stories can certainly be incorporated as well. Lovecraft was one of the most prolific writer of "weird" fiction in the 1920s and '30s and very influential with horror, fantasy, and science fiction writers; not just because of his stories, but because of his mentoring and friendship with many other such writers. Thus, elements and ideas from his stories can be found in the stories of other writers. For instance, Robert E. Howard who wrote the Conan the Barbarian stories corresponded with Lovecraft and incorporated ideas into various tales including some of the Conan adventures. One of the greatest awards in fantasy writing is called the Lovecraft award in recognition of his influence and importance.
Lovecraft lived most of his life in New England (he was raised and lived in Providence, Rhode Island) with just a short stint where he resided in New York City. True to the advice to "write what you know," the majority of his stories are set in New England or New York, including his fictional towns of Arkham (home of Miskatonic University) and Innsmouth, as well as real locations such as Providence and New York City. A few are further afield: Louisiana, Egypt, the South Pacific, or Antarctica. But aliens and entities from other times, solar systems, or dimensions also figure in his stories.
His characters are not adventurers, fighters or gunmen, but generally scholarly individuals--antiquarians, doctors, professors, and the like--that either come across a mystery or are thrust into a situation and then use their knowledge and wits to expose the danger or otherwise act to stop a dangerous cult or creature; and sometimes victory just means escaping from the danger.
The first edition of the Call of Cthulhu RPG was released in 1981, and I must have purchased it in either 1981 or 1982, because a second edition was released in 1983. The contents of the first edition boxed set are pictured below.
Then there was the main rule book (in the center of the photo, above) which included the character creation rules, a description of skills that a character might have, added combat rules for using firearms (which were obviously not part of the Basic Role-Playing booklet), a cyclopedia of the monsters and creatures of the Cthulhu mythos, the magic and spells that creatures and cultists might use (or possibly learned and turned against them by a player character), some guidance on how to play the game, and a few short scenarios to start the players out with the game.
But most importantly--and what distinguished Call of Cthulhu from other games--where the rules on sanity. One of the characteristics or attributes each character had was a Sanity score. Being exposed to monsters or the horrors of the mythos, reading forbidden spell books, and certain other events could cause characters to lose Sanity points. Losing a point could result in the character fainting or going catatonic, run away screaming, or suffer various psychological maladies. And a total loss of Sanity would result in the character becoming permanently insane.
Finally, true to most of Lovecraft's stories, the first edition was firmly set in the 1920s and so it included A Sourcebook For the 1920's that provided interesting and useful information for the period. For instance, in included a timeline from 1900 through 1930 split into three columns: important events, discoveries or inventions; weird or strange events as collected by Charles Forte; and natural and man-made disasters. There are short biographies of important or significant people from the period; important companies; information on the procedures of arrest and prosecution at that time; rules on bribery; optional rules for character creation to better flesh out the character; maps of typical railroad coaches; a section on transportation and the costs and time for traveling in the period; prices and costs; and a selection of non-mythos beasts and monsters. Maps and floorplans of famous ruins are scattered throughout the booklet. And the covers diagram the layout of a Zeppelin passenger airship.
In addition to the rule books listed above, the first edition boxed set came with a poster sized map of the world showing both major cities and locations of lost cities and significant locations from various Cthulhu mythos stories; a booklet of character sheets (which I never used because I would photocopy them) and a sheet with silhouettes of people and monsters that could be cut out and used as playing aids in the game for when there was combat or you need to know where the players are in relation to each other on a map or floor plan.
My understanding is that the second edition--which used the same artwork and style on the box and in the books--was essentially the same as first edition, other than the Basic Role-Playing booklet was no longer included and its concepts moved to the main rule book, and there were some minor tweaks to the rules. But concurrent with the second edition was a steadily growing library of supplements and adventures, including rules for running the game in the modern day (at that time, the 1980s and '90s).
The game is now in its Seventh Edition, pictured in the photo at the top of page. You will see there the main rule book (the "Keeper Rulebook") which:
You will also see in the photo a couple of adventure books that I've picked up (including one for solo play--sort of a choose your own adventure type scenario) and a supplement entitled Pulp Cthulhu which presents a slightly different set of rules for those who do want a "shoot 'em up" scenario over the more low key, investigative approach in the traditional game.
I've also picked up a packet that includes a game master screen (you can see the artwork on the back of the screen in the photographs) and some other materials. The photo below shows the tables on the GM screen as well as the materials that come with the GM screen including another adventure book as well as several maps and player handouts.
Although the various editions have sometimes significantly changed some of the rules, the 7th Edition seem to have returned to the game's roots and has rules that are similar to the first and second editions.
Looking at the 7th Edition rules, however, each character has 8 characteristics: Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Appearance, Intelligence, Power, and Education. These are determined by rolling a number of six sided dice (3d6 for most) and multiplying the result by 5. There are also certain derived attributes such as Sanity Points, Hit Points, and Magic points calculated off of the main characteristics. For instance, starting Sanity Point is equal to the character's Power; while Hit Points are equal to the character's (Strength + Size)/5.
Characters will also pick an occupation (which come with certain skills) and otherwise receive certain skills.
To resolve actions, the players must role 1d100 (a percentile die) and roll under a certain target number depending on the difficulty of the action. For instance, if the character were using a chemistry skill with a score of 75, and it was a regular task, the player would need to roll equal to or less than 75 on 1d100 to succeed. If an action was more difficult, the player would have to roll equal to or less than half the skill score or a fifth of the skill score if extremely difficult. If the character is acting in opposition to someone else (e.g., a contest of strength, speed, or some other direct competition) the player (for the player character or PC) and the game master (for the non-player character or NPC) will select an appropriate skill or characteristic and roll to see who succeeds. The character (PC or NPC) with the highest level of success wins.
Combat is essentially a specialized set of the normal task resolution rules but covering all the other factors that can impact combat (initiative, resolving an attack or other action like dodging, armor and damage, etc.). Melee combat is a variant of the action resolution for opposed actions; and ranged weapons, such as firearms, are resolved like a normal skill versus difficulty.
Weirdly, even though the National Firearms Act had not yet been passed, the 1920's list of weapons has a whole section on "illegal weapons" that you would have to buy on the black market although they were actually perfectly legal to buy over the counter or through the mail in the 1920s (assuming no state or local restriction); but there is no similar list or rules for the same or similar items in the modern weapon lists even though they would now be covered by the NFA or be illegal to purchase (e.g. a post 1986 automatic weapon).
That aside, the game can be quite fun. And, of course, not every adventure needs to be Cthulhu mythos related. For instance, one of the more memorable adventures my friends and I played when I was in high school was one where the characters encountered a traditional vampire. And of course the difference between the aggressive, combat oriented play of the standard RPG and the more careful and thoughtful approach needed in this game can be a good change of pace.
The Seventh Edition can be quite complex. however. Fortunately, Chaosium still sells Second Edition boxed sets--a basic set and a deluxe set that includes everything in the basic set plus several supplements.
The video below from Seth Skorkowsky is the introduction and overview to a series of videos going over the 7th Edition rules:
VIDEO: "Call of Cthulhu: Part 1 - Introduction"
Seth Skorkowsky (24 min.)
First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) originally had three core books, one of which was the Monster Manual which was first published in 1977, making it the first of the core AD&D books that was published. As the name suggests, it was an illustrated compendium of the monster, beasts, and common foes (e.g., bandits) which the player characters might encounter in their adventures.
In 1982, the UK division of TSR--the company that published AD&D--had put together an additional or supplemental collection of beasts and monsters titled Fiend Folio. It also included updated random encounter tables for different environments.
Finally, in 1983, TSR released the Monster Manual II with many more monsters and beasts including a large number that had been introduced in various published adventures and articles in the Dragon magazine since the publication of the original Monster Manual. It also included updated random encounter tables with the monsters and beasts from the prior two volumes.
The videos below present a series of AI generated, photo realistic illustrations of each of the creatures from the respective books.
VIDEO: "Monster Manual Illustrated"
Kruc (26 min.)
VIDEO: "Fiend Folio Illustrated"
Kruc (16 min.)
VIDEO: "Monster Manual II - Illustrated"
Kruc (24 min.)
Barbarians of Lemuria ("BoL") is a sword and sorcery role-playing game by Simon Washbourne based on Lin Carter's Thongor of Lemuria series of adventures. The basic game mechanic is loosely based on the 2d6 system from Traveller, but also has significant differences. It is not exactly clear when the game came out: the best information I have is that it originally showed up in the early 2000s. (You can find a free to download PDF of what apparently was a very early version here).
But, over time, it was expanded, new artwork added, and more details of the setting added. For instance, DriveThru RPG lists a "Legendary Edition" which apparently dates back to 2009. When I first purchased a copy two years ago through DriveThru RPG, they were selling the Mythic Edition (which is no longer available through that site) that apparently dated back to sometime in the 2010s. Unfortunately, the game did not see much success at the time in the United States.
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| The Mythic edition of BoL |
In the meantime, in 2016, fans of the game in France asked Washbourne for the rights to publish the game in French, forming a small publishing company called Ludospherik to translate and publish the game. It apparently enjoyed enough success in France that it continued to be published and expanded. So in 2024, Ludospherik decided to try the English-speaking market again and launched a Kickstarter campaign which was overwhelmingly successful. Thus, in 2025, they released a new printing of the Mythic Edition with new art, better formatting, and better quality printing.
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| An example of the interior art from the 2025 edition. Although this is a full page bit of artwork, all of the illustrations in the book is of similar quality. It truly makes it a pleasure to browse through the book. |
In any event, the Kickstarter of the game was good enough that the additional materials (a poster sized map of the setting and a game master screen) and a supplement translated from the French (further detailing a portion of the game world with an adventure and other information) have since been published. A second supplement is in the works.
The two maps above are of Carter's Lemuria (the lower of the two was actually drawn by Carter; I'm unsure of the origin of the upper map). The map, below, is of the game world for Barbarians of Lemuria.
You can see that what Washbourne largely did was flip Carter's Lemuria from West to East, make it part of a larger continent, change the time (Carter's setting is far in the past before recorded history while Washbourne's setting is in the far future after some cataclysmic event) and adds a few more tweaks to the geography. Many of the intelligent species, creatures, cities, and factions are also the same between the two with just changes to the names. The dominant city in both settings (Patanga for Carter, and Parsool in BoL) even have airships.
I'm not complaining, though. I enjoyed the Thongor stories both as a kid and when I recently re-read them a few years ago. So I was excited when I discovered that not only had someone created a game using a similar setting, but that the game was still available for purchase. I also liked that it was a true sword & sorcery setting. I like Tolkien and D&D, but elves and dwarves and halflings in a pseudo-European High Middle Ages setting gets tiring after a time. This offers an exotic setting while maintaining a strong fantasy element. Washbourne has also done an excellent job of filling out and expanding the setting from the Thongor books, and it appears that the supplements will be building on that.
The setting is quite expansive, moving from tropical regions in the south to sub-arctic in the north. The primary civilizations are centered in the sub-tropical and tropical regions around the great bay that you see (the Gulf of Sataria), with governments mostly resting in greater and lessor city states rather than expansive empires. Technology is that strange mix common to many sword & sorcery settings, mixing technology and weapons from classical to medieval or early renaissance (but without firearms) with the odd bits of super-technology thrown in. Some of this technology are bits and pieces left over from civilizations that preceded humanity; others are the works of alchemists and sorcerers.
This is understandable given the background. BoL is set many millennia after what is termed in the game as the Age of the Sorcerer-Kings. This was an era of high technology and unbelievable power but, reminiscent of the fall of Atlantis, the inhabitants became too proud and, in their pride, loosed a terrible devil or demon, the Dark Lord Hadron, who wreaked destruction across the globe. What followed was an Age of Darkness where monsters were born and Hadron and surviving Sorcerer-Kings rules over the ruins and barbarism. But eventually the Gods of Lemuria hatched a plan--the creation of a great sword that would be used by a mighty hero to destroy the monsters and minions of the Sorcerer-Kings and drive Hadron back into void, while also founding the first post-apocalypse city.
But some Sorcerer-Kings survived, becoming almost reptilian in appearance, and ever seeking to resume control of the world. This eventually led to another great battle, where the Sorcerer Kings were defeated but the great Orb-Sword was lost. The survivors migrated south to found the cities that would become the great metropolises of the BoL setting.
As noted above, the game mechanic is fairly simple: the players roll two six-sided dice (2d6) and add or subtract modifiers. If the resulting sum is 9 or better they succeed at what they are attempting. There are more specific rules for combat, but it follows the same general mechanic.
The characters are defined by four general attributes: strength, mind, agility, and appeal. Values for these range between -1 and 5 (although characters can only begin with values of 0 to 4). These act as a modifier in certain cases. Rather than rolling for these attributes, the character is given 4 points to spread between them as he or she wishes. Characters also have four combat abilities--initiative, melee, ranged, and defense--and similarly has 4 points to divide among these.
Further development of the character follows a life path model, although much simpler than in the Traveller game. It begins with the player selecting a background for the character (basically where the character grew up) that gives some options; then the character picks 4 careers, splitting up 4 points between them giving a score between 0 and 4. Thus, this acts similar to meta skill. Thus, if you were a sailor, you would have that skill level in everything a sailor might be expected to know or be skilled in.
Characters also have "Hero points" which can be used to influence the game--to do something heroic or lucky. And, finally, characters can have boons which are specialized skills or advantages (e.g., particularly alert, fearless, or "battle harness" which allows your character to wear a loincloth, chainmail bikini, or something similarly scanty and treat like medium armor) or flaws (a disadvantage or ineptitude such as being absent minded, a country bumpkin, gullible, etc.).
Consistent with the sword & sorcery setting, magic users are rare and players are discouraged from playing wizards and the like. Conan and Thongor spent much of their careers killing evil wizards, and this game seems to encourage the same. But there is plenty of room for other types of adventurers other than barbarians from the icy north lands. Thieves, pirates, merchants, sailors and seaman, alchemists and scholars, soldiers and gladiators, and many more are open to the characters. And the setting allows for the full gambit of adventuring from seeking hidden treasures, exploring abandoned cities or ruins, guarding caravans or merchant vessels, exploring, leading raiding raiding on neighboring cities or tribes, court intrigue, and more.
In addition to the rules on character creation and combat, the rules cover larger battles between units of men and ships, as well as the impact of magic or sky-boats on battles. There is also a detailed gazetteer covering most of the major locations in the game world, a brief history, a description of the gods and religions of the setting, the different non-human races (i.e., other intelligent species), and a decently sized selection of beasts and monsters. The gazetteer has many adventure seeds.
The chapter about the mysteries of Lemuria covers the magic of the setting, including alchemy, how priests and druids exercise their powers, and magician and their powers. The chapter also covers cults.
The next chapter, The Sagas of Lemuria, is for the game master. It has tips on running adventures, a discussion of rewarding characters, and different types of non-player characters (NPCs), example villains, sample adventurers, a handful of simple adventures to get you started, and even some random tables to help with coming up with ideas for other adventures.
I haven't played this game much just because of time and getting together people for games. But I was able to run an adventure over 3 or 4 session involving the characters stealing a treasure map, traveling to the location marked on the map, fighting off a rival group searching for the same treasure, and then dealing with a building come to life to kill the adventurers (yes, this was based off a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story) as well as a subsequent adventure where the characters come across a seemingly deserted ship.
In short, though, it is a fun game with a detailed world and plenty of material here to create your own adventures with just the basic books; and the supplements are adding even more. I will definitely be playing more of this one.
