The actual gameplay of iDuel Online is incredibly simple, which is both a knock against it and a point in its favor. The simplicity allows for extremely quick, pick-up-and-play action, and the duels can be a lot of fun when you have an opponent who’s actually paying attention and trying to outthink you. However, that same simplicity, combined with the relative lack of players, can leave you wishing there was more here to sink your teeth into.

Character creation is fairly straightforward in iDuel Online. Pick your hair. Pick your skin color. Pick your face. The character designs are reminiscent of various 2D avatar builders online, but it works in this context. The equipment you buy rounds out your character’s looks and stats. While later levels have matched sets and semi-consistent themes, your early character is likely going to be an eclectic mélange of random stat-boosting equipment.

This is a game about gladiatorial combat though, not dress-up. (Well, maybe it’s a little bit about dress-up.) There are ranked and unranked matches, though I have no idea what the difference is. The in-game leaderboards seem entirely based on how many Match Points you’ve earned, either lifetime or weekly, so I don’t know why there’s a distinction made.

The opponent list displays a user’s avatar, level, class, stats, and whether or not they’re online. One big improvement Namazu Studios have made to the game since launch is allowing players to fight computer-controlled opponents, called Sleepwalkers, alleviating the frustration of finding no one online.

Fights follow a rock-paper-scissors approach (Reckless Attack, Attack, Defend), with some special moves thrown in for spice. Reckless Attack does a lot of damage, but it’s reversed against the attacker by Defend. Defend reduces the damage from Attack, but if the players are of similar level, plenty of damage still gets through. The special moves work along a similar line, generally building upon one of those three bases. It’s an interesting balance, and playing against a similarly leveled opponent can be a tense affair as you try to outthink their next move.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of reason to seek out or wait for an opponent who matches your level. Just a few levels difference to either side can lead to a one-sided fight, and in the later levels especially, the rewards for massacring a level-one Sleepwalker are far better than those gained by fighting anyone else. There’s a penalty for fighting a Sleepwalker that removes half the Match Points earned, but that penalty is assessed no matter the player’s level. Is that a deal breaker? Not really, but it’s worth noting.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer a brief word about the Potions of Specialness. For 99 cents you get 50 potions, with every dollar more you spend adding 75 to that total, up to 350 for $4.99. A potion is used every match, turning it into a “Special Match.” At the end of a Special Match, a win nets you three Spectral Credits, while a loss nets you two. I mention this because there are items in the game that can only be purchased with Spectral Credits. Those items can be quite powerful – in some cases, exceedingly so. Whether they’re worth spending your money on is up to you, though.

Overall, I enjoy iDuel Online. It’s not perfect, by any means, and it’s missing some features, like a chat room or friends list, that might improve the experience. However, it’s much more entertaining than, say, another Mafia Wars clone or War: the Card Game. It’s easy to start up, poke around for a bit, pick a fight and be done in just a few minutes, and when you get a really good match going, it can be intense. The folks at Namazu Studios are listening to their audience and making the improvements and changes that the community wants, which makes iDuel Online’s future look even better. I can see this staying on my iPhone for a long time to come.

The card game is quite simple, even simplistic, and reminiscent of many other games. Players draw from a central deck and play “gubs” cards in front of them. These gubs can be protected with shields, but such shields can be used to destroy the shields of others – and an unshielded gub can be stolen by others. When the last of the three timing cards is randomly drawn, the person with the most gubs wins. But what exactly is a gub, and why do they hide in mushrooms and fear the coming of the omen beetle? The enchanting answers to the questions are at least half this game’s appeal; indeed the rather random card exchange mechanic would tire fairly quickly if the setting wasn’t so darn cute.

So what IS a gub? A gub is a kind of big eared, wide-eyed, pale-skinned pixie- or gnome-like creature. They are often found living in mushrooms (much like smurfs) and follow an esteemed elder (also much like smurfs). Unlike smurfs their bravest knights ride toads into battle against wasps, while omen beetles spell doom and crickets and velvet moths provide help. Sometimes gubs die from the Gargok plague or flash floods (unless they have age-old cures or flop boats) or get blown up by curious alchemy. Gubs get stuck in soap bubbles, distracted by shiny things, and occasionally speared. They absolutely cannot resist grabbing onto rings, which leaves them trapped, until freed by the music of the haki flute.

As you can see, it’s not easy being a gub, and the game is full of swiftly changing fortunes, from random bad luck, sudden player attacks or event card resets. But besides being harsh, being a gub is also very unique and interesting. One of my first reactions to the game was that it demanded an RPG because the setting seemed so curious and inviting. A comic would also suit Gubs well, because the art is as endearing as the concept. This adds to game play: you want to catch gubs and protect them because they are so cute (not that that will stop you from killing your opponent’s gubs with spears or omen beetles).

But is there strategy as well as cuteness? Yes and no. A lot of the game comes down to timing: with only a limited deck, you want to hold back your gubs and their defenses until most of the attack cards are played, and indeed, wait until you have the most to gain before playing your attacks. Scout cards that let you look at your opponent’s hand can help you decide when to lure or trap their gubs away (ie, when they lack defenses). There remains a lot of luck, however, and there are also steps to make this planning break down: the game end is fairly random (but because there are three timing cards which must be drawn before the end is triggered, you get some warning, which is a nice mechanic) and there are enough reset events to keep everybody guessing. This is deliberate: the game is specifically designed so nobody can get an unimpeachable lead and so that the play is constantly changing and players are constantly on their toes. It is no weakness of the game that it has sacrificed some elements of long-term strategy to achieve this. It is rather a conscious design decision which leads to a specific kind of fun – a kind of fun well suited to the more social gamer, and in particular to families with young children, an excellent match for the family-friendly setting.

Gubs is a specific kind of fun that tends to lack depth, which means even the friendliest family will tire of it eventually. How long that takes depends on the age of the players and how enchanting they find the setting. For young children, this could be years; for a pack of twenty-something Dominion-heads, it may be five minutes. But even then, it will be an enchanting five minutes, full of wonder and strangeness.

So while Gubs may not be the card game for everyone, I am hoping that we’ll see more from Madeiros in this vein, because whatever he lacks in hard-edged design, he more than makes up with a flair for whimsical settings. Until then, it makes a great entry level drug for any ten-year-olds you know, and will also pass a jolly evening or two for those who haven’t forgotten the joy of the simplistic. Just watch out for wasps.

Three stars.

Star Wars: The Essential Atlas is the best sourcebook never released for any edition of the Star Wars RPG. Cynics might argue there’s nothing here that can’t be found in fan resources like Wookipedia, but they’d be wrong – few resources I’ve seen can compare to the beautifully crafted maps featured in this book, and its bound form makes it far more browseable than the web based alternatives. While Del Rey is publishing the Atlas as a general interest reference book, its beautiful maps, graphical timelines, and planetary write-ups make the book an excellent resource for gamers, regardless of whether they’re playing d6, Saga Edition, or a homebrew of their own design.

I first saw the book when one of my friends showed up for our weekly Star Wars game and placed the atlas in front of me, flipping it open to a timeline map of The Great Sith War. A flip of the page revealed one for the Mandalorian Wars. A third flip brought up the Jedi Civil War.

It was all there – arrows showing major fleet movements for each military campaign, demarcations showing the extent of the Krath, Sith, Mandalorian and Republic political spheres, notes about major offenses and counter-offenses. In short, it was everything I’d wanted for my game’s upcoming switch to a military-oriented campaign.

The maps themselves were beautifully done, always showing enough information to grasp the basics of a particular era or region, while at the same time offering nitty-gritty details about particular worlds or mini-campaigns. A good example of this is the inset map detailing the Mandalorian invasion of Taris and the agricultural systems that support it.

But it isn’t just the Knights of the Old Republic era – the book offers the same level of loving attention to detail for all of Star Wars’ major time periods. There are maps depicting the timelines of each of the six motion pictures, the exploits of Han Solo, the atrocities of Palpatine’s Empire, and even one identifying the famous shadowports of the galaxy. This last is the sort of thing that game masters will see and instantly bookmark.

The solar system write-ups offer short encyclopedia-style entries on Star Wars most famous worlds, including Duro, Ithor, the forest moon of Endor and Dantooine. Each has details such as diameter, length of day and year, terrain of each system’s namesake world, as well as a sidebar listing other planets and moons. The Atlas isn’t nearly as comprehensive in its maps for planets as it is for the galaxy at large; each world has nice looking – but unlabeled – fractal map of one side of the sphere. I would loved to have seen some more detailed maps, perhaps listing major cities, but if nothing else they provide a nice quick visual reference for players (as well as a source of flavor text for GMs).

As a gaming aid, I’ve found the Atlas most useful when I want to paint a dramatic backdrop of the galaxy at large. I don’t like inserting my players into the signature events in the Star Wars movies, but when running a war campaign (or even a rebellion one) I like being able to call out specific events. During non-movie time periods – like Knights of the Old Republic – it’s great to be able to show my players the full sweep of the war, noting when particular worlds fall or are liberated. I also found some one-off maps, like the aforementioned shadowports, as well as a map that shows the population density of the galaxy, to be great idea fodder. Any time I can pick up a book and it spawns three story ideas in as many pages, I know I have a winner.

I have some quibbles with the book. For example, the index is based on Galactic coordinates rather than page numbers; I’d rather it listed both. While most of the maps are clear and concise, there are a few where the color differences (such as the arrows depicting the Mandalorian False War and the invasion proper) are too subtle to easily differentiate. But these are just quibbles; the vast majority of Star Wars: The Essential Atlas is solid, and it’s a worthwhile edition to your gaming (and Star Wars) library.

I’ve always loved Call of Cthulhu. It was our go to game when we wanted to play a horror role-playing game. Trail of Cthulhu takes the license and runs with it. Merging the setting with Robin Law’s GUMSHOE system it turns the game more into an investigative game then it ever was before. The GUMSHOE mechanic for finding clues ensures that players won’t be scratching their heads during an adventure, or have an adventure stopped because of a bad dice roll. To me, this is a godsend as a player and a keeper.

Kenneth Hite is known as being an expert on Lovecraft. His previous books – Tour De Lovecraft, and the recently released Cthulhu 101 – are testaments to his great understanding of the Cthulhu Mythos. The author set out to make Trail of Cthulhu as close to the original edition of Call of Cthulhu as he could get. He succeeded, making the game playable in two different ways: Purist mode, and Pulp mode. Purist mode makes the horror of the mythos very deadly as heroes play normal people setting out to discover the unknown. Insanity comes fast as the truth is revealed, and characters stand little chance if actually confronted by a monster.

Pulp mode, on the other hand, makes the characters into heroic pulp figures, like Indiana Jones, delving into tombs not visited in centuries. This style of play has characters grabbing guns in both hands and unloading into the cultists as they try to prevent the heroes from revealing their decadence. In Pulp mode, your PCs are cut out of thicker cloth than their Purist brothers. The author separates, or draws attention to these differences in the text with icons to differentiate the two separate styles of play. This allows keepers to customize their game experience to their players and their own tastes.

Another difference between Trail of Cthulhu and the original Call of Cthulhu is the time period. Trail of Cthulhu is set in the thirties instead of the twenties. An overview of the thirties is included, but instead of being a history lesson, it’s more of an overview. Even more useful is the included mythos travel guide. This guide has locations around the world, what makes them interesting, and what kind of mythos activity is in the area – perfect to use as a springboard of ideas for adventures.

Character creation is straightforward, with players choosing from a variety of occupations like the dilettante, criminal, and the private investigator. The players then choose a drive, something that makes the character want to get involved in bizarre investigations. It also gives the keeper a tool to push the investigator, as not following your drive makes you lose your stability (see below). General abilities are purchased with a set number of points, and investigative abilities determined by how many players are normal for your gaming group.

General abilities are skills not normally used in investigations, such as driving, firearms, and sanity. They might have uses during an investigation, but are generally used for specific things. Investigative abilities are ones that are used by the game system to allow the players to discover clues, and push the story along. Some sample investigative abilities are Cthulhu mythos, library use, and streetwise. These abilities are the core of the GUMSHOE system.

Sanity is still present in Trail of Cthulhu, but is supplemented with stability. Stability is a way of showing how mentally fatigued a character is from a variety of things, such as refusing to follow his drive, encountering monsters, and casting spells. Sanity is lost from experiencing mythos shock, and from using the Cthulhu mythos ability. Stability is a renewable resource while sanity is not. As in any good Cthulhu game, players should always fear going insane, but that’s part of the fun.

The GUMSHOE system is a great way to run an investigative campaign. The keeper builds his adventure, with plenty of excellent advice presented in the book. Then the GM seeds his clues based on what kind of abilities the players possess. Then when they’re in a scene and a clue is available, as long as they have the ability and haven’t used up all their points or spends in that ability they find the clue. What they do with all these clues is up to the players, but they will not be lacking in clues to point them in the right direction.

The Elder Gods are presented as write ups without statistics. The author presents them with alternate descriptions of the Elder Gods, with the classic Lovecraft versions, to new modern interpretations of these awesome beings. Mythos creatures are given statistics for investigators to encounter, kill, or be killed by. Everything from Deep Ones to Xothians are presented, as well as a variety of normal beasts and monsters.

Finally a sample adventure “The Kingsbury Horror” is included to give an example of an investigation and to get players started. Also, a couple of chapters give advice for keepers to assemble their adventures like a pro, and campaign frames for advice and sample settings for ongoing adventures. There are also conversion notes to use Call of Cthulhu adventures with the GUMSHOE system.

Kenneth Hite is fast becoming one of my favorite role-playing authors. His takes on classic and new settings always provides a cool new thing. The book is beautiful, with glossy pages, sepia style art, and passages from classic Lovecraft stories. All this works together to provide an atmosphere that’s creepy and cool at the same time. I can’t say enough about the GUMSHOE system. Before reading Trail of Cthulhu I always had worries about running an investigative game. This system takes all those worries away. If you love H.P Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu, horror games, or investigative games you should give it a try.

With several deadly encounters – primarily with murderously gun toting cultists, though some of the Mythos critters found are equally as nasty – Snows of an Early Winter is geared towards the Pulp style of play rather than the Purist. As such, it is probably better suited for use with more experienced investigators, but it is flexible enough to run with either Delta Green or Cthulhu by Gaslight. It is designed for non-linear style of play, with the player characters following multiple lines of inquiry, the lines converging until the final encounter with aforementioned villain.

The set up for the scenario has the investigators as frequent customers at Marlowe’s Malted Minds, a coffee house and esoteric supply store. Thus they begin play on the fringes of New York’s occult scene, and are expected to regard the coffee shop as a meeting point or base of operations, with their fellow customers and the staff as a ready circle of family and friends. The five pre-generated investigators provided are all customers and have ties to other customers and the staff at the shop, though not to each other. This being a horror adventure, this family is likely to be targeted by the cultists once they are aware of the investigators’ prying. The coffee and occult shop also serves as a place of safety, a means to pass information to the characters, and essentially as a weathervane, indicating the degree of tension outside the shop’s confines.

Four hooks are provided to get the investigators to the scenario’s first encounters, though the lack of links with each means the Keeper and the players will have to work hard to get their investigators together at the start. The alternative is having the characters follow their own lines of inquiry until they converge later in the scenario, but this will take a little patience upon the part of the players as the focus switches from one character and his investigation to the next.

There is much to explore in the course of playing Snows of an Early Winter. Whether it is the setting of Santeria in New York, the politics of the city, or community housing, the scenario will take the investigators to some interesting places – even some wayward places – that will add freshness to Call of Cthulhu.

Although written for Cthulhu Now – that is, any time from the 1980s up until the present day – Snows of an Early Winter includes extensive notes for setting it during the 1890s of Cthulhu by Gaslight that are relatively easy to use for the classic period of the 1920s as well. In fact, these notes are actually a decent primer for the politics, culture, and mores of New York during the Cthulhu by Gaslight period, useful given the lack of information on early New York for Call of Cthulhu. As written, the scenario takes place at Halloween, but the festivities have almost no bearing upon the events of Snows of an Early Winter and a Keeper could run the scenario at almost any time of the year, as long as there was a suitable conjunction.

Sadly, and given that the scenario is written for use with Cthulhu Now, there are no notes for using the scenario with Delta Green. That said, any Keeper worth his essential saltes should be able to adapt Snows of an Early Winter to Delta Green – my suggestion would be to tie the villain into Stephen Alzis and The Fate, since the scenario takes place in New York.

Considerable thought has gone into the design of Snows of an Early Winter and how the Keeper should be running it, with various tools and structuring used to help the Keeper. The structuring is that of the scenario itself, which has been arranged into five stages: the Spooky, the Tense, the Transitions, the Dangerous, and the Climax stages. Each stage consists of several encounters, the number of encounters decreasing as the stages progress until there is only the one at the Climax. The investigators are expected to move between the encounters at each stage in non-linear fashion, gathering clues – both from the encounters and from the regular newspaper handouts – before moving on to the next stage.

The first type of tool for the Keeper to make use of is that of NPC triggers. The antagonists in Snows of an Early Winter are not content to stay quiescent as the investigators follow the various trails of clues laid out over the course of the scenario. To that end the Keeper is expected to keep a tally of marks on the Trigger Tracker, each mark added or removed according to the actions of the investigators. Accrue enough marks against one of the antagonists, and he will act against the investigators. This is a simple-but-useful device, and it also serves to bring other occult or Mythos forces into play. These forces also take a strong interest in the activities of the antagonists at the heart of the adventure, and will dog the investigators as much as the investigators do the villains.

The second tool is the use of conversational categories to represent the attitudes that the investigators need to take towards the scenario’s detailed NPCs. The four are “Volunteered,” “Friendly,” “Confrontation,” and “Physical,” and for each category certain pieces of information are given. In order to get that information, the investigators need to be friendly towards the NPC, to confront him, and so on.

As clever as these conversational categories are, there is a downside to the use of these guidelines, and that comes in several highly distasteful suggestions for confronting various NPCs. Now it is not unknown for the investigators in Call of Cthulhu to resort to threats of violence, or even slap an NPC in order exhort information (or clues) from him. Snows of an Early Winter though, goes further and actually gives guidelines on how damage needs to be inflicted to extort this information – essentially for inflicting one Hit Point’s worth damage, the investigators get to have one question answered. So far, so bad, but then the author steps over the line and has one of the given victims of this suggested torture be a mentally disturbed woman. It is one thing to portray a misogynist attitude in the scenario’s villains, but to suggest it as a player option – at least in the form of an act of sadistic violence – is in very poor taste.

The inclusion of this guideline raises a further issue, one that came to light after discussing it with the scenario’s author, Louis Agresta. The guidelines are included by intent, first to highlight contemporary attitudes towards the mentally ill in the United States and second to confront the investigators with a moral dilemma – to see how far they would go in order to obtain information that would help prevent a catastrophe. That is, would they be prepared to “smack around” the woman in question? Now as a product of a liberal and progressive upbringing, I know such an act to be nothing short of repugnant, but as a roleplayer I can see myself playing a character who would not hold such modern ideals, although playing such a character would be akin to playing a Black Gangster rapper in Los Angeles in Wyrd is Bond or a devout worshipper of Sárku, Dread One of the Blackest Deeps and Lord of Worms, in Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne. Pretty damned alien both.

The issue though is that of “is the author’s intent apparent?” Now I admit it may be that I am giving the scenario too literal a read, but then I am faced with the problem of a tight deadline and having to read the scenario as a PDF. I am also faced with the problem that I am not American and therefore not aware of the issues with mental health in both New York and the United States in general (it also means that I am not as fully conversant with the structure of New York city politics that underpins the main cultist’s raison d’être, but that is more of an issue of background not being included). So from where I stand, the author’s intent to highlight this issue is not apparent. As to the other issue, earlier in the scenario the author alludes to Hitler’s use of the same occult item in order to fuel his rise to power that the villain of Snows of an Early Winter is using for the same purpose, but beyond this mention, I would suggest that Agresta’s aim to confront the investigators with a moral dilemma also fails. Part of that is due to the fact that this is a Call of Cthulhu scenario and on the most superficial of levels, what is the point of such a work if it is not to stop some great evil. Primarily, though, he fails because the moral dilemma is never made obvious and because even if we were to confront it, we as players know the answer to it.

Physically, Snows of an Early Winter uses the same layout style as the publisher’s other modern set scenario, Midnight Harvest (curiously, that also takes places at Halloween). The layout in Snows of an Early Winter is a little tight in places, though the book is readable and comes with numerous sets of designer’s notes. The book really does need another editorial pass, for example, “Cthulhu” is misspelt throughout the book, while the Mythos tome that is the scenario’s McGuffin is mysteriously shortened almost all the way through. The book is lightly illustrated, but many of the handouts are done in color, which not only has to be a first, it also adds a nice touch.

What Snows of an Early Winter is lacking is the inclusion of maps. While the scenario’s many locations are described, the lack of maps leaves the Keeper with more work to do. He already has to take the book’s descriptions, visualize them, and relay these descriptions to his players, but the lack of maps makes this harder as he has to visualize the layout of each location and be consistent to that imagined layout. This is a constant problem with this publisher’s scenarios, and while including maps means more work for the publisher, it also means less work for his customer.

A scenario this size comes with NPCs aplenty, though not all of them are complete. The same can be said of the pre-generated investigators – five are provided, and not one of them is quite right. In most cases it is a matter of the numbers not being right, but other errors are noticeable: one investigator appears to be very good at speaking to owls, so there is a touch of the Doctor Doolittle about him (though I grant you, this is a spelling error); the investigator studying to be an electrician lacks the Electrical Repair skill; others have impossibly high attributes, while most lack their own language skill (as do many of the book’s NPCs). Overall, the pre-generated tend towards the game’s Pulp Style, each having some fairly high skills, and although Snows of an Early Winter continues the trend to assign one or more of a scenario’s pre-generated investigators with the Cthulhu Mythos skill – an unnecessary trend as far as this reviewer is concerned – the author here at the least keeps the skill to an absolute minimum.

Ultimately, Snows of an Early Winter could have been better with a firmer editorial hand. Most obviously, the author’s intent could have been made stronger and more apparent, but equally in fixing the number of errors that mar the book in small ways, Snows of an Early Winter could have been just that little more polished.

Putting aside the issues already raised, Snows of an Early Winter provides a strong mix of interaction and investigation (perhaps too strong in the case of the former) with quite deadly action. It will work just as well in the 1890s as it will in the modern day or with Delta Green, but whichever the period, the adventure will provide roughly two to three solid sessions of play. Overall, Snows of an Early Winter is a well-structured, strong piece that does not pull any punches.

Want to learn more about Snows of an Early Winter? Author Lou Agresta was interviewed on Atomic Array 037, as was publisher Stan!, who spoke about what Super Genius Games plans are for Call of Cthulhu products in 2010.

Combat Pad (Paizo Publishing)
Suggested by Evil Machinations

Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks (Paizo Publishing)
Suggested by Dungeon Brew

Endeavor (Z-Man Games)
Suggested by Game Cryer

Mad Scientist University (Atlas Games)
Suggested by Jim – Yes, THAT Jim

Mutant City Blues (Pelgrane Press)
Suggested by All Games Considered

Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game (Mongoose Publishing)
Suggested by Dungeon Brew

Perudo
Suggested by The Adventuring Party

Savage Worlds Freeport Companion (Green Ronin Publishing)
Suggested by Creatively Anomalous

Shock: Social Science Fiction (Glyph Press)
Suggested by Gnome Stew

Witch of Salem (Mayfair Games)
Suggested by Flames Rising

Wizard101.com
Suggested by KORE rpg

Zombie Murder Mystery (Expy Games)
Suggested by allgeektout

Twilight Sector is a breath of fresh air for the Traveller setting. Most of the Traveller material that has been published has taken place in roughly the same setting; however, Twilight Sector is a departure from that timeline. It provides an alternate version of humanity’s flight to the stars in which there are no aliens and in which human mutation, cyberspace, uplifted animals, and artificial intelligence play a much larger role. Given the sheer depth of information and thought the designers put into their game, they have created something which offers an enjoyable, entertaining alternative to standard Traveller games.

The best part about the Twilight Sector setting is that it is ripe with potential conflict. While the write ups of the “current state” of humanity and its offshoots say that stellar civilization is in a state of uneasy peace, there are still plenty of ways a shooting war can break out. For instance, with no less than twelve nations, each with their own beliefs, laws, and alliances, players can take on the role of soldiers or agents for the Terran Union, the Union of United Planets, the Oster Republic, the Free People’s Republic, or any other nations and undertake covert operations against the other side. Any one of these ops could cause a full-blown conflict.

On the other hand, Twilight Sector could easily become a game of diplomacy as the Terran Union tries desperately to expand its territory even as it is hemmed in on every side by other stellar nations. The game could also center on an exploration of the Terra/Sol system, buried deep inside the Orion League. This mysterious system, named for the planet Terra/Sol, is an exact copy of Earth in every way to the point it orbits exactly one Astronomical Unit away from its sun. Even better, the players could take on the search for the mysterious Precursor aliens that seeded the galaxy with life and then disappeared.

Beyond just the setting possibilities, though, Twilight Sector also lets players play mutated characters. Mutants fall into one of two categories: natural mutants (which occur to accidents of genetics) or scientifically induced mutants (SIM) who were genetically reshaped to better survive in certain conditions. In the game, natural mutants vary in power and ability, though ultimately they can be more powerful than their scientifically engineered brethren. However, they must roll randomly for their powers.

On the other hand, SIMs have fewer powers, but they also have fewer penalties as well. In addition, they choose which powers they have, meaning their abilities can more easily work together. As an added bonus, in the game, a SIM has little or no stigma attached to him or her while natural mutants are regarded with suspicion or outright hatred.

To say much else about the book would be giving away of lot of the setting details, which would be unfair to the authors. Cross and Hope have obviously put a great deal of thought into the book and have added something to their game into which nearly every science fiction role player can sink their teeth. Besides, the setting is so expansive it would take several pages just to list everything that made it into the book.

However, as is sometimes the case with other games, Twilight Sector’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: there’s a lot to the game. The book does recommend picking out one or two parts of the setting you find interesting and really focusing on them during play, but then does not really follow up with concrete advice on where to go from there. In fact, the example seems to make the characters rather small players in a huge universe of possibility.

What I would really like to see from future Twilight Sector supplements is something on the lines of Traveller’s 760 Patrons which provides a number of adventure hooks for players and Referees to get the game started. Without some guidance along those lines, the most interesting storylines may very well involve starting an interstellar shooting match or rediscovering the Precursor race. Basically, I would want the players to be involved in events as grandiose as the setting, and I’m not sure that’s what the authors intended (especially if they have a plot that will be fleshed out down the road). Also, it’s hard to know if that’s what the players would want and it might not make the best session.

Still, in the end, it’s hard to fault a game for having too much detail. This is definitely the type of game that has a very “it’s in there” feel. If you want space exploration, it’s in there. You want intrigue, it’s in there. Fighting? You bet! You want to raise a pack of intelligent mutant dogs as your pets, go for it. The game offers all that to its players. The problem may well be choosing which of these elements to tackle first. All in all, though, it’s a good problem to have, especially when blazing a new trail in Traveller adventuring.

Want to learn more about Twilight Sector? Read on…

• Atomic Array: Twilight Sector (Atomic Array 034)
• Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin
• The Zhodani Base: Twilight Sector – A new TU
• Apathy Blogs: Something New For Traveller
• Rogue Puppet: A Role Player’s Dream is Discovered
• Examiner.com: Review by Michael Shorten

Drop by Terra/Sol Games today!

Make no mistake about it, Our Ladies of Sorrow is creepy. Like, “don’t go in your basement at night alone” creepy. It manages this because the adventures are based on real phenomenon and events. Part of the magic of the book is the sheer number of unrelated real world sources and occurrences Kevin brings together and explains as being supernatural. Everything from mummified babies to nightmares of being attacked by old women (an occurrence that it is estimated fifteen percent of the real world has experienced) are all neatly woven together into a story about the deeds of three supernatural women. Our Ladies of Sorrow is very creepy and whole lot of fun.

In fact, the tone of the book is what makes Our Ladies of Sorrow a great book. It is full of things which are terrifying without being shocking. There are very few tangible terrors (like, say, marching skeletons or Old Ones) that the investigators have to deal with. Instead, they are forced to confront women who appear and disappear out of the corner of their eye, move impossibly fast, rape their dreams, and crush their hopes.

Even a relatively inexperienced Keeper can take the source material and turn it into a creepy series of game sessions. With the first adventure’s nightmares, the second adventure’s hopelessness, and the fact a ghost asks for the party by name in the final adventure, there is plenty of material for presenting a scary mood, which is, after all, the real joy of a Call of Cthulhu game. The mood makes the game fun for players.

For Keepers who want to run the game, though, Ross included a lot of detail to make playing it easier. Call of Cthulhu, is a game about supernatural terror firstly, but finding that terror involves a great deal of investigation and slowly finding clues. These clues, which in another game would point towards a rational explanation, inexorably draw investigators towards something unworldly and awful. However, there still need to be clues, and Ross does a great job of providing Keepers with answers to a lot of the questions that players may ask.

For instance, the immediate area in which the adventures take place has been sketched out, complete with floor plans where necessary. NPCs are statted out and if they have information relevant to the case, that information is clearly described, along with suggested rolls on how to get the NPCs to say what they know. Additionally, there are handouts at the back of the book and journal entries that alternately help the Investigators know what is going on and make the truth harder to find.

On the other hand, Our Ladies of Sorrow does not force decisions on the Keeper. In fact, while the book includes a lot of the small details (for instance, a certain NPC has this clue, or another clue can be found in this location) the game says next to nothing about what is really going on behind the scenes. In fact, the book explicitly states that it is not going to give a lot of definitive answers as to what the Ladies are so that Keepers can have the freedom to come up with their own answers.

The freedom even extends into how much of the Cthulhu Mythos the Keeper chooses to use. There are few Mythos-related bad guys running around these adventures and frankly, the Ladies are creepy enough on their own – they don’t need Old Ones to make things worse. Of course, some Keepers will disagree and decide that perhaps the Ladies are the forerunners of Nyarlathotep. It is all up the Keeper to decide and the party to uncover.

If that were not enough, the end of the book includes an expansive bibliography of books the author found helpful over the twenty years he pondered this game. While taking on a research project before running an adventure is never fun, a quick Google search of some of the movies, songs, books, and legends Ross drew on can be enough for Keepers to get in the right mood for the game. Even better, Ross included a two page short story “Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow” by Thomas De Quincey, which gave him the inspiration to actually sit down and write the game.

If Our Ladies of Sorrow runs into any criticism, it will be its lack of direct Cthulhu material. The game is unapologetically non-Cthulhu, which may turn off some gamers who want to experience running into familiar supernatural creatures. If Keepers know that their players are only looking for Cthulhu-inspired villains, they can always make the Ladies part of the Mythos; however, those players may still be disappointed by the lack of any recognizable Mythos demons, spirits, and other assorted foul beings.

Even though Our Ladies of Sorrow is not a direct Cthulhu tie-in, the system still works perfectly since the adventures involve uncovering secrets about the paranormal. Also, the game does a great job of creating that familiar feel of terror that comes from playing a traditional Call of Cthulhu game. All in all, it deserves to be included amongst other Cthulhu Mythos games and is perfect for those wanting to play a game of modern horror.

Want to learn more about Our Ladies of Sorrow? Read on…

• Atomic Array: Our Ladies of Sorrow (Atomic Array 033)
• Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin
• All Games Considered: A More Intimate Horror
• Apathy Blogs: Modern Maidens of Myth
• Critical Hits: Modern Gaming Scary Women
• Gnome Stew: by Matthew Neagley
• Kobold Quarterly: How Would You Stop The Seasons?
• Bartleby: Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow

Drop by Miskatonic River Press today!

Not to dwell on the point, but when I first opened SpyCraft 2.0 and read through it, I was duly impressed. I felt like SpyCraft 2.0 was what the D20 Modern SRD could become in the hands of a master. I got the same feeling as I read through Fantasy Craft. It was like the D20 Fantasy SRD only bigger, badder, and more of it. To be perfectly fair, neither SpyCraft 2.0 nor Fantasy Craft is fully compliant with the OGL rules, but their rules are close enough to OGL that Fantasy Craft feels very familiar, while also feeling improved.

Of all the areas that Crafty Games changed or differed from the OGL rules, there are three that stand out as being the most interesting. The first is class selection. As noted above, there are twelve classes you can begin the game playing, and an additional six you can take levels in once you meet the requirements. (For veteran OGL players, Expert classes are the same as prestige classes.) However, the nice thing about Fantasy Craft is that Crafty Games decided to do away with the traditional Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Wizard, etc. classes and replace them with some less common options.

Players can choose from Assassin, Burglar, Captain, Courtier, Explorer, Keeper, Lancer, Mage, Priest, Sage, Scout, and Solider as level 1. Some of those classes would appear to be the same as classes in Dungeons & Dragons with a different name, but that is not the case. A Priest is a far better fighter than a Cleric ever was (strangely enough), able to take more damage, and is far more able to perform faith-based miracles. Still, there are some similarities. Priests can cast spells, use holy symbols which double as weapons, and have their actions dictated by their alignment. Also, instead of “Fighter”, players can choose from several different styles of martial experts: Captains, Scouts, Lancers, or Soldiers. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses in fighting styles.

The magic system has also been completely revamped from OGL spellcasting. In Fantasy Craft, spells are a skill based. What this means is that once a character is able to cast spells, they get to learn a certain number of spells based on their Wisdom and skill at casting. However, the number of spells a character can cast at a time varies between arcane and divine spellcasters.

Whenever an arcane spellcaster wants to cast a spell, the caster must have the required amount of Spell Points to power it. If so, the arcane magic-user may attempt to cast the spell as normal. If not, the caster cannot summon the concentration, arcane connection, or energy to actually complete the spell. The good news is that Spell Points recharge at the beginning of each Scene, which can mean that they will recharge far more often than a mage recovers his spells in OGL games.

Divine spellcasters’ magic works more like Encounter powers in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Divine spellcasters have one or more paths set by their alignment which define both how they act and the powers that are available to them. Some of these powers include various spell-like abilities, which are usually available to the caster once per Scene.

The characters, with their magic and new class choices, still need a world in which to adventure. Fortunately, Fantasy Craft offers ways to help define the world and the setting. In fact, there is a section in the book entitled “The World” which is a “mere” 80 pages dedicated to helping Gamemasters (GMs) flesh out the setting for their campaign.

This chapter covers everything from genre (sword and sorcery, non-magical fantasy, etc.) to basic questions such as “Does magic work?” or “Can Priests perform miracles?” to trade to politics. The World also contains all of the alignment Paths open to religious and devout individuals, which include the standard Paths one might expect (Good, Evil, Order, Chaos) as well as “Path of the Traveler”, “Path of Beauty”, and “Path of Metal.” Followers of these paths travel, socialize, and craft better than those who do not.

If the game suffers from a flaw, it’s that in some cases, bigger is not always better. Characters in Fantasy Craft start out with more Feats and skills than an equivalent OGL character, which means that their power level (though balanced in the game) may feel off kilter for those familiar with other versions of the game.

Also, some rules feel excessive. For instance, there is a rule for allowing a character to live after they should have died, which is fine, but it takes about a page to explain. It involves the player coming up with an excuse for the character living, the players voting on the excuse, the GM rolling on a mishap table, and so on. Obviously such rules are optional, but at the same time, their presence suggests a crunchy, rules-lawyer-based style of play that doesn’t always produce the most fun.

Still, in most cases, “bigger, badder, more of it” is a good thing. It’s obvious that Crafty Games put a lot of work into producing Fantasy Craft and putting out a product they would want to play. With its new classes, totally revamped magic system, and the World creation rules, Fantasy Craft is something other gamers will want to play as well.

Full disclosure: Chris Perrin is currently an officer in a company that has been approved to release a Fantasy Craft product. He is not currently working on that game.

Want to learn more about Fantasy Craft? Read on…

• Atomic Array: Fantasy Craft (Atomic Array 032)
• Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin
• Questing GM: Questing with Fantasy Craft
• allgeektout: What Fantasy Craft Has to Offer
• Campaign Mastery: Mine Fiction for Campaign Qualities
• Emerson’s Bookshelf: Fantasy Just Got Crafty
• Critical Hits: Critical Review
• Fear the Boot: Fear the Review
• Gnome Stew: What Fantasy Craft Brings to the Table
• Uncle Bear: Fantasy Craft Chargen
• Flames Rising: Dark FantasyCraft Review

Drop by Crafty Games today!

As an introductory adventure, War of Worldcraft fits the bill perfectly. However, calling it an introductory adventure is actually a bit misleading. The adventure does work well to get players introduced to the HERO System. For instance, it has a villain who can become a recurring bad guy in future games and it has puts the heroes in a situation where they can save hundreds of thousands of people without throwing them into an Earth shattering conflict. However, the game also comes with ways to take Downloads that might be a little much for new players. Instead of “introductory,” I would say it’s more a game that works well to get a new game started, not necessarily one for new players.

After reading War of Worldcraft, one word comes to mind: detail. This should come as no surprise since it was written by Michael Satran, the same author who gave us Foxbat for President, a lighthearted superheroic romp as the players attempt to thwart the presidential aspirations of everyone’s favorite mutant foxbat.

The two books are actually written in very much the same style. Like Foxbat for President, War of Worldcraft is written with a certain lightheartedness. The writing is not as outright funny as Foxbat, but the game is able to provide Gamemasters with a lot of information without taking itself too seriously. The game seems content with the fact that the adventure is a little far fetched (Download is building a robot army using the minds of MMORPG players) and does not try to be overly dramatic.

Instead, War of Worldcraft lets the tension build naturally as the heroes move against Download. Right off the bat, there is a chance that the characters might get trapped in the game (or they may, in fact, choose to enter the computer.) On the other hand, they may manage to stay in the physical world. Either way, the tension in the game starts to build as they seek to find Download before he can finish his army of maniacal robots.

Download’s lair is well hidden, both in cyberspace and in the real world, but once the heroes arrive, the game stops being so lighthearted. In the real world, Download has built huge towers in his base which are full of hundreds of thousands of MMORPG players’ minds. Suddenly, the heroes are thrust into a situation where they have to stop Download (whose current robotic body is no slouch in a fight) and prevent Download from destroying the towers out of spite.

In the aftermath of the battle, the heroes have saved a lot of lives (assuming they were successful). The Gamemaster is also given a plausible way for Download (who can travel along information lines) to have escaped, which is a nice touch since players tend to like recurring villains.

Another nice thing about War of Worldcraft is the rumors and complications. The adventure is pretty straightforward. A big box retail store is attacked, the players counterattack, the players look for (and then find) Download’s lair, there’s a final conflict. In fact, this game could probably be run as a one-shot. However, to spice it up, the book lists several complications along the way, including an entire page of plot complications ranging from Download’s planting deadly viruses that the heroes must stop, to a computerized gladiator ring, to Download falling in love with one of the player characters.

If War of Worldcraft has any drawbacks, the tone of the writing could have been played up more. Foxbat for President was funny and the wacky silliness carried throughout the game. While War of Worldcraft did have a similarly lighthearted tone, I wish it had even more of it. With a title like War of Worldcraft, I expected a lot more MMORPG puns and general video game humor. There were numerous sections of the text that could have been used for farce and parody, something akin to Foxbat for President.

That doesn’t mean the game is not worth the cover price. It does mean that there are fewer laughs when reading it, though. However, the amount of detail in the game alone makes it a good buy for Hero System players. Even if you never end up playing the adventure as written, the details, the plot complications (many of which could be transferred to a different villain), the NPCs, and even the maps are fertile ground for any Hero System campaign.

Want to learn more about War of Worldcraft? Read on…

• Atomic Array: War of Worldcraft (Atomic Array 031)
• Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin
• allgeektout: What Makes War of Worldcraft Worth It
• Dungeon Brew: Dungeon Brew Review
• Apathy Blogs: Online Heroes
• Roleplaying Pro: War of Worldcraft – It’s Not What You Think

Drop by BlackWyrm today!