Reviews

• Shadowrun TCG
• GenCon UK '98
• GURPS Discworld
• Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG
• The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen

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  Shadowrun Trading Card Game

  Note: This description assumes that there are two players.
  
  The object of the game is to get a certain number of reputation points
  agreed upon before the start of the game
  
  You achieve this by sending your Runners to Objectives (for example Assassination).
  Every player has one Objective in front of him at a given time. You start your turn by either
  playing an Objective face down, if there is none (i.e. at the start of the game or after an Objective has been claimed)
  or by revealing the card you played the turn before.
  You can visit your or your opponent's Objective.
  The Runners must face Challenges (e.g. security guards or critters,
  barriers like maglocks or other obstacles like Hellish Traffic)
  played face down by the opponent during a previous turn. You don't have to face the Challenges
  played by you.
  When the Runners can defeat all the Challenges
  - every player can play up to three on his and his opponent's Objective -
  and meet the objective's requirements (e.g. a certain skill or type of Runner must be present)
  they gain the amount of points printed on the objective card. The objective is then
  discarded and will be replaced at the beginning of the owner's next turn.
  
  There is not much interaction between players during a given turn. There is only one type
  of card, called Stingers which can be played during an opponent's turn,
  but these are few and far between. I had five in 2 decks and 2 boosters.
  The other possibility is to send your Runners to intercept your opponent's Runners on their
  way to the objective, but only if there are no Challenges guarding that objective.
  
  Combat - Runners vs. Challenges or Runners vs. Runners - works almost exactly like in Magic:
  Every Runner or Challenge (guard, critter, drone, sentry gun, etc) has an Attack/Body value.
  You simply compare the the Runners' combined Attack Value with the Challenge's Body Value and vice versa.
  If the Runners defeat the Challenge, they go on to the next one (there can be a maximum of three for a two player game)
  After all Challenges are defeated, the Runners can claim the Objective (gain Reputation Points)
  If the Challenge survives, it stays there. The Runners have to return and can face the Challenge again during the next turn.
  
  Apart from Runners and Challenges, card types include Gear. This includes weapons (add to
  Attack Value), Cyberware (enhance values or skills), weapon accessories (silencers, laser scopes,
  special ammo), Spirits for Shamans/Drones for Riggers (function as Runners but Shaman/Rigger
  is tapped when he uses it), Spells for Mages (Fireball, Sleep, Armor, Invisibility etc.), and other stuff like Doc Wagon contracts.
  Then there are Locations (give bonuses to certain situations like Enchantments in Magic),
  Contacts (these are usually tapped to create an effect) and
  Specials (can be played on opponent's Runners to create negative effects
  or cards that have an overall effect like Riot where every Runner in play receives two points of damage.
  
  Deployment costs (Casting costs) are paid from a pool of Nuyen.
  At the start of each turn, a player receives 4 Nuyen in his pool.
  There are, of course, other situations and effects that can add or subtract from your money pool.
  
  The game is not playable out of the box properly as FASA claim because
  you end up with cards you don't need (in one deck I had 4 matrix programs
  but no Decker). However, 2 decks should be enough to build a basic deck.
  
  The rule book is clearly written, I understood the rules at once.
  An index, however, is missing which is a necessary requirement for each rulebook.
  Also the layout - that is, the sequence of descriptions and rules in the book -
  could have been better.
  
  Up until now, I only played with myself (the game, that is) and liked
  it. I will playtest it further next week at our club.
  
  The artwork is average to brilliant, especially for Shadowrun fans. All
  of FASA's artists are there (Laubenstein, Nelson, Baxa, Ausilio etc.)
  but also some old favourites like Mark Tedin and Ron Spencer (the art
  for Fireball and Vindicator Minigun is great).
  I also think that the game will appeal a lot more to people who play
  the RPG than to other gamers.
  Equipment like weapons and cyberware appear exactly as in the RPG
  and you can appreciate some of the flavour text only when you know
  more about the background.
  
  The cards themselves are a little bit too rigid and crease if you bend
  them too much. Up until now, nobody seems to be able to reach Carta
  Mundi's quality.
  
  The playtest at our club last Tuesday was a success.
  The game is easy to learn and runs quickly as soon as you've got the
  hang of it. It's a little more interesting, if there are more players but it plays
  equally well with 2 players.
  According to the rules, there's no maximum number of players. However,
  a game with more than 4 players would take ages and would have to take
  place on a giant table. You already need a fairly big one for 4 players.
  
  And finallly, a note on the cards. There are 385 cards in the set, plus several Promo Cards
  which will appear in various magazines (Inquest, Scrye, etc.).
  For me, the card mix was a bit unfortunate. Uncommons and Rares were OK, but after 2
  starters and 17 boosters I'm still missing 16 Commons! On the other hand, I've got about
  6 Commons at least six times. They also seem to come in groups, the starters I had contained
  exactly the same Commons. Objectives, at least common ones, seem to be restricted to starters.
  I've got 17 in all, and you need at least six for a deck.
  
  
  Official information, including a card list, can be found on FASA's Webpage.

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  GenCon UK '98

  This was my thir GenCon and it was brilliant.
  First of all, as I don't like the idea of roleplaying tournaments, I can't tell you what the RPGA events were like. If you're looking for information on Magic, sorry, I stopped playing over a year ago.

  This year I had no troubles whatsoever getting to Loughborough. I arrived a few minutes to 10 and checked into my room.
  The reception was at the Student's Union this year, a lot closer and more central than last year. In general, the halls were a lot closer together (Student's Union, Trade Hall, demo hall and Martin building (freeforms)).

  The biggest improvement was certainly the General Gaming tent, a large marquee with enough tables for everyone who didn't get oder didn't want to play in the official tournaments or various demo games. Sadly, a central, bigger noticeboard was missing.

  THE prominent new game of the convention was of course Baron Munchausen by James Wallis of Hogshead Publishing. Not really a roleplaying game, more a competition of storytelling (see also my review).
  Imagine a group of nobleman in the late 18th century sitting around a table in a tavern or so and telling each other the most extraordinary (an expression that's used a lot) stories they've ever heard (all of them lies of course).
  You don't know what story you have to tell so you can't prepare yourself, as the person sitting to your left will give you the starting line, basically.
  As an example I've been asked to tell "the story of how you thwarted a French plot to assassinate the King of Prussia only with the help of a wooden spoon".
  The french seem to play a prominent role in these stories anyway, and so did women's underwear for some strange reason ...

  Friday night saw again the Discworld Freeform, this time loosely based on Reaper Man, i.e. we were at UU, Windle Poons was to leave us and when the time came, DEATH didn't appear.
  I was Ponder Stibbons and tried to solve the problem using Hex, of course.
  Only the third attempt of performing the Rite of Ashk'Ente brought Death back, which might have been caused by the fact that we didn't have enough senior wizards (i.e 7+1, or 9-1) and had to replace the missing ones with witches (Granny Weatherwax and Magrat).
  Again, it was good fun, just a bit short.

  Another notable event were the World of Darknes LRP games, run by Millennium Moon (a joint venture of Camarilla and Masquerade UK and some independent groups) brought brilliant stories to live. Unfortunately, I was only able to join the big Vampire on Saturday (over 200 people, the biggest game in Europe!) but that alone was worth it.
  
  I was assigned a brilliant character, a Malkavian who asked a lot of real characters and invisible entities about this spirit who brought him there (maybe you remember me).
  I had so much fun, there was so much real roleplaying going on, almost entirely character interaction, I had to resolve only two challenges during the whole evening.
  
  The plot was brilliant, the NPCs were brilliant, all the characters I interacted with were brilliant.
  
  To put it simply, I had the time of my life.

  Apart from that, I played West Point Academy, Visions (both run by Equilibrium Games), Warhammer FRP, Ars Magica, Mage:Sorceror's Crusade, GURPS Discworld with the Author Philip Masters (see also the review) and the new Star Trek RPG (see review).

  All in all, a most enjoyable four days, I'm looking forward to next year, hope to see you there

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GURPS Discworld (Steve Jackson Games)

206 pages plus an index plus 30 pages of GURPS lite, all the rules I need, personally. However, if you really want to play GURPS properly or if you want more detailed characters, you need the Basic Set and probably Compendium 1 and Magic as well, as the character descriptions contain a number of skills and spells which are not mentioned in this book or GURPS lite.

First thing that meets the eye are Paul Kidby's brilliant black and white illustrations. He's also done the cover (Death rocks!) but I would have liked one by Josh Kirby. I'm sure most of the British fans will agree on that.

The book contains short descriptions of the various regions on the Disc, a discussion on how DW physics and magic work, descriptions of all the major characters from Rincewind to Granny Weatherwax, most of them with game stats.

As they state in the introduction, the book doesn't explain everthing in detail, the books (called Chronicles) and the Discworld Companion contain a lot more information.
The book basically shows you how to use DW as a roleplaying world and only covers topics like magic in more detail which are completely different from many other worlds.

There's a section with new and DW specific Character Types (magic users like wizards and witches are covered in a separate magic chapter), races (Trolls, Dwarfs, etc.) Skills, Advantages and Disadvantages and, of course, Spells (like the classic Eringyas' Surprising Bouquet). Although I would have liked to see more of the latter, any spell from the Basic Set can be given a DW name, I think. And this seems to be the idea of the book, anyway, as every fan has his personal image of the DW in his mind...

One thing I'm missing is a character sheet. OK, there's a small one that covers three quarters of a GURPS lite page. A custom DW one would have been nice, though. Fortunately, there's one in PDF format on the GURPS website.

The book is wonderfully written, very often reminiscent of Terry Pratchett himself (who has provided some additional material) and a joy to read.

At last year's and this year's GenCon I played it with the author, Phil Masters, as GM and I enjoyed it very much (Special Greetings to the Stonecircle Programmer. Forcible upgrade anyone?).
I didn't know GURPS before and I liked it. It's a quick and simple system with a lot of optional rules if you want more realism.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation (Last Unicorn Games)

Finally, after FASA lost their license, there is a new Star Trek RPG. Here is my first impression:

The book is quite impressive, a sturdy hardback of over 300 glossy pages with lots of pictures from the series (unfortunately, some of them are video captures and a bit blurry). It contains a wealth of information on the Federation and Starfleet (history, structure, regulations, major worlds and races etc.), the Galaxy, technology and so on. The coolest thing is clearly the Technobabble table (three columns, twelve rows), with expressions like quantum, flux, coil, grid, resonating, feed and so on. Either roll dice randomly or make something up. I guess ST writers have something similar ;-)

Characters have:
- Attributes: Fitness (Strength and Vitality), Coordination (Dexterity and Reaction), Intellect (Logic and Perception), Presence (Willpower and Empathy) and PSI
- Skills (with a default attribute)
- Advantages and Disadvantages (a bit like in GURPS).
- Courage, Renown (Aggression, Discipline, Initiative, Openness, Skill).
The default values are determined by race and position (engineering, science, command etc.). Then it depends on what the academy years, cadet cruise and first tours of duty looked like.
There is also a point system to build characters completely from scratch.

According to the basic rules, it's not possible to have PC Commanders or Captains, as these promotions require a lot of Renown and experience points. However, on an unofficial website, you will find rules for that.

The system is quick and easy. For a skill test you roll a number of D6 equal to the underlying Attribute, one of them the so-called Drama Die (like in StarWars). Only the highest die result counts which is added to the skill level. The end result is compared to the difficulty number (from Routine 3 to Nigh Impossible 15). If the drama die comes up 6, that is added to the next highest die result. If the drama die and all other dice come up 1, a dramatic failure has occured.
Combat looks quick and easy as well. I haven't had the chance to play one through yet, so I can't tell how it really is. I will post this as soon as I have.

The game is quite obviously written for the beginning roleplayer as it contains a lot of information and hints on GMing, developing stories, guiding players and so on. But this is fair enough, I think, as a lot of ST fans who aren't yet roleplayers might want to use this game to start off on our great hobby.
It also contains an introductory adventure, near the Neutral Zone.

The price at 25 UK pounds (at GenCon you could find it as low as 20 ;-) ) might seem a bit steep, but the high quality of the book and the contained information make up for this.

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The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Hogshead Publishing)

THE best new game I played at GenCon was definitely Baron Münchausen (by James Wallis of Hogshead Publishing), not really a role playing game, more a game of storytelling.

Imagine a group of nobleman in the late 18th century sitting around a table in a tavern or so and telling each other the most
extraordinary (an expression that's used a lot) stories they've ever heard (all of them lies of course), in the best tradition of the Baron himself.
You don't know what story you have to tell so you can't prepare yourself, as the person sitting to your left will give you the starting line, basically.
As an example, I've been asked to tell the story of "how you thwarted a French plot to assassinate the King of Prussia only with the help of a wooden spoon" or in a later game "how Leeds Castle ended up in Kent", which again involved a wooden spoon in a later stage ...

The French seem to play a prominent role in these stories anyway and so does women's underwear for some strange reason...

You also don't need any character sheets or other props except for a handful of tokens, coins or such. As the game should be accompanied by a lot of drink, a pub or bar is a good location.

There are a few rules involved, yes, but not many, they only add more to the fun really and are used to determine the winner in the end.

As a player, you not only need to tell a story from the top of your head, you also need to come up with the title of the next one.

As the storyteller recounts his tale, other players can interrupt him at any time and offer a wager, i.e. throw an obstacle in his way which would change his story and push one of his coins towards the storyteller (in my example I was chasing after the French, when a player barged in "but, Graf, what did you do when this huge chasm opened across the road in front of you?"). The storyteller can then either incorporate that idea into his story and keep the coin or deny it and give the coin plus one of his own back. The same way, players can doubt the truthfulness of a fact, again by offering a coin. The Storyteller can then either give in and keep the coin or keep to his statement and give the coin and one of his own back.

However, direct insults to any player's truthfulness, parentage or claims to noble rank may be answered by a challenge to a duel, either a proper one, or one for cowards which involves three rounds of rock-paper-scissors. The winner receives the loser's money, the loser must drop out of the game.

In the end, when everyone has told a story, Players vote for one and give their remaining money to that player. The player with the most money in the end wins and has to buy a drink for everyone.

The small book (only 24 pages at a RRP of 5 UK pounds, I believe) is brilliantly written by the Baron himself (James Wallis) and contains a huge number of story ideas ("over two hundred adventures ready to be played"). The reading alone is wort the price. I brought it into our club last Tuesday and we had a lot of fun, although two of the players were not roleplayers as such.

As we (hopefully) play more often, I will post story ideas, either here or in uk.games.roleplay. There will be an official website by Hogshead Publishing, I'll post the URL as soon as I know it.

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