That RPG Folder Banned on Nine Planets

Great & Small is a game of animal fantasy by Robert F. Mason. It's based on OD&D. This is a little review of the quick start rules.

This game uses a form of Target 20, which is itself derived from the original game's design.

The idea is a simple one. PCs are animals in a dangerous world. I haven't read the entire PDF so I can't say for sure, but it feels like this is meant to be more realistic, less magical. Like you'd be dealing with animal factions and natural dangers rather than wizards and dragons. However, the rules do mention magic and magic items a few a times. This is a game system, not a setting, so it assumes you will build your own animal world and if you want magic stuff then you add magic stuff. This PDF doesn't include any of that stuff.

Though it is a D&D style game it definitely breaks the mold a bit. There are no classes or levels as far as I can tell. Which I love! I am more and more moving away from class and level myself.

Anyway, the game's mechanic is Target 20. You always roll 2d10 + mods in an attempt to score 20 or better. Now, I've voiced my distaste for games that use One Mechanic To Rule Them All... but I get it. It's a natural thing to want to do. And it certainly works. I just find it incredibly boring when a game has very little mechanically to interact with.

And yes, at the same time I strongly dislike crunchy games with too damn much to interact with. I'm a Goldilocks, sue me.

This game looks pretty nifty. The blog has a lot of information on it, much of which indicates more fantasy and magic than the quickstart suggests. I have no idea if the game is complete or still in production but the latest post was from July 2016.

By This Axe is a 12 page medieval fantasy battle game by Chris Kutalik. Yeah, that Kutalik!

This is a "mercifully short" book. No interior art, so the thing is all business. Layout is simple and clean.

I do not pretend to know a damn thing about miniatures wargming, nor do I care. It is not something I've ever engaged in nor had the inclination to engage in. Would I? Sure. I would. And By This Axe seems like a reasonable, short set of rules for doing so.

The only dice are d6s (and lots of them). You define your units in a way that is similar to an RPG. For example, they have Fighting Capacity, Armor Saves, and Special Abilities. There are monsters too. Seems cool.

Capture the Troll by Ken St. Andre (yeah, the Tunnels & Trolls guy!).

This is a 16 page GM adventure for T&T in which the PCs are summoned by the mad old fart of a wizard Mingoh the Moneyless to go forth and capture a troll for for his wondrous zoo of monsters. The text makes some funny comments about how run-down and old the wizard is and that his crew of servants are also run-down and old (those poor middle-aged harem girls).

There's a nice map. It seems like a fairly simple little cave-crawl with some wilderness adventuring to lead into it.

There were some annoying typos in this. It's such a small book that every little mistake sticks out like a sore thumb. But small press, y'know? We love our small press and all its foibles.

Some cool art in here from the infamous S.S. Crompton (Grimtooth, Demi). The cool cover is by a dude named Darrenn Canton, who I have gamed with before and know a little bit. He's a Kentuckian like me. He's really damn good at drawing these husky, buff fantasy figures.

This post is a continuation of this series right here you can clicky clicky on.

That RPG Folder Named Desire

A continuation of this series right here.

In a Strange Land by James D. Hargrove, hardest of the Hargroves, is a pulp fantasy hex crawly game.

Layout is clean, art is very cool. It's a short game clocking in at 8 pages. Tight.

The opening paragraph has a cryptic reference to a "solo-play board game of the early 80s". I believe this might be a reference to Dwarfstar Games' Barbarian Prince, but that's just a wild conjecture since I know nothing of that particular lost artifact of the past.

Mechanics are interesting. Blows are resolved by subtracting the Fighting scores of opponents to get a modifier, then making a 2d6 roll and modifying it with the number you got. There's a table then that you look at and if your final result is on the table it will tell you how many wounds you dealt. This is really interesting to me because it means the scaling isn't intuitive. For example, if you end up with a 6 you have scored 1 wound. But if you get a 7 you score no wounds. A 12 is 3 wounds but a 13 is zero wounds.

Weird, but neat. Not something I'd be attracted to in an RPG. But I'd give it shot for fun because it is so damn weird.

Much of the other content is related to hex travel. How far can you go in a day, how much food do you have, etc.

I dig how sorcery is handled. PCs are not wizards. Sorcerers are evil, alien, sinful, wicked, dangerous. Much of what they do is reduced to a single d6 roll where, on a 5-6, they deal wounds to every PC in the group with a blast of wicked energy. Cool beans.

Seems like a fun little game. Not too complicated. Very focused on exactly what you see on the cover: pulp fantasy hex crawls.

Echoes of the Labyrinth by Scott Malthouse is a Tunnels & Trolls hack. I know very little about T&T in terms of game play, so I'm taking a look at this one as a total noob without any idea what I'm talking about.

It's a short game that weighs in at 16 pages. It cuts right to the chase by telling us that it's a traditional GM/Player game (GM = Heart, Players = Yearning Delvers... I'm down with that!) and giving  us the core mechanics right on page one. In this game you only use d6s. You make skill rolls on 2d6 + mods vs. a target.

Combat is different. All combatants on a given team make 2d6 + mods roll and then everyone adds their results together. The other side does the same. Compare the rolls to see who was the victor. The difference between the rolls is divided among the losing side as points of damage, which are distributed as the losing side sees fit.

That's very interesting. Is that part of classic T&T? It's a very cooperative method, it seems. If I'm down to a single hit point and you have ten then maybe you absorb all the damage so I don't die. There's a big meta-gaming aspect to that, which is taboo in some RPG modes, but which doesn't have to be taboo. I am not sure I love it, but I do find it terribly interesting.

Characters have six abilities that are generated by rolling 3d6 each... which of course is exactly what classic D&D does. But that's expected to me since I know that T&T came out a mere year after OD&D and is inspired by it.

I like how monsters are statted-up. They just really have 3 elements. FR = Foe Rating; this is how many hit points the monster has and half of the FR is it's Combat Points (bonus to attacks). Armour = how many points of damage the creature can ignore. Special = whatever special abilities or notes it has. So monster listings are super short.

This is an easy game. Based on reading it alone I can see that it would play fast and free. I like that the game's central conceit* is that it takes place in The Great Labyrinth, which is potentially unlimited in size and scope, possessing entire cities and nations deep within it. I dig it. I would play this game.

*You know, I have seen the phrase "the central conceit of..." many times and I only assume know how to use it. I am assuming here. It's one of those phrases like "damp squib" that I have heard and never fully understood except through context. Weird.