A new episode has been added to the database: Pyramid Scheme - ep.5

by NormandyWept

I was a backer of Down in Yongardy back when it funded on Kickstarter back in 2021. At the time I hadn't played Troika and was mainly backing it on my understanding it was a new Fighting Fantasy-esque gamebook with potentially some new ideas, and I kind of liked the premise of the player character being a sort of lawyer-duelist.

I've since got a lot more into RPGs and come to recognise that I got pretty lucky here: Chris Bissette is a writer I've seen mentioned in a lot of places since, plus Troika is something pretty special, going beyond "Fighting Fantasy retroclone" and exemplifying the sort of fantasy game I'll actually bother to play, with its anti-canon setting, broad view of the fantasy genre, and the overall Discworld/Doctor Who/Hitchhiker's Guide vibe it gives me, where the core gameplay is "go somewhere fantastic, meet some amazing people, run around a lot and try to work out what is going on", rather than being focused on senseless murder and plunder and encounters-per-day.

The backgrounds in Troika are full of lore, but in the "draw maps, leave gaps" tradition of the OSR/NSR, it's lore with lots of potential for people to fill in some detail. One of those backgrounds is the Yongardy Lawyer:

Down in Yongardy they do things differently. They respect the Law. Every day there is a queue outside the courts to get a seat to see the latest up and coming barrister defend their case with a metre of steel. The people follow the careers of their favourite solicitors, watch all their cases, collect their portraits, and sneak into the court after hours to dab the patches of blood on white handkerchiefs. In Yongardy, they love the Law.

No more than that was said in the Troika book, but in Down in Yongardy, Chris Bissette has skillfully spun it out into something bigger. You are an aspiring lawyer, taking to the court for your first case/duel. Things soon go horribly wrong and an adventure follows. I'm loath to write much more because I really don't want to spoil it for anyone else!

As is tradition in gamebooks, I died on my first attempt but I'll definitely revisit and see if I can do better. I have already seen sections in the text which suggest this is quite richly layered in the possible paths through the book, given that I quite often came to sections which referenced potentially having knowledge or items I'd not even seen the opportunity to acquire given the path I'd taken.

There are also some "gimmicks" (turn the page to a calculated number or a number you've been told) which reminded me a lot of Creature of Havoc (and much like when I first played that book, I hadn't seen the necessary details to activate them by the time they were presented), as well as something delightfully fresh-but-in-format which I loved being able to trigger (especially on my first go through) and which I won't spoil here. I can't wait to see what the endings (I assume there are multiple) look like.

I loved:
• The writing, even in rules text:

If an encounter presents you with multiple enemies, the instructions on that page will tell you how to handle the battle. Generally this involves building an Initiative Stack and entering a chaotic fray where nobody really knows what’s happening until one participant or another is left standing atop a pile of dead bodies.

• Playing this basically teaches you how to play Troika (or even better, a version of Troika where players roll all the dice)
• It felt more fair than Fighting Fantasy; there's a difficult early fight but it's easy to replay that section as it is early. After that both the options I encountered and the combats (which I tried to avoid, in NSR tradition) seemed quite fair and well sign-posted. I imagine there might be some harder stuff late in the book which is sort of fair enough really and makes me feel it's been well thought through
• I think it strikes an amazing balance between the ease-of-access of the Fighting Fantasy books and e.g. Lone Wolf which had a more complicated skills/proficiency system but therefore more character creation time before you started. In Down in Yongardy you learn Advanced Skills as you go along, which I think is a really lovely balance between the two
• Troika references: Yongardy itself but I also found a few others even in one play and I'm sure there are plenty more to discover

Things I'm not so sure about:
• The rules for fighting multiple combatants are a massive faff. I appreciate that it does teach the real Troika initiative system, but it's totally pointless when the Fighting Fantasy gamebook rules for fighting multiple opponents are so much simpler and I think wouldn't make any of the combats I saw so far materially different, instead just making them longer
• The rules for using Luck in combat are different to Troika, which I find confusing as someone who knows Troika. And it makes the adherence to Troika initiative (as above) seem even weirder given that rules fidelity apparently wasn't important in other areas
• There was one section I found where there technically wasn't a valid exit for me after executing the text, although I was able to work out which one I was supposed to go to and it kept the story intact, so this wasn't a major issue

If you have any interest in the multiple-choice gamebook format for solo RPGs, I definitely recommend this. It has a lot of the fun of Fighting Fantasy, respecting the tradition whilst introducing its own new tweaks which felt modern and fresh. Plus it'll teach you the Troika rules and introduce you to its wonderful world. I had a fun first play and I'll definitely try it again to find an ending.

by leroy43

The Book of Unlife (TBOU) is a supplement for The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition (TFT), published by Steve Jackson Games.

The book contains 44 different unliving monsters divided into six broad categories. As the introduction to the book explains, "Unlife is a broad term covering a wide variety of entities which are not “living beings” in the traditional sense of the word. They may have once been alive, like Ghosts. They may be true “undead,” like Nosferatu. They may be animated forms, like Zombies and Golems. They may be entities of pure spiritual energy, like Poltergeists, or immortal beings from the unearthly realms, like Banshees. Whatever they are, they are not alive in the way life is usually understood." pg. 3

This interesting opening tells us immediately that this isn't just a set of monsters with stat blocks. And, as this foreshadows, that is exactly what does not follow. While most undead monster bestiaries would function like a biological field guide to the macabre, The Book of Unlife distinguishes itself by treating the undead metaphysical manifestations.

For example, let's take a classic ghost. Rather than simply listing the stat block for said generic ghost, TBOU has a Soul Unlife category, of which the ghost is one type. Rooting their existence in the soil of genuine folklore and cultural myth, you have not only ghosts, but also Remnants, Haunts, and several others. This approach shifts the focus from combat mechanics to thematic resonance. This lets the GM make the creature’s presence in a campaign more like a tear in the fabric of reality, shaped by the specific tragedies, taboos, or legends that birthed it. By drawing on these traditional inspirations, the book provides GMs with a toolkit for horror that is psychologically grounded, ensuring that every encounter with the unliving carries a distinct, unsettling weight.

For each of the six categories, Soul Unlife, Spirits, Apparitions, Undead, Animata, and Thanatophiles, there are between six and ten exemplars of the various forms these unliving take. The descriptions link them in a satisfying way to their mythical origins.

In addition to the descriptions and explanations of the unliving, there is ample text given to how the characters might become unlife, including by choice, and common tropes such as talismans and artifacts that may protect one from the unliving. Wooden stakes, holy water, and garlic anyone?

Although designed and written with TFT in mind, each entry among the 44 unliving are actually fairly scant on stat details. Some do have specific guidance, but others will have more vague comments such as "A ghost has the same attributes as when the person was
alive." The entries in this book are not for the random encounter table. You will need to put some thought and effort into it, noting of course that your standard RPG skeletons and zombies are already part of the monsters in the base rules. Nevertheless, this lack of stats actually give this supplement broader appeal for non-TFT systems. You might not want or need this as a D&D 5e DM, but the GM of horror RPG like Call of Cthulhu would find ample food for campaign thought here.

The first two thirds of the book are taken up by the unliving, and the final third is an adventure, The Haunting of Holner House. The adventure has a classic haunted house/horror story hook.

Trudging along a dreary country road in a heavy rain, the party notices the still, solemn figure of a finely-dressed young man standing beside the path. When they draw up beside him, he stares hollowly at them and says, in a weak and toneless voice: “Holner House.” Raising his arm he points up the road, slowly turning his face in that direction as well. The rainfall increases at that moment and there is a flash of lightning. When it fades the figure is gone and the players can find no trace of him. It is only then that they realize that his clothes appeared to be completely dry.

The adventure is quite detailed and rich, with ample background, and many characters both at the house and in the surrounding area. Detailed maps are provided of the area, the manor lands, and the manor itself, as well as stats for all the NPCs. With a little bit work, the NPCs could easily be converted to another system.

Of the various adventures for the modern edition of TFT that Steve Jackson Games has published, this one, for me, stands apart not only for being more of a mystery investigation and horror story akin to a Call of Cthulhu style game, but also much less of a labyrinth crawl. This is an adventure where the players will be relying on their talents and wits more than their weapons and spells.

At 64 pages, this slim volume is compact, but dense with great content. It is my opinion a much needed and missing supplement - it truly gives the unliving their due.

by leroy43

In this volume you will find the best compendium of intelligence yet to be assembled on the subject of what’s actually out in the Swells. You’ll find no conventional terrors here, no comforting accounts of everyday leviathans or commonplace krakens. Here be the sorts of beasts only the Swells could birth or bear, some of ’em horrific and forbidding, some of ’em singular and strange.

Friends, have you heard about A Visitor's Guide to the Rainy City? It's a system neutral urban city space under a perpetual rain cloud and surrounded by storm walls and full of interesting mysteries.

Beasts of the Outer Swells is a 48 page zine sized supplement for use with the Rainy City. Although hypothetically you could use it independently, the stories and context would need significant work by the GM to work elsewhere.

Inside its pages are nine beasts, with whimsical names such as The Clackermas or The Wishful Wakame. Being system neutral, the beasts don't have specific stat blocks, but the descriptive text gives every entry a sense of scale that would let a GM easily work out how they'd interpret it for whatever game they run.

For instance, the Aspic Lantern is an island sized beast that has lured many unfortunate sailors to their doom. And let me state once again how wonderful Bill Spytma's woodcut style art is, and how it has consistently tied together the whimsical vibe and visual aesthetic of the booklets in this series.

It’s a hell of a thing to imagine: weeks and weeks on a storm-wracked ocean, the hull of your boat nudged by behemoths, the sails whipped and torn by unrelenting winds—and then the sounds of coastal birds, the shadows of other ships, and land at last.

There must be a glorious moment of pure joy before the truth of the City sets in. Most folks reckon that’s why the Aspic Lantern eats so well.

If you zoom in on this particular image, you'll see three sailing vessels on the left, perhaps being lured to their doom.

Each beast has full story describing the legends and stories associated with it, and several potential hooks for the GM to set up or provide inspiration of where to place it within their campaign.

The penultimate chapter of the books is Flott's Jetsam, a collection of tables and miscellany related to the beasts akin to how Flott's Miscellany Volume One, Flott's Miscellany Volume Two, and Flott's Miscellany Volume Three do for the Visitor's Guide.

The final chapter, Rarities and Relics, offers a listing of various magic items and other interesting artifacts to be used in your game. Again, you'll need to supply the stats/effect of your game system, but the descriptions provide ample inspiration to help you with that.

The Kickstarter offered a set of beautifully printed postcards of the beasts. I've of course misplaced my set, but if you can find a copy of this booklet with those as an add on, you won't be disappointed.

This is possibly the best supplement to the Visitor's Guide to the Rainy City. A lot of thought and effort went into the beasts to make them interesting, there's sufficient background material to let you slide them into your game and make up stat blocks as needed.

by leroy43

Walk warily, my friends, for the dead walk, too, and they wear surprising guises.
Until the rains cease,
Hieronymous Hargylwynd

A Visitor's Guide to the Rainy City is an isolated city that is perpetually under a cloud (of precipitation) and has all manner of unusual characters and locations suitable for urban adventures. It's a non-system specific location that can be dropped into any RPG, but was strongly influenced by The Fantasy Trip: Legacy Edition (TFT).

This short 24 page zine style booklet contains stories about specific undead personages that haunt the city to this day is another instalment in the Rainy City series.

"In life Beezer Bream was an enigma, and in death the mysteries surrounding his curious existence multiplied..." pg. 4

Beezer Bream comes with a back story surrounding his life and mysterious circumstances of his death, and additional notes about the death cult that keeps his name alive. In keeping with the system neutral nature of Rainy City supplements, stats are scant and left to the game master to interpret, but the cultists are described as Str 10, Dex 19, Wil 11, 6 hp which your TFT GM can immediately translate to the stat blocks of that system.

Of the eleven entries in the booklet, most are about individuals although most of those have hangers on and adherents. Two entries are primarily about locations. One of those entries is about Pangborn Abbey, located in Embassy Row (cf. Visitor's Guide...), which changes nature from day to night and could be the beginning of a lovely haunted house mystery.

The other is "the case of the Sabrina Celeste, known to most as the Whispering Brigantine, however, no such difficulties present themselves. Many denizens and visitors of Vagabond Bay have seen the ship with their own eyes, and several intrepid individuals, your author included, have been aboard." pg. 22. The ship has no apparent crew, but comes and goes from port with some irregularity, always docking and dropping the gangplank. What mysterious cargo is aboard, and why nobody who boards and leaves with the ship yet never returns is rife with inspiration.

The wodcut style art that has been consistent througout this series is well represented here. I daresay that the publisher could produce a zine that was nothing but art from the Rainy City series.

Of the supplements for the Rainy City, this is arguably one of the most interesting, providing a set of story hooks that are easy jumping off points for the GM to centre adventures around.

by Steve

On April 26th all people and cats send their birthday greetings to [user=kronik][/user]

Happy Birthday Jan!

by Steve

April 26

1933

- American entertainer Carol Burnett [microbadge=27611]

1986

- Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster [microbadge=37998]

????

- kronik

April 27

1759

- English author and groundbreaking feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft [microbadge=5191]

1791

- American inventor Samuel F.B. Morse [microbadge=24114]

:devil:April 28 - Happy(?) Evil Bob Day!:devil:

??BC

- Evil Bob aka stargate

1926

- American author Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird) [microbadge=38503]

1947

- Thor Heyerdahl & "Kon-Tiki" sail from Peru to Polynesia [microbadge=21779]

1948

- English author Terry Pratchett [microbadge=7177][microbadge=2850]

2018

- Management of "This week in Geek History" passes from sdonahue to wysire

April 29

1913

- The modern all purpose zipper is designed [microbadge=9974]

1955

- American actress Kate Mulgrew [microbadge=29863]

1957

- English actor Daniel Day-Lewis [microbadge=29826]

1958

- American actress Michelle Pfeiffer [microbadge=13942]

1970

- American actress Uma Thurman [microbadge=9344]

April 30

1952

- Mr Potato Head is 1st toy advertised on US television [microbadge=14331]

1982

- American actress Kirsten Dunst [microbadge=5525]

May 1

1841

- 1st emigrant wagon leaves Missouri for California [microbadge=7391]

1923

- American author Joseph Heller [microbadge=8912][microbadge=14525]

1931

- The Empire State Building officially opened [microbadge=33368]

1939

- Batman 1st appears in Detective Comics #27 (May cover date, was released in March) [microbadge=5524]

May 2

1972

- American actor/wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson [microbadge=40472]

2000

- US President Clinton announces that accurate GPS access no longer restricted to US military [microbadge=26542]

I'm sure this list can be improved. Feel free to offer suggestions for this and upcoming weeks. If you want your birthday included just add it to this geeklist: RPG Geek Birthday List

A new episode has been added to the database: Dice Funk S12: Part 65 - Myconid Chemical Romance

by Rachel Carpenter

I organized some notes, lots of notes. And spent some time messing around with Snow Squall while watching Supernatural 😜. Tomorrow more work and I'll be online more too.

Happy Saturday and happy playing!
-Rachel

Thank you for reading my blog. If you liked it; then please click the green thumb [microbadge=23724] at the top of the page. If you really liked it; then please subscribe.

A new rpg item has been added to the database: The Wine of Shel Aufna

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A new rpg item has been added to the database: Dungeons Dark & Deadly 3: Pyramid of Iak'm