RPG Review: Scum and Villainy- Evil Hat Productions/Off Guard Games

 

It's no secret that I like to play narrative focused and cinematic games.  I have a preference for rules-lite.  Those are some of my biases that I want you to know about going into this RPG review.  Why would I tell you this?  Well, if you look at the cover you can see it is a Forged in the Dark role-playing game.  It is no accident that I am going to be interested in this game.  

Of course, I cut my teeth on the old West End Games Star Wars 2nd Edition.  I grew-up playing that as my sci-fi game of choice.  I should probably do a review on it some day even though it is not new.  I have also played Starfinder for straight Sci-fi games.  For a stretch, I have also played Palladium's Robotech system as well.  Finally, I have also played Green Ronin's The Expanse role-playing game.  I guess I am telling you all this to show my Bonafide's when it comes to sci-fi role-playing games.  I am not a rookie when it comes to this style of game. 

As an added bonus this a game that is about heists.  That makes sense, considering the source of this system is Blades in the Dark, which is a heist game.  I also have experience with heist games.  This is  mainly via Shadowrun.  However, I also have some experience with Noir games such as Hard City.  Therefore, I am familiar with this "less than savory characters" style games too.  In many ways, this one reminds me of the TV show Firefly.    

Therefore, you now know some of my bias going into this games.  You also know some of my history with RPGs of this type.  So, let's dig into this one shall we?  Time to fuel up, load the cargo, and get ready to blast through the blockade.  Does this game have what it takes to keep on flying?      

Things I Like

This game uses a Playbook system.  I tend to like those as it fills core "niche" with appropriate stuff.  However, they are typically choice one of these options which allows for a quick start.  The niche is often "fictionally appropriate" for the style of game being played.  This is a Star Wars/Firefly genre Space Opera.  Therefore, the core "playbooks" are: Mechanics, Muscles, Mystics, Pilots, Scoundrels, Speakers, and Stitches.  I think you can imagine which of your favorite characters fit in where.  

In addition to playbooks, there are a few "crew types" that help create an archetype for the stories you will be telling in a campaign.  These archetype ships set the tone of the table and adventures to come.  It is different being smugglers than bounty hunters than freedom fighters.  You might dabble in all of these, but ultimately the main draw is the archetype of the ship and crew.  

Dice mechanics are simple.  There is a small list of attributes from 0-4 dice.  These represent a dice pool that you roll for tests.  A highest dice as a 6 is a full success, 4-5 is a partial success, and 1-3 is a bad outcome.  No dice, then roll two and pick the lowest with no chance to crit.  Simple.  I like simple dice mechanics. 

The game discusses scene types with "On The Job", "Downtime", and "Free Play".  It gets into more details about types of Jobs and the Engagement roll to help speed up planning.  Therefore, players and GMs have an idea of what to expect from each part of the game.  

You can get extra dice for a roll, but there are always a complication.  They call it a Devil's Bargain!  These can be used to shake things up and raise the stakes.  I can see a certain type of player never taking these, and another always taking them when offered. 

Things I Do Not Like

I rarely talk about lay-out of games, but I am not a fan of how this game is laid-out in the book.  It is not easy to use.  When I was making my character, I had a hard time finding key details.  I was surprised since this is a Playbook driven game yet simple things like "attributes" are buried in the character section without a clear heading name.  Just, not great editing and design.  I know, a bit petty but it made making a character a bit of a frustration. 

There was 12 Attributes, which I think is probably 4 too many.  Again, a bit nit-picky but there you go.  Often times your Playbook will give you a bonus in an Attribute.  There are only 7 Playbooks, so that is probably how many Attributes the game should have as well.  The intention is to give you an idea about how the PCs will approach a given scene, where sneaking across a hangar is played out mechanically different from sprinting across the same hangar.  However, I think a layer of abstraction would work fine here to cover both situations.      

Then there are three resistance rolls that are used in different situations.  Again, I think it is one too many.  Resistance rolls always succeed, but you take stress.  Stress is bad. Instead of damage, you take Stress when called upon to resist.  If your Stress reaches max, you start taking Trauma conditions.  These are more like Role-play notes with names like Paranoid and Cold.  Trauma conditions are permanent, but when you have 4 Trauma you are out of the game.  It looks like you start with 12 trauma, and can choose to take 2 to Push Your Luck.  I think this is too much Stress to start and not enough impact from Trauma.  Instead, if you play Trauma well you get XP bonus.  Play it bad and..... nothing really.     

Meh and Other Uncertainties

Clocks. It wouldn't be a Forged in the Dark system without clocks.  Clocks are a pretty handy and cool idea.  The GM determines how many times you can essentially pass or fail before consequences start to spiral.  Bad Outcomes and Partial successes can cause opposing clocks to move, and success and Crits can have good clocks move.  Pretty neat way to raise the tension, especially since you will want to make these clocks public.  So, why do I put them here?  Ultimately, I think you will have too many clocks going at a time, even in fairly mundane circumstance.  

I.e. a simple smash and grab would have a clock for the PCs to "Get into the Hide-out" and then "Get the loot", and "Escape Clean".  Various actions would help them or hinder, but on the other side you might have the opponents with "Detect Intruders", "Clean-out the Loot", and "Turn-the-Tables"  However, at the same time each PC may also have their own clocks running for various personal reason.  They can stack up fast and a tool to help make tracking and abstraction easier suddenly is not easy.  Doing a clock is easy and cool, but running 12 clocks can be tricky.    

In addition to the dice any individual has, you can boost dice by taking stress, taking a Devil's Bargain, Assists from others, and there are also shared Crew resources.  There are a lot of ways to boost your dice pool, with varying forms of consequences.  It means you can easily manage risk, with only a few options to make interesting complications.      

Ultimately, I think the game just uses too much jargon for things that do not need it.  The lay-out is all ready strained, so the amount of game specific Jargon just takes me out of the rules.  I am sure a great GM can make this all disappear; but a great GM can make any game great!  What about a mediocre or average GM?  I am not sure it can be done here, and I think the jargon and terms will get in the way of the narrative your table is telling.  

Final Thoughts

I really wanted to love these rules.  I had heard a lot of great things about them.  However, I am not sure they are for everyone.  I actually like them less than a standard Powered by the Apocalypse game.  They are slightly more complicated with nothing new to show for it.  The big idea is the Clocks compared to PbtA and I am not sure they deliver an enhanced experience that can not be captured with less book-keeping.   

Plus, I think the lay-out and jargon make this game easier to play than to read.  As a new player to a campaign, I did not find it easy or intuitive to grasp.  I also had a hard time finding what I was looking for in the book.  It was too abstract and too detailed at the same time for my tastes and in the wrong areas.    

That said, I am glad I have read it and played it.  There are really good ideas here, I just am not satisfied with how it all goes together.  I can see others who would absolutely adore this game, and I won't turn down future games.  However, it is also not my favorite either.      

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RPG Design: Super, Sexy Swingin' Spies

 

If you recall my goals for 2026, you will have seen that I had been working on a game called Super, Sexy Swingin' Spies.  This is an RPG that came about after a lazy day watching Matt Helm movies on TUBI.  Who and what is Matt Helm?  Well, he is a photographer/super-spy played by Dean Martin in a series of not very serious Bond knock-offs.  I watched The Silencers, The Ambushers, The Wrecking Crew, and Murder's Row over the course of a few days.  About half-way through the third one I thought, "Self, this could make some fun and light-hearted rules-lite RPG action!"   

As an added bonus, most of these movies are now old enough to be in the Public Domain!  That meant movie posters, screen caps, and similar media would be accessible to populate my game rules!  Photos and images are always a problem, so this made it much easier and helped this game jump the queue to actually get worked on and done!  

So, before I get ahead of myself let's start by laying out the design goals, and then we can take a closer look at how I went about making the game.  The Design Goals were: 

1. Simple opposed dice rolling mechanic built into the design

2. Ease of Character Creation that intuitively creates role-play opportunities

3. Make Gadgets relevant but avoid equipment lists

4. Lean harder into the narrative than the crunch

5. Create space for various levels of "Groovy", play it straight or as wacky as you want with space to tell 1960-esque spy stories

Those were my design goals going into this project.  You can find these rules on my Drive-Thru RPG page.  Also, a special shout-out to my Patrons who got early access to these rules!  Let's take a closer look at how I did it! 

Simple, Opposed Dice Rolling Mechanic

Typically, when I create a rules-lite RPG I do not like the GM rolling any dice.  I prefer the players to do all the dice-rolling and the GM simply interpreting the results.  The GM all ready has enough on his plate with everything else going on, so no need to burden him with dice rolls too.  

For this game, I slightly diverge from my normal method.  However, I still want any dice-rolling to be simple with the Players doing most of the heavy-lifting mechanically.  In this game, the Players use their Attributes and other aspects of their characters to create a pool of dice called Agency Dice when they are asked to resolve a challenge.  

The Handler (or GM) determines how hard the Challenge is and that difficulty is between a 1 and 7.  This number is the number of dice in their pool called a Danger Dice.  Both groups roll their Agency Dice and Danger Dice at the same time.  Any Danger Dice and Agency Dice that match are removed.  If any Agency Dice remain with a 4+ the Challenge is passed, if more than one  Agency Dice with a 4+ remains it is Critical Success.  All other options are a Failure.  If all Agency Dice are removed and a Danger Dice remains with a 4+ it is a Critical Failure.

Therefore, the higher the Difficulty the more Agency Dice you will want to make that roll.  The Handler (GM) tells players the Difficulty before rolling.  That way, the Player can choose a different course of action if they wish.  

This mechanic is harder to put in writing than to actually use.  Therefore, it is a very simple opposed dice pool mechanic.  This mechanic is very simple and intuitive during game play.   

Easy Character Creation

All of my games focus on easy Character Creation.  The reason is so that players can get into the action quickly and start playing.  In addition, if your character is knocked out of the game it is easy to get a new one worked up and back in!

This one is not an exception, with character creation taking about 10 minutes.  There is a minimal amount of record keeping and very little math.  However, it still encourages players to round-out what makes a character a character beyond the basic profile.  It includes guidelines for new role-players about personality traits, quirks, and other things that make it easier to bring a character to life in game.  A character fits completely on 1 page with no long lists of equipment, gear, or other mundanity.  

Make Gadgets Relevant

This is a rules-lite game.  Therefore, I did not want a detailed list of 1960's specific surveillance gear, technology, weaponry, and other details.  That is too cumbersome and ties the Players down.  Super Spies always seem to have the right gadget for the job when they need it.  Therefore, in this game the Characters will always have the right gadget for the job too!  

A Character can trigger the use of a Gadget at anytime!  However, there is a cost to do so.  Doing so reduces your overall ability to manipulate scenes by expending a resource called Plot Armor.  Plot Armor can be used to use a Gadget, add Agency Dice, re-roll Agency Dice, or Reduce Danger Dice.  Instead of managing a long list of complicated and variable 1960's gear, you only need to manage your Plot Armor.   

However, Plot Armor is also your "health" meter.  Once it is expended, your Agent is out of the Scene.  Get knocked out of too many Scenes, and you fail the Mission.  

Therefore, you can use a Gadget to get a Character past a sticky situation BUT to do so reduces your ability to interact with scenes later.  It is up to players to decided when a Gadget will benefit them versus hinder their overall mission.  

If you need access to a cool car for a car chase?  No problem, spend a Plot Armor and it is there.  Do you need a grappling watch?  You got it.  A parachute with the Union Jack on it?  It is yours...... if you have the Plot Armor that is.  

Yes, THAT Tina Lousie was in it!

Lean Harder into Narrative Than Crunch

As a Rules-Lite game, the focus of the game is helping the Handler set-up a scene so Players can take actions during those scenes.  The core of the game is about how to create the Core Gameplay Loop of Inciting Incident--> Player Action ---> New Situation.  In addition, the rules discuss the most common types of scenes in the game and what Challenge Checks fit into these scene types.  Therefore, the players and Handler have a great structure for what a game of Super, Sexy Swingin' Spies looks like.  

To help all players understand, the game also comes with an introductory Mission called; The Jet-Set.  There is also one pre-made character, a blank character sheet, quick reference sheets for both players and Handlers, and an Index to give you everything you need to have a great game.  

Creating 1960's Spy Stories

Spy stories in the 1960's ran a wide range of themes and tones.  They ranged from the very serious espionage thrillers like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the adventure and action oriented From Russia With Love to the tongue-firmly in cheek stories of Get Smart.  Therefore, no two Spy-Fi films or shows were the same.  Each had their own mix of serious spying, action adventure, and comedy.  The rules written in Super, Sexy Swingin' Spies is designed to give you what you need to go from James Bond to Maxwell Smart and everything in between.  If you want to center a story around a defector from East Berlin no problem, if you want a madman with a Bikini Bomb, you got it.  You are encouraged to decide how much "Groovy" you want in any given Mission or Season.  

Final Thoughts

If you have liked my other Rules-Lite RPGs than you will enjoy what I am presenting here as well.  The focus is on working as a table to tell the story and find out what happens.  The rules are enough to help you build and overcome compelling challenges.  These rules are great for experienced RPGers looking for something quick and light for a short campaign, people new to RPGs who know the Spy-fi film/TV genre, or folks who want to have a low-intensity story-telling experience. 

You can find these rules on my Drive-Thru RPG page.  Also, a special shout-out to my Patrons who got early access to these rules!    

I look forward to hearing about how you saved the world in the 1960's!  

Until next time! 

 

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RPG Play-Through: Flashlight: Tales of Terror - Blood and Spectacles

 

I am trying something new on the blog today.  I have never done this before, so I would love your feedback on this post.  Comment down below if you want to see more Play-Throughs like this one.  

Today's blog post is a play-through and discussion of a game of Flashlight: Tales of Terror using a scenario I wrote called; Sleepers in the City.  I was the GM of the session and I had three players from my weekly RPG group.  We normally play Dungeons and Dragons 5E.  Therefore, this was a departure from the norm, but not the first time that they have played a horror game that I have GMed.  The three players were experienced RPG players.  

As the GM, I wrote the scenario BUT based it on the 1998 movie Dark City. I am sure people here will see the spirals when they read through it. However, adapting a single POV movie into a multi-player game has some of its own challenges even if the plot is mostly being lifted from elsewhere. Since this is a Horror, one-shot based on a movie, I decided on a Trad/Neo-Trad cinematic framing for the design. Railroad ahoy!

First off, the Flashlight system does not set the players up for success and is a bit of a death spiral itself. The players have played before, and the system has a high lethality. Before we started play, I reviewed some of the common ideas in horror and reviewed how the system worked, noting that it is a high lethality system. Thankfully character building only takes about 10-15 minutes and allows for some surprisingly well-rounded characters for role-play.

Make Good Characters

The setting for the game is a post-WWII Noir city. Therefore, everything is in Black and White, there is darkness and long shadows everywhere, and all the Characters had to have a reason to be “on the Outs” of society.

Our Cast of Characters were:

1. A war veteran who suffered from a traumatic-Brain Injury and a limp- so had a hard time recalling things. However, they loved to collect rocks and were the most physically imposing of the characters.

2. A street Preacher for the homeless who had a fall from grace in their past. They ran a soup kitchen and small chapel for the needy, building up a small community of outreach. They were rather social in nature.

3. A female nurse who was also a serial killer/stalker. The other players were unaware of their lethal tendencies. They were the most brains oriented of the group, with a dash of sneakiness thrown in.

The group all knew each other as the Vet was a member of the Preacher’s community, and the Nurse often went there to minister to the poor.

The Game

The players awoke sitting in chairs around a table in a Flop House. They were all sitting around a table with a dead street walker on it, with strange spiral markings carved into her body. They immediately began to try to figure out what was going on!

In the search they found a few clues:

1. The woman had been strangled to death
2. In the woman’s possession was a postcard for a place called Sandy Beach and written to her by someone named Emma Murdoch
3. A newspaper that detailed a recent string of street walker murders that matched the one they were looking at. They immediately noticed no dates on the paper.
4. A receipt for an Automat called “Just Like Ma’s”
5. A small, ornate and broken syringe flung against the wall with an unknown substance in it.

As the Preacher searched the upstairs of the flop house for anyone else, an old-fashion phone rang. The Vet answered it, and a voice urged them to get out as “They are after you!”. At this point, the Preacher heard glass break upstairs and when he checked he found a group of men in dark coats, bowler hats, and round sunglasses, and unnaturally long spindly fingers.

Passing an insanity check he ran downstairs and urged everyone to flee. That combined with the phone call and the situation, and no one argued, they hoofed it fast. They were easily able to escape in a crowd of factory workers just getting off-shift.

They took a moment to decide what to do next. They all shared their last memories from the previous night, which led to some solid RP as none of this was scripted. They talked about what those trench-coated men were, and too their credit none of them jumped straight to Vampires! Because they weren’t, but Nazis did come up; I mean this is post-war.

From there, they found a few clues pointing them to a place called the Silver Dollar Club. They decided to go there. On the way to the club, the clock struck midnight, and suddenly all the people in the city around them slowly fell asleep! Then, it got really weird as buildings began to shift and change shape, and new ones sprung up and old ones fell away and vanished. They tried to play along and managed to pass more insanity checks. Unnerved and unsure what happened they continued to the club when everyone else awoke, seeming to not notice what had happened.

At the club, they met Emma Murdoch. After some investigation and social activities, Emma greeted the Vet and told him they were engaged to be married, met at Sandy Beach, and had been working with a man named Dr. Franz. The Vet just played along, because they weren’t sure if any of it was true or not. However, Emma seemed to believe it! The Preacher had met Emma before but she seemed to not recall them at all.

After a bit of RP, they decided to go find Dr. Franz. On the way, they experienced another situation where the clock struck midnight and everyone fell asleep. They were very confused. They played along, and this time they observed some of the black coated men flying around and carrying people to various re-formed buildings. They were creeped out but managed to not lose their minds.

At this point, they started to try to recall the date, year, and other details but they could not. They tried to think about things in their backgrounds but they couldn’t! They weren’t even sure what city they were in or what year it was. The players did a great job playing on this via RP.

Concerned they rushed to meet D. Franz. There they met the man who had called them at the flop house. He began to explain how he had been having bad dreams and restless sleep, and a combination of drugs allowed him to stay awake and see “the Others” that the players had seen. The players had been part of Dr. Franz’s clients and had reported the same dreams and sleep problems. He gave them the same drugs, and now they also seemed immune to the Midnight Sleep. Emma thought they were all crazy, so the Nurse knocked her out with chloroform and then dosed her with the same drugs Dr. Franz had used on them.

At this point, a police detective and some cops showed up at Dr. Franz’s door. The players elected to talk their way out of it, and eventually the cops harassed them but went about their business. They wanted to talk to Dr. Franz about the psychology of the street walker killer.

After getting rid of the cops, Dr. Franz told them that he had seen the strange men use a hidden doorway in the industrial district. The Players armed themselves with flashlights and some makeshift weapons from a hardware store and had Dr. Franz lead them to the doorway. After moving through spiralling and maze-like corridors that kept getting smaller, and tighter, they eventually got to a big, sealed bulkhead.

They opened the door and went in, making sure to try and wedge it open after them. Some D&D experience showing through! Inside, they found a huge mural/billboard that looked identical to the Sandy Beach postcard they had found before. They investigated and pulled it away, which revealed a massive window that looked out into the void of space! This was too much for some of them, and they failed some sanity checks.

Just then, they heard a raspy voice and turned around to find several of the strange creatures behind them, brandishing a bronze syringe. They said, “Do not worry, soon this will all be a forgotten memory.” A fight broke out, and it was clear that the Others were not human and could manipulate the world around them in unnatural ways. However, the Flashlights could temporarily blind them.

The Preacher was taken down by a knife wielding Other, but the Nurse got him back up. The Vet managed to knock the syringe away from the lead bad guy, but in a cinematic moment it kept being kicked around the room. Eventually, the Nurse got it but, in the struggle the bad guy managed to wrestle it from her and give her an injection.

Eventually, the Vet managed to use a hammer to smash the glass out to space, and the Others and Dr. Franz were sucked out into the Void. The Preacher barely manages to hold onto Emma! The group managed to get to the bulkhead and seal the room off, however the strain had been too much for the Vet and he started to babble about being turned into a void dragon and flying across space and time. The Preacher succumbed to his wounds shortly after, but Emma was saved.

The end and roll credits.

The Strangers from Dark City

Conclusion

Body Count: Vet went insane, Preacher died, and the Nurse lost her memories and was re-programmed into a different person. Dr. Franz was also sucked into space!  The Others kept running their experiments and everyone in The City was still stuck in their endless experimental loops. 

Notes as the GM

This session lasted about 3 hours including character creation and was completed in one sitting.  Character Generation was about 15 minutes using the system Flashlight: Tales of Terror rules.  This was an in-person gaming experience. 

Initially, there was not going to be a final fight, BUT we had the time so we played it out. I am glad we did as it led to some memorable moments and the players getting some small wins. Ultimately, they “lost” and could never actually escape from their fate BUT at least they felt like they had accomplished something.

The players did an amazing job Role-playing the characters and it really made the whole scenario breathe. Sure, it was an investigative railroad, but they knew it was a one-shot and followed the path. They made decisions about what to investigate, dealing with the cops, and how to handle the Others when they appeared. No one tried to solve all their issues with violence, and they seemed genuinely invested in the outcome and interested in where it all led.

The idea of being trapped on a spaceship or station did not seem to impact them as much as the idea that their memories were constantly being reprogrammed and re-written over and over for some unknown reason by an unknown other. Some of them made some comments about how it was a meta-commentary on RPGs in general, which amused me to no end.

The players were very gracious and gave kudos all around to the game. They “hated” the system because it was hard to succeed at any test, but when you did succeed you felt amazing! However, dice rolls were not a common occurrence and often having a score above a certain level or the right occupation/interest in an Attribute granted progress.

Otherwise, they enjoyed the departure from our usual game and it felt suitably different from what we had been doing. One of the players even talked about trying to run a Horror themed mini-campaign after our D&D session ends. Therefore, I guess they like the genre a bit.

There you go.  I did not detail every dice roll or game mechanic and just did an overview of the game session.  I can get more detailed on mechanics or process if you want but to me the focus of RPGs is not the "can you do this" to "why are you doing it".  

Until next time.

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Heroquest: The Lair of the Orc Warlord and Prince Magnus' Gold

 

Back on the Quest with the further adventures of the Fellowship of Destiny!  You may recall that the fellowship did not have an auspicious start!  Their Barbarian Nonak was killed by Varag during the Trial!  However, Mentor was able to locate a replacement in Neo-wulf.  With the Fellowship reforged, the Fellowship was entreated by Prince Magnus to rescue his advisor Sir Ragnar.  Ragnar had been kidnapped by the foul Orc warlord Ulag.  Led by Allathusa of the Green, and joined by Hamilcar Margos, Aerlin and Neo-wulf the adventurers managed to free Sir Ragnar and battle their way through the horde of greenskins to safety.  The Fellowhip was handsomely rewarded for their efforts.  

The Fellowship of Destiny! I decided to go with the Classics 

 After freeing Sir Ragnar, the Fellowship had enough gold to update their equipment.  Hamilcar and Allathusa picked up some helmets to help protect themselves from harm.  Aerlin had a fine staff crafted for him, giving him enough reach to support his fellows with more than just magic! Thus equipped, they received word from Mentor.  A new challenge awaited them.  Price Magnus had deemed the kidnapping of Sir Ragnar a great offense.  He offered a reward for Ulag's head!  Using Loretome, Mentor was able to divine the location of the warlord's stronghold.  Thus armed, the Fellowship of Destiny made haste to smite Ulag and recover the reward.  

The Lair of the Orc Warlord

Our heroes descended into the Orc Warlord's stronghold.  They set-up a kill zone at the first door, and were aghast to find it heavily guarded by Goblin sentries.  Despite the tactical advantage the goblins were able to apply serious damage to Neowulf and Hamilcar with some lucky hits as they stormed into the fortified room.  1 room down and the Fellowship was all ready in rough shape!  

Before the Fellowship even made it to the first hallway, Hamilcar and Neo-wulf were down to half wounds.  Despite the injuries, the party split up with Neo-wulf and  Aerlin going one way, while Hamilcar and Allathusa went the other.  The Elf advised against such a strategy, but Neo-wulf wrecklessly pushed forward, heedless of the Elf's words.    

Aerlin used his magic to heal just as Neo-wulf was jumped by an Abomination in a weapon's room!  That was close!  However, the pair did find a trusty wooden staff there.  It was not as nice as the one Aerlin had commissioned, so Neo-wulf kept it incase it was needed.    

Meanwhile Hamilcar and Allathusa battled their way through a few Orc guards.  Again, the Orcs were able to leave Hamilcar heavily wounded, and Allthusa and Aerlin were out of spells to help!  Allathusa's helmet had paid off, as she blocked multiple crude orc sword blows with her head!  However, the battle had taken a long time, and Neo-wulf and Aerlin were able to return to help, their scouting leading to a dead end. 

Despite his injuries, Hamilcar barreled ahead and slew goblin warriors guarding a cupboard.  There he found a health potion and eagerly gulped it down.  His wounds slowly closed and the severe bleeding stopped as the magic coursed through his veins and knitted damaged tissue back together.  That was just what Hamilcar needed to keep going!  

As the leader,  Allathusa took the lead.  Her efforts led the Fellowship right into a room full of danger.  Orcs and Abominations filled the room.  

Hamilcar, reinvigorated; leapt into danger and attacked.  However, it was all the others could do to keep Zargon's forces from overwhelming them.  Aerlin's Ball of Fire hit the Abomination but the magical flames seemed to have no effect on the beast.  However, Allathusa's Tempest spell held him up long enough for Neo-wulf to arrive and help out.  It was a tough fight, but the Fellowship pulled through.  

However, what they found in the next room was even worse!  There, they found Ulag in counsel with a vile Dread Warrior in ancient and corrupted armor, a foul stench emanating from his bloated form.  Hamilcar was enraged by the foul beast and attacked, while Neo-wulf tried to thin Ulag's goblin guards.  Allathusa took on Ulag in a duel, but her skills with a sword were sorely tested by the Orc Warlord.  

Things were looking perilous for Allathusa, and she used her magic to escape; only to fall into a pit trap protecting a treasure chest in the other room.  Apparently, Ulag had yet to be paid by the Dread forces of Zargon as the chest was empty!  

Neo-wulf mopped up the Goblin guards and roared a challenge to Ulag!  The Orc Warlord could not turn down such a fierce opponent and squared up.  The Dwarf and Dread Warrior's duel was also an epic battle, with both exchanging punishing hits.  However, the Dread Warrior seemed to shake-off the hits with ease!  He even managed to tank one of Aerlin's spells!    

Finally, Neo-wulf managed to off-balance his foe.  As Ulag over-corrected the barbarian spun is sword in a wide arc and lopped his head from his body.  Aerlin blessed Hamilcar with Courage and the Dwarf managed to dodge beneath the Dread Warriors' blow and strike him a fierce blow beneath the arm of his armor.  Aided by Aerlin's magic, the blow was fatal!  

The forces of Zargon had been bested once more.  The bruised and battered Fellowship managed to reach the surface once more, and collect the reward from Mentor on their return.  Ulag's head was all the proof Mentor needed to convince Prince Magnus that the deed was done. 

Post- Battle

Wow!  Zargon's forces were rolling really well this game.  I was taking triple hits from Orcs pretty regularly.  The Elf's helmet paid off in spades, and the Dwarf's extra armor was enough to keep him alive.  To make it worse, the forces of Zargon did pretty good rolling black shields as well, so the battles were hard fought.  I think the Fellowship took something like 20+ wounds in this dungeon.  Everyone made it back in one piece, but only by the skin of their teeth! 

With our gold, I was looking to see if we could get a few Potions before going to the next Quest.  However, I am only finding a Potion of Speed available, as well as armor and weapons.  I think other Quest packs expand the offering, but I am going to keep it to the core rules for now and not offering any others yet.             

Prince Magnus' Gold      

Having proven themselves useful to Prince Magnus, the royal lord has reached out to Mentor to help him with another problem.  Royal gold was stolen by a group of marauding orcs and their Dread Warrior master, Gulthor.  Mentor has offered the services of the Fellowship of Destiny to help retrieve it.  With a reward being offered, the Fellowship strap on their arms once more and make their way to the bandits hide-out.  Before heading out, Hamilcar picked up a shield to boost his Defense to 4.  

The Fellowship entered the catacombs with care, and were confronted by Orc and Goblin sentries.  One tied them up in a long hallway, and Allathusa used her magic to get past him, while Hamilcar shrugged off the Orcs attacks.  However, the dwarf could not finish the enemy.  

After finally besting the Orc savage in the hallway, the Fellowship continued their search.  The long hallways and spread out lay-out of the bandits stronghold was stringing the Fellowship out.  They were becoming separated, as the labyrinth was probably designed to do.  As Aerlin the Wizard searched a room for treasure he was ambushed by an Abomination!  Thankfully he was able to fend off the creature long enough for Neo-wulf and Hamilcar to finish it off.  However, the Wizard did not escape unscathed.  

From there, traps took a toll on our intrepid Fellowship.  Neo-wulf and Hamilcar both fell victim to Pit traps, learning the hard way.  Neo-wulf also fell victim to a trap while searching for treasure alone.  The monsters had failed to hurt them too much, but the traps were hurting.  As they explored another long hallway, Hamilcar took the lead and put his learnings to use.  He detected and disarmed a trap.    

From there, Neo-wulf flew into a rage at the dishonor of all the traps and went storming far ahead of his companions, who failed to catch-up.  He burst through a door to face several Orcs.  He tore into them, and by the time the rest of the Fellowship caught up, the Orcs were in disarray.  A final shot from Aerlin through the doorway with his staff finished the last of them.  Neo-wulf failed to learn his lesson and stormed off again with Aerlin barely keeping pace.  Allathusa and Hamilcar were trailing far behind! 

Neo-wulf sighted an orc guard and cut it down in moments.  He then impetuously stormed into the center room with a roar of defiance!  There, he found Prince Magnus' gold, as well as the vile Dread Warrior and his gang!  The bandits grabbed their weapons, and attacked  but not before Neo-wulf and Aerlin stormed the room and killed a Goblin guard.  

They were quickly surrounded!  An Orc warrior guarded the door as his friends attacked the impetuous invaders, Neo-wulf and Aerlin.  Aerlin found himself faced with the Dread Warrior, Galthor.  He smashed the poor wizard with his shield.  However, the Wizard kept his wits around himself enough to heal Neo-wulf.      

Hamilcar fought valiantly at the doorway, trying to break through the Orc defender.  However, the Orc held long enough to keep reinforcements from arriving.  Allathusa managed to cast sleep on one of the attackers through the doorway, relieving some of the pressure.  Seeing Gulthor bear down on him again. Aerlin used Pass Through Rock to escape the Dread Warrior and the room of death.  

Neo-wulf hacked down more of the gang in his battle rage, but was taking damage at an alarming rate.  Hamilcar defeated the Orc at the door, and he and Allathusa rushed in to aid their companion.  A Rock Skin spell helped keep Neo-wulf going, but the Abomination and Gulthor were slowly tearing him apart.  

Finally, Hamilcar was able to get the drop on Gulthor and sink his short sword into a soft spot in the Dread Warrior's armor.  The Dwarf claimed a second Dread Warrior kill!  Neo-wulf and Allathusa managed to clean-up the rest of the bandits after that.  

From there, the heroes managed to lug the treasure chests to the stairs and escape.  There Sir Ragnar's men meet the heroes, and gathered the gold to take to Prince Magnus. They compensated the Fellowship with their reward as promised.   

Post-Battle

This was a close run thing.  Neo-wulf had been reduced to 1 Body after healing once. Hamilcar to 2 Body after being healed once,  Allathusa also down to 2, and Aerlin was also down to 1.  The Pass Through Rock spell had kept him alive!  Thankfully, I had enough spells at the end to keep me going.  

The monsters were not getting triple hits like last time, and I was rolling pretty well for defense the first half of the game.  The second half..... not so well.  The traps really took a toll on my team.  It seemed like the order of operations kept having me fall into traps as I was moving into new areas, beyond where I had all ready searched for traps.  I am still getting the hang of how to make sure traps do not whittle my Fellowship down early. 

The quest has a cool, carrying mechanic; but by the time it comes into play; it is mostly useless.  It just makes it take longer for pointless rolling to escape the dungeon and it takes twice as long now.  However, if we took the chests and scattered them around the dungeon, this could have made things more exciting as there would still be foes to face off against.  

When all was said and done, I did manage to walk out of the dungeon with a Potion of Strength and a reserve Healing potion for Allathusa.  We also had enough gold to buy some more defensive equipment for Neo-wulf and Allathusa going forward.  

Until next time as the Fellowship of Destiny continues their quest.       

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Review: Heroquest - Avalon Hill/Hasbro Plus

 

For Christmas this year I got this nostalgia-bait.  I had this when I was a younger person, and played the heck out of it.  I also used my existing D&D and WHFB minis to expand the heck out of it.  You could say, it was the first game I actually heavily modified as a budding wargame designer!  New enemies, new heroes, and new magic!  I also used it as a gateway to suck a lot of folks into RPGs and Wargaming back then.  Mwahahahahahahaha! 

Therefore, when it came back out I knew I would eventually get it.  Lo and behold, here it is!  One of my big projects for this year will be to get this bad boy painted up so I can use it to corrupt more people into wargaming!  So, let's dig in and take a look at what is in the box.  

Right off the bat I can tell you that this box is much thicker than the original game!  Despite the thickness the contents look surprisingly similar.  A nice fold-out board with that all too familiar lay-out,  Two trays of miniature components.  A single sheet with some punch-out tokens and the Zargon screen.  Finally, it has a slim rulebook and a Questbook.  

Inside the Miniature Trays you will find all the familiar furniture from the first game, all the cards, and the character sheets.  The other has the dice and the miniatures.  No doubt the miniatures in this game are top-notch and better looking than the originals.  They definitely style them differently than the GW predecessors.  The Fimir is replaced by an "Abomination".  The Orcs and Goblins also look like they have three different sculpts of each as well!  It seems as if the term Chaos is also replaced with "Dread" instead, i.e. Dread Warriors, Dread Spells, etc.  The Zombies have two poses.  For dice you get 6 proprietary "skull" dice and two red, standard 6-sided dice. 

The minis themselves seem to be made of a hard plastic material and are of good quality.  They have some flex to avoid breakage, but do not seem brittle.  The furniture and models seem to have a good "bulk" or heftiness too them to help stay in place.  The models are a little bit harder to pull out of the trays than I would like.  After painting, I will need some alternative packaging.  Too bad as I like the cool Heroquest sleeves for the model trays.     

So, with the contents being "unboxed" let's go to the rulebook!

Things I Liked

The rulebook is a small glossy book that is 22 pages long!  Nice, simple and quick.  Perfect for newbies to wargames, dungeon delving, or RPGs.   

Characters can either perform an action (fight, cast a spell, search, etc.) and move.  They can do this in any order they wish.  Opening doors or looking down corridors is not an action.  There are handy little cards that describe the sequence of events to play.  

The game uses opposed rolls.  Defenders can use successes to neutralize the Attackers successes.  The number of dice rolled by heroes is based on their equipment.  Some weapons also have simple special abilities making the load-out relevant in the game.  

When you search a room, you draw a card from the Treasure pile.  However, half of the cards are traps or wandering monsters!  These bad things can immediately attack or impact the searcher.  Therefore, if you are injured you may not wish to search and instead focus on escape.  

Things I Do Not Like

I had forgotten that this game used randomized movement!  I would just give each character a standard move rate.  This is an easy way to differentiate the heroes further than their basic stats.  

This game also makes use of Proprietary Dice with symbols.  I am not a fan of that.  

The game really should have a very simple and rudimentary experience system for hero models to "level-up".  That way if a hero dies there are a bit more stakes to their loss.  Losing their equipment can be tough if a monster gets it first, but there is a good chance that a Hero will recover it instead.  

You run out of reasons to use gold pretty fast.  Once you have the best gear, there is not much else to spend gold on. 

Meh and Other Uncertainties

The game has secret doors and a variety of trap types.  Their are different ways to the type of traps impact the game.  Pits can cause injury and modifiers, block traps can block access, and spears cause injury. 

Each hero has a bit of a niche in the party.  The Barbarian deals the most damage and can take the most.  The Dwarf is a strong fighter but is best at disarming traps.  The elf can cast 1 deck of spells.  The Wizard is the weakest but has the most magic.  

There are 14 quests in the quest book and they are linked in a series.  The higher the quest, the more difficult it is.  Artifacts from one quest maybe necessary for the next quest to be completed successfully.  In addition, the game encourages you to create your own quests as well.  

Final Thoughts

I think Heroquest has two great strengths.  The first is its relative simplicity.  It is easy to get people playing quickly and introduce some basic concepts of wargaming and RPG.  This simplicity leads into its second strength, it is incredibly versatile and expandable!  It gives the player a good, basic framework to add all sorts of details to the game.  You can stack or create all sorts of chrome to tack onto this basic framework.  

I could see myself creating some "Custom" Quests using existing models in my collection, or generic ones that are easily sourced like Lizard Men, Gnolls, and the like.  I could even see myself creating some "Quest Packs" and putting them out into the world for others.  I could see a fun Frankenstein's Castle themed game as an example.  Hasbro/Avalon Hill has all ready done this themselves as there are a number of expansions all ready available for the game on their website.  Looks like there are 7 Quest Packs and at least 1 Hero expansion all ready!  

With all of that said, this is best purchased for either a Nostalgia buy OR as a Gateway drug.  The mechanics will not hold up to more advanced Dungeon-Crawler games. It can't compete in tactical challenge like  true wargame.  It can't deliver the experience of a true RPG.  However, as a good introduction game, with a family, or a small-group of non-gamer friends; you can have a blast!  With new scenarios and adding homebrew concepts in you can keep this game fresh for a long time. 

Now, time for me to get painting! 

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