The New Flesh

Bastards is a booklet game (A6 in the physical version) with the author's take on what they call "Dragon Games". It is based on d20 rolls under 3d6 stats (Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom) and over an opponent's Hit Dice rating or Armour Class in combat. Advantage and Disadvantage, is used; examples include weapons conveying Advantage and Disadvantage on Reaction rolls due to reputation. The game uses relatively low hit points (your character might be able to take two hits it seems in combat) but also a pretty generous temporary refresh and all health is restored by a rest period. It feels relatively deadly in the reading but probably a bit more satisfying than games based on "Into the Odd". The interesting ideas Classes Your starting hit points determine your class. Roll 1 HP and you're a wizard, roll 6 HP and your a barbarian. Each class has some special abilities but the thief and assassin could do with a few more options to help differe...

Smithy of Sacrilege is inspired by Tunnel Goons but gives the original a British OSR spin in the form of Fighting Fantasy . The game originally appeared under the name Tunnel Puffins which presumably referenced the original children's publisher of the Fighting Fantasy series. The key attributes are the familiar Skill, Stamina and Luck which all start at zero. The game's single mechanic is a 2d6 roll against a standard difficulty of 8 (very WSCA ). The difference between the target and success drives damage in "dangerous situations" such as combat. Advancement is based on treasure acquisition and gives a bundle of increases across your character stats. The game's essence is simple and is a riff on familiar systems. It all seems unsurprising and a good take on the Fighting Fantasy system. It uses a Health stat instead of Stamina, presumably to avoid a downward spiral on related checks. Inventory is based on a fixed Equipment score with one significant item being ...

This adaption of a convention tournament scenario is an interesting mix of ideas. At it's core it's a puzzle adventure where a wizard and their retinue are invited to participate in a series of magical duels for the prize of the "Master of Dagon". No surprises that even though it's a struggle to win the duels and overcome the skulduggery of the other duellists successful groups will ultimately have to face the organisers of the tournament if they wish to survive. The structure of the adventure is somewhere between a sandbox and a railroad. The tournament structure means that action mostly follows a timetable. However the party are for the most part free to explore the island and try to interact with the other duellists and their allies. The attempt to expand beyond the convention tournament to offer more information and opportunity is thing that doesn't really work. Really you have a closed battle of wits on a remote island with a dark comedy ...

This adventure has lots of interesting ideas but it feels like it tries to stick to closely to having a fixed narrative. At its core it's a magical love triangle: witch loves boy, boy loves girl, boy ignores witch. The witch, rather like a typical fantasy gamer, embarks on a slightly obtuse plot to try and win the boy over and the result is that the boy is in a death-like sleep that threatens to kill him for real. The scenario is built around the assumption that a tavern keeper pays the player characters to transport the sleeping character to a nearby town where a sage may be able to help or alternatively the cursed victim can be entombed in his family vault. This assumption leads to a three act structure about moving a comatose person while doing the usual wilderness travelling and monster fighting. All while the witch tries to make good on her plot. The slightly odd thing is that this structure is unnecessary and the players only meet the boy's true love at the end of the sc...

 A mini zine (single A4 sheet folded into a multi page zine) Dungeon Gig is no worse than many larger rule sets. It uses a single abstract stat and that stat is used as a bonus to d20 tests, hit points, inventory slots, pretty much everything in the game. Monsters also have a stat and this again forms their difficulty and hit points. It all feels like something of absurdly minimalist take on D&D inspired games. The fact that the stat is so important but determined randomly (although neatly by taking the middle value of a pool of three d6) feels off as players who roll high simply have more options and more fun. The stat value should have been offset by something like equipment so that the total value is always six. Magic is a "GM judges" situation but provides a rule of thumb that mechanical effects should cost half the numeric value of the effect in hit points. Spells are learnt by sacrifices stat points. The basic mechanism is a roll of d20 with 15 or more being a hit ...

Best left buried is a rules-light fantasy heartbreaker that seems to want to be the sidekick of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It makes a big deal about how going into dungeons is a terrible idea and how nothing but death awaits those foolish enough to do it. Okay, these are interesting points, but the game relies on characters wanting to do it, there's literally nothing else in the rules system. What happens if in the first session the characters get to the entrance of the deep and dangerous caves and then do turn back? What the game lacks is the motivation as to why the adventurers enter the dungeon despite the danger. You're expected to find dungeoneering compelling despite it clearly not being any kind of long term proposition. Into the Odd , for example, deals with this a bit better by making the rewards, in the form of magical items, concomitant with the risks. The copy-editing of the book is poor with repeated sections and grammatical errors. I'm not especially...

This mini-adventure is by the By Crom! author, Shel Kahn , so the first thing worth saying is it benefits from visual design and is beautifully illustrated and physically satisfying to own. It is a classical fantasy roleplaying adventure with the premise being that you as a group are interested in acquiring some rare magical crystals and have journeyed to the only place that produces them. Once there you discover that the town is in crisis as the crystals have ceased to appear where they are normally collected. The nearby island is a taboo place but it also seems connected to the problems with the crystals as a local has gone missing while investigating it. Having presumably tricked their way onto the island the game then shifts to a clever hex-crawler with the island interior being the hex map and then you roll and place cutout hexes onto the map. As you move around the previous hexes are not fixed and therefore you may double back to find that the landscape has changed. The goa...

Belly of the Beast has a very unusual premise. An alien giant worm has consumed the surface of a conventional fantasy setting and now the shattered remnants of civilisation live inside the vast intestine of the creature, struggling to scavenge enough to survive from either the creature itself of the remains of its other meals. I guess you might summarise it as post-apocalyptic body horror. The Swallowed live in small communities learning to live on what they can scavenge within the complex tract of the worm and the body of the creature itself. Life inside the creature is defined not by day or not or the passing of the seasons but the structure of the creatures body, its movement and the arrival of new resources in the form of newly devoured territory. It really is new levels of "grimdark". The game is structured around "pulls" which is where the characters try and acquire what their community needs to get through another day. The communities are world-built o...

Issue 9 of The Undercroft ( buy digitally here ) marks a step change for the zine, moving to a larger A5 booklet format and switching from its characteristic red covers to black. Cedric Plante contributes an amazing cover in an etched style white on black. Overall the impression is of something more substantial and professional than a regular photocopied zine. The content isn't markedly different, a collection of monsters (including a penis monster, a giant penis you can fight), rule variations for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and a few historic research pieces, this time the subject is the occult properties of those executed by hanging. At a quick glance the interesting pieces look like the Skinned Moon Daughter  class, drawn from a campaign that looks like it is heavily influenced by Arctic Circle cultures and Nine Summits and the Matter of Birth , an adventure that seems to be a fantasy recasting of the Dutch and English exploration of the South China Sea with added a...

Blade of the Iron Thone is a Kickstarted successor to the Riddle of Steel . I haven't played either Riddle of Steel or Blade of the Iron Throne and I'm not sure I ever will. Primarily I was interested in Blade to have access to its mechanics as I never picked up Riddle of Steel. The basis of the system is a dice pool builder of d12s that are aiming for a target number of 7 to be considered a success. The systems mainly aim to manipulate either the number of successes required to complete a task and the number of dice that are added to the pool. The basic concept is pretty sound, this after all is basic the World of Darkness  system with a dice that is easier to roll. Unsurprisingly there is a substantial focus on combat and simulating small melee battles, there are even different hit location charts for different kinds of attacks. Interestingly there is more abstraction than I was expecting and more emphasis on a fictional conceit of looking at discrete units of interes...

Beyond the Wall aims to re-create the classic "first adventure" story of both classic fantasy stories and D&D games. A group of young and inexperienced people venture into the unknown and are tested and changed by the experience. It's looking to recreate that level 1 or level 0 experience in a rules system that is similar to AD&D 1st edition or RedBox D&D . However in an acknowledgement of more modern designs it also aims to be zero prep. There is a collection of playbooks providing tables to roll up a background with attendant stat changes on top of the basic class templates. Scenario packs build on top of this by providing a basic scenario structure with random elements to keep it fresh but within the theme chosen for the pack. These are quite neat structures for OSR play. Beyond the Wall aims to deliver a low-key fantasy experience where the fantastic awes with both fear and astonishment. It roots the adventure experience in the character's lif...

Havok Brigade is a game of elite humanoids invading a human city to perform dangerous stealthy missions behind enemy walls. It is massively influenced by Warhammer Fantasy in terms of its gothic, slightly silly, techno-fantasy. The game uses a shared pool of dice to both represent the alarm and suspicion of the humans but also a resource the orcs can dip into to help win challenges vital to their mission. The game is very focused and slight, the bulk of the game is the various character sheets of the Orc commandos. It's hard to understand what kind of game it is going to be and I suspect it will play better with people who understand the background material.

The Seclusium of Orphone of the Three Visions is a fantastic book with a title that deserves some explanation. A Seclusium is the sanctuary of a wizard. It is where they research magic, create arcane devices, study the metaverse and relax away from the world. The book deals with the vunerable phase in the lifecycle of the sanctuary of a wizard. The point where the wizard has abandoned or been forced to leave but much of the defenses and occupants of the sanctuary are still present. Orphone of the Three Visions is a wizard who has become lost in a realm of creation that leaves her in a state of orgasmic ecstasy. In doing so she leaves her creations and failed experiments to wander her laboratories. Vincent Baker has put together an amazing hardback that consists of a scene-setting essay on the relationship between wizards and their place of study and retirement from the world.This is then followed by three wizards whose have abandoned their Seclusiums. Brilliantly each wizard ...

This is an old-school adventure which starts with a good old railroad introduction. It's an interesting twist on the Dragon Warriors grim medieval feel with a bit of Roman pre-history and Viking present. The central idea of the PCs finding a dissolute prince among their adventuring companions is sound but the format of floorplan and encounter key now seems impossibly tired.

Another nice book in the Pathfinder line, an old-school style Monster Compendium. What is interesting is that it seems a lot more readable and enjoyable than the ultra-slick 4e books. I think the secret is that this is a genuine bestiary full of a variety of monsters and creatures including D&D classics and fantasy staples. It also includes some of Paizo's Lovecraft crossover creatures which are nice additions.