Wyrd Science

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 1

 U

2 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

Unboxing
The world isn’t in a particularly great place at the
moment, for all our many advances wherever you
look you’ll see war, poverty, environmental
devastation, Queens Park Rangers’ league position
and you may, quite reasonably, despair.
Wyrd Science 1/5.0

Editor, Layout & Design

John Power Jr.

All typos, grammatical errors,

So it’s entirely understandable that many of us will layout mistakes and the like
often look to games and their imaginary worlds for a are solely this guy’s fault
brief respite from reality.
Cover Artist
And yet, as we see in this issue, many of the imaginary worlds we run to make our Mat Pringle (matpringle.co.uk)
planet look like a positive paradise in comparison. And this isn’t even a particularly new
phenomenon either, as Shannon Appelcline shows us in his feature, the golden age of
heroic space RPGs barely made it out of the 1970s before it was shivved in a dirty
alleyway and left for dead by a punk in a trench coat.

Whether it’s the Kafkaesque nightmare of Paranoia, the malignant corporate

dictatorships of Cyberpunk or the absurdly grim dark far future of Warhammer 40,000,
Published by
we often choose to holiday in hell. So what is it about these dystopias that attracts us?
Best In Show Ltd
Registered Office:
Well, I’ll let the rest of the magazine attempt to answer that but just say that it’s not all
2 Western Street, Barnsley,
doom and gloom this issue and our chat with artist Tammy Nicholls shows how even the South Yorkshire, S70 2BP
most brutal of settings can inspire things of joy and wonder.
ISSN
Away from dystopias altogether we join W.F. Smith on a fantasy bar crawl, catch up with 2977-0742
Kieron Gillen to discuss the newly released DIE RPG and present you with several
extracts from one of the best books we’ve read for some time, Stu Horvath’s Monsters, Please don’t send anything to this
Aliens & Holes in the Ground. Treat yourself to a copy this Christmas, it’s great. address, you’ll just confuse and/or
scare our accountants even more
Right on that note I’m off to escape into a game myself, though perhaps after having than our bank statements do
put this issue together we best go for something cosy and lighthearted, Judge Dredd -
The Roleplaying Game it is! Get In Touch (it would be nice)
contact@wyrdscience.online
Until next time, keep rolling!
Find Us Online (& tell us to log off)
linktr.ee/wyrdscience
John Power, Editor
All rights reserved, reproduction
of any part of this magazine
without permission is prohibited

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 1

CONTRIBUTORS
Meet some of the people who made this issue happen....
Mira Manga is an editor and
writer who regularly contributes
to geek and gaming titles such
as 28 Mag and reviewing
Warhammer books on Arbitor
Ian’s YouTube channel.
Twitter @miramanga
Rob Wieland is a game designer
with over 15 years experience
including work on licensed
games including Star Wars and
Star Trek, classic game worlds
like D&D and Shadowrun
alongside his own creations.
Twitter @robowieland
2 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
Samantha Nelson has been
writing about tabletop and
video games since 2008 for
publications including The A.V.
Club, Dicebreaker and Polygon
and is a member of the Critical
Hit podcast.
Twitter: @samanthanelson1
Dan Thurot is best known for his
writing on board games, most of
which is on his site Space-Biff!
However, he'd rather be known
for being a good dad to his 2
daughters, a quieter but far more
worthy accomplishment
Web: spacebiff.com
Twitter: @DanThurot
Shannon Appelcline has been
roleplaying since his dad bought
him the Tom Moldvay B/X Basic
D&D set in the '80s and is the
author of the acclaimed
Designers & Dragons series of
books on the history of RPGs
Web: erzo.org
Mat Pringle is a Margate based
illustrator, printmaker and arts
educator whose work draws
from influences such as
folklore, cinema, music, flora
and fauna.
Web: matpringle.co.uk
Twitter @matpringle
Chris Lowry is a game designer,
author, podcaster and
publisher at Beyond Cataclysm
books. He likes games almost as
much as he likes trifle, which is
a lot
Web: beyondcataclysm.co.uk
Twitter: @cmlowryauthor
Łukasz Kowalczuk is a Polish
comic artist and illustrator
whose work has also featured
in tabletop games such as
Space Weirdos and Neon
Lords of the Toxic Wasteland
Web: lukaszkowalczuk.com
Twitter: @elkowalczuk
Table of Contents
Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 5 - AUTUMN/WINTER 2023

Quickstart / p.4-17
Get up to speed with the world of tabletop gaming as we discover an actual play show with a difference and a new club
for zine fanatics then take you from a salubrious secret speakeasy in Austin Texas to the rarefied exhibition halls of the
British Library and onto our favourite Berlin games shop...

Features / P.18-84
P.18 - Future Imperfect - Shannon Appelcline looks back over the history roleplaying games’ love affair with grim and
indeed dark dystopias
P.28 - A Party Of Adventurers... - Walton Wood speaks to W.F. Smith about the ENNIE Award winning Barkeep on the
Borderlands
P.36 - Die Another Day - Kieron Gillen returns to Wyrd Science’s pages fresh from releasing his triumphant DIE RPG
P.40 - Standees In The Way Of Control - Dan Thurot looks at three board games that tackle social and political issues
head on
P.48- Rogue Memories - We investigate the strange hauntological world of artist Tammy Nicholls and her Warhammer
40, 000 action figures
P.54 - Time To Die - Samantha Nelson chats with Tomas Härenstam, co-founder of Free League, about their new Blade
Runner RPG
P.60 - The (not quite) Hole Story - Stu Horvath provides us with 5 extracts from his essential new book on the past 50
years of RPGs, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground
P.68 - The Naked & The Dread - John Power catches up with game designer Chris McDowall to discuss his new wargame,
The Doomed
P.76 - The Cassandra Complex - Rob Wieland risks life and limb in Alpha Complex as he looks at both the history and the
new, perhaps even perfect, edition of Paranoia

Hit Points / P.86-111

From the skies above the English Channel to nefarious pocket dimensions, we scour the multiverse to bring you the the
best new RPGs, board games, wargames and more....

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 3

QUICKSTART - WORK IN PROGRESS
THE ELECTRIC STATE
Having brought us the multiple award winning RPG
adaptations of Simon Stålenhag’s Tales From the Loop and
Things From the Flood, Sweden’s Free League have now
turned their attention to another of the artist’s
narrative books, The Electric State.
Originally released back in 2018 The Electric State
tells the story of a teenage girl and her toy robot on a
road trip across an alternate 90s America, ravaged by
conflict and technological decay and now littered with
the remains of giant, surreal war machines.
Making use of the Year Zero Engine that has powered games
like Tales From the Loop and the ALIEN RPG, The Electric
State RPG has been written by the now familiar Free
League team of Nils Hintze, Tomas Härenstam, Nils Karlén
and Mattias Johnsson Haake, with graphic design and
layout by MÖRK BORG’s Johan Nohr.
'The game is a about a group of Travelers on a Road Trip
across The Electric State, or any other part of this
soon-to-be apocalyptic world,' lead writer Nils Hintze
told us. ‘One theme is about the world falling apart and
important people not being reliable, and you are one of
the few who are still doing what needs to be done. Being
human, caring, taking risks for others while the world
4 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
ART: SIMON STÅLENHAG, FREE LEAGUE
ends. Being the people who don’t do what others do, not
being part of the collapse. Upholding morals and ethics.
Facing dangers instead of choosing the easy way and
giving up.’
During the Travelers’ journey they will need to stop,
for a variety of reasons, at what are termed Locations
and this is where the game’s action will unfold.
'Think of it as an Easy Rider/ Thelma and Louise
inspired game,’ Hintze explained. ‘The game does not
force the player characters to do anything specific, they
will react in whatever way they do. There is no mystery
that needs to be solved, no monster that must be slayed
– though there can be both mysteries and monsters. What
they do when the Location and its dangers and conflicts
escalate is the story and the game.’
The Electric State arrives on Kickstarter on December 7th
and backers will receive the PDF of the book ahead of
its official publication.
THE ELECTRIC STATE
on Kickstarter from December 7
freeleaguepublishing.com
 QUICKSTART - HEX LIBRIS

FANTASY - REALMS OF IMAGINATION

Meanwhile in London the British Library are celebrating
wild flights of fancy too with their new exhibition
Fantasy - Realms of the Imagination. Running until the
25th of February 2024, the exhibition explores the
genre, from its beginnings in our myths, legends, fairy
tales and folklore right through to its modern
incarnations.

Taking in everything from the Epic of Gilgamesh and

Homer’s Iliad to the likes of Pratchett’s Discworld
novels and even the Fighting Fantasy books, Fantasy -
Realms of the Imagination traces the genre’s evolution
and the important role it has played in our cultures.

‘Fantasy is hugely influential today but it has roots

that are far older than many imagine,’ the show’s
curator Tanya Kirk explains. ‘For centuries, people
have loved stories about impossibility, and they’ve
responded to fantasy’s ability to provide us with both
an escape but also a way to view our own world from a
new perspective. This exhibition tells the story of the
genre, from its origins to the enormously rich and
diverse forms it takes today.’

The exhibition brings together rare manuscripts and

books, fantasy art and maps, costumes and props from
major films, TV series and LARPing events and, of
course, games, with both Dungeons & Dragons iconic Red
Box and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain putting in an
appearance.

Alongside the main exhibition the Library are also

hosting a series of accompanying events including talks
with authors such as Neil Gaiman, Susanna Clarke and
Alan Moore, a workshop focused on writing for
roleplaying games with Dr Anna Milon and, on the 9th of
December and in partnership with UK Games Expo, a one
day Board Games Fest that will offer attendees the
chance to try out dozens of different titles in one
place.
PHOTOS: THE BRITISH LIBRARY

FANTASY - REALMS OF IMAGINATION

until 25 Feb, 2025
British Library,96 Euston Rd., London NW1 2DB
Tickets & more information bl.uk

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 5

QUICKSTART - INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THIS WORLD
Opened in 2021, Berlin’s All The Problems In This World
quickly established itself as our go-to shop in the EU for
everything from indie RPGs and comics to esoteric art and
dungeon synth tapes. Intrigued as to who was posting the
parcels that keep turning up at our office we caught up
with Jan Utecht, the store’s owner, to find out more...
Hi Jan, All The Problems In This World has a pretty
eclectic inventory, how would you describe the shop?
Since I opened the store I’ve been asking myself how to
wrap that into one sentence. So behold, maybe the most
unpoetic line in the history of Wyrd Science: All The
Problems In This World is an owner-managed small
business, brick and mortar retail store in Berlin and
online (shipping world-wide), importing a selected range
of English language indie and small press fantasy role-
6 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
playing games, comics & graphic novels, art books and
dungeon synth.
Because since forever most people equate comics, and
maybe even roleplaying games, with kids I feel it’s also
important to point out that ATPITW sells titles for
players/readers with a certain life experience only.
Why was it important to open a physical shop?
I believe in culture and I believe that retail done well
equals culture. Owner managed stores, small businesses,
shops with a face. Just by looking at 90% of the shop
fronts these days I could start to cry. They all look
the same, uninspired, generic and just in very bad
taste, if any taste at all. And today's game shops are
among the worst! At the same time the indie and self-
publishing scene is stronger and more inspiring then
ever. This is where I saw my chance.
On top of that Berlin is a city that attracts people
from all over the world, and it is a city with a certain
atmosphere and history that I think needed a store like
All The Problems In This World. I honestly wanted to
give this city something back, it’s given me so much in
the 20 years I’ve lived here, and that something is one
of those very special little stores that every big city
used to have, but which are rarer and rarer today.
Is there much of a community around the store yet?
Unfortunately I have to say no, not yet. I didn’t know
any gamers in Berlin until I started the store, and my
group resides in the countryside where we grew up.
Another reason is that I have two kids, and as much as I
love my work, I love my kids too. So there is never much
time to organize or just do something outside daily
business. Which is a shame, because after two years it
becomes frustrating, but I believe in another two or
three years I will be able to focus a lot more on
community building.
Another important point is, of course, the shop only
sells English games, and most Germans play German games
or editions. The English scene in Berlin is pretty small
and loose, and the only reason I can run a store for such
niche products is that the store attracts mostly people
who visit the city. It was always my goal to make it a
destination point for everyone who can not afford to

order from the UK, US, South America or Asia. Unfortunately
I’ve only stocked one book from Africa so far.
But Berlin could become a great city for gamers! All it
needs is one or two dedicated people with the right
mindset. There are bars that would be happy to host
monthly gaming events. Customers keep asking me if I do
workshops, or where they can find other players, learn
how to play etc. So there is a lot of potential, and
more and more interest.
Had you any previous experience working in the industry?
No. Not at all. I’ve been playing the same RPG (The Dark
Eye/Das Schwarze Auge) since I was a teenager with the
same close group of friends. We very much stayed inside
our bubble and never crawled out. Never drove to
conventions or even visited any game stores on a regular
basis. Until I had the idea for ATPITW I hadn’t even
thought of working in the industry. I just jumped into
the cold water because I was convinced I had to do this!
What’s been the highlight of running the shop so far?
Highlight is definitely the excited customers that come
into the store. I get so much positive feedback for what
I’ve built and everybody is just very nice! Which I
anticipated a little bit, because one of the most important
things for me to decide whether I wanted to run a brick
& mortar store or not was to ask myself if I wanted to
deal day to day with the kind of customers the store
would attract? And I figured that I will attract all kinds
of people, and I liked that a lot.
And the hardest thing you’ve had to deal with?
Hmm… Dealing with UPS or DHL can be hard, they are so big
that they just don’t care. It’s exhausting and time
consuming and involved a lot of trial and error in the
beginning. The toughest thing to deal with though is
myself. I have certain qualities that are very good for
this job, but others that are not, ahahah.
What have been the biggest sellers since you opened?
That must be Mörk Borg. Thousand Year Old Vampire and
Vaults Of Vaarn sell well too but everything Mörk Borg
is very popular. In general a lot of people ask for
rules-lite systems. Not necessarily OSR, but because
QUICKSTART - INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
them or their friends are impatient and lazy, haha.
Troika! also sells pretty well.
What you have to understand about ATPITW is that I don’t
sell any D&D, nor any other of the games you find in the
popular game stores. When I started I thought I needed
to have at least a few classics and important
publications available, but since the beginning people
only ask/buy indie/small press. Which is great!
Another thing is that a small store like me, when I
order a popular title from a distro I can only afford to
order small numbers. So if something becomes popular,
and I could only afford to order 4 copies, chances are
that I will never get it again because the chains
already took all of the remaining copies. Which is what
I believe happened with that D&D Stranger Things box.
But it doesn’t matter, I stick to the publications under
their radar. The good stuff.
What plans do you have for the future?
Many! It’s just that I have so little time. Ever since I
started thinking about ATPITW the community factor was
super important for me, and still is. Fantasy RPGs have
so much potential, on an educational, psychological and
social level. With the right GM you can adapt most games
to any situation and throw people into a challenge that
will be an exciting and surprising experience!
I like the idea of inviting people with no experience to
play, but just as much bringing people together who are
searching for a new group or looking to play a certain
game, or those who are simply curious. I would love to
create a forum for that but on the scale that I have in
mind that is another full time job.
Of course I also want to start publishing one day. I see
so much exciting new stuff all the time and sometimes I
think, this I could do better or that I would do
different. I certainly need an outlet for that energy.
And I want to start showing original art, because there
is so much talent and hard working people out there and
there must be a way to show their output and help them
sell it.
ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THIS WORLD
Blücherstr. 14, 10961 Berlin, Germany
alltheproblemsinthisworld.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 7
QUICKSTART - YOU MEET IN A TAVERN...
THE TINY MINOTAUR TAVERN
Most of us will have started an adventure in a fantasy
tavern at some point in our gaming lives, few though
will have actually gone and built ourselves one. Still,
that is exactly what Dana Bauerle-McKnight has done with
Austin’s newly opened Tiny Minotaur Tavern.
The Tavern began life in 2020 as a ‘popup art
installation/micro immersive theater project’ that
Bauerle-McKnight based on her own fantasy world of Karth
and the inter-dimensional tavern ran by her mercenary
orc character Oakda Malkuth.
Originally run as an on-the-quiet speakeasy the Tiny
Minotaur Tavern quickly became a cult hit, with costumed
parties of 6 ushered inside its doors to take part in 90
minute Quests - part dining experience, part immersive
LARPs.
Thanks in no part to a feature in The Austin Chronicle
The Tavern didn’t remain a secret for long and, with
more and more people flocking to the space, McKnight was
soon on a new quest looking for a more permanent space.
Finally the new bigger Tiny Minotaur Tavern is ready to
welcome adventurers again.
‘I spent 2 years dealing with city permits, housing laws
and finally a month or 2 of exterior buildout,’ Bauerle-
McKnight explains. ’We'll still have Quests but we’ve
expanded the space to a private club, to prevent folks
8 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
PHOTOS: THE TINY MINOTAUR TAVERN
from wandering in off the street and fucking up the
vibes, and there’s walkthrough immersive spaces with a
bar and tons of room for folks to hang out and game.’
The new location on East Cesar Chavez also has space for
an on-site food truck, a dungeon synth record shop -
Engraven Records and, its latest addition, a ruined
elven temple that McKnight and her team had just finished
work on.
Alongside the ongoing Quests and weekly Magic the
Gathering Nights the Tavern’s patrons - ‘Goths,
Metalheads and Hardcore Kids, Synth-dorks, DnD gamer
nerds, Service Industry buffs and Artists’ - can now
enjoy live performances, workshops on Saturdays and a
monthly vendors market featuring local artisans,
crafters and tarot readers.
‘The biggest thing is we have over 30 contracted
artists, fabricators, musicians and actors working on
the site randomly at all times, and we pay them
equitably,’ she says.
‘Think Fantasy World Meow-wolf but without investors.’
THE TINY MINOTAUR TAVERN
2701 E. Cesar Chavez, Austin TX, 78702
tinyminotaur.com

MEEPLE POWER
It’s undeniable that the past few years have been a
boom time for tabletop games. Even before the pandemic
lit a rocket under the industry, more and more people
were flocking back to board games, TTRPGs and the like
in search of an alternative to staring at a screen.
Admittedly a lot of them have also been looking at
screens, watching other people play games but the point
still, just about, stands...
Thanks to this, more people have also been able to turn
the dream of being a games designer into a reality.
But, with the divide between amateur enthusiast and
professional often paper thin, and most game designers
working freelance, a lack of support has often left
both newcomers and veterans alike open to bad business
practices or struggling to make a mark in an
increasingly crowded market.
Hoping to help alleviate that situation is the Tabletop
Game Designers Association, a new organisation set up
by industry luminaries Elizabeth Hargrave, Sen Foong-
Lim and Geoff Engelstein. The TTGDA aims to support
those working at the coal face of games design through
advocacy, community building and professional development.
Speaking to Wyrd Science Engelstein said that on the
whole game designers have benefitted from the tabletop
game boom and that ‘crowd funding in particular has
given a new avenue for designers to get their products
QUICKSTART - HEAR YE!
in front of people’ but this had led to particular
challenges, such as ‘dealing with the flood of new games
coming out these days.’
Engelstein estimates around 4-5,000 new tabletop titles
- excluding RPGs - are released each year, making it
more important than ever for game designers to
understand how to properly pitch to publishers,
negotiate fair deals and promote their games.
Whilst the TTGDA will, at launch, focus on areas such
as contract reviews and dispute mediations with
publishers they plan to eventually offer members
discounted services, peer mentoring, host online
seminars, publish white papers, provide media relations
support and much more.
Membership will be open to game designers from all
around the world though Engelstein says that to start
with they would be focusing their work on North
America, but hope to work with like minded
organisations such as SAZ in Germany, SAJ in France, AL
in Spain and Australia’s TGDA. Expected to fully launch
in 2024 those interested can head to the TTGDA website
now to sign up for more information.
TABLETOP GAME DESIGNERS ASSOCIATION
find out more at ttgda.org
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 9
QUICKSTART - CAST POD!
MY FIRST DUNGEON
With certain actual play shows capable of selling out
arenas it’s fair to say that the medium is the public
face of the RPG scene these days. And for many that means
they will also be their first exposure to the delights of
dungeons, dragons, squid headed abominations and other
such strangeness.
One show that is taking that responsibility seriously is
My First Dungeon, to find out more we spoke to the
show’s co-founder, Brian Flaherty.
Hi Brian, can you tell us a bit about who is involved
in the show and how you got together?
The core team behind My First Dungeon is me, Elliot
Davis, Shenuque Tissera, and Abby Hepworth. We were the
GMs for the first four seasons of the podcast.
Abby was the DM for the first season of the show –she's
also my fiancee– and ran her first game ever on mic.
Shenuque was a player on another D&D podcast I ran
called The Twenty Sided Podcast and came on as the GM
10 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
for our second season where we played Honey Heist.
I met Elliot after he came to a comedy show I was
running and we both geeked out about game design. We
ended up playing his one-page TTRPG Something is Wrong
with the Chickens for our third season.
After that, the four of us just kept coming together to
make new seasons and we knew we had something special.
We made the partnership official earlier this year by
founding Many Sided Media.
Initially the plan was to have each season of the show
be a new first-time DM running their very first session
of D&D. But after we tried Honey Heist I fell in love
with indie TTRPGs and wanted to really explore that
world and all the things those games had to offer.
Can you tell us a little about the show, as it’s a bit
different to many other actual play shows out there...
My First Dungeon is a tabletop roleplaying podcast that
helps game masters learn new games and make each one
better than the last. I've always found that watching

someone else learn is a great way to learn myself. Our
goal is to lower the barrier to entry for GMs and
players who want to try new games.
Each season consists of three parts. First, we bring
together the first time GM and the creator of the game
we're playing for that season and we work to alleviate
their worries and fears and set them up for success in
their first game. There's no better resource for someone
new to a game than the person who made it.
Next we bring together a group of new and experienced
players and the GM runs the session we planned. Then we
add in music and immersive sound design and make the
game really come to life for the audience. And finally,
when the game is complete we bring everyone back to the
table to talk about what went right, what went wrong,
and how we can make the next game even better.
This is an incredibly entertaining show, but it's also
meant to be educational. I know we're successful when I
get messages from listeners telling me they just
finished their first session of a new game they were
nervous to try. That's what we want. To open people's
eyes to all the awesome games that are out there.
As you mentioned, after your first season you've been
delving more into indie RPGs, and playing games like
Honey Heist and Orbital Blues.
How do you go about choosing a new title to try out, is
there something in particular that you look for in a
game?
We put a lot of care and love into this show and we
look for the same thing in the games that we play. One
thing that we always look for in a game is when every
aspect of the design –the mechanics, the artwork, the
writing, the layout– are all in service of the
experience that game is trying to elicit.
We always point to 10 Candles by Stephen Dewey as a
great example of this. It's a game of tragic horror and
every single aspect of that game is reinforcing that
experience.
When games are designed that well it takes so much work
off the GM's plate and sets them up for success in the
same way we’re trying to do with this show.
QUICKSTART - CAST POD!
What’s been your favourite moment so far?
It's a bit cliche, but my favorite moment is always the
one I'm working on right now. Honestly, all the seasons
offer something different.
So if after reading this someone is going to check out
My First Dungeon is there any season in particular
you'd recommend they start with?
DIE was our first really epic multi-episode season and
tells an amazing story, Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast is a
slice-of-life audio cartoon that will brighten your
day, 10 Candles is a game of tragic horror where
everyone dies (we also won an award for the sound
design of that one). What's great about this show is
that there's something for everyone.
If forced to pick a good first season, I'd say start
with DIE. It's an amazing game with something for
everyone and we really leveled up every aspect of the
show with that season.
One of your stated aims is to "help players learn new
games" so for people who are nervous about dipping into
new RPG systems, what's your top tip for getting your
head around a new game or introducing one to your
group?
There is a sign in a cafe that I frequent in the West
Village that says, "Go look a fool. Tis the secret of a
wise man." Put another way: Just do it. And I know,
that's kind of the worst advice. It's the advice no one
wants to hear because there's no trick to it. But it's
also the best advice.
You will learn so much faster by just doing the thing
and messing up once or twice. And if you listen to the
show you'll realize pretty quickly that picking up a
new game is a lot easier than you think.
The motto of My First Dungeon is "If you're having fun,
you're already doing it right." That's the most
important thing we want listeners to take away from the
show.
Find a game you're excited about, learn it as best you
can, then go and have fun. We mess up rules all the
time. It has never stopped us from having fun. And in
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 11
QUICKSTART - CAST POD!
the end, that's why we started playing the game in the
first place.
There's been a lot of talk about how actual play shows
might develop, especially with an influx of money and
outside media interest, how do you see the form
evolving over the next couple of years?
Oh man, I could–and do–talk about this for HOURS. I
encourage you to listen to our TTRPG talk show Talk of
the Table to hear my ever-evolving thoughts on this
topic.
I think the thing that will start to disappear is the
idea of "we're just friends around a table" that
started with –and was perfected by– Critical Role. The
medium has evolved beyond that. Listeners expect more
than that.
Just in the podcasting world, shows like My First
Dungeon, Worlds Beyond Number, Planet Arcana and Rude
Tale of Magic have demonstrated what is possible with
music and sound design and I think most listeners will
no longer be satisfied with just hearing people play
a home game. The shows that will find success are the
ones that consider the audience and make them an
integral part of their production process.
LISTENERS WILL NO
LONGER BE SATISFIED
WITH JUST HEARING
PEOPLE PLAY A HOME GAME
You can already see this happening. The new shows that
are finding traction are the ones that are going that
extra mile for their audience. And speaking as a listener
of a lot of actual plays, I always appreciate it.
Slightly flipping that question, a lot of actual play
shows still run their games using D&D 5E whether it's a
good fit for what they're trying to do or for actual
plays at all. We're now starting to see more people
design games with APs in mind, how do you see game
design changing in response to the rise of these shows?
We talked about this in depth on an episode of Talk of
the Table with Caleb Zane Huett and Sean Ireland who
12 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
made Triangle Agency. I think when game designers
design with actual play in mind they start to consider
how the act of playing the game would appear to an
audience outside the table. When you also consider the
audience who is watching, rather than just the people
playing, some things become clear.
Mechanics should be simple so there isn't a lot of dead
air while players do math, abilities should be as
"cinematic" as possible so the audience can imagine the
action, and every aspect of the game should serve to
heighten the experience the game is trying to simulate.
All those things are boons for both the players at the
table and the audience watching or listening in.
Designing with APs in mind will improve just about
every game out there–for both the players and the
audience.
And I still think there's an audience for games with
more crunch, but even those games will be more aware of
when crunch is fun and exciting and enhances the story
and when it's just math.
And finally, what do you have planned for next year?
We haven't announced what games we'll be playing yet,
but the biggest thing we're doing is continuing our
trend of making each actual play 6-8 episodes instead
of just a one shot. Every single time we finished a one-
shot we just wanted to keep playing, so we just decided
next year we'll actually just keep playing.
Our DIE and Orbital Blues seasons have been so
incredibly fun and we have loved getting to explore
those games and those characters in greater depth in a
way that only a proper campaign allows.
But no matter the game you can always expect our award-
winning sound design, amazing original music by BE/HOLD
(our resident musician we affectionately refer to as
our version of Dimension 20's Rick Perry), and
incredible stories weaved together by spectacular
players having a ton of fun.
Because if you're having fun, you're already doing it
right.
To explore My First Dungeon
and discover their other shows
head to manysidedmedia.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 13
QUICKSTART - ZINE SCENE!
RPG ZINE CLUB
The RPG community may have stretched the definition of
the word zine to near breaking point but there’s no
denying the enduring, and indeed increasing, popularity
of the format. Whilst Kickstarter’s ZineQuest, and the
indie community’s own alternative Zine Month, provide
great opportunities to rapidly expand your collections,
those looking for a more sustainable option should
check out the newly launched RPG Zine Club.
Created by the team behind the popular YouTube channel
Plus One EXP, RPG Zine Club is a new, monthly subscription
service launching this autumn. Every month will see
them publish two brand new RPG zines from both well
known and new faces, one powered by story game systems
like PBTA, Carved from Brindlewood & Belonging Outside
Belonging with the other featuring adventures designed
for games such as D&D B/X, Cairn, Down We Go, Mörk Borg
or Mothership.
Getting things going the first month sees the release of
Spin The Bottle/Guys In Chairs, a 2-in-1 zine by
Superdillin and Navaar Jackson’s apocalyptic survival
game The Corrupted. Looking forward future months will
see the likes of Die, Grave Robber Die by Michael Van
14 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
Vleet, Primadonna by Kyle Tam and Kayla Dice’s Fear the
Taste of Blood heading out to subscribers. To find out
more we checked in with Plus One EXP’s Tony Vasinda...
Hi Tony, why do you think the zine is such a popular,
and important, format for RPGs and especially for new
game designers?
I could spill a lot of ink here but portability,
accessibility, and style are the main three for me.
For portability, yes they are easy to carry around, but
portability of concept is really the focus here. Zines
are lean by nature. This makes the concepts and
mechanics focused and easy to mix. Grab a few zines you
like off the shelf and start thinking about how they
work together and interact with each other. It's
typically pretty easy.
Accessibility is really about cost & scope. It's an
affordable format to print in. Hardbacks are 2-5x as
much and it keeps the page count down. The lower page
count means clearer focus and an easy starting point
for new designers.
 QUICKSTART - ZINE SCENE!

Lastly, style is an amazing feature of the zine

format. They are pieces of art, compact forms of
expression, & a format that was built with the goal
of saying something important. Zines are steeped in
RPG culture and RPG culture is steeped in zines.

Are you just distributing these zines or actually

publishing them?

We are the publishers or co-publishers of everything

coming out of Zine Club. The creators still maintain
ownership of their zines and the rights to digitally
distribute on other platforms.

We do work with our creators to build a window of

exclusivity on the release, but as a big champion of
creator's rights we want this to be a platform and
community that builds equity directly for the creators.

So what’s the deal, how much does a subscription cost?

It depends on how often you set your subscription for,
but it's $18 for a 1 zine subscription and $34.50-ish
for the 2 zine for the physical + pdf level, but we
also have a more affordable digital option for $9 and
about $16 respectively.
And is the club only open to people in the US or do you
ship internationally?
Zine Club is ABSOLUTELY FOR EVERYONE!
orders. The goal here isn't restricting the titles or
manufacturing exclusivity. It's building a space where
we can all invest in emerging creative voices.
What else does a subscription get, apart from the zines
each month?
Besides the satisfaction of impacting the lives of
dozens of creators a year, we are in the process of
building out some great extras.

Currently, however, we only ship from the US. We have
good international rates and have it set up so you can
pay any duties in advance or on delivery based on live
rate shopping. This is also one of the reasons we
wanted to ensure that there was a digital option so
shipping costs wouldn't impede folks from signing up.
At launch, you get access to a special community
discord for club members, access to exclusive Q&As with
the designers, and other digital resources. You will
also get access to discounted add-ons like our Zine
Club Passport, existing titles, and our bespoke balms
in your subscription portal.

We are also trying to establish a handful of
international shipping partners in 2024 who have a
similar passion and vision as our team does to make
shipping more affordable for international Club
members.
Will non-subscribers be able to buy the zines at all?
Yes! But club members get them at the lowest possible
cost and get them shipped out a week ahead of general
Coming next year we will be adding in a site wide
discount for club members and are working on a loyalty
program for Club exclusive merch. We are super excited
to be working with the club to find out what the
community wants to see and give them a voice in future
publications.
RPG ZINE CLUB
is accepting new members now
subscribe at plusoneexp.com

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 15

QUICKSTART - LOOT DROP

LOOT DROP: CHRISTMAS EDITION

Being a selection of six fine, if
with one exception not hugely 1 I’ll be honest we’re
festive, items we would not be at not the biggest fans of
all mad to find waiting for us under novelty Christmas
the Christmas tree this year. jumpers here at Wyrd
Science. They always
We suggest circling as appropriate smack of enforced
and leave lying this magazine joviality and we’re not
around the house for someone to particularly good at the
stumble across... unforced kind. Still,
perhaps that explains
why we are quite taken
by this number from
2000AD featuring old
stoneyface himself,
Judge Dredd.

shop.2000ad.com

2 Portuguese RPG publisher Games Omnivorous has form

when it comes to vinyl releases, having previously given
us the gameable Putrescence Regnant and Death Robot
Jungle LPs. Electric Mangrove is the latest addition to
their eclectic range and features 10 delirious tracks
of psychedelic electro-space-jazz-rock on splattered
vinyl, perfect to accompany both your post-turkey nap
and the equally out-there, tropical sci-fi setting and
adventure you’ll find inside the gatefold cover.

gamesomnivorous.com

3 One of the few things keeping us

on whatever Twitter is called these
days is Adam Rowe’s 70s Sci-Fi Art
account, where he curates the best art
from the golden age of sci-fi
paperbacks by the likes of Chris Foss
and Virgil Finlay. But now even that
excuse is gone as his new book Worlds
Beyond Time brings much of that
astonishing art together in one place,
from strange alien landscapes to even
stranger alien creatures and beyond,
stunning.

linktr.ee/70sscifiart

16 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

 QUICKSTART - LOOT DROP

4 Ever tried to explain to someone

that your first games console had faux
wood paneling? Now you can prove that’s
not just the delusional ramblings of
a frail mind as Atari release the
2600+, a fully backwards compatible
recreation of their iconic 70s time
waster that comes packaged with 10 of
the console’s most famous games.
Somewhere in New Mexico millions of
buried E.T. cartridges stir restlessly.

atari.com

5 Sticking with all things delightfully

retro, just in time for this year’s
festivities Dark Horse have published Tim
Johnson’s LEGO Space: 1978-1992, a wonderful
looking art book that tells the story of our
favourite range of boldly going, boldly
coloured bricks.

darkhorse.com

6 Finally, fancy something a little

more bespoke? Works of Whimsy make all
kinds of die-cut wood RPG related objects
and particularly catching our eye was
this near 40” high polyhedral dice stack,
perfect for gently illuminating all those
games you’re definitely going to get round
to playing at some point.

worksofwhimsystudios.com

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 17

18 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
IMP ER FEC T
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO OUR DREAMS OF A BETTER, BRIGHTER TOMORROW?

WHERE ONCE WE LOOKED TO THE FUTURE WITH HOPE IN OUR EYES, OUR
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE HAVE BECOME INCREASINGLY DARKER, A STATE OF
AFFAIRS REFLECTED IN BOOKS, FILMS, TV AND, OF COURSE, TABLETOP GAMES.

RPG HISTORIAN SHANNON APPELCLINE CRACKS

OPEN THE ARCHIVE TO LOOK AT HOW ROLEPLAYING
GAMES WENT FROM GOLDEN EMPIRES AMONGST
THE STARS TO THE GRIMMEST OF DARK DYSTOPIAS
AND THE LIKES OF PARANOIA, CYBERPUNK AND
WARHAMMER 40,000 DITCHED THE SIMPLE
HEROISM OF SPACE OPERA TO HOLD UP A BLACK
MIRROR TO OUR OWN WORLD.

ART: ŁUKASZ KOWALCZUK

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 19

 1977-1987
THE FUTURE’S SO BRIGHT
The dark future. It’s been a popular and varied roleplaying genre across the decade,
but things didn’t start out that way.

If fantasy roleplaying arose from sword and sorcery stories, then science-fiction
roleplaying rose out of Golden Age science fiction. GDW’s Traveller (1977) RPG, the
first SFRPG to dominate the category, led the way. Because of his avid reading of
Astounding Science-Fiction magazine (1930-Present) and its peers, designer Marc
Miller drew on the classic works of Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, H.
Beam Piper, Jack Vance, and others when creating his universe of Charted Space.

Traveller wasn’t the only one: “space opera” was the byword for many early SFRPGs,
including Space Quest (1977), Star Frontiers (1982), Universe (1982) … and most
obviously Space Opera (1980). These were bright tales of gleaming starships, upright
heroes, and naively innocent exploration.

Even when early SFRPGs went further afield in their inspirations, they cleaved to
equally bright, colorful, and ultimately hopeful stories — most often the diverse
utopia of Gene Rodenberry’s Federation, seen in early games such as Starships &
Spacemen (1978) or the licensed Star Trek games from Heritage (1978) and FASA (1982).

Even in settings such as Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo (1977) or West End
Games’ later Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (1987), the oppressive villains were
destined to be defeated in the end.

The one theoretical darkness to lay across this

Golden Age was the idea of a post-apocalyptic
future, first explored in James Ward’s Gamma World
(1978). But Ward’s world of weird mutants and
robots still lay closer to four-color inspirations such
as Jack Kirby’s Kamandi (1972-1978) than to realistic
visions such as Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957)
and so, for now, the future remained bright.

If there’s one thing that the Golden Age of Science

Fiction taught us though, it’s that no empire lasts
forever.

Even as the early crown of SFRPGs was being

passed down from Traveller to Star Frontiers
and then to Star Wars, darker pretenders were
rising in the shadows: one on a distant island,
others in the pages of a multitude of new
fictional subgenres. They would soon overthrow
the Golden Age games, leading to a much
darker interregnum.

20 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

 1983-1987
ANSELL’S TARNISHED HAMMER
Surprisingly, the earliest threads leading us towards a dark future spun out of the
fantasy genre. When Bryan Ansell led the creation of the Warhammer world for first
Warhammer Fantasy Battle (1983) and then Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (1986) he
combined gritty European history with sword and sorcery authors, such as Michael
Moorcock and Robert E. Howard, who had once upon a time influenced the creation
of Dungeons & Dragons (1974) as well. The difference was that Ansell stuck with those
inspirations, rather than be seduced by the heroic themes of high fantasy, resulting
in roleplaying’s first great grimdark setting.

That became relevant to the science-fiction side of the roleplaying field with Games
Workshop’s release of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (1987), a science-fiction
wargame that inherited setting ideas from Warhammer Fantasy and that trended
toward individual roleplaying, much like OD&D’s predecessor, Chainmail (1971).

Though Rogue Trader recognized Golden Age science-fiction tropes, it twisted them.
There was an ancient Imperium of the stars but it was ruled by a, possibly dead,
tyrant. The human navies and armies of games like Traveller were replaced by
legions of faceless Space Marines. Inquisitors, assassins, and other miscreants
peopled the Imperium. It was not a universe of heroes, but instead survivors.

Rogue Trader should have been the first great dark future
roleplaying game, but Games Workshop was seeing too much
success from miniatures sales, and so they rebuilt it in a
second edition (1993) as a much more traditional wargame,
without the roleplaying elements. It’d thus be years before
Warhammer 40K returned to roleplaying realms.

But Rogue Trader wasn’t alone. By the mid ’80s, the

Golden Age of Science Fiction was rapidly fading in the
rear-view mirror, and much of the roleplaying field was
looking toward newer sources to help make their SFRPGs
more relevant to the modern day. This resulted in
roleplaying publishers experimenting with a
variety of new science-fiction subgenres,
including anime, hard science-fiction,
military science-fiction, dystopian social
commentary, and science-fiction horror.

It was the first great Diaspora within the SFRPG

field. Those publishers wouldn’t converge on a
new foundational genre for SFRPGs, as they
previously had with Golden Age science-
fiction, but their somewhat disparate sub-
genres did nonetheless had one thing in common:
the future was growing darker.

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 21

 1984-1991
LET SLIP THE DOGS
The dark future began with warfare. Certainly, there had been military themes in
Traveller from the get-go, beginning with Book 4: Mercenary (1978) and continuing on
through Traveller’s first metaplot event, the Fifth Frontier War. But, the warfare of the
Diaspora era was grittier and more realistic — and also more central to its game designs.

Though the genre of military science-fiction dates back to at least Robert Heinlein’s
Starship Troopers (1959), it had grown increasingly popular in the ’70s with works
such as Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War (1974) and David Drake’s Hammer’s
Slammers (1979) — the latter based on Drake’s own experiences in the Vietnam War.
But, when military science-fiction dawned upon the roleplaying field, it would
draw upon a second subgenre: giant robot anime, which mades its debut in the
RPG field with the release of Mekton (1984), but which would quickly over-
shadowed by a darker, even more militaristic successor.

That was Battletech (1984) a game of warring factions of the future. The Star
League had fallen, technology was lost, and giant robot mechs were now
fighting a never-ending war. Though Battletech was primarily a wargame, like
Rogue Trader it had some roleplaying elements, here thanks to a focus on
individual pilots. Those pilots would be more fully integrated into individual
roleplay with the release of Mechwarrior (1986).

Battletech wasn’t the only game of the ’80s to darken its science fiction with
grittier warfare. GDW’s second SFRPG, Traveller: 2300 (1986), later updated as
2300AD (1988), was not only a harsher-edged, more realistic SFRPG, but it
also focused on the war with the alien kafers. Similarly, their Twilight: 2000
(1984) brought military science-fiction to a harsh post-apocalyptic future.

However, the original Traveller has been the best bellwether of the industry as it has
changed over the years. Where it had once been a game of the pure Golden Age, in
the era of the science-fiction Diaspora it was a replaced with a second edition,
MegaTraveller (1987), which had grown dark and grim. The Emperor had been
assassinated, the beneficent Imperium shattered, and the background become
one of warfare between factions vying for control. Over the course of the
edition’s run, Charted Space eventually descended into Hard Times (1991), where
technology was failing and the lights of hundreds of worlds were guttering out.

Ultimately, the warfare of military RPGs would have a limited life span in the
industry, with the themes fading in the ’90s. That was reflected by the last
major science-fiction/military hybrid of the era: the Aliens Adventure Game
(1991). Though publisher Leading Edge Games focused on the military
elements of the Aliens movie (1986), it was also based on the psychological
and body horror of the original Alien (1979).

Horror would be a growing theme in the ’90s, but science-fiction roleplaying

had a few more dark futures to explore first.

22 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

 1984-1993
I T TAKES A DYSTOPIA
Contemporary with the roleplaying industry’s first explorations of realistic military
science-fiction, a few publishers were exploring a totally different sort of dark
future: the social satire of dystopias. They were the stories of humanity’s worst
instincts made into near-future realities.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Games Workshop got the ball rolling here, just as they
were doing with Warhammer around the same time. After all, the British psyche had
been bombarded with cynical predictions of the future from a young age in the
2000 AD comic (1977-Present). As a result, Games Workshop decided to adapt one of
2000 AD’s best-known anti-heroes into the Judge Dredd board game (1982). But this
time, a full roleplaying game followed in short order, Judge Dread: The Role-playing
Game (1985). One of the earliest dark futures in the field was thus a satire focusing
on fascism, authoritarianism, and the militarization of police forces.

Meanwhile, West End Games was working on what would become the industry’s
best-known dystopia: Paranoia (1984), the story of Alpha Complex and its
paranoid (and insane) computer overlord. It was memorably released in the year
of George Orwell’s 1984 (1948) and similarly told a story of a government that
not only lies to its citizens, but gets them to actually believe those lies.

Today, catch phrases from the game such as “The computer is your friend”
and “Trust the computer” are just as memorable as “War is peace”, “Freedom
is slavery”, “Ignorance is strength”, and other double-speak quotes from 1984.
The future of Paranoia was so dark that it encouraged players to entirely
distrust their fellows and to accept the, almost certainly, impending death
of their own characters.

It would be another decade before the release of the industry’s third great dystopian
satire, Ray Winninger’s Underground (1993). In this dark future, corporations had
grown all powerful and were not only rewriting the Constitution of the United States
of America, but were even growing people for sale in fast food restaurants —
revealing the infamous Soylent Green (1973) as yet another inspiration.

But Underground’s story was bigger that: it gathered together the many
diasporic threads of the darkening science fiction of the ’80s and early ’90s into
a single game. It wasn’t just a dystopia that commented on the growing
power of corporations, but also a reaction to military RPGs, since its heroes
were veterans who had been abandoned in their retirement and who
suffered from mental trauma because of their service.

Beyond that, Underground was also Winninger’s reaction to the next big
dark-future trend: between its mega-corporations and the implanted
technologies that granted the heroes of Underground powerful (yet
corrosive) abilities, Underground was very much an answer to the growing
cyberpunk revolution.

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 23

 1988-1997
YOU FEELING LUCKY, CYBERPUNK?
Just as science-fiction roleplaying games began flirting with military science-fiction
and with dystopic social commentary, a new, dark subgenre was emerging in other
media. Perhaps it started with the noir stylings of Blade Runner (1982), but the new
cyberpunk subgenre fully emerged in books such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer
(1984) and Bruce Sterling’s anthology Mirrorshades (1986). Technologically, these new
stories were about humans “cyber” interfacing with computers; but it was the
“punk” theming that was more important: these were stories of underdogs rebelling
against all-powerful mega-corporations, trying to rediscover their humanity in an
era where they could no longer trust even their own bodies.

Mike Pondsmith has long been one of the greatest futurists of the roleplaying
industry, always able to see the newest trends just as they’re emerging. That’s how
he was able to produce Mekton even before the publication of Battletech. He was
even more successful this time around with his publication of Cyberpunk (1988). It
was a dark, urban science-fiction game: our nearest tomorrow gone horribly wrong.
It was Judge Dredd or Paranoia for the next generation, this time without the humor
or the satire: just a dark, dystopian look at the future, and a need to rebel against it.

Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk was the biggest innovation for science-fiction roleplaying

games since the publication of Traveller over a decade earlier. It caused a revolution:
afterward, Golden Age science-fiction was as dead as Isaac Asimov’s grand
Imperium, and cyberpunk became the new foundation for the genre. Many
more cyberpunk games followed, among them Cyberspace (1989),
Shatterzone (1993), and Zero (1997), though the biggest success was actually
a science fantasy dark future: FASA’s Shadowrun (1989).

Again, it was GDW who best demonstrated the changing tides of the
time. Not only did their gritty 2300AD game embrace cyberpunk’s
new humanity-stripping technologies in its Earth/Cybertech
Sourcebook (1989), but their original Traveller game also got another
reboot, replacing MegaTraveller with Traveller: The New Era (1993). Though
new line editor Dave Nilsen fought against claims that Traveller was being
made into Cyberpunk, the future had definitely grown very dark: the
Imperium had entirely fallen, with Humaniti just now reaching for the
stars once more, but there they’d meet a sentient computer virus that
still wanted to destroy everything. Even Nilsen admitted that Traveller
had arrived “at the precipice to look over into the abyss”.

The dark future pioneered by Cyberpunk would dominate science-

fiction roleplaying throughout the ’90s, after which it would sputter
out in part because Mike Pondsmith headed over to the real world of
computer design for a few years. But it wasn’t the only shadow
laying across the era: even those space operas that weren’t adopting
cyberpunk tropes, as 2300AD and Traveller did, were darkening
thanks to the biggest roleplaying success story of the ’90s.

24 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

 1991-1999
THE WHITE WOLF EFFECT
The biggest change in gaming in the ’90s was the advent of the White Wolf
Publishing, who burst onto the scene with Vampire: The Masquerade (1991). Though
Vampire was a horror roleplaying game, it changed the look and feel of all role-
playing designs through its inclusion of short fiction and distinctive artwork that
each helped to frame the (horrific) themes of its games.

These new trends led to the next set of major science-fiction roleplaying releases, all
from White Wolf and its associates. They were just as dark as the cyberpunk that
continued to dominate this era, but they tended to find that darkness between the
stars, rather than in the shadows and alleys of a corporate Earth.

HōL (1994) led the way, and it was the most unusual of the set because it was a
reprint (1995) by White Wolf based on an original by Dirt Merchant Games. In many
ways, HōL was a social satire like Judge Dredd, Paranoia, and Underground, except
that it was located in outer space. There, player characters were trapped on a penal-
planet/garbage-dump. It was a game about the disposability of humanity, a suitably
dystopian theme, but also a parody of the entire roleplaying field.

Fading Suns (1996), by former White Wolf designers Bill Bridges and Andrew
Greenberg, was the biggest release of the era. It told of a space-opera universe fallen
into deep neglect and despair, as technology died, civilization fell, and stars
sputtered out. Its feudal design filled the gap that had been revealed but never filled
by Rogue Trader a decade earlier.

It could have been the next great SFRPG, if not for the fact that it was fighting against
the tide of Magic: The Gathering (1993) on the one side and the d20 boom (2000) on
the other. Almost nothing new prospered in the late ’90s, and unfortunately that
ultimately included Fading Suns.

White Wolf themselves never quite managed their own dark-future SFRPG. They
worked on a “moody” space opera called Exile, which would be set in the “Null
Cosm”, but that got derailed by an economic downturn caused in part by Magic: The
Gathering.

By the time White Wolf returned with a new game initially called Æon, they decided
not to go straight up against the grimdark space opera of Fading Suns and instead
produced Trinity (1997), a game of futuristic psionic heroes. Despite being set after
Earthly catastrophes, Trinity still used bywords such as “hope”, “sacrifice”, and
“unity”.

As a result, it was Bridges and Greenberg, not White Wolf proper, who had the last
say on dark science-fiction in the ’90s. Moreso, it was the last word before the dark
interregnum of the ’80s and ’90s finally came to an end — allowing brighter futures
to once again contend against the shadows.

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 25

 2000-NOW
SECOND DIASPORA
Two things happened in the early ’00s that dramatically changed the face of
roleplaying. The first was the advent of digital publishing, which became a method
for mass-market releases with the appearance of online stores RPGnow (2001) and
DriveThruRPG (2004). This, along with the simultaneous development of print-on-
demand (POD) technology, dramatically lowered the barriers for entry into the
market, which meant that publishers could now produce more games that
interested them and less that followed the next big trend.

The second was an increasing nostalgia in the industry. Part of this was a natural
result of aging: the college students of the ’70s and even the younger kids of the ’80s,
who had left the hobby as they had kids of their own, were now returning. This
process was accelerated by the publication of D&D 3e (2000), which was sufficiently
popular to attract lapsed fans and sufficiently different from earlier versions of
Dungeons & Dragons to send those fans hunting back after the games that had first
gotten them into the hobby.

What followed was a second Diaspora of science-fiction roleplaying games, even

more diverse and scattered than the first. As part of that Diaspora, golden-age
science-fiction made their first major resurgence since the ’80s after that long, dark
interregnum. As usual, that trend can be tracked through new iterations of the
Traveller game. It first returned in universal systems such as
GURPS Traveller (1998), T20 (2002), and Hero Traveller
(2007). By the late ’00s the renaissance of Golden Age
SFRPGs was strong enough that it didn’t need to lean
on universal systems. Traveller thus returned with its
own game system in two editions (2008, 2016) both
from Mongoose Publishing.

The Golden Age resurgence could also be seen in

the OSR, a fan-led movement to bring “clones”
of older games back into print. The OSR soon
began to mold those games into new forms,
such as new science-fiction games based on
D&D mechanics, including Stars without
Number (2010) and White Star (2015). These
neo-classics cleaved much closer to the Golden
Age than the Dark Future.

However, that doesn’t mean the dark future was

gone. It still made it shadowy presence felt, but
unlike in the ’90s — which had grown entirely
dark with its cyberpunk and White-Wolf-
infused imaginations — the dark future of
the modern day was just one flavour of
science fiction among many.

26 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

Much of the darkness of the ’10s came from Europe. That began with Warhammer
40K, which finally came into its own not just as an RPG, but rather as a whole series
of roleplaying games, among them: Dark Heresy (2008) with its religious zealots;
Rogue Trader (2009) and its merchants working beyond the borders and laws of the
Imperium; Deathwatch (2010) and its Space Marines; Black Crusade (2011) and its
chaos-corrupted villains; and Only War (2012) and its Imperial Guardsmen. It had
taken decades, but the future had never been darker. Even when the first iteration of
the Warhammer 40K RPGs faded into the shadows, they were replaced by a new
game that covered the entire Warhammer 40K universe, Wrath & Glory (2018).

Meanwhile, Swedish RPGs had emerged onto the international scene in the ’10s.
These games had taken a dark turn due to the nearby influence of Warhammer in
previous decades. The result was game such as the horrific science-fiction of Coriolis
(2017), where madness lay amidst the stars, and Mutant: Year Zero (2014), a post-
apocalyptic game that more fully embraced a dark fight for survival than the early
offerings of the ’70s and ’80s. Licensed games of dark futures such as Blade Runner
(2022) and Alien (2019) would similarly emerge from Swedish shores.

The cyberpunk subgenre that was so strong in the ’90s has been replaced by a new
category: transhumanism. It extended the cybernetic ideas of cyberpunk to their
ultimate culmination, with humanity transcending the confines of their own bodies
and becoming mental entities. The new subgenre’s fictional precursors dated all the
way back to the original Blade Runner movie and its questions of what was human,
but it had ticked up in the 21st century with authors such as Charles Stross and
Alastair Reynolds.

By that time, it was also being seen in games such as Eclipse Phase
(2009) and the Transhuman Space (2002) setting for GURPS.
However, along the way transhumanism lost much of the
darkness and grittiness of cyberpunk. Though many modern
transhuman stories incorporated the idea of an apocalyptic
singularity where AIs rose up against humanity, the post-
scarcity futures that followed were often the
opposite of hopelessness.

But that doesn’t mean that cyberpunk was dead.

In fact, the original Cyberpunk RPG may be the most
popular dark future to emerge out of the roleplaying field,
primarily thanks to Mike Pondsmith’s push to move his game into
the video game field. Despite initial deployment problems, the
Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) was wildly popular, ticking up to over a million
simultaneous players within hours of its release. That in turn
brought the original game back to the tabletop, this time as
Cyberpunk RED (2020).

Though there may today be a wide spectrum of SFRPGs, releases

such as Warhammer 40K: Wrath & Glory, Cyberpunk RED,
and any number of licensed media releases prove that
the future remains as dark as ever!

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 27

28 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
A PARTY OF
ADVENTURERS
WALK
INTO
A BAR…
…the punchline is that they’re not looking for a quest—they’re
already on one.
So goes The Barkeep on the Borderlands. Conceived, and
primarily penned, by W.F. Smith —joined by a veritable who’s
who of indie RPG writers like Ava Islam (Errant), Marcia B.
(Fantastic Medieval Campaigns), Zedeck Siew (A Thousand
Thousand Islands) and Chris McDowall (Electric Bastionland)
among several other— Barkeep is the 2023 ENNIE Gold winner
in the Best Supplement category. And it’s a winner for very
good reason. Actually, a lot of good reasons.
The adventure’s premise is that the Monarch has been
poisoned, and they emptied the royal coffers to purchase an
antidote—which never arrived. It was instead accidentally
delivered to one of the setting’s many taverns. The party (the
aptly named ‘jolly crew’) must find the antidote before six
days are up. That’s easier said than done since the next six
days are also the annual festival of the Raves of Chaos, so
absolutely everybody will be out on the town.
The adventurers will have the opportunity to explore no less
than twenty different taverns, each with its own unique
concept and random tables of staff, regulars and signature
drinks. Each bar brims with a unique character and style. For
Smith’s part, many of them are based on his old haunts.
Taverns, inns, bars and pubs are the stuff of fantasy games and
the Ennie Award winning Barkeep on the Borderlands is full of
them. Walton Wood gets a round in with its creator, W.F. Smith,
to learn more about both the real world and folkloric influences
behind the module’s many hostelries...
Art: Sam Mameli (opposite, p.30, p.32), Keny Widjaja (p.31) and
Connor Ricks (p.34) - courtesy of Prismatic Wasteland
‘Almost every bar I wrote is inspired by a bar in my college
town, although very loosely as there are no phoenixes in any
rafters of the bars,’ Smith said. ‘Real life bars served as
inspirations for even the stranger pubs like Someone’s
Apartment (inspired by an eight-day-long party my friends
and I threw at a friend’s apartment until the friend, and their
neighbors, tired of our rambunctiousness), Quasi-Parliament
(a 200-year-old debate hall that is maintained by an
extemporaneous debate society and, downstairs, allegedly
operates a small, secret bar [and operated as a speakeasy
during Prohibition, accordingly to local lore]), and the Royal
Wine Cellar (not an actual prison, just a basement bar near city
hall that had iron bars on all its windows and a definite
dungeon vibe).
‘The most direct inspiration was probably Our Lady of the
Sacred Speakeasy, which was inspired by Sister Louisa’s
Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium. I’ve
played ping pong in the back room of that bar while wearing
old choir robes many-a-night.’
If any particular bar strikes a GM’s fancy, they have carte
blanche to lift it out and drop it into their own game. But tying
them all together, as the setting for a coherent and self-
contained adventure, are Barkeep’s timeline and pub-crawling
procedure.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 29
That timeline consists of a day-by-day
rundown of the Raves’ events, currently
circulating rumors and the location of the
antidote, which gets passed around a fair
bit thanks to the machinations of various
NPCs. It all culminates in both the end of
the Raves and of the Monarch’s life,
creating a compelling ticking-clock plot
device that keeps the PCs hustling around
town in pursuit of their prize.
That quest is both supported and complicated by
the module’s pub-crawl procedure, which measures
gameplay in turns: indistinct amounts of time needed to
perform actions like traveling between taverns and drinking
therein. Each turn, the GM rolls a Risk Die, which indicates
whether revels continue as normal, if the characters need to
refresh their drinks or if a Setback occurs.
When drinking, players will roll a Sobriety Die, the
workhorse of the drinking mechanics that
Smith developed in reaction to pervasive
homebrew 5e drinking rules. Using the
latter, characters receive mounting
penalties until their inebriation ultimately
grants them damage reduction. Smith sees
this as too proscriptive: either avoid
drinking at all costs, or powergame and
build a character that thrives on alcohol-
induced resilience.
Barkeep’s solution is a more balanced risk-reward
system. Based on their constitution (or equivalent attribute),
characters are assigned a base die ranging from d8 to d12.
When they roll that die and get a result of 1–3, their die
downgrades one step, and they suffer some perks and
detriments, both social and physical, depending on their level
of inebriation. They can spend a turn drinking water, which
lets them bump their die back up a step, or they can
double down and and dive deeper into their
cups.
Why would anyone do the latter? Because
they’re in a bar during a festival, of course.
Anyone who isn’t indulging will draw
suspicion from other revelers and tavern
keepers, and that will ultimately make
their pursuit of the antidote more difficult.
And even if they are drinking, the jolly crew
must still contend with ambient events that
can threaten to throw them off course.
30 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
Setbacks punctuate the main quest with
interesting, colorful occurrences. When
moving between or hanging out within
taverns, the jolly crew may encounter
random Sidetracks and Situations,
respectively. Some of these offer
opportunities to expedite or advance their
quest, including connecting with
important NPCs.
Some Setbacks are self-contained, while others
intersect faction activities or lead the jolly crew to
other taverns, tying the various setting elements together into
a living, breathing whole. That’s no mean feat for a project
with so many contributors.
‘Each pub went through probably 3.5 or so revisions and
connections started to be added organically,’ Smith said. ‘The
only hard and fast effort we made was to attempt to give
each pub a sidetrack or situation to visit another
pub, whether it’s receiving an invite to the Royal
Wine Cellar or following non-player characters
to a wedding reception at The Birdcage. Also,
all of the factions appear throughout the
pubs, which gives an additional sense that
all the pubs are part of a larger milieu.’
Just about anyone could page through
Barkeep and find something to love about it,
whether that’s the premise, a location, a
particular character or its many other aspects.
But appreciating how well crafted it truly is, as a
whole, requires one to explore its roots, both personal and
cultural.
Smith began playing RPGs in college, starting with D&D 3.5
before moving on to 5e and, ultimately, into more rules-lite
games like Into the Odd, and the family tree it spawned, as
well as alternatives like PbtA-based systems. His
preference toward rules-lite games that embrace
spontaneity parallels his background in
improvisational theatre.
‘In high school, I founded an improv troupe
that put on a couple of shows a year,’
Smith said. ‘I also competed (to the extent
that improv can be competitive) in a state-
wide improv competition. We mostly did
short form improv, theatresports style, but
also did a few long form scenes during our
performances.
‘Part of the initial draw to running tabletop games was that it
was an outlet for the same creative juices that fueled my stints
at improv. It is why I prefer minimal prep—I thrive off of rolling
with the punches and reacting to whatever the players decide
to do. This approach naturally leads to games with more
player agency and, among the best groups, gives an almost
writers’ room feel to each gaming session.’
Smith brings that feel to Barkeep, keeping the adventure very
open to player agency and letting them find their own way
through the guiding plot. Simultaneously, Smith’s ‘procedural
predilections’ support the GM and help structure this more
open experience. But Barkeep’s openness has origins farther
back in time than just his improv days.
T
o really understand Barkeep’s underpinnings we need
to travel back to 1979. That year saw the first appearance
of Gary Gygax’s The Keep on the Borderlands, one of the
most notable D&D modules of all time. Originally a standalone
release, it was later included in the Basic Set, a gateway for
new players to enter the game.
For many, it was their first encounter with D&D and RPGs at
large. It is widely known and referenced to this day, and has
been revised, reprinted, and adapted many times over. Barkeep
on the Borderlands is obviously one of those adaptations, and
brings its own unique twists to the table.
The original Keep is a wilderness exploration adventure
written in broad strokes. It sees the PCs set out to defend the
Borderland against the malicious threats dwelling therein. This
will take them to the Caves of Chaos, where they’ll fight
various monsters, humanoid and otherwise, and the undead
and cultists dwelling in the Temple of Evil Chaos. Vanquishing
them will ensure safety and prosperity for the Keep’s human
inhabitants and future settlers.
But Smith doesn’t take that premise at face value. In 2021, he
published a compelling counter-reading (‘The Keep on the
Borderlands is Full of Lies’) on his blog, Prismatic Wasteland.
He argues that the module presents a one-sided, heavily
biased perspective on the scenario, one that favors the human
society. Rather than being a bastion of law amidst the anarchy
of the borderlands, he reads the Keep’s society as an
oppressive, fascistic regime boasting a highly militarized
populace who are not only empowered but eager to inflict
corporal punishment for even relatively minor infractions like
shoplifting.
‘I find the Keep in the original to be the more sinister location,’
Smith said. ‘It is just as deeply detailed as the dungeons (and,
unlike the Caves of Chaos, is the namesake of the module) and
is the base for the many villains of the module: the
overzealous guards, conniving priests, and whoever tells the
players that “Bree-yark” (goblin for “hey rube!” and is used by
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 31
 Our Lady of the
Sacred Speakeasy,
complete with its
chaos cultist rec-
room and cursed idol,
one of the many inns
you can visit over the
course of Barkeep’s
revels.

Art: Sam Mameli

32 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

goblins to sound an alarm) means “we surrender” in the goblin
language.’
On the flip side, the various groups of goblinoids, orcs and
kobolds (among other denizens) are not doing much of
anything. They show no signs of preparing to siege or invade
the Keep. They’re mostly sitting at home with their families
(the module specifically notes the number of adult males and
females and children present in each location). The Chaos
Raiders can easily be interpreted as a band of freedom fighters
(with Smith drawing a parallel with Robin Hood and his Merry
Men). And the moniker ‘Evil Chaos’ smacks of heavy-handed,
pro-Keep propaganda writ in boldface.
THE MONIKER ‘EVIL CHAOS’
SMACKS OF HEAVY-HANDED,
PRO-KEEP PROPAGANDA
‘I think Keep would be better if it had a ticking clock—perhaps a
timeline of when the monsters of the Caves would raid the
Keep like the adventure prologue claims—and if it had a bit
more specificity of the motives of the denizens of the Keep
and Caves,’ Smith said.
‘However, the “incompleteness” of The Keep gives part of its
lasting appeal. You can project whatever you like, my
reinterpretation included, on The Keep without changing a
thing. I hope that Barkeep achieves a similar level of stripped-
down, open endedness as Keep because, while the locations
and timeline are more detailed than The Keep, it leaves ample
room for player action or inaction to drastically change how
the adventure is experienced each time.’
B
arkeep is set 200 years after the original Keep’s conclusion.
The Keep has expanded its footprint, and its leadership
has changed hands from the Castellan to the Monarch.
The periphery has become the centre; the goblins, kobolds,
ogres and chaos cultists who previously lived in the wilderness
have been integrated into society. The annual Raves of Chaos
commemorate the people who helped it happen: those
adventurers who crawled the Caves of Chaos two centuries
ago. Much has changed. Much has also stayed the same.
‘Now, instead of a Castellan scheming to drive goblins from
their homes, it is goblins plotting revenge for the atrocities
committed during the original module,’ Smith said. ‘All the
while, the cult of chaos grows more powerful.’
This bringing-low of law and of the powerful is the
overarching premise that couches the adventure, but the
motif is also at the forefront of the adventure’s contents itself.
The Raves of Chaos seamlessly adapts a real-world Western
tradition to the Keep’s fantasy setting: the folk culture of
carnival (a Christian term whose tradition extends much
farther back into history).
Traditionally, in the days before Tilt-A-Whirls and funnel
cakes, carnival was an all-encompassing cultural frame that
constituted a second life and a second world outside
mundane life and the official order that governs it. Social
hierarchy dissolved, and in many cases, a ‘lord of misrule’ was
appointed to serve as a parodic figurehead of the festivities.
Those revels included a generally playful atmosphere as well
as spectacles and pageantry (seen today in celebrations like
Mardi Gras and Carnival of Brazil), jokes and humor, and an
emphasis on the body. The latter encompassed feasting
(which, besides being a primordial form of human
communion, marked historic ruptures in the status quo),
sexuality and, of course, drinking. After all, what’s a party
without some libations?
Barkeep incorporates all of these elements in the Raves of
Chaos, which commemorates the ‘triumph’ of humanity over
the lawless Borderlands. The Monarch’s (lawfulness’s) power
recedes; ‘For one week each year the Bailiff is just a private
citizen, and few laws, if any, are enforced. During the Raves of
Chaos, the city watch cedes the powers and responsibilities of
law enforcement entirely to the Church of Chaos.’
The first day of the Raves is the Ambush of Kobolds, which the
populace celebrates with ‘tricks, traps, jokes and japes’. The
second, the Orgy of the Ogres, is ‘a day to indulge in food,
drink and vice until stupefied’ with ‘no end of buffets or
shameless bacchanals’. On the third day, the Jubilee of
Goblins, ‘everyone wears thick coats and eats a heavy meal’ in
the morning before they ‘doff their coats and nibble on
something light’ in the afternoon and in the evening ‘wear
something skimpy and just drink’. Day four is the Parade of the
Minotaur, when ‘the people of the Keep dress as monsters and
parade through every street’. The fifth day, the Feast of Gnolls,
is ‘a feast day, but in order to eat cooked meat, you have to
win a fight’. The sixth day, the Culmination of Chaos, sees ‘the
people of the Keep worship chaotic deities by drinking wine
and doing things they’ll regret’.
Point for point, Barkeep incorporates every aspect of a
traditional folk festival, from hierarchical dissolution to the
whole spectrum of pastimes and activities. It does so in
classic Keep style, by giving just enough detail to spark the
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 33
imagination rather than belaboring the point. Like the
characters of the taverns themselves, all of these aspects are
drawn from Smith’s own experiences, giving them a greater
vibrancy than probably would have been possible if they were
regurgitated from detached study.
‘My sense of medieval carnival culture comes from the same
place as the inspiration for the pubs themselves: my time as a
student,’ Smith said. ‘As a student at a school with a robust
party culture, many of our parties and events resembled, in
some ways, the medieval hard-partying carnivals. The list of
strange events that seemed to exist only for those with the
free time that undergrads have but don’t fully appreciate
included the semiannual beerlympics, the masked ball, Rubik’s
cube parties, the hat debate, the all-night meeting, and—of
course—the end of year steak night fight night, each with its
own set of evolving traditions.
‘Key aspects of each event were the elaborate costumes and
subversions (or, more accurately, inversions of authority). Take
steak night fight night, for instance: it was held at the end of
year the day before spring final exams began. The main event,
as the name suggests, involved gathering in an abandoned
34 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
clearing in the middle of the forest with a grill and libations.
The participants would form a circle, in which any member
might challenge another, to a fight or other lively competition.
The winner would be rewarded with a freshly grilled steak.
After the fights ended, a member dubbed the “chief justice”
would create a bonfire where people could burn papers of
their choice—perhaps class notes, love letters, or anything that
they wished to rid themselves of as the school year ended.
Once the sun begins to set, everyone would change into togas
(of the ahistorical, bedsheet variety) and adjourn to a nearby
apartment to enjoy some revelry.
‘The traditions for each of these pseudo-festival days has
evolved over time in ways that none of the participants know.
No one is sure who began steak night fight night or when, we
only know that we do it. I took a similar attitude to the Raves
of Chaos, a celebration rooted in a historical event, re- and
mis-interpreted over two centuries.’
R
PGs are, in many ways, a modern descendant of this
folk-cultural tradition. When we play, we do so in
worlds that stand fully apart from our own. We put on
metaphorical masks (or, sometimes, literal ones when we
cosplay), we crack jokes in and out of character, we
may indulge in a drink or two (or more) at the table.
We do it all for no reason other than sheer
playfulness, a psychological renewal that
helps us to deal with the humdrum strictures
and rigors of the everyday life we must
inevitably return to.
Barkeep folds the shared aspects of games and
festival onto and back into themselves like
well-prepared dough. It explores the historical
spirit of revelry within the framework of a
contemporary manifestation of that spirit.
Inspired by personal experience and with
thoughtful, appropriate treatment of its source
material, it’s an instant classic that deserves a
special place, right beside Keep, in the canon of
RPG adventures.
Or maybe it’s just an excuse to drink and talk
some stories with friends. You decide.
Barkeep on the Borderlands
is out now and available from
prismaticwasteland.com/shop
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 35
KIERON GILLEN - Q&A

36 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

DIE
ANOTHER
DAY
John Power Jr. catches up with Kieron Gillen to discuss his new
RPG, DIE and whether the master storyteller would survive and
thrive in a fantasy world.
Art: Stephanie Hans, courtesy of Rowan Rook & Decard
W
ay back in our first issue we spoke with comic
writer, and then nascent RPG designer, Kieron
Gillen about his recent comic, DIE, the forthcoming
accompanying game and, well, just about everything. It was,
as the kids probably said ten years ago, a lot.
The comic told the story of a group of teenagers pulled into a
strange new roleplaying game and who emerged years later
both bound together a vow of silence and torn apart by what
they’d experienced. Decades later, now with all the added joys
of midlife, they find themselves back together and back in the
world of Die, it was ‘Goth Jumanji’ to use Gillen’s own words.
3 years later and DIE - The Roleplaying Game is now in our
hands too and, we are pleased to say, a triumph. Picking up
where the comic left off, the RPG is -besides being a great
game- part treatise on the transformative power of play, part
deconstruction of fantasy and gaming tropes, part therapy
session and everything we wanted from Gillen.
Interested to see if we could keep an interview with Kieron
under 10,000 words we tracked him down to find out just
how life as a games designer was treating him...
Wyrd Science: DIE was always conceived as both a comic
series and RPG, how did exploring one idea through two
different mediums work out?
Kieron Gillen: For a long time, I wasn't sure which was the dog
and which was the tail. Eventually, the dog ate its own tail,
and became a dog ouroboros. They became different lenses at
looking at the same thing, and each illuminates the other. DIE
exists outside of both, for everyone, including me.
That both were being worked on at once had some real
interesting effects too - mainly I was thinking about DIE twice
as much as I would otherwise. Certain key aspects emerge in
one and then jumped to the other. For example, the truth
about the Fallen was born from me wanting to avoid player
elimination in the game.
WS: And how recognisable is the finished game to what you
first envisaged, did working with Rowan Rook & Decard
change much?
KG: In terms of the journey? The weird thing is that the core of
DIE was just there from the first playtest - make up a group of
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 37
sad people, do a miniature Nordic LARP, drag them into a
fantasy world, externalise their inner demons into outer
demons and a final meeting with the Master to decide
whether to go home or not.
After that, it's all been about how best to execute and explain
the idea. That's what RRD brought - the polish and focus on
how to make this as good as possible. They also introduced
me to the delete key. Marvelous innovation. I have no idea
how I got by without it.
WS: You first had the idea for DIE back in 2016, 5E was only a
year or two old at that point, did you imagine that just a few
years later people would be filling arenas with people
watching them play D&D and how much the RPG scene
would change?
KG: I think that was on the horizon then. Actual Play culture
was demystifying RPGs to millions. By definition, if one of
them gets popular enough, they'll be filling ever bigger spaces.
For me, once you've made the leap to "Hey - people actually
want to watch people play a game" the jump to them filling an
arena is significantly smaller. For me, since the start of DIE, it's
changed, but only in the "this band is now bigger" way.
But I'm also aware the timing of DIE feels very right. If I
planned it, it couldn't have been better. There are certainly are
times I think of all my characters in the comic being
manipulated by a being outside time and space to fulfill an
eldritch ludic purpose and it gets a bit too close to home.
WS: DIE’s a very modern Indie RPG and does a great job of
talking new player's through it all, at the same time its
themes really reward you if you've ever spent a fair amount in
front, or behind, a GM's screen. What kind of response have
you'd had from the older, let’s say more trad, RPG crowd?
KG: It's been pretty good - I think folks who have a negative
response to anything in DIE would have been pushed away
from the concept alone, right?
That said, I'm not even sure about older gamers - younger folk
who came in from the D&D explosion of the last decade are
working in a trad framework as well. I was definitely aware
that for some people it would be the first time they played a
game like DIE. My fear was always that folks who didn't know
modern indie RPG stuff would think that I made all this up.
It's one reason why the Gameography was so important, and
the side-bars where i try and nod towards where our
approaches germinated form. I always liked artists who point
38 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
at their influences, and loved following those chains of
influence through the years. I certainly try to do the same with
my own work. You love this? You'll love - say - Monsterhearts
or whatever.
That said, skipping back to the idea of trad - DIE is also
explicitly about classical D&D. I suspect that alone gives more
trad gamers a handle on it.
WS: DIE is, quite explicitly, the kind of game that opens itself
up to some fairly dark themes, and you devote a fair amount
of space to discussing safety tools and ideas like 'Bleed'. Are
modern RPGs almost becoming the games that evangelicals
were freaking out about back in the 80s?
KG: Let's hope so.
Really, there's two fears there - one is just people are afraid of
art which is powerful and the other is that games were literally
satanic.
For the latter, Laycock's Dangerous Games about the 1980s
moral panic notes that at least one reason why evangelicals
felt threatened by D&D was that it was stepping on some of its
turf - the magic circle of religion, etc.
That's an interesting idea. DIE, in both comic and games, has a
lot of fun with just embracing the tropes that were used to
persecute the form. Since we've won, we can play with the
Diablolic Dungeonmaster. We can tease out the idea of
something awful and Lovecraftian about the dice themselves.
There's a wicked shiver there.
For the former, fuck anyone who is afraid of the power of art.
I WOULDN'T BE
AN ADVENTURER.
I WOULD BE RATIONS.
WS: Something I've enjoyed with DIE has been revisiting
versions of the games we played in as teenagers, just with 30
years of horrifying hindsight added. If you were Jumaji'ed into
a game you played in the past which, if any, do you think
you'd have the best chance of surviving?
KG: Probably any of the campaigns which just fizzled out
would have the best chance of surviving. If the game just
enters limbo before we all die, maybe I can survive? Really, I
have no survival skills. I wouldn't be an adventurer. I would be
rations.
WS: I also particularly like how the bestiary deconstructs
familiar fantasy creatures, what's your favourite 'Truth'?
KG: Thank you. This is one of the things I'm most proud of
which developed from RRD - it grew from an insight Grant
[Howitt] had, and became these micro-essays of ways of
thinking. To grab one of mine I particularly like...
A theme in fantasy is creatures that once existed and have
been lost from our world. Giants are unique in that it is literally
true: we have all met giants. We are born, and surrounded by
beings of petrifying stature. Slowly, as the years go by, they
diminish. Giants remind us that once, there were people who
were bigger and more powerful than we are. They made us
feel safe. Or scared.
That said, "the Minotaurs as abandoned children who are fed
other abandoned children" and "Orcs as whatever your
audience thinks is reasonable to kill" seemed particularly on
point.
WS: Despite publishing some of the most acclaimed creator
owned comics of the past few years you've continued to work
on Marvel’s X-Men. Now you're an acclaimed RPG writer too
are there any game settings that you'd love to, officially, leave
your mark on?
KG: Hah. Well, this is a bit of a secret, but I'm kind of a big ol'
nerd. Honestly, a fun thing has been since
I've started doing this I've had a few
folks reach out to me to write small
things for their games.
I've just finished a small thing for
Starcrossed, for example, which is a
game I love from a designer I adore.
There's a few more of them to come,
hopefully - I did a creepy NPC for
Zach's Inevitable recently, The
Chevalier of the Sands. There was a
couple of conversations at GenCon
which may lead somewhere too.
I don't really have designs on anyone
else - I'm much more about people
coming to me. I'm as likely to write
something and just release it on my
Itch.io. I've got a three-set of Tolkien Trophy Dark incursions I
want to finish at some point, for example.
WS: Whilst DIE gives you everything you need to create your
own worlds, adventures and campaigns -and a lot of what
makes it sing is drawing upon the players’ own experiences-
you are working on some new books for the game, what can
you tell us about them?
KG: DIE is absolutely an encouragement to enable your
creativity. It would have been a lot easier to do just a big list of
everything in DIE, but that would be missing the point. If it's
not aggressively yours, it's not really DIE.
So we've got various things planned - DIE Scenarios are a
series of adventures, each is elaborating on approaches to the
game. Each plays perfectly out the box, but is also a worked
example you can pick apart for parts. "Oh, I get it - I can do it
like this!" I'm doing a scenario in each, and getting a chance to
really dig down on ideas.
The one in the first - BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLES - is me doing
a Hex Crawl and is showing how you can actually do pre-
generated encounters in DIE, while still allowing a lot of player
customisation. The one in the second should be LOVE IS A
BATTLEFIELD, which should be my attempt at a Duet DIE
game with just one player and a GM, assuming I can get it
working.
We also have something bigger planned, and I need to start
digging there. We show some of the possibilities of Regions in
the main book, but there's a lot more to do there.
WS: Finally, you've published a 20 issue
comic and several hundred page RPG all
about games and why we play them, so
presumably having given it some thought
you can finally answer the question
that’s plagued rulebooks for decades,
what is an RPG?
KG: I have learned an RPG is too big if
it is over 200,000 words and, if so,
one should press the delete key until
it's under 100,000.
DIE - THE ROLEPLAYING GAME
is out now, published by
Rowan Rook & Decard
rowanrookanddecard.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 39
STANDEES

IN

THE

40 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

WAY
OF
TABLETOP GAMES HAVE OFTEN USED FICTIONAL DYSTOPIAS TO,
OVERTLY OR OTHERWISE, CRITIQUE OUR OWN WORLD. BUT WHAT
HAPPENS WHEN WE DITCH THOSE FANTASY AND SCIENCE-FICTION
ANALOGUES FOR THE REAL THING?

DAN THUROT SPEAKS TO THE DESIGNERS OF THREE GAMES THAT

HAVEN’T SHIED AWAY FROM PUTTING HISTORICAL EVENTS FRONT AND
CENTRE, CONFRONTING HEAD ON ISSUES OF RACE, GENDER AND
SEXUALITY THAT CONTINUE TO RESONATE TODAY.

OPPOSITE- CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION DAY MARCH, NEW YORK, 1972

LEONARD FINK / THE LGBT COMMUNITY CENTER NATIONAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

CONTROL Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 41

Y
ou’ve heard the refrain before: ‘Why does everything
need to be all political? It’s a game! It’s supposed to be
fun! Keep your politics out of games.’
Well I’m here to say that we need more politics in games.
If that quirks your eyebrows, I get it. ‘Politics in games’ conjures a
particular image, one that’s dour and—dare I say it—rankles of
‘edutainment.’ It’s a natural response. Now that my kids are old
enough to visit the library every week, they’ve become expert
detectors of any book that’s trying to educate them on weightier
matters than sharing, coping with emotions, or how the Dragon
Prince of Wrenly will save his kingdom this week. Some part of our
brain clamps down the instant it believes it’s being preached to.
To get a better sense for why politics belong in games, I spoke to
three designers who’ve become known for their politically-laden
productions. These designers hail from different backgrounds,
genders, careers and lived experiences, but their commonalities
are striking. They’ve all created celebrated commercial titles, have
deep feelings about the value of play, and believe tabletop games
can aspire to be more than fluffy children’s books for grownups.
★★★
A
mabel Holland is a trans woman with well over fifty
board games under her hat. Her designs are far-ranging,
touching on train games both simple and complex
(Northern Pacific, Irish Gauge, The Soo Line, Trans-Siberian
Railroad), the historical (Supply Lines of the American Revolution,
Nicaea, Westphalia, Endurance), and the whimsical (Eyelet, Watch
Out! That’s a Dracula!), as well as many, many more than would be
responsible to list here. Holland is famously open about her
transition, including the scrutiny her sexual identity receives from
strangers. In a time when transgender identities are subject to
debate and legislation, it would be fair to say that her entire
personhood has been politicized.
But Holland is no stranger to roiling waters. Long before her
transition, she made waves with a design that seemed brash, even
offensive. In 2018, This Guilty Land announced its intentions on its
very cover. The central image is that of a man named Gordon,
more commonly known as ‘Whipped Peter,’ his back horribly
scarred by the lashings he received as a slave.
This photograph first appeared in a July 1863 issue of Harper’s
Weekly, putting the brutality of slavery on display and inspiring
free Blacks to enlist in the Union Army. There are thousands of
42 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
board games about the American Civil War. Nearly all of them focus
on operational deployments, orders of battle, the brother-against-
brother conflict that still looms large in the American psyche.
Holland went another route: rather than preoccupying itself with
formations of blue and grey uniforms, her game highlights the
years leading up to the Civil War and the practice of slavery itself.
Neither did Holland truck in ambiguity; in her game, players either
embody Justice or Oppression, factional titles that leave little up
to interpretation. Although she worked to ensure that slavery
couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than evil, the thesis of This
Guilty Land isn’t anything as obvious as ‘slavery is bad.’ Rather, it’s
that moderation in politics is tantamount to joining the side of
Oppression.
In This Guilty Land both sides of the debate are determined to
swing a certain number of votes to their side of the legislative
aisle. Justice, naturally, intends to abolish slavery. It’s a Sisyphean
task, requiring its player to shore up voting blocs, change hearts
and minds, and harden sentiments into political action. Even in a
vacuum such a process would be difficult, but Justice is dogged at
every step by Oppression. This player maintains the status quo by
legalizing fugitive slave acts, launching campaigns of violence and
voter suppression, and—this is the crucial part—keeping the
nation’s moderates from voting the other way.
As a rhetorical statement, it’s a sobering one. Because slavery is
already the law of the land, the Oppression player doesn’t need to
legislate. All they need to do is prevent Justice from gaining
enough traction to abolish the practice. This means that the
tokens on the board that represent the middle ground, the
undecided voters of the United States, are effectively votes for the
continuation of slavery. Without directly confronting the player,
This Guilty Land asks one of the toughest questions ever put to
cardboard: In what ways do we, today, permit oppression by not
standing for justice?
As someone whose mere existence has been politicized, Holland
has plenty to say about the need for games to make such
statements. It’s impossible to keep politics out of games, she
argues, ‘Because politics touches everything. Politics defines our
cultural norms and assumptions, and art—games included—either
reflect or challenge those assumptions, and either do so
obliviously or thoughtfully. Simply talking about the realities of my
existence—as a queer woman, as a trans woman—makes the
conversation “political.”’
In her estimation, to say that politics shouldn’t be in games is to
adopt a position not unlike This Guilty Land’s moderates, where
refusing to take a side always means siding with Oppression. ‘One
thing I tried to be very clear with in This Guilty Land was that it
“THE SIMPLE FACT IS
THAT SLAVERY WAS
AND IS A MORAL EVIL
ON WHICH THERE
COULD NEVER BE
ANY COMPROMISE”

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 43

wouldn’t give both sides equal footing,’ Holland says. ‘There’s a
false idea of balance in our culture that sees objectivity as giving
equal time and weight to both abhorrent ideas and to those that
oppose them. The simple fact is that slavery was and is a moral
evil on which there could never be any compromise.
‘I don’t give any credence to the idea that people didn’t know
slavery was wrong, because people did. Some folks were
dedicating their lives to end this thing, and it’s not like they failed
to convince others—it’s that those others didn’t care. Either that’s a
willful choice, or it’s being afraid to rock the boat, or it’s calling for
civility and compromise and centrism and moderation. They’re
villains or they’re cowards, and they choose to be those things.’
For Holland, this point is uniquely expressed via the language of
play. ‘It’s about illustrating systems, both in terms of the creaky
machinery of government, and also how civility culture and
centrism—which is fundamentally a kind of conservatism, because
like conservatism it abhors change and upheaval, no matter how
necessary—works against progress.’
This is also why Holland deemed it necessary to ask players to not
only embody Justice, but also Oppression. ‘It’s through the
interaction [of factions] that these games communicate their
meaning. This Guilty Land isn’t interested in the facile terror of
“Here, play this bad person, do this bad thing, now feel bad, why
did you do that bad thing?” I don’t think in playing one side or the
other that you learn anything specific about that side. But by
playing one side against another, the two of you observing these
systems, that’s how you get something out of it. To foreground this
observation, I tried to put a lot of distance between you and the
roles you inhabit—making them abstract forces instead of specific
historical entities.’
She’s also quick to caution prospective designers that tackling thorny
historical topics is fraught.
‘How do I design around these topics? Very carefully. There are so
many ways to get it wrong. You have to doubt yourself, constantly,
on pretty much every aspect. You need to anticipate the questions
people will ask about it, and the assumptions they might make.
Just as importantly, you need to answer those questions before
they’re asked. A year and a half before This Guilty Land came out, I
was talking about what the game was and what the game was not,
because I knew if I didn’t put that information out there, others
would decide ahead of time what the game was, what the story
was, and that would be disastrous.’
The effort, however, is worthwhile, because the issue isn’t solely
academic. Holland draws a direct line from the moral weakness of
permitting slavery to the issues under discussion today.
44 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
‘I’m a queer trans woman living in 2023 and my community is
being legislated out of existence, and the people passing those
laws are willfully lying. Don’t tell me they don’t know better; they
do. They’ve been told over and over again what the science is, and
they just don’t listen. Meanwhile, people try to play up both sides
of a debate that doesn’t exist, or call for compromises when there
can be none.’
★★★
T
he impact of This Guilty Land has already been felt on
tabletop games. Perhaps its most direct descendant is last
year’s Stonewall Uprising, a design by Taylor Shuss that
portrays thirty years in the fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights.
Stonewall Uprising is very nearly a mainstream game. Somewhat
infamously, This Guilty Land was tangled and complicated, pitting
players against the legislative system of the United States as much
as against the opponent sitting across from them. This was a
deliberate choice, highlighting how the same safeguards that
prevent laws from being passed offhandedly can also impede the
battle for equal civil rights. Despite being inspired by Holland’s
game, Shuss settled on a well-worn core system: deck-building.
There are two sides to Stonewall Uprising, Pride and The Man, both
with their own goals, but on a turn-by-turn basis they function
according to familiar principles. Cards are purchased from a
market, drawn at random into your hand, and eventually shuffled
together again when your draw pile runs out. Anyone who’s played
Donald X. Vaccarino’s Dominion or its hundreds of offshoots will
find Stonewall Uprising intuitive.
But while Shuss felt it was important for his game to be accessible
to a wide audience, he’s also keenly aware that its politics might
catch some by surprise. ‘It felt important that players knew what
kind of game they were stepping into when they held the box,’ he
notes.
‘Stonewall Uprising is a game about queer history designed by a
queer person. If that bothers you, feel free to play the other 99% of
games that exist. Setting expectations was an incredibly important
piece of the puzzle for us. We wanted to let players understand
that the game is very much supportive of queer civil rights, but
unfortunately the path we took here in the United States was not a
terribly pleasant one, and still is not anywhere near perfect today,
either. Showing off that level of seriousness is not an easy task
without making the entire game look like a dour pit of despair.’
Shuss is referring to his game’s portrayal of The Man, his own
analogue of the Opposition player from This Guilty Land. While
 “STONEWALL UPRISING IS
M E A B OU T QU E E R HIS T ORY
A GA
N E D B Y A Q U E E R P E RS ON.
DESIG
IF THAT BOTHERS YOU,
F R E E TO P LAY T HE OT HER 99%
FEEL
OF GAMES THAT EXIST”
Pride’s cards are vibrant and joyful, even somewhat cartoonish,
The Man’s cards are bleak, with backgrounds crisscrossed by
chain-link fences and shadowed illustrations full of angry faces.
This prevents any misunderstanding—The Man is definitely the
antagonist of the game—but the differences between in-game
factions run more than ink-deep. Both sides also have their own
victory conditions. The Man’s goal is all about imprisoning Pride’s
cards, physically removing their presence and abilities from the
deck. Meanwhile, Pride is all about amassing and rolling handfuls
of dice in an effort to hit a moving ‘Overton Window.’ In other
words, it’s Pride that gets to have all the fun.
Where This Guilty Land drew criticism thanks to what some
perceived as an ungenerous portrayal of the antebellum United
States, concerns with Stonewall Uprising had more to do with
Shuss asking one player to control The Man. The final version of
the game includes an automa that can take that role off players’
hands, letting them play solo against an impersonal foe, but from
the beginning Shuss thought it important to let a thinking mind
lead the charge against Pride.
‘I am aware of plenty of people that were put off by playing as The
Man. That is definitely the number one piece of feedback I’ve
gotten about the game. But ignoring that aspect of the conflict
would be doing the game a disservice. While working on
Stonewall, I made it a point that whoever is playing as The Man
should feel at minimum gross while they are taking in-game
actions. When you detain people, you tear them from Pride’s deck.
When you demoralize people to win, you do so at random. And
whenever you buy cards in the ’80s, AIDS deaths go up. These are
all designed to make players feel a certain way. I think playing as
The Man is more difficult than playing as Pride since you have to
sit with the knowledge that what you are doing right now is
wrong. You are oppressing people and the way you progress
toward victory is vile.’
But why is it important for someone to inhabit such a difficult
role? Shuss goes on. ‘The fact that The Man is played by a living
breathing person makes their actions so much more tangible and
hurtful. That a real person would willingly choose to go to such
lengths to deny an entire group of people their pursuit of
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 45
 “IT’S NOT ‘POLITICS’
BUT A CERTAIN KIND OF POLITICS
THAT ELICITS THIS REACTION”
happiness, and still think that what they are doing is just or moral,
is outright evil.’ Shuss also notes that in playtesting Stonewall
Uprising, it was often those who played as The Man who emerged
with the strongest feelings over the injustices portrayed in the
game. ‘It puts their behavior in stark contrast to Pride, and draws
clear lines around who and who is not on the side of justice and
equality.’
When it comes to politics in games, Shuss has seen his own
perspective develop over time. ‘For a time I had a similar opinion
[that politics don’t belong in games]. Eventually I realized that that
couldn’t coexist with me wanting to see more people included in
the hobby I loved. Now I am of the mindset that all games are
political, although often those politics are subtle and
unintentional. These can still have some impact, so it is always
worth thinking about your base assumptions when working on or
playing a game.’
★★★
46 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
T
ory Brown exploded onto the design scene earlier this
year with Votes for Women, a lavishly produced and
playtested game about the movement for women’s
suffrage in the United States.
Placed next to This Guilty Land and even Stonewall Uprising, one
might mistake it for an entirely different artifact altogether. Even
the quality of the box is noticeably improved. Where its predecessors
find their roots in age-old wargames, with print-on-demand publishing
models and affordable components, Votes for Women heralds a more
glamorous approach.
Inside the box one discovers not only a mounted board, but also
heaps of wooden and cardstock pieces in three dominant colors.
These denote the alignment of the game’s factions: red for
Opposition, yellow and purple for Suffrage. Those two colors hint
at the game’s political leanings. While Suffrage must struggle
against Opposition to spread the word, garner support in
Congress, and eventually vote to pass the 19th Amendment, they’re
also locked in a war of ideals with their own allies.
With a background in labor organizing, Brown is no stranger to
coalition-building—nor to the reality that working together to
make change can mean adjusting to new voices, opinions, and
even values. In Votes for Women, this materializes when
Opposition plays a card to drive a wedge in the Suffrage movement.
Where purple and yellow pieces were previously content to work
together, suddenly one side might abandon the cause.
Brown doesn’t assign a specific value to either color, but she
doesn’t hesitate to name the cause for these ideological rifts. Yes,
it’s racism. While most of the country’s women agree that they
want the vote, plenty of white women are afraid of their Black
counterparts gaining an equal voice. Votes for Women wends its
way through both sexual and racial politics, never shying away
from the moral failings of the same movement it celebrates.
Despite this, it never once stops being eminently playable.
‘When I started designing Votes for Women, I knew that if a slightly
complex wargame about women’s history wasn’t engaging, people
wouldn’t play it,’ Brown notes. ‘The game has some barriers to
overcome. Getting the history just right, the tension just right, the
look, the rulebook, the balance on the cards… these priorities all
had to line up to thread the proverbial needle. The game brings
people in with a soft hand and says, “Yay women’s rights!” and
then quietly yet consistently asks them to consider race and class
in an unexpected but hopefully revelatory way.’
Taking on the role of Opposition is a big part of that process. As
Brown puts it, ‘Some miss out on a few important lessons by
never taking a chance to play Opposition. People have told me
that they never thought about the fact that some women opposed
suffrage, or what Prohibition had to do with suffrage, until playing
the game.’
One way Votes for Women stands apart from its peers is in its
portrayal of Opposition. While they’re decidedly cast as the game’s
antagonist, Brown avoids taking too harsh a stance against the
individuals in the opposing camp. Her goal isn’t to equate both
sides, but rather to emphasize and appeal to the humanity of
those who opposed women’s suffrage—and hopefully enable
change today.
‘Ultimately, I hope people take what they’ve learned from my game
and consider support for and opposition to social movements
today. Because the baddies don’t always even question if they’re
the baddies, right? Some in the opposition may in fact be
persuadable. Winning hearts and minds requires meeting people
where they are, and I hope Votes for Women is, at the very least, as
respectful to where people who opposed suffrage were in their
own historical context as it is to the people who supported it.’
Brown offers similar insights into the question of politics in games.
‘Players have all kinds of preferences when it comes to games: dice
or no dice, three-hour epics or speedy thirty-minute sessions,
solitaire or plays-up-to-eight. And people generally don’t say,
“Keep dice out of games” or “Stick to making party games,” do
they? Certain players seem to confuse their natural right to express
preference with a more authoritarian right to police certain
content. Because it’s not “politics” but a certain kind of politics
that elicits this reaction from a small group. I think the few but
loud people who say “Keep politics out of games” are demanding
that we all shrink ourselves down to their very narrow, sad view of
the world and of power, and doing that would make games way
less fun and interesting for the rest of us.’
★★★
F
un. That’s what keeps springing to mind. Far from being
miserable experiences, every one of these games is better
for the inclusion of politics. They’re sharper, more
invigorating, more insightful.
Whether it’s the moral clarity of This Guilty Land, the queer framing
of Stonewall Uprising, or the self-examination of Votes for Women,
none of these supernal titles would exist without a healthy dose of
politics.
So: More of that, please.
This Guilty Land
is available from Hollandspiele
hollandspiele.com
Stonewall Uprising
is available from Catastrophe Games
catastrophegames.net
Votes For Women
is available from Fort Circle Games
fortcircle.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 47
48 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
ROGUE
MEMORIES
Warhammer 40,000 may be the ur-text for spirit crushing sci-fi
dystopias but in the real world it has also inspired countless creative
projects. Few though have grabbed our attention like former Games
Workshop employee Tammy Nicholls’ range of Rogue Trader era
action figures. John Power Jr. caught up with the artist to find out
more.
All photos & models: Tammy Nicholls
I
t’s December in the late 1980s and all over the UK
children are pawing through that year’s Argos catalogue,
impatiently flicking past endless pages of radio alarm
clocks and home fitness machines to find the all important
toys’ section. There, amongst the plastic ranks of Masters of the
Universe, Zoids and Transformers, a new range -that year’s
hottest playground accessory- stands out, Nergal Snega’s
posable Warhammer 40,000 action figures.
Now, if you’re of a certain age and currently feeling a hint of
discombobulation to go with the back pain, never fear, you’re
not having an episode rather you’ve just discovered the
strange hauntological world of artist, and former Games
Workshop employee, Tammy Nicholls.
Tammy posted the first Warhammer 40,000 action figure she’d
designed and sculpted to her tears_of_envy Instagram page
earlier this year, inspiring a mixture of delight and confusion.
Since then she’s continued to expand both the range -
recreating several iconic Rogue Trader era Space Marine
colourways, limited edition Games Day figurines and now
Space Elves- and the fictional story behind the figures’
manufacturer, Nergal Snega, and their often ill fated employees.
The days of Rick Priestley exhorting Warhammer players to get
busy with used yoghurt pots may be long gone but the game
continues to inspire endless waves of creativity from fanfic
and art to all kinds of kitbashed chimeras. Tammy’s creations
though, with their attention to period detail and the nagging
possibility that they just might have actually existed, caught
our eye like nothing else. Curious to know the story behind
both them and their creator we went in search of answers...
Wyrd Science: For a good few years you worked as a graphic
designer for Games Workshop, so what’s your Warhammer
origin story?
Tammy: My father is quite a sci-fi buff having grown up on
serials like Journey Into Space in the 1950s. He fed my sister
and I a diet of Nigel Kneale, Hammer Horror and Tolkien.
When I discovered Warhammer it made sense and I was
instantly intrigued by the miniaturisation aspect of it. It wasn’t
long before I was confusing my parents with requests for
things called ‘Chaos Renegades’.
They were slightly worried.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 49
 “I LOVE THE AESTHETIC THEY PURSUED
FROM THE MID 80S INTO THE EARLY 90S
- IT WAS REBELLIOUS, TRANSGRESSIVE,
HUMOROUS, POLITICALLY SAVVY
AND PECULIARLY BRITISH”

50 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5


My fascination continued, particularly in the visual side, and in
about 2004 I met John Blanche. I ended up running his
personal website and working on his Femme Militant range
before I joined Games Workshop in 2012 as a graphic designer.
WS: Alongside the action figures your Instagram page
showcases a lot of your kitbashed models, what is it about
that part of the hobby that particularly attracts you?
T: I think the hobby presents a fascinating opportunity to
create within a narrative framework. It’s quite unlike anything
else out there. There are guidelines, but a huge amount of
sanctioned freedom. I suppose conversions are like LEGO
MOCs or endorsed literary fanfic.
It’s the opportunity to create which drew me to kitbashing
and the INQ28 scene in the 2010s. I have always been a frustrated
sculptor as I found the process messy and time consuming.
3D printing removed a lot of the barriers for me, allows for
multiple copies and it’s now one of my favourite aspects of
my hobby since I started to learn about a year ago.
WS: So what led to this particular project?
T: I’m not going to lie - it wasn’t my idea! A friend came up
with it during a brainstorming session and I just ran with it. I
suppose the thing I’ve added is the ‘wrapper’ narrative of the
fictional production company which gives it a hauntological
aspect.
WS: Can you tell us a little about that narrative?
T: The fiction surrounding Nergal Snega arose from the
pragmatic need for a manufacturer’s logo, which feature so
prominently on backing cards. The logo then posed the
question, “Who were these people and how did they end up
making 40K figures?”
While there is a degree of Charlie Brooker to the fiction it does
the important task of building the sense of a misremembered
past - the hauntology I mentioned.
That aspect, particularly the way it relates to ideas by thinkers
like Mark Fisher and creators like A Year In The Country and
Hobbs Lane, is very important to me.
The figures get people’s attention, but the fiction surrounding
Nergal Snega makes people think about their own connection
to the era.
WS: Do you have a particular affinity with that era of 40K?
T: Yes. I’m actually Gen X’er and got into GW during the Rogue
Trader era so there is a genuine nostalgia for it. GW always
stood out among its competition because of its consistently
high quality artwork.
I love the aesthetic they pursued from the mid 80s into the
early 90s - it was rebellious, transgressive, humorous,
politically savvy and peculiarly British. It reflected the largely
Gen X nature of the company at the time.
WS: Now, obviously these figures could never be mass
produced...
T: You’re right, GW owns the underlying IP so the project will
remain as a hobby endeavour and won’t be monetised in any
way. Still I want to keep going, adding more sculpts and even
larger vehicles one day.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 51

The ultimate dream is to recreate a page from a 1980s toy
catalogue showing a huge range which will send Oldhammer
into fits of jealous rage!
WS: Have you had any feedback from your former colleagues
there? Especially those you worked with in licensing?
T: Indeed I have - they love it. I heard one funny story where
someone in the GW studio told a colleague about new retro
toys that are coming out, and he chuckled and had to explain
about this woman called ‘Tammy’ who used to work there…
That scene lives in my head rent-free.
WS: You've recently started expanding the range, so what’s
next and has the reaction to them changed your plans at all?
T: My ambition is to add all the things I loved as a child -
Imperial Guardsmen, Chaos Renegades, Orks, a Rhino - the list
goes on! Time is the issue.
I was surprised how well everyone reacted to the first non-
Space Marine. I suppose the Space Elf started to reveal my
vision of a complete range and got folks excited. I now get
requests from people asking to prioritise their favourite minis
which just about covers every figure GW ever released!
Consequently my plans haven’t changed much. I wasn’t sure
how people would react to the first ‘bootleg’ I made (the Little
52 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
No good toy
range should be
without its own
range of special,
mail order only
items such as the
much coveted
Space Marine
Jump Pack.
Sister of Purification), but they loved it so I want to do more of
those, too. They allow me to explore the weird underbelly of
the hobby and the fictional rivalry between Snega and the
infringer JJC.
In time I’d also love to turn my attention to Warhammer
Fantasy Battle too, but that’s a way off.
WS: Alongside all this you’ve worked for several other major
game companies, been involved in several pervasive games
and experiential art projects and published your own comics
and RPGs, so what’s next for you?
T: By the time readers see this I will have moved continents!
I’m hoping my new life, new home and new job will lead to all
sorts of inspiration.
I’m really loving the action figure as a mode of expression and
I have vague plans to create other non-GW ranges. Keeping
them hauntological is important to me, so they will inevitably
have ties to the 1970s and 1980s. I also want to explore
puppetry but I might need to buy a bigger 3D printer first.
Stay up to date with the latest
additions to the Nergal Snega range
and follow Tammy on Instagram
instagram.com/tears_of_envy
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 53
54 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
TIME
TO DIE
40 years on from the cult film’s release Blade Runner finally
makes it to the tabletop with its own official roleplaying game.
Samantha Nelson tracks down Tomas Härenstam, the game’s
lead designer, to find out more.
Art (throughout): Martin Grip, courtesy of Free League
A
dapted from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep? Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner brought
the noir genre into the modern age. Released in 1982
the film’s depiction of a, then, near future Los Angeles -with its
crowded neon lit streets a stark contrast to its morally grey,
and perpetually rained upon, inhabitants- helped cement the
vibe that would dominate science fiction in the 1980s with the
rise of cyberpunk.
The original film has long been an inspiration for both
roleplaying game players and designers alike and now, 40
years on from its release, Sweden’s Free League Publishing has
finally brought it to our tabletops in an adaptation that is
remarkably faithful to the tone of its source material. Indeed
for Tomas Härenstam, co-founder and CEO of Free League and
lead designer of Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, the most
important, and challenging, aspect of adapting Scott’s series
into a tabletop game was replicating that vibe, capturing the
films’ themes of alienation and moral ambiguity.
‘Blade Runner, and Blade Runner 2049, pose these difficult
moral questions that intrigued me when I saw the films for the
first time,’ Härenstam said. ‘Deckard is not your typical hero
and Replicants are not your typical villains. That made the
story something more than your typical sci-fi action story. I
think exploring questions like that is fascinating and when
handled right and played in a group of very mature individuals,
RPGs can definitely do that.’
The result is an RPG that is less focused on heroic action and
more on creating the kind of atmosphere where those themes
can be explored. To that end Blade Runner’s core book
provides several recommendations on making your sessions
more cinematic, from slowing down the pace of the game to
more theatrical tricks such as employing low lighting during a
session, soundtracking your games with the likes of Vangelis
and, especially, making use of props and handouts.
Importantly, of course, the rules must complement this too
and the game encourages players to engage with those moral
questions and experience their characters’ sense of isolation in
such an over-crowded, and over-stimulated, environment.
‘That noir feeling doesn’t really work that well in very large
groups, so the game recommends maybe just a single player
and the game runner or a small team of two or three max,’
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 55
Härenstam said. ‘Contrary to most RPGs, it advocates splitting
the party at some points to cover more ground. That also helps
to set that mood of the lone investigator that walks the streets.’
Along with eschewing the conventional RPG party dynamic,
Blade Runner also doesn’t assume the players are the good
guys. They’ll be playing members of the Los Angeles Police
Department Rep Detect, or Blade Runner, unit. Like Harrison
Ford’s Rick Deckard or Ryan Gosling’s Officer K, their job is to
hunt down Replicants, androids ‘virtually indistinguishable
from humans’m originally created to serve humanity but now
barred from Earth following a failed rebellion
One key feature of the game is how its advancement system
mechanises ethical dilemmas. Rather than earning experience
points, characters can be rewarded with promotion points for
performing their duties well or lose them for acting against
their superiors. At the same time, they can earn humanity
points for acting with compassion. Specialties and gear are
earned through status in the LAPD, but humanity can improve
skills, so a player will need to juggle both aspects of their
character to unlock their full potential. The goal is to make
players feel immersed in the series’ morally gray world.
56 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
‘You want to come away having been asked questions and put
in positions where the answer is not obvious, where you as a
player have to think what the right thing to do here is given
the situation you are in,’ Härenstam said. ‘In the films, Blade
Runners often find themselves in positions where they don’t
follow orders and they do something truer to their hearts and
they actually come to see the world in a different way. I want
the characters, and to some extent the players themselves, to
experience that.’
To build Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game’s setting
Härenstam plumbed all the available source material, drawing
not only on the movies but also the video games and the
animated short films that were released ahead of Blade
Runner: 2049. And, after some debate, this led him to set the
game in 2039.
‘Since it’s geographically fairly constrained, if we had been
setting it in the exact same year as one of the films, we would
have been kind of boxed in and have to follow that very
closely.’ he said. ‘Setting it in between the two gave us a bit
more creative freedom and made it easier to draw from both
films when designing the world.’
The Swedish designer has never been to Los Angeles, so he
tapped Genuine Entertainment’s Joe LeFavi to bring his
hometown to life and work as the game’s lead setting writer.
That detail is important given that Blade Runner games will
seldom leave the city.
‘That’s been an interesting challenge, especially compared to
our Alien game where you have the entire universe to play
with,’ Härenstam said. ‘We want to keep the focus pretty
heavily on Los Angeles because we feel that’s such an integral
part of the whole franchise. You could potentially go outside,
but then it wouldn’t quite feel like Blade Runner anymore.’
Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game also draws on other noir
films and games like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
with its strong focus on solving a core mystery. The game
launched last year with the core rulebook and starter set
containing Electric Dreams, a case file complete with an
abundance of handouts representing security footage,
newspaper clippings and suspect profiles from the LAPD
database that help bring the adventure to life.
‘You get everything you need in one box,’ Härenstam said. ‘The
way the cases are structured it’s fairly easy for even a new
game runner. We hope to draw Blade Runner or science fiction
fans into this game even though they might not be very
familiar with tabletop roleplaying.’
Play time is divided into shifts, with players choosing which
leads to pursue, and there are always multiple ways to learn
information and progress the plot, something that can often
become an issue with games revolving around mysteries.
‘We want to avoid the classic pitfalls of investigation-type
roleplaying where if you go to the wrong place, you get stuck
and have nowhere to go,’ Härenstam said. ‘Even if you do get
stuck, things will kind of happen themselves. There’s always
something driving the action forward.’
Those multiple paths include options such as looking up files
at the Rep-Detect Unit, hitting up your street assets for help
or tailing a suspect. These often are directly linked to
handouts. For instance, you can take a picture of a crime scene
and then use the Esper machine at the precinct to zoom in
and discover new details that might then provide a fresh lead.
After a certain number of shifts have passed, a Countdown
event will occur which could be another crime being
committed or an NPC showing up asking for help. Either way
it provides plenty of ways to keep the game moving forward.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 57
O
ne of the primary pieces of feedback that Härenstam
has received from players is that just what make the
game’s starter set so useful, the abundance of handouts,
also make designing an adventure from scratch intimidating.
Whilst the core rulebook includes advice on creating your own
case files, tips on how to structure an investigation, develop
locations and NPCS, and several tables for generating ideas, it
would take a truly ambitious game master to replicate the
props that make playing Electric Dreams so immersive.
As a result, Free League will continue to do the work themselves,
producing a series of connected case files that can be played
as standalone adventures or as an ongoing campaign. Released
at the end of 2023, Fiery Angels will have players investigate an
attempted break-in at the Wallace Corporation Memory
Vaults, opening up new parts of Los Angeles to explore while
revisiting many of the locations featured in Electric Dreams
from sleek corporate headquarters to shady bars.
58 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
‘It’s a challenge because you have to make these case files
varied enough while you’re in the same city, but it’s also a fun
challenge to use the same geographical locations in different
ways and still make them feel fresh,’ Härenstam said. ‘Keeping
that local focus in mind is great for campaign play because
you learn the city. It works well with the noir feel that you
walk the streets as an investigator and you get to know the
streets.’
That initial feedback to the game also led Härenstam to
develop Replicant Rebellion, a more action-oriented
supplement which sees players take on the role of replicants
on the run.
‘Playing a Blade Runner felt like the natural starting point, but
there are lots of different characters in this universe that could
be fun to play,’ Härenstam said. ‘[The rogue Replicant] Roy
Batty is the real protagonist of the first film and I think it
makes sense to give the option to play the other side fully.
Even though it changes the gameplay, I still think it’s going to
feel very much like Blade Runner.’
“ROY BATTY IS THE REAL
PROTAGONIST OF THE FIRST FILM
AND I THINK IT MAKES SENSE TO
GIVE THE OPTION TO PLAY
THE OTHER SIDE FULLY”
Available in 2024, this sourcebook will give you everything you
need to create a cell operating in the replicant underground,
conducting operations that are a mix of corporate sabotage
and helping other replicants avoid detection. While the rules
for combat and chase scenes will stay the same, Replicant
Rebellion will feature new player character archetypes which
will largely be shadow versions of the various types of Blade
Runners such as enforcer or analyst. The book will also
provide a detailed history of the replicant underground and
include half a dozen operations for characters to take on.
‘The operations that we are including in Replicant Rebellion
are fairly short —- the idea is to have them designed as one-
shots so you can play them in a single night, but of course you
can tie them together into longer stories and campaigns,’
Härenstam said. ‘We think the game will benefit from having
another mode that is a bit easier to improvise and that doesn’t
require that much preparation.’
Replicant Rebellion will also be more conducive to larger
groups, with five to six players working together rather than
the cap of four placed on the core game. It will also rely less on
handouts and, with its emphasis on infiltrating and fighting
against corporations, have a more traditional cyberpunk feel.
‘A Blade Runner is in such a morally complicated position but
being on the Replicant Rebellion side might be more
straightforward,’ Härenstam said. ‘It’s less grey and just feels
like doing good, but that definitely doesn’t mean there won’t
be any moral issues at stake.’
Building rules for both sides also creates opportunities to
develop new game dynamics. Most of the characters in a
Replicant Rebellion game are, naturally, expected to be
Replicants, but you will also have the option to potentially
play a human sympathizer. It also opens the game up to
different groups of PCs coming into conflict.
‘You could build a campaign where you have people on both
sides,’ Härenstam said. ‘Even if you’re playing Blade Runners,
there are so many options for not doing what you’re supposed
to do and helping the other side that the player vs. player
potential is already there. You could have two separate groups,
one Blade Runners and one the Replicant Rebellion side, run
side by side like a joint double campaign. That would require a
bit of work, so I’m not sure we’ll do that as an official product,
but it’s definitely something game runners can build.’
Härenstam has designed some lighter games like the recently
released Dragonbane, a reimagining of the 1982 Swedish
classic fantasy TTRPG Drakar och Demoner that requires little
prep time and, in Free League’s own words, leans towards
‘mirth and mayhem’. But he’s mostly focused on darker
science fiction with titles like Alien - The Roleplaying Game,
based on Blade Runner director Ridley Scott’s Alien films, and
the post-apocalyptic Mutant: Year Zero.
‘Some days you just want something light and easy and fun,
but other days you prefer to dig deeper into something a bit
heavier,’ Härenstam said. ‘Sci-fi and fantasy are called
escapism, and that’s true to a point, but for me they’ve always
been something more. They are a way to see our world
through a different lens.’
Speculative fiction is also a way of processing shifting realities,
and one of the reasons that Blade Runner has remained so
influential 40 years after its release is how prophetic its vision
of a ruined earth ravaged by hyper-capitalism proved to be.
‘When watching Blade Runner in the ‘80s, this kind of climate
change and artificial intelligence were purely fantastical, far
away concepts,’ Härenstam said.
‘Now we’re not exactly there, but some days I feel like the
game is a bit too close to reality for my comfort. But the flip
side of that is that it makes these questions even more current
and important to deal with right now.’
Blade Runner - The Roleplaying Game
Core Rules and Starter Set are out now
published by Free League
freeleaguepublishing.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 59
60 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground - A Guide to Tabletop Roleplaying Games from D&D to Mothership
is the essential new book from Vintage RPG host Stu Horvath. Here he extracts five titles from the more than
300 the book features and that give us some insight into why the RPG industry developed the way it has.
Art opposite: Kyle Patterson (courtesy of The MIT Press).
Photos: Stu Horvath (except p.62 J.D. Orr)
W
hen we last spoke to Stu Horvath (WS3:8-11), the host
of the Vintage RPG podcast had just finished work on
his debut book, Monsters, Aliens and Holes in the Ground
- A Guide to Tabletop Roleplaying Games from D&D to Mothership.
Fast forward to today and that book, a look at how roleplaying
games have evolved over the past 50 years, is both out and one
of the best books on the subject we’ve read for some time.
With D&D’s fiftieth anniversary sure to inspire a deluge of books
focused on its convoluted and often troubled history, Monsters,
Aliens and Holes in the Ground is a timely reminder that important
as it is, there’s always been more to RPGs than just Gygax’s get. An
avid collector, with some several thousand games in his own
library, and an obvious love for the subject, Horvath is well placed
to guide us through the ups and downs of this curious pastime,
shining a light on the titles that have shaped its development.
Not that D&D doesn’t get a look in, indeed starting with 1974’s
original Dungeons & Dragons, its many editions, modules,
supplements and even colouring books feature prominently
throughout the book. Importantly though Horvath treats each
and every entry in the book with the same care and attention,
whether they’re curiosities such as 1980’s Dallas: The Television
Roleplaying Game, bonafide multi-edition classics like Call of
Cthulhu, or modern game changers such as 2010’s Apocalypse World.
Delving into the stories behind both their creation and the
people involved, Horvath puts them in the wider context of
gaming history and demonstrates how these titles, especially
many of the lesser known ones, helped steer roleplaying games
in new directions, shift attitudes within the industry and in some
cases completely change what we thought an RPG could be.
Complete with hundreds of photos of the games pulled from his
personal collection, alongside art from the likes of Kyle Paterson,
Evelyn Moreau, Amanda Lee Franck and Nate Treme, Monsters,
Aliens and Holes in the Ground is a visual feast as well as an
essential history of RPGs. Endlessly entertaining and informative,
this is a book that is almost guaranteed to inspire its readers to
make a worrying number of late night eBay purchases.
With the book in stores now, we asked Horvath to once more sit
in judgement and whittle down its several hundred entries to
just five titles, one from each decade, that give us some insight
into how we got from a basement in Wisconsin to where we are
today.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 61
PALACE OF THE VAMPIRE QUEEN (1976)
Some RPG publishers made strange miscalculations about what
players were willing to spend money on. Fantasy Games
Unlimited believed for a while that RPGs should be “complete,”
with everything in one box or book and no supplemental
products. That meant that nearly all of FGU’s early games,
including Bunnies & Burrows, were single publications, and, with
the exception of B&B, most of them have faded into obscurity.

FGU’s allergy has a surprising bedfellow in TSR, the makers of

Dungeons & Dragons. Though Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor (1975)
contains “The Temple of the Frog,” the first RPG adventure ever
published, the overriding belief at TSR in the early days was
that players wanted to buy games, not adventures and
campaign worlds.

In retrospect, this is a baffling position, but it also explains a

lot of small mysteries in early TSR products, like why there is
so little detail on the worlds of Greyhawk and Blackmoor in
the books that bear their names—instead, they are almost
entirely rules expansions. Or why the first stand-alone
adventure module, Palace of the Vampire Queen, was
published by Wee Warriors and sold out of the back of the
authors’ car, as if they were bootleggers.
There’s something kind of beautiful about Palace of the
Vampire Queen being the first standalone adventure module
because it feels similar to the sort of material most folks come
up with when designing their first adventure—by which I
mean it is bad in a specific, wonderful way, while also being
amazing: A Platonic ideal of a glorious mess.
Nothing makes sense. The only context is provided in a one-
page background that boils down to a couple of key facts,
most of which were already established by the title: There is a
queen, she is a vampire, she lives in a palace, and she recently
kidnapped a dwarven princess. There isn’t even a moody
description of the palace exterior.
The palace consists of five levels, each accompanied by a
Game Master’s map, a blank map for players, and a chart listing
the contents and inhabitants of rooms. Everything is static; the
occupants of rooms wait for the players to arrive in order to
react. Several rooms have detailed descriptions of furniture
and other contents, implying that the rooms labeled “Empty”
are literally empty. There are a lot of empty rooms, and there is
an alarming number of normal cats just wandering around.
The mix of monsters and other opponents is strange. Many of
them hang out on the ceiling. Why do the bandits stick around
PALACE OF THE VAMPIRE QUEEN
WEE WARRIORS, 1977, FIFTH ED.
PETER AND JUDY KERESTAN
COVER BY MORNO (BRADLEY W. SCHENCK)
FROM THE COLLECTION OF TONY LEGATO | PHOTO BY D. J. ORR
when five of their gang are in the dining room, stone dead and
drained of blood? Why do the werewolves look like ghouls
and not werewolves? Why does a vampire keep a garden
dedicated to garlic? Why do a balrog, a rust monster, a
gelatinous cube, three carrion crawlers, four owlbears, and
fifteen gnolls hang out here at all?
As with many novice dungeon designs, the palace seems to be
populated the way it is because it might be neat, or might be
fun, or, in the case of the garlic garden, probably useful for the
players. In fact, this energy is baked into the very DNA of
RPGs—the term “gonzo” is often used to describe this sort of
over-the-top, nonsensical action when it pops up in Dungeon
Crawl Classics (2012) and Troika! (2018), as though it is unusual;
but Palace of the Vampire Queen (not to mention the natural
impulses of many novice homebrewers) proves that
extremities of strangeness are really a baseline of the hobby.
For all of its tomfoolery, TSR agreed to distribute Palace of the
Vampire Queen and three other Wee Warriors publications.
About a year later, TSR dropped distribution for all third-party
products and were printing modules of their own soon after.

62 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

SHADOWRUN (1989)
Shadowrun is an interesting nexus of a game, a culmination of
many threads of RPG design from both the ’70s and ’80s. The
designers were old hands. Bob Charrette and Paul Hume had
designed Bushido and Aftermath! (1981), while Tom Dowd had
contributed to the second edition of the superhero game,
Villains and Vigilantes (1982). The result is both the first and
most restrained of the big cross-genre RPGs (Rifts and Torg
both came out in 1990).

Shadowrun expands on the look and tone of Cyberpunk and

lifts much of its jargon and core technological concepts
directly from William Gibson’s novel, Neuromancer (1985),
while also anticipating what Vampire: The Masquerade (1991)
would eventually do aesthetically.

Mechanically, Shadowrun and Vampire have a shared ancestor

in Ghostbusters, as both use the variant comparative dice pool
mechanic (instead of totaling all of the dice rolled, each
individual die is counted as a success or failure). Finally, it is
also one of the first RPGs to present a new system and distinct
visual presentation in one core book, complete with color
plates for character archetypes, a format that became a
standard for many games in the ’90s.
All of these various strands came together to make Shadowrun
one of the biggest and most enduring RPGs of all time, sparking
not just a massive line across seven editions, but also novels,
videogames, and one extremely unfortunate promotional video.
Tim Bradstreet (who would shortly go on to define the visual
stylings of Vampire: The Masquerade) and Jeff Laubenstein also
deliver some stellar, street-level illustration work. Janet
Aulisio comes on board for the second edition, providing deep
shadows through which to skulk, but it is Jim Nelson who
exemplifies Shadowrun’s overwrought urban look. Nearly all of
the art is complimentary, though, working together to create a
varied, gritty world; even Larry Elmore, whose work is
normally glistening, gets in on the grime.
Much of Shadowrun’s appeal comes from this worn-out world, a
near-future version of our own, in which a series of events
caused massive unrest and political changes, culminating with
the return of magic and, with it, elves, orcs, trolls, and dragons.
Of course, it being created in 1989, Shadowrun often embraces
ideas that ring troubling today—like using Native American
traditions as plot devices, or using stereotyped fantasy races
as an opportunity to interrogate real-world oppression, or
even the fact that there is a character class called Street Samurai
(though that term comes from slang in Gibson’s Neuromancer).
SHADOWRUN
FASA CORPORATION, 1989
BOB CHARRETTE, PAUL HUME, AND TOM DOWD
COVER BY LARRY ELMORE
Anti-capitalists will be pleased, though: While governments
fragmented, corporations consolidated power and are, in true
cyberpunk fashion, the primary villains of the setting. Players
take the roles of lowlifes and criminals—failed Mages, Street
Shamans, Mercs, hackers, and gangsters. The titular
shadowrun is a mission of corporate espionage during which
a small team steals from or otherwise incinerates the interests
of a megacorp (which inevitably reveals their involvement in
some kind of labyrinthine conspiracy that threatens to
destabilize the multiverse).
For all of the pitfalls, Shadowrun is a game with a heart. The
fantasy elements counter the coldness of the game’s science
fiction, encouraging characters to have beliefs and ideals.
Those convictions give stakes to everything in the game,
which, in turn, make the world come alive. Characters don’t
run covert ops on dangerous corporate interests in order to
maintain the status quo; they do so to change life for the
better (a theme that Underground will pick up in a few years).
It isn’t perfect, but after Cyberpunk, with its ’80s-style
lionization of greed and self-centeredness, it’s a running jump
in the right direction.

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 63

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES
OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1998)
There is not much precedent for The Extraordinary Adventures
of Baron Munchausen. It came out of nowhere, seems
preposterous on its face, and winds up signaling a massive
paradigm shift.

The Baron was apparently a historical figure, a soldier known

for telling tall tales about his time fighting for the Russian
Empire against the Turks. These anecdotes inspired Rudolf
Erich Raspe to anonymously pen his own outrageous stories
attributed to a Baron Munchausen in 1785. Much to the real
Baron’s embarrassment, Raspe’s tales were of an entirely
different order of magnitude, with the fictional Baron flying on
a cannonball, traveling to the moon, and somehow using tree
branches to repair a horse cut in half.

The Baron narrates the tales himself, and, while his manner is
friendly, his tales are told with an objective tone. Everything
about his presentation is designed to feel plausible. It is only
because the events themselves are so categorically absurd
that they are clearly fabrications. And even then, the Baron
often expresses surprise at the events he describes, which
serves to make the reader unsure of the truth. Finally, later
versions by Raspe have the Baron being most insistent that
everything he says is true, no matter how preposterous or
inconsistent.
Raspe’s Munchausen stories don’t actually recount wild
adventures. They recount a man recounting; it’s a story about
telling stories (or, uncharitably, about a man lying through his
teeth), so the Baron Munchausen RPG is a game about telling
stories (or, players lying through their teeth). The rules
themselves amount to half-a-page. They dispense with most
of what is taken for granted in an RPG.
Play commences around a table at the tavern of the players’
choosing. Everyone has a coin for each player at the table. One
player asks the person to their right to tell a story and delivers
a prompt, such as, “So, Baron, tell us the story of the time you
fed the entire city of Luxembourg bacon from a single pig.” The
storyteller then weaves a five-minute tale, heaping on as
much ridiculousness as possible, and finishes with a vow of
their truthfulness. Other players can complicate the story by
offering a coin and a suggestion: “But Baron, wherever did you
find a frying pan the size of Versailles?” The storyteller can
either accept the coin and add the embellishment or deny the
coin and insult the questioner. The questioner can then add
another coin, take back their coin like a coward, or challenge
THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN
HOGSHEAD PUBLISHING, 1998
JAMES WALLIS
COVER ART BY GUSTAVE DORÉ
the storyteller to a duel (or three rounds of roshambo, for
those squeamish about violence); the winner takes all of the
coins.
Around it goes until everyone has had a chance to weave a
tale (or has begged off, buying the group a round as
punishment). At that point, every player takes the coins in
front of them and gives them to the storyteller they think told
the best story. The person with the most coins is the declared
the winner to the cheers of everyone at the table and uses
their winnings to buy the next round.
Baron Munchausen represents a sea change. Hogshead
Publishing calls Munchausen, “a role-playing game in a New
Style.” It was true! Other New Style games followed. There are
two satirical games, Puppetland/Power Kill (1999) and Violence,
both of which question assumptions RPGs make about
violence. Puppetland (published in the same book as Power
Kill), De Profundis, and the five mini-games contained in
Pantheon (2000), all toyed with the ways RPGs handle
narratives. Many of these ideas and conventions are taken
further in the next decade by games like Sorcerer, Universalis,
and the broader indie/storygame movement.

64 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
THIRD EDITION (2000)
While, on some philosophical level, the Third Edition of
Dungeons & Dragons was marketed as a return to its roots, on
a mechanical level, it was a complete overhaul. The idea was
to create a totally unified system that used a 20-sided die to
resolve all conflicts. To the surprise of no one, the system was
a massive success.
Prior to the release of Third Edition, Wizards of the Coast
released two licenses. The first was the Open Gaming License
(OGL), which supposedly made the mechanics of the Third
Edition, as expressed in a system reference document, open
for commercial use by any publisher (this is a fib, the truth of
which became clear during 2023’s D&D One’s OGL
controversy). The second license was for the use of an official
d20 System trademark, designed to signal that products
developed under the OGL were all compatible.
The reasoning behind this licensing scheme was purely
economic. Core rulebooks retain their market value longer
over time, while profits from supplemental material diminish.
In releasing these licenses, Wizards of the Coast effectively
outsourced the development of the expanded D&D line. Many
publishers jumped at the opportunity; Troll Lord Games,
Goodman Games, Green Ronin, and Mongoose all got their
start by producing sourcebooks and scenarios for Third
Edition. Wizards also released the d20 Star Wars Roleplaying
Game (2000) and d20 Modern (2002) to expand the d20
System into other genres. Hundreds of products hit the
market. In a short period of time, huge swaths of the RPG
industry had been converted into the d20 System industry.
This was a precarious overcommitment.
“HUGE SWATHS OF THE RPG
INDUSTRY HAD BEEN CONVERTED
INTO THE D20 SYSTEM INDUSTRY.
THIS WAS A PRECARIOUS
OVERCOMMITMENT”
Three complications came together to topple d20’s
supremacy. The first crept out of the Book of Vile Darkness
(2002), a mature audiences title that strove to imbue as much
gross awfulness into D&D’s portrayal of evil as possible. The
book is an orgy of questionable taste masquerading as a
transgressive reaction to a decade of perceived self-
censorship. And because it was published by Wizards of the
Coast, it was an acceptable addition to the D&D canon. The
following year, Valar Project’s Book of Erotic Fantasy (2003)
introduced material involving sex into the d20 System,
including conception, birth, and sexually transmitted
infections. Regardless of whether players want material like
that in their game, it seems tame in comparison to the
unhallowed excesses of Vile Darkness.
Since Wizards had published Vile Darkness, opening the door
for mature content, the company’s swift reaction to the third-
party published Book of Erotic Fantasy was unexpected. When
the book was announced, Wizards revised the d20 license to
include a standard of decency. This forced Valar Project to
drop the d20 trademark, as well as all references to D&D, and
to publish the book under the OGL instead. Wizards of the
Coast’s display of discretionary power made other publishers
understandably nervous.
The second problem was D&D 3.5 (2003), a comprehensive
revision of the core D&D books that sought to address
complaints and correct numerous minor errors. The corrected
edition was released at Gen Con, taking d20 System
publishers by surprise and rendering many forthcoming books
outdated before they even hit shelves.
The final issue was one of success. There was too much
product flooding the market without enough quality control.
Many d20 books were obvious cash-ins. After a brief but
lucrative boom period, the d20 brand was rapidly devaluing in
the opinion of players. By the end of 2003, the boom turned
into a bust. Because so many publishers had committed to the
d20 System, the sudden collapse of the market caused a
massive drop in sales and sparked a disaster, devastating the
industry. Many companies went out of business, and for a
moment, it looked like the whole industry might fall apart.
★★★
It survived, but just barely.
Many of the remaining publishers looked for alternatives.
Some dropped the d20 brand but stayed committed to the
underlying system, publishing under the OGL. Green Ronin’s
Blue Rose, which used their house version of d20, called
True20, is one example. Others hacked or otherwise
experimented with d20, like Troll Lord Games’ Castles &
Crusades. Still, others looked back to earlier editions, creating
retroclones and kicking off the Old School Revival.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 65
 BOOK OF VILE DARKNESS
WIZARDS OF THE COAST, 2001
MONTE COOK
COVER BY HENRY HIGGINBOTHAM

AN ORGY OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE

MASQUERADING AS A TRANSGRESSIVE
REACTION TO A DECADE OF
PERCEIVED SELF-CENSORSHIP

66 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

MOTHERSHIP (2018)
What is a zine? Like so many other cultural classifications (punk,
OSR, pornography, the concept of “indie”), a zine is physically
easy to recognize, but its intrinsic traits are difficult to define.
Are zines made up of photocopied collages crudely stapled
together? Sure! Is “zine” another word for “chapbook?” Sure!
Are zines weird and countercultural? Probably! Do hippies and
comic artists and punks and riot grrls and Star Trek fans make
zines? Yes! And so do RPG designers and a lot of other people.

For my purposes, zines are short, stapled, digest-sized

booklets that are inexpensively produced in short runs, often,
but not always, by one person, often, but not always,
containing material that appeals to a niche or otherwise non-
commercially viable population. In other words, zines are
where to find the awesome weird shit.

A certain do-it-yourself, zinester aesthetic was baked into RPGs

from the start. Then, as now, zines give enthusiasts an inexpensive
way to participate in the larger hobby and to put their ideas MOTHERSHIP
into the world, where they are circulated among friends, sold TUESDAY KNIGHT GAMES, 2018
at conventions, stocked on the consignment shelves of local SEAN MCCOY
stores, given away, shared, and, sometimes, lost to time. COVER BY SEAN MCCOY

In recent years, access to high quality design software and

increasingly affordable full-color digital printing (and the
rediscovery of the eccentric risograph process) helped steadily
advance the production value of zines. As attractive as they
have become (and they are often very, very pleasing to the eye
and hand), RPG zines have remained a bastion for the weird,
the experimental, and the niche. RPGs have always offered a
creative space, but as D&D brings more people into the hobby,
it simultaneously feels increasingly like homogenized output
from a monolithic corporation. Alternatively, the zine scene
feels like the beating heart and soaring soul of the hobby—
diverse, idiosyncratic, beautiful, and unrestrained.
Sean McCoy’s science fiction horror RPG Mothership didn’t
start this revolution, but something about it grabbed the
attention in that “right time, right place” kind of way. It didn’t
exactly bring people into the hobby like the Fighting Fantasy
books or the HeroQuest board game did, but it offered a similar
kind of gateway that inspired a re-commitment from many
players whose interests were otherwise starting to drift.
Mothership said to many of them that they could make game
zines (and postcard games, pamphlet games, and little games
that fit onto business cards), too. The game showcased the
potential of the zine format, and the emergence of Mothership
coincides with a massive swell of momentum in indie RPGs
that has since grown exponentially.
Taking a curious page from videogame development,
Mothership was in “alpha” for many years, meaning that the
zine was still undergoing tweaks for a forthcoming definitive
edition in a more traditional printed form (ferried along by a
massively successful Kickstarter campaign). The in-progress
nature of the zine gives the game and its increasing number of
official and third party supplements a sprawling, experimental
feel, with folks figuring out what works and what doesn’t on
the fly. In some ways, it is reminiscent of the open playtesting
of Pathfinder and the Fifth Edition of D&D.
And thanks to Mothership’s specificity of tone and an open
license, third party creators have had much success in
contributing their own zines to the line. Along with Mörk Borg
and Troika!, Mothership also boasts exciting and consistent
creator community. Together with the official Mothership
publications, they’re not only exploring a rich galaxy of terror,
they’re also laying out a whole new community-focused way
to create and play.
Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground
is out now published by The MIT Press
find Stu Horvath online at linktr.ee/vintagerpg
All extracts © 2023 MIT. Reprinted with permission

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 67

68 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
THE
NAKED
& THE
DREAD
John Power Jr. speaks to Chris McDowall about his new
apocalyptic skirmish game The Doomed
Art (throughout): Helge C. Balzer, courtesy of Osprey Games
‘I
t was the lockdown, the first lockdown in the UK in
2020. It was my birthday and somebody had sent me a
gift card and I thought, you know what, I’m stuck in this
house, I need an indoor hobby. I’m going to buy myself two
different miniature kits and bash them together, buy a few
paints to paint them with and just do it for a bit of fun, not get
in too deep,’ Chris McDowall laughs.
‘And then it was, I'm just gonna buy a little bit of terrain so
that I can pose them on it for a nice photo. And then I thought,
well maybe I'll try making a little ruleset that I could use with
them. And well, here we are three years later.’
Where we are exactly is late summer 2023 and Chris McDowall
has just released The Doomed. A miniature agnostic wargame
set on a dying, dystopian world, The Doomed sees rival
warbands exploring this ruined planet, fighting battles both
amongst themselves and against the monstrous techno
abominations that call this awful planet home.
Whilst McDowall is best known for games like Into The Odd,
one of the more influential rules-lite RPGs to have emerged
from the OSR movement, The Doomed is something of a
return to his roots and the wargames, like Warhammer and
Necromunda, that first caught his imagination as a ten year old
child setting him on the path to game design.
McDowall may have, temporarily at least, swapped RPGs’
theatre of the mind for the more physical world of miniatures
butThe Doomed still shares much of the same design
philosophy that underpinned Into The Odd and its follow-up
Electric Bastionland. Much like they took those early editions
of Dungeons & Dragons B/X and stripped them to the bone,
The Doomed is a similar exercise in mechanical minimalism.
Warbands come from one of four different factions, each with
their own theme and from which you pick eight models, a
leader and their attendant retinue. Each model gets to operate
independently of each other and can make three actions on
their turn, actions that are normally limited to moving, fighting
hand to hand, shooting or recovering if they’re currently
prone. Tape measures are out, with models able to move and
shoot as far as they can in a straight line and to further
simplify things units have just the one stat, Quality, which
they must equal or roll over on a d6 when they want to do
anything bar make their first move.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 69
‘With The Doomed, what we ended up with was an attempt to
create as simple a rule set as possible, something that is very
fast and easy to learn,’ McDowall explains. ‘Now I appreciate
that's something that every wargame system says about itself,
but I've tried to push it even further here and take it to the
extreme. I’d been playing Kill Team a little bit and I thought,
well, this is okay, I like this, but I wonder how much more you
can strip back. Another big inspiration for that was the One
Page Rules games. But even with those I thought, well, can you
go even further than that? Can you strip out things like
ongoing conditions, stacking modifiers and measuring.
Reduce units down to a single single number essentially,
without losing flavor or the differentiation between units?’
Reducing the rules to a skeletal frame wasn’t just an
intellectual exercise though. By making the core structure of
the game as simple as possible McDowall was able to then
add complex features back into the game where they could
create the kind of narrative drama that he wanted, a key
example of this being the Shock Table that units must roll on
every time they’re wounded.
‘I wanted the game to have that sense of chaos, a little bit like
in Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play when you get these critical
hit results that cause all sorts of spiraling effects that can change
the face of the battle,’ he says. ‘So every time a unit gets wounded,
you roll on a shock table. That covers things like getting a
chance to crawl to cover before you go down or the unit that's
been hit just panics and shoots at the nearest model.
‘That can create all sorts of domino moments where an attack
hits somebody and they go down but they get an attack so
they shoot another person who then crawls and moves and
that activates something else. In a game where the core
system was a little bit complicated that, for me, would be
overwhelming. I wanted the system to be super simple so you
could have those exciting dramatic moments, and have this
chaos unfolding on the battlefield.’
For McDowall that element of chaos is a huge part of the
appeal, the way a roll of the dice and a table of weird results
can spark unexpected moments of joy and create stories at
the table.
‘I think it's the idea of playing to find out what happens,’ he
says, ‘Whilst I can't claim ownership of it, that’s actually a
phrase that I use in this book, and it’s a phrase that's used a lot
in RPGs. So you set up a battle and you bring your miniatures
and someone else brings theirs and you never know what the
weird thing is that’s going to happen that at the end of this
game we're all gonna laugh about and remember.
70 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
‘I'm not really into sports, but that’s probably something that
people who enjoy watching it get as well, waiting for those big
moments. That's what’s always stuck with me from when I
was learning to play wargames as a kid. I got loads of the rules
wrong but I still remember those unexpected moments I had
playing with friends and it’s those moments that come out of
the dice that appeals to me.’
Helping create those moments the game includes 36 Conflicts,
designed to maximise the narrative potential. These range
from straight forward firefights, to missions where you must
recover powerful relics or rescue survivors of a previous
encounter, all with their own optional twists, specific rewards
and additional rules for playing them solo. Furthermore these
scenarios can be strung together to create a campaign, one
that may see your warband escape from this cursed planet, or
as likely see the planet pull itself apart at the seams.
W
here McDowall has also allowed himself to put
some extra heft into the rules is with The Horrors,
the apex predators of The Doomed’s already
hellish world. These are creatures that, when not killing each
other, players must hunt down and destroy to both complete
scenarios and upgrade their equipment. Taking down a Horror
though is rarely an easy task, and it is achieving that which
gives the game so much of its unique flavour.
‘Each game can be focused on one of these Horrors, almost
like a boss monster for the scenario, each of them breaks the
rules in their own way and behaves in a slightly differently,’
says McDowall. ‘I wanted the rest of the rules to be very simple
so that we could make the Horrors really weird and each one
feels like you're playing a slightly different version of the game.’
“I WANTED THE REST OF THE
GAME TO BE VERY SIMPLE
SO THAT WE COULD MAKE
THE HORRORS REALLY WEIRD”
The Doomed includes 36 of these Horrors. Some like the
Abyssal Colossus, ‘a bio-mechanical monstrosity dredged
from the forgotten depths,’ come with attendant minions to
do their bloody work for them whilst others, such as the Flesh
Titan, require no assistance in crushing all before them single
handedly. All though are unique in both their murderous
abilities and the different tactics to put them back into the
cursed earth that spawned them. Generally this is achieved in
the game by destroying three Nexuses, points of geomantic
power that must be removed before the Horror itself can be
defeated but which all have their own game changing effects
too. The Horrors add another level to the game and it was their
inclusion that made McDowall realise he was on to something
with The Doomed.
‘It did originally start as a more straightforward skirmish
game,’ he explains. ‘But then I had some scenarios that included
these wandering monsters, a little bit like you get in Frostgrave.
The more I played with them though they felt really fun to
have, and some of the bigger ones had a presence on the table
that really changed how the scenario felt. So that's when the
focus shifted to “well, what if the Horror was the scenario?”
And that's the point where I thought that this is its own thing
now, not just me doing my version of One Page Rules Firefights
or Kill Team.’
Whilst the Horrors can appear as part of the setup in some of
the standard Conflicts, they can all be played as standalone
scenarios and their sheer power and brutality adds another
dimension to The Doomed, the potential for rival warbands to,
temporarily at least, put aside their differences to try and take
down a particularly dangerous foe together.
McDowall suggests though that once you’ve got a few games
under your belt you try to combine a Conflict with a Horror,
where you might need to team up to take on the game’s
Horror before turning on each other to complete your other
objectives. It adds an entirely new tactical layer to the game as
you must decide how much to commit yourself to the attack,
and hopefully get the reward for finishing off the Horror,
without leaving yourself to weakened to resist the inevitable
betrayal.
‘When you have both a Horror and a Conflict, it gets into this
slightly weird scenario,’ he explains. ‘If we're playing together
we both want to kill the horror and we probably know that if
we fight each other too much, the Horror is just going to pick
off the scraps from both of us. But we are also competing over
another objective. So it does create this weird gray area where
it’s both cooperative and competitive.’
It’s easy to see how these kind of games can produce the kind
of chaotic moments and emergent storytelling that McDowall
enjoys so much. On the other hand with some of the game’s
looser rules, the element of unexpected events that may
change the shape of any given battle, and the emphasis in the
rulebook on players making judgement calls and coming to a
shared consensus when things aren’t 100% clear, it’s not hard
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 71
 PAINTING, CONVERSIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHY
BY ANA POLANŠĆAK | GARDENSOFHECATE.COM

COURTESY OF OSPREY GAMES

72 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

to imagine how many wargame players, used to more rigid
rulesets might react.

‘It's been interesting,’ McDowall says. ‘The people I've played

with who I know through RPGs, for them it doesn't seem like a
big deal at all. In an RPG, you're always having to come to a
consensus on something. There's a whole school of RPG
thought “rulings, not rules”, which is where at some point
there'll be something that isn't covered by the rules and the
GM will have to make a ruling about it.

‘With the people I played who came from a more wargaming

background, some really got to grips with it quickly but I have
a very, very good friend who is like the opposite of me and
when wargaming he's very competitive and he likes the rules
to be very thorough and for him it was completely different to
anything he played before, so I think I think for some people it
is going to be a bit of a shock.’

“I THINK I THINK FOR SOME

PEOPLE IT IS GOING TO
BE A BIT OF A SHOCK”

T
he Doomed also shares DNA with McDowall’s previous
RPGs is in its sparse approach to world building.
Instead of several hundred pages detailing the history
of the planet and how everyone and thing ended up there, The
Doomed doles out its setting in bite size pieces scattered
throughout the book. Enough to give you a sense of the place
but still open to numerous interpretations.

‘I always want the setting to serve the game,’ he says. ‘I don't

often go into a project thinking, “Oh, I've got this incredible
world that I need to bring to life through the medium of a
game,” rather “I want this game to have a setting and I want it
to be interesting and evocative and exciting.” But it needs to fit
the game, those settings always excite me more than when
you play a game and it feels like the designer also had a novel
in the back of their head. So with The Doomed, it is mostly
delivered through single lines of flavour text.

‘I very, very casually played Magic - The Gathering when I was

a teenager and what I used to love about that was I didn't
know anything about the world because I would go into my
local shop and they had these big buckets of common cards
for like a penny per card. I would just go through and pick out
the ones that looked cool, and they would just have the little
lines of flavour text. So I felt like I was piecing together this

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 73

setting through those and it didn't all fit together, but I engage
with that much more than having a big paragraph of text. So
that's what I've tried to do here, provide a little teaser and give
enough that it feels coherent but you also have to fill in the
blanks yourself a bit.’
Just as The Doomed has inherited elements from McDowall’s
previous games, the experience of immersing himself
wargames again has also fed back in to how he’s been looking
at RPGs. ‘I think something that I've come back to, something
that I've always really enjoyed from wargames -like
Necromunda and Gorkamorka and if we're counting
something like Warhammer Quest- they all had this thing
where the campaign was quite rigidly structured. You play a
scenario and then there's a whole after-battle sequence where
you're in town, or you've got random events happening or
your characters are leveling up, and you've got this kind of
sequence laid out. With roleplaying games, I've always shied
away from that kind of structure but I think there is something
74 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
appealing in that, keeping things slightly firmer with how a
session is structured.
‘Then one wargame that's really been inspiring me lately is
Five Parsecs from Home, it has a really strong element where
there's a load of tables you roll on first, you do a very quick
battle and then there's a load of tables you roll on afterwards
and it creates this story. I've always liked those kind of almost
procedurally generated stories that you can get from certain
games. So that's one of the things that I've really taken away
from wargames, how random tables can almost create the
session for you. That's not new, there are lots of RPGs that do
that but I think I think there's some wargames that are doing it
in a really good way at the minute.’
H
aving scratched his wargame itch, for now at least,
with The Doomed McDowall is heading back to the
world of RPGs with Mythic Bastionland. As the name
suggests this is a return to the world of Into The Odd and
Electric Bastionland, though where they saw you explore ‘the
only city that matters’ in its industrial and modern eras, here
you find yourself in its legendary past.
‘It uses largely the same system as Into The Odd and Electric
Bastionland,’ McDowall says, ‘With those I didn't really get to
explore much of what you might think of as traditional fantasy
as it's a very modern setting. But I thought what would be
their creation myth? So this game is set within that world,
which sounds fancy, but essentially means it's a medieval
setting and a game about knights going on quests. What I
really wanted to do with it is put the focus on traveling through
the wilderness, engaging with these myths but with a more
zoomed out scope of play. Pendragon was a huge influence
obviously, but with a focus on a hex-crawl style of play.’
McDowall’s been developing Mythic Bastionland in public for
the past couple of years, an approach he’s taken for most of
his career. ‘I think it's the only way that I know how to do it,’
he says. ‘When I started making games I wasn't doing it as a
living just as a bit of a hobby. So I was putting them on my blog
and saying “I've been working on this, here’s the first version of
it” and I've never really stopped doing that. The good thing is
you get you get a wide variety of feedback. Some useful, some
less so, but you get to see how it's doing in the wild.
‘Also people seem to quite like it, seeing behind the curtain.
Even though it's going to end up as quite a nice looking hardback
book, it starts with just a document you cobbled together and
they can see the steps that it takes to get to the end. Really it's
the only way I know but it seems to work well for me.’
“PEOPLE SEEM TO
QUITE LIKE IT, SEEING
BEHIND THE CURTAIN”
Something else that Electric Bastionland was notable for is The
Oddendum. Rather than the usual assortment of ignorable rules
stuffed in an appendix ,The Oddendum was featured solid advice
from McDowall explaining how he played the game, and
providing some insight into his views on roleplaying in general.
In Mythic Bastionland that has become The Oddpocrypha, and
provides some of the clearest examples of play we’ve seen in
an RPG. Each page features a brief script from a game,
illustrating a specific concept, from learning the rules to player
death, alongside a running commentary from McDowall
pointing out what the referee and players did right, or wrong,
or just his general beliefs on the subject at hand. It’s packed
full of useful insights and worth the price of admission alone.
‘Sometimes I think games provide an example of play almost
because they feel duty bound to and then they keep it very
focused on the rules,’ he explains. ‘What I really wanted to do
was focus on situations that you don't often see. So a really
obvious one is it's very rare to see a character die in an
example of play.
‘Mythic Bastionland isn't a super lethal game, characters aren’t
dying left, right and centre but it will happen at some point
and very few games equip the group to deal with that. Which
is why you see all these stories about players whose character
dies and the GM doesn't really know what to do. So they either
fudge it and say, “Oh, no, they're fine” or it causes an argument.
‘So I wanted to have an example where a character that we
know from the other examples of play, that you’re maybe a bit
attached to, dies. And it explains what do we do now with this
character and this player, how does the group actually deal
with that? It's one thing to say in the rules, “oh, roll up a new
character and get them in as quickly as possible” but it's
another to actually deal with that in practice.
‘I always try to make it clear that this is just how I would do it.
Some games will say, “Oh, it's all different for every group.” But
that's almost useless advice, because it's just saying work it
out. Then some games will be really dogmatic about it and say
“this is the way that this game needs to be run to work”. So I
try to strike a middle ground and just say “this is how I do it.”
With my games having some common design ideas running
through them I'm hoping by now people will know whether
they align with that or not.’
Looking at the success of Mythic Bastionland’s Kickstarter - as
we go to print it’s already raised around 1000% of its goal with
over 3 weeks to go- it seems that plenty of people do indeed
align with how McDowall does it.
Hopefully though it wont be too long before he is back
tinkering with miniatures and skirmish games again. RPGs
grew out of wargames and despite going in different
directions ever since there’s still a lot that designers from both
camps can stand to learn from each other. Though hopefully
in future we can try and do it without all the lockdowns.
The Doomed is out now
available from Osprey Games
ospreypublishing.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 75
76 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
 THE
CASSANDRA
A
COMPLEX
T
E
T
A
E
D
N
I
TI
N
ON CITI
G
ZEN

THIS AR
TICLE W OPER
G T H E
ITHOUT
PR
!

Nearly 40 years on from its original release, dystopian RPG

R TTAININ ACT OF
FIRST A LEARANCE IS AN
Paranoia is back with the Perfect Edition. Rob Wieland risks
U R I T Y C L P H A C OMPLEX!
SEC A life and limb to look at why this atypical game has endured
AGAINST
TREASON and why, disturbingly, it remains more relevant than ever.
STS YOU ST
R REQUE
R I E N D COMPUTE AT YOUR NEARER
F IN U
URSELF THAT YO
TURN YO TION BOOTH SO ULL REGRET
Paranoia illustrations by Nikita Vasylchuk, except p.79 by
TE R M I N A EI V E S F !
ONE REC ACCOUNT
Douglas Deri, courtesy of Mongoose Publishing
NEXT CL ATION TO THEIR
T
ACCREDI N!
PERATIO
F O R Y OUR COO
OU
THANK Y

O
kay, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about
Paranoia. Paranoia hits people hard. They love this
game so much that many fans will immediately jump
into the doublespeak used in the game without stopping to explain
it. Imagine mentioning you enjoyed the last season of Star
Trek: Strange New Worlds and suddenly everyone starts yelling
at you in Klingon. It’s authentic, weird and just a little terrifying.
So for those who aren’t familiar, let’s start with the basics.
Paranoia is a satirical science-fiction role-playing game set in
a place called Alpha Complex. Alpha Complex is, in theory, a
utopia run by a machine known as Friend Computer. Alpha
Complex is, in fact, so perfect that Friend Computer needs
crack troops, so-called Troubleshooters, to root out its many
enemies - Communists, mutants and members of strange
secret societies - who wish to end its enlightened rule.
The twist? Everyone in Alpha Complex, especially those
Troubleshooters, are both mutants and members of a secret
society, including the aforementioned Communists, who
aren’t so much socialist revolutionaries as cargo cultists,
worshipping the pop culture detritus of the Soviet Union like
ushanka hats whilst adopting thick Russian accents.
This was a gonzo premise in 1984 when the first edition of
Paranoia, designed by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber, and Eric
Goldberg, was released and most role-playing games were still
taking their first wobbly steps out of fantasy dungeons. By the
mid eighties though West End Games were challenging the
notions of what an RPG could be with the likes of Ghostbusters,
Star Wars, and indeed Paranoia, putting the focus more on
story-telling and genre simulation.
Paranoia’s creators certainly had ideas far beyond the gritty,
subterranean crawls of Dungeons & Dragons and reading that
first edition it’s not hard to picture Costikyan, Gelber and
Goldberg cracking jokes in the back of Professor Gygax’s class
as he lectured everyone on the serious business of playing elves.

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 77

Paranoia flies in the face of so many of the rules, written and
unwritten, of RPGs. I still remember when I first cracked open
the rulebook as a young nerd. Here, players were told to betray
each other at every opportunity and to advance their own
agendas above all. GMs were expected to be petty and arbitrary,
hiding behind in-game bureaucracy and an out of game desire
to mess with their friends. Whilst missions were built to put
characters into deathtrap after deathtrap often with a no-win
ending waiting for them after all that trouble. Characters died
so often they were given half a dozen clones and would often
run through all six within the confines of a single session.
My mind was blown. Could a game like this actually be fun?
Like many others I soon found out the answer to that was
both a resounding yes and so much more.
‘My first experience with Paranoia was running the 2nd Edition
box set as a freshman in High School,’ said Chris O'Neill, creator
of Mazes and Kobolds Ate My Baby. ‘I can clearly remember
gleefully killing Chef-Boy-RED over and over as the player kept
saying innocuous, but obviously treasonous, things to the
automated kiosk.’
‘It’s 1998, or maybe 1997? I’m 14, or maybe 13?’ said Chant Evans,
freelance RPG writer and co-founder of Ex Stasis Games, ‘Our
RPG group is just back from the schools AD&D tournament at
GenCon UK because we're the extreme type of nerds. Our
regular DM’s older brother offers, with a glint in his eye, to run
“something different” for a change of pace. Three hours later
we’re all about four clones deep and every crack in our social
network has been driven wide open and some of them have
been cathartically purged. Some. This, I realize with my mind
exploding like experimental classified equipment, is not D&D.’
“THREE HOURS LATER WE’RE
ALL ABOUT FOUR CLONES DEEP
AND EVERY CRACK IN OUR
SOCIAL NETWORK HAS BEEN
DRIVEN WIDE OPEN”
‘Back before I had played any game other than AD&D,’ said
Kevin Kulp, lead designer of TimeWatch and Swords of the
Serpentine, ‘a very distinctive full page advertisement appeared
in Dragon magazine. It was for Paranoia second edition and
showed the cover art by Jim Holloway. “Sure it’s a one joke
78 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
game…” the ad declared. “But it’s a REALLY funny joke.” I was sold.
I bought a copy before I ever played at a con. I returned my
copy three times for missing pages, duplicate pages, falling-
out pages. They had some printing issues, I didn’t care. It was
the funniest game I’d ever read, it was in on its own joke, and
it made me desperate to play. D&D felt like running someone
else’s game; Paranoia felt like running MY game.’
‘I remember buying the original Acute Paranoia back in high
school, in the mid to late 1980s, and ran Me and My Shadow,
Mark IV,’ said WJ MacGuffin, lead designer of the new Paranoia:
Perfect Edition. ‘I fell in love with Paranoia on the spot! I can
count on one hand the number of times I played instead of
running a game, but it has always held a special place in my
heart. That means I'm both excited and intimidated to help
run the show these days.’
H
umour is one of the big reasons for Paranoia’s
longevity. It reads funny, it plays funny. It connects to
some of the awful paradoxes in modern society that
you can’t help but laugh at because the only other option
would be to endlessly scream. That humour runs the gamut as
well, with different editions leaning into different styles, from
biting satire that makes everyone chuckle with a grim note in
their laugh to the kind of cartoon slapstick violence that
would make Bugs and Daffy applaud in admiration.
Similarly, how the game has actually played has varied wildly
too, both inter- and infra- editions. Some missions suggest a
through-line. Others were written as if the authors never
expected anyone to survive the initial briefing. There was even
one, The Yellow Black Box Clearance Blues, written by
legendary science fiction author John M. Ford, that suggested
tables could somehow manage a small Paranoia campaign.
Current license holder Mongoose’s 2004 edition Paranoia XP,
named as a joke about Microsoft Windows before they
received a polite request to stop or else, was the first attempt
to catergorise these facets into three distinct styles of play. On
one end there was ‘Straight’, here the focus was on dark satire
and it tried to reign in the excess death that the game had
become known for. On the other extreme there was ‘Zap’
which turned both the cartoon violence and pop culture puns
up to 10. Finally in the middle sat ‘Classic’, a style of play which
still tried to tell a coherent story but wasn’t afraid to let
Troubleshooters lose a few clones before things really got going.
‘Classic’ felt most like the tone of the first two editions,
‘Straight’ was something of an experiment to see if Paranoia
could actually be played as a campaign and ‘Zap’ emerged
from the game’s least popular, Fifth, edition, whose rushed
core book was published in 1995, just as West End Games were
circling the drain of bankruptcy.
In my experience the best adventures for Paranoia tend to mix
all three play styles in a single story. The aforementioned Me
And My Shadow, Mark IV works well as an example. Here the
Troubleshooters are assigned to guard a giant warbot and
each scene sees the game’s various factions try to put the
squeeze on them. On the ‘Zap’ side, the players get their hands
on some walking mines straight out of a Wile E. Coyote ACME
order. On the ‘Straight’ side there’s a scene where a higher
clearance character orders the players to move the warbot
because it's blocking his favorite jogging route. Of course any
attempts to order the warbot to move cause it to open fire
wiping everyone except itself out. Finally in the ‘Classic’ sense,
there’s a scene that combines a simple premise with a
devastating outcome. Something falls off the warbot, which
subsequently stops working, providing all the players a chance
to settle old scores and advance their secret society missions.
Game masters live for these moments and the kind of faces
players make when they are told the murderous warbot has
broken down. It makes all the other challenges of the role
worth it just to see such clear feelings of ‘We Are Screwed’
dawn upon them. Thankfully Paranoia is nothing if not full of
such moments, especially with its unique combat system.
‘Paranoia’s Dramatic Tactical Combat System was a revelation
and endlessly funny,’ said Kulp. ‘You weren’t more likely to
succeed by being a tactical genius, you were more likely to
succeed by being funny and dying as stylishly as possible.
Throwing a grenade was a lot more likely to fail than slipping a
grenade down the back of someone’s jumpsuit. The revelation
that you only “lose” if you’re boring drives endlessly funny, and
poorly-thought-out, player choices. “We landed? I roll down
the window and breathe in the sweet, sweet air of the Moon!”
and that makes the game a joy.’
The other way Paranoia stands out is how it handles player
character death, and again the game’s humour is key to this. In
many role-playing games, death is, more often than not, a
downer moment. All the time spent creating a character’s
narrative and, in many cases, the work that goes into building
them mechanically, down the tubes thanks to some bad luck.
For that reason many games include mechanics that can keep
a character alive just a little bit longer. Whether you’re talking
about death as a narrative choice or death saves, there are a
lot of second chances in role-playing games. Paranoia, with its
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 79
vat grown clones waiting in the wings, offers every player at
least six.
‘There’s no part of Paranoia that’s not funny but the funniest is
unquestionably how sudden and unceremonious death
becomes,’ said Evans. ‘Pure clownery. A game that gets you to
laugh at death is pretty damn clever.’
This isn’t to say that death is meaningless in Paranoia, rather
every demise represents a time a player took a big, possibly
foolish, risk to advance the story or at least do something
entertaining. The investment of time, effort and emotion put
into other RPG characters often means players act with an
abundance of caution. This was especially the case back when
Dungeon Masters were encouraged to play against rather than
with players. That culture instilled many with a paranoid fear
that death was waiting behind every door, that any NPC could
turn on them at any time and birthed the idea of the perfect
RPG character with no backstory, friends or family the
Dungeon Master could use against them.
Paranoia neatly subverts the RPG genre and encourages
players to abandon caution and engage in acts of foolhardy
bravado. Of course you’re going to die, it says, so don’t you
want that death to be memorable? Go out in a blaze of
traitorous glory and you’ll be back in a few minutes to do it all
80 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
over again. Various editions have delved into how this actually
works in the narrative but at the table it always comes down
to ‘Look, do you want to be in the next scene or not?’
‘There's something liberating about Paranoia that encourages
folks to get creative and darkly humorous,’ said McGuffin. ‘Sure,
we try to pad our word counts with meh-level jokes, but the
real fun comes from watching players, in real time, exercise
their creativity to get out of Catch-22s, Kobayashi Marus, and
other old references we barely understand.’
‘Paranoia is still one of the funniest games that I have ever
played, and it manages to do that while also remaining fun to
play, which I don't think was ever intended,’ said O’Neill. ‘For
me the core problem, that you are Troubleshooters rooting
out mutants and communists - who are also secret mutants
and communists - is the best part. Also, that everyone forgets
that you are a mutant or a commie when you die - so that you
get to do that all over again. The game play idea that you had
6 lives was so "freeing" from a game perspective that it led to
the funniest of moments.’
Comedy is one of the most difficult things to get right in an RPG.
Paranoia’s tone might shift depending upon the author and
the edition but beyond the slapstick deaths a universal theme
is how it taps into absurd truths revealed from our real world.
I’ve found myself using catchphrases from the game, like ‘The
Computer is your friend’, around people who knew nothing
about RPGs and they’ve nodded along, innately understanding
exactly how technology can be dehumanizing or an excuse for
cruel and petty behavior.

It’s also a lot of fun to watch players act like utter bastards to
one another, and more so to see them get away with it. That’s
the power fantasy in the game. Instead of untold riches or super
powers, it’s the chance to be the one to wield the power of
bureaucracy for your own selfish good for once. Or, for the cost
of a measly clone’s life, stuff a grenade down a bureaucrat’s
throat and laugh heartily as it explodes. When people ask me
to suggest a movie that gets Paranoia’s tone right, the one I
most often suggest is not a sci-fi classic but Office Space.

‘Players are highly incentivized for ratting out, framing, and

setting up their fellow troubleshooters in the funniest ways
possible,’ said Kulp. ‘And they do this despite the certain
knowledge that it is going to backfire and end terribly for
them. No one cares. Trying to slip one in under the all-seeing
eye of Friend Computer at the same time you’re attempting to
frame everyone else for doing the same drives a fantastic
environment of “do but don’t get caught.” That message of
“recognize backstabbing!”, along with having to scramble madly
while being questioned in a Termination Booth, is a pretty
good training ground for far too much corporate culture.’

I
t might seem ridiculous to talk about the realities of
Paranoia in our world, but that’s another key reason the
game has survived as long as it has. Those issues existed
when the game was first released and they still exist today.
The authors knew that papering over inequalities, greed,
power dynamics and other human frailties with technology
would never solve but only exacerbate those problems.
In Paranoia mutants represent the hidden threat that’s always
ready to strike. Commies are the outsiders waiting to rush in
and tear down society. Whilst traitors are the collaborators,
those who will happily sell out their friends for power in any
new regime. All of them get used by merchants of fear to
distract from their own sins using propaganda and lies.
Like all great science-fiction, Paranoia uses its fictional world
to examine our own and suggest that just perhaps we’re the
ones in the funhouse, not the citizens of Alpha Complex. There
may be games with darker settings but there’s a relatability to
Paranoia that’s hard to beat. When I hear Friend Computer say
‘You are in error. No one is screaming. Thank you for your
cooperation,’ I feel a chilling resonance with the official, and
ongoing, response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
LIKE ALL GREAT SCIENCE-FICTION,
PARANOIA USES ITS FICTIONAL
WORLD TO EXAMINE OUR OWN AND
SUGGEST THAT PERHAPS WE’RE
THE ONES IN THE FUNHOUSE
‘Paranoia still resonates today because its surveillance state
turned out to be real,’ said Kulp. ‘There really are cameras all
around you, some with facial and gait recognition software on
them. Class warfare between the haves and have-nots is even
more pronounced. People are often set upon each other
infighting so that the real movers and shakers are ignored. The
only real difference is that the real world is nowhere near as
funny as Alpha Complex.’
‘Good dystopias always feel current,’ said Evans. ‘We’re always
scared of losing identity and agency. The feeling that we’re all
disposable clones is, you know, pretty relatable when you’re

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 81

82 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
taking the fall for your boss’s latest mistake or getting fired and
rehired on worse terms, or when your government’s telling
you a whole category of human beings is now persona non
grata. But Paranoia presents a shockingly impersonal world
and that plays on fears and stressors that are even more
relevant now than when the game was first published.’
‘That's part of what makes Paranoia so great. It uses sarcasm
and satire for any number of topics.’ said McGuffin. ‘From little
jokes about being volunteered for mandatory bonus duty to
big jokes about the nature of obedience and even lines about
how the masses can be easily fooled by shiny objects. In other
words, the most subversive part of the game is its willingness
to mock life's bullshit across political and cultural spectrums.
If we can make fun of it and make folks laugh, then it works.
‘Paranoia's setting is a dystopia that mandates its people call it
a utopia. There's a ton of government control over what you
do, what you enjoy, who you spend time with, and so on.
Sadly, the modern era is seeing a rise in authoritarianism and
government control over life, and that's what makes Paranoia
so relevant to modern audiences. People see censorship,
nepotism, and extremism on the rise, so they enjoy playing a
game where we make fun of such topics. By laughing at them,
we see these issues in a new light and can better understand
how to respond.’
‘I think that Paranoia potentially resonates even more today,’
said O’Neill. ‘With the rise of authoritarian and ultra right wing
ideologies - we find ourselves in a time that needs this
particular commentary.’
B
eyond its humour, Paranoia broke the mold and
subverted RPG tropes in many other ways. Notably it
was one of the first RPGs that leaned into the idea of
fiction first gaming. There’s a theatricality to it few other
games possess, like everyone playing is in on a big gaming
secret. Despite the antagonistic setup, the players and the
Game Master are all in on the same gag. They are working
together to tell a story first rather than see how far a person
can move in six seconds or how many weapons they can
carry. It taught tables that with clear stakes and everyone
understanding the premise of a game, everyone can still have
fun even when betrayal, immolation or evisceration lurk
around every corner.
‘Paranoia informed my designs by reminding me that failure
was fun if you frame it right,’ said Kulp. ‘The goal doesn’t have
to be success, because for many games a goal of “be stylish
and exuberant and have fun whether you’re successful or not”
turns out to be a lot more enjoyable for everyone at the table.
Games like Bully Pulpit’s Fiasco picked this idea up and ran
with it beautifully, flawed characters with strong needs and
poor impulse control… but I first learned that lesson in Paranoia.’
“PARANOIA INFORMED MY DESIGNS
BY REMINDING ME THAT FAILURE
WAS FUN IF YOU FRAME IT RIGHT”
Games like Fiasco carry within them Paranoia’s DNA of players
primed to both fail and have fun while they do it. More recent
RPGs like Triangle Agency and The Company have likewise
adapted the hellish hallways of Alpha Complex for the
comparatively hellish cubicles of corporate life. It also inspired
designers to explore more niche ideas outside of the usual
fantasy epics and beat up old space freighter tales.
‘Paranoia had a direct influence on my most famous design,
Kobolds Ate My Baby!’ said O’Neill. ‘There are so many
similarities - an uncaring overlord that sends you to your
death, mechanics that force you to march gleefully to your
death, multiple characters to allow for character death.
Paranoia and KAMB are games where people WANT TO DIE
while playing. The stories that people tell you about those
games are never that they won, just how they lose. Paranoia
was the first game, and is still one of the few, that finds its fun
in the action of the game - not the completion of it.’
‘Paranoia also taught me the difference between simulation
and emulation,’ said Kulp, ‘and that games don’t need complex
systems to accomplish their goals. The stats in Paranoia’s first
edition were more finicky than they needed to be. That was
even more true in 2e Paranoia. But simplify those and boil
them down to the basics, only keep the rules you NEED while
keeping the tone strong and consistent, and the game gets
even better.’
Whilst Paranoia has encouraged little fidelity to its rules, it has
notably gone through several different versions in its near 40
year history. The last, 2017’s Red Clearance Edition, moved the
game to a boxed set approach making heavy use of equipment
cards and dice. Paranoia has always been a prop heavy game,
second perhaps only to Call of Cthulhu in the quality of the
handouts for adventures. Is there any other game that could
get away with giving players forms to fill out before they can
terminate a particularly pesky clerk?
Red Clearance Edition moved those props directly into play
and included innovations such as initiative cards that were
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 83
inspired by the classic bluffing game Coup. A player could
claim any initiative on the card to go first but any other player
could call them out and make them reveal their card. If they
were lying they went last, if the player was telling the truth the
person who called them out went last. And whoever ended up
going last might as well just bump off their current clone and
wait for the next one to arrive. Whilst Red Clearance Edition
was full of clever ideas like this I found that in play I rarely got
to explore them. Players are too busy drawing lasers, pushing
people off ledges and trying to achieve their secret society
missions to also play head games outside of the story.
Mongoose seemed to agree which brings us to the game’s
newly released Perfect Edition.
‘There were two broad design goals,’ said McGuffin. ‘One. Revise
the previous edition so it feels more like Paranoia and two, use
this new edition to celebrate the beloved game. The previous
Red Clearance Edition edition is still a great game! But it lost
some of that Paranoia new car smell, so my team was tasked
in capturing that spirit once again. We also brought back rules
and setting info from older editions as optional additions.’
Paranoia Perfect Edition then goes back to the basics with a
simple dice system and quick character creation and is a
perfect chance for those new to RPGs to see what the fuss is
all about while letting older players rediscover many of the
things that made them fall in love with Paranoia many years
ago. It certainly helps that even more so than a game like
84 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
Dungeons & Dragons, Paranoia makes it incredibly easy to use
older material with classic adventures like Send In The Clones
rarely depended on specific mechanics or balanced white room
combat in the first place and the new edition offer suggestions
on how to bring back all the ideas from older editions and
build an Alpha Complex that’s unique for every table.
It also seems like taking out the cards and strategy from the
system makes the game a better candidate for the 800 ton
gorilla bot in the room; livestreaming. Whilst there have been a
few one shots scattered out there on the web the game is
primed for a table of professionals to make a room full of
viewers laugh at their hapless antics. So the new edition looks
poised to give many more people a chance to visit Alpha
Complex, even if only as visitors safely behind a glass screen.
Despite being almost 40 years old, Paranoia remains both
topical and fresh. Even as it makes adjustments for modern
stories, like an always-on device carried by Troubleshooters
to provide assistance and monitor everything, it lets us look at
the strange ways we’ve adapted to survive. It also keeps a
laugh close to the surface. Sometimes it’s a grim chuckle.
Other times it's a rueful guffaw. But often, it’s the only thing
keeping us from breaking down like Friend Computer.
Paranoia Perfect Edition is out now
published by Mongoose Publishing
mongoosepublishing.com
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 85
HIT POINTS DIE
Writing: Kieron Gillen GAME
On the table this month: Art: Stephanie Hans
OF THE
MONTH
Publisher: Rowan Rook & Decard

GAME OF THE MONTH For as long as they’ve been

published roleplaying games have
DIE - RPG asked, and tried to answer the
question, “What is a roleplaying game?” 50
years on the answer remains as elusive as ever. I

ROLEPLAYING GAMES suspect there might have been a brief window of around
five minutes back in 1969 when a relatively decent
TROPHY GOLD/DARK/LOOM answer was possible but ever since it’s been open to

DRAGONBANE - CORE SET

endless, wild interpretation.

PENDRAGON - STARTER SET Flick through the following few pages and you’ll find
games that could have, for all intents and purposes,
ULTRAVIOLET GRASSLANDS been released in the mid 1970s and not raised an
BLACK SWORD HACK eyebrow. These sit against games where GMs and dice are
optional, where the focus is on disgusting bloody
LICHOMA violence or where bloodshed of any kind is verboten. We

FEATHERED ADVENTURES have games where the aim is to travel across strange
lands and ones where creating a land at the table is
BORDER RIDING the goal, solo games, journalling games, games that you
play to win and games where you can’t. Frankly, it’s a
PIRATE BORG mess, a wonderful one to be sure, but a mess nonetheless.
FORBIDDEN LANDS - BOOK OF BEASTS
Still, if one person -or game- might have a half decent
chance of resolving that question once and for all it

BOARD GAMES would be Kieron Gillen and DIE - The Roleplaying Game.
DIE might be Gillen’s debut game (leaving aside the
UNDAUNTED - BATTLE OF BRITAIN small matter of Come Dice With Me, a free to download
game based on the wonderfully anarchic Channel 4 dinner
VOTES FOR WOMEN
party show) but it feels like he’s been building up to
THUNDER ROAD: VENDETTA this for most of his life.

FEED THE KRAKEN As a journalist, and co-founder of the seminal video

games site Rock Paper Shotgun, Gillen is more responsible
than many for championing a new kind of games writing.
WARGAMES One that asked what playing a game actually means to

MAJESTIC 13
you, what the experience of playing it, of briefly
inhabiting its world on its terms feels like rather
than fussing over how many frames per second or dental

VIDEO GAMES
polygons its developers crammed into it.

WARHAMMER 40,000: BOLTGUN
Not only that but his fiction, both work-for-hire gigs -
especially his run on Journey Into Mystery for Marvel-
and his own projects like Once & Future trade in the
power of stories, the power stories possess to transform
both ourselves and the world around us. If one of the

86 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

better, if inevitably partial,
definitions of a roleplaying game is
that of a story building engine then
surely he’s well placed to define the
medium once and for all.
Finally, and most relevant here,
alongside artist Stephanie Hans he
recently gave us DIE, a comic about
a group of sadsack adults who as
teenagers were transported into a
fantasy game world and now, thanks
to the machinations of their old GM,
are back, trapped in a world that
seems determined to give them
everything they want, or just as
happily see them die trying.
So if the answer to our question is
anywhere there’s a pretty good chance
it’ll be here. As it happens “What
Is An RPG?” does rear its head around
2 pages into DIE’s near 400 page rule-
book and Gillen pretty much just says
go watch Critical Role. Which is
certainly a choice, but then that’s
because DIE is a lot less interested
in WHAT a roleplaying game is, than
in WHY we play them. What is it about
these games of the imagination that
holds us under their spell and can pull
us back in years later, what is it that
we get out of these experiences and
importantly how can they change us?
But this is supposed to be a review
of some kind so first of all let’s
try and at least answer what this
one RPG in particular is.
DIE - The Roleplaying Game is the
game of the comic, sort of. Really
it’s as much that as the reverse is
true. Both were conceived at the
same time, developed in tandem and
each fed into the other. The core
premise though remains the same,
beyond our world lies Die, a twenty
sided, sentient planet; an amoral
alien god that contains within it an
infinitude of other twenty sided
worlds, worlds of fantasy, power,
imagination, wonder and horror.
Oh yes, we should probably mention
that Die is also a very hungry god.
To sate its hunger it must feed off
those who make their way, willingly
or not, to one of the many sub-
universes within it, realities
created from and moulded by the
imaginations and lives of gamers.
Gamers who have somehow come into
possession of a very special set of
dice and who now find themselves
pulled into one of Die’s worlds and
gifted with wonderful, terrible
powers, made into both heroes and
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 87
HIT POINTS : GAME OF THE MONTH

hostages. See, the thing is your

group can leave Die at any time,
just all of you, including whoever
brought you there, must want to. All
of you left alive that is. Think the
Dungeons & Dragons cartoon as directed
by David Lynch or Wes Craven’s
Jumanji and you should get the idea,
it’s not Dragonlance, put it that way.

But in many ways DIE is also a wolf

in sheep’s clothing. At least at
first you’ll, probably, find yourself
in some kind of fairly recognisable
fantasy world, characters have six
very familiar stats, there are
classes -of a sort- that all bear
some relation to those from The
World’s Most Popular Roleplaying
Game. Whilst things start to deviate
at this point the basic rules for
resolving actions -dice pools built
from your stats- should still be
familiar enough to anyone who has
played more than one game. It’s not
exactly rules-lite but close enough
that you should have a grip on things
by the end of your first session.

But what a first session that is, as

right from the start the game begins
to show its teeth. And oh what
beautifully weird teeth they are.
There’s the part where the players
create Personas, the normal day-to-
day versions of you that exist in
the “real world” of the game and
which you start the session off
playing in a kind of freeform
mini-Nordic LARP.

These personas are distinct

from the characters, or
Paragons, you become when
a magic ritual is,
literally, enacted at
the table and you find
yourself transported
to Die. The Paragons themselves are,
as we said, recognisable in a way.
Five are deconstructed, house of

88 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5


mirror versions of familiar fantasy
game classes. There’s the Dictator
for example, a kind of nightmare
bard, able to break minds at will
and strip agency from NPCs and
players alike with the slip of a
tongue, or the Fool, a supernaturally
lucky Leeroy Jenkins type, a tank
with all the power as long as they
accept none of the responsibility.
Each Paragon is tied to a particular
polyhedral die and each has their
own almost game breaking abilities.
Some even get their own Plutchik
emotion wheels to play with. There’s
a lot going on under the hood.
Oh and the sixth Paragon, that’s The
Master and they’re reserved for the
GM. You see the GM is a character in
DIE too and almost certainly the
antagonist who, for whatever reason,
got the gang back together, dragged
them kicking and screaming into Die
and now stands between them and
home. See, we always knew that red
robed weirdo was up to no good.
In another callback to the Dungeons
& Dragons cartoon it’s also The
Master who chooses which player gets
which Paragon, and furthermore gets
to treat the rules as more like -
let’s say- guidelines, able to cast
any spell they’ve thought up or even
just outright break the rules should
they need to, though the latter is
not entirely without risk.
Whilst both DIE and Die contain an
endless number of possible worlds
you’ll almost certainly start by
playing Reunited. This is the
scenario that cleaves closest to the
comic with its teenage gamers,
brought back together years later by
their GM for one last game.
At the start players take turns to
flesh out their Personas, not by
HIT POINTS : GAME OF THE MONTH
rolling stats or choosing equipment
but by exploring who they are and
how has life treated them in the
intervening years. The scenario
provides questions to ask each other
and together you’ll build up a sense
of what life was like at school,
what your games were like, what it
is that they are running from or to
and what Die might have to offer
them that the real world can’t. All
information for the GM as Master to
use as both the bricks to build a
world from and the bullets -
allegorical, emotional or literal-
the players will soon be dodging.
Its a strong yet still remarkably
easy to grasp concept, and one that
if you want it to can easily absorb
your own gaming and personal
histories to powerful effect. All in
all Reunited is probably the
platonic ideal of a DIE scenario and
is designed to play out over 2 or 3
emotionally bruising sessions.
Indeed Reunited is such a strong
idea that it’s easy to overlook how
flexible DIE’s core concept can be,
which I suspect is why the book
includes five other scenarios tucked
at the back rather than bundling
them in with a future supplement.
These scenarios range from a group
of bitter creatives coming back
together at a comic con to a video
game development team who, behind
schedule and running out of money,
get tricked into taking part in the
team building exercise from hell.
These scenarios range in tone from
black comedy to high fantasy and
horror, often within each one. Whilst
not quite as strong as Reunited they
do provide plenty of inspiration, and
demonstrate how you don’t need to
tie scenarios just around RPG groups
getting back together and can base
them on many other experiences.
My mind immediately, and horrifically,
flashed back to an old therapist who
once invited me to a retreat where
everyone present would take turns to
“be” each other’s parents. Truly a
harrowing DIE scenario if ever I saw
one.
If you were to lean into the more
emotional side of the game it could
be hard to sustain that kind of
intensity over a longer campaign.
For those with the mental fortitude
though the possibility is there to
do so, really explore the 20
different regions of your Die, and
dig into how they relate to each
other and your past lives, both the
players’ and Personas’.
With all that in mind it is worth
saying that DIE features one of the
better sections of safety tools I’ve
read. It runs through all of the
most well know tools, such as the X-
Card and Lines and Veils, explains
in plain terms concepts like Bleed
and offers plenty of useful advice.
Indeed the book is full of great
tips for GMs. Gillen’s an incredibly
entertaining writer, one steeped in
games history, and the book is full
of asides, commentary and ideas
about the nature of RPGs. Combine
that with Stephanie Hans wonderful
art, of which there’s a lot, and DIE
is just a great book for anyone with
an interest in RPGs to pul off the
shelf and read through.
So, after all that does DIE answer
why we play games? Not directly, the
reasons - escapism, fun, curiosity,
exploration of the self, catharsis,
all of the above- will be as diverse
and personal to you as Die’s many
worlds are. It does though answer
what this RPG is, and that is one of
the most interesting and inventive
out there today. [John Power Jr.]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 89
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
TROPHY GOLD/DARK/LOOM
Writing & Art: Jesse Ross | Publisher: The Gauntlet
Trophy Gold is an absolute mess of a
game, and my favourite innovation in
elfgame dungeon-crawling ever. A
fork of Trophy Dark by Jesse Ross,
they’re both beautiful, cloth-bound
tomes, released together alongside
Trophy Loom, a setting supplement
for them both.
Trophy Dark focuses on the perspective
that if you put a group of people
into the mythic underworld, they’d
soon betray each other and meet
tragic ends. In Dark, it’s a forest
and your doom is inevitable. Your
character sheet in Dark is a list of
things that you can use to impact
the dice rolls that make up the
game’s mechanics, things like
skills, rituals and conditions, with
a death tracker called ruin attached
to them.
The Risk Roll is the main mechanic
in Dark, rolling a pool of dice to
find out what happens when you
attempt something risky. “Say what
you hope will happen, and ask the GM
and the other players what could
possibly go wrong” is key: We’re
shared story-tellers. There are
rolls for helping, contests,
suffering ruin and betraying your
fellow treasure-hunters. But the
more important rules in Dark than
the procedural rules are the
directive rules (this distinction
first made by Chris Chinn): “Embrace
tragedy, don’t hold back, play to
lose”. Dark expects these directives
to guide the few procedures, not the
other way around.
Dark is an interesting perspective
on dungeon-crawling, fun to use as a
one-shot of doomed adventurers, but
90 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
most players like getting to know
their characters in campaign play:
Enter Trophy Gold, an attempt to
solve this problem. Gold is quite
explicit in its intent to “blend…
with the survive-by-your-wits
mentality of old school fantasy
games”.
Gold does this by adding new
procedures. Burden (ongoing costs-
of-living) gold, horde, downtime and
advancement. The Hunt Roll drives
gameplay now, whenever “you press
ever deeper in pursuit of a specific
and immediate goal”, you earn Hunt
Tokens which you can exchange for
gold or to achieve goals. There is a
new combat roll, but ruin and
betrayal rolls are gone. The
directives are “Be curious, play to
win, play to lose”, which are more
interesting in the way they hold
tension, and capture traditional
themes succinctly. Downtime is
prompt-stuffed and cosy. The
bestiary records each unique
monster, giving you advantages when
faced again.
Do all these additions in Gold work
as a solution to the problem of
Dark’s doomed explorers? No, it’s a
mess. But it’s a compelling mess,
and much more compelling than Dark.
The bestiary ends up disregarded,
because you’re unlikely to encounter
a monster twice. Worse, there is no
list of example monsters in the
book, although the strong of heart
can wade through said incursions to
find some.
The best source for information on
how to play should be the book
itself, not discord and the Gauntlet
forums. Combat is an absolute train
wreck; not because the rules don’t
work, but rather because they’re
just so poorly written I’ve had
people familiar with Pathfinder 2 ask
me why Trophy Gold is so
complicated. The Risk Roll is still
the most important roll, even though
it says it’s not, but the Hunt Roll
provides Hunt Tokens, which are
necessary metacurrency for gaining
enough gold to survive. The Hunt
Roll only provides new information
and so disincentivises exploration
compared to Dark. Downtime relies on
the new deadly currencies to
function, and so disincentivises
use.
Thematically, it’s trying to say
something about the endless cycle of
capitalism resulting in obsessive
treasure-seeking, but the theme
isn’t communicated in a way that is
fun. Gold leans much more heavily on
its directives than Dark does,
because its procedures are all
carrot and no stick. The tension
between ongoing fantasy campaign
play and the doomed horror of Dark
is not one that is adequately
resolved in the Gold ruleset.
Incursions are what the Trophy games
call their adventure modules. Each
location has a list of props,
moments, and traps, and treasures
that aren’t necessarily tied to
anything but the set’s theme, making
each location cohesive, but driven
by the results of Hunt and Risk
Rolls. Locations are organised by
flowchart, not spatially. This is
damned elegant, and rules flex around
set structure pleasingly. However,
this tight relationship between

Hunt, Risk and Incursion makes me
reluctant to play adventures not
designed for Gold. I suspect Roots
of Old Kalduhr, taking up 100 pages,
is meant to prove you can run
something like Gold promises you
can, but the rules themselves don’t
evidence it well.
Both Dark and Gold are filled with
pages of evocative, random tables
(you may randomly generate a
“beastbitten labourer seeking to
locate the jewel that haunt’s
Eriol’s dreams”). This is evocative,
player-lead worldbuilding, and is a
great strength of Dark and Gold.
Trophy Loom then is filled with
explanations for what these things
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
mean. Because of this, it’s hard to
recommend Loom in the context of the
other books: It actually acts at
cross purposes to the core texts.
The word count on some of Loom’s
topics is so high it seems contrary
to Trophy’s remit elsewhere, The
quality of the writing in Loom is
excellent, although over-written and
therefore challenging at the table,
with a few highlights in terms of
usability (“Treasures”, “Monsters of
the Wood”, “Blasphemous Cults”). If
it leaned harder into being filled
with things to drop directly into
your incursions, building the world
that way and less traditionally, I
think it would be a better book.
Would I recommend these three books?
To various degrees. Gold belongs on
my bookshelf, despite my clearly
mixed feelings about the ruleset.
I’ll keep playing it for a long
time, but there’s a version of
Trophy Gold that handles the
tensions in a more elegant way.
Trophy Dark is a game I’ll play as a
one-shot, occasionally. It’s much
better than Trophy Gold, but at
something I don’t care to play
regularly. Trophy Loom though is not
something I’ll ever use, but your
mileage may vary, depending on your
dedication to the world of Trophy
and your inclination to share
worldbuilding with your players.
[Idle Cartulary]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 91
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
DRAGONBANE - CORE SET
Game design: Tomas Härenstam | Art: Johan Egerkrans | Publisher: Free League
The latest title from Free League
Publishing Dragonbane describes
itself as a “mirth and mayhem”
roleplaying system. Set in a magical
fantasy world, you play humans,
dwarves and other mythical beings,
banding together to travel on
adventurous escapades.
Now, this probably all sounds a
little bit familiar, right?
You see, Dragonbane has a surprising
amount of historical baggage. It’s a
new release for 2023, but is the
direct descendent of the 1980s
Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner
(literally Dragons & Demons), a game
originally created as a response to
the rising interest in Dungeons &
Dragons, but which used RuneQuest as
a base for its system.
So, where does this leave us with
Dragonbane? It’s a very interesting
release, given that it manages to
pull together a wide range of
influences whilst clearly having a
strong style of its own.
Free League are probably most well
known for their Year Zero system,
which usually uses a D6 dice pool
and a skills list. You can feel that
DNA combining with the game’s
RuneQuest ancestry here, as
Dragonbane also uses a skill based
system rather than levels and
classes. Something that always feels
a little more realistic to me, as I
find it more natural to think in
terms of “How good am I at x?”, rather
than “What level Paladin am I?”.
Dragonbane uses a D20 system, but
unlike many others, you roll under
92 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
values; if your skill at “fishing” is
a 9, you need to roll 9 or lower.
This also means that a critical
success - a “Dragon” - is rolling a
1, and a failure is rolling a 20 - a
“Demon”. Skill progression is neat
and thematic - whenever you try
anything, any Dragons or Demons
rolled let you put a tick mark next
to that skill. At the end of the
session you can roll for each tick,
aiming to roll over your current
skill level. This means its much
easier to progress a level 4 skill
than, say, one at level 17.
They’ve also repurposed the idea of
“pushing your roll” from Year Zero -
if you fail an important check, you
can re-roll the D20, but at the cost
of picking up a temporary condition
such as “Exhausted” or “Scared”.
There are also “Heroic Skills”;
powerful abilities that use up a
limited pool of Willpower Points. WP
is also used to power magic,
providing some balance to the common
problem of overpowered magic users,
since Wizardy types don’t get a
Heroic Skill at all.
Finally on the mechanics front, combat
is fast and lethal. Initiative order
is chosen through doling out from a
deck of cards to each player - much
like Savage Worlds. Fight-focused
PCs can choose Heroic Skills that
improve their chances with advantage,
but otherwise each PC can attack or
defend with their action, though
attack early and you risk leaving
yourself open for brutal reprisals…
I’ve had a PC knocked unconscious in
every single session we’ve played in
the introductory adventures -
probably appropriate, since picking
a fight in a bar with a knife-
wielding goblin should feel somewhat
dangerous.
It’s probably clear already that I’m
really impressed with Dragonbane.
It’s got just enough crunch to keep
most heavier-minded players happy,
whilst also being easy enough to run
with little-to-no prep. I ran a ton
of sessions with a 10 year old
playing in the group, and she was
able to jump in without any issues
at all. The designers have
unquestionably achieved their goal
to make a fast, fluid and fun system
- and they've done it well.
I particularly enjoy the skills
progression system in Dragonbane -
it adds another burst of dopamine
when someone rolls a 1 or 20 at the
table, and it encourages players to
attempt things their character is a
bit rubbish at. At the end of each
session, the GM is advised to ask
players five questions, ranging from
“Did you participate in the game
session?” to “Did you overcome an
obstacle without using force?”. A
yes earns them an extra tick,
rewarding well-rounded play with
added skill progression.
The setting of Dragonbane is
intentionally very light touch. Part
of that is that this is just the
quick start set, after all - I’m
sure more lore will follow. There’s
also the fact that many groups will
quickly form their own version of a
Tolkienesque folk-magical world, so
leaving things unexplained allows
narrative room. That’s not to say
that it’s a completely blank slate;
the addition of some extra Kin is

welcome: Dragonbane has the expected
Halfling, Humans, Dwarves and Elves,
but adds “Wolfkin” and “Mallards”.
Yup, that’ll be RuneQuest rearing
its head again with the inclusion of
duck people. Someone play-acting a
grumpy, quacking, anthropomorphised
bird-person is exactly what every
table needs. Well, some tables, anyway.
The adventure booklet provides 11
complete adventures that tie
together into a full campaign called
The Secret of the Dragon Emperor.
I’d say that there’s enough material
to keep a weekly gaming group going
for most of a year - especially if
they take as many needless diversions
as the herd of gorm that I’m usually
responsible for herding. There are
maps, NPCS, hooks, random encounters,
journeys, and an overall narrative
arc with multiple paths to tie into
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
it. Each place has its own reason
for existing; it would take minimal
work to make each adventure completely
standalone. My only criticism is
each map needs a key to explain the
numbered locations. The areas are
listed, but over many following
pages, rather than on the map itself
for reference.
There are even solo rules included -
and The Reforged Shard - a solo
adventure! This adds some solo-only
Heroic Abilities that appropriately
reduce the slightly punishing
difficulty level of Dragonbane. The
oracle tables work well, and they’ve
pulled off something very useable
here - I’d just have loved to see
some solo-adventure maps printed in
the booklet; I feel like soloing
benefits from visual support even
more than group play.
Alongside treasure cards, initiative
cards, a grid based play mat -
although sadly no full-sized
adventure location maps - a double
set of custom dice and the booklets;
this core set also includes a lovely
set of cardboard standees. The
majority of the characters and
monsters faced in the adventures are
present here, and its made me
realise I’d actually rather play RPG
with standees than more three-
dimensional models. These chunky and
colourful standees remind you that
RPGs are theatre of the mind first
and foremost; they are a joy to
interact with.
As, in fact, is the entirety of
Dragonbane; I can’t think of a
better game right now for
adventuring fun at the table.
[Chris Lowry]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 93
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
PENDRAGON - STARTER SET
Writing: Greg Stafford, David Larkins | Art: Fetisov, Marlot, Smylie, Dirim | Publisher: Chaosium
First released in 1985 the late Greg
Stafford’s Pendragon is one of the
jewels in the RPG crown. An epic
game of knightly quests and courtly
passions, all set to a backdrop of
Arthurian Britain, Pendragon sees
players contend with not just the
day-to-day business of besting
mythic beasts but also negotiating
the often contradictory obligations
of a feudal, chivalric society and,
with its campaigns measured in
decades, trying to build a glorious
legacy that will last the ages.
Heralding the arrival of the game’s
sixth edition is a new starter set,
and I think it’s fair to say that
Chaosium have some form with these
things now. The starter set for Call
of Cthulhu’s 7th edition set the
benchmark on its release and whilst
I ultimately bounced off RuneQuest‘s
recent box there was no doubting its
intrinsic quality.
So what of Pendragon’s then, a game
that for all the many plaudits heaped
upon it down the years I have to admit
I’ve always admired from a safe
distance. If Stafford’s other major
achievement, RuneQuest, had seemed a
little academic for my teenage tastes,
Pendragon felt even more like the
full tweed jacket with leather elbow
patches, and by the time my own
sartorial tastes had caught up with
it I’d long packed away my dice.
But it’s not just my wardrobe that’s
changed in recent years, the RPG
scene is remarkably different from
even when Pendragon’s last edition
was released in 2005, so can this
new edition reintroduce itself to a
new generation whilst retaining much
of what its devoted fans love about
94 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
it? On the basis of this starter set
I suspect the answer is yes.
Crack open the fairly weighty box and
you find three books. There’s the now
traditional Choose Your Own
Adventure style book to gently ease
you into things, a second containing
a more thorough run through of the
rules and setting, and finally The
Sword Campaign. The latter comprising
three linked adventures that put the
players in a front row seat to
witness, and indeed assist in, the
birth of Arthur’s legend.
Alongside that there’s several
appendices with extra rules for
tournaments, overland travel and the
like, a hefty stack of pre-generated
characters, Battle Cards featuring
specific enemies and encounters from
the campaign and a handful of dice.
Those aware of the historical
baggage Pendragon has when it comes
to female player characters will be
pleased to know the pre-gens include
a good mix of male and female
characters, and the text repeatedly
makes it clear that gender is no
barrier to being a knight. All in
all it’s a solid bundle to be getting
on with and, it must be said, all
rather nicely laid out. Extra points
awarded for the lovely medieval
marginalia dotted around the books.
One of the stumbling blocks I
encountered with RuneQuest was what
for many is that game’s main draw,
the world of Glorantha. Remarkable
achievement of world building that
it is, coming late to the party felt
like joining a class just before the
exams with a lot of homework needed
to catch up. Pendragon’s world on
the other hand, despite its
specificity, feels both more
malleable and accessible.
Whilst the setting is ostensibly a
grounded and historical post-Roman
Britain, that’s really a thin veneer
under which lays a more mythic land.
Just as the likes of Geoffrey of
Monmouth, Chretien de Troyes and Sir
Thomas Mallory drew upon disparate
sources, filtering them through their
own eras to assemble their Arthurian
cycles, Stafford’s Matter of Britain
takes inspiration everywhere from
those medieval, and older, texts to
the likes of T.H. White’s Once &
Future King series, John Boorman’s
1981 fantasy movie Excalibur and
elements of the 20th century Neo-
pagan revival. As pseudo-historical
settings go this is one flexible
enough to encompass all manner of
strange goings on and anachronisms.
If the setting then is easy enough
to wrap your head around, what about
the system? On the whole things are
simple enough here too, what we’re
essentially dealing with is a
straightforward d20, roll under a
specific skill/characteristic/trait,
system. Skills and characteristics
will be familiar enough, the former
consisting of things like Hunting,
First Aid or Sword, whilst and the
latter’s Strength, Constitution etc
should be even more recognisable.
Having laboured through RuneQuest’s
combat system I was delighted to
discover that fighting here is fast
if pretty brutal, which is fair
enough. After all swords, whether
gifted by strange women lying in
ponds or not, are dangerous things
and should feel like it and over the
course of several plays my poor

squire Camarig repeatedly found
himself dumped, unmourned and
unremembered, in various ditches
outside Londinium.
Traits and Passions though are where
Pendragon’s real magic starts to
reveal itself. Traits are 13 pairs
of oppositional values, such as
Chaste and Lustful, whilst Passions
are the four intense beliefs your
knight holds, like Homage to your
Lord or Love for Family. Together
these help both define what kind of
knight you are and act as a guide,
and in some circumstances a constraint,
upon how you behave. There are no
classes here, everyone plays a
knight, so this is really where you
start to differentiate your character.
Those used to the kind of absolute
player agency that is much loved
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
these days might, at first, find it
jarring to be goaded or even forced
into acting in a certain way,
especially when that way is how some
medieval romance writer thought a
dark age Christian knight might act.
But then again surely that’s the
whole point of playing a knight in
Pendragon and not just some off the
shelf Paladin in whatever flavour of
D&D you happen to enjoy.
As much as they are about battling
dragons, giants and ghostly
headsmen, the Arthurian stories are
about people with outsized passions,
trying, and often failing, to live
up to ideals they’ve set themselves.
Pendragon’s Traits and Passions are
a great way of both inhabiting those
characters and creating a narrative,
especially as Traits are self-
reinforcing. Lean into the role of a
lustful, bawdy Knight and you may
find yourself in a world of trouble
when a visiting royal’s spouse
starts showing you a bit of ankle.
Trouble, of course, equals
opportunities for conflict, drama and
all the good stuff that we sit
around a table rolling dice for.
The adventures included are fun if a
little railroady, though that’s
forgivable when they’re obviously
trying to introduce the game to new
players, and they set you up nicely
to expand your adventures when the
new core rulebook arrives in the
coming months. I have to say, much
like my poor Camarig stumbling into
a Faerie circle, Pendragon’s Starter
Set has left me charmed and, tweed
patches or not, eager to get to
grips with a longer campaign and the
quest for glory. [John Power Jr.]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 95
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
ULTRAVIOLET GRASSLANDS (2E)
Writing & Art: Luka Rejec | Publisher: Exalted Funeral
Ultraviolet Grasslands and The Black
City has been floating around in a
few formats for a while. But now for
the first time with this new edition,
it really feels like a game.
Older editions of UVG were a
curiosity. Not only because of the
game’s weirdness, its psychedelic
Oregon Trail setting or its curious
little mechanics – like the dedicated
carousing system. No. Instead, what
makes it curious is the way the text
was a coy conversation with itself.
The author, the well loved OSR
writer and artist Luka Rejec, seemed
to be hell bent on smuggling the
game’s system away from readers of
the book.
In the previous softback version
it’s suggested that you should adapt
the adventure to a system of your
choice but, if you really must, you
could use the included ‘SEACAT’ D20-
style rules. These rules would later
be presented on page 126 in
something like an art-house essay on
how to elide the actual moving parts
of a game. Additionally, there was a
philosophical explanation of the
mind, body and soul which was
somewhat intended to indicate which
stats are tied to what. In short, I
loved it.
And it was fascinating to read, a
true and genuine oddity. Even if it
wasn’t particularly helpful during
play. I recommended it to every game
designer I met and the setting to
every GM who was as interested in
ideas as they were how many goblins
are in the cupboard. It’s clever and
inventive, but it took quite a lot
of patience to actually play it with
immediacy and confidence.
96 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
The second edition though has fixed
all this. Gone are the hidden rules.
Now it’s a single page to get your
game up and running, and it’s one of
the first sections of the book. The
overt philosophy of the game now
lives inside the useful glossary.
The inner cover now contains a
beautiful – and possibly daunting at
first glance – game flow diagram. But
you’ll never be lost in the
grasslands again for reasons other
than your own poor planning and
choices.
Plan you must. Or, alternatively,
perish. Procedure is at the heart of
UVG 2E. This is a fantastical Oregon
Trail after all, and while you might
not die of dysentery as you may in
the classic video game of settlers’
struggles in crossing the final part
of the uncolonised and pre-United
States, you’re still going to run
into random and cruel misfortunes as
you travel. You might have sat on a
cactus, accidentally picked some
totally poisonous flowers by mistake,
or just be a bit under the weather.
Weather itself is a big feature as
you travel between sections of the
huge trail. You’ll always be told
when the sun rises, and whether you
can see anything through the
refracting light. It’s a detail that
plays into the procedure of the
book, given some of these mostly
mundane snippets fit within a game
which is partly about caravan
management. Much of the game is
spent scribbling on the long map,
which we recommend you print out and
spend some time sellotaping
together. It’s a beautifully stark
purple on white rendition of the
trail you’re following, each point
giving you options for further
exploration. Players become obsessed
with the choices they’re making
because often, should they want to
‘advance’, they’re leaving behind
the chance to visit somewhere else.
UVG is a game of tourism and
hardship. Beautiful places filled
with biomechanical menaces, ancient
and lost behemoths, cat lords, poly-
bodied entities and porcelain masks
beckon you within the Moebius-like
artwork created by Rejec. It’s a
game of vast petrol-spill vistas, of
creeping through the bones of
ancient beasts or stumbling across
the occasional sad and hopeless
immortal or ghost community which
possesses the local tribe in a kind
of time-share-body deal.
The characters you meet are painted
quickly, usually with an attitude
and something they know. The places
are fantastical, and players accrue
experience simply by visiting them.
The game is a series of postcards in
this way (and even includes some in
the back). Discoveries are made at
each location which can allow the
players to find more depth in side-
quests that, in truth, could have
been their own settings entirely and
will often give players the chance
to pick up some extra, much needed,
loot.
See, UVG is not a dungeon crawl or a
traditional game of quests. Don’t
expect to be slowly wading through
piles of goblins in search of
treasure. It’s all much more zoomed
out than that. Everything is played,
more or less, in summary. Except for
those moments where a fight does
break out or a chase occurs. Even

then, this isn’t a game of complex
combat mechanics.
Much of the creatures and peoples of
the game aren’t inherently hostile –
things getting violent is almost
entirely down to players’ greed or
need to poke everything with the
sharp end of whatever they’re
holding. Equally, players who want
to dig into everything will find
themselves running out of time and
soon learn that it’s best to enjoy
the view and pick their moments to
extract value from their trip.
Refereeing the game is a surprisingly
intimate experience for all of this.
It has the feel of ‘running’ a
Choose Your Own Adventure book with
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
someone. It’s less about knowing
what’s coming up as the referee, but
instead discovering what the players
want to find as they explore. You’re
a guide in that sense rather than
the player who sets off all the
traps. You certainly can do that
too, but the game doesn’t demand it.
Much of the hard work and joy of the
game comes from trying not to
engineer too much. Your players are
often trying to survive, and finding
a few sackfuls of rare materials
which will let them get into trouble
in the next town is more than enough
motivation.
You might imagine players want to
explore this gorgeous world because
of the gorgeous book in front of
you. But that’s not it, they’re
scrabbling around looking for their
next meal or meal ticket. Your
players are a bunch of Han Solos,
not Luke Skywalkers. That guy
wouldn’t last long here at all.
There’s a question of whether I like
UVG in its original form because of
its weird self-referential
conversation and playful language.
The latter is still there, but I
think knowing this game actually
wants to be run means the second
edition is the version you’ll want
to own. All in all this is a better
game and worth a pilgrimage.
In fact it might just be the trip of a
lifetime. [Christopher John Eggett]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 97
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
BLACK SWORD HACK
Writing: Kobayashi | Art: Goran Gligoviç | Publisher: The Merry Mushmen
Black Sword Hack is a dark fantasy
version of the Black Hack, written
by Kobayashi with superb art by
Goran Gligovic. If you want a review
of the Black Hack, you can find it
somewhere yourself, I’m sure. What
the Black Sword Hack adds is strong
world-building in mechanical form,
which may well put this particular
fantasy hack ahead of the pack if
you’re looking to pick one out from
the hordes of OSR retro-clones that
you must hold off with a burning
torch whenever you wade into
DriveThruRPG.
A chronological read through of
Black Sword Hack looks generic as
hell until a third of the way
through. The “Doom Die”, a usage die
that you use to be heroic, until
you’re doomed, stands out as an
attempt to add theme, but which
feels clumsy in play given the
severity of being doomed. The
origins lists for character creation
stand out too, some of which are
fantastic (“born covered in the
blood of your own people after a
failed invocation”).
In the middle of the book,
‘Vileness’ appears: Unique rules for
pacts with demons, spirits, fae,
chaos itself, twisted science and
runic weapons and everything here is
a banger. The text advises you not
to use them all at once, but I
would. There’s neat writing here as
well as simple but unique mechanics
for each vileness. Find your demon
“in the wedding ring of an undying
king”, your ancestor asks that you
“free it from another alliance”,
“summon an invisible creature made
of anger”, or build a “Blood-tinted
98 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
spyglass”. Just for this section
alone, I’d choose this over the
Black Hack.
Two modules and a city cap the book
off. The modules are serviceable,
but the city should have served as
the basis for the world-building
throughout the book. It’s evocative,
flavourful, and fun. A repeating
theme in the Black Sword Hack’s
writing is that an intermittent
reluctance to be specific in its
worldbuilding brings down a lot of
the writing. Nowhere is this in more
stark relief than the adventures and
city which are very specific and have
excellent world-building.
This problem comes up throughout the
book, in backgrounds, in origins,
even in the excellent Vileness
section. For example in the origins
table you’ll find entries such as
“born inside an invocation pentacle,
near the sorcerer’s body” and “born
in a secluded religious community”,
one of which is good, the other
dull, but both would have been
improved with specifics. The book
does have specifics! The languages
are “Alashan, mired in corruption”
and “Jurka of the Iron Horde”.
Monsters include “Children pumped
full of drugs with their eyes
removed”, “Eaters of the Dead” and
“Hollow Monks” who suffer from too
great mortification of the flesh.
A major section of the book is
written to help you to create your
own world, using random tables that
would have been better fleshed out
and incorporated through the rest of
the book. Black Sword Hack would
have benefited significantly by
leaning into a specific version of
this dark fantasy world. With some
commitment, the worst writing in the
book would have been rendered good,
and the best writing excellent.
Black Sword Hack is a beautiful
book, well-thought out, designed by
creators with a love for the subject
matter. It’s full of rules that
would be really exciting to
incorporate into a dark fantasy
game, and provides characters with a
sense of fighting with unknown powers
to survive in a doomed and cruel
world. But it’s hamstrung by a
reluctance to be specific, something
which renders a lot of its writing
toothless.
I’d definitely run it over the Black
Hack, and it’s a strong game in it’s
own right, but fails to live up to
the potential displayed within its
own pages. [Idle Cartulary]

LICHOMA
Writing: Strega Wolf van den Berg, Michael Mars | Art: Strega Wolf van den Berg | Publisher: Bogfolk
Lichoma picks up where MÖRK BORG
left off – at least in its promise
of blood splattered adventure in a
rotten world. While this game is
less oozing apocalypse and more
spurting artery, it’s got all of the
hallmarks of a beautifully violent
offering: hot art, a deadly system
and some cannibalism.
Lichoma uses a six-suited deck of cards
to represent a few things: the
player’s bodies, the factions at play
in The Wen and the actions players
can take. It all runs off a nifty
system where a player creates their
character through a drawing of a hand
– which can then be used to create a
bigger dice pool when the appropriate
card makes sense. For example, if
you can make the Ally card (with its
flavour text, “wolf in sheep’s
clothing”) fit the scene for a sneaky
attack, the GM will likely allow it.
Which brings us to the callously
slaughtered meat of the experience –
that of a kind of bartering with the
GM. Players suggest how they can
enhance their dice pool with their
cards and the GM decides if it works.
While this should be a natural feeling
exchange there does come times when
it feels like players are naughty
children trying to sneak an extra
ice cream. This aspect of the game
contains the natural tension of wanting
to play out a good story using the
elements of the character you’re
holding in your hand, and the desire
to ‘win’. It’s a tiny and unexpected
friction that disappears if everyone
relaxes – but it is there.
The cards, and the body parts they
represent, are a kind of currency in
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
the game. Once you lose a round with
a nasty enemy you’ll have to pick
something to lose (or take, usually
horrifically described, damage to) –
discarding the card to that faction’s
remaining deck. Equally, you can
‘salvage’ parts from bodies around
you to heal your characters once the
current massacre has come to a lull.
There’s something surprisingly
simulationist in the way the faction
decks rise and fall. Defeat a high
value character from that group (in
game terms, a Cunt) and you get to
take a card from that deck and add
it to your faction’s. With this you
can track how a faction begins to
wither as players whittle away at
it. It’s one part of the game that
makes its world seem like it’s
living and breathing.
Pieces of Eden is the star of the
show, illustrating, as any good
starter adventure should, what is
possible in the system. It’s a
grotty search for missing fingers to
reattach to what we could call a
relic. It’s got a detective story
bent to it, if all the characters in
Poirot were Leatherface. Players hop
between locations and hope to find
their way to Elysium, possibly to
liberate the only successfully
synthetically grown human. As meat
is what makes the world of Lichoma
go round she’s very much the golden
goose. It’s smart, it’s funny, and
it’s deftly sketched out in a way
that simply demands pace from
everyone around the table.
With all this talk of factions and
locations you might imagine the
world hangs together tightly. Yet,
the setting has a very disconnected
feel in play. You flash between
scenes in a way that’s not exactly
cinematic – unless you’re talking
Grindhouse. There’s little sense of
how the world connects. This is fine
as Lichoma isn’t about diving deep
into a world but more akin to seeing
how far you can skim various body
parts from a corpse across a lake of
blood. Player’s actions are almost
always desperate, and increasingly
so are those of the forces they’re
up against. There’s a sense that
everything is only just held
together and it’s exhilarating.
Which is to say, when the rhythm of
the game hits home, Lichoma is bloody
magic. [Christopher John Eggett]
Editorial note: Walton Wood, a
contributor to Wyrd Science, is part
of the Bogfolk team behind Lichoma.
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 99
HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

FEATHERED ADVENTURES
Writing: Côme Martin | Art: momatoes, Alain Gruetter, Helkarava, François Maumont, Clément de Ruyter

Both rules-lite RPGs and anthro-

pomorphic animal adventures are ten
a penny these days, whether you want
to explore the world as a mighty
mouse, fearless frog or rascally
raccoon there’s plenty of options to
choose from. Few games though will
be quite as rules-lite as Côme
Martin’s Feathered Adventures or
indeed as charmingly anarchic.

Much like the recent, wonderful Dukk

Borg, Feathered Adventures takes its
cues from Saturday morning cartoons
like Duck Tales with the players a
brood of avian adventurers getting
into all sorts of pulp inspired
mischief. Where Dukk Borg made the
most of the wild juxtaposition
between its web footed cartoon
inspiration and its bloody roots as
a Mörk Borg hack though, Feathered
Adventures firmly puts the PG in RPG,
as the game’s introduction exhorts
here there shall be no (non-comical)
violence, sex, or general bad times.
Depending on your point of view this
will be either tyrannically dictatorial
or a refreshing change, but if you
can get past your strange need to
see waterfowl beaten to a bloody pulp
then what we have here is simply a
rather lovely storytelling engine.
If you want to ease the young or
young at heart around you into RPGs,
or you just fancy taking a break
from grittier games, and frankly who
could blame you right now, then this
could be just the ticket.
And when we said this game was
rules-lite we meant it. Rather than
classes or anything like that
players pick from a selection of
broad archetypes, such as Bad
Tempered but Selfless or Lazy but
Lucky, there’s no stats to worry
about and no dice to roll. The GM,
or Cartoonist as the game has it,
narrates a scene, players tell them
what they want to do and they decide
if it works or not. Unless players
are leaning into their character’s
defining traits, the Cartoonist is
advised to lean into partial
successes, especially when that might
introduce an element of slapstick.
Adventures are lightly sketched out
and progression is marked via a
series of check boxes that you
simply tick off when certain things
happen, this might just be each
player getting to have their moment
in the spotlight or someone describing
something fantastic. Once enough
boxes have been ticked the game moves
onto the next scene or its conclusion.
Finally the role of Cartoonist
doesn’t need to be fixed either and
players can take turns as the game
progresses. All in all I’m tempted
to describe this as Free Quackspiel
Roleplaying, in fact I just have
done.
If that’s the rules pretty much
dealt with the remaining 130 or so
pages are filled with a vast amount
of pre-generated material to get you
going, from fleshed out fowl such as
the Stingy But Good Hearted Jane Van
der Quack to a selection of 24
different adventures that range from
treasure hunts to birthday parties.
One last thing, Feathered Adventures
is as charming to flick through as it
is to play. Filled with gorgeous art,
the book’s graphic designer, Nicolas
Folliot, has done a great job of
capturing the game’s energy and the
whole thing feels like the kind of
giant sized comic, filled with games
and puzzles, you’d pick up on the
first day of a long summer holiday.
Lovely stuff. [John Power Jr.]

100 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

 HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

BORDER RIDING
Writing: Jo Reid | Art: Eli Spencer | Graphic Design: Brian Tyrrell | Publisher: Stout Stoat

Maps are an intrinsic part of

fantasy. I suspect most of us have,
at some point in our lives, happily
wasted countless hours poring over
the end-papers of much loved books,
plotting the journeys of their
protagonists and imagining what
other adventures those sketched out
lands contain. And, of course, maps
have been even more central to RPGs
from their very inception. Crack
open that copy of Dungeons & Dragon’s
1st edition that you no doubt have on
your shelf and you won’t need to read
far before Gygax is commanding you
to go for the graph paper.

In recent years though more and more

games, including celebrated titles
like A Quiet Year, Delve and Beak
Feather + Bone, have all put map
making at the very heart of what
they are. The latest to do so is
Border Riding, the debut game from
Glasgow based Jo Reid that draws upon
her experiences growing up in the
Scottish Borders, and specifically
participating in the region’s common
ridings.
Taking place in towns throughout the
Scottish Borders, common ridings
often see hundreds if not thousands
gather, many returning home from all
around the world, to celebrate and
reinforce their communities through
the performance of sometimes
centuries old rituals. These normally
include marking out the boundaries
of the town on horseback, marching
around to the sound of drums, flutes
and pipes, sports competitions and
consuming what, to outsiders, will
probably look like a lethal amount of
alcohol. If you’ve never been to one
the best comparison I can think of
is probably Peter Jackson’s
adaptation of the Battle of Helm’s
Deep, with added bagpipes. Everyone
should go, if just once.
Anyway, Reid has synthesized all those
experiences into what is a beautiful
little game of map, history and ritual
making where, alone or in a small
group, you collaborate to build both
a community and, almost as importantly,
a THEM, those who inhabit the edges
of the map and are very much not US.
Each turn you’ll elect a Standard
Bearer who rolls on a table of
prompts and, with input from the other
players, interprets the result to
develop the story of your community,
the conflicts, triumphs and disasters
that bind a people and place
together. As the turns pass and the
decades roll by new maps are layered
on top of the old, the sediment of
history building up, until a century
has passed and you fast forward to
the present to take turns narrating
how the past has left its mark on
your town today. It’s a fascinating
exploration of ritual and belonging
and if you enjoy these kind of
collaborative story building exercises
you’ll find a lot to love here.
Finally whilst you can easily read
the prompts off a PDF and the game
is designed to be played using blank
sheets of paper, special mention
must go to Border Riding’s physical
edition. Illustrated by Eli Spencer
and designed by Brian Tyrell it
folds out like an Ordnance Survey
map with its own pre-made landscape.
You don’t need to have read a tonne
of Marshal McLuhan books to appreciate
the medium and the message coming
together quite so well here. It
really is a beautiful looking object
all in of itself and I would certainly
not be mad were it to inspire any
number of imitators. [John Power Jr.]

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 101

HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

PIRATE BORG
Writing & Art: Luke Stratton | Publisher: Limothron

“ARRR!” is a deeply satisfying noise

to let out and one that a glimpse of
Pirate Borg’s blood splattered cover
will cause you to involuntarily
perform. Yes, as the name suggest
this is MÖRK BORG press-ganged into
a grog-swilling Dark Caribbean
setting with all the expected tropes
of sea-bound larceny, from hooks for
hands, to skull & crossbones tattoos
and gunpowder galore, present and
correct. Familiar territory then
that is aided by some thoughtful
additions to a simple and familiar
system.

The first new idea is the sheer

quantity of zombies in this game.
Undead-crewed ships are fairly well
established in the genre; but Pirate
Borg really leans into this. Especially
with the addition of Ash, a mix of
psychedelic drug, prized black-market
commodity and unpredictable magical
relic made from revenant remains.
Addicts soon become sunken, shambling
remnants of their former selves, and
a tumultuous effects table means
users stand to perhaps gain
permanent strength, or have a limb
rot away to be replaced by a ghostly
alternate at sunset. Ash is a great
cause of chaos, intrinsic motivation
and plot development - all of which
is great stuff to have in any RPG’s
toolkit.
Secondly, pirates are nothing
without piracy, nor ships without
swashbuckling and Pirate Borg
introduces ship-to-ship combat
rules. They’re pretty elegant too;
simple and satisfying. One feature I
particularly enjoy is that they use
a scaled damage/hit points system: A
ship might have 20 hit points, and a
cannon might do d8 damage; to
convert this to character health you
multiply everything by five, making
that 100 hit points and d40 damage.
It means ship vs ship is simple and
fast, but you can easily do the
maths to fire an entire broadside at
an unlucky player, or have them try
to sink a fleet armed with just a
machete. The book includes plenty of
example boats from barely survivable
rafts to mighty galleons with their
carved figureheads on the prow.
The entire book is stuffed with
ideas, tables and a whole set of
setting-specific character types and
NPCs. If anything there might
actually be a little too much
material here. Every page is
illustrated, not quite at Johan
Nohr’s level, but there’s certainly
some lovely art, and a deep
turquoise and decayed brown
aesthetic runs through the book.
Holding it in your hands is a fun
experience; every page is a treat.
A glittering diamond ear-ring set in
a masterfully tattooed earlobe;
Pirate Borg ends with one of the
most fully featured modules I’ve
ever read. Entitled The Curse of
Skeleton Point, it’s less of an
adventure and more a fully-fledged
sandbox.
Inside are locations, with locations
within those locations. There are
twisted together story threads,
multiple dungeons and enticing
characters. Have you ever read
through an introductory adventure
with NINE maps? Inexperienced GMs
might find it daunting, but I’d
encourage you to read it and imagine
just what your players might get up
to within its storied, briny depths.
No doubt about it, Pirate Borg will
provide you with everything you need
to play for years - or until you
abandon it all for a life of lily-
livered landlubbery. [Chris Lowry]

102 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5

 HIT POINTS : ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

FORBIDDEN LANDS - BOOK OF BEASTS

Writing: Andreas Marklund | Art: Henrik Rosenborg | Publisher: Free League

With their ever growing slate of

games, which now includes a good
handful of fantasy titles, it would
be easy for Free League’s Forbidden
Lands to slip through the cracks.
But, whilst it might not have the
fresh off the showroom floor feel of
Dragonbane or the star power of The
One Ring, this gritty “sandbox
survival” RPG is a gem, albeit one
whose lustre has perhaps been dulled
somewhat by a thick coating of mud
and blood. Whilst on the surface it
trades in what could be considered
fairly generic fantasy tropes
Forbidden Lands’ darker tone, focus
on strong-hold building, exploration
and making sense of a land which for
decades has been shrouded in a
deadly blood mist, all provide
plenty of reasons for giving it a go twisted variations on well known away from one of these encounters
over any other classic fantasy game. staples such as the Twisted Ents, victorious, each entry also includes
rage fueled nature spirits corrupted what might be made from that
Anyway, five years on from its by the land’s demonic corruption, or particular creatures remains, this
original release Forbidden Lands Greater Golems, animated stone is a survival game after all.
finally gets itself a standalone prisons crafted for the spirits of
Monster Manual, or in this case Book Dwarven traitors, but importantly Alongside the book’s beasts there’s
of Beasts, to accompany the existing all come with a whole slew of extra also a whole section of novel GM
Gamemaster’s Guide and Player’s material to make encountering them tools including new rules for traps,
Handbook. Not that the game hasn’t more than just a punch up but magic items and journeys, and 36 new
been short of monsters to throw at notable events in their own right. random encounters to use when players
your players with everything from are exploring the game’s hexmap.
Sea Serpents to shambling undead The Giant Spider’s entry, for These range from stumbling across a
statted up in various books, but the example, clocks in at an impressive birthing manticore to mystical
Book of Beasts ups the ante somewhat. 8 pages. Alongside stats for the encounters with fiery shrubs and are
creature in several different states a great accompaniment to those in
Within its faux leather covers you’ll of development, you get evocative the Gamemaster’s Guide. Finally the
find 28 brand new terrors, flavour text, snippets of lore those book also includes, for the first time,
beautifully illustrated by Henrik unlucky to encounter one may have a simple but effective system for
Rosenborg, to hurl at your players. heard before, a healthy selection of solo, or cooperative GM-less play.
These range from the familiar, such random, and actually interesting,
as trolls of various persuasions, to encounters that could be fleshed out We do love a good bestiary here at
the much lesser spotted and deeply into a session’s worth of play and, Wyrd Science, and it’s fair to say
unnerving creatures like the Tupilaq, this being Forbidden Lands, all the we’ve been spoilt in recent years
a sorcerous assassin crafted from specific and relatively horrible, but Forbidden Lands’ Book of Beasts
the remains of dead creatures and unique special attacks the creature is right up there with the best of
taken from Inuit lore. Others are can make. Should the player’s walk them. [John Power Jr.]

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 103

HIT POINTS : BOARD GAMES
UNDAUNTED: BATTLE OF BRITAIN
Game Design: David Thompson, Trevor Benjamin | Art: Roland MacDonald | Publisher: Osprey Games
Over the course of three acclaimed
wargames David Thompson and Trevor
Benjamin’s Undaunted series has
taken us from the beaches of
Normandy to North Africa’s deserts
and onto the frozen meat grinder
that was Stalingrad. With the news
that the series will be reaching for
the stars next year with sci-fi
spinoff Undaunted 2200: Callisto,
Thompson and Benjamin return, for
perhaps one last time, to World War
II for Undaunted Battle of Britain.
A much slimmed down affair after the
epic Stalingrad, Battle of Britain
sees the series take to the skies
for the first time as we play through
the fateful aerial campaign that saw
the Royal Air Force and Luftwaffe
duel for supremacy over the Channel.
Still, despite leaving terra firma
behind gameplay here remains, on the
whole, much the same as in previous
entries. If it ain’t broke don’t fix
it is generally pretty sound advice
and Battle of Britain retains the
core deck building system that
powered previous titles, with just a
couple of minor changes made to
emulate war amongst the clouds.
The new game features 11 scenarios,
that range from straight up dogfights
to bombing runs. Each scenario
dictates the map, units available to
each side and their specific
objectives which, generally
speaking, involve the RAF seeking to
neutralise a certain number of
German planes, and the Luftwaffe
attempting to blow up stuff up.
All of these scenarios can be played
individually or strung together to
create a complete campaign that
takes you from May 1940 through to
104 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
September of that year when, unable
to secure their objectives, the
Germans switched tactics and The
Blitz began.
Much like previous Undaunted games
the start of each scenario sees both
players dealt cards matching the
units under their command, normally
just one for each plane, alongside a
number of communications cards to
create a deck. The rest of your
cards are then placed ‘in supply’.
Unit cards serve a dual function,
you need to play one to activate the
corresponding plane, but they also
represent how much damage you can
take. As and when a plane does take
a hit you’ll need to discard the
corresponding card. If you none are
available, not including those still
in supply, then for that plane at
least the war is over. Communication
cards meanwhile can be used to
perform a number of special actions,
from replaying cards you’ve already
used that turn to delving into your
supply to add new cards to your
deck.
At the start of each turn, once
chocks are literally away, both
players draw four cards from their
deck and promptly sacrifice one, with
the highest value card determining
who gets the initiative. Then
whenever a unit’s card is played you
must make some combination of a move
alongside either a maneuver or
attack. Importantly, these being
planes for whom forward motion is
generally accepted as being pretty
important, if a unit is activated it
must move at least one hex. So, if
you do take a shot that means you
must carry on in the direction you
were already facing, even if that
means overshooting your target,
flying face first into a barrage
balloon or placing your unit
directly in another plane’s crosshairs.
Even if you do choose a maneuver
over combat your options are, as it
happens, still pretty limited.
There’s no barrel rolls or loop-the-
loops to pull off here, rather
stately arcs as you wheel your prop-
driven planes through the skies.
Because of this movement, or more
accurately positioning, actually
becomes all the more important as
you must think ahead and try to
anticipate your opponent’s tactics
to cut them off, line up the perfect
shot or, if you’re the Luftwaffe,
plot the perfect bombing run. Make a
mistake and it might be a good
couple of turns before you can get
that plane back in the fight or worse
you might find yourself a sitting
duck. Further complicating matters
all your planes in the same unit
need to remain in close proximity to
each other or you risk filling up
your hand with otherwise useless
Discord cards.
As for when the bullets do start
flying your planes are, to start off,
fairly fragile things. So a key
early decision is whether to press
on quickly and secure some
positional advantage or use your
comms card to Bolster your units,
pulling more cards out of supply and
into your deck to provide your
planes with just a little more
protection.
It’s honestly all very simple,
elegant and after your first few
turns pretty intuitive. Even if you’ve
never played any other games in the

series, you should be able to wrap
your heads around it pretty quickly,
leave the rulebook untouched and
concentrate instead on the serious
business of what’s happening on the
map, rolling dice and, of course,
making triumphant jingoistic sounds
as your Spitfire bursts through the
clouds right onto the tail of your
opponent’s slow moving Heinkel bomber.
Once you have the hang of it games
pass in a fairly breezy 45 minutes
or so and, bar a couple of
occasions, we found most of the
scenarios to be fairly even handed
affairs with several spectacular
last minute reversals as distant,
incredibly hopeful potshots winged
enemy planes just as they were about
to deliver a devastating payload.
It has to be said that after both
the literal and emotional weight of
Stalingrad, Battle of Britain
doesn’t pack quite the same punch.
The focus on planes rather than
individual soldiers tends to remove
some of the visceral impact when a
unit is neutralised and, rightly or
almost certainly wrongly, popular
culture has imbued air combat with
an almost knightly grace compared to
the sheer grinding horror of urban
warfare.
Likewise the game’s much more
straightforward scenarios and linear
campaign suffer somewhat in
comparison to Stalingrad. Had the
games been released in a different
order these would, of course, all be
moot points. Taken in isolation
HIT POINTS : BOARD GAMES
Undaunted Battle of Britain is still
a fantastic little wargame and shows
that 4 games in to the series it still
has some new tricks up its sleeve.
I should point out that of the two I
have also found myself much more
likely to pull Battle of Britain off
the shelf for an impromptu game and
despite having played through both
sides of the campaign will happily
replay the whole thing in the near
future.
Undaunted Battle of Britain may lack
the epic size and scale of its
predecessor, but if this is to be
the series’ last visit to World War
II then it’s fair to say that
Thompson and Benjamin have stuck the
landing. [Eoin Ryan]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 105
HIT POINTS : BOARD GAMES

VOTES FOR WOMEN

Game Design: Tory Brown | Publisher: Fort Circle Games

Few tabletop games have elicited

quite such an outpouring of pissy
man-baby angst in 2023 as Tory Brown’s
debut title, Votes For Women. So
what could it be about this otherwise
solid, conventional even, looking
board game that has lured so many
dangers out of their basements and
into the comments sections of game
review sites? That is, sadly of
course, a rhetorical question.

In Votes For Women you are looking

to either ratify or reject the
Nineteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution, if passed this
will, in theory, give women the
right to vote. To do this each side
must build support for their cause
both in Congress, where the
Amendment must first be passed, and
in individual states, where its fate
is ultimately decided.
Over the course of six turns, each
side gets to deploy campaigners
across the country and play cards
representing changes in societal
attitudes or historical events and
figures that will see support for and
against the amendment ebb and flow.
By the end of turn six the Suffragist
side must have both sent the
Amendment to Congress and brought 36
states over to their cause, meanwhile
the Opposition needs just 13 state
holdouts to maintain the status quo.
A game can espouse the most righteous
of causes and still be an absolute
clunker but, irrespective of
everything else, Votes For Women is
a very good game and it would be a
disservice to Tory Brown if that
simple fact got lost in the noise.
Indeed it is a great, and rare,
example of mechanics and theme
working together in perfect synergy
as you try to build a consensus,
pile up your little cubes and win
states over to your side. The game
also effectively hammers home how
effecting change is often much
harder than standing in its way and,
with the Suffragist’s cubes divided
between purple and yellow factions,
models the difficulty of keeping
these fragile coalitions together.
The game makes great use of history,
and Brown and Fort Circle Games have
done a great job here with how that’s
presented with the playing pieces,
the game’s cards and the exemplary
supplemental material, it really us
a lavish package. And whilst the game
is entirely focused on the US I’ve
personally long got used to living
in their world, so learning about a
few more of their lesser known
bastards is not the hardest thing.
Talking of bastards some may have
qualms about playing The Opposition,
in other games I’ve happily virus
bombed entire continents with nary a
concern but it has to be said that
dropping, for example, the White
Supremacy And The Suffrage Movement
card tends to hit differently. Votes
For Women doesn’t shy away from the
ugliness of history, but then why
should it, why should games aspire
to be nothing more than just banal
entertainment. Why deny them the power
to hurt, to inform, or make us feel
sad or angry that we allow the best
films, literature, poetry and art?
But for all that Votes For Women is
still a fun, exciting and very tense
game. Will we break it out after the
turkey’s been demolished this
Christmas, probably not, but then
I’m equally unlikely to suggest a
Twilight Imperium marathon either,
especially when I could be drunkenly
hurling rubber burritos at appalled
nieces and nephews. For all other
occasions though Votes For Women
remains a remarkable debut and one
that we will happily return to again
and again. [Eoin Ryan]

106 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5


MAJESTIC 13
Game Design: Adam Loper, Vince Venturella | Publisher: Snarling Badger Studios
Having delighted us with the
infernal battle-royale of
Reign In Hell and it’s sci-
fi sequel, Space Station
Zero, Adam Loper and Vince
Venturella brings things
back to Earth for their
third miniature agnostic
wargame, Majestic 13. Those
of you who, like us, spent
much of the 1990s WANTING TO
BELIEVE will have already
figured out we’re in alien
infiltration territory here,
and indeed Majestic 13 sees
you face off against an insidious
extraterrestrial empire, FORCE, who
seem hellbent on anally probing
their way to galactic domination.
Thankfully the game’s titular super
secret organisation -a motley
collection of soldiers, scientists,
machine gun toting priests and more-
are here to put a stop to their
schemes or, just as likely, die
horribly trying. So yes, it’s
essentially XCOM - the miniatures
skirmish game, which is no bad
thing, so please excuse me as I put
Pretty Hate Machine on too loud and
go disappoint my parents to really
nail that 90s vibe.
Anyway, in Majestic 13 you command a
5 person team and, much like Space
Station Zero, the game is mainly
geared towards solo or co-operative
play. If you do just want to play it
as a one off skirmish game that’s
totally doable too, with two teams
facing off against each other in a
‘training exercise’ but the real
meat of the game lies in its
campaigns where you must hunt down
and destroy a variety of disgusting
space bugs.
Creating your unit is simple enough.
Each team member has 5 stats that
generally start at 2d6 + 5, you
assign them to one of the 13
factions - each comes with special
abilities or bonuses, allocate them a
special skill from the list of
Advantages and dole out some high
powered weaponry and fancy
equipment. Depending on your faction
some of your team may have access to
psionic abilities, it all pretty
simple but still enough to be able
to create a unique interesting team.
Each mission then sees your team, or
teams, tasked with taking down a
particularly horrific alien that is
out and about, spreading its goo all
over town. Generally speaking
there’s just one intergalactic
terror per team, so we’re looking at
a super low model count game, played
out on just a 3 foot by 3 foot map.
That there’s just one alien
adversary per scenario should also
give you an idea of how nasty these
things are, and the game features 26
different ichor dripping, spine
ripping creatures to face off against.
HIT POINTS : WARGAMES
Once it all kicks off things get
messy pretty fast. Each model
gets to move and perform one
extra action per turn, such as
shoot, climb or aid their team
mates. Shooting, for example, is
a fairly simple matter. You
check line of sight, roll a d20
and, with the addition of that
model’s combat stat, try to
equal or exceed the alien’s
Defense stat. Should you
succeed you deal whatever
damage their chosen weapon
happens to do, and deduct that
from the alien’s, often, hefty total.
The alien’s actions are determined
by a simple but effective AI system
and each has their own range of fun
abilities and attacks with which to
eviscerate you with. Adding to the
chaos are in-mission FUBAR events
which inject a random element, such
as hapless civilians or the arrival
of another alien. Survive all that
and in-between missions you can
recover from injuries, clone new
soldiers, develop your base, wrestle
with bureaucracy to acquire new tech
and then do it all again. Last long
enough and you’ll catch the attention
of FORCE and must face off against
one of a number of increasingly
nasty alien bosses, before finally
surviving an out assault on the Earth.
It’s fast, furious and honestly all
a lot of fun. It may lack the more
developed narrative campaign of
Space Station Zero, but it’s still
another solid little skirmish game
to add to the shelf, especially if
you’ve been looking for an excuse to
kitbash models of Mulder and Scully
tooled up with rocket launchers.
[Eoin Ryan]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 107
HIT POINTS : BOARD GAMES
THUNDER ROAD: VENDETTA
Game Design: Dave Chalker, Brett Myers | Art: Marie Bergeron, Garrett Kaida | Publisher: Restoration Games
‘80s games were often marketed with
commercials featuring over-excited
kids losing their minds around the
table. Boxes would feature similar
scenarios, staged photographs
promising The Good Times. Mad Max
in-all-but-name, Thunder Road, was
one of these kinds of games. It was
brilliant – a novel “switch-and-
link” mechanism using two road tiles
captured the sense of an endless
post-apocalyptic highway. The game’s
relentless velocity and brutal car
combat captured the tone for many
would-be road warriors. But it was a
simple game designed for mainstream
audiences; accessible and immediate,
without any “hobby games” folderol.
The risk when publishers try to
modernize designs is overcorrecting
assumed obsolescence. I always worry
that the point of a game like
Thunder Road, which is more Ramones
than Rush, will be drowned by the
expectations of the modern hobbyist
market. Thankfully with Thunder
Road: Vendetta, Restoration Games
has proven once again to be the
masters of making vintage game
experiences which whilst not
necessarily in line with modern
expectations, still feel contemporary
and current.
Thunder Road is a smashy, thrashy
one-two-three-four game, but its
hardly d-u-m-b. Everything that was
smart about the original design
survives, everything added by
Restoration speaks to the spirit of
its ancestor. It is crafted with
admiration and respect; it doesn’t
feel like a postmortem “fix”. Its
rules excite the player with
possibilities rather than restrictions.
Play is paramount to sometimes anti-
108 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
fun concepts such as “elegance”, glass and there are even more with
“balance” or “sophistication”. Its the additional content, so you need
merciless- player elimination is never race the same stretch of nuked
still a thing, but when you lose to interstate twice. Special weapon
mishaps, misjudgments, or cards and unique drivers add some
maliciousness you’ll laugh and watch great effects. How about a deck of
your friends or family bash it out German-engineered custom parts to
to a bitter end, whether that means soup up your post-apocalyptic fleet?
a last person standing finish or The add-ons are all either very good
someone managing to defy the odds or great, but none are essential.
and cross the finish line at the end
of the fifth track section. My son and his friend played this
game over the summer. After the first
Peel back the layer of chrome – game, they both said “this is the
friends, it is thick – and you’ll best game I’ve ever played”. That’s
find a lean mechanical chassis of a better “seal of approval” than one
assigning die rolls to activate your issued by a career board game
three cars. There are a couple of content creator. It is my favorite
result-triggered special actions, title of 2023 and it’s not a close
such as repairing a vehicle or race. I’ve decided to ignore most of
sending a Gyrocopter to take a the chaff this industry churns out,
potshot. Hilarious rules for ramming but this is one I’ve been excited to
involving two special dice interact play and play repeatedly. I feel
with the size of the vehicles, like one of the kids on the backs of
resulting in cascading consequences. those boxes back in 1986 and as a
A Wings of War-like damage deck jaded AF 47-year-old hobby game
offers additional narrative when the player, it feels like Valhalla.
car behind shoots you up or decides [Michael Barnes]
to take the “rubbin’ is
racin’” adage
seriously.
The expansions
offer tons of
options that add
detail like a Big
Rig and a fleet of
motorcycles. The
two road tiles in
the base game have
been expanded to a
stack of double-
sided boards with
printed terrain
features ranging
from ramps to toxic
goo and sheets of

FEED THE KRAKEN
Game Design: Maikel Cheney, Dr. Hans Joachim Höh, Tobias Immich | Publisher: Funtails
Ever since Blood On The Clocktower
hit the mainstream, hidden role games
have been on the ascendance. At one
point this year my “to review” pile
had four different group deception
games in it! Even so, Feed The Kraken
stands out amongst the crowd.
The premise of the game is ship
navigation; you are the crew of a
17th century vessel, sailing towards
one of three possible destinations;
Bluewater Bay, the home of noble
Sailors; Crimson Cove, a rascally
Pirate hideout; and the Kraken,
where a Cult waits to sacrifice the
ship to an aquatic monster. Each
player gets a blue token for Sailor,
red for Pirate or yellow for Cult
member, with routes on the sea hexes
matching these colours and - as with
all hidden role games - you have no
idea as to what faction your fellow
ship-mates belong to.
Each turn a route card is chosen
that leads the ship towards one of
the locations. There are three
players involved in choosing a card,
and all other players can mutiny if
they fancy a change of management.
So mechanically it's quite simple,
except that in this genre the real
mechanic is actually in arguing
passionately that “OF COURSE
KATHERINE IS A PIRATE, JUST LOOK AT
HER HORRIBLE LYING FACE! DON’T YOU
DARE MAKE HER NAVIGATOR!!!”
People, opinions and bare-faced lies
are the special sauce here and at
this Feed The Kraken excels. As the
Captain hand-picks their Navigator
and Lieutenant, and all take part in
selecting the next route card, the
choices of who not to trust layer on
top of each other. The other way
that Feed the Kraken stands out is
in placing your group’s ship on a
map. It stands as a visible reminder
of which faction has the upper hand,
and puts each turn into the context
of a wider arc of betrayal. Too many
hidden role experiences rely on
things being almost completely in
the mind, whether in Werewolf’s taps
on the shoulder or Coup’s face-down
cards. Physical representation helps
to ground the experience (and the
arguments) in something tangible.
The high-end production quality is
worth a mention here - even the basic
version has a chunky ship which
provides a comforting solidity to each
move you make. The cards are large
with a tasty linen finish. There’s even
a ridiculous, plastic-drenched
Kickstarter edition, though personally
I'd stick with the normal version.
Now, it’s not a perfect game. As is
often the case with this type of game,
Feed The Kraken really shines at
higher player counts, ideally seven
or more, to give enough clout to
each faction, but even with five
HIT POINTS : BOARD GAMES
players it’s still fun and runs at a
very manageable play time of 45-60
minutes at any number. There’s a
range of Character Cards to
differentiate players a little more
with one off bonuses, but most of
these are only minimally useful; I
don’t think the game would really be
any different without them. The
mutiny mechanic is also maybe a
little too distributed to really get
a proper handle on. This is by design;
everyone makes a blind vote with
little wooden gun tokens, so you never
know how much everyone else is spending
until it’s revealed. This is fun in
that it prevents tactical voting -
or allows it with the addition of
lies - but it also can disassociate
one from the action somewhat.
Overall though, Feed The Kraken
creates an opportunity to be
thoroughly deceitful to your
friends, provides an excuse to talk
in terrible pirate voices and with
its tight running time pitches at
the perfect length to remain enticing
without ever outstaying its welcome.
[Chris Lowry]
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 109
HIT POINTS : VIDEO GAMES
WARHAMMER 40,000: BOLTGUN
Developer: Auroch Digital | Publisher: Focus Entertainment
Thanks to a renewed interest in the
hobby and a slew of talented devs,
we’re rapidly shooting past the era
when just discovering a Warhammer
video game that didn’t make you want
to pour Nuln Oil in your eyes was
exciting enough for a recommendation.
Strangely though, there’s still
shockingly few FPS’s for a setting
that’s had more ink spilled about
its firearms than many others have
their entire mythoses.
2021’s Necromunda: Hired Gun was an
enjoyable, if messy nu-Doom style
romp, and the more recent Darktide
finds its otherwise atmospheric
rendition of chaos-swarmed hive
cities held back by live service
shenanigans. Boltgun rejects such
gaudy complications on principle.
Here’s the pitch: You are a very
large, very fast man with a very
large, very loud gun, and there’s
nothing anyone else can do about it.
It is pure chaotic catharsis in the
way that all the best retro shooters
are. Oh, and it’s excellent.
Storytelling is deliberately light,
with comms from your Servo-skull and
the odd cutscene to bookend
chapters. But Boltgun’s environments
convey all they need to, maintaining
the maximalist techno-gothic
grandeur that’s so key to the
setting, while still delivering the
occasional labyrinthine warpscape to
get lost in, in a worthy tribute to
both Tzeentchian madness and classic
FPS level design. Progressing
through these spaces is familiar
territory, usually involving grabbing
coloured keys. Boltgun spices things
up with ‘Purges’, though: Huge arena
110 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
fights that you can’t leave until
you’ve killed a requisite number of
heretics.
More key than Boltgun’s
storytelling, though, is its tone.
Usually, you have to look at games
entirely about Orks to find decent
examples of writers not taking 40K’s
universe completely seriously. But
Boltgun seems to know how ridiculous
Space Marines are on principle, and
by framing its un-killable,
blueberry-armoured protaganist
through the superhuman lens of the
Doom Slayer, it absolutely wallows
in excess at every opportunity. A
dedicated taunt key is permanently
available, just in case any of these
heretics forget in whose name you’re
purging them, and the sheer size and
heft of your three-fridges-
sellotaped-together power armour is
constantly reinforced by the
excellent sound design.
Boltgun doesn’t just rest on the
traditional Boomer Shooter laurels
of having one speed (extremely fast)
and calling it a day. You’ve got
access to jumps, sprints, and
boosts, with the option to combine
for some seriously satisfying
mobility. Movement is exceptionally
tight and fluid, and ends up as the
best defensive tool available to
you, should your arsenal of
ridiculous weaponry fall short.
Chances are it won’t, though. The
titular boltgun is a chunky,
accurate mid-to-long range
powerhouse, and you’ll soon find an
absolute beast of a shotgun to cover
those tight corridors. A searing
plasma gun can make short work of
elites, and the heavy bolter is a
deeply satisfying room-sweeper.
There’s a few others I won’t spoil,
but the real star of the show here
is your chainsword. It’s a sword
with chainsaw teeth you can rev mid-
carve, and it’s every bit as fun to
use as that sounds.
Boltgun’s choice to focus on chaos
cultists, chaos space marines, and
two out of the four flavours of chaos
daemon (Tzeentch and Nurgle), does
mean that enemy variety can feel a
bit lacking by the time you hit the
middle of its 9 hour campaign.
There’s a handful of different
cultists, but they tend to blend
into each other in mobs. There’s
only so many ways Boltgun can remix
and revitalise its relatively
limited roster throughout, and while
pacing remains satisfying, this
limited roster does become
noticeable a bit sooner than I would
have liked. That said, the daemons
especially have a great deal of love
poured into their designs. Plague
toads hop and jiggle, Screamers
stalk the skies, and each Pink
Horror you dispatch sees two Blue
Horrors taking their place. The
greater daemons, when they do show
up, are a bit more bullet spongey
than exciting though.
Overall, this is the finest 40k FPS
on the market. Again, there’s only
been a handful of them, but while
the fan in me hopes Boltgun doesn’t
take up the top spot for too long,
it’s certainly going to take
something special to knock it off.
[Nic Reuben]
HIT POINTS: VIDEO GAMES

Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 111

APPENDIX M
Looking for an escape from the suboptimal
reality of our own world, Mira Manga’s
thrown herself into the even more
grimdark universe of Warhammer 40k.
My descent Into The Grimdark: or How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Baneblade.
During lockdown my games club, Hackney
Area Tabletop Enthusiasts, was feeling glum
at not being able to gather around our
tables. As most of our members are
Warhammer fans we were delighted when
Black Library author Dan Abnett agreed to
jump online and discuss the first book of
his Eisenhorn trilogy with us. That book,
Xenos, was to be my first experience of the
40k universe and I quickly found myself
caught in its clutches!
My pal Arbitor Ian invited me to come and
chat Black Library books on his YouTube
channel and here I am, three years later
fully immersed in a universe that is defined
by its eternal wars. A galaxy in literal flames,
all due to an absentee father leaving his
twenty sons locked in a ceaseless struggle
for dominance, destroying infinite planets
and civilizations along the way.
112 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5
On paper, this universe is not one for me,
give me a utopia over a dystopia any day!
Meanwhile every Warhammer novel is filled,
cover to cover, with violent encounters,
innumerable battles, hopeless skirmishes,
painful betrayals and bloodshed, all whilst
the deeply icky weirdness of the Warp lies
waiting around every, probably non-
Euclidian, corner. Still, despite all this, there’s
something about the world of Warhammer
that compels me to keep coming back for
more!
But really, how could I ever have hoped to
escape the gravity well of this setting, with
its sheer size and scale?
Warhammer is, after all, the most popular
wargame in the world. It has been going, in
some form, since 1983 with countless
spinoff card, board, video and roleplaying
games, several hundred issues of the
legendary White Dwarf magazine and now
even has its own TV channel! Everything
about it, but the lore especially, is epic in
scope and it practically counts for half the
UK economy. After three years of reading
as many books as I possibly can I still feel
like I’ve only just scraped the surface. There
is just so much to discover!
Since my conversion I’ve even made the
pilgrimage to Nottingham’s Warhammer
World where, on a wet Wednesday night,
the enthusiasm in Bugman’s Bar was still
palpable as wannabe warlords faced off
across tables filled with fantastical terrain
and merciless armies of tiny tyranids, orcs,
tau and good old Space Marines. When the
air is filled with the sound of rattling primer
cans and dice alike it’s hard not to feel like
you’re part of something special.
Over the past three years I’ve also been
lucky enough to interview many of the
authors and game designers behind the
universe too and heard first hand how
each new novel weaves more creativity,
characters and myths into the ever
expanding Warhammer tapestry. Seeing
just how much care and passion these
writers have for the setting, and how much
they enjoy adding new layers to it, is both
heartwarming and exciting.
It’s an awful, terrible place the grimdark. I’ve
found myself hurling the latest book I’m
reading across the room far away from me,
I’ve cried several times now when my heart
is broken by yet another betrayal or death
(more often than you might expect!) and I
moan and protest at poor Arbitor Ian and
the authors about just how brutal the
setting is, but still I keep returning.
There is, I suppose, some twisted comfort
to be had immersing ourselves in worlds as
unutterably awful as Warhammer’s, if only
to be reminded that modern life could be
worse.
I may be a utopian unicorn stumbling
through the grimdark but I have found that
there is a place for me here. With the
support of other fans I have explored the
Sabbat Worlds with Gaunt’s Ghosts,
travelled alongside Eisenhorn and Ravenor
as they seek out heretics, blundered from
failure to unlikely success with Ciaphas
Cain, dabbled with grumpy necrons and
other xenos and, in my most epic journey
of all, finally begun the Horus Heresy series,
the fifty-something book saga of how this
whole horrible setting came to be.
Now, when people ask me about my unlikely
journey into the grimdark, I smile wryly and
look out of an imaginary porthole at an
imaginary star-field filled with the burning
wrecks of improbably gothic spaceships.
‘I was there,’ I say, ‘I was there, the day Dan
Abnett joined our book club. And I’m going
nowhere, at least not until The End and the
Death Volume III is finally released.’
M DIOGO NOGUEIRA

Space Role
Dinosaur Plauying
Rangers Game
Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5 113
https://bit.ly/kosmosaurs
 wyrdscience.online
114 Wyrd Science | Volume 1, Issue 5