RPG Review - The End of the World: Alien Invasion

Orginally designed by Álvaro Loman and José M. Rey

Published by Fantasy Flight Games

"Massive, gleaming saucers appear over Earth’s major cities. The secret Illuminati that has ruled the world since time immemorial emerges to make its ultimate powerplay. Your own friends and loved ones suddenly seem… not quite right. No matter what weird or terrifying events are occuring, it’s plain to see that we are not as alone as we once thought. Earth has become the center of an Alien Invasion!

Alien Invasion is the third book in The End of the World roleplaying game line created by Álvaro Loman and José M. Rey. Like Zombie Apocalypse and Wrath of the Gods, Alien Invasion invites you to play as yourself, in your own hometown, as an extraterrestrial attack erupts around you. An elegant, narrative rules system keeps the game’s focus on the story as you experience one of five unique scenarios, each of which features dozens of possible adversaries and encounters. Watch out for UFOs, and prepare for close encounters with an Alien Invasion at the end of the world!"

Wow.

Look, I've tried all kinds of roleplaying in all kinds of ways; low-level crawling, high-level epicness, freeform, open world, linear, all kinds of genres, and I've even had a stab at playing in the real world, in my local neighbourhood, and even as myself.

It's not a new concept, and it's no doubt something that many seasoned gamers have tried at least once in their tabletop history, but in my experience they've always been games using an existing ruleset that wasn't designed for that kind of thing.

But this game is very different to all those other times you've tried to play yourselves in a roleplaying games, tried to act out those 'what if' scenarios you've had in your head. This game gives you the tools and the guidelines to actually have a proper go at a 'what would I do' situation, and it works exceptionally well... most of the time.

What we have here is a 144-page hardback rulebook that contains rules, guidelines and scenarios to give you and your group a great evening of survival horror. It may look a little on the slim side but at an RRP of £26.99 it has everything you need, and includes some excellent atmospheric artwork. The quality is up to the usual Fantasy Flight Games standard and it's a hardy rulebook that'll last you a while.

The book wastes no time in getting you into the action, and after the obligatory intro it dives straight into 'Playing The game', and explains the rules system and tests before you even get onto character creation. There is an assumption that you are familiar with tabletop roleplaying games and it doesn't hang around, so is it any good for new-to-the-hobby players? I'd say not really; there's enough in here to give you an idea of what gaming is about but no real firm guidelines.

Character creation is easy, and fun in may respects. Although the game is designed around the players creating versions of themselves to play in the game there is plenty of flexibility to create different personalities so that you can game as other characters in other places.

Characters have six characteristics across three different categories: Dexterity and Vitality are the Physical aspects, Logic and Willpower are Mental, and Charisma and Empathy are the Social aspects. These characteristics are graded by a number between one and five but start at one, and players then spend ten points across the characteristics to create a character that suits them.

The fun bit, especially if you're playing versions of yourselves, is that the group then votes on each of the different characteristics and scores, secretly putting dice into a bag to try and change the outcome of the character. The dice are positive and negative, which is the core mechanic of the game, and positive dice increase scores and negative ones decrease them. It's a great way of keeping egos in check - and a great way of finding out what your friends really think of you!

Features are then assigned, and these are the talents and problems the player may have. What are you good at? Don't think about what you'd like to be good at - what are you actually good at? Do you have any illnesses or physical problems? Don't make stuff up - think about how you are right now! Have you injured yourself in real life recently? Sprained an ankle, broken a bone, got a bad cold? Then put that on your character sheet - the alien invasion is about to happen so your current condition is vital!

Now for equipment... and this was a great part of character creation for all of us. Choose items that are in your house right now. That's your equipment list. It was fun for us because in my attic I have a replica Roman gladius, which came in handy, and another player had an air rifle and some knitting needles that actually fitted in the barrel (we weren't stupid enough to actually try to shoot one, of course). We actually went around my house looking for things that we could use, and even went as far as making an inventory of tinned food and water. It was a hell of an experience, and we really got into it.

The game system is very simple. Tests are decided by D6s, and once the GM has decided what characteristic to use for the test the player creates a dice pool from the characteristic and any features, equipment and bonuses that might come in handy. The pool is dice of two different colours, one colour being positive dice and the other negative dice, and then they roll. Any negative die score that matches a positive die score removes both dice from the table, and any positive die that remain which have scored lower than the characteristic equals success - the action succeeds. Anything else is a fail.

I may not have done the game system justice with that brief explanation, but once you get two or three rolls out of the way and the pieces fall into place then it's actually a great setup, with plenty of dramatic moments as the dice are paired off and scores are counted, and even though the term 'dice pool' might put some people off it's actually pretty quick and there's no situations where you end up throwing buckets of cubes around.

Once the system is explained and the way the game is run is over, the book then gets straight into ten multi-part adventure scenarios with different kinds of alien invasions, including straight-forward alien invaders, surreptitious alien infiltration, war machine issues, creatures emerging from the deep and - my personal favourite - giant ants. These games detail the actual apocalyptic incident and then also deal with the post-apocalyptic situation, so you get to live through the disaster and then try to survive in the aftermath. Each scenario can be played as-is or as an introduction to a longer adventure that the GM can create and continue on. The adventures aren't limited to the scenarios in the book, and with a little work the game can be stretched out into a long, involved campaign.

All in all it's a great game; the system is neat and quick, and the setting is evocative and gives you plenty of ideas to flesh out and play with. My issue is that the system, setting and adventures are dealt with very quickly, and my impression is that the gaming group, especially the GM, had better be old hands at roleplaying and the genre that the book is replicating because there isn't much here to guide you through the process.

While I appreciate the simple rules don't need much explanation and the quick, effective task resolution makes the game much easier to handle, the adventures themselves are a little thin. As they make up the bulk of the book I expected something a bit more thorough and detailed, but as with the rest of the book there's an assumption that the players know the genre and that the GM already has experience with creating adventures or at least playing them on the fly, as the scenarios are more a list of situations and adventure hooks than a proper play-by-the-numbers adventure. There is a timeline for the scenarios but the very brief day-by-day incidents give no detail. The games are very much the bare bone of a campaign, and the GM is expected to fill in the blanks. That's not much of a problem for seasoned gamers - in fact, they'd no doubt see it as a challenge - but that doesn't give players new to the hobby much of a chance, and that's why I see this game targeted at groups with plenty of gaming experience.

Also, in my experience the gimmick of playing ourselves got quite old quite quickly, and we had much more fun playing characters totally different from ourselves. While the character creation and equipment gathering parts of the game were great fun when trying to create a character based on ourselves, and to start with the team dynamic was really good, in actual play - about three sessions into the game - it became a little stale and the novelty wore off. When we're talking about getting vaporised and breaking into local stores for supplies and equipment it was kind of fun, but when questions are asked about other friends and relatives it got a little awkward. Not only that, but there were two or three incidents where perceived abilities and game abilities created a slightly heated debate. It didn't ruin the game - in fact, there were moments when it strengthened it - but I guess it's down to the individual groups as to where they want to take this kind of setup. Tongue-in-cheek, serious or fantastical, it's up to you, but we found we had the most fun when it wasn't about us, and we created characters far removed from our own lives and abilities.

The End of the World: Alien Invasion is a good game and a lot of fun, but be prepared to do quite a bit of filling in the blanks as the GM, and make sure you have a thick skin if you're playing yourself. This game isn't for everyone and there may not be much longevity with the adventures included, but the system is pretty solid and you'll get some good games out of it, as long as the group is on the same page.

Recommended.

www.findyourgamestore.co.uk

D&D mixes it up with Middle-Earth

This is actually quite amazing - the game and the setting have been doing their own thing for the fantasy genre for decades, and now they finally meet up in a huge nerd explosion.

There's assurances that there will still be plenty of The One Ring material - as there should be, as that's a special kind of game all on its own - but having Middle-Earth to run around in using the D&D system is a massive bonus, something my D20-centric gaming group will appreciate.

From the Cubicle 7 website:

14 MAR/16

Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games have announced plans to make a Dungeons & Dragons® compatible roleplaying series for J R R Tolkien’s legendary fantasy world of Middle-earth, the setting for The Lord of the Rings® and The Hobbit®.

Cubicle 7’s CEO Dominic McDowall said, “We’re all very excited to be building on the success of The One Ring Roleplaying Game and bringing Middle-earth to D&D® players. Uniting two things very close to the hearts of gamers, me included, is very cool – I can't wait for the summer.”

The best selling The One Ring Roleplaying Game will continue as a separate and independent line, with some very exciting announcements coming this week. The new series will be based upon Francesco Nepitello’s highly praised work in The One Ring®, with Francesco acting as creative consultant.

Further details will be released in the coming months, with the release set for Summer 2016.

Interview: Jon Hodgson

I'm incredibly excited to welcome to Farsight Blogger Jon Hodgson, Creative Director at Cubicle 7 Entertainment and the man who forced me to buy Dragon Warriors. Well, he didn't force me as such; I just had to buy it because the artwork was just so damn gorgeous and suited a damn good game.

Perhaps you'd like to tell us a little bit about yourself?

My name is  Jon Hodgson, I’m the Creative Director at Cubicle 7 Entertainment. We make The One Ring RPG, Doctor Who RPG, Doctor Who Card Game, and tons of other supercool stuff.

I trained as a fine artist, and had a couple of gallery shows as an abstract painter in my misspent youth.  I’ve worked as a props maker, then a freelance illustrator. I’ve made art for DnD (3rd, 4th and 5th editions), Warcraft card game, Pathfinder, Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 1st and 2nd Editions, Glorantha, Legend of the Five Rings, Lone Wolf Adventure Game, Dragon Warriors, Warhammer Historical… tons of exciting things. I’ve been very lucky.

6 years ago I started art directing for Cubicle 7 part time, and got on really well with the team.  I went full time with them a year later, eventually getting promoted to Creative Director.  Basically anything we make now is largely my fault.

Tell us about your background and gaming - was it art that got you into tabletop, or tabletop that got you into art?

Hmm it’s tough to divide the two.  I played tabletop rpgs before I’d really decided what I wanted to do though, so perhaps they are to blame. When I was 10 I wanted to be a writer, an actor or an artist (precocious brat!). And at the time I was playing the Fighting Fantasy Tigerman RPG, and shortly thereafter Dragon Warriors. Then Red box DnD. I always loved gaming art though. Unsurprisingly I’m a very visual person, so the art was always really important to me.

I think probably it was art in books that got me into rpgs.  David Day’s Tolkien Bestiary with all the amazing Victor Ambrus, Ian Miller and John Blanche art blew my tiny mind as a kid.  As did the Chronicles of Prydain and The Hobbit.

What is it about the tabletop RPG hobby that attracts you? What do you enjoy most when playing a game?

The imagination.  The possibilities. The waiting to see what happens next. When I first started, like a lot of kids it was all about the problem solving, the resource management stuff.  Later I got a lot more into characters and settings and putting them together amazing adventures and stories.  There’s no game quite like a roleplaying game. Especially when you’re 14 and you have nothing else to do because Snapchat won’t be invented for another 25 years.

What's your favourite game? What games that are out there at the moment float your boat?

This will sound like a contractual obligation, but it’s definitely The One Ring, in terms of RPGs.  I played a ton of MERP as a kid, and while I have very fond memories of it (and the Angus MacBride plates, good grief!), and we certainly had some great times, but it never quite felt like Middle-earth when we were playing.  TOR delivers on that.

I did some work on Pugmire for Onyx Path, and I’m really looking forward to reading that. It all really works somehow as a setting. And I’d like to pick apart how.

Shout out to Morgan Davie’s recent “Holding On” short rpg.  It’s an amazing piece of work.  I really liked Meguey Baker’s A thousand and One Nights, too.  Clever games.

You might notice I’m rubbish at playing tribalism in my choices here. I like DnD, I like indie games.  Being able to enjoy two things seems to be a dying art, somehow.

Do you still get time to play? What are you playing at the moment?

I don’t get much time for rpgs - I don’t have a group locally, and they can be so time consuming. Once my kids are a bit older we’ll start a campaign in this house.

I do play a lot of boardgames at the weekends currently - Treasure Hunter, Takenoko, King of Tokyo, and Love Letter are probably my current favourites.  I had an awesome afternoon this weekend playing a card game we’ll be publishing later in the year with my son.  Can’t tell you anything about it though.

Sporadically I take part in our globe-trotting The One Ring staff campaign.  We’ve played sessions in Oxford, Las Vegas, Holborn Naish (on the south coast of England), so it’s a fun one.  We’re not all in the same place very often, and while we usually have our character sheets, events where we’re all there, like GenCon, on top of transatlantic flights are pretty exhausting.  Which is a shame as it’s a really good campaign, and I really want to know what happens next!

Dave Morris described you as 'The Dragon Warriors artist'. Your illustrations for the new edition of the game pretty much defined the feel and atmosphere of the entire game and setting. How did you approach that job, and what inspired/influenced your pieces?

Dave is very kind. Since I played DW as my first “proper” rpg, it’s amazingly gratifying that I didn't stuff it up.

I could give you the really long and painful version of this, but it boils down to painting what you believe, what you really truly feel, and believing in that process.

I tried really hard to think what I loved about the setting when I was a kid. I looked at the pieces of art and writing from the original books that fired me up.  I can almost taste how awesome that all felt when I was 11.

There are some simple things too - Dragon Warriors is very British in it’s feel.  So there’s a lot of rain and fog in the images.  There’s heathland, and moorland.  Specifically British landscapes that hopefully complement and reinforce the words.

I almost didn’t get the gig.  James Wallis had paid another artist to do a ton of work for the reboot, but that artist flaked, never delivering.  I was asked to fill in, and we got on really well.  I don’t flake.  And try to really believe in what I deliver.

Dragon Warriors and it’s setting Legend hold a very special place in my heart, which sounds sappy, but the fans will know what I mean.  It’s a very special game.  In some senses it’s all about just believing enough to let it out.

I used to shy away from words like “love” and “heart”, but I see a lot of my contemporaries churning out work to order that lacks any trace of real love.  And it’s why they’re treading water creatively.  You have to commit, and accept where this stuff comes from.  Make it like you mean it, you know?

Your work on Cubicle 7's Middle-Earth RPG, The One Ring Roleplaying Game, is also giving that setting a whole new look and feel. How do you prepare going into projects such as these, especially with the Middle-Earth setting which has already had such a huge variety of illustrators before? Do you find such things daunting, or another challenge to delve into? 

Oh goodness me, daunting, yes. I nearly turned down the Middle-earth gig.  It was too big, too scary.  But then what can you do? Just let an opportunity like that pass you by from fear that you’ll fail? When you adore Middle-earth?  You have to somehow find the courage to step up to it.  Just like with Dragon Warriors I was amazingly grateful that people in general seem to have liked the direction we took.

I’m also very glad I did take on the work, and tried my best, as it opened a lot of doors for me.

I had enjoyed the LOTR movies, but I felt there was a big gap left between the direction they went and Tolkien’s work. And understandably so for the movie-going audience. Tolkien to me is all about Beowulf, and William Morris, and Old English.  It’s about Saxons.  It’s not “cool”. It’s archaic, ancient, atmospheric, odd, a story from another place. Movies have to be cool. Happily, rpgs don’t.

Just like with Dragon Warriors it was about choosing a direction that your heart truly believes, putting your head down, and sprinting towards it while trying not to think too hard about what people will say.

In practical terms I read a vast amount of books prior to starting work.  Naturally LOTR and the Hobbit - there’s a lot in those books that still surprises me.  I also gathered a stupidly large collection of reference material about the Early Medieval period, and Tolkien’s own influences. I read the Kalevala for example.  And know more about the Staffordshire Hoard than is probably healthy.

You know, I honestly expected a lot more hate mail for what we did. We really took it back to basics, with everything being rooted in early medieval sources. We’ve had quite the opposite reaction.  You can never really tell though, when you’re working on something. And in some ways the reaction always feels a bit like luck.

There’s some really cool stuff hidden in the One Ring art.  I worked very closely with the game’s designer Francesco Nepitello, who is now a great friend.  He shares a keen interest in delving into things to an obsessive degree.  If you have the supplement Tales from Wilderland, there’s a painting of Beorn’s Hall.  The gate has a bee symbol on it.  That’s taken from a Frankish king’s burial shroud.

Beorn’s name, and his character, and his bee keeping, are all tied up in the language - across Europe, in what’s commonly called “the dark ages”, bees were associated with warriors, due to the antiseptic properties of honey.  And because bears like honey, and there are cross overs between the words for bear and warrior and honey-eater in various languages of the time.  That’s the level Tolkien, as a philologist, was working. We try to at least attempt to do something similar with the visuals.

We won a bunch of medals for the art on The One Ring, and I have some of them hung up near my desk. Especially the Golden Geek - you could kill a burglar with a swing of that medal! But in all honestly they don’t really… I dunno. They don’t compare to the fire that drove the direction we went in.

I’m proud that we stuck to our guns and found an audience for what seemed like an approach that wouldn’t necessarily be popular, after the movies stamped high fantasy all over Middle-earth.  But make no mistake, I see other artists working on Middle-earth imagery and simply feel completely unworthy.

The tabletop roleplaying hobby has been through a lot changes over the years and it seems that its death-knell is always sounded when newer hobbies come along, such as collectible card games and online computer games. It still seems to be able to hold it’s own, though – what do you see happening to the hobby in the future? What changes, if any, do you think will have to be made to ensure its survival?

RPGs have survived a lot of existential threats. I think at a very basic level people are tired of looking at screens all day.  The rise of boardgames really demonstrates that - people want to get together with friends and family in real life and play games together.

RPGs do have the challenge that they can be so involved to learn, and I think they can struggle to compete with activities that deliver more immediate fun right away.  But then I think there’ll always be people who want more.  We’re working on a few things that might help with that, building on the success of the Lone Wolf Adventure Game, which teaches you to play without help.  And I’m sure other companies are working on some similar things too. Stuff that’s uber accessible and starts delivering fun with friends right away.  I have a ton of ideas for our next thing along those lines.

I think there’s a lot to learn from Minecraft, and how people like building and sharing and exploring. We saw that with the OSR and indie/story games communities, and I hope the Dungeon Master’s Guild from Wizards captures some of that.  I honestly don’t know if a more commercial operation can harness that kind of energy.

Out of all your projects, what are you most proud of?

That’s a very tough question.  Is it really boring to say The One Ring?

There are some moments I’ve had in art directing that probably make me more proud than painting.  For me painting is something I’ve always done, and simultaneously it’s all busking and blagging and faking it, and not knowing whether what you’ve done is any good. (I should probably seek professional help…)

The Doctor Who Card Game was pretty awesome.  I made some ADing moves which felt very bold at the time, and we pulled it off.

Actually, getting some art in all 3 DnD corebooks recently was pretty rad.

What are you working on at the moment?

Right at this instant I’m ducking between painting a cover for a Glorantha supplement and pondering these answers.  At the Cubicle 7 day job, I spent the day getting some games into approvals and off to print. It was pretty satisfying.

Hints & Tips - ROAD TO RUIN

On the first Monday of every month, read a new hint or tip from Jonathan Hicks, as featured on www.rpg.net and available on Kindle as 'The Book of Roleplaying Hints, Tips and Ideas'.

Sarcasm mode on

How to be an annoying player.

Every game has them, and you don't want to be the exception. Take a few tips from these ten easy to learn steps on how to ruin the game your GM has so carefully designed.

Number One: Make sure that you never talk in character. Its much more effective to say 'My character tells the Navy officer to surrender or die' instead of just giving the GM a scowl and saying 'Surrender or die, Captain Vud!' in the most convincing Royal Shakespeare voice you can manage. Keeping the gulf between your characters personality and your own roleplaying talents as wide as possible is an absolute must for all players.

Number Two: Always express your own opinions and ideas, especially when someone else is talking, preferably the GM. Interrupting an explanation or a piece of dialogue with brash statements will win the respect of other players. All gamers are well known for their tolerance for people butting in on their repartee. If you make sure your speech is loud and overbearing, you may even succeed in drowning out the other people at the table.

Number Three: Don't be concerned about turning up for the game on time. Arriving about twenty minutes to half an hour after the agreed meeting time is suggested, although three quarters of an hour would be a fine example. Keeping other players waiting is a good test of their patience, of which they'll need a lot with you around. It's good to keep them on their toes.

Number Four: Wait until a moment of high drama has arrived and then talk about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the game. Football or last night's television programmes are always good subjects to throw in. It makes the game unpredictable and sometimes quite surrealistic. So next time the GM gets to the part of the game where the final confrontation with the corrupt syndicate boss is just about to happen, make sure you come out with something like 'I saw this great program last night on telly, listen to this...'

Number Five: The game will progress much better if you don't actually take much notice of what is going on. Sitting in your chair and reading a book or a magazine while the game is in progress is a definite sign of good roleplaying. Every now and then nudge another player and show them what interesting things you've just read about, and when the GM looks upon you and asks what it is you want to do, just give him a blank look and say 'huh?'

Number Six: Every time the GM has to make a ruling, make sure you disagree with it, or at least question it before grudgingly giving in. Plenty of games have been filled with hilariously enjoyable hours of players and GM's conversing over their interpretation of the rulebook. And remember - if the GM succeeds in having his ruling accepted make sure you're miserable and surly for the rest of the session. In fact, moan about it for the next few days. After all, the game is being played for your enjoyment so why should the GM ruin your fun?

Number Seven: Wit and humour are what makes a roleplayer, so why not treat the whole game like a joke? This works most effectively when the GM has designed a game that's dark and sombre. Why play along with that, when cracks such as 'So that's an octopus’s great wobbly tentacle! Fnarr, Fnarr!' and 'I'll jump in front of the female guard and shout "Get back or I'll whip out my baton!" Ho, Ho!' will carry the atmosphere effectively.

Number Eight: Cheat at your dice rolls. You may think this is dishonest, but look at it this way; won't your fun be heightened if your character succeeds at most of her rolls? Of course! Forget about chance and tension, just roll those dice, scoop them up before anyone else sees them and say you've succeeded. The game is supposed to be fun, so you want to milk that fun for all it's worth, even at the expense of effectively roleplaying a character that is on the front line of danger.

Number Nine: Take lots and lots of food with you. This may be the normal thing to do for most players, but make sure you take plenty of chewy sweets. Having your mouth full with thick toffee and trying to explain your actions to a GM makes the game just ooze with realism. So when the GM next asks you what course of action you wish to take against the soldier who is about to attack you, you can reply with 'Gile thwig ag im wig my shord’.

Number Ten: Have you recently had a slight disagreement with another player over something trivial, out of the game? Do you want to know how you get back at that player? Well, the answer is simple. Use your character to spite him. Make the odd sarcastic comment to his character through yours, with the obvious reference to what you disagreed about, and then afterward say 'I was only roleplaying'. Better still, have your character try to bump off the offending player's character in some way. Using PC's to settle petty differences are a great way to improve the session and strengthens the relationship between players.


Using one or two of these steps will make you an annoying player. Using several in conjunction, or better still the whole repertoire, will let others know that you are definitely on the road to complete roleplaying player mastery.

Sarcasm mode off

Writer's Sketchbook - more random writings

This gets annoying - I've found more little untitled snippets for old writing projects, and I have no idea why I wrote them, or where I was going with them. I think I have a whole collection of written notes, like a writing sketchpad, and I just allow streams of thought to go onto the page.

I think this is for a novel/RPG project I was working on called The Last Island, but I can't remember how it fit into the theme of my original idea.

You think you are dreaming.

You think you are dreaming but you know you are not. Your last thought, before the darkness took you and your eyes closed for what you feared was the last time, was that you were going to die. And I know that you were on a boat. You were on a boat or a ship, and you were lost, sinking or being tossed about in a storm like so much sundered wood upon a violent ocean.

I know this, for this is how all of you lost souls come to the island.

Sometimes you come here one at a time, wandering in the woods or staggering confused along the coastline, afraid to enter the strange, unknown forest. Some of you come here in groups, regaining your wits on the beaches and finding yourself washed ashore with other people, all of you staring at the other’s outlandish clothing, strangely coloured skin or wild body paintings. 

The first thing I always see, however, is the fear in the eyes. 

It does not matter how large, strong or loud and threatening the person is, there is always that look of fear, of trepidation of the unknown, and mostly of confused, childlike timidity.

You will never stop being afraid. 

This is The Last Island.

There is much to be afraid of.

Book Review: The Vathiriel Blade

By Mark David Brantingham

'“Within a temple blanketed by thorn, 
The torches on the walls are black and cold. 
The narrow steps are pitted, bleached, and worn, 
Descending to a labyrinth dark and old. 

“Beneath the weathered hill, within the deeps, 
A hallway and a chamber silent wait. 
Upon a bed of gold, the Watcher sleeps 
Behind an ancient adamantine gate.” 

How old is the Watcher in the Hill? Not even the wisest amongst us can say. Is the Watcher real or an invention of the Vanya storytellers who come and go along the riverways of Vangyr? Either way, its legend hangs over us like a deep shadow. 

Out of the western lands the drifter came. A soldier. A slayer. They say he fought for dread King Dwyer, and that blood is still on his hands. They say he lost his wife and child when Easthorn Castle fell. They say many things about the drifter from the west. 

He brought with him the sword with runes that burn. Vathiriel. Does that blade belong to him or possess him? None dare to ask. But on the frontier, we have never chosen our heroes. We take them as they come, if they ever come at all.'

It's an enticing blurb for the book - an ancient cryptic poem and an introduction from an un-named speaker talking about the Watcher and the stranger.

This new fantasy novel from Mark David Brantingham is the first of what may be a series of stories about the unfortunate Sean Fitzpatrick, the man who fought for a tyrant and lost everything. And I mean everything

'When the walls of Easthorn Castle come crashing down, Sean Fitzpatrick is on the wrong side of history. In this battle he loses his liege, his status, his fortune, and his family but is spared by an enigmatic king who sends him east in search of a new life. “Today you are going to live,” he tells Sean, who greets the words as a punishment.'

Dropped by the new King's griffon in the middle of nowhere, Sean is given a chance to start his life afresh; but the wounds of his old life are still too fresh and with a mystical blade given to him by his former liege, he staggers into a small frontier town to discover new problems, problems that may not be as huge as the ones he has left behind but very real to the people it affects. Against his will, Sean becomes involved...

Now, let me get something out of the way first; I think Mark David Brantingham is a good writer, and his dialogue comes across as very natural along with a clean and descriptive narrative. He builds his world well, and the opening chapters create some solid characters and you get a feel for the type of novel you're about to read; power, intrigue and deviousness seems to be the order of the day, and you get a sense of impending doom, not just for the tyrant King but for everyone associated with him. Plans are made, paths are chosen, and you wonder how they're go9ng to get past this huge battle that's about to begin.

But then everything changes. The characters that have been built die, the plot threads they have sown seeds for come to an end, and Sean is taken from this intriguing and well-constructed setting to the middle of nowhere.

Okay. That's not so bad. The scene has been set, so how does he come back into this? Well... he kind of doesn't. What happens is that he gets embroiled with a small frontier town that has a man who has put himself in charge - and owns the saloon, incidentally - and controls people, places and property with an iron fist. Cook, the bad guy in question, is corrupt and deceitful and this is his town. Sean Fitzpatrick is just a wounded drifter and wants nothing to do with it all... if you know your westerns, think Shane meets Deadwood.

And that's where this novel goes; it's a classic bad-guy-runs-the-town western with fantasy trappings. If I didn't know any better I could have imagined six-shooters and stetsons, and the dialogue, descriptions and terminology even cries out 'this is a western!' The disappointing thing is that this story of the drifter staying at the homely family's house and the bad guy in charge is what dominates the book, and the opening intrigue and war, which is what would have made for a great story as it's a great opening, is abandoned very early on, and the Watcher on the Hill, which is given top billing in the blurb and seems to have great significance, doesn't last long in the book and doesn't make much of a difference at all. And the blade? Well, he has the Vathiriel Blade, and apart from being magical and helpful it doesn't make that much of an impact and it's difficult to understand why it's given so much importance as the title and the cover image, unless I'm missing the point and the blade is a reference to the man that wields it.

That's really frustrating, because Mark David Brantingham has created a great world with some solid foundations for a larger, more epic story. His writing really captures the atmosphere and there is some wonderful dialogue, especially when a character is saying what they think and feel, that really resonates and can make for some great quotes. The action is well described and brutal, and there's a real sense of excitement that sometimes jumps off the page, like the writer was getting excited as he was writing it. I can't  fault the writing much.

I just wish that the book had delivered on the story mentioned in the blurb, or the epicness hinted at by the opening chapters. There's a build-up that doesn't feel like it has a payoff, and it does feel like the original story was a western and the fantasy elements have been added on at the beginning and end just to change the genre. It leaves the story feeling disjointed and without a solid base on which to build a plot, and the promise of the blurb and the opening are lost in another story that wasn't meant to be in the limelight.

Saying all that, I can still recommend the book. It's well written and the dialogue is excellent, and the characters are well built and have dimensions that make for interesting personalities. It's a good fantasy book with plenty of promise, and if there are future instalments, with these characters or this world, I'd definitely check them out.

Recommended.

Games Club: The Lunar Games Society

The Lunar Games Society is a new club for anyone who enjoys playing Role Play, Board Games and Wargames.

The club is open every Friday night from 7:00pm to 10:00 pm at the Life Church, Netherstowe, in Lichfield in the UK - and the best thing is that it's a ten minute walk, or a two minute drive, from where I live. The second best thing is that there's a fish n' chip shop, a Chinese takeaway, a late-night shop and a pub all right next door, so if there has ever been a better location to have a games club then I don't want to hear about it.

I attended last Friday and just mingled and chatted, and watched a very entertaining game of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar using some well-painted miniatures and scenery.

I also had a look at an American Civil war game that involved lots of very small miniatures, and looked like a blast.

In two weeks time I'll be starting a roleplaying game with a small group of gamers, using a yet undecided system.

I spoke briefly to Christina Matthews, the clubs founder, and she's got plans for the club should it get bigger. It's really easy to get to from the surrounding towns and villages, being on the edge of the city, with ample free parking, and even though, at the moment, they're in the smaller lounge area there's always the option to expand into a larger hall should the numbers swell, which I really hope they do.

They've got a Facebook page so I advise every local gamer, as well as those willing to make a journey, to check this place out as they'll be covering every type of game that you can play on a table. Bring your own or join in, there's plenty to do. The best thing is that I get to start a new RPG campaign with fresh new faces, so that promises to be a lot of fun. Roll on Friday 11th!

Interview - Neil Rennison of Tin Man Games

Please welcome to Farsight Blogger Neil Rennison, founder and creative director of Tin Man Games, a game developer in Melbourne, Australia. Specializing in digital gamebooks – interactive fiction/RPG style games where you control the story – Tin Man has worked on many different games.

I spoke with Neil about gaming, Fighting Fantasy and the games he plays and creates. 

Like you I have a rich and involved history with the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series - it's what got me into tabletop gaming. What attracted you to them, and how much of a fan are you?

I think a blog post that I wrote back in 2009 is still very relevant to this question and better articulates my passions than the me six years later could ever hope to write again!

'I’m about 10 years old, the year is about 1985. It’s a cold and rainy spring weekend and my family have made their way down in our old campervan to the New Forest in the South of England, UK. My step-father loves windsurfing so we park up at Avon Beach car park in Mudeford, just outside the New Forest. He disappears off on the board into the choppy seas, and the rest of the family sit it out while wind and rain pound the poor campervan exposed to the elements.

I’m bored, so when the sun shows itself for a short time I wander down to a bookshop at the end of the carpark. The bookshop also doubles as a beach-shop selling buckets and spades, and small flags you’d put on sandcastles. The floor is slightly gritty with sand brought in from holiday-makers, and has that strange seaside smell mixed in with an inky newspaper smell. Tucked away around the corner is a bookshelf which changes my young life.

I bound back to the campervan, cradling my book purchase under my coat as the rain begins spitting again and I worry it may get wet. Sitting down to the makeshift table that doubles up as a bed when collapsed, I open the fresh pages of a book called “Deathtrap Dungeon” which is apparently called a Fighting Fantasy adventure. The next few hours I am whisked away to fantasy world and meet creatures that I would have never dreamed about, and have to dodge deadly traps to keep my character alive! I don’t have dice so can’t fight the monsters properly but that changes when we get home that evening and I raid the Monopoly box. I’m reading a book, but actually controlling the story! This blows my 10 year old mind at the time. We continue travelling down to Avon Beach carpark for a number of years as a family. At some point the campervan got upgraded, and at some point I learned to windsurf myself, but when we get back to that beach I return to the bookshop and buy out as many of these books as possible, including trying out other series such as Grail Quest and Lone Wolf, which I also love.

I’m 34 years old. It’s a windy and rainy July day and I’m sat in a car at Avon Beach carpark in Mudeford. I’ve come down to the New Forest with my family. Sadly this does not include my Mum who passed away two weeks earlier of stomach cancer – I miss her so very much. My step-father wanted to come here with the family, now with three young nephews, to think of the good times, and to find ways to grieve. The bookshop is still there so I have ten minutes to myself and walk down. The floor is still slightly gritty, and still has that strange seaside and inky newspaper smell. I walk around to the section which used to house all the gamebooks. It has now been replaced with racks of wetsuits and bodyboards. I feel sad but understand its time for me to move on with life in lots of ways. I walk back to the car and begin making notes about a gamebook I want to write called “Siege of the Necromancer”.'

What else have you played? What floats your boat in the tabletop world?

These days I don’t get to play much in the way of tabletop RPGs and similar. However I am slowly transitioning my 6 year old daughter away from her more childlike board games and into things a lot more complex. Recent successes have been Forbidden Island and King of Tokyo. In KOT’s case I was worried the mechanics may confuse her, but she completely gets it and I’ve noticed her maths and logic decision skills improve as a result.

So, the digital RPG 'The Warlock of Firetop Mountain' is well underway and it's looking great. What can you tell us about this game, and what will make it different from the gamebooks you have already adapted, and computer RPGs in general?

Essentially at it’s base core is the gamebook. That’s what we have the license to produce and it’s the major material we have to work with. Where we’re upping our game in this instance is in two major areas which are making it more visually accessible to gamers that like modern-day RPGs and increasing replayability. The way we have done this is by introducing digital miniatures, representations in 3D of the pewter figurines you would use in a table-top RPG or wargame. The digital miniatures can be used to move around a 3D representation of Firetop Mountain that accompanies the gamebook text – very much like a board in a board game or the graph-paper maps you may construct in a tabletop D&D game. What the miniatures also allow us to do is to add replayability by playing with a different miniature each time you enter Firetop Mountain and having a slightly different experience. The motivations of one character for entering the Mountain might be very different to another.

The last adaptation of yours I played was Starship Traveller; it was a great game and worked well as a text adventure, and was really nice to have to hand on my phone when I needed it. Is it a difficult job to make the adaptation, and are you ever tempted to change things around to confuse veteran gamers?

It’s actually very difficult. In the case of ST we pulled out a whole load of stuff that felt unnecessary in a modern adaptation and inserted in more customisation over your crew. By doing this we were able to add in more complexity and choice at not just a narrative level but at a game/sim level. ST in many ways is closer to games like FTL or Out There than many people think.

Do you have any plans to release any other gamebook adaptations?

We’re actually slowing down on the gamebook adaptations and looking at other properties. However, we have begun work on Grailquest, which we’re really excited about!

Your catalogue isn't just Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - you've got Warhammer and Dredd, as well, amongst others. Anything else on the horizon? What else can we look forward to from Tin man Games?

We have a few things ongoing. We’ll be looking to continue and expand our free-to-play subscription based game, Choices: And The Sun Went Out. We’re also working on a choice-based visual novel based on the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries TV show, which is currently looking amazing!

The 'Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of' Kickstarter has launched

I don't often focus on single games that are about to be released, especially if they are on Kickstarter, but Modiphius hasn't let us down yet and the Conan game is looking to be a must-have RPG.

Robert E. Howard's Conan: Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of  Kickstarter has LAUNCHED!!! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/robert-e-howards-conan-roleplaying-game We are almost HALFWAY through the first goal and counting! We have one of the biggest line ups of major artists ever for a roleplaying game. Each book is a beautiful high quality hard cover book featuring a major commissioned cover art by one of the legendary names we have assembled along with truly authentic and evocative content by industry veterans and newcomers. Please check it out! There will be a free to download Quickstart available from DriveThruRPG from Thursday so you can get a feel for how the rules play.  ...all under the watchful eye of world-renowned Conan experts and scholars including  Jeffrey Shanks, Patrice Louinet and Mark Finn, working together to bring you the most authentic Conan roleplaying experience yet, focusing exclusively on Robert E. Howard's original stories.  Thanks so much for your support and patient as we prepared this incredible project! Chris, Modiphius

Boardgame Review: Dungeon Saga

Published by Mantic

'Over a thousand years ago, Valandor, the greatest known hero fell in battle, fighting to protect the lives of those around him. From shore to shore, all owe thanks to his wondrous legacy. Now, sacred sites across the land have been defiled and plundered by the disgraced wizard Mortibris, who along with his vile undead minions will stop at nothing to obtain the secrets of Valandor’s power. Only the bravest heroes dare oppose him. Thrown together from the far corners of the realm, they step boldly into the depths, ready to face whatever foul evil awaits them…'

If that doesn't scream out epic fantasy dungeon crawl campaign, I don't know what does.

And that, to me, was one of Dungeon Saga's biggest draws. To read the blurb on the box and hear the game talk about what it was I used to go dungeon delving for, thirty years ago? That's a great sell for someone like me, so all I could do was pick the box up and hope that the game delivered.

The box itself is a great sell, too. When you slide the packaging out from it's cardboard cover it's designed like a huge book, like a tome of lost knowledge, and inside you get everything you need - and you really do you get a lot. for £49.99 there's plenty inside. Tokens, books, but most importantly you get 26 assembled plastic miniatures, all fully detailed and paintable but don't worry; if, like me, you don't have an eye for model painting, they're all different colours so you can easily tell them apart.

The detail on the miniatures is excellent and model enthusiasts will have a great time with them, as well as with the barrels, bookcases, doors and other paraphernalia that comes with it, but you may find some of them bent out of shape, or leaning off their bases. This is due to the packaging but Mantic have a helping hand and give some good advice on how to carefully get them back into shape, heating them up with hot water or a hair dryer and then (very carefully) bending them back into their poses. If one of your skeletons is bent at the waist and leaning off it's base like a drunken breakdancer, don't fret - it's all perfectly fixable. It's a shame that they had to include that, knowing how their miniatures might end up after shaking about in the box, and makes me wonder if they should have decided on miniatures a little more durable and solid. Still, they are a miniatures company so I guess they'd want quality in the box, but if you're a modeller then perhaps you should store them in a separate carrycase - I can't imagine what they'll be like after painting and then bouncing around in transit.

Along with tiles to build the dungeons and counters to help keep track of everything, you get cards for items, spells and surprises that the Overlord springs, hero and villain stat cards and six-sided dice of two different colours, blue for the heroes and 'bone' (an off-white) for the bad guys. It's all good card stock and quite durable, and I do suggest you use the small clips that help hold the floorplan tiles together.

All in all it's a great looking box and the weight and contents feel like they're worth the money you're spending. The outer box that covers the book-shaped box has some amazing artwork, and the artwork in the box is of a high standard, so production values are high. Not only that you get sealable bags for most of the stuff in there, as well as some spare empty ones to use once you've popped the counters and tiles out from their cardboard holders. Nice thinking, Mantic.

The game is really simple - the heroes have to get across the dungeon map and not die. And that's pretty much it. There's undead to fight, items to pilfer and doors to get through, but the basic premise of the game is to get from one end to the other in one piece.

The game can be played with 2 to 5 players, and in every game one player is the Overlord and the other players(s) have the heroes divided between them. Other than the introductory scenarios the four heroes (a human barbarian, a dwarf, an elf archer and a mage - I said it was old-school, didn't I?) are in play at all times and the player(s) control them all.

The Overlord player is the one in charge of Mortibris, and he's sending his undead minions to stop the heroes at all costs. The Overlord decides who to attack, where to resurrect bad guys and what cards to play - he has his own set of cards so that he can issue extra minion commands to foil the players, or raise more undead, or basically make the lives of the players hard and miserable.

The game is also set up so that the Overlord lays down the dungeon tiles as the game progresses. The heroes do not know what is behind a door until they open it, and this adds an excellent exploration dimension to the game. Basically, the players need to get to a door that gets them out of that section of the dungeon... so are they opening the right door, or will they unleash another hoard of undead baddies? Are they even going in the right direction? It's a whole other level that adds to the fun.

The rules are simple - each character has three stats: Movement, Combat Dice and Armour (there are other skills but it all works in a similar way). Movement is how many squares you can move in a round, Combat Dice is how many D6's you throw in a fight, and Armour is how much damage you can soak up.

The basic roll is this - each character throws their Combat Dice. The Attacker then removes any die that is equal to or is lower than the target's Armour score. Then the dies are paired off on each side, highest to lowest. For every die the attacker gets that is higher than the defender's, he scores a hit. For every die the defender has that's higher than the attacker's, they negate the hit. Work out the number of hits at the end and bam - you have your damage score. In each round, the heroes go first, then the bad guys, then the Overlord gets to play a card and mix things up a bit. There's a few more rules for magic and ranged abilities, as well as a few feats the heroes are capable of, but it's all generally the same.

Sound simple? It really is. Put it this way - in an hour and a half, we had unboxed the game, set it up, and played through the first two scenarios in the campaign book. Now, that's great, and it meant I didn't have to lock myself away in my office and study the rules like they were ancient, undecipherable writings scrawled onto a tablet by a madman.

I've played quite a few dungeon-style boardgames and they all have their own quirks, new ideas and levels of complexity, but as much as I enjoyed them it felt like a lot of book-keeping and complication. Sometimes I don't want to spend two hours learning rules, and then another two hours referring to a rulebook as we plough through our first game correcting all of our inevitable mistakes and saying 'we'll remember that for next time'. Sometimes I just want something with an old-school feel, with a simple system and a feeling that I'll not need a thousand tokens to accurately keep track of what's happening to my character. I just don't want that level of detail or pseudo-realism. I want to go back to when things were simple, when my rules were about as complicated as what I got in my solo gamebooks.

And that's what Dungeon Saga gives me. It's a simple system that may take a roll or two to fully grasp - and I guarantee that my description above does not do it any kind of justice - but once you're on board it's simple, quick and intuitive. There's not a lot of token tracking, something I'm not a huge fan of, and instead of worrying about what token should be where and if that gentle gust of wind or table-knock has messed up your perfectly laid-out character you can just get on with the fight.

Simple does not mean dull; there's enough complexity to make the game tactical, and more than once there were moments when the balance of a game shifted because one hero got cut off, or was injured and unable to perform properly. The mechanics may be simple but it allows you to concentrate on what makes the game fun; wandering dungeons and beating up bad guys.

My only issue with the game is the fact that I never really felt it gave you the option to branch out from the scenarios in the admittedly lengthy campaign in the book. There is nothing stopping you from designing your own dungeons (as long as you take into consideration the dungeons explored in the book and how they're designed so that you don't create a simple death trap) and pitting the players against new threats. I also felt that the constant stream of undead was a little lacking and that other monsters and threats should have been included, but there's nothing stopping you from using other miniatures and creating your own stats for other creatures. There are expansions for the game available and will no doubt expand on the core game, but what you get in the box gives you plenty to be going on with, and with a little creativity you can get a lot more out of it.

Dungeon Saga is a blast to play. It's fast, simple and easy to get into, and the dynamic it creates around the table between the player's heroes and the Overlord trying to stop them makes for some good ol' fun times, and at the end of the day there's nothing quite like kicking down a door and laying waste to the foes beyond for fun and profit. It's simplicity makes it a great game to play for any age, too, and I've already used it on family game night and it went down really well; my nine year old son took great pleasure in helping to rid the world of evil.

It might not bring anything new to the table, but Dungeon Saga takes a step back from the complication that a lot it's competitors revel in and says, 'let's have some fun with this'. And that's all I really want in a game.

Highly recommended.