Half-Watching: Children of the Corn (1984)

Playing on the natural antipathy for small children in suits and fishy-lipped redheads, it's clunkily acted and unsure if it wants the good kids to be precocious or endangered. The South Park parody had me expecting better, but this is Maximum Overdrive with, well, children and corn.

Cthulhu 2210

I won a copy of Cthulhu Dice at a con, and it's become an obsession to try and find an actual use for this goofy die covered in Cthulhoid iconography, given that CD, as a game, ain't that hot. So I figured hey, what game appreciates a good bit of randomness and occasional hilarious unfairness better than 2210? So here's a new threat to add to your amoebas and zombies and alien conquerors, the mythos cults, with the twist that it's quite possible (and occasionally beneficial) to coexist with them. Right up until ol' tentacle-face eats you.

Setup: Draw a number of land territories equal to the number of players, or a minimum of 3, after all players have claimed their territories but before the 3-unit fortification begins. Place a cult marker on each territory thus drawn. Cult markers coexist with any units in a territory, and have no effect on that army until the end of the year. No territory can ever have more than one cult marker.

Roll: At the end of each year, roll the Cthulhu die.
Yellow Sign: Spread. Cults attempt to spread to adjacent territories.
Tentacle: Seduce. Cults attempt to seduce units both in their own territories and in adjacent occupied territories.
Elder Sign: Dark Power. All players gain energy equal to 1/2 the number of territories they share with the cults, rounded up.
Eye of Horus: Dark Reinforcement. All players gain MODs equal to 1/2 the number of territories they share with the cults, rounded up.
Cthulhu: Rising. Destroy 1 unit in every territory with a cult marker. Roll again.

Spreading: When a Yellow Sign is rolled, draw a number and type of territory cards equal to the number and type of territories with cult markers. If any of these territories are adjacent to a territory that already has a cult marker, but does not have one of its own, the cult attempts to spread. Roll 1d3: If the result is higher than the number of units in the territory, the cult spreads. Place a cult marker on that territory. Unlike invasions, the player who controls the territory may choose to voluntarily fail this roll, inviting the cult in. If a territory drawn has no adjacent territory with a cult marker, or already has a cult marker, it has no effect.

Assisting the cults: On their own, the cults may not spread to water or space territories. Players may opt to assist the cults, either to infiltrate rivals, because they hope to take advantage of the cults' very occasional generosity, or because they just want to make it somebody else's problem. A player with a naval commander and a territory with a cult marker may replace one land territory card the cult would otherwise draw with a water territory. A player with a space commander in play and a space station in a territory with a cult marker may replace one land territory the cults would otherwise draw with a space territory. Only one such substitution (either water or space) may be made per player. The cults, being reckless and in league with dark powers of both ocean and space, do not need to limit themselves to the prescribed landing zones and coastlines that limit traditional armies, and cards drawn from such assistance do not need adjacent territories to support the attack (in later turns, such assistance cards should be separated from water and space territories drawn normally). However, water and space are difficult for cultists to survive in, and their rolls to spread to such territories are made at -1 (thus a 1 always fails). If successful, the cult establishes itself in the new territory, and on future spreading and seduction results, draws a card from the appropriate deck. The cults may spread into water territories adjacent to coastal land territories with a cult marker, or any of the normal space landing areas if there is any land territory with both a cult marker and a space station.

Seduction: Seduction works similarly to spreading: When a tentacle is rolled, draw a number and type of territory cards equal to the number and type of territories with cult markers. However, there are several differences. If a territory drawn during seduction is entirely unoccupied, or only has a cult marker, or has no adjacent territory with a cult marker, it has no effect. If a territory drawn is occupied, has no cult marker of its own, but is adjacent to a territory that has a cult marker, the cult attempts to seduce the army there: Roll 1d3, and if the result is higher than the number of units on the territory, destroy one unit and place a cult marker (this can entirely depopulate a territory except for the cult marker). Again, the player who owns the territory may voluntarily fail the roll to invite the cult in, but they still lose one unit. If a territory drawn is occupied and already has a cult marker, roll 1d3+1: If the result is higher than the number of units in the territory, destroy one (again, this can entirely depopulate a territory except for the cult marker.

As with spreading, players may choose to assist the cults' seduction by replacing land territory cards drawn with water or space territories, with the same restrictions and the same exception to the need for an adjacent territory (an empty territory, or one with a cult marker alone, still has no effect). However, seduction does not have the same -1 penalty to expand to such territories as spreading, since they are co-opting the existent survival structures (and the cults roll 1d3+1 as above if the territory drawn already has a cult marker).

Dark Power: Rolling an Elder Sign provides a pure energy benny for those willing to put up with an occasional ritual sacrifice and the possibility of monstrous rising. All players gain energy equal to half the number of territories they occupy that have cult markers, rounded up.

Dark Reinforcement: Likewise straightforward, rolling the Eye of Horus means the cults lend their military power to those good enough to turn a blind eye to their doings. All players gain MODs equal to half the number of territories they occupy that have cult markers, rounded up. These MODs may only be placed on territories with cult markers, but may otherwise be placed freely

Rising: But it's not all gravy trains and bloody sacrifice. One unit is destroyed in every territory with a cult marker, and the die is rolled again. And yes, it is possible to roll Rising repeatedly.

Fighting the cults: Considering the nastiness of seduction and the always-present possibility of the big guy's rising, players may be justified in wanting to exterminate the cults. This is done during a player's turn as an invasion, including any bonuses for commanders, territory type or Command cards. Cults defend using a single d8, and win ties as normal. Cults cannot be purged from a territory with only one unit. A territory's surviving units may still invade as normal after purging a cult, and an attacker may purge a cult in an invaded territory as a continuation of the original attack (the defending player cannot use the cult to defend, and the attacker is not obligated to destroy the cult before occupying the territory).

The only way to be sure?: Nuclear cards only destroy a cult if they have already destroyed all other units in the territory and there is still at least one unit worth of overkill. Thus, the continental weapon cards cannot kill a cult unless the territory was already otherwise unoccupied; ditto scatter bombs. Other Command cards have no effect - Cults cannot be removed by MOD Reduction and are immune to Death Traps.

Potential variants being considered:
Weaker cults: Change the cults' defense roll to a d6. Makes them less of a hassle to wipe out, and thus less of a strategic concern.
Monstrous rising: When a Rising is rolled, 1d3 units are destroyed in each territory with a cult marker. Multiple risings are catastrophic, and cleansing cults becomes a major concern.
That is not dead: At the end of a year in which all cults have been destroyed or when there are fewer than three cult markers in play, draw three land territory cards and place a cult marker in each, then roll as normal.
Multiple rolls: At the end of the year, roll once for every (5/7/# of players in the game) cult markers in play, resolving each roll completely before the next is made. Risings (or multiple Risings!) and the following roll count as one roll.
Wiped themselves out: If a Rising is rolled and there are no other units in a territory with a cult marker, remove the cult marker.
These were the most loyal: In conjunction with the above, every time a cult marker is destroyed by a Rising, place it aside (on a doom track, if you will). It now counts as permanently in play for purposes of the number of rolls made if using Multiple rolls, above, or raises the minimum number of cult markers that must actually be in play for That is not dead, above, or adds an additional territory card to those drawn for That is not dead, or adds to any rolls made by the cults still in play, or if you're exceptionally masochistic, all of the above. For slightly less masochism, restrict this to one marker per Rising rolled, or one per year.
The End is Here: If at any time a cult marker would be placed and there are no more cult markers available, Cthulhu rises and nobody wins. The viciousness of this is dependent on how many markers are available (I have 21).

Oh, and for those of you who don't have the overpriced novelty die this is based on, you can replicate it with a regular d12:
1-5: Spread
6-9: Seduce
10: Dark Power
11: Dark Reinforcement
12: Rising

Why I Like Orpheus, or: I should just rename the damn blog "Why I Like"

The logo was bullshit, though.

Orpheus is neat in a couple of ways. First off, the setting was one of those simple concepts that breeds a whole host of possible adventures and ideas: A cryogenics company¹ discovers that their resuscitated clients have been having out-of-body experiences and, crazier yet, have been interacting with ghosts. Developing the technology to enhance this effect, they make it more or less reliable (it works best with people who've had multiple near-death experiences and thus have "loose souls") and set about resolving the issues of the recently-deceased for cold hard cash². Or, as the game's elevator pitch sums up, "the kid from The Sixth Sense opens a Ghostbusting business".

There's more to it, of course, the usual mysteries and oddities of the world - there are rival ghost-resolution firms, a street drug called pigment³ lets users see and even interact with ghosts, nobody has met a ghost more than about five years old, ghostly activity is definitely on the rise, and you often run into spectres who've turned Full Monster and seem to have a hivemind going - which segues into the other cool thing about Orpheus. Most games try to play down whatever metaplot they might have- there's all this stuff, and maybe something is gonna change, or maybe not, no pressure There are two very good reasons for this, one financial and one creative. The financial is that having an end in mind sets a limit on the number of sourcebooks you can produce, which in turn limits the amount of money you can make on a particular line. The creative is that most gamers are going to create their own game using bits and pieces of the given setting, so you want sourcebooks that present them with options rather than a didactic now-this-happens arrangement, because those sell better. Okay, so they're both financial reasons.

Orpheus says phooey to all that. There are six books in the line⁴ and that's all you get. Each book pushes the plot forward with some Big Fucking Thing that happens, increases the power level, introduces new threats and stuff, and reveals some more secrets. And after the sixth book, you're done, finito, that's it, go do something else. The authors love using a movie metaphor for this - Starts with a premise, twist, rising action, twist, climax, - all that screenwriting stuff. And on the page, it works pretty well overall, although I'm still reading through the metaplot as a whole. This may well be the first RPG line that was planned from the beginning with a specific end in mind - not just the end of the GM's particular plot , but an actual end to the line as a whole.

This is ballsy⁵ and I like it. It was, I think, Robin Laws who pointed out that your average gamer is going to have a relatively tiny amount of time to play in - Even assuming a perfect every-weekend-for-a-year game, you're still looking at maybe 150-odd hours of actual play time, to say nothing of chargen, rules disputes, freak-outs, holidays, nerd drama, booze runs, etc etc et fucking c. In most RPGs, you can easily own entire books that will never even see partial use. A game that you only have to have six books to run, ever - One hardcover corebook, five softcover supplements - seems a welcome alternative, and players only need⁶ the first half of the first one.What's more, the lack of formal material meshes well with the setting - it's our world, but with ghosts. You can come up with plots just by grabbing a newspaper and plugging in restless dead.

Of course, for all its coolness, it's still an OWoD game. It has splats which divide up the ghosties into a set of predetermined types (which is good for the 'scientific paranormal' element of the setting, but come on, seriously?). It has mechanics for fucking everything, including the always-irritating "one power per level, always the same power" thing which makes the ghosts even less individual. There's even an attempt to tie the game back into the Wraith: the Oblivion metaplot⁷ which I admit I find endearing in a let's-not-lose-touch-after-graduation way (Also, WtO's drab, oppressive, bureaucratic netherworld that everyone hated? They blew it up. With nuclear fucking bombs. Talk about blurring the line between "cool" and "paint-eater retarded"). If I were to run it - and as enthralled as I am by the setting, I don't think I can run a game with this kind of time commitment in my current uncertain-future situation - I'd probably adapt it to FATE or some similarly freewheeling system. But the very fact that I am tempted to run it at all says a lot. Come on, who doesn't want to be ghostly Ghostbusters?

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1. Technically, I guess they'd be a suspended-animation company, seeing as their process doesn't involve freezing people alive or bilking the terminally ill out of their savings. Well, okay, they do have the right to invest your finances until you come back, but the point is that the process works - you actually will come back, probably.
2. The game never outright states that they hassle James Randi first, but come on, wouldn't you?
3. That name rings hollow to my ear for slang, and the alternative - Black Heroin - is way too easy to confuse with actual black tar heroin. If/when I ever run the damn game, I'd probably just call it dye - short, cute pun, keeps the whole coloration thing (which continues with a ghost subtype called hues - pigment users come back as hues, who are a lot more vulnerable to monsterization).
4. Well, there are six official books. Some mad bastard made a 135-page fan sourcebook for the game, even going so far as to copy the design of the official books. There's a half-formed thought here about the limited run of the game encouraging people to create material rather than wait for the Man to provide the final word. Of course, the flipside of this is that once the run is concluded, that interest and the accompanying material vanish into thin ether - the Project Flatline site that created the fanbook is gone, and a google search for "Orpheus RPG fan site" returns bupkis.
5. And they know it, and they never shut up about it. The air of self-congratulation around this admittedly really good idea is part of what makes Orpheus, the last of the Old World of Darkness games, a microcosm of the whole OWoD, along with the metaplot which ends in a gigantic fucking apocalypse, the gothick trappings (occasionally juxtaposed hilariously with heavy-duty military hardware), the insistence on both "roleplaying" and minutely defining said roleplaying in both text and mechanics, and the writing that gets tiresome after a chapter or so. Oh, and of course there are fucking LARP rules.
6. Or should that be "only get to use"? The great D&D3 sin of arming every player with a million mechanical options for their character still irks me, but that's a post for another day.
7. Wraith is gonna get its own W.I.L. one of these days, but it deserves its rep as a game that's interesting but a pain in the ass to play. Another thing Orpheus gets right is that ghosts should be haunting our world, not off in their own not-quite-an-afterlife doing baffling and alien things for a hierarchy nobody living knows anything about. And hey, I mentioned Wraith without bringing up my all-time favourite "terrible idea" supplement, Charnel Houses of Eur- dammit!

Four Horsemen: Death

The Order of Ash and Sand
The Order is composed of three immortal sorcerors - Sabri, Vasil and Xoán - who spend most of their time in the spirit world. They have dwelt there, gaining power and preying on humanity, for centuries, and now believe themselves to be the equals of the Terrible Angel. They plan to awaken the latter, allow it to destroy the earth as is its wont, and follow it to other worlds to despoil. However, as the Order is composed entirely of very powerful magicians (i.e. stupendous assholes), there is no particular agreement on how best to awaken the Angel, and every member of the Order seeks a way to rip off the rest and claim the Angel's power for themselves.
Leader: The Order has no agreed-upon leader: If asked, any given member would claim dominance over the other two.
Goals: Awaken the Terrible Angel, present themselves as heralds/loyal servants/fellow world-eaters, and head off to conquer the universe.
What They Have: Magic, and lots of it. Although the Order's primary interest is in entropic magic, they each have their own specialties and side projects. They also each have a nigh-impregnable hideout deep in the spirit world, and communicate via magic or at extremely occasional conclaves.
What They Need: In an immediate sense, the Order needs a rite of awakening for the Angel. All claim to have no leads, but it is more likely that one or all of them have found a spell which would work, but which would also require the involvement of the other two. The Apocalypse is delayed for so long as the Order continues to bicker with itself, and so long as its individual members remain unable to find a spell they can cast personally.
In a broader sense, the Order needs a sense of proportion. They have dwelled in the far realms for so long, and become such ludicrously powerful mages, that they tend to come up with grandiose solutions that no reasonable earthbound cabal would try. A good example is the intro adventure, in which Vasil needs a lot of cash, so he summons forth a horde of zombies to rob a bank for him. It's insane and unlikely to work, but it demonstrates Vasil's power over the forces of Death itself, and that's where his real priorities lie.