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The Classic Games of Metagaming: Chitin I: The Harvest Wars

The Classic Games of Metagaming: Chitin I: The Harvest Wars

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Chitin Second edition cover-smallWe’re back to reviewing the games that introduced me to fantasy and science fiction gaming. This is the second in a series, following my look at Steve Jackson’s classic Ogre earlier this month.

The second game I purchased from Metagaming (still by mail order, if I remember correctly) was Howard Thompson’s ambitious and imaginative science fiction wargame Chitin I: The Harvest Wars. I ordered it after seeing the advertisement in Analog magazine in 1978. The brief text of the ad read:

The intelligent insects of the plant Chelan go to war for one reason only. Food. This detailed tactical game pits varying forces of the specially-bred Hymenopteran warrior types against one another. Victory goes to the player who removes the most food — including enemy bodies — from the board.

Now, this was pretty cool. In 1978, science fiction games primarily meant things like SPI’s Outreach, and Avalon Hill’s Stellar Conquest. You got a bunch of starships and space marines, you plopped them down on a stellar map, and tried to blast the hell out of the other guy. Something like Ogre, in which one player took the role of an A.I.-powered supertank, was considered innovative.

Chitin, however, was genuinely different. There were no starships. No space marines. No planets ripe for the plucking.

There weren’t even any humans. Chitin was a true science fiction game — it placed you in an imaginative setting on a far away world, smack dab in the middle of a life-or-death struggle between two alien cultures.

Like all microgames, it shared a couple of appealing aspects with its predecessor Ogre: it could be set up, and played, in a matter of minutes. It was also about one-fifth the price of those big SPI and Avalon Hill games… no small thing when you’re an unemployed teen.

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New Treasures: Trail of Cthulhu: Mythos Expeditions from Pelgrane Press

New Treasures: Trail of Cthulhu: Mythos Expeditions from Pelgrane Press

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Mythos Expeditions-smallI honestly don’t know why no one has done this before: created an anthology of Cthulhu-based RPG adventures based around dangerous expeditions to the four corners of the earth.

Pelgrane Press does absolutely top-notch game products. The production values are excellent, the art is terrific, and the writing is marvelous. Mythos Expeditions was released to support their Trail of Cthulhu role playing game earlier this year; I bought a copy as soon as it became available and I haven’t been disappointed.

Bon voyage! You are about to depart on ten journeys into the unknown, following the trail of Cthulhu to isolated Pacific islands, into the icy wastes of the Arctic, through jungles and war zones and even off the Earth itself. In the blank spaces of the map, dark deities flourish and evil festers… but the truth waits to be discovered, secret knowledge that man may not be meant to know but that Miskatonic University covets. Into that mystery your Investigators go, armed with gun and camera and notebook, risking their own survival to keep those blank spaces from swallowing up the world. Hurry on board — the gangplank is going up!

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Explore a Haunted Cyberpunk City in Punktown from Miskatonic River Press

Explore a Haunted Cyberpunk City in Punktown from Miskatonic River Press

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Punktown-smallI was at the Chronicle City website today, looking for updates on one of my favorite new science fiction RPGs, Cold & Dark, when I stumbled on an interesting update for an upcoming product.

Punktown is a setting book for the Call of Cthulhu and Basic Roleplaying systems. It explores a dark, haunting, cyberpunk city full of aliens, robots and mutants all set in the world of Jeffrey Thomas’ novel series.

With Punktown being the last project by Miskatonic River Press before they wind down operations MRP’s President, Tom Lynch, approached Chronicle City’s founder, Angus Abranson, about looking after the project… The partnership also means that Punktown will live on beyond the core book as Chronicle City and author Jeffrey Thomas will be collaborating on developing future products to support, explore and grow the game.

This is definitely a good-news, bad-news scenario. First, I’m a huge fan of Miskatonic River Press, and it’s great to hear they have something new in the works. They’ve produced some really terrific Call of Cthulhu products, including New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Our Ladies of Sorrow, and their Roman-era adventure The Legacy Of Arrius Lurco.

The bad news of course, is that they’re closing. I noticed they hadn’t published anything for a while, but to hear they were folding up shop is distressing, to say the least. Still, I’ve heard great things about Jeffrey Thomas’s Punktown books, and if Miskatonic River has to end their illustrious publishing career with one book, I’m pleased it’s this one.

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Fantasy Adventure on a Tablet: Talisman: Digital Edition

Fantasy Adventure on a Tablet: Talisman: Digital Edition

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Talisman_BoardTalisman is a fantasy board game that first came out about twenty years ago. There have been a couple editions and multiple expansions. In December of 2008, Fantasy Flight Games released a revised fourth edition, for which expansions are still being produced.

In 2012, Thumbstar Games released Talisman: Prologue, a sort of ‘Talisman Light’ ipad app. It was a one-player game and was a decent translation of the board game, though not very absorbing.

In 2014, however, Nomad Games released Talisman: Digital Edition, which is a full-blown, 1-4 player game. It’s a fine adaptation of the original.

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He Sought Adventure

He Sought Adventure

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fritz-leiberOver the past six years, I’ve spent a great deal of time exploring the literary antecedents of Dungeons & Dragons (and, by extension, many other early roleplaying games). It’s been a (mostly) fun journey, not least of which because it gave me the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with writers and stories I hadn’t read for years and that exercised powerful influence over my youthful imagination. Sometimes, it’s also afforded me the opportunity to take a look at authors to whom I didn’t pay much attention in the past, but who were important figures in fantasy and science fiction in their own right and not simply because of their contributions to the goulash of ideas and concepts Gygax and Arneson drew upon in creating those little brown books that changed the world.

One of the fruits of the last six years is my growing sense that, if I were to pick a single author whose stories, characters, ideas, and – above all – ethos summed up D&D for me (and perhaps for Gygax as well, though I wouldn’t dare claim to speak on his behalf), it would not be Robert E. Howard or Michael Moorcock or Poul Anderson, or even J.R.R. Tolkien, all of whose fingerprints can clearly be found on the pages of the game. No, it would be Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr., born 104 years ago tomorrow (December 24).

I’m not ashamed to admit that, for the most part, I encountered most of the literary progenitors of Dungeons & Dragons only after I’d started playing the game. I was already familiar with certain works of fantasy, all of which played a role in preparing me for the hobby of roleplaying. However, writers like Howard, Lovecraft, and even Tolkien weren’t ones I came across “in the wild,” so to speak. Rather, they were all recommended to me by the older guys who haunted the hobby shops and game stores my friends and I visited regularly. They kept saying, “If you like D&D, you’ve got to read this!” And so we did, because we were simply ravenous for more fantasy goodness.

Fritz Leiber was different. I’d, of course, seen his name, both in Gygax’s Appendix N and in the very text of the hallowed J. Eric Holmes-edited D&D rulebook, but – strangely, in retrospect – I can’t recall anyone’s ever recommending him to me the way they had with other seminal fantasy authors. Instead, I had to find him for myself.

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The Return of Horror on the Orient Express

The Return of Horror on the Orient Express

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Horror on the Orient Express-smallIn 1991, more than 23 years ago now, Chaosium published the most ambitious Call of Cthulhu adventure ever created: Horror on the Orient Express.

It was a huge undertaking — a complete campaign that  spanned the European continent, crammed into a box containing four lengthy books, numerous player handouts, a European route map; cardstock plans of the train that could be laid end-to-end; scrolls, and even luggage stickers. It wasn’t merely a high water mark for CoC; it was a template for how mega-adventures could be created.

The box retailed for $39.99, a lot for a role playing supplement in those days, and it didn’t really sell that well. It wasn’t long before it went out of print, and Chaosium — which invested heavily in the failed Mythos card game in the mid-90s — ran into financial difficulties and broke apart a few years later.

As a result, Horror on the Orient Express got lost in the shuffle. It was never reprinted and it rapidly became almost impossible to find. It was still talked about for many years by dedicated fans, however, and the combination of scarcity and its status as the pinnacle of CoC adventures meant it gradually acquired a legendary status.

Well, you know what happens to those rare game supplements (or books — or anything, really) that even determined fans can’t get their hands on. They become a holy grail for collectors. And that’s exactly what happened to Horror on the Orient Express. I started to see copies selling for $200-$300 and up, on those rare occasions I saw one at all.

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The Coolest RPGs I’ve Never Played

The Coolest RPGs I’ve Never Played

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jorune2eDungeons & Dragons was the first roleplaying game I encountered – 35 years ago this month, as it turns out – and, except for a stretch during the 1990s, when I foolishly cast it aside, it’s remained my favorite RPG ever since. Nevertheless, it was never my only roleplaying game. Indeed, once my friends and I had been bitten by the RPG bug, we soon tried our hands at pretty much any game we could find.

In those heady days, we played a lot of games, not merely because we had voracious appetites for all things roleplaying, but because there were so many RPGs from which to choose. From our perspective, it seemed as if there were new roleplaying games appearing on hobby store shelves every month, even if an examination of the timeline of RPG releases reveals otherwise. At any rate, there were certainly more games released than we could possibly afford to buy, let alone play. Consequently, after periods of experimentation, we tended to stick toa  handful of games that became our standbys. It was to these games that our hearts belonged and that we spent untold hours playing together.

That didn’t stop my eye from wandering. Over the years, there were a number of games I picked up simply because they looked cool – so cool, in fact, that I didn’t actually care whether or not I’d ever get the chance to play them with my friends. Nowadays, I tend to look askance at such behavior. I find something perverse in treating a game simply as reading material, which is why I’ve been slowly paring down my collection only to those games I actively play or am likely to play in the foreseeable future.

And yet, hypocrite that I am, I’ve made a few exceptions over the years. My shelves are home to a handful of games I’ve never actually played (nor am I likely to), but that I keep around because I find them inspiring nonetheless. In my defense, each of the three games I discuss below is one that I’m not at all convinced can be played as written, at least not easily (a claim that will no doubt result in a flurry of comments from indignant middle-aged men regaling me with tales of their decades-long campaigns using one or more of these RPGs).

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Keep Your Blaster Close: The Many Horrors of Outbreak: Deep Space

Keep Your Blaster Close: The Many Horrors of Outbreak: Deep Space

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Outbreak Deep Space-smallBeing at the Games Plus Fall Auction can be an exhilarating experience. Take my discovery of Outbreak: Deep Space, just as an example.

There I am, sitting in the second row of the auction on October 4th, ninety minutes into the auction, wondering if I’ve blown my budget already. I’ve just made the decision to add up my purchases when the auctioneer holds up a brand new copy of Outbreak: Deep Space and starts the bidding at $5.

What the heck is that?, I think. And then, I have no idea, but it looks fantastic.

I immediately hold up my bidding card. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one to be intrigued by this strange gaming artifact. About a dozen bidders have their cards in the air, and the auctioneer quickly runs the price up to ten bucks. This is how you get in trouble, I remind myself. Bidding like mad on a book when you have absolutely no idea what it is. 

But my card stays in the air. The bidding hits 15 bucks, then blows past it. The cards around me are starting to waver and drop.

This thing could be on sale at Amazon for $10. Just because you’ve never seen a copy doesn’t mean it’s hard to find.

But I keep my card in the air. It’s a sharp-looking and professional bound hardcover — my instincts tell me it’s going to cost a lot more than 10 bucks to track down a copy if I miss out on this one. And besides… there’s more going on now than just bargain hunting. It looks like a science fiction horror RPG, and a very professional one. I’m deeply curious and willing to pay more than $15 for the opportunity to find out what it is.

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AD&D Figurines: Youth In a Box?

AD&D Figurines: Youth In a Box?

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DSC04791A few weeks back, a friend (quite unexpectedly) handed me the boxed set of AD&D miniatures pictured at right. I say “unexpectedly” because so far as I know, this friend had no idea that I ever played D&D. Nor were the figures intended for me; the note she enclosed made it clear the box was for my fourteen-year-old son, “just in case.”

My son was marginally interested, but not seriously so. I, however, was kind of downright sorta hypnotized.

Confession: I never gravitated to miniatures. My twin objections were, first, that the figures never, ever looked the way I pictured either my characters or those of my fellow gamers, and second, they were small enough that painting them to my own exacting standards was next to impossible.

I had Testor’s model paint, of course (most boys I knew in the late seventies and early eighties did), so accessing a mouth-watering color palette wasn’t the issue.

Application, however: yipes!

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Art of the Genre: A Call To My Readers!

Art of the Genre: A Call To My Readers!

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AotG needs its readers!
AotG needs its readers!

It’s the holiday season here at Black Gate and I wanted to thank all my devoted readers for my multiple ‘#1 Monthly Post’ plaques that hang on my office wall for the year.  Art of the Genre is a wonderful way to connect with you all and I truly hope we can continue to lead Black Gate content statistics in 2015.

I also wanted to ask for your continued support with a pledge to my current crowd-funding campaign for the AD&D 1E module, The Folio, that is currently a ‘Staff Pick’ over on Kickstarter.  I need your help to see this project reach its goals.  The content presents the feel of an old school Dragon/Dungeon Magazine while also having a fully removable cover like the TSR classic modules of old.

I’ve put in the work, gotten this thing done and ready to print, but I need my readers to make it a full reality.  In fact, I wanted to share some quotes about the project from my office mates here at Black Gate L.A. so you get a good understanding of the commitment already behind the project.

Editor-in-Chief John O’Neill: ‘It’s in shrink right?  Then yes, I’ll pledge, so I can have an excuse to never read it!’

BG Horror Correspondent Goth Chick: ‘I had to pledge for two copies because the coffee machine in the basement keeps leaking and I needed something to mop up the spills with.’

BG Movie Reviewer Ryan Harvey: ‘Honestly, I pledged so Scott would stop knocking on my door every day to ask if I’d done so yet.’

BG Secretary Kandi: ‘I was promised a starring role in the film adaptation if I pledged.’

BG Gaming Correspondent James Maliszewski: ‘If it isn’t Holmes, I don’t want it, and get out of my office!’

Seriously, with friends like these, I NEED MY READERS!  So give yourself a gaming gift this season and back The Folio and I promise you won’t be disappointed!    Just click on the banner below!

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