#mint reviews

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Mint Reviews: SPINE

This is a review for Spine, by Backwards Tabletop. I recieved an advance copy of this game in exchange for some sort of marketing, and I decided to write a review about it!

SPINE is a solo game about a researcher flipping through a book left to them by a family member, trying to figure out why it was left - and risking getting sucked into the book in the process.

The Game

SPINE primarily functions as a game that you read: the book contains what appears to be a series of varied works, from poetry to book excerpts to diary entries, which your character is reading through, referencing end-notes all the while. The end-notes are where the bulk of play happens: each end-note is accompanied with instructions and choices, each of which typically asks you to make some kind of change to the book.

The book has a number of voices, including the voice of the various authors, as well as the voice of the editor who appears to be responsible for collecting all of pieces and adding end-notes for context. By the end of the game, the book will also include your voice, as you scribble in the margins, draw faces on "clocks," and strike out passages to hide them from future readers.

The game is designed to be handed off and played multiple times, with the results varying depending on how many people have played it before you. In this way, Spine encourages you to play within the context of a community, whether that be your friend group, or simply someone who shares a library with you.

Because the game primarily requires altering the book, the only tools you really need are a pencil, a pen, and an eraser, which can make this game very accessible to someone who may not have access to dice. It can be preserved as a keepsake, a reminder of play, or passed on until it is too tattered to read anymore. I appreciate that despite the emphasis in this book on the value of the written word, there is still an acknowledgement that this is an item to be "used up" in a certain sense, a book that need not grow musty on the back of your shelf, but whose life requires an expiration date.

The Theory

Spine was released alongside a number of essays by Asa, the designer behind Backwards Tabletop. Two of these essays are A Defense of Reading TTRPGS, and Bookplay in TTRPGs, both of which are hosted on the Backwards website. These essays carry within them a perspective of TTRPGs as not simply game instruction manuals, but as pieces of art that inform, enable, guide, and encourage our play. The games text does not simply give us a recipe for a game; the reading of the text itself can constitute an act of play.

SPINE is a sort of game that Asa calls a text-first TTRPG; it uses its claim to be a ttrpg to do other things. It doesn't just help you create a story. It also guides you into the creation of a physical object, one that can be revisited by yourself or another person in the future. It is a drawing exercise, a series of word puzzles, and text that you can decide to just read, without participating in any of the prompts that show up in the end-notes. As a result, the instructions for the book are very very minimal, focusing more on the fiction and depending on you, the reader, to figure out what happens next.

Asa also references Jay Dragon's work and includes an interview with Jay Dragon as part of his process in advertising Spine. Jay believes that books as props can either heighten or hinder play, depending on how they are used. If a book is an instruction manual alone, it can draw out play whenever someone has to flip through it to find the proper ruling. If it is a prop, it is a part of play - in which flipping through it, marking it, making changes, etc, has an effect on the game.

The interview also uses the word "anchor" to describe how a book, or perhaps the fiction in it, can help everyone involved share the same imaginary world. This shared reference allows us to play the game together, using touch points that might give all of the players the a common idea of what is or is not possible in the fiction of the setting. In a way this "anchor" is just as important as a game mechanic in how it allows us to play the game.

This is something that I can vibe with! I've had conversations before with folks about what encompasses changing the system of play, and depending on how much you believe in the value of mechanics as they pertain to your play experience, one could say that changing setting details or media references changes the game experience for the table.

The Takeaway

Does a game need to prioritize playability? Depending on what game design camp you reside in, you'll probably feel very strongly one way or the other. SPINE is incredibly legible, but when it comes to playability, I think it requires at least a little bit of experience with ttrpgs outside of the industry standards like D&D, Pathfinder, or other hallmark titles. That being said, it's also much more accessible in terms of cost, as you could simply purchase the PDF and get it printed and bound locally.

In order to enjoy SPINE you also need to be a player who enjoys solo play, and journalling. The game has a very strong point of view regarding your character, and their relationship to the person who left them this book: this isn't an open world, but rather a narrative that you wrestle with in order to maintain control. The fact that the way the mechanics work enforces the themes of the game is a big win for me.

When it comes to the theory of the game, I think that the first thing that came to mind while reading the essays was the first time I read a physical ttrpg book: Changeling the Lost. Changeling has a piece of fiction at the beginning of the book that plunges headfirst into the setting. It gives you an idea of the kind of world that this game expects you to play in, and it also sets the tone: a waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.

The fiction of SPINE works somewhat differently. It's a patchwork menagerie of various voices and authors, allowing you the reader to make decisions about which parts of the text are making authoritative statements, and which parts are simply theories that you can choose to disagree with, or simply consider literature. It also prompts you, the reader, to participate in authorship; writing parts of the story so that it is a new one by the time this book falls into other's hands.

If you're a fan of ciphers, literary analysis, or poetry, you might like this game. If you're a horror fan or a solo gamer, you might also like this game. However, if you want a clear set of instructions on how to play, or if you prefer the sensation of dice in your hand, or if you want more agency over who your character is and what they do, you might want to give SPINE a pass.

End Notes

SPINE is available in digital format on Itch.io, and print-on-demand copies will be available near the end of October. You can also check out the Backwards Tabletop website for more essays, interviews, features, and updates.

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Mint Reviews: Band-Aids & Bullet Holes.

In preparation for the Kickstarter Campaign of Bandaids & Bullet Holes, by Sam Dunnewold, Sam's team reached out to me to offer a link to the game's rules in exchange for a review.

For the unfamiliar, Sam Dunnewold is the host of Dice Exploder, a podcast that dives into a different ttrpg mechanic every week.

Let's dive in, shall we?

The Game

Band-Aids & Bullet Holes is a game about bloody revenge operas, pulling from high-action revenge movies like John Wick and Kill Bill*. It's alos a deck-builder that uses a regular deck of playing cards, which changes as you play because - get this - part of play involves writing on the cards.

The game comes with pre-generated characters, as well as scenarios called "Powder-Kegs", which help you as a table organize the characters into roles that will then help you tell a story that feels like an action movie. You don't have to use the pre-generated characters: you can write your own, and you can also write your own powder-kegs, but the game feels very easy and welcoming for a group that isn't quite sure where to start.

The Rules

Band-Aids & Bullet Holes (henceforth referred to as BD&BH) starts with a powder-keg. You choose a scenario that sounds interesting to you, and then pull characters from the character menu to slot into it. Each powder-keg has some standard roles. the Bloodhound is the character who wants revenge. The Bastard is the character who may or may not deserve it.

The cards, which may never be Hearts, and which have writing on them, are Calling Cards. Hearts are reserved for Wounds, which your characters take when they enter scenes with conflict. Over the course of a series of rounds, you will take turns narrating scenes. Each scene has a character who wants something, and a character that they want it from. The person who begins the scene plays the character who wants something. Another person embodies the character who has the thing they want. All other players take on the role of the City.

Your calling cards and Wounds act as elements of a milieu: you use them to add flavor and motifs to the story. Characters have calling cards, but the City does too! When navigating a scene, you can simply describe it if you like, but there are also special moves available that your play group can use to add cards to a deck, evoke changes on the calling cards or even heal Wounds.

Any time your characters experience conflict, they will likely flip cards (highest card wins), but duels are more detailed and more extensive. You start by laying out your calling cards & your wounds, using the text on them to set the scene. Then you shuffle your cards and pull them, with a winner and a loser for each round. The loser suffers a wound, shuffles it into their deck, and describes the action that happens in that round. The winner gets to decide what their character does next.

When a character has taken three Wounds they die. This might be the end of the story, but it also might just be the end of the first half.

The Vibes

BD&BH is punchy and quick, with intense and probably bloody scenes, but overally it feels like it's designed for a good time with friends. It's a quick game, and it also is easy to learn, which is great for folks you might not know very well yet, or folks who maybe haven't got a lot of interest in roleplaying games.

The advice in this game is concise. There's a Hospitality section that makes it clear that this is a game for adults, and therefore it expects the participants to act like adults. There's some ground rules like "remember you're at a party," and "if someone's a dick at your party, don't invite them to the next one."

There's also some solid advice that's targeted towards cultivating a satisfying story. This includes playing to lift, cutting scenes before they draw on too long, and remembering to share each character - the character cards are toys to be played with and passed around, rather than something to be owned by one player.

The Takeaway.

BD&BH has plenty of elements to consider when it comes to defining the play experience. Here's a few:

the game is GM-less, so it doesn't put the burden of preparing the session on one singular person. The rules of the game are also spread out around the table, which makes it easier to learn.

the game is both hackable and has options for solo & duet play, which makes it flexible to fit your group's size and taste.

the game has a lot of punchy, evocative language that both communicates its tone and provides excellent examples of what a scene or a duel looks like.

the game is has a lot of pieces to manage. You need a deck of cards for each character as well as printouts of the rules & the powder kegs. If you are playing in person, I can envision this taking up quite a bit of table space.

characters are both pre-generated and shared with the table. This isn't necessarily a con for me, as I think pre-gens make the game go faster, and also reduce the anxiety a player might have over having their character die. Ownership over the characters is shared, which means that a character might manifest differently with each person to pick them up. -the game requires you to write on a deck of cards - "defacing" a deck, if you will. This is an element that is a pro to some, a con to others.

the language of this game communicates certain expectations over how the game is to be played, but there is never anything out-and-out classified as Safety Tools. The Hospitality section is advice on how to set up a game that is fun for everyone, and there's also a section clarifying that your characters might go head-to-head, but you, as players, should not.

This last point was something that caused me to pause once I'd finished my first read-through, so I reached out to Sam to ask him about it. In his response, Sam talked about how not every tool fits for every table, so instead he focused on the elements of table culture that generate care and respect, and used the language in the game introduction & examples to set expectations around genre & tone.

Who Is This Game For?

Band-Aids and Bullet Holes is made for folks who love a high-octane revenge filler, full of blood and pathos and impossibly cool fight scenes. It's also great for folks who want something that can be finished in a single, two-hour session - perhaps a friend group with a limited schedule, or a mixed group of seasoned role-players and non-role-players alike.

This is also a deck-building game, so folks who like those kinds of mechanics will feel right at home here. The cards are meant to provide a snappy, tactile element to play, and even though there's options for online play with this game, I think the in-person version is where this game is truly going to shine.

This game is not for people who become attached to their characters very quickly, as the chances of death are very very high. It's also not for people who like slow-cooked drama that plays out over multiple sessions, or for gamers who like subtle emotion. I think there's the potential to explore the internal dynamics of the characters in a scene or two where they reveal their hearts, but the duels and the pace of the game means that these moments won't take up the bulk of the game experience.

If you are interested in the game, the Kickstarter Campaign runs until May 29. If you missed the campaign, or if you just want to see a demo, you can check out the Band-Aids & Bullet Holes page on Itch.io.

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Mint Reviews: After, by Cyclopean Publishing.

About a month ago, Cyclopean Publishing reached out to me and asked if I would write up a review of After, a game about telling a story about the past and the present at the same time. I agreed, and received a copy of the game in exchange for a review.

The Game

In After, your characters exist in a world called Extempore, a land of transient, mismatched landmasses that shift and move, carrying inhabitants from various worlds and pushing them to figure out how to live next to each-other.

Who are you? You're someone who matters, someone who has abilities that are big enough to cause significant changes in the world around you, as much as it shifts. You know this because you've already done it - and you're going to do it again.

The Rules

After uses d6 dice pools with each dice serving up a 50% chance of success. You need a # of successes to meet or beat the difficulty rating to get what you want. The game also uses staggered successes, meaning that if you only meet the difficulty rating, you succeed at a cost. Your stats run from 2-4 dice in your primary pool, but you might also get dice from special powers.

After's unique twist revolves around the interplay between the past and the present: your characters have a Past Act that isn't quite defined at the beginning of play, but has already defined your characters through character pieces called Origins and Past Legends. These pieces are the simpler halves of your character, but they get fleshed out when you invoke Memories, a limited resource that gives you the ability to narrate a part of your past in order to ensure that something is true - and to ensure that right now, in present, you are successful. The GM also has the power to announce a flashback to the past to flesh out a detail that the PCs are encountering in the present: an NPC who appears clearly angry with the party might trigger a flashback to the moment where they first fought that NPC. If the group plays through the Past Act, only their Past powers are available to them; they cannot draw from their Present Legend.

The Present Legend is the other half of your character, and it's the most complex piece of the pie. Your Present Legend both introduces a core mechanic that heavily influences the setting and themes of your game, it also presents a list of powers that you'll slowly gain over the course of play. In each session, your character will unlock a once/scene power that allows you to really show off, and also give you experience. Your fifth and final power will unlock in your final session, drastically changing the end of your character's story.

Another key piece to the character sheet is Focus. Focus is described as a narrative tracker, meant to measure your character's power as it grows. This is a double-edged sword; you can spend Focus to fuel your powers, but accrue too much and you become burdened with Consequences, which often make certain actions difficult, or inhibit you until you fulfill a narrative requirement. Your Focus also determines how hopeful or tragic your Epilogue is at the end of the game - a result determined through a dice roll.

The Vibes

After describes itself as a maximalist game, and I'm inclined to agree. The setting itself is everything and the kitchen sinks: minotaurs, frog-people, cyberpunk skyscrapers, elven druids, steampunk automatons, and object-headed folks are all welcome in this hodgepodge milieu. The art for this game definitely contributes to this feeling! You can get a lot of cool ideas just by flipping through the art. What this means for your players is that the world is their oyster, and if you want a high fantasy fan, a robot-lover, and a player who loves putting their fursona into every game possible to all play at the same table, you can do that with After.

Then there's the Present Legends, which have a very specific arc. If you play through your legend with the goal of hitting every power, your character will find themselves irrevocably changed. All of your employees unionize, your parasite takes over your body, or perhaps you surrender to an opposing faction that you've been fighting throughout the entire game. You can choose to avert your final power in order to have more control over your epilogue, although this means that you're also giving up the chance to be supremely effective in your last session.

The Pros & Cons

After creates an interesting contrast: while the world is open and allows a bunch of set-pieces to exist alongside each-other, character arcs are hyper-specific. This specificity is needed, because you need a reason to do the things you're doing, and outside of what your arc gives you, I didn't find a lot of moments where it was clear to me what kinds of stories you are meant to be telling with after.

Your characters are very diverse, not just in their origin, but in the powers that will change who they are. They likely all hail from different domains in the world of Extempore, and it's likely that as a play group, you'll likely travel from Domain to Domain over the course of your adventure.

As a group, I'd expect you would have to find a thread that brings all of your character together, and hold onto it pretty firmly in order to tell a story that is both colorful and cohesive. The GM advice section of this book gives a lot of good advice on how to build a challenge in order to make it navigable and dramatic. That being said, there's also a lot that seems to rely on GM fiat, such as when a Flashback occurs, and when Domains shift.

If I was to run this game, I'd likely need to pull from my experience with other ttrpgs to string Challenges together to fit the genre or tone that I'm going for. If you want a Noir game, you'll need to already know how to run mysteries. If you want a political game, you should already be familiar with the tropes of political stories. If you want a combat-heavy game, I hope you know how to make the combats matter! I think that the campaigns written for After, (Clear as a Bell & Dreams of Sylvia) might mitigate some of the openness that I struggled with just with reading the rulebook, as I have a feeling they might fill in some of the gaps I felt when I was reading it.

I would recommend After to a players who like the idea of playing with time, and moving between moments that exist in the past as well as the present. If your group is usually pretty good at coming to a consensus on the types of themes or narrative threads you want to follow, you'll also probably be able to pick up After and have fun with the colorful set-dressings you can use to tell those stories. After is also good for groups who want a tight, limited campaign, likely about five sessions in length. If you like the idea of characters that are perhaps somewhat doomed to certain fates, there's specific elements of After that might appeal to you.

However, if your group often struggles to create reasons for your characters to work together, or if you're a GM who prefers a little more structure when it comes to running a game session, I think you might want to put After back on the shelf.

You can find After at IPR, on Itch.io, and on DriveThruRPG.

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Mint Reviews: ChangedStars

“Only from the darkness may we see the stars.”

ChangedStars is a Hard Sci-Fi TTRPG about a future in which humanity has been well and truly humbled by a coalition of alien life to prevent a galactic genocide.

I received a copy of the game in exchange for a review, which is what I'm going to talk about today.

The Premise

ChangedStars takes place after a great conflict, in which the Human Empire tried (and failed) to achieve space superiority. Humans have joined a trio of pan-galactic species in a government called the Trinity. These three societies are not the only forms of alien life, however; there also exist a number of aliens and societies outside of the Trinity, interacting with it on various levels even though its members are not represented on a governance scale.

This future is hopeful, but imperfect: the universe is home to various forms of social organization, from the hyper-capitalist Rast, to the hive-minded Murai, to the poly-amorous, community-centered Thren. There exists crime, inequality, distrust, and armed conflict. In this way ChangedStars does not aim to present itself as a utopia, although it does expect that most players will be playing as part of Trinity in some way.

The inspirations for this game include The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Steven Universe by Rebecca Sugar, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, the Alien francise, The Expanse by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck, and "Trava u Doma" by Zemlyane (a soviet song). I'm only lightly familiar with a lot of these works, so when I was reading the game, I found myself referencing personal touchstones like Star Wars FFG, Lancer, and Ender's Game.

A personal highlight for me was the Rast; otter-like aliens that thrive on trade and live on various Homeships with unregulated markets. I found the contrast of their cute appearance with their cutthroat business practices intriguing.

The Mechanics

Character Creation in ChangedStars is rather granular, with pieces that feel familiar and reminiscent of what I'd call trad games. You choose a species and an archetype, and the pieces of your character are defined by Attributes and Skills. You also choose equipment packages to represent the kinds of tools and gear your character would have on their person. Tools include weapons, armor, drugs, tools, and cybernetics. This means that fighting, coercion, repair, and hacking all seem to be the kinds of things your characters will expect to be challenged by.

This is also a game with a lot to consider whenever you enter a combat: the book recommends grid maps so you can track your movement accurately, and everything has hit points, meaning that a) there are moments in which you could be expected to kill things, and b) when exactly you die is something you play to find out. Combat makes use of initiative rolls and an action economy, with familiar enough rules for cover, hazards, stealth and hacking. With so many parts of the book focused on calculating hit points, special conditions, wounds tables, and specific environments, combat certainly feels like a focus for this game.

Character advancement looks to be somewhat corralled: talents are organized into trees, meaning that you typically have to meet prerequisites in order to advance in a specific direction. For a game that seems to prioritize a bit of crunch/strategy, this makes sense: having a path to follow minimizes choice paralysis and also teaches you about directions that likely feel rewarding.

To do something in ChangedStars, you roll a d6 dice pool formed from taking a Skill and an Attribute, which feels familiar from a number of games I've played before: it's elegant, simple, and allows for flexibility, which I appreciate.

Your character additionally has a resource called Edge, which can be spent to invoke a powerful ability, and also push you closer to taking a penalty called Shock. If you accumulate 7 Edge, you can do something called an Edge Break, which allows you to push your limits and do something truly exceptional. At 10 Edge, you must take an Edge Break. Taking an Edge Break does risk incurring Shock, which could traumatize your character if you take too much. I appreciate this tool, as it both gives you a cool moment of heightened competency, but also accumulates a cost that will allow your character to hit some tragic beats. Edge moves ChangedStars away from power-fantasy, and towards something that feels a little bit more grounded.

Things To Play With

ChangedStars boasts an extensive list of weapons, gear, ships, and creatures for your characters to go up against. Players have a rather diverse library of equipment - the pieces that make up their characters is their toy-box, and for the right group, I could see a this working as a buffet. For other groups, this might be overwhelming: someone with choice paralysis might not know where to go next. The character advancement probably helps the longer you play, but when you sit down for the first time, there's a lot to look at!

On the GM side, the toy-box exists in the bestiary and the lore, including information about the galaxy's diversity of social lives, political events, and various locations. I'm a big fan of how the locations are laid out, with visual reference to get a quick understanding of each solar system, and details about each planet that both give it flavor and provide a few relevant plot seeds to give you ideas. I skimmed the creatures in the bestiary, and while I appreciated that not everything in the bestiary needed to be a physical threat, I also noticed that every entry includes stats for combat: for example,a grazing, low-level herds-beast has rules about how to use them in a stampede.

Vehicles and gear in particular have a lot of rules about how to use them, especially regarding combat, piloting, and hacking. These are sub-systems of the game that require a lot of time to learn, and this learning curve typically is one that falls on the GM's shoulders. For myself, this is a piece I don't care for that much, and I definitely don't recommend trying to include a space fight, a hacking sequence, and an interaction with a synth character all in one session.

The starting adventure is a great help to a GM who's figuring out how to run ChangedStars, but at the same time, I feel like it's also a bit intimidating. The beginning adventure is laid out in such detail, with recommendations for specific checks to make depending on the choices the players make, that to replicate it for an adventure of my own feels like a monumental task.

Who This Game Is For

ChangedStars feels like a great game for folks who like adventures games, with suggested modes of free merchants, marines, scientists, spies, and survivalists. The game hints at telling stories about a mundane life in the Trinity, but I think this means that you can play someone who is an ordinary person in terms of job, but not ordinary in terms of life circumstances. Your 'ordinary' people will find themselves in extraordinary situations, and likely survive. This is not a slice of life game. I also don't think it would do politics very well, mostly because none of the rules that I saw appeared to give politics that much thought. (This isn't to say that you can't try to do politics, but much of the heavy lifting would likely be done through roleplay.)

This isn't a game that seems to put much mechanical weight into relationships either. What your PCs feel about each-other is up to interpretation, but based on the amount by which this book focuses on combat and surviva-bility, I'd recommend playing this game as a team of people who more or less have each-other's backs. This is not a game about getting into pretend fights with your friends; instead it's about overcoming adversity and doing something extraordinary together.

ChangedStars cares deeply about being faithful to the rules of the world that its' built. It is important to the game's authors that you track how many modifications a ship can reasonably take, or how long it takes for your crew to travel from one planet to another. It's important to consider what protects you from the cold vacuum of space, and how various weather or terrain may provide a hazard in a fight. This is a game that prioritizes consistency, rather than drama.

ChangedStars also cares about your failure being interesting. Every time you roll, you risk consequences, even if you fail. This means that actions in which you roll should mean something, even if the only thing that is at stake is increased personal stress.

In a world that is aspirational and yet flawed, there are pieces of this world that feel true to the sci-fi genre: asking what-ifs about living in a society unlike our own, alongside species that don't see the world in the same way that we do in our present. At the same time, it gives us things that we can understand: conflicts between peoples that disagree, violence, crime, debt, and bureaucracy.

My Thoughts

It was hard for me not to compare this to Star Wars FFG or Lancer, but in truth I don't think ChangedStars is necessarily reaching for the same group in either camp. D6 dice pools are more accessible to most groups than Star Wars FFG, and a new lore makes it less intimidating to non-Star Wars fans, although the amount of established lore does mean that to some extent, the GM might be considered to be the knowledge-keeper in regards to social customs and historical events. Compared to Lancer, ChangedStars has more options outside of combat, admits to a flawed world whose conflicts are justified, and provides more advice to game masters that helps build a plot.

That being said, the advice to game-masters section felt very similar to what I'd seen in many other trad games, like Numenera or Dungeons & Dragons. This includes advice on providing challenges to your players outside of combat, like puzzles, or taking time to make sure that every person around the table is getting a chance to contribute. I appreciate the different ways ChangedStars defines conflict in this section, looking at how societal conflict and internal conflict could inform the problems that put your PCs in danger. I still feel like getting into a physical fight is the easiest and most likely form of problem-solving in a game of ChangedStars.

I don't think this is a one-shot game. Theoretically, it could be played as a one-shot, but the recommended four-hour game with one hour devoted to combat feels aspirational to me; sure, combat might take an hour, but if you include one hour of setup/cool-down, that leaves only two hours for everything else, and at that point, I'd rather split the game up into two slightly shorter sessions. It would be easier if you're playing in a campaign, because the table can learn the rules gradually, and achieve a sense of system mastery.

If you love learning and mastering a new set of rules, and you like engaging with ideas about different ways to organize society, or playing through adventures in a logically consistent world, you'll probably like ChangedStars. If you are looking for a game with an emphasis on relationships, intrigue, or good dramatic beats, you'll probably want to look somewhere else.

You can find ChangedStars on Itch.io, and you can follow one of the main authors, Lee, on Bluesky. You can also watch this game be played on Youtube!

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Mint Reviews: Rotted Capes: Second Bite (2nd Edition)

The world ended a year ago, give or take a few months. In a regular world, a zombie plague would be bad enough: but this isn’t a regular world. Our heroes, our super-powered saviors rushed in to try and protect us, but they only ended up turning into the very things they were trying to defeat. And now it’s just us, a group of sidekicks, anti-heroes and old villains, all banded together to try and keep our little circles safe against undead creatures with laser eyes, flight, and extreme aggression issues.

This is the world of Rotted Capes.

I played Rotted Capes 1e a few years ago with friends, and I wrote about it here, when I talked about playing new games. The creator of the game reached out to me to ask if I could do a bit of promotional work for the second edition, which is currently funding on Backerkit.

I agreed to do a review of Second Bite, based off of the promotional materials and quick-start I was given access to. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The Setting

When it comes to the premise of Rotted Capes, not much is different. You’re still scrappy almost-heroes, with limited superpowers or technological advancements, in a precarious position trying to protect your community from mundane and super-powered zombie threats. When I read the 1st edition, I remember really appreciating the way the authors provided GM advice to help you walk the tightrope between superhero and zombie fiction: four-color heroes struggle to maintain the proper image in front of their public, and communities experience tensions when trying to survive in a world that has fallen apart. I love the tension in trying to protect a community that could see you as dangerous, over-protective, too-controlling, or untrustworthy. I think a lot of those tensions are going to translate over to Second Bite, regardless of rules.

A bonus that I’m super stoked about in 2nd edition is the addition of extra rules & procedures regarding time between big missions: in 1st edition, there was some general advice on how to role-play in the community, but the bulk of the detail focused on game-play in combat and running missions from locations outside your home base. Second Bite includes procedures to help you track things that matter to your enclave, like Cohesion, Resources, and Security. If you like base-building mechanics, or perhaps game pieces that represent social conflict, these additions sound like a great extension of the post-apocalyptic genre, and I’m excited to see them added.

The Rules

The 1st edition of Rotted Capes was very intimidating to me as the result of its crunch. In fact, it took me over 2 years to rally myself to run a one-shot for some friends of mine. However, I don’t regret the work it took to put into the game: our takeaway at the end of playing was that much of the crunch was front-heavy: we had to do a lot of work to build & understand our characters at the beginning, but in play much of that was already calculated and we didn’t have to go over it a second time. It might have something to do with the character sheets that I created on Google Sheets, but I do think some of it had to do with the fact that a lot of rules became easier to understand once we witnessed them in play.

Original Rotted Capes used a 2d10-based system, with additional dice added to your roll to represent skills & attributes, The size of your additional dice was determined by the value of your trait. This meant that you were always rolling at least 2 dice, and typically you’d be rolling more if you’re doing something you’re good at. This is excellent for players that are dice gremlins, or anyone who loves the tactile experience of games, since you can enjoy the sound and feel of multiple dice in your hand.

Second Bite has had what the author calls a “full rebuild” of the rules. Character creation is streamlined, and the skill lists of the 1st edition are switched out for something called skill sets. One of the biggest things I noticed is that there’s a big change in the basic attributes available: 1e had eight attributes that define your character, but 2e has six attributes that resemble the core stats for D&D. You also roll a d20 instead of 2d10 for typical action rolls, which is a little bit more swing-y than 1e, and you roll an extra d20 when you have advantage or disadvantage, taking the best or worst result. You still get the addition of extra dice for certain skills and such, and you still use Stamina and Wounds rather than Hit Points. As a result, you have a game that might feel more familiar to folks who have played D&D5E, but with some key differences that connect to the 1st edition.

One of the changes that stood out to me the most was the initiative system. In Rotted Capes 1e, tracking initiative involved a clock that you move characters around, with simple actions costing only 1 or 2 slices, while complex actions might cost 4 to 6 slices. The new initiative system is much closer to 5E: actions & reactions, with a limit to how many you can do in a round.

My Takeaway

To be frank, some of the changes that bring the system closer to D&D made me a little sad. In my initial brush with Rotted Capes, I really really enjoyed the initiative system. I thought it was fresh and exciting, and I liked that it had a visual representation that helped us visualize how fast or slow combat could move. It allowed players to do a bunch of simple actions in a row before an opponent could fight back, and it broke up complex actions by making those characters wait in between to allow other players to get involved. I found the character creation rather complex, but the product was unique, and the handful of different-sided dice was really satisfying to roll with whenever we entered combat.

There are some elements in Second Bite that I appreciate. There are more options for where superheroes get their powers, and there is a streamlined option for folks who don’t want to engage in a fiddly, granular point-buy system. The character sheet is updated with a burnout track that I super appreciate, as burnout was a little difficult to remember when we sat down to play our one-shot. I like that there’s a cheat sheet, which I would definitely use if I ran this game a second time. The authors have also preserved the ability to emulate powers by using your set of powers in an interesting way, and I like that this game rewards that kind of creativity. Finally, the skill-sets are more descriptive, rather than 1e's list of prescriptive words with numbers attached, and I think this update makes the use of these skills much easier when you're playing the game.

At the end of the day, the flavour of Rotted Capes is still there. It might be able to attract some more people who enjoy D&D, although I think there are plenty of remains from 1e that stuck around to make the game distinct - in fact, the creator doesn’t call this a 5E game, but holds that it is a unique system. I appreciate that there’s more elements that flesh out the non-combat, non-action parts of the game, and also that the book is looking to include a more diverse set of threats: more than just Super-Z’s, now there’s rogue animals, rival survivors, tech gone wrong, and more. Threats are also simplified, with narrative tags that make GM-ing much less of a headache. I just wish that some of the pieces I liked the most about Rotted Capes were still there.

If you have a table that really enjoys 5E and doesn’t want to stray too far from familiarity, Rotted Capes might be a step in that direction. If you have a table that absolutely LOVES zombie media and superheroes, then I’m sure they’ll love this game no matter what. I think I also appreciate the fact that this version of Rotted Capes is an attempt to make it easier to communicate your superhero concept to paper, and requires a little less math to figure out what you’re rolling whenever you do something.

If you really like the setting but you’re not a fan of 5E, you might still like the 1st edition, which is still available on DriveThruRpg, but if you want a physical copy, your best bet is probably through Backerkit.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Mint Reviews: Huckleberry

This is a review for Huckleberry, a Wyrd West RPG by Steven Alexander. I received a copy of the Early Access version of the game in exchange for a review.

Huckleberry is a game about the dark and weird parts of a fictional Wild West, in which gunslingers and outlaws roam freely, supernatural creatures haunt the desert, and gold is earned through feats of derring-do.

The Setting

The game begins with a legend that appears to be inspired by Navajo mythology, including a reference to the myth of Spider Woman and a world that exists beneath ours, closed 30 years ago forever to the inhabitants of the Fifth World, which appears to be the setting of the book. There is a supernatural force of nature called the Wyrd, touching everything around it and corrupting it. This dangerous element of the surrounding environment has made living difficult and dangerous, with palatable drinking water hard to come by, hoarded by water barons.

Your characters are occult bounty hunters called Mavericks, earning a living (and access to Cool Water) through hunting supernatural monsters. Because of the pervasiveness of the Wyrd, you characters might also be touched by the supernatural, giving them special abilities that help them survive in the harshness of the desert.

The Rules

Huckleberry uses a combination of dice and cards to represent obstacles and conflict resolution, as well as a player resource called Aces. The dice vary in size, and will increase or decrease to represent competency or difficulty. The cards are primarily used to determine the kind of challenge will face the player, but the suits of the deck are also thematically tied to character abilities, as well as potential effects from attacks coming from monsters.

Similar to what you might find in traditional roleplaying games, Huckleberry expects players to make both skill checks and attribute saves, representing a game that’s about combat and conflict with the world around you. Your character will have skills and attributes that can be mixed and combined however you like, reminiscent of the way you combine two stats in Chronicles of Darkness to give you a dice pool. Your character will also have a Wyrd die, a d10 that can be optionally reduced in size to re-roll checks or saves.

Additionally, characters have the ability to earn Aces, tokens or some other physical counter that can be spent in order to Sweeten the Pot (improving a potential success) or Sleeve the Ace (saved for later). A Sleeved Ace can be spent to add positive modifiers to your rolls, thus increasing your chances of success. Most of the time, in order to gain an Ace, your character will need to play according to type, but Aces can also be gained as bonuses when using certain abilities or special items.

Your character is built out of Attributes and Skills, but also a series of Traits that tell us something about their relationship to the occult, their personality, and their job. You also start with a special piece of equipment called a Big Iron, which is a legendary weapon with special abilities. You can modify your Big Iron over time, giving it mechanical bonuses that make them easier or more efficient to use, typically in combat. Your non-weapon items are represented by Kit, which is a limited inventory meant to represent the scarcity of the world you live in, and your wealth is abstracted to Wyrd-touched Chips, which also double as your XP.

The Gameplay

Huckleberry moves between two phases of the game, called Drives and Pastimes. Drives are investigative and action-heavy phases, often missions that the players will choose and then have to finish in order to get paid. Pastimes are moments of downtime, where players can heal and pursue advancements for both themselves and the town that they build as their home base.

One unique element of Huckleberry is the way the card deck is used in the Drive phase, especially during combat. When it is time for the GM to respond to the actions of the players, they do something called Ante Up, which involves drawing a card from the deck. The suit on the drawn card determines something about the upcoming obstacle, and also defines associated Attribute required for the challenge. Face cards are especially lethal, reflecting a consequence inflicted by the word. The Ace & Joker cards represent a moment of reprieve, with the Wyrd acting in the character’s favor, and dealing each player a Sleeved Ace or an increase to their Wyrd die.

Sensitivity

Thematically, the setting plays up the tropes of Western fiction while including specific references to groups of people who live in the areas that are often referenced in these events. This includes the Hopi, the Diné/Navajo, the Nʉmʉnʉʉ/Comanche, and the Gáuigú/Kiowa peoples. There are references in the book to creatures and imagery that may have originated in these people’s mythologies, although I think that many of the common names have been changed or replaced with autonyms in an effort to respect the people who claim these stories. I’m personally impressed that the author has made an effort to recognize the authority and autonomy of the peoples whose stories have often been mangled or poorly represented by Western media.

I do not know if the author is Indigenous nor, do I know if they have hired a sensitivity reader for the indigenous themes in this book; a sensitivity editor is named, although the specific areas that the editor was responsible for are not made clear. The book does come with a land acknowledgement of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Popeloutchom, where I assume the author resides, as well as a public acknowledgement of the harm the mythologizing of the American West has done to indigenous peoples and other people of colour. I’m not Indigenous myself, so I’m curious about how some of the subject matter within the book would be received by members of the Hopi and Diné tribes.

Summary

Huckleberry embraces the harshness and fickleness of the setting by using a randomizer like a card deck to determine the specific challenges and benefits that come the players’ way, while still ensuring that at some point, the players will come across a challenge that suits them. The book gives the reader a taste for the setting and then moves on to explaining how to play and how to build a character, leaving plenty of the story-crafting up to the group.

The playing cards are exceptionally thematic, as are the mechanical terms used to describe different actions in the book, such as Ante Up, Sweeten the Pot, and Sleeving an Ace. Combat is definitely the most fleshed-out part of the book, with various kinds of injuries and ailments that can negatively affect your character’s skills and abilities, and a drawn-out health track represented by Scars. I can see a lot of similarities between this game and Blades in the Dark, such as the phases of the game, the Deal with the Devil (free healing at the cost of agreeing to a bargain), and forcibly retiring your character should they take too many Scars.

That being said, I don’t think this a Forged in the Dark game in the slightest. The different dice sizes feel more akin to 24XX and the Wyrd die reminds me of the Plot Die in Rotted Capes. This game feels like the designer has taken some of his favourite pieces of various different games and combined them to deliver a Wild West experience that embraces unique, dynamic characters and dangerous bouts of conflict.

Pros

The game understands and resonates with much of it’s source material, and knows exactly what kind of experience it wants to deliver. Fans of the Wyrd West will probably find a lot to like about this game.

The game provides structure in the phases of play, which I find can make it more approachable to players who don’t know where to start. A straight-forward mission/downtime cycle can give the group a good idea of where the story is going next.

The Sleeved Aces give the players a unique resource to help them give them a better chance at rolls that mean a lot to them.

The card-drawing mechanic in conflicts changes the role of the GM a little bit; they are less of a movie director and more of a game facilitator. Adding a form of chance when it comes to determining what exactly is challenging the players means that the GM doesn’t have to plan quite as much, and also reinforces the wildness of the Wyrd.

Cons

There’s a lot to keep track of. The consequences that can be inflicted upon your characters all work slightly differently, and there’s different categories. I'm slightly worried that a lot of play time might be eaten up by having to reference the book multiple times to look up different ailments and how they affect your character.

The unique language also requires some acclimation to a new system, which (to be fair) is a common struggle for someone picking up a new game, but I found myself having to re-read special mechanics more than once to understand what they were used for.

My biggest struggle has to do with understanding a specific ruling in the part that talks about Sixes & Sevens, which is meant to be the combat part of play. Sixes & Sevens is meant to make the game-play feel “cinematic” and therefore is meant to streamline combat. However, in Ailments & Inflictions, the writer recommends that the game should remain in Sixes and Sevens while the Mavericks still have life-threatening ailments. I’m curious as to how you would narrate a play-by-play of someone struggling with an illness and still keep the gameplay ‘cinematic”.

If you want a game that demonstrates a lot of love for the Weird West genre, you enjoy games that can beat your character up a little bit, and you like the thrill of not knowing what’s coming up next, then you might like Huckleberry.

You can check out the early access version of Huckleberry on DrivethruRPG.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Review Two, Electric Boogaloo: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

This is my second review for Eureka, as the document has been majorly updated, and the designers are gearing up to fund it on Kickstarter from April 10 to May 10.

This game is an investigative game meant for mysteries that incorporate a large amount of action and horror. I’m going to break down some of the interesting things Eureka does, and talk about who I think would be a good audience for it.

Graded Success

Eureka uses 2d6 for pretty much every roll, with the possibility of ending up with a failure, a partial success, or a full success. You can add modifiers from various different places, such as your skills, your fear, and your player Truth. The breadth of this game and the game philosophy behind it means that it is not a Powered by the Apocalypse style game - Eureka is its own beast.

Investigation

There are two kinds of rolls in Eureka - investigative and non-investigative. When you are not investigating, success and failure will mostly be determined by what makes sense in the fiction. For investigative rolls, regardless of success or failure, your character will receive investigation points.

I really like this mechanic because even if you fail, your character makes progress - and in fact, since you gain more investigation points when you fail, this plays as if your character is able to use their failures to arrive at a conclusion later in the story.

This is a great time to talk about the Investigation Bar, which is the central focus of the game. When you fill the Investigation Bar, you get a Eureka! This could be a chance to get a vital piece of information, or to tip the narrative scales into your character’s favor.

Precious Information - Secretive Play

Secrets are important in Eureka. The Narrator has secrets of course - the answers to the mystery, the motives of the NPCs, the supernatural that is hiding around the corner - but the players do to. If you are a vampire, a werewolf, a psychic, etc., you are encouraged to wait until a dramatically appropriate moment in the game to reveal this information.

This presents a very specific style of play. Eureka is an ideal game for folks who want to procedurally uncover information, and game masters who like using pre-determined, pre-written mysteries, with motives, clues and events mapped out. How these mysteries are solved still depends on what happens in play, but as a GM, you’ll have plenty of sources to draw on when the characters ask questions.

Eureka also prepares players for messy relationships between their characters. If you want your characters to misunderstand each-other, compete with each-other, or even betray each-other, that is an option in this game. These complicated relationships might even give birth to a secondary plot line for the characters to follow as they try to solve the mystery, especially if they want to find the answers for different reasons. I think it has the potential to make Eureka a multi-layered storytelling experience.

Procedurals

This multi-layered experience is possible only if you have one or more members of the group who are dedicated to taking notes. Because the information being relayed to the characters is so important, it’s crucial that the players remember that information.

In some ways, this reminds me of games where players are expected to get inventive with the tools they have. Players are given pieces of information, and then asked to put the pieces together while in character. The handing out of this information is similar to what I’ve heard described in GUMSHOE - obvious clues will not require a roll - but what is done with that information is up to the players.

I think this might be why playing in longer games or campaigns might be a really good format for Eureka, because it allows characters to piece together a big mystery over a long period of time. This is a game that requires a large amount of investment from both players and game-master alike; this is procedural play in which the narrative emerges from the procedure.

Horror

Eureka thrives with horror, and while the game is meant to be compatible with adventures with various systems, that doesn’t mean that it is genre-agnostic. There are dark things in the corners of this world, whatever it may be, and those things will scare and stress out your characters. There are a number of mechanics that tie Eureka to horror really well.

First is Composure, which is a replacement for sanity mechanics of games like Call of Cthulhu. Your character can only take so much emotional stress before it starts to inhibit their ability to perform certain tasks. If you lose enough Composure, you’ll find yourself hindered in the amount of positive modifiers you can apply to any given action. I like how this replicates how stressors can inhibit it personal performance - and the fact that Composure can be regained means that you can moderate how gruelling the gameplay is.

There’s also character Truths, which aren’t necessarily horrific, but can give you a reason to take the less-than-optimal path in any given situation. Similar to Vice in World of Darkness, you can gain a modifier to a situation in which your character chooses to act in a way that is in line with their Truth, even if there is another option available. This is a mechanical reward for playing true to your character, flaws and all.

The game also asks you to personalize the fears associated with your character. These fears may trigger Composure Rolls, or apply modifiers to them to make them harder to pass. These fears may also be cues to give to your Narrator, indicating what kinds of things you want to inhibit your character, and what kinds of things you want your character to be able to face with little difficulty.

Toolbox

There are elements of Eureka that are optional, which are there to help tailor your game experience. For example, you can include a Ticking Clock to give your players a dead-line or heighten the suspense, which can focus the game and also make it feel more like a thriller.

You can also tailor the skills to make the game fit a certain setting, such as prioritizing horseback riding or driving cars - or perhaps increasing the medical skills to make this a mystery much more focused on biology and medical practises.

The game also has many nods to various forms of detective fiction, as well as supernatural mysteries, action pulp films, and film noir. You can see this primarily in character abilities, which come as a big list of things you can pick and choose and pair together for a unique character.

All in all, if you want a game where Columbo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Indiana Jones can all be in the same adventuring party, you might want to check out Eureka.

You can find a free download version of Eureka here, and keep an eye out for the Kickstarter here!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Mint Reviews - In Want of A Match

This is a review for h. Moon’s game In Want of A Match, a multi-player dating-sim ttrpg. I received a copy of the game from the designer, but the review is simply because I wanted to do it!

In Want of A Match is setting-agnostic, which means that you can place your characters in any time period, in any degree of fantasy or science fiction. The rules of the world around you don’t mean nearly as much as your characters’ potential compatibility. The game takes place over a series of turns, where players will pair their characters up and send them out on dates, rolling using binary pairs of stats to attempt to boost their compatibility scores.

Each player controls two characters, one who is looking for their One True Match, and one firmly believes that Opposites Attract. The rules of the dating game are slightly different for each of these characters. For the One True Match, they are attempting go find a partner who has similar ratings, while Opposites Attract seek out partners with opposing ratings.

The game’s language is very casual in voice, as if the author is sitting next to you while he’s teaching you the game. This also feels pretty easy to run as a one-shot, with character creation, the opening scenario, and the following dates happening in smooth succession. The game can be competitive if you like, with you trying to make the couples that your characters are in the most successful of the group.

The biggest con of the document as it stands is the slight ambiguity around how rolling opposing stats works on dates. When I reached out to the game designer, he was very willing to explain how these work, and I think he’s working on clarifying the language around these rolls.

I like the fact that this game is setting-agnostic, because it makes it very flexible. I think In Want of A Match would be an excellent prologue to a game like Good Society, as a quick way to determine the pairings of the generation prior. You could play this game to set up the parents and determine how compatible they are prior to marriage, and then fast-forward twenty years to see how those marriages are affecting their children - the PCs.

This might also be a fun goofy way to pair up your characters from previous campaigns, kind of like a Coffee Shop AU that lets you imagine what kinds of dates your blurbs would go on.

If you’re a romantic at heart and like a little bit of competition, this might be worth checking out!