Did I say The Future King was the WTF-iest of this weekâs posts? I lied. Pacesetterâs Sandman: Map of Halaal (1985) is by far the WTF-iest thing youâre going to read about this week. It was Pacesetterâs last publication, which sucks, because it was the first of a projected series of three box sets, so as batshit as this box is, it is also deeply frustrating that the story never resolved. Goddamn the Volume One curse.
In terms of system, we have a genuinely interesting light weight, skill-based system with a narrative focus. They run about two and a half pages, total. Rule number one is to pitch any rules that diminish the fun of the game. Characters have a flat 40% chance to do things, 60% if they are trained. Often, a table is consulted to determine the quality of the success, which adds a bit of unpredictability to the system. Wounds are a series of check boxes of increasing severity (this mechanic in particular is very modern, showing up later in Tales from the Loop and other places). Overall, itâs years ahead of its time and genuinely exciting, which is something I canât believe I am saying about a Pacesetter game.
On the GMâs side, scenarios are meant to be played in single four-hour sittings and are broken down into acts and scenes (there is also a visual version of each scenario, which is bizarre, but also cool). In practice, this reminds me a lot of the Choose Your Own Adventure board game, or Parsely, which reconfigures interactive fiction for group play. The designers question whether this was technically even an RPG by the definition of the day, preferring to call it âdramatic entertainment.â
And the plot. Folks, this game is weird on the level of Lords of Creation. The introductory scenario has the players waking up on a train with amnesia, though they have credentials from Ohio State University. They are on a train in Morocco. World War II is going on. They wind up interfacing with character from the film Casablanca before going out into the desert to retrieve a wishing lamp and the titular map (which, weird to use a name that is one letter away from halal, the term from Islamic dietary law which means a given food is allowed).
The second scenario moves the action to a medieval fantasy land (sorta) where they need to deliver an amulet to the correct blind man. This one features that terrifying jester on the screen. There is also a biker gang and the climax takes place in a parking garage. The third scenario recasts the players as bank robbers working with Bonnie and Clyde; eventually they wind up in Neverland. There is a dance-off with Tony, the Italian-American prince of disco (a tie is broken with a knife fight). The final scenario involves the Arab pirate Halaal (Sinbad, basically) and Dionysusâ rocket ship (which is piloted by Albert Einstein, who explains the wine godâs scheme to hang mirrors at the edge of the universe toâŠdo something I donât quite understand). The sustained atmosphere of dreams, or hallucination, is really something.
Throughout all of this, the Sandman appears periodically and tries to murder the players. Pacesetter offered a $10,000 cash prize if someone could figure out the characterâs true identity before the release of the final chapter. Weâll never know, probably. Perhaps thatâs for the best?
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