Review: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition

"Ayup, the fields are lush round these parts, as it ‘appens. It’s the Pegasi, see. No need to buy manure for fertiliser, it falls from the ‘eavens, like a gift from the gods. Mind, you don’t wanna be standin’ underneath the ‘erds when they fly over. Messy. Very messy." - WFRP4

I have a love-hate relationship with WFRP; I have 1st edition but haven't done more than glance through it, loved 2nd edition, and hated 3rd edition. Where on the spectrum will the Fourth Edition fall? Let's find out...

In a Nutshell: Grimdark clockpunk RPG set in Warhammer's Old World. 352 page PDF from Cubicle Seven Entertainment Ltd, available here for $30 at time of writing.

Published 2018. Good Lord, it's seven years old already. I need to stay in more, or possibly focus more tightly on fewer games. Anyway...

Core Mechanic

When your character tries to do something, roll less than or equal to the relevant characteristic or skill on percentile dice to succeed. If the level of success or failure matters, compare the tens digits of the roll and the characteristic or skill to see how well you did.

Contents

At over 350 pages, I can only skim the surface in a single blog post. The chapters are:

• Introduction (18 pages): What an RPG is, what kind of RPG this is, dice you need (2d10), how to use the book. An art-heavy introduction to the setting, with different fonts to show which paragraphs are Imperial propaganda and which are more pragmatic assessments.
• Character (22 pages): Basics of character generation; species (the usual Tolkienian suspects), class (social class, not character class), career (limited by class), characteristics (more or less the usual, but with the addition of Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill as befits the Warhammer world, average value is usually 30 or so), motivation (guides roleplaying), skills and talents, trappings (gear, determined by class and career), name (with examples for the various species), physical description, ambitions (you get experience points for achieving these). How advancement works (spend XP to buy better characteristics and skills or change career).
• Class and Careers (71 pages): Careers are the backbone of character advancement in WFRP, and here are 64 careers split into 8 major groups by social status. Each career offers different characteristics, skills and talents to buy with your XP at each level; once you have collected the set, you can pay to start a new career, or a new level therein. This chapter also speaks to status; how to maintain it, how people react to it, and so on.
• Skills and Talents (32 pages): This chapter details the various skills (specific areas of training) and talents (special abilities - feats, advantages, edges, what have you), and what you can do with them. As usual for WFRP, skills are divided into Basic (which you can use untrained) and advanced (which you cannot). There are almost 50 skills, some of which are 'grouped', meaning they are actually a cluster of skills; for example Language is a grouped skill, with individual languages being effectively specialisations within it. This is the only game I know with a Consume Alcohol skill; that tells you something about the setting. I also liked the Secret Signs skill, covering clandestine markings left by members of various groups. Talents typically allow you to do things like cast spells, reverse the order of dice once rolled, ignoring penalties, inflict extra damage with an attack, and so on. I liked Beneath Notice, which makes those of higher status ignore you, and Well-Prepared, which lets you magically produce a small item you bought earlier. There are a lot more talents than I remember from previous editions, but maybe that is just my memory.
• Rules (43 pages): Tests of various kinds; simple, extended, opposed, the usual variants. What would now be considered 'safety tools', but in a concise and manner of fact format. In combat, characters act in descending order of their Initiative characteristic, and can both move and perform an action on their turn; actions typically require a test of some kind, including attacks. If you hit, the hit location is found by reversing the order of the dice, and the damage is the weapon damage plus your success level minus the target's Toughness characteristic and armour. There are two metacurrencies, Fate and Resilience; Fate points let you reroll a failure or improve a success, and can be permanently expended to cheat death; Resilience lets you remove Conditions or ignore critical wounds; in both cases the temporary and permanent versions have different names. Naturally, since this is Warhammer, you can collect Corruption points and win prizes in the form of physical or mental mutations, and suffer from a range of disgusting diseases. Much of this chapter is various combat options and edge cases, and this is also where most of the optional rules live.
• Between Adventures (10 pages): This entire chapter is optional, and covers downtime between scenarios. You get a random event, spend money acquired during your latest escapade, and work on an Endeavour, such as consulting an expert, commissioning or crafting an item, investing in a business, studying a mark, fomenting dissent, or training in a skill your career doesn't normally let you learn. At the end of downtime, any money you haven't used disappears in a dramatically appropriate manner.
• Religion and Belief (27 pages): Details of the principal human gods; cults, rites and penances, holy sites, strictures. Lesser, provincial gods are touched on but not detailed; the same goes for the religions of the elves, dwarves and halflings. This chapter also includes lists of Blessings (minor acts of clerical magic which are not obvious to most observers) and Miracles (major acts which are entirely obvious), both of which require a suitable talent and a successful Prayer test; different gods grant different blessings and miracles. The descriptions are pleasingly concise.
• Magic (30 pages): Descriptions of the Winds of Magic; the eight principal Lores and their Colleges, each attuned to one of the Winds; elven and dark magic, hedgecraft and witchcraft. Then we're into the rules of magic. There are four kinds of spells; petty (simple cantrips), arcane (available to all magicians), lore (specific to one's chosen college), and chaos (available to any who consider their soul a fair price in exchange for dark magic). Casting a spell is a Language (Magic) check, aiming for a Success Level higher than the spell's Casting Number; unusually, a critical success incurs some sort of minor miscasting effect as the spell becomes overpowered. More powerful spells require extended tests, allowing you to gradually build the required Success Level, but a fumble results in a major miscasting effect, which you can also get from circumstances where you would get multiple minor miscastings. Next, various minor rules such as the use of warpstone and grimoires. Finally, a lengthy spell list, whose individual spell descriptions are pleasingly concise. Ones I particularly liked: Produce Small Animal (e.g. rabbit from hat), Protection from Rain (magic umbrella), Mundane Aura (makes caster seem non-magical), Cauterise (fire wizard equivalent of healing, leaves scars).
• The Gamemaster (18 pages): General guidance on what the GM does and how to do it, both before and during sessions, and a welcome section on which key rules are especially necessary or helpful; game preparation, notably the first session in which PCs are created. This segues into the travel rules, and rewards - most often XP, rarely Fate and Resilience points.
• Glorious Reikland (21 pages): A gazzetteer and timeline for the Reikland, heart of the Old World and the PCs' likely home nation. Connectivity between locations focuses more on rivers and canals, and less on roads, than I remembered, but maybe that's just me. Politics and political positions within the Reikland. A sample estate, that of the Barony of Böhrn. This chapter also includes a number of short adventure seeds.
• The Consumers' Guide (22 pages): Coinage, cost of living, counterfeiting and clipping coins (you can tell it's Warhammer, yes?), availability, various kinds of trading and bargaining, item qualities, encumbrance, and finally the trappings (gear) themselves; weapons, armour, containers, clothing, accessories, accomodation, food and drink, tools, documents, transport, poisons, hirelings and so on. While a methodical and extensive list of items, this is as much a chapter of rules relating to equipment as it is to a list of said equipment, making it more interesting for me than normal - as a rule, my eyes glaze over at the equipment chapter of any RPG.
• Bestiary (34 pages): A selection of generic 'starter' opponents - NPCs, animals, monsters, and whatever the hell squigs are - with notes on common variants and how to customise them. I am partial to the mixture of horror and dark humour evinced by WFRP monsters, so found this section amusing.

...and we close with a character sheet and an index.

What I Liked

• The acknowledgement that we all have our own take on the setting, and the optional rules for tailoring the base game to one's particular vision, including abstracting tracking money and simplifying armour. These are the parts I like best.
• Options for both deliberate (I can't really call it point-buy) and random character creation.
• Gear determined by other steps of character creation.
• How PCs retire from adventuring and the impact on later PCs.
• The in-character quotations scattered through the book.
• The Small but Vicious Dog is still there as part of the Rat Catcher's trappings! Yay!
• The Between Adventures chapter is one of the better approaches I've seen to handling downtime. Nicely done.
• The setting, and the NPCs and beasts which inhabit it.

What I Didn't Like

• The size and complexity of the character sheet. I prefer it if the whole character can fit on a 3"x5" index card. (That's getting harder as I move to more complex games, but it's still just about doable for my favourites.)
• There are a lot of different conditions characters can pick up in combat; I counted a dozen, ranging from Ablaze to Unconscious.
• Hit location. I find this generally complicates matters and slows down fights without introducing enough extra fun to be worthwhile. At least in WFRP you don't need a separate dice roll for it.

What I Think

When I first started playing WFRP, several editions ago, I was put off by the gunpowder and skaven everywhere. I've grown used to them over the decades, mind, and now see them as integral parts of the setting. I've become very fond of the setting over the course of multiple campaigns played in it.

The short and long term ambitions would lend themselves well to solo play as they are effectively plot threads and the spines of story arcs. Some of the talents are highly entertaining, and I might purloin them for use as SWADE Edges.

Overall, the two defining characteristics of WFRP remain; the extended minigame of navigating the web of careers to get the PC you want despite where you started off, and wizards casting gradually riskier spells until eventually they blow themselves up. Good times.

I like this one; it has a very similar look and feel to WFRP2. I'd definitely play it, and would consider running it.

Arion 1-17: Escape from Hollis

Previously, on the Arioniad: Karagoz and Major Sheng are on the run after surviving an assassination attempt, and Cori has apparently been recruited by a Zhodani agent and left with her. Arion and Mr Osheen are heading back from a meeting with that agent, having been betrayed by Officer Muhammed, who is working with the gangers who run Hollis Highport docks. They are nearly back at the ship when their way is blocked by a group of gangers. Now read on...

Hollis Highport, 106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Arion sees a group of gangers ahead of him with wrenches and knives, and manages to squeeze off a pistol shot before Mr Osheen barrels into them, laying about him with his fists. One goes down, but Osheen is in real trouble and badly bludgeoned and cut up before Major Sheng hits the gangers from behind, and demonstrates just how good she is in hand-to-hand combat, taking out three of them with the advantages of surprise and trained, focused viciousness. She and Arion take one of Osheen's arms each, and lug him away.

By the time the three of them have disentangled themselves from the brawl, Karagoz is already at the Dolphin, having sneaked past the whole affair in the shadows and keyed in an access code Arion didn't think he had to open the airlock and extend the ramp.

Everyone piles inside, and Karagoz breaks cover, using his Intelligence credentials to expedite an emergency undocking. The Dolphin runs for the jump point before anyone else gets involved.

"That," Karagoz muses, "Is not going to look good on any of our permanent records."

But everyone else is too busy to rise to the bait; Sheng is tending to Osheen's multiple stab wounds, and Arion is hastily plotting a jump.

Jumpspace, 106 Week 02

"The one thing we know for sure," Karagoz says, "Is that Cori won't turn up on Hollis."

Privately, Arion is unsure, but says: "Educate me. Why is that?"

"Zhodani culture is as uniformly honest and law-abiding as humanity gets. If you do something antisocial, they read your mind, figure out why, and rehabilitate you, if necessary by editing your mind. They see the Imperium as a dangerous place where thieves and liars are allowed to run loose. So, the number of agents they have who can function effectively in our space is very small; it's a very rare mindset for them. They already have an agent on Hollis, and Cori is already blown there; I think living in the Consulate proper long-term would be too much of a culture shock for her. So, I'd say they'll send her back to spy on the Imperium."

"Okay, I can see that. She can get back to Jewell before we can, because she can go through Consulate space and we can't, really. So she could tell her version of the story before we can tell ours. Do you have a plan for that?"

"Send our version back by the fastest available courier. And be very careful when we go back to the Imperium, because who knows what they'll think we've been up to. For all I know, our mission was a fake, designed to get her close to the Zho agent on Hollis."

There doesn't seem to be much Arion can do about any of that, so he changes topic.

"When were you going to tell me Cori is psionic?"

"Probably never."

"Did you even know?"

"I suspected. She was just too good at reading people, at knowing exactly what arguments to make, to be anything else."

"So the Imperium - where psionics are utterly illegal - has psionics in its intelligence service." Karagoz shrugs.

"They're too useful not to. Any agency has thieves, liars, and murderers working for it already, why not psions as well?"

Arion doesn't have a good answer to that.

"I'll go check on Mr Osheen," he says. "See if he needs more soup to regenerate."

Meanwhile, Sheng is quiet. She has just realised that with Cori apparently running off into Consulate space, and Muhammed having both betrayed them and been left behind, she has a clear run at Arion now. She made her pitch when they first arrived in the Hollis system, but perhaps a gentle reminder would be in order?

But supposing he agrees, how will she get them both out from under Karagoz's thumb?

GM Notes

Here, I'm starting to put some reversible distance between Arion and the Official Traveller Universe; the change of date is inspired by the old Italian habit of leaving off the first digit of the year; you don't see that much any more, but letters from (say) the 1940s are often dated something like "16 Aprile 946".

I was feeling lazy, so ran the actual combat as a Dangerous Quick Encounter; Mr Osheen and Major Sheng used Fighting (rolling 1 and 6 respectively), Arion used Shooting (rolled a 10), and Karagoz used Stealth (11) 'cos he's a sneaky S.O.B. That means Arion and Karagoz escape unscathed, Sheng has Bumps & Bruises, and Mr Osheen takes a Wound. Mr Osheen succeeds on his Vigour roll, but has an injury which reduces his Strength one die type until he heals, which takes five days.

A Dangerous Quick Encounter is worth 2 VP under Interstellar Rebels, so that takes Arion to 10 VP and victory, as the enemy has only 2 VP. I suppose we do know what's going on locally, and the mission could well have been a distraction while Cori infiltrates the Consulate. It's entirely credible to me that while I as a player know Arion has won, he himself is unaware of it - that fits the SF espionage genre.

I'm feeling somewhat burned out on the Arioniad, and dramatically this is a good place to end a season. So, next time, a retrospective, and then let's try something different for a while.

Aslan Route Interlude: Mid-Season Break

"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." - Donald Rumsfeld

The sun and the beach are calling, so I must away for the moment; but I've learned a number of things from this season so far.

First, what works best for this group at this stage of our lives is what Savage Worlds calls a Plot Point Campaign; a selection of scenarios loosely coupled into an overall story arc, with limited agency for the players. Give the party a patron who sends them on specific missions, but lets them work out how to achieve the objective for themselves; Charted Space works well for that, as the party is generally weeks away from their patron. RPG gurus online extol the virtues of sandbox play, the West Marches style, the Traveller free trader game loop, and so forth, and frankly it all sounds great; but I've tried those approaches with my crew of exhausted, jaded grognards in their 60s, and they don't work for us. There comes a point when it's best to accept that and move on. You sit down to play with the players you have, not the ones you had 40 years ago, even when they are the same people.

Second, said Plot Point Campaign needs to be agreed as part of Session Zero. Unless the PCs are specifically designed for the campaign, the players will decide that the current PCs have no motivation to engage with the story. Rather than come up with their own 'daring schemes for the acquisition of wealth and power', however, they will then sit there and wait for another commission to be offered. Which they will also avoid unless an acceptable patron engages them to undertake it. I've noticed this in several campaigns run by other GMs with various mixtures of the same and different players, so I don't think it's me, or them; it's something wider than that. Maybe it's a generational thing, and boomers are especially prone to it?

Third, and related to the first two, I've tried various things as scenario and campaign generators for the Aslan Route, in an attempt to avoid prewritten scenarios; 5150, Five Parsecs from Home, Fronts, Mythic, Stars Without Number, The Scheme Pyramid, Traveller, and Just Making Stuff Up, most of them offscreen. None of them has produced viable scenarios for this group, although once I have a scenario, The Scheme Pyramid is pretty good for working up a location for the PCs to infiltrate or assault - that's not what it's intended for, but it does it well all the same. Now what's interesting about this is that several of those approaches work just fine for solo games; I'm not sure why that is yet - for further study.

Fourth, while I do have a number of one-shots left over from earlier campaigns which I could - in theory - stitch together to make a new campaign, when I tried that I realised there is usually a very good reason why the one-shot hasn't already been used, and I only managed to get a couple of sessions out of them. Triple Ace Games' Daring Tales of the Sprawl make a nice little cyberpunk mini-campaign, and I would run those, but I don't think they work for the current PCs or location. Maybe later.

Finally, and this is less about the Aslan Route and more about my increasingly dispirited attempts to find another face to face group, our play style is no longer typical. There are several RPG groups locally, but they are divided into those who will only play D&D 5th Edition published campaigns, and those who have enthusiastically embraced Daggerheart; neither of those games appeal to me, even if I could attend the sessions, which are at inconvenient times and places.

So I'm pleased to take a break for a few weeks, as I am now completely out of ideas for where to go next. I had hoped this game would run to the end of 2025, but if I can't think of, or find, any more scenarios during this break I should probably draw things to a close as gracefully as I can, and move on to the next thing.

The Aslan Route will return in about a month. Meanwhile, here is some dance music, and a few reviews.

Arion 1-16: Revelations

“When every one is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before. Listen to me till the end." - Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Hollis Highport, 1106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Arion, Cori, and Mr Osheen sit down at Officer Muhammed's table at the cafe, with her and the tall woman from the dockers' godown.

"One thing you learn early on in law enforcement," Muhammed says conversationally, "Is how to tell when people are going to say something incriminating. And if those people are your friends, you learn to leave before they say anything you have to do something about. I recommend the Danish." She stands, smiles at everyone and marches off purposefully.

Arion looks at the tall woman.

"Okay," he says. "This has to be about you, because my friends can talk to me anytime. What do you want with us?" He doesn't bother asking for a name. Nobody ever gives you their real name anyway, that much he has learned.

"I have a message from the Consulate, and an offer," she says. "First, the message. The gang boss is right, there's no way you can smuggle across the border, and we're not going to let you set up a cell on our side. If you want information, ask us nicely. I'm having that message delivered personally to Mr Karagoz right now; I'm sure he's listening in, so I'll give that a moment."

Through his earpiece, Arion hears a shouted warning from Major Sheng, then silenced gunfire and screams, indistinct voices, and a couple of slow, deliberate shots.

"We're blown," Karagoz says. "Escape and evade. Sheng, with me." That last tells Arion that Sheng, too, is still alive.

"Ah," says the tall woman. "I see the two of them are more alert than I gave them credit for. No matter. Now, the offer; that's for you, Ms Ganzfeld. There's no need to keep on working for these deadheads. Your talents would be appreciated so much more by my superiors."

Arion stares at Cori in shock, as he realises both women must be psions. Judging by their expressions of concentration, there is another, purely mental, level of conversation going on. After a long moment, Cori looks at Arion, then the woman, and at last says simply: "Fine. See you in another life, Arion." She sighs for things that might have been, then, with absolute certainty: "I would've rocked your world."

The tall woman smiles an unpleasant, cruel smile, and stands to leave with Cori.

"Don't try to stop us," she says. "That wouldn't end well for you." Arion takes in the unusually hard-looking baristas inside the cafe, who are now all watching him intently, and the sudden shortage of other customers.

"Back to the ship," Arion says to Mr Osheen. "Fast." And they move off, as quickly as they can manage without attracting too much attention.

Arion takes stock as they head back to the docking bay, where with any luck Karagoz and Sheng will meet them and they can leave the highport. Muhammed is obviously working with either the tall woman, the docker gang, or both. She fought alongside them against the gangers, but Arion imagines any gang has members the boss wants to get rid of, and what better way to demonstrate she isn't working with them than to shoot a couple?

Cori is off with the Zho; maybe that's because she's tired of being suppressed inside the Imperium, maybe it's a set-up to get an Imperial psionic inside the Consulate. There's no point asking Karagoz, he realises, because if it is an Imperial plan, nobody whose mind could be read would know about it. For the first time he wonders who was really in charge of the mission, and what it actually was.

Above my pay grade, he decides wearily. I'm just the bus driver. At that moment, his commlink buzzes, and he accepts the call. It's Muhammed.

"Heads up," she says. "The gangers are waiting for you in the docking bay."

"And I should trust you why?" he asks, bitterly.

"Because you're a fun date, and I owe you this much. Listen, you spacers come and go, I have to live here, and neither the Port Authority nor the gangers are going away anytime soon." He can hear the smile in her voice, but then there's always a smile in her voice, and in another moment of sudden clarity he wonders how deep the cheerfulness really goes, and what's underneath it. "Be safe," she finishes.

"You too," he says, and to his surprise he means it. But she has already broken the connection.

Up ahead, there are people in overalls, with wrenches and knives. Beside him, Mr Osheen is grinning fiendishly, in his element.

"Just another day at the office," Arion sighs.

GM Notes

A few Mythic checks were needed to move this on. Was Muhammed working with someone? Yes, and a couple of other checks told me this was the gangers. (I didn't see that coming, but it was a logical development from episode 15.) Was the Zho going to be straight with the Imperials? Yes, and the roll was 22 - doubles - so triggered a random event; NPC Action, Oppress Intrigue. That's what led to the firefight involving Karagoz and Sheng, which as only NPCs were involved I resolved as a Quick Encounter offscreen. Karagoz and Sheng both rolled ridiculously high though.

The Zho tries to Persuade Cori to go over to the Dark Side, and the detail of that is offscreen because only they know about it and neither is a viewpoint character. In game terms, however, the Zho rolls a 17 for Persuasion thanks to Aces, and Cori rolls an 8 - also with Aces, but the Zho still gets success and two raises. So Cori is away with the Zho, although as you see above, we don't know why.

Finally, is the ganger boss going to attack Arion and company in broad daylight near the docks? Yes, yes he is; I was more or less expecting that, he'd lose too much face otherwise.

It looks like the next episode is going to be another fight. The harem comedy is pretty much trashed at this point, and I think I'm about ready to move on from Interstellar Rebels, although the NPC Variants are handy, so they can stay.

Aslan Route 20: Catch of the Day

Previously, on the Aslan Route... The crew of the Macavity have recovered the missing maid of honour, and now the wedding of Elehasei and Prince Hteleitoirl can proceed. Surely all the unpleasantness can now be put behind them, and steady but profitable freight runs may resume? If you thought that, you really haven't been paying attention...

Tyokh, 1106 Week 23

Tyokh B566A77-E Hi Ht GG

The day of the wedding arrives, and by dint of not saying anything and just listening to the ceremony, the crew of the Macavity avoids offending anyone. Rex duels an opponent to first blood as part of the entertainment, but being Rex gets carried away and almost kills the fellow; fortunately, Dr Matauranga is on hand to stop the blood getting all over everyone's party clothes and manages to save the loser.

The crew present their presents to the newlyweds. Ellie thanks them for the thoughtful gift of, well, whatever it is; some sort of flying beast that Dr Matauranga made for her. However, she says it is as nothing compared to the gift of her husband's life, for which she will be forever in their debt. The Prince himself is touched by the gift of Rex's artificial dewclaws, which saved his life when Rex fought his would-be killer a year ago, and responds with a new and flashier set, as it's not right one of his retainers should be without claws.

Later, the happy couple engage the Macavity - which most of the clan now considers part of the clan fleet - to take them to their landhold on Sink, and the Macavity spends a few weeks shuttling between Sink and Tyokh, helping set up the landhold properly and carrying properly vetted ihatei there to join the Prince's burgeoning following.

Sink, 1106 Week 29

Sink D665220-5 Lo Ga Lt GG

Returning to Sink with their latest load, the crew is intercepted by Ahoakhi, the Port Authority, who says the new landhold recently learned of potential fishing grounds near a place called Messana Bay, and sent a small party out there to assess it as a possible food source. That group is not checking in on schedule; it occurs to her that while the landhold proper has only a few ground vehicles - there are so many other things competing for hold space and maintenance time which seemed more important - the Macavity has an air/raft, and rather than sending a ground party which will take days, that could be on site in a couple of hours. Gaining the Prince's permission, the crew tool up and set off. Rex is delighted at being able to carry his brace of laser SMGs without any snivelling concerns about law level.

Holding at forty and doing a slow circle of the site, the crew find a couple of ATVs, a fishing boat in the shallows, an advanced base, and a couple of pop-up tool sheds; all have been wrecked as if by combat or a hasty search, and there are ruts in the beach, possibly made by small watercraft. Vila drops the rest off and takes to the sky again, ostensibly to keep a better lookout. Dr Matauranga and Mazun search the wreckage for clues, finding nothing to suggest this was anything other than a group checking out the local fish; the notes they left mention a large concentration of creatures like a cross between a starfish and an octopus a few hundred metres offshore. The only curious feature is the laser burns on the insides of the buildings.

Meanwhile, Rex is drawn towards the boat by a powerful smell of dead fish; some smells are so disgusting you just have to roll in the source. At this point a much larger tentacled monstrosity critically fails its Stealth roll and explodes out of the surf, clawing at Rex's heels as he retreats. The beast shows no signs of either intelligence or a desire to communicate, so the crew split up and open fire on the beast, scoring multiple solid hits which simply bounce off its tough, rubbery hide. Distracted by the lashing tentacles, Rex puts a couple of rounds into the air/raft by mistake, but its light armour protects Vila, who has gone for even more altitude in case the creature decides to grab his vehicle. Deciding that they need heavy weapons to deal with it, the crew piles into the air/raft and makes their way back to the starport, where they pick up the Macavity. Returning to Messana Bay, they discover the creature's armour is proof against the ship's gatling laser and are forced to resort to antiship missiles, blowing it into sushi.

"Do you know how much those things cost?" asks Vila, who is concerned about the impact on the crew's profit-sharing.

The conclusion is that the fishermen accidentally started laying waste to the larger creature's offspring and it took revenge by smashing up their boat, drowning them, and wrecking their camp.

"In that case," Dr Matauranga asks thoughtfully, "Who made the laser burns in the huts?" A fair question, and Rex's keen nose is put to work tracking anyone who might have escaped or fled. At length, this leads them to two armed ihatei on foot, making their way back towards the starport. These claim to be looking for a place to set up their own landhold, Mazun explains that the Prince has already claimed the whole planet (except for the monastery), but this initially civil conversation rapidly devolves into a gunfight; outnumbered and outgunned, the two aslan fall quickly, but again Dr Matauranga manages to patch up the wounded one, and the other - having been merely stunned - is quickly tied up.

The crew return to the Macavity with their prisoners, intending to look more closely at the bodies in the boat (some of which they now suspect may have laser burns), find the intruders' ship, and place orbital beacons warning off other ihatei hoping to claim land.

GM Notes

I thought there had been enough excitement around the wedding, so let it go off without a hitch and moved on into the free Savage Worlds one-sheet Catch of the Day. That went pretty much as expected up to the point where Dr Matauranga queried who had made the laser burns if all the bodies were in the sunken boat? That was actually an oversight on my part in presenting inconsistent evidence, but rather than correct that error I decided to run with it and see what happened, relying on Mythic to keep the game going. Before the next session, I need to figure out who the mystery ihatei are and what they're up to; I'd been wondering where to take the game next, and maybe this is the answer.

Arion 1-15: Negotiations

"Provided it is handled by the right spokespersons, a simple but persuasive public narrative regarding the what, how and why of the negotiations or their outcome is vital. Yet, so is private outreach to influential but excluded actors who, for prudential reasons, may need to be made aware of the talks early on." - Mark Freeman and Vanda Felbab-Brown, Negotiating with Violent Criminal Groups

Nothing like gaming for broadening your horizons, amiright?

Hollis Highport, 1106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Finding the dockers' union offices is not hard; it's public knowledge. Officer Muhammed can't officially be involved, so is maintaining plausible deniability by taking coffee and doughnuts at a nearby cafe; Karagoz prefers to be "the guy in the van", so is puppeting Arion through an earpiece, as much as that is possible to do for a loose cannon like him; and Major Sheng is making sure no rude strangers distract Karagoz. That leaves Arion, Cori and Mr Osheen entering the lion's den.

At interstellar technology levels, being a docker is more about wrangling robots and computers than it is about moving heavy things from place to place by sheer muscle power; but judging by those waiting for them, the latter method still has its place.

Across the godown from them are four dockers, including a large bullet-headed one the others refer to as "Boss" and a tall woman, who Arion notices seems more interested in Cori than the negotiations.

"I believe in you," Cori whispers as they approach that delegation, laying her hand on his arm. He feels suddenly more optimistic, although the boss is frowning at them.

"Last time you met my people," the boss says, as they come to a halt before him, "You killed one, drank his blood, and put three of them in jail."

"That time, eight of them attacked three Imperial officers and a Port Authority cop, without provocation, and put three of them in hospital. The time before that, you tried to sabotage my ship, and broke my friend's arm. This is all bad for business. It doesn't need to be this way," Arion says.

"You shut down my surface operation," the boss counters. "That makes me look bad."

"We could've talked about that, reached an agreement. You didn't need to shoot us."

"My docks," the boss says, stone-faced. "My rules. You asked for the meeting. What do you want?"

"We're in the small package trade," Arion says, meaning smuggling. "This station is one side of a border. Anywhere there's a border, there's an opportunity to make some money trading under the radar. We'd prefer to do that with your blessing."

"There's no smuggling across the Zhodani border," the boss says flatly. "Any time they're unhappy with the customs regime, they get a visit from the secret police, who make them happy with it again. By editing their minds."

"You say that as if there were some Zho on the station already. Is that right?"

"None of your business. But, in case you do manage to smuggle something across the border, let's talk about my cut."

The rest of the meeting revolves around negotiating the boss' percentage for smuggling deals which neither side really thinks will ever happen, but wants to be prepared for if they do.

As they leave and head for the cafe, Arion speaks to Cori and Mr Osheen, using the commlink to patch in the others.

"Three things," he says briskly, wanting to share the information before anything else happens. "First, that was too easy. Second, I don't trust our contact; there's something off about him. Third, did you see the tall woman at the back? She was very interested in Cori. Stay frosty."

As they approach the cafe where Muhammed is holed up, they see the tall woman obviously knows a short cut. She's already there, inviting herself to join Muhammed, who doesn't seem at all bothered.

Arion mutters an expletive, wondering whether anyone has sold anyone out, and if so, who and whom; but the tall woman is already beckoning him over, so he makes the best of it and joins them. One piece of knowledge from his old atmospheric combat training seems transferrable; never turn away from the enemy, it just gives them a better shot at your rear end.

GM Notes

I was going to roll a Mythic Event Meaning to see what Karagoz is up to, but a viable idea came to me, so I'm using that. One thing I'm trying to do in this run of the Arioniad is accustom myself more to 'fiction first' gaming and see what I can do with it; this isn't much of a move in that direction, but baby steps.

Considering the situation, I think Arion fronts the negotiation, with Support from Karagoz and Cori, and an attempted boost Trait from Cori on the pair of them before he goes in. We'll let the ganger boss oppose their rolls, and give him support from a couple of advisors as well. Mr Osheen has little to contribute unless things turn violent, say because of a Critical Failure on a Persuasion roll.

• Entering negotiation: Cori rolls Psionics to boost Arion's Persuasion... 4, success; his skill and hers are both boosted to a d8.
• Round 1: Discussing the fight in episode 12. Arion gets 6, including a +1 from each supporter; the boss gets a total of 10, including +1 from Support. Arion fails and so gets no Influence Tokens this round.
• Round 2: Discussing what each side wants. Arion gets 10 thanks to Aces; the boss gets 4. In an opposed roll, Raises are figured using the defender's score as the target number; Arion succeeds and beats the boss by 6, so has a success and a raise, thus two Tokens.
• Round 3: Striking a deal. Arion 7, boss 8; no more tokens. Total, two Tokens; minimal support.

Sadly that is worth no VP; Social Conflicts are harder than I expected. The score is still Arion 8, BBEG 2. However, Mythic tells me that there are Zhodani on the station after all, though they're not controlling the dock gangs; that one of them was close enough to detect Cori and read her mind; and the SWADE dice rolls for that tell me the Zho did detect her as psionic, and did read her mind without her noticing. Just because the gangers are pretending to be Ine Givar doesn't mean the Zhodani aren't around, after all.

A roll on the Allied Personality table in SWADE tells me the Zho's defining personality trait is that she is cruel. Meanwhile, other Mythic rolls tell me the boss intends to double-cross Our Heroes and go after them again. Arion gets a Notice roll to spot something off in the boss' demeanour and succeeds.

I'll have to think about where all this sends the story next. As time goes on, we're drifting further and further from Interstellar Rebels and more back towards Mythic, which I didn't expect, but having fun with the game is more important to me than sticking to any particular rules.

Review: Five and Infinity

The final part of my trilogy of reviews of Modern AGE and accoutrements.

In a Nutshell: A campaign in five adventures for the Modern AGE Threefold setting, plus scenario and plane generators. 130 page PDF by Green Ronin, available here for $18 at time of writing.

Note: You need both the Modern AGE Basic Rules and the Threefold setting to use this book.

Contents

Introduction (1 page): Capsule summaries of the adventures and generators.

Chapters 1-5: The adventures. Between them, these will take heroes from level 1 to level 16; it's hard to review adventures without spoilers, but I figure it's safe to tell you what's on the back cover of the book and in the initial mission briefings for PCs. The default assumption is that your PCs work for the Sodality or the Aethon.

• Hunting Night (18 pages): Levels 1-4. A spider goddess seeks safe exile on Earth. What better way to kick off the campaign than fighting giant mutant spiders in an office building?
• The Dreaming Crown (15 pages): Levels 1-4. On a diplomatic mission, the PCs learn that the rumoured discovery of the crown of the last Divine Empress inflames the political ambitions of demigods.
• The Soul Trade (22 pages): Levels 5-8. Beginning in media res during a doorkicking raid on a smugglers' hideout, this takes the PCs to a prison planet which holds the secret of the illegal trade in souls.
• Midnight Gold (21 pages): Levels 9-12. Dark deeds force heroes to a literal urban hellscape, where they must find and recover a missing person.
• On the Threshold of Apocalypse (22 pages): Levels 13-16. The Earth has been destroyed. Merely a temporary setback, surely.

Each adventure has multiple parts, each with multiple scenes. There are appropriate maps, NPC and creature statblocks, and as usual for Modern AGE, each scene is tagged to show whether it is a combat, exploration or social encounter.

The Infinity Machine (25 pages): This chapter provides the GM with random generators for adventure scenarios and the planes on which they are set.

As with the Threefold setting book, there are sidebars throughout the book with capsule descriptions of minor planes.

What I Liked

• The scenario maps. Nice work.
• Hunting Night and The Soul Trade were both enjoyable adventures, and I'm tempted to run them at some point.
• Threefold uses non-linear time for some plotlines, and this is showcased in On the Threshold of Apocalypse. Tricky to pull off, but worth it if you can.
• The minor plane Loop; Groundhog Day for all, with everyone remembering hundreds of previous cycles to the detriment of their mental health.

What I Didn't Like

• There are a number of schoolboy spelling errors, usually missing letters, most often the letter R for some reason. 6/10, see me after class.
• The adventure generator was too abstract for me to work with; it felt like writing an adventure by rolling on the Mythic event tables.

Conclusions

I wanted to like this, but I didn't, despite it having some interesting points and scenarios. This is because like Threefold, it focuses strongly on the fantasy and infernal planes, whereas I much prefer more mundane alternate universes.

If I could get past that, the five-scenario campaign arc would be worth running, but the adventure generator doesn't give me enough guidance and I would plunder my collection of SF and fantasy books for the planes rather than generating them at random.

So, this one's not for me; Your Mileage May Vary, especially if you like the magical and infernal planes more than I do.