"You and your gang of criminals scarper through heists and sewers, walk through the filth of The Smoke and, if you're lucky, you'll make it out with a few extra shillings. The whole of this city is your filthy, sickly oyster." - Swyvers
This is an impulse buy from last year which I never got around to reviewing, and there was no game last Saturday because of reasons. So...
In a nutshell: Stand-alone grimdark fantasy RPG about nasty criminals pulling off heists in a city that isn't quite mediaeval London. 96 page PDF (104 if you count stuff like endpapers and covers) by Melsonian Arts Council, £9.47 on DriveThruRPG here at time of writing.
What's Inside
Swyver Creation (10 pages): Roll 3d6 for each of Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength - your intelligence and wisdom are down to the player. You have 1d10+10 shillings, a ropey shank (poor quality knife), some 'orrid rags (what they sound like), and one random item such as a full bucket of night soil or a live rat in a bottle. You may also roll for a personality trait if you wish, learning that you are perhaps 'jammy' or 'away with the faeries'. By now you will have realised that a familiarity with British slang is going to be helpful. There are optional additional, errm, let's call them ancestries such as ruined noble, ratman exile, and hedge-swyver (out of towner), but the GM is cautioned these change the game significantly. There's a page of pre-selected equipment packages if you don't want to pore over the next chapter choosing gear, and a character sheet.
This 'n That (10 pages): The equipment section. Normally these are huge and my eyes glaze over when I try to read them, but this one is actually funny, which helps a lot. Tables of gear with prices and sometimes encumbrance, but what makes it are the descriptions - "Imported Spices d100 s. Fancy flavour powder. Suspicious if you ask me." This includes animals, which if they survive and contribute to heists can learn tricks, such as humping someone's leg on command to distract them. You can also buy a stake in a business, or even set one up yourself. Honestly, this paragraph took a long time to write as I was laughing so much at the gear lists.
General Rules (18 pages): Swyvers has two main forms of task resolution. Rolling Under requires you to roll the relevant attribute or less on a variable number of dice - 2d6 if the average person could probably do it, up to 5d6 for an amazing feat; that's reminiscent of Wizard and In The Labyrinth. Rolling Under is either a skill roll for a deliberate action, or a save if you're reacting to something; if no skill or attribute seems relevant, there's a table of target numbers depending on difficulty. Then there are competing rolls, which most games call opposed rolls; each side rolls a d12 plus the relevant attribute, high score wins.
Combat is in 6 second rounds, in each of which you may take a full action (attack in melee, disengage, aim and fire, etc.) or two half actions (move, snapshot etc.). To attack, roll 2d10+Fighting skill, hit if you meet or beat target's Defence (which is based on what weapon they have), roll damage for weapon and deduct armour value from the result, damage eats your Constitution and when it reaches zero bits of you start getting broken and cut off, leading to penalties and disfigurement.
An interesting rule I've not seen before is that recovering the corpse of a fallen comrade allows you to buy their XP, the cash is spent on the funeral and wake and the XP are divided among his surviving friends. I can't help feeling this encourages letting party members die, which would be in character for these fellows.
When a swyver levels up, he may improve a skill (such as First Aid) by one point; if the skill is relevant to a roll, he adds it to the relevant attribute, thus making it easier to succeed by rolling under it. However, this is a game where the authors believe most things can and should be resolved without skill rolls, so skills - and even attributes - are de-emphasised in favour of asking questions and proposing cunning stratagems. Very Old School.
This chapter also includes rules for various diseases, morale, complications, experience and advancement, expenditure, random consequences for carousing, crime and punishment, NPC followers, and fences (name, what they buy, how much they pay for it).
Running Swyvers (22 pages): This begins by explaining how to generate your table's very own version of The Smoke, which like many fantasy cities is built on a dungeon, in this case one called The Midden, a mess of forgotten ruins, sewers, wine-cellars and temples. The Smoke itself begins with 1d4 rivers merging and flowing into the sea, and four initial districts; the GM adds more as necessary, for the Smoke has no predefined size or shape, and is encouraged to start with five additional districts generated using random tables. Additionally, there are three levels of rulers - the Smoke, the Country and the Continent - a church, and an ongoing war, again detailed using random tables. The chapter also lists the likely 'treasure' carried by an average inhabitant and present in his house, depending on the wealth of the district; random encounters by district wealth and time of day; random street names; example missions with likely pay; bribes required to get out of being arrested for various crimes; and creating the Detective who will be the swyvers' nemesis.
Then we move on to generating the Midden. Mapping it in its entirety is not recommended, but there are tables for generating points of interest and what lurks within them. Some of these seem to be persistent, so my guess is you're intended to map as you go and retain the result for future expeditions. The Midden has no levels as such but is divided into Shallow (forgotten basements and paved-over streets) and Deep (hidden secrets). I won't dwell on this as random dungeon generators have been around for decades; but these tables focus on details to create a gothic-horror atmosphere rather than the shape and size of chambers.
Arseholes and Adversaries (8 pages): The bestiary. Here we find animals, monsters and NPCs, each with a statblock, a description, and a nickname by which swyvers know them. Some of these creatures are frankly disturbing, again very gothic-horror and grimdark. I especially like the vampires, which can only take damage from their weaknesses - these are determined randomly and include such fun items as "cheap drink" and "bloody foreigners".
Magic (12 pages): Here's the magic system and spells, which I shall gloss over as no swyver begins knowing anything about it, they only know what they find out during play. The sole exception is how spells are cast, which is done by playing blackjack; scores below 17 mean the spell fails, 17-20 means it works as intended, 21 means it is more powerful than expected, and scores over 21 are critical failures which invoke some very nasty effects.
Blue Cheese, Left to Rot (13 pages): An introductory scenario, in which the swyvers encounter a mansion being fought over by different factions. Neither of the factions is very nice, but either could use a group of competent swyvers for future missions. Shake on it, but count your fingers afterwards. This is intended as an example; going forward, the players are intended to plan and execute their own heists, rather than being presented with a mission.
What I Think
This was an impulse purchase. I found it by accident and was intrigued by the idea of every group having its own version of the city, emerging in play from the numerous random tables. Plus, what appeals to me most about fantasy these days is urban intrigue, and I already have several such settings, including Lankhmar and Jalizar.
There's a fair amount of swearing and British slang, so if those are not your thing, drive on. I found it a mixture of the humorous and the grimdark, like some of the early Warhammer FRPG scenarios, and it had me laughing out loud in places.
The game packs a lot of implied setting and adventure into a small space, and is not overwritten like many RPG products. The rules are not going to tempt me away from SWADE, but the emergent setting appeals strongly, and is a candidate for me to run as a future campaign.
