A long time ago Steve Jackson Games and the Foglios announced the Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game. While I doubt that GURPS is the perfect fit for the pretty weird Girl Genius World, I was overjoyed that I would be able to play or run adventures in the world of GG soon. Or so I thought. It has been a couple of years since the announcement and the GURPS Girl Genius game is still missing.

My guess is that between the work on the actual comic and the novelization (I found this blog post which gives a few details) there’s not much time to work on the RPG. And I fear they don’t want to release the RPG before all the open questions in the story have been answered. Perhaps if the current story arc comes to an end, we’ll finally see some news regarding the RPG.

But perhaps some of my readers have more information on what the status of this project is. If so, please let us know in the comments below.

On the other hand, do we really need an official Girl Genius RPG? Don’t get me wrong, I would love to play a GG game and I am sure I will buy the GURPS Girl Genius book as soon as it’s released, but with all the free RPGs and the background information (in form of the comics) already out there, don’t you think the interested fan shouldn’t be able to come up with some homebrew solution?

In an earlier post I recommended the use of Savage Worlds for such a game, but today I would probably opt for a more freeform system. RISUS would probably work very well and reflect the tongue-in-cheek nature of the comic. What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Girl Genius!
2. What about the Genius Guide to Mystic Godlings? A review…
3. What happened to the Doctor Who RPG?

Hopefully it will be equal parts nostalgia and mini-review; I’ll try to include some gaming tidbits or ideas that can be of use to you. So without further ado gentle reader here we go…

5. Call of Cthulhu RPG (3^rd Edition): This was my first Call of Cthulhu product. Well that’s not technically true, since it wasn’t mine. In the late 80’s when we were starting to play role-playing game we didn’t have money to buy every game and each person got the game that they wanted to run; we often mail ordered games together to save on shipping and handling. I don’t remember what I ordered that particular time, but my friend Luis ordered the Call of Cthulhu 3^rd edition Boxed Set and became our official Cthulhu Keeper.

Boxed Sets have a special place in my heart. There is some sort of magic to opening that box and taking out all the different components. I remember that after Luis read the booklets, I got to read the Investigator’s Book with its red cover and the profile of the pensive man. Inside the sparsely illustrated book I got my introduction to Lovecraft and the Call of Cthulhu game. Although I must admit that upon first reading the book there were some details that confused me (for some reason the Resistance Table was hard for me to understand, but I was a pretty green gamer back then). The sample Harvey Walters’ character sheet and the one page example of play at the end of the booklet fired up my imagination and creativity.

Another thing that got me was the reading lists. By this time I knew who H.P Lovecraft was, but I was YET to read any of his works. After playing the game I became obsessed with reading the mythos stories and thus began a long love affair with Lovecraft and works inspired by his writings.

Years later my friend Luis moved and couldn’t take all his gaming books and I inherited his Call of Cthulhu boxed set. It’s still in my collection; the box has almost all the original components: The Investigator’s Book, The Keeper’s Book, the Sourcebook for the 1920s, character sheets and a map of the world. Only missing are the dice and the cardstock investigator figures.

But I got something better, copies of our old characters! The Keeper used to keep our character sheets (ironic I know) and when I opened the box I found some of the old character sheets we played with. I don’t think these are the very first character we used, but these were some of the first investigators we played. I’ve collected those character sheets into one PDF file, Including a copy of my character Rupert Edgard “Iggy” McNuggart, historian and antiquarian; for anyone interested in seeing what we played back then around 1995. Be aware we created these characters using the 3^rd edition rules, and excuse any mistakes made, we were all eager teenagers back then.

I have later editions of Call of Cthulhu in my collection, even the Basic Role-Playing game system I first experienced in Call of Cthulhu, but nothing compares to the thrill I got from the boxed set!

4. Cthulhupunk: The Cthulhupunk book is a GURPS sourcebook for playing Lovecraftian adventures in a cyberpunk world. Although the book is out of print (according to the Steve Jackson website) you can still get copies out there on the Internet. Later editions of the book have a nicer cover, but my copy from 1995 is graced with the art of Albert Slark, showing a cyborg stalked by a Hound of Tindalos. While I’ve seen other pieces by Albert Slark and love some of them, let’s say this is not one of those pieces. Despite the horrid cover, this is one excellent book.

By 1995 I was better versed in the Lovecraftian mythos. I had read the stories and played games set in the 1920s and modern times, but here was a thrilling idea, Lovecraftian adventures in a cyberpunk setting. Besides my love for the mythos I also brought the book because of the author, Chris W. McCubbin. I am a big fan of his work and back then he wrote one of my favorite columns in White Wolf Magazine, Out of the Parent’s Basement. So when I saw the book I snatched it up! I love GURPS sourcebooks, even if I rarely play the game, and this book did not disappoint.

The layout and art are excellent, set the tone of the book most effectively and are of exceptional quality. The first chapter, an overview of the Cthulhu Mythos is a clear and concise presentation, ideal to introduce the uninitiated to the concepts. I particularly like the timeline. The second chapter, the Cthulhu World, presented the dark future where the game is set. The distant time of 2045!

Fifteen years after it was written the future story of our world is badly outdated. The Commonwealth of Independent States that came into existence after the fall of the Soviet Union, and must have seemed so important back then, is given greater geopolitical importance that it had in our world and their dissolution is a harbinger of dark times in the game’s timeline. Still it is amazing some of the things the author predicted that echo real life events, devastating hurricanes, pandemics, the stock market collapse, and drug wars. Our world is not quiet the one portrayed in the book but it certainly has elements in place.

The Bestiary and Investigator chapters are GURPS specific and may not be as useful for gamers not using the system but the creature write up are informative and the weird science devices are imaginative and dark. The Cultist and the Adventure Seed chapters are chock full of ideas for adventure set in this setting.

Here is MY adventure seed idea for Cthulhupunk: I’ve always wanted to run a Cthulhupunk adventure where the players are hired by a music company executive to “procure” the sheet music to a particular piece. The executive claims the composer is an eccentric who still writes music in paper and although he was paid for his work he refuses to relinquish it. If the players investigate the composer was very popular and successful until he worked on a particularly disastrous production that was generally panned by the critics and ignored by the fans. Further investigation reveals the composer worked with sounds recorded by American historian Rupert Edgard McNuggart during an Antarctic expedition in the early 20^th century. The sheet music is actually part of a ritual to awaken or call terrible things from beyond our world. What will the characters do? That’s just an idea…

I think Savage Worlds would be a great fit for a Cthulhupunk campaign, and there is already a Savage Wolds Cthulhu book, Realms of Cthulhu. But if you want to do the conversion yourself there are documents out on the internet to help you. You can also see some sample NPCs at the Steve Jackson Games website to wet your appetite for the book.

3. Cthulhu by Gaslight: Of all the books on my list this is the last one I got. Surprising since Victorian England is one of my favorite time periods, but nevertheless I did not get this book until some years ago. It includes a great overview of the times, politics, timeline, travel, even clothing and fashion, details for creating Investigators for this time period and a great series of adventures. While I don’t usually run pre-made adventures, the adventures in the book contain many great ideas and details for adventures set in a period not everybody is familiar with. The map of London and the color plates are up to usual Chaosium standards. A great book overall.

I can’t wait for the publication of Space 1889 Red Sands, which Michael reviewed some weeks ago, so I can mix my love for Space 1889 with the Cthulhu mythos. Imagine discovering a temple to the Great Old Ones in Mars, protected by degenerate High Martians, or perhaps a Mi-Go settlement. The possibilities! However I’m not the first person to suggest this.  There is an article in heliograph.com about exactly this idea.

Even if you don’t want to mix your horror and your retro sci-fi there are many adventuring opportunities in Cthulhu by Gaslight regardless of the system you use.  Here is another Adventure Seed Idea: I love the spirit of exploration of the age, with so many opportunities to discover the secret places long forgotten or hidden away. The characters begin in London where the family of a friend lost in exotic places asks the characters for their help. They find a map hidden among his papers and must fight the cultists who want to recover the map, followed by a mad dash across the world to reach the location before the cultists. What awaits there? This could be played as a pulpish adventure or a dark and dangerous tale in the vein of Lovecraft’s stories.

This book is an excellent source of information for the period, whether you play Call of Cthulhu or not. Highly recommend!

2. Call of Cthulhu d20: If you’ve read any of my previous posts this must come as NO surprise. I’m a big D20 fan and the possibility of playing Call of Cthulhu with the D20 rule set just tickled my fancy. Granted the nature of the system results in a different gaming feel. Investigators in the D20 version are more resilient, but the author, Monte Cook, did a great job of capturing the feel of the mythos and paring down some aspects to make the characters feel like normal people, not super characters of other d20 games.

I like how the heroes play, in some ways more than I like how D20 Modern characters work. They used the Insanity mechanic from Call of Cthulhu, a great idea since I think it’s one of the strengths of the Chaosium game. Through numeric and mechanical formulas it emulates how the characters lose their minds. If you have players that love role-playing it gives them an idea of how to play this. For the more mechanically minded there is the real fear of the ever shrinking Sanity. A very elegant mechanic indeed!

There is also the fact that the mythos creatures in the book can be used in other D20 games. Now I had the stats so my D&D character could conceivably fight Cthulhu. Ask my players, they will tell you there is always some Lovecraftian feel to my games, no matter the genre or the system.

Although the book is out of print there are resources out there for the enterprising GM. Yog-Sothoth.com has D20 conversions for various adventures, including the famous Masks of Nyarlathotep. There is even an online character generator. The characters in the PDF earlier in the post were actually rolled up to play Masks of Nyarlathotep. Imagine the D20 characters finding the journal, or letters from a long dead family member and how it draws them into the adventure… Call of Cthulhu D20 may be dead but definitely not forgotten!

1. Deities and Demigods, the Cthulhu Mythos: This was my very first contact with the Cthulhu Mythos! I had just begun playing D&D some months before when a neighbor had a garage sale. To my surprise and delight he had been a D&D player and was selling his collection. I purchased an early edition of Deities and Demigods for $10, one that included the Melnibonean Mythos and of course the Cthulhu Mythos.

The Erol Otus art captured my imagination; here were horrific creatures, pools of eyes and mouths, Cthulhu with its horrific stare. I read and re-read that chapter, but I never unleashed any of the more powerful creatures upon my unsuspecting players, some deep ones perhaps. I did roll the dice when they mentioned the name Hastur to see if the Unnamable One appeared. There was a 25% chance… Alas, he never did!

If you can get your hands on a copy I believe the Cthulhu Mythos as they appeared in Deities and Demigos would be great for old school games out there such as the Basic Fantasy Role Paying Game or OSRIC.

This first contact with things Lovecraftian began my long descent into the Lovecraftian world. It piqued my interest as well as that of some of my friends, it led to us playing Call of Cthulhu and my voracious reading of all things Lovecraft. This interest continues, I believe I’ve read most of what Lovecraft wrote and many of the stories inspired by the Mythos.

As a final note, I realize some of my Top 5 choices may seem a little dated (hey I’m not denying my age) and I may have missed some of the newer Cthulhu themed games out there. Some like Cthulhutech and Trail of Cthulhu I am yet to read and I am looking forward to the Realms of Cthulhu for Savage Worlds I already ordered (hey writing this had some effect on my wallet!). But I know my good friend Michael is a fan of the first two and has written about them before so even if they are not on the list I know they are well represented.

Well that’s all for now, the first Top 5 list is done!

What are your favorite Lovecraftian gaming products?

Related posts:

1. Lovecraftian Week: Roundup post
2. Review: Cthulhu Rising
3. Lovecraftian posts from the archives

Free as free software
1w6 has been released under two licenses. Everything available at the website (including the rules you can download in PDF format) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike-Non-Commercial license. But the creators of the game also offer a printed version which can be ordered directly from them or bought at some FLGS. This version has been released under the GNU General Public License.

Rules basics
A character in the EWS (Ein Würfel System) is described by traits and skills chosen freely by the player. Alternatively the GM may decide to use the attributes and skills from other games like GURPS or Fudge instead. Both traits and skills in normal humans are rated from 6 to 18. Action checks are made by rolling 1d6 and adding an appropriate trait or skill. If an even result is rolled it’s considered positive, odd results are negative. This method is called ±D6.
Usually the target number necessary to succeed is 9 or more.

Compatibility
The EWS was created with compatibility to two other games in mind: GURPS and Fudge. You get much more out of EWS if you have access to either one of these games. There’s even a sidebar containing detailed information on how you can convert advantages and disadvantages from these games to the EWS.

Presentation
I had a look at the German PDF version of the EWS, which is 52 pages long and contains character artwork from the computer game “Battle of Wesnoth” (which is also available under the GPL). The layout is one-columned with sidebars which contain additional information like designer’s notes and the like. There are a few editing errors, but nothing major. The production values are very decent for a free product.

Worlds and  Modules
The 1w6 website offers a SF setting for use with the system called RaumZeit (SpaceTime) and links to a few other websites which detail campaign worlds that are played using the EWS. Basically a GM should be able to play in every genre. There are also optional rules in form of modules available at the site which add magic, an initiative system, critical successes and failures and more to the game. “Modules” refers to the modular nature of the system which allows GMs to mix and match the rules to suit their preferences.

Conclusion
The EWS is definitely an interesting game, especially when you need a rules-light game with some compatibility to content created for Fudge or GURPS. Alas the rules are not available in English at this moment and the core rules don’t contain any rules for supernatural abilities like magic or super powers. But a resoruceful GM with a good grasp of the German language might put the EWS to good use.

Related posts:

1. [German RPGs] “Das Schwarze Auge” 1st Edition in English
2. First Look: The SKETCH System
3. Freebies: Who Watches the Watch Fires (AGE System)

Back in 1977 Metagaming released Melee a fast-playing man-to-man boardgame. Melee actually laid some of the basics for some of the GURPS rules. Each character had a Strength (ST) and Dexterity (DX) attribute back then. Strength was a measure of what weapons a character could use and how much damage he could inflict and take during combat. Dexterity determined the chance of hitting your opponents. Armor reduced the amount of damage taken.

When in 1978 Wizard was released, it added magic rules to Melee and another attribute was introduced: Intelligence (IQ). A high IQ attribute allowed characters to cast magic spells. Spellcasting caused temporary ST damage, limiting the amount of spells that could be cast. All this sounds already very much like what we know from GURPS.

In 1980 the third book in the series, In the Labyrinth, was released which finally turned Melee/Wizard into a fully-fledged roleplaying game. Melee and Wizard were rereleased as Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard which together with In the Labyrinth formed the basis of “The Fantasy Trip”.

In TFT each character had three attributes: Strength, (ST), Dexterity (DX) and Intelligence (IQ). IQ was however not only important for spellcasters, but for other characters, too, because of the introduction of a point-based skill system.

1980 Steve Jackson left the company and the owner of Metagaming decided to close down the company just three years later. Today, TFT, the spiritual predecessor of GURPS is long out of print, but recently Dark City Games have released some rules inspired by TFT:

• Legends (PDF)
• Time & Space (PDF)
• Untamed West (PDF)

All those PDFs are available for free and from what I’ve seen are pretty close to the original TFT. I also stumbled upon another tribute site to TFT that also features some nice paper models and a TFT Wiki.

I have to admit that I actually never heard of TFT before I started to do some research on GURPS recently and I was actually surprised that a) the game looks that much like GURPS already and b) that there are not more retro-clones of TFT. Or did I miss anything?

So, what are your thoughts on “The Fantasy Trip”? Have you actually played the game back in the day and would you like to play the game even today?

Related posts:

1. Freebie: Old-School Fantasy Character Pack
2. Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 3rd Edition Trailer
3. GURPS anyone?

From what I gather Steve Jackson Games is still one of the major RPG publishers and since they release new GURPS books regularly, I am pretty sure someone is buying their books, but it obviously plays only a minor role in the RPG blogosphere.

Did I just miss the GURPS-related posts or is GURPS on the decline?

Related posts:

1. What happened to the Girl Genius RPG?
2. Roleplaying in the Dune universe
3. The Fantasy Trip

Agatha is heterodyning!

This month’s blog carnival hosted by Mad Brew Labs is about Steampunk & Klokwerks. Steampunk is (as you probably know) one of my favourite genres and so it’s no surprise that I wanted to contribute the blog carnival. But for almost a whole month I couldn’t come up with something to write about. But then something finally ”sparked” in me.

When someone asks me what Steampunk is, I usually don’t give lengthy descriptions of all the aspects that make the Steampunk genre, I just show off one of my Girl Genius books. Girl Genius is the definitive steampunk comic series of our times. It has it all: Adventure, Romance, Mad Science. And it’s written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio, the people responsible for my favorite cartoon back from the days, when the Dragon Magazine was still in print: “What’s New with Phil & Dixie?”.

So, what is Girl Genius about? It’s the story about Agatha Heterodyne, heir to the famous Heterodyne family and a powerful Spark. Sparks are that what you would call a “Mad Scientist”. And when she’s building some strange contraption she actually acts pretty mad, but in most cases she is pretty benevolent. Alas not all Sparks are as nice as she is and a couple of years back, an evil Spark called “The Other” has attacked and only the Heterodyne Boys (Agatha’s dad and uncle) and Baron Wulfenbach could save Europe from being conquered by the “Other”. But today, the Heterodyne Boys are missing and Baron Wullfenbach rules the land with an iron fist. But since the series has been created by the Foglios you can expect a lot of weird humor. So, Girl Genius may not be your cup of tea if you like it dead-serious.

Dingbots to the rescue!

You can actually read all the stories about Agatha for free on the web. At www.girlgeniusonline.com Kaja and Phil Foglio release a new Girl Genius episode every second day or so.

A long time ago, the Foglios and Steve Jackson Games announced a Girl Genius RPG based on the 4th Edition of the GURPS rules, but alas the book isn’t out yet and I fear it could take some more months (or even longer) until we can finally get our hands on an actual copy. But don’t despair. There’s already a very nice GURPS Steampunk book. So, if you are into GURPS, you could pick up a copy of GURPS Steampunk and probably create a homebrew Girl Genius RPG.

Another alternative is Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds is one of the few RPGs that comes with Steampunk support built-in. One of the Arcane Backgrounds is Weird Science, an edge that allows characters to come up with all kinds of nice gizmos.

The power level of a newly created Weird Scientist in Savage Worlds may not be on par with a full-blown Spark in the Girl Genius world, but it’s not something you can’t fix.

While doing some research on Girl Genius I stumbled upon a pretty extensive Girl Genius wiki which includes a lot of background information on the setting. I also found a pretty complete Savage Worlds conversion on Emiricol’s Wikispace. I am pretty convinced you could pull off a GG campaign with “vanilla” Savage Worlds alone, but if you are looking for inspiration, it doesn’t hurt to have a look at this conversion. So, that concludes my contribution to this month’s blog carnival. As always I am interested in your thought? Have you ever thought about running a GG-inspired game? Are you waiting for the GURPS version or are you running a homebrew campaign?

Related posts:

1. What happened to the Girl Genius RPG?
2. What about the Genius Guide to Mystic Godlings? A review…
3. Coming Soon: Resolute, Adventurer & Genius