Just a quick update today thanks to a busy week at work, but given these posts are all about retro-covers, I thought that it was about time to break out some Vampire: The Masquerade.
As I've mentioned previously, White Wolf's Storyteller series was the big game in the mid and late nineties, which coincided with my roleplaying youth. Although Vampire wasn't my favourite of the series, it was the most popular and the one which defines the series from the very start. That's not to say I didn't like it, as I certainly did, and played it a lot in both the tabletop and live action form.
The clanbook series established the format of producing a splatbook for the different factions in the various different games. They were short (about 30-40 pages) and comparatively cheap, but as they were written by different authors, the quality was variable.
Clanbook: Tremere is an interesting example, as it was one of the better ones in my opinion. I mean, who wouldn't want to play a blood magic wielding vampire warlock? I haven't read it in years, but I remember it containing good information on Thaumaturgy and the byzantine organisation of the Tremere clan. It was certainly one of the best clanbook to build of cohesive vision of a clan, as opposed to a collection of stereotypes (looking at you, Clanbook: Brujah)
Part of its quality is due to the fact it was written by Keith 'Doc' Herber of Call of Cthulhu fame. Herber makes some less than subtle nods to this, including the Servants of the Worm, who own the Necronomicon and worship Cthulhu. In fact, it is Herber who does much in this work to build the tightly woven conspiracy that lies at the heart of clan Tremere.
Do the rest of you remember the original clanbooks? Do you have a favourite?
Below is a little novelisation of an epic combat from Rogue Trader last night:
The Bull and the Wasp
The battle raged on and around the alien temple. On the top of the temple The Elder desperately tried to complete their eldritch ritual to shift the sacred structure to another plane, while the competing Rogue Traders below were equally determined to prevent this happening.
With his head still swimming from the strange xeno’s blast of psychic energy, Maarn leap to his feet and charged the Elder Warlock, who had descended to hold off the avaricious humans. Screaming his primitive cry of battle, Maarn unsheathed his great sword from over his shoulder and swung at his eldarian enemy.
The graceful alien psyker easily stepped aside the raging human’s clumsy strike. The runes on the Elder’s witchblade glowed with blue energy, and with preternatural grace and speed he struck a blow on Maarn’s head, slicing deep and opening a gushing scalp wound.
Maarn stumbled backwards with blood rushing down his face and into his eyes and mouth. Knowing he could not match the Elder in speed, he took advantage of a momentary lapse in concentration by his arcane foe as Andreas and Ezekiel joined the fray. Stepping forward, Maarn focused his rage and rammed his skull into the arcane and rune encrusted helmet of the xeno.
The Warlock was caught off guard and fell to the ground with his helmet cracking. Pushing his advantage, Maarn drove his sword into the Elder’s stomach, slicing through its exotic and forbidden armour. The Elder barely filched as the sword drove through it and into the ground below, though all those nearby felt the energy present.
Maarn, his head wound still gushing, and the Warlock stared at each other with icy hate, each tensing for their next move. As the Warlock prepared for its strike, a series of explosions from the top of the temple broke the tension of the moment. As the Elder started to teleport away, Maarn howled in outrage as his foe at his feet sneered at him and dematerialised before his eyes.
In a blaze of 1980's glory comes Twilight 2000! You better watch out Warsaw Pact loving Soviets.
Twilight 2000 was never a game I owned, or even played, but is one I have always found interesting. The game is set in the murky world of the aftermath of World War 3, in which the characters are members of military units who find themselves stranded in Central Europe. They must then decide what lives to make for themselves, whether that be trying to make the long journey home, keep fighting the war, becoming a mercenary or simply surviving.
The game took as its inspiration the cold war paranoia that dominated the 1970-80 which dominated much of the media of the time. The game paid close attention to detail, with limited supplies meaning that every bullet, litre of fuel or ration pack was important. Why this doesn't necessarily sound fun, it certainly makes player choice really important, and this finds expression in the modern day post-Apocalyptic vibe found in games like the Fallout series or TV shows like The Walking Dead.
Part of the interest for me in this game is that it really feels like a historical artefact, unlike many roleplaying games who are set in a less specific place in time. Only being nine or so when the Soviet Union split up, the world described in this game is very different to the one I grew up with in the 1990s. Although efforts were made to revise the game during its lifetime, these never quite compared to the original.
Ironically, an updated version of Twilight 2000 set in the hypothetical now makes a lot more sense. The Middle East after a limited nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran is a viable setting for a game with a similar aesthetic. Throw in the Caucuses and the Central Asian Republics, and combine it with Predator Drones and IEDs, and you could have a pretty compelling narrative.
The cover above comes from the second edition of the rule book from 1990. It betrays its vintage with the gratuitous use of headbands and some fierce mullets. It also reminds me a lot of a military colouring book I had when I was a kid, and those Osprey military books.
The original Twilight 2000 has been reprinted and is available in PDF. I haven't picked it up yet, but it's a game I would really like to play or run at least once is some form, if only to scratch a long held itch.
I am back in Wellington after a long weekend away up in Auckland with the in-laws. It was really nice, but I'm feeling pretty wiped. I feel like I may be coming down with a cold as well, so it will be an early night for me.
However a nice surprise was that my copy of the RPG Umläut: Game of Metal was in the letterbox waiting for me when I got home. Umläut was one of the games I spotted in the Games on Demand room at Kapcon earlier in the year. It is a GM-less game where each player creates and plays a heavy metal band seeking fame and fortune. Given the fondness I and my fellow ex-Hamiltonian friends have for heavy metal (being of good bogan stock), I knew this would be a good choice.
I can't say much yet, but I understand it operates in a similar style to Piledrivers and Powerbombs where there are set pre-gig, gig and post-gig scenes in which the different bands try and gain more points than each other. Conflict resolution is done using playing cards, which makes it quick and effective.
I'll read it through and round up the lads for a few games before I post on it next, but in the mean time I'll leave you with this handy metal chronology to prepare you.
It's time to introduce a new regular feature for the blog, called Retro-cover Wednesdays. Basically I plan to once a week post an old cover from my roleplaying past, along with a few musings that it inspires. Hopefully it'll be entertaining for all and keep my content at least a little more regular.
So the first cover I wanted to write about was from an old Cyberpunk 2020 supplement called Maximum Metal: High-Powered Ordinance for Cyberpunk 2020. As I've mentioned before, Cyberpunk 2020 was my first roleplaying game, so unlike many of you who were calculating THACO and figuring out the damage of a magic missle as a young kid, I was working out the SP of Kevlar skinweave against a Baretta 9mm. I need to write a longer post about this game that I love, but suffice to say these days it really hits those nostalgia buttons for me.
Maximum Metal dates from 1993 and has rules and stats for military vehicles and weapons. The material in this book runs the gambit from the realtively mundane (motorbikes, trucks and tanks) to the more exotic (battle zeppelins and powered armour). While the weapons and vehicles discussed are high powered, they are well supported with some pretty sound rules, and GMs are provided with a heavy caveat that this material is not to be used lightly.
While Maximum Metal has attracted some criticism for going away from the gritty, urban setting of the source material, there was always a slight thrill if during a game our GM picked it up and started looking through it, as it was a signal to us that sh*t was about to get real. The powered armour seemed particularly cool to us as a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds, though in hindsight the cheese does seem pretty evident.
If I were ever to run a Cyberpunk game again (which is, sadly, highly unlikely), I would keep Maximum Metal in my GM's arsenal. Perhaps it would never seen the light of day in the game, but, like any other deterrent, it would be a good thing to have on hand for unwise player decisions.
