RPG REVIEW Issue #13 & #14, December 2011 Planescape and D20 Double Issue … A Crafty Interview … Pathfinder Planescape ... Assassins … Fantasy Craft ... Cthulhu … Existentialism … Movie and PC Games Reviews … Industry News … and more! 1 RPG REVIEW ISSUE THIRTEEN & FOURTEEN December 2011 Table of Contents Administrivia, Editorial by RPG Review p2-3 A Crafty Interview with Patrick Kapera and Alex Flagg p4-7 Hot Gossip: Industry News by Wu Mingshi p8 D20 History and Product Review by Lev Lafayette p9-18 Natasha Keshell: An AD&D Character by Stew Wilson p19-28 Effective Combat Tactics for Assassins by Johnn Four p24-26 Stop The Madness! by Poison Shadow p27-31 A Year With Fantasy Craft by Karl David Brown p32-44 The Shifted Soul: Pathfinder-Planescape by Felix Aplin p45-57 Planescape Spell Compendium by Felix Aplin p58-72 Planescape Charms by Felix Aplin p73-85 No Exit: An Existentialist D&D Scenario by Lev Lafayette p86-93 The Illogics of D&D by many people p94-98 D20 Orient Express and Nyarlathotep by Lev Lafayette p99-117 Recalculating Hit Points D&D 4e by Matt Stevens p118 PG Game Review: Virtual Villagers by Matt Lindus p119 Movie Review: Deathly Hallows by Andrew Moshos p120-124 Movie Review: Contagion by Andrew Moshos p124-127 Next Issue by many people p128 ADMINISTRIVIA RPG Review is a quarterly online magazine which is available in print version Real Soon Now. All material remains copyright to the authors except for the reprinting as noted in the first sentence. Various trademarks and images have been used in this magazine of review and criticism. This includes the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game by Paizo Publishing, Planescape by Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons by Wizards of the Coast, D20 by Wizards of the Coast, Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium, Deathly Hallows distributed by Warner Brothers, Contagion distributed by Warner Brothers. Any use of images, material etc, is not to be construed as a challenge to any intellectual property and is under "fair use". Text is in Nimbus Roman, headings in Nimbus Sans, front page in Utopia. Any errors or omissions are unintentional. The front cover image is from a Christies catalogue (lot item 4205385) for a Roman glass die from the second century CE. With an estimated value of $4000 to $6000 it sold for $17,925. There©s some seriously wealthy gamers out there. Any generous soul want to finance a fanzine? 2 RPG REVIEW ISSUE THIRTEEN & FOURTEEN December 2011 EDITORIAL Ain©t it dead yet? Apparently not. Whilst nominally marked as a double-issue for December 2011, we have embarked into the new year so auld lang syne and all that (no, not forgotten). But if the time is just a little out of line, the content certainly isn©t. This is indeed, a very substantial D20 and Planescape double issue of RPG Review; perhaps the most significant game-system (in sales, popularity and influence) which I©ve attempted to combine in one article along the many and varied permutations, combined with a veritable mountain of material for Planescape written by newcomer to our fold, Felix Aplin. Both are aptly helped with an interview with the two main minds from Crafty Games, responsible for Spycraft and Fantasy Craft, Patrick Kapera and Alex Flagg. Precursors and tangents from D20 are also included; generator of many characters, Stew Wilson, has provided an AD&D1e sample character thus providing both retrospective content as well as our regular sample NPC. Regular contributor Karl Brown provides his experience with a D20-like fantasy system with Fantasy Craft, where as Johnn Four provides a selection of tactics on assassins from his latest publication. For the most recent incarnation of D&D, Matt Stevens embarks on a valuable attempt to speed up combat by recalculating hit points. Because we believe in balance, a long-lost classic article by an anonymous 7th Sea fan who was not the least pleased with the D20 steamroller. For my own scenario contribution, light up a Gauloise, for there is an offering of an Existentialist D&D dungeon, guaranteed to drive the characters mad, plus conversion rules for two of the most popular Cthulhu campaigns. Newcomer Matt Lindus provides three short reviews of PC games and hopefully we©ll see more of his excellent material in future issues. Long-term hero Andrew Moshos gives us the sword (or laser) of Hollywood with reviews of two recent and very popular films, and last but not least, our dearest Minghsi tells all the news she©s received through her banyan vines. So what have we learned from the d20 experience? Well, actually the lesson is older than that. The lesson dates back to the generic nature of The Chaosium system, somewhat less so with the Rolemaster/Spacemaster system, and certainly with GURPS. A general rule that can be applied is that a well designed game system that satisfies a some level of realism and provides detailed flexibility can become a powerful force in the hobby. This has certainly been achieved with games that have had a ªsimulationistº or ªgamistº creative agenda, but less so with the newer, ªnarrativistº systems which, strongly associated with independent publications, are a little like the punk rock fanzines of the RPG world. Most of them are simply designed for a relatively short (several session) story with simple, if clever, rules are are remarkably lacking in detail. Even games which are explicitly orientated now towards being generic (e.g., the latest edition of HeroQuest) are somewhat lacking in this regard. So perhaps surprisingly, the lesson learned from D20 games is a lesson for narrativist games. Make one that is generic, flexible and detailed and perhaps we©ll see another D20-sized seismic shift in the hobby. Anyway enjoy the issue... and please consider writing, either an article or a letter for the next. It keeps editors enthused. Lev Lafayette ([email protected]) 3 RPG REVIEW ISSUE THIRTEEN & FOURTEEN December 2011 A CRAFTY INTERVIEW with Patrick Kapera and Alex Flagg Patrick Kapera and Alex Flagg developed Spycraft, the popular d20 and OGL modern action and espionage RPG first introduced in 2002 by Alderac Entertainment Group. They later founded Crafty Games (www.crafty-games.com) to take over where AEG left off, and created Fantasy Craft, a modular fantasy toolkit RPG using the same rules. They're currently working Spycraft Third Edition, along with a companion modern street crime game called Ten Thousand Bullets, but their latest release is the Mistborn Adventure Game, based on the best-selling novels by Brandon Sanderson (www.brandonsanderson.com). RPG REVIEW: Hello Pat and Alex and welcome to RPG Review. Let me begin which is a typical first question for people we interview here. How did you first get involved in roleplaying games? ALEX: For my part, I got involved with creating roleplaying games in college, where I met Will Hindmarch (line developer for Vampire, and most recently developer for Green Ronin's Dragon Age RPG). He was firing up a small company and we bantered around different ideas. I ended up leaving school not too long after, but the bug was started. After a few years working on video game projects, I found myself yearning for something different Ð so I turned back to my first love of RPGs. D20 was in full swing at the time, so I tried my hand at creating a d20 crime game called Ten Thousand Bullets. I was making good progress on what I expected to be a free release on the internet when I ran across a game called Spycraft. It had about 80% of what I was doing in my own game, so I wrote up AEG (in reality, Pat) and offered to make 10kB a Spycraft supplement instead. He was intrigued, and I brought an 80 page design document to show him at Gen Con 2002. I was hired on the spot. PAT: Oh the work I saddled Alex with in those early days... Good times. My start in the industry was very much an accident. I was attending a local show in Southern California and spotted an old friend behind a table at the AEG booth. It turned out he'd been hired as the editor for Shadis Magazine and when I asked whether they were hiring he introduced me to Maureen Yates, AEG's business manager at the time. She brought me on as an editorial intern under D.J. Trindle and I spent a few months tinkering with existing manuscripts. By the end of that time, however, I'd managed to write for two books and in one case produced enough material to get my name on the cover. At that point I think they felt obliged to hire me. RPG REVIEW: You both have a long list of credits associated with AEG. Would you care to reveal a little about working in the industry and with AEG in particular? ALEX: At AEG I was a mechanics freelancer, focusing on the Spycraft line and its subsidiaries, including Stargate: SG-1. Compared to the life of a company owner, it was pretty easy Ð have some meetings, grind out some copy, make some edits, collect a paycheck. As a guy who wrote web and print copy at the time, it was just like my day job, only with more math and a bit more creative license. 4 RPG REVIEW ISSUE THIRTEEN & FOURTEEN December 2011 PAT: My first few years at AEG remain the most fulfilling I've ever had. It wasn't just the fact that AEG was at the epicenter of a major revolution in the gaming industry, or the fact that I'd lucked into a dream gig at the head of one awesome product line after another..