Not Quite Review Corner: Never Going Home (Wet Ink)

The setting is the real Earth and the characters are all humans. A terrible new element has been added to the war, but the true horrors of the real war are part of the story as well. The game is set in the years between when the Veil was torn in 1916 and when the war really ended in 1918. The focus is on the front-line soldiers who are fighting and experiencing the worst of the magic and monsters. There is some mention made of, but little exploration of, the “home fronts” of any of the belligerents and civilians only appear in passing …

Wet Ink Games

First published via Kickstarter this has since become a multi-volume horror RPG setting. I never knew about the KS; I picked up some (but not all) of the books via DTRPG.

This is a folk horror setting that presumes the belligerents all discover – whether by accident or design – occult powers which they instantly weaponize, shortly after (during?) the battle of the Somme. Their continuing abuse of those powers causes catastrophe, as those occult powers start taking over the armies of the world. Your allies become your enemies. Your officers are now leading the forces of the abyss. There’s still a war on; you’re just not sure who you’re fighting for.

The only thing you know for certain is you’re never going home …

The idea intrigued the hell out of me when I saw it on a friend’s bookshelf but I wasn’t that keen on picking up physical when .pdf would do nicely, please and thank you. Having read, I’m still intrigued, but a little more puzzled than intrigued.

It’s a strong idea. It just doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

The main book lays out the basic premise and then gives you three scenarios, presumably meant to be an introduction to the setting: the Belly of the Beast, the Lamps, and Sword Quest.

Sword Quest?

Sword Quest.

The whole thing’s only about a hundred pages so it can’t cover everything, which is a pity because the war alone could eat up several thousand pages. About 28 pages go on background material – no man’s land, allies, central powers, world at war – and another 30-ish pages go on rules stuff. The rest is adversaries and scenarios. The other books go into more detail (I particularly like Tears in the Sea, which focuses on U-Boat adventures) but in the main book much of the war is sketched in. There isn’t much attention paid to the air war, for instance. Tanks are essentially a McGuffin in one scenario but don’t otherwise affect the narrative. There’s almost no mention of any location other than France; this is all about the Western Front. (the Japanese appear to be missing in action). There are other sourcebooks; I’m focusing on the main book.

Want to shoot something? Roll 1D6 per dot of training in Ranged; two dots, say, equal 2 dice. If you roll 5 or 6 on a die, that’s a success. If your number of successes meets or exceeds the Target Number (the system’s way of designating Difficulty) yay! If not, boo. 

You can adjust your result by manipulating the roll, using a relevant attribute (Guts, Smarts, Brawn). Add extra dice, push a failure to a success, reroll dice. Pray you have sufficient attribute to make a difference when the chips are down.

What will you be shooting at?

Oh, dear. Whatever it is, it can probably tear your face off with consummate ease.

This is where the game really starts to shine: superlative antagonist design. Hideous, nightmarish Silent Hill types which stagger out of the Veil to do harm. Everything from mischievous little trench Gremlins to the shambling Skin Thieves and Cackling Horrors, these long-leggedy beasties will have your players wishing they were anywhere but here.

All of which seems very Purist, to borrow a Trail of Cthulhu term. This isn’t one of those games where your characters turn up, mow down fools with their machine guns, then retire for tea and biscuits. This is a game where even if you win, you probably die. Or become part of the cults and groups of madmen who want to take over the battlefield and, by extension, the world.   

Then there’s the scenarios, and I can feel the wheels beginning to fall off the wagon.

Belly of the Beast is interesting. It introduces the main dilemma of the ongoing narrative – the occult is creeping in, and our superiors are embracing it – and reinforces it when the characters’ officer orders them to do something unspeakable. So far, so in keeping with the central idea.

Then there’s the Lamps, where cultists gather victims to power a ritual to summon a giant bat.

Hm. Giant Bat, eh? It’s certainly .. monstrous … but I can’t help but wonder if we’ve lost focus. The other scenario was tied directly to the war. This one could be taking place anywhere in any system or setting; I can picture it in any standard D&D scenario book, and you wouldn’t need to change much, if anything. Put it in Baldur’s Gate and the only variable would be which character decides to seduce the bat.

Then we have Sword Quest, where Merlyn entices a PC to pull a magic sword from a something-or-other to become the King of all Blah-blah. Which is where the wagon loses its last remaining wheel. 

It looked Purist. Then Ash Williams showed up and Purist went out the window.

Deathwatch

The Bunker

Up to this point I’ve been picturing this as a kind of creepy Deathwatch, Bunker, R-Point, Dog Soldiers kind of setting. Horror with a strong dose of noir. The setting is by definition larger than the characters; if they fail, it’s usually because they were crushed and beaten by the situation. That’s still the case; the characters are going to be crushed and beaten by the situation.

What is the situation? 

This is the first mechanized war, the first modern total war. The flowering of the propaganda machine. Motorized transport brings millions to the lines. This is a war where cruise liners were repainted and armed for conflict; where the German liner Cap Trafalgar engaged the British liner Carmania in a gun battle near Trindade and Martim Vaz archipelago, and the remains of Cap Trafalgar with all its finery, crystal and sun gardens is at the bottom of the ocean even today as a reminder. A war where giant gasbags floated over London and dropped bombs in the heart of the city. Where Paris woke and went to bed with artillery fire ringing in its ears. Where troops from all over the world were brought to a place they’d never heard of, to die. Where the Newfoundland Regiment was wiped out in 15 minutes at the Somme, almost to a man.

It makes perfect sense that all the belligerents would adopt occult methods to attain their war aims if they were proven even somewhat effective. After all, they used flamethrowers and poison gas, trench guns and mortars. They took the Wright Brothers’ gift to mankind and turned it into an engine of death. What difference do a few demons make to that bubbling cauldron?

Sometimes this works. The Disfigured, Trench Gremlins, Blightworms, Carrier Pigeons, Flaming Aces, Hellfighter Tanks – these work with the setting and design intent.  Others … well, they could be in any horror game. 

I’m just not sure were the giant bat fits in. Or the Arthurian quest for Welsh magic swords. (Arthurian? Really? Why? We’re not even in Brittany.) There’s a strong central concept here bursting with horror, but I wonder if everyone involved in the project got the memo. Where’s the war? The grinding, mechanized, bloody-teeth war? Is it hiding under the bed?

It feels at times as if the war is just an excuse for gribbly beasties to slaver a bit so the characters can shoot at them. Not so much horror. A little D&D-ish. The mission design doesn’t help. The characters are given a mission: go here, do this. They go there and do that. As a result there is another mission: go here, do another thing. And so on and on. There’s not much investigation, not much input from the players at all, really; they go there, do that.

All that aside: I do like the idea, and I like the setting. Some of the antagonist design is the best I’ve seen in a horror product. I would definitely run this as a one-shot. 

There’s just not as much there there as I would like.

Not Quite Review Corner: Jiangshi: Blood In The Banquet Hall (Wet Ink Games)

 

OK, I do have a Solo Ops post written and ready to go, but this arrived on Friday and I just cannot wait to talk about it.

Jiansghi: Blood in the Banquet Hall is a Kickstarter from way, way back in the mist-shrouded Before Times - that is, before COVID and before the UK's exit from the EU - with an original projected physical release of Nov 2020 (or Oct 2020 for the .pdf version). It funded on its first day and has gone from strength to strength ever since. I spotted it during the campaign and Tweeted about it, backed it to .pdf level and later upped my pledge to physical.

Time makes a mock of us all, and especially enjoys poking fun at Kickstarter release dates. It wasn't until late last year that the physical went out, and what with COVID and other shipping issues I didn't get my copy until this week.

O boy o boy o boy!

Mr. Vampire, Sammo Hung, courtesy of Eureka

It's no secret I love horror, and vampire films, and things that go argh! in the night. So when something floated into view that, on closer inspection, not only fulfilled all of those wants but also gave me something very close to Bookhounds of London, another of my fave settings, I had to give this a shot. Above all else, I particularly loved the thought of being able to play a kind of Mr. Vampire hybrid, except rather than being exorcists operating a funeral parlor your characters are owners/operators of a Chinese restaurant. What's not to like?

Physically this is a very beautiful product, with evocative art both color and otherwise. The central board operates as a time tracker and organizer, showing you where you are and what you ought to be doing at each given step in the process. You, the characters, each have a sheet with all kinds of stuff showing you what you might be able to do, how well you can do it, what you have to do it with, and so on. The board's in the center, your characters on the periphery, and the whole thing operates like a Catherine wheel of options, spinning like a top and throwing off sparks.

I really want to see this in play. In my minds eye it looks like a restaurant place setting, with the main dish in the center and each person's plate at the periphery, as we all sample the available options.

As the restaurant's owners/operators, your primary duty is to keep the restaurant running because the restaurant, that shared responsibility, is what keeps the family together. If if fails, then everything, including the family, falls apart. 

In order to do that you need to accomplish tasks, everything from keeping the place clean to cooking and serving to bribing the cops to a dozen and one different things, and if you fail in one task then it will be harder to accomplish the next. A cascading failure is always on the horizon, and it's your responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen.

Meanwhile each of you have your individual hopes and dreams that you're trying to fulfil, independent of any obligations you might have to your family. Balancing your personal needs against the needs of the family is what keeps your character going, and just like the restaurant there are plenty of obstacles that might prevent you from fulfilling those personal needs.

As if all that wasn't bad enough there are vampires, the dreaded Jiangshi, lurking in the shadows and making things much, much worse for everyone involved. If the characters fall under their influence then they become sick, and so find their daily tasks that much more difficult. Become infected with their disease and you might become a Jianghsi yourself, turning against the family and making their lives much more difficult. 

Mechanically all this is accomplished via cards and dice, and played through in Scenes which represent the passing phases of the day. Morning, when everything is prepped. Afternoon when food service starts. Evening, when the Jiangshi make their presence known, and Dead of Night, when the restaurant shuts and the Jiangshi's power is at its peak. 

In each Scene one or more characters will have stuff to do, and how well they achieve their goals determines plot progression. The characters only have 6 working hours in the day to distribute between the various tasks, and if they've been infected by Jiangshi or the restaurant has accumulated Neglect, both of which is represented by cards on the board or on the character sheet, then they won't be operating at full strength. That means they have less time, fewer options, which makes it more difficult to accomplish tasks. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold ... 

It's easy to see how, even without the Jiangshi, if the characters are selfish and devote more time to their personal goals than they do to the shared goal of the restaurant, the family will fall apart. The Jiangshi is an added stressor, one they really don't need, but if they band together the family has a chance. A good chance? Eh ... 

It's a d8 system, low being bad news, 5-6 being success with consequences, 7-8 being critical success. A roll of 4 is especially awful because 4, the Death number, cancels out a success. Therefore it's possible to roll 0, if you roll only one success in your pool and accumulate one or more 4s. A result of 0 is a critical fail, with nasty consequences. You can accumulate bonuses and extra dice if everything's going well, but if Neglect or infection has blocked off those options then it's just you, the dice, and a famished Jiangshi waiting for you to let your guard down.

While it's very definitely a horror game the true nightmare isn't so much that dusty bloodsucker lurking in the shadows. The nightmare is the collective failure of the family. If the family fails, then everything falls apart and the game - the story - is over. That lends this narrative - and it is a narrative far more than it is a game - a personal punch that RPGs like it lack.

Consider Bookhounds of London. There the central conceit is the Bookstore, which all the characters operate and possibly also own. If one character fails or falls, that doesn't really affect the Bookstore, because ultimately in that game the Store is simply an excuse for the characters to be together as a group. It serves the same function as Delta Green or Ordo Veritatis. It provides flavor and shared backstory, but has no real influence in play and will survive even if the characters fall. 

That isn't the case here. The characters are together as a group and the restaurant is the proof of their group solidarity. If the restaurant is failing, that's because the group is unravelling. If the restaurant goes under, that's proof that the family has disintegrated. In short, the Store is more than an excuse for the characters to coexist; the Store is evidence that the characters are successfully coexisting. 

You might have noticed that, unlike, say, Troubleshooters, I've had nothing to quibble about so far. Nor will I quibble. This is a solid, well-thought-out and well-designed product. Nothing here to make me go Eeek! or question why an image indicates one thing and the text another. Designers Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim, with their horde of co-conspirators, have put together something that's beautiful, functional, and inspirational.

Together with the board, cards, dice, character sheets and other bits come two very interesting books. The first, the main game book, includes everything you need to play the game and also a brilliant explanation of the setting, its history, Gods, Qui, religion, vampires and other supernatural creatures, and plenty more besides. The second book, Haunted Tales, includes eighteen horrifying scenarios for you and your group ranging from historic to modern day, with side orders of Mexican, Filipino, Jewish, African American and Islamic stories, each with their own particular supernatural problems and concerns.

There's a lot to love, and I hope you'll love it as much as I. 

Want to know more? Hop over here!