Cryptworld Returns with Burial Plots

Cryptworld is the Goblinoid Games' edition of classic Chill, from the late, great Pacesetter games. If you haven't checked it out, you should! It's a slim but complete package, and is the best campy, hammer-horror inspired RPG on the market. You can run it straight (true horror) or you can run a game that leaves you convinced Bella Lugosi himself will come to haunt you along with Christopher Lee and George Romero.

Burial Plots is the third book in the line, and it was just released in both print and PDF. I was initially wondering if this would be worth getting, since I have never had an opportunity to actually run Cryptworld, but on reading the preview and immediately getting engaged with the scenario I realized I not only wanted this book, but I really need to run this game. Given that my group is now hooked on Call of Cthulhu, it may in fact be distinctly possible now to convince them to try Cryptworld out in the near future.....!

Anyway, check it out and if you're in to it, grab a copy. I'm really enjoying reading the PDF and have ordered the print edition.

Digging through the Shelves: Cryptworld, GURPS, Mutants & Masterminds and CoC vs. Minimalist Ideals

In excavating my collection I have run across some gems I had forgotten about...which only complicates my plan to go minimalist (or at least make a vague effort at such).

Cryptworld, for example. What a great game this is! I like Chill 3rd edition, but you know what I'm still doing with that book months after purchasing it? Still reading it, or trying to find the time to absorb it. Cryptworld, however....I read and finished that over a weekend, and was ready to run it. Add Majus, Rotworld and Time Master in to the mix and you have a very nice set of genre-building tools using the Pacesetter system. Daniel Proctor needs to produce a sci fi setting for Pacesetter, and the system will be complete--anyone else remember Star Aces? My underestanding is Star Aces exists in the hands of someone else now, but Goblinoid Games should be able to do their own SF take on the rules.

I think I'll keep Cryptworld and the other Pacesetter games, and maybe I should get serious about running them. In fact this exercise in shedding games has led me to ordering Monsters Macabre finally...so now I'm losing ground...

I have been eyeballing my Mutants & Masterminds collection as well. In principle it fits the profile of a game I need to ditch:

1. I have a ton of books for a game I haven't run since it's first edition sometime around 2003
2. I have read probably 5% of those books
3. The system while intriguing clearly demands more time than I have and competes with other games that will provide the same experience with far less effort
4. By the time I am ready to take an interest it will almost certainly be outdated by a 4th edition

MnM 3E fits that profile well, but the books are so gorgeous, and if I only had the time I know I'd love to delve deep into its mysteries. Plus, the DC editions (pre New-52 data however, so YMMV on what that means). Sigh. Into the "out bin."

Then there's GURPS, the game I haven't run something for since 2008 but which remains the one game system I feel would be a reasonable RPG to have on the proverbial desert island. But....I haven't run it in ages. And Steve Jackson Games has more or less migrated the 4th edition of GURPS into an evergreen status with a steady stream of fun PDF releases targeted at the 400 or so GURPS fans left on the internet. They have Munchkin now, and seem to have no further interest in keeping the RPG alive. Should I still care about this system?

Well, I did pick up their three new After the End* PDFs they just released, so I guess my GURPS investment isn't over with yet. And I have narrowed this collection down to  just a fraction of it's original size.....I guess I'll give what I have left a pass.

Call of Cthulhu? 7th Edition still isn't out and I won't order it until it's actually described as a real thing you can order immediately. They could still have a ship sink or a warehouse fire....but what about all my CoC 6th stuff? Some of it I can ditch, having bought it purely out of purile interest....but most of it is gaming stuff I have used, sometimes a lot, and value just for the reading experience alone, never mind its bounty for gaming. Still, once 7th edition is here I might find it a lot easier to ditch much of my 6E product. We'll see.

Gah...minimalism is hard.....

*Check them out by the way. At LONG LAST GURPS has a series of sourcebooks directly supporting Fallout/Boy and His Dog?Mad Max/Gamma World gaming and the three books currently out are awesome. 

Other Genres You can do with the Pacesetter Game Engine

I've been playing a lot of Assassin's Creed II lately, since I happen to really like the series but am way behind the curve on catching up to the most recent release (Black Flag). Assassin's Creed is a great game series because it blends interesting historical fiction with open world environments and endless Machiavellian plotting with a strong, regular dose of ongoing assassinations. Each entry in the series has focused on a different time period, and Ubisoft (the developer) has done a fantastic job in each series of making the video-game version of each time period pop into its own strange life. If you're unfamiliar with the series they have focused on the middle east in the Crusades, Italy in the late 1470-1480's, The United States before and during the revolutionary war, French-owned Louisiana and most recently the turbulent Caribbean during the height of the age of piracy.

For me, right now, the AC series is the antidote to the "Too Many Crew-Cut (possibly Space) Marines" problem that masquerades as character and plot for most video games these days. It's pretty bad when someone who normally enjoys a good space marine game like myself realizes that even he has his limits!

Anyway, playing the series got me to thinking about regular tabletop RPGs (as any truly good CRPG should inspire you to; and I do think of the AC games as being akin to RPGs). Specifically it reminded me that Steve Jackson Games had published two setting books a few years back, one for the Crusades and the other for Renaissance Italy. No coincidence that they chose to focus on those time periods, it was clearly an effort on SJG's part to fill a quick gap for the people centered in the venn diagram of "video gamers who played the AC series" and "video gamers who know what GURPS is," coupled with "gamers who know GURPS isn't dead it's just in that special realm of perpetual PDF online support for the base."

The sourcebooks are both really good, providing a concise overview of the respective time periods with minimal rules fuss, so you could use them with any game system, pretty much. That got me to thinking about just what game system I would use, were I to try and run a historical campaign in one of these time periods. BRP came to mind, of course....but then I realized that I recently reacquainted myself with the perfect system for this sort of thing, and it may even have enough content out that I could run the game with no gaps to fill: The Pacesetter System!

Goblinid's revival of Pacesetter has presented us with (so far) four rule books. The Time Master reprint would be a shoe-in, no doubt, although if you want an authentic non-time-travelling experience you might want to add Majus to the roster of inspiration as well. If you've played the AC series you know that while 99.9% of it is played straight and boils down to a story about two rival factions vying for Illuminati-like control over a long period of history (well, one faction does that and the other tries to kill them a lot), those of you who've actually finished a game or two in the series know that at a certain point the weirdness goes deep and some strange stuff creeps in; don't worry, Pacesetter's got that covered.

In fact, using these source books plus Majus, Time Master and/or Cryptworld is pretty much all you need to run any sort of weird historical game you could want. I think I'm going to try this next.

The Many Days of Horror! - Cryptworld

I could almost call this month "The Many Days of 80's Horror Memorabilia" and pretty much be about right. Cryptworld owes its existence to a gutsy publisher in the 80's called Pacesetter, which was founded by people who thought the best way to tackle the RPG market was in the same manner as TSR, by publishing accessible games in boxed sets aimed at mass distribution. They produced Timemaster, Chill and Star Ace, with many supplements for each. Oddly their lineup did not include a direct competitor to D&D.....no fantasy Pacesetter game, in other words. Instead they were competing with Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu and (apparently) nothing because outside of Man, Myth & Magic I don't think anyone was crazy enough to aim at some sort of historical time traveling game back then (or now for that matter....)

Chill survived its founding company, to return in a second edition through Mayfair Games which was a late 80's/early 90's icon of gaming for many (myself included) with both Chill, DC Heroes and a plethora of Role-Aids adventures and source books designed for unofficial use with AD&D. Eventually Mayfair succumbed and shrank to whatever sort of board game company it remains (board gamers probably can speak much more on this than I) and Chill died with it. Rumors and website suggesting a revitalization lurk in the woodwork, but meanwhile Daniel Procter went and did one better: can't get the Chill license? Who cares! Buy Pacesetter whole cloth along with the core mechanics. Boom: first Rotworld, a zombie survival game and now Cryptworld, a Hammer Horror simulator are back on the scene and the Pacesetter game system is officially a thing again. I eagerly look forward to the not-Star Frontiers-alike that is hopefully in the near future! Did Goblinoid Games get the full Star Ace license, maybe? That would be cool.

So what is Cryptworld? I liken it to a classic movie monster and Hammer Horror simulator. It can reasonably do any horror, sure...but the game's monstrous roster is slanted toward the classics --and before any young'uns ask, no the Mythos aren't really considered a part of this camp. Think Bram Stroker, Bela Lugosi, the Swamp Man, Frankenstein and all that. Cryptworld moves the horror dial slightly ahead as well by including some noted cryptids and a few other analog monsters representing a myriad variety of contemporary threats from film and fiction, such as cannibal hillbillies, the chupacabra, "criswells," and more.

How does Cryptworld play? If you're the target audience then you probably have fond memories of checking off circles/boxes for stamina and tracking percentile-based stats while referring to an action table. This is the same game system, and the action table has only been modified to reflect gray scales for differing degrees of difficulty/success. The game system is really very simple and straight-forward. Its more suited to short stories and campaigns of a few sessions in length (imo) but character advancement rules are an option, in which you accrue lots of XP and spend it to gain incremental bonuses in your stats.

The Cryptworld/Pacesetter system is skill-focused and you wont find any feats or special abilities here, just normal people against the tide of evil. Rules are included for paranormal talents, which largely consist of abilities you'd see in genre fiction and film prior to 1979. There are optional rules for handling fear as a mechanic, too.

The rest of the game mechanics are no-nonsense and can simulate a variety of contemporary or historical genres easily enough. The art throughout the book is good. There's a nice little section on running horror games. The whole book comes in at 90 pages, but its absolutely everything you could want to run a fun session or ten of macabre horror adventures, simulating anything from schlock Hammer Horror films to something more modern and X-Filesish.

Cryptworld will appeal greatly to fans of light but robust game systems that come entirely in a single tome. It's fully compatible with Rotworld, so you can use one to enhance the other as well. The core mechanics are solid and function well for their intended purpose. If you already have a default go-to system (i.e. BRP) for such games I'm not sure Cryptworld will sway you away from using them (though it might inspire you), but if you've been looking for something like a dedicated non mythos horror system that also eschews the weirder contemporary horror tropes in favor of classic takes on the theme, then I think you ought to investigate Cryptworld further.

A+

Cryptworld, the game formerly known as Chill returns plus Astounding Adventures Astounds!

As my blog methodically chruns out my "30 Days of D&D" posts I have a confession: I've hardly been present throughout the process! I've been working my ass off....almost literally (but not really, still a desk job) and all of my "30 Days" blogs plus a few more were pre-loaded nearly a month ago.

The new job is demanding...very demanding, but the risk/reward ratio is high in a good way. Potential failure and doom? Check. Awesome pay-out and long-term gain? Check. Either way, it's kept me up to my eyeballs in the mundane world and away from more trivial amusements like blogging.

That said, I am still accruing various books in my "to be read" shelf, and within the last two days I acquired copies of both Cryptworld and Astounding Adventures. Cool stuff! I really love AA, have been reading it since I returned home, and it's exactly what a BRP fan would want out of a pulp adventures sourcebook. Cryptworld is a resurrection of classic 1st edition Chill from pacesetter under a slightly different name....and if you're a fan of classic movie monsters and Hammer horror films, then Cryptworld is absolutely for you. It's also a full game in only 90 pages, which is the sort of miracle only Goblinoid Games can pull off. Use it with Rotworld for extra zombie goodness, too!

I was disappointed with Atomic Cthulhu, I admit....but Astounding Adventures more than makes up for it. A good utility book for GMs running pulp tales.

There comes a time when one has to admit, "I will absolutely buy --and play-- anything Goblinoid Games puts out." I passed that time with Starships & Spacemen 2nd edition, but Cryptworld just hammers the point home. Daniel Procter is akin to a classic gaming god, whose portfolio includes the domains of "Eighties Geek Coolness" and "Retro Gaming."