Pacesetter Action Table Cards

I've been thoroughly immersed in the revival of Pacesetter that Goblinoid Games has spearheaded. In addition to Cryptworld and Rotworld GG also has Majus out, which I secured a copy of recently through rpgnow. I plan to do a formal review soon, but Majus is a different take on the weird occult genre, with some nice historical twists. On top of that I finally ordered Timemaster's reprint with Lulu's recent 40% off sale. Eager to check out the classic, which I haven't seen in close to thirty years!

In addition to the actual games there are the Action Table Cards, which are available in four flavors, one for each game. I just got mine in the mail today, and wanted to give you a quick review on what they are and how they work:

Short version, these are glossy full-color card-stock cards, about 8"X10" in size, featuring the game cover of choice on one side and the full color action table on the other side. If you have one card that's technically all you need, but you can get a different card for each game for $1.00 each, so they're very reasonably priced. I picked up one for each Pacesetter title currently out, but I may pick up more to serve as player utilities, too. I plan on running some Pacesetter games, and soon, actually! May even get some scenario material up on the blog soon when time permits.

If you like the Pacesetter games and what they offer, the cards are a cheap addition and make the colorized action tables easy and accessible. Well worth picking up if you plan on running Cryptworld, Majus, Timemaster or Rotworld anytime soon! Not quite as versatile as a CM (Crypt Master) screen, I admit, but the fact that rpgnow offers this sort of product gives me hope they'll expand into screens eventually, too.

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."

Majus Kickstarter

Goblinoid Games is prepping to release another Pacesetter-System powered RPG: Majus. The premise sounds a bit like something in the vein of Unknown Armies and Mage: The Ascension, featuring a world of gifted sorcerers (the Maji) who try to control the mysteries of the skein (reality?) in a game of intrigue and conflict (the mehen).

I was uncertain of these references at first, but mehen is a thing, it turns out, and the use of the term here seems especially apt and intriguing.  Majus, of course, is a variation on the term magus, which stems from old Zoroastrianism (wiki here). In games like this one its really important to establish some mytho-historic street cred by referencing upon and drawing from real world myth to create a genuinely interesting modern supernaturalism on which to hang everything, and from what I've read so far it sounds like they've got the trappings to do the job so far, or at least the gist of it.

Anyway, I also like that the Kiskstarter for this is sincere and up front about "this is what it will cost, and we're not muddying the water with stretch goals." Damn straight I'm backing this now! Too many Kickstarters seem to trip themselves up by promising the sun and moon. Goblinoid Games can and will deliver, so count me in.

This Week in RPGs: Remnants, Maschine Zeit, Starships & Spacemen, Beyond Red Crater, and Over the Edge

At long last and after an address snafu (which the customer service at OneBookShelf fixed immediately and to their credit, even though the error was mine) I now have the print versions of Maschine Zeit and Remnants. I've been reading both in electronic format, but not perhaps as dilligently as I would like; for me, games seem to work better in the print medium, and the PDFs are just more effectively useful as quick references, not for reading.

I'll post more about those two soon, but some quick comments:



Remnants is a "post-apocalyptic giant Kaiju vs. relic mecha" adventure setting with a nice ruleset to support it. The book is concise and well-written, with the setting content front-loaded and the rules in back (a popular indie style). It's a tight game, and I really plan to run this soon.

Remnants just got its first expansion book as well: The Broken Lands is $6 in PDF right now and having just downloaded it I shall include details on it as well in my Remnants review, which I'll hopefully get to in a week or two at the most. I can tell you right now, the review's going to be one of those fanboy gushy ones, I really like this game.



Maschine Zeit is inspired by the "haunted space station (or ship)" genre of horror SF. It's heavy on the expository fake clippings and bits of text that string together to form some sort of campaign picture. I am still wading through this one, as the PDF version wasn't quite as optimal as Remnants was for easy reading. The rules, as I've scanned through them so far, are really minimalist. Not sure if this is going to prove to be a better "idea/inspiration" book for a preferred system (i.e GURPS or BRP) or if it will stand on its own legs. I'm not a minimalist storyteller style rules kind of guy....I like a bit of meat on my games. We shall see, as with the print edition I should be able to finish plowing through it.

One oddity: for a future full of haunted space stations there are a lot of old school internet and news clips scattered through the campaign section of Maschine Zeit. I would think that in the next century or two blogs and internet anything, never mind news clips, will all be so quaintly "21st century," archaic relics of a bygone era of simpler communication.

Despite my worries that the system in Maschine Zeit is going to be a bit lean, I still picked up all the modules, and must say its a fine read and interesting premise. More to come on this, of course.



Today I ordered print copies of Mutant Epoch's latest module "Beyond Red Crater" and Goblinoid's revised 2nd edition of Starships & Spacemen. I rather like S&S, it's right at the lower end of the threshold of rules complexity for my tastes, and the homage/spoof of the Star Trek classic universe makes this a rather fun product....anyway, I have all of Goblinoid's other games in print now (except for Time Master) so this will more or less complete the GG collection of retroclones and homages that make for some great retro gaming.



Last but not least I spotted a copy of the 20th Anniversary release of Over the Edge. This is one of the greatest RPGs out there which I somehow never got to play or run when it was actively in print. I need to rectify that....as my old gang would attest, we had some wildly surreal and over-the-edge style adventures back in the day, albeit using Cyberpunk 2020, Dark Conspiracy, Call of Cthulhu, Kult, GURPS and Unknown Armies. How Over the Edge escaped our attention is beyond me.

Anyway, reviews of all of the above as soon as I receive and finish reading them!

Starships & Spacemen 2E

I grabbed this today, one of "Dad's Xmas gifts" to himself: Starships & Spacemen, 2nd edition from Daniel Proctor and co. at Goblinoid Games (PDF here). It's the official second edition to a game which came out back in...ah...1979? And which Goblinoid Games bought the rights to and rereleased in all its typewriter-font glory a little while back. The 2nd edition is a classy revision, with the rules heavily upgraded and made compatible with Labyrinth Lord, although it looks like the rules, while compatible, aren't sacrificing SF-flavor just to be easily meshed with LL.

Anyway, it's a rip off...um, homage to Star Trek, and even includes things like a random alien forehead bump generation table so you can find out what your alien of the week looks like. Great stuff, I feel like running a campaign with this By The Book already, set in the mysterious parallel universe of Space Fleet!

It's also gotten my mind off of the horrendous tragedies of late, so another big plus. Goblinoid Games continues to deliver fun stuff that prays on nostalgia but in a good way....Rotworld was my last purchase from them (also a great game), and I have been waiting to see what was next from them, and S&S 2E was well worth it.