RPGnet : The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Imagine that you're an intrepid space explorer, looking for that one big score to set yourself up for life.

Imagine that you stumble across an impossible dream: a beautiful gem of an unclaimed habitable planet. A quick buzz to the Planetary Claims Office, and viola! You're the proud owner of your own world.

Now imagine that seconds after you become the universe's newest gagillionaire, every single system of your spacecraft decides that now would be a great time to go on the fritz, sending you crashing into your new prize possession and stranding you there for the foreseeable future among beings straight out of myths and legends. (Well, maybe not straight out...)

Welcome to Murphy's World, where things can always get worse.

THE SETTING

Murphy's World is a comedy game set on the planet Faerie, renamed Murphy's World by Sean Murphy, the hapless planetary entrepreneur of the aforementioned scenario. The world's intelligent and capricious sun, Ludo, bathes the planet with bizarre mystic energies that make it the wackiest place in the multiverse this side of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon..

You see, on Murphy's World, the closest thing to consistent natural laws are Murphy's Laws. That means that, first and foremost, anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.

Then there's the fact that on Murphy's World consensual reality is a fact and is taken to its ridiculous logical conclusion. What a sizable consensus of people believe to be true in any given place will be true. So what happens in places where there aren't enough folks to form a sizable consensus? Simple: the places constantly change. In the wilderness, you could bed down for the night next to a lake and wake up on a mountain peak. This makes cities rather popular places on Murphy's World.

As if this weren't enough chaos for one setting, the planet also features an intricate network of interdimensional gates that only occasionally function as they should. As a result, people and things from all dimensions and time periods may be found stranded among the natives.

Such multigenre nuttiness would fit quite well in Tales from the Floating Vagabond. However, while the two settings have much in common, the big difference is in style. Floating Vagabond focuses on cartoonish slapstick. Murphy's World, on the other hand, is more about the whimsical humor based on a detailed setting.

And detailed it is, especially with regards to the native races. Most of the standard fantasy races are here, but with both humorous exaggerations and unexpected twists. Elves are effete aristocrats to whom useful magical talents (as opposed to powers like "Retrieve Croquet Ball") are birth defects, while their Drow cousins are jackbooted fascists with Germanic names and a fondness for Art Deco. Brownies are (literally) hog-riding, trend-chasing hipsters, while Pixies are wee-but-fearsome nomadic warriors with serious attitude problems.

Now, an average humor game might stop with such amusing, broad-brush characterizations, but not Murphy's World. The races are far more than stereotypes; indeed, each has its own vibrant culture and is fully detailed in terms of physiology, society, economics, religion, and more. Most serious RPGs don't have this level of detail, and most of those that do spread amount of the information presented here across multiple supplements. In fact, the races of Murphy's World easily could be the basis for a serious RPG simply by toning down their comedic elements, which is perhaps the highest possible praise of their design.

The game inserts political and social humor into some of these races, which made me a bit wary at first. However, this humor is both good-natured and even-handed, gleefully tweaking both Right and Left. While I doubt conservatives will be pleased with the rotting, radioactive, jingoistic Reagombies, the uber-unionized dwarves and the environmentalist dirt-eating trolls with their wimpy inner-child-seeking males and sex-hating, protest-loving females are sure to ruffle some liberal feathers.

Magic and high technology both exist on Murphy's World, and the same general rules apply to both: they can be effective, ineffectual, or disastrous, and depending upon either is a really dumb idea. Whether or not either work depends very much upon the beliefs of those present, Murphy's Laws, and, of course, Ludo's mood at the moment.

In most Murphy's World games, high tech is likely to be rare - most beings with any common sense don't have much use for it, and those that do - the multidimensional castaways known as the Technocrats - jealously horde it. Magic, on the other hand, is both accessible to all and awfully tempting to use, simply because it's so easy… at least in theory. You see, despite what the wizards and witches of the world might have you believe, magic on Murphy's World is just a matter of petitioning Ludo to grant one's wish. Of course, Ludo (and therefore the GM) is likely to interpret such wishes very narrowly; for example, a character wishing for the ability to fly may be surprised to find herself transformed into a puffin. Aside from simply being more specific in their requests, would-be magicians can improve their chances for success by utilizing various motions, props, and incantations - the more outrageous and embarrassing the better. Thus, whether a spell succeeds or fails, everyone's likely to get a good laugh.

So, does this setting have any flaws? Well, outside of those places covered in the race descriptions, there's not a whole lot of information provided on the various lands of Murphy's World. Now, given that the game covers an entire world, this is certainly forgivable to an extent; however, some kind of quick summary would have been nice.

Particularly onerous is the lack of information on the Dark Lands and their ruler, Bob, Lord of Evil. The former is simply described as a place where a bunch of mentally and physically warped weirdoes live under the eternal shadow of a moon named Ben, while the latter just gets a throwaway mention in the introductory adventure. Granted, Bob and his kingdom are covered in detail in his eponymous supplement/companion game (see my review here), but such an important part of the setting deserves a bit more coverage in the main book.

One final note: the authors suggest that in addition to playing campaigns centered around Murphy's World natives and/or castaways, you may want to try bringing in characters from other games for a short stay via the gates, crashing spaceships, or whatever method you like. I really can't recommend importing characters from anything other than another comedy setting, such as Paranoia or Tales from the Floating Vagabond. It's been my experience that introducing this degree of zaniness into an otherwise serious setting prevents the setting from ever being truly serious again.

THE RULES

The writers point out that Murphy's World is, first and foremost, a setting that can be used with any set of roleplaying mechanics you choose. To facilitate this, the book features conversion from the game's 1-20 human attribute scale to several other popular scales, such as 3-18 (D&D, Basic Roleplaying) and 1-6 (Shadowrun).

That having been said, Murphy's World does offer its own mechanics. Again, the scale of human attributes runs from 1-20; skills are percentile-based. The game presents three levels of complexity, the first being totally diceless and the second being a simple succeed/fail roll-under system using 2d10 (for attributes) or 1d100 (for skills).

The third is what has become Peregrine's house system, "Weapons and Wonder": skill levels are referenced on a simple table with difficulty levels ranging from -7 to +7, with each difficulty level adding or subtracting to the character's base skill. The amount of difference between difficulty levels isn't a fixed amount for all skill levels, and certain skill levels are lumped together with the same adjustments for difficulty (e.g., +1 difficulty = 53 for skills of 48 and 49). I'll leave it to better mathematicians than myself to determine if there's a logical reason for this. Attributes get their own table with corresponding percentage chances and difficulty levels. (In Bob, Lord of Evil, they've been incorporated into the skill table.) Rolling a number ending in zero results in a noteworthy success or failure, while rolling "01" or "00" results in a critical success or failure, respectively. Fumbles in this game don't just involve the trite dropping of the sword; rather, the fumbling character might suddenly find himself beloved of all small furry animals in the area or the target of defecating birds.

Character creation, like everything else, is rules-light, with stats rolled randomly and then tweaked with a pool of extra points. Characters start with a selection of 10 skills at fixed amounts: 1 at 100%, 1 at 90%, 1 at 80%, 2 at 70%, 2 at 60%, 1 at 50%, and 1 at 40%; this I didn't like, since I'm not fond of systems that totally divorce skills from attributes. I'll probably use the alternate method presented in Bob, Lord of Evil, which starts skills at the attribute's corresponding percentile on the aforementioned chart.

Combat is straightforward but flawed. Characters don't roll to dodge or parry; rather, they can choose to focus more heavily on defense, giving their opponents a flat -1 penalty to hit regardless of the defenders' skill. (Likewise, characters can choose to mount aggressive attacks at the cost of an increased chance of fumbles.) The hit point-based damage system focuses more on appropriately humorous wound effects rather than on killing the characters; indeed, GMs are encouraged to avoid killing the players except in extreme circumstances. (Humiliation is ever so much more fun!) However, while the book provides a small list of sample weapon damages, it makes no mention of damage for unarmed combat or damage bonuses from strength. This isn't totally damning, since the damage systems from other games can easily be imported to fill this gap, but it does keep the system from being complete on its own.

As mentioned under the "Setting" section, the magic system is both simple and simply wonderful, based upon the character's natural magic ability, the nature of the spell, the technique(s) used, and the EXACT wording of the spell. I should add that there's also a related system for divine intervention, the chance of which is based upon the nature and scale of the request and on the number of religious brownie points the petitioning character has managed to store up. Oh, and on whether the character's deity is alone or hanging out with other gods when the request comes in - doing parlor tricks for mortals is sooo tacky, don't you know.

Finally, the game provides a massive list of Murphy's Law's for all occasions. Their use is left entirely up to the GM, whether for the theme of a game session or the punishment for a boorish character.

THE BOOK

The art is top-notch, detailed, and consistent, presenting a world that's as surprisingly beautiful as it is loony. The writing manages to be witty without letting the humor get in the way of solid information - the authors wisely realize that game world composed of nothing but jokes will quickly become tiresome and unfunny.

Organization is good, despite the occasional chaotic look created by numerous tables and sidebars. Most importantly, like all truly well designed game books, Murphy's World features a comprehensive index.

The book's packed with information regarding the races, creatures, (super)natural laws, and notable individuals of Murphy's World, including Sean Murphy himself. (As an aside, how can you NOT love a book that features a giant named Eirik ArmRipperOffer?) However, while the races and NPCs have game stats, the flora and fauna don't. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. If the book is meant to be a complete game, why omit stats in the bestiary? Conversely, if it's meant to be a merely a setting, why provide stats for the races and NPCs?

Finally, the game includes another trait of a well-designed book: an introductory adventure. This lighthearted romp puts characters in the middle of a crisis resulting from a love affair between an elvish princess and a giant bouncer from the casino resort of Asgard. It's a great mix of roleplaying and Murphy-style dungeon crawling. But watch out for the flying walruses…

SUMMARY

I've seldom enjoyed delving into a roleplaying setting as much as Murphy's World. I really wish that the writers had filled in some of the gaps, such as the missing creature stats and the incomplete damage system; these are the only things preventing me from giving the game a "5" for substance. Of course, that's only if you're actually planning on using the Murphy's World system; as a setting alone, it gets an easy "5".

Minor flaws aside, this is an outstanding game at a great price. So run out and buy a copy. Hey, what's the worst that could possibly happen?

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Murphy's World
Author: Kevin Davies with David Brown Category: game Company/Publisher: Peregrine Line: Murphy's World Cost: $19.95 Page count: 152 ISBN: 0-921821-23-9 SKU: PGN 0101 Capsule Review by Dan Davenport on 08/07/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Comedy	Imagine that you're an intrepid space explorer, looking for that one big score to set yourself up for life. Imagine that you stumble across an impossible dream: a beautiful gem of an unclaimed habitable planet. A quick buzz to the Planetary Claims Office, and viola! You're the proud owner of your own world. Now imagine that seconds after you become the universe's newest gagillionaire, every single system of your spacecraft decides that now would be a great time to go on the fritz, sending you crashing into your new prize possession and stranding you there for the foreseeable future among beings straight out of myths and legends. (Well, maybe not straight out...) Welcome to Murphy's World, where things can always get worse. THE SETTING Murphy's World is a comedy game set on the planet Faerie, renamed Murphy's World by Sean Murphy, the hapless planetary entrepreneur of the aforementioned scenario. The world's intelligent and capricious sun, Ludo, bathes the planet with bizarre mystic energies that make it the wackiest place in the multiverse this side of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon.. You see, on Murphy's World, the closest thing to consistent natural laws are Murphy's Laws. That means that, first and foremost, anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. Then there's the fact that on Murphy's World consensual reality is a fact and is taken to its ridiculous logical conclusion. What a sizable consensus of people believe to be true in any given place will be true. So what happens in places where there aren't enough folks to form a sizable consensus? Simple: the places constantly change. In the wilderness, you could bed down for the night next to a lake and wake up on a mountain peak. This makes cities rather popular places on Murphy's World. As if this weren't enough chaos for one setting, the planet also features an intricate network of interdimensional gates that only occasionally function as they should. As a result, people and things from all dimensions and time periods may be found stranded among the natives. Such multigenre nuttiness would fit quite well in Tales from the Floating Vagabond. However, while the two settings have much in common, the big difference is in style. Floating Vagabond focuses on cartoonish slapstick. Murphy's World, on the other hand, is more about the whimsical humor based on a detailed setting. And detailed it is, especially with regards to the native races. Most of the standard fantasy races are here, but with both humorous exaggerations and unexpected twists. Elves are effete aristocrats to whom useful magical talents (as opposed to powers like "Retrieve Croquet Ball") are birth defects, while their Drow cousins are jackbooted fascists with Germanic names and a fondness for Art Deco. Brownies are (literally) hog-riding, trend-chasing hipsters, while Pixies are wee-but-fearsome nomadic warriors with serious attitude problems. Now, an average humor game might stop with such amusing, broad-brush characterizations, but not Murphy's World. The races are far more than stereotypes; indeed, each has its own vibrant culture and is fully detailed in terms of physiology, society, economics, religion, and more. Most serious RPGs don't have this level of detail, and most of those that do spread amount of the information presented here across multiple supplements. In fact, the races of Murphy's World easily could be the basis for a serious RPG simply by toning down their comedic elements, which is perhaps the highest possible praise of their design. The game inserts political and social humor into some of these races, which made me a bit wary at first. However, this humor is both good-natured and even-handed, gleefully tweaking both Right and Left. While I doubt conservatives will be pleased with the rotting, radioactive, jingoistic Reagombies, the uber-unionized dwarves and the environmentalist dirt-eating trolls with their wimpy inner-child-seeking males and sex-hating, protest-loving females are sure to ruffle some liberal feathers. Magic and high technology both exist on Murphy's World, and the same general rules apply to both: they can be effective, ineffectual, or disastrous, and depending upon either is a really dumb idea. Whether or not either work depends very much upon the beliefs of those present, Murphy's Laws, and, of course, Ludo's mood at the moment. In most Murphy's World games, high tech is likely to be rare - most beings with any common sense don't have much use for it, and those that do - the multidimensional castaways known as the Technocrats - jealously horde it. Magic, on the other hand, is both accessible to all and awfully tempting to use, simply because it's so easy… at least in theory. You see, despite what the wizards and witches of the world might have you believe, magic on Murphy's World is just a matter of petitioning Ludo to grant one's wish. Of course, Ludo (and therefore the GM) is likely to interpret such wishes very narrowly; for example, a character wishing for the ability to fly may be surprised to find herself transformed into a puffin. Aside from simply being more specific in their requests, would-be magicians can improve their chances for success by utilizing various motions, props, and incantations - the more outrageous and embarrassing the better. Thus, whether a spell succeeds or fails, everyone's likely to get a good laugh. So, does this setting have any flaws? Well, outside of those places covered in the race descriptions, there's not a whole lot of information provided on the various lands of Murphy's World. Now, given that the game covers an entire world, this is certainly forgivable to an extent; however, some kind of quick summary would have been nice. Particularly onerous is the lack of information on the Dark Lands and their ruler, Bob, Lord of Evil. The former is simply described as a place where a bunch of mentally and physically warped weirdoes live under the eternal shadow of a moon named Ben, while the latter just gets a throwaway mention in the introductory adventure. Granted, Bob and his kingdom are covered in detail in his eponymous supplement/companion game (see my review here), but such an important part of the setting deserves a bit more coverage in the main book. One final note: the authors suggest that in addition to playing campaigns centered around Murphy's World natives and/or castaways, you may want to try bringing in characters from other games for a short stay via the gates, crashing spaceships, or whatever method you like. I really can't recommend importing characters from anything other than another comedy setting, such as Paranoia or Tales from the Floating Vagabond. It's been my experience that introducing this degree of zaniness into an otherwise serious setting prevents the setting from ever being truly serious again. THE RULES The writers point out that Murphy's World is, first and foremost, a setting that can be used with any set of roleplaying mechanics you choose. To facilitate this, the book features conversion from the game's 1-20 human attribute scale to several other popular scales, such as 3-18 (D&D, Basic Roleplaying) and 1-6 (Shadowrun). That having been said, Murphy's World does offer its own mechanics. Again, the scale of human attributes runs from 1-20; skills are percentile-based. The game presents three levels of complexity, the first being totally diceless and the second being a simple succeed/fail roll-under system using 2d10 (for attributes) or 1d100 (for skills). The third is what has become Peregrine's house system, "Weapons and Wonder": skill levels are referenced on a simple table with difficulty levels ranging from -7 to +7, with each difficulty level adding or subtracting to the character's base skill. The amount of difference between difficulty levels isn't a fixed amount for all skill levels, and certain skill levels are lumped together with the same adjustments for difficulty (e.g., +1 difficulty = 53 for skills of 48 and 49). I'll leave it to better mathematicians than myself to determine if there's a logical reason for this. Attributes get their own table with corresponding percentage chances and difficulty levels. (In Bob, Lord of Evil, they've been incorporated into the skill table.) Rolling a number ending in zero results in a noteworthy success or failure, while rolling "01" or "00" results in a critical success or failure, respectively. Fumbles in this game don't just involve the trite dropping of the sword; rather, the fumbling character might suddenly find himself beloved of all small furry animals in the area or the target of defecating birds. Character creation, like everything else, is rules-light, with stats rolled randomly and then tweaked with a pool of extra points. Characters start with a selection of 10 skills at fixed amounts: 1 at 100%, 1 at 90%, 1 at 80%, 2 at 70%, 2 at 60%, 1 at 50%, and 1 at 40%; this I didn't like, since I'm not fond of systems that totally divorce skills from attributes. I'll probably use the alternate method presented in Bob, Lord of Evil, which starts skills at the attribute's corresponding percentile on the aforementioned chart. Combat is straightforward but flawed. Characters don't roll to dodge or parry; rather, they can choose to focus more heavily on defense, giving their opponents a flat -1 penalty to hit regardless of the defenders' skill. (Likewise, characters can choose to mount aggressive attacks at the cost of an increased chance of fumbles.) The hit point-based damage system focuses more on appropriately humorous wound effects rather than on killing the characters; indeed, GMs are encouraged to avoid killing the players except in extreme circumstances. (Humiliation is ever so much more fun!) However, while the book provides a small list of sample weapon damages, it makes no mention of damage for unarmed combat or damage bonuses from strength. This isn't totally damning, since the damage systems from other games can easily be imported to fill this gap, but it does keep the system from being complete on its own. As mentioned under the "Setting" section, the magic system is both simple and simply wonderful, based upon the character's natural magic ability, the nature of the spell, the technique(s) used, and the EXACT wording of the spell. I should add that there's also a related system for divine intervention, the chance of which is based upon the nature and scale of the request and on the number of religious brownie points the petitioning character has managed to store up. Oh, and on whether the character's deity is alone or hanging out with other gods when the request comes in - doing parlor tricks for mortals is sooo tacky, don't you know. Finally, the game provides a massive list of Murphy's Law's for all occasions. Their use is left entirely up to the GM, whether for the theme of a game session or the punishment for a boorish character. THE BOOK The art is top-notch, detailed, and consistent, presenting a world that's as surprisingly beautiful as it is loony. The writing manages to be witty without letting the humor get in the way of solid information - the authors wisely realize that game world composed of nothing but jokes will quickly become tiresome and unfunny. Organization is good, despite the occasional chaotic look created by numerous tables and sidebars. Most importantly, like all truly well designed game books, Murphy's World features a comprehensive index. The book's packed with information regarding the races, creatures, (super)natural laws, and notable individuals of Murphy's World, including Sean Murphy himself. (As an aside, how can you NOT love a book that features a giant named Eirik ArmRipperOffer?) However, while the races and NPCs have game stats, the flora and fauna don't. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. If the book is meant to be a complete game, why omit stats in the bestiary? Conversely, if it's meant to be a merely a setting, why provide stats for the races and NPCs? Finally, the game includes another trait of a well-designed book: an introductory adventure. This lighthearted romp puts characters in the middle of a crisis resulting from a love affair between an elvish princess and a giant bouncer from the casino resort of Asgard. It's a great mix of roleplaying and Murphy-style dungeon crawling. But watch out for the flying walruses… SUMMARY I've seldom enjoyed delving into a roleplaying setting as much as Murphy's World. I really wish that the writers had filled in some of the gaps, such as the missing creature stats and the incomplete damage system; these are the only things preventing me from giving the game a "5" for substance. Of course, that's only if you're actually planning on using the Murphy's World system; as a setting alone, it gets an easy "5". Minor flaws aside, this is an outstanding game at a great price. So run out and buy a copy. Hey, what's the worst that could possibly happen? Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)