The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Pantheon And Other Roleplaying Games is the latest of Hogshead Publishing's New Style series of booklets describing far from standard game forms. Five games in 24 pages, no less. (According to Hogshead owner James Wallis, it was the result of John Tynes fitting two games into 24 pages with previous New Style release Puppetland/Power Kill and Robin D Laws insisting he could beat that.) The games are governed by a rules system referred to as Narrative Cage Match TM. They are games of competitive storytelling, each player taking turns to steer the story in a sentence, with points awarded for playing to the genre of the story being told. In this it somewhat resembles Wallis's first New Style release, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and its card-based predecessor Once Upon A Time.

The five games (some people would call them scenarios, but Laws suggests "call them roleplaying games to annoy these people. If you see anyone getting hot and bothered over this issue on the Internet, be sure to mock them for us") each follow and satirise the rules of a genre of fiction, from the broad (pantheistic mythology) to the narrow (underwater sf monster movies).

In form, the Narrative Cage Match TM is a round-robin story, where each player controls a character (two in one game, possibly several in another) and describes their actions and new events which affect one other PC in a sentence. If (or when, in some games) their character dies, that player is able to affect two other PCs in their round.

The games' element of strategy is added by challenging sentences, done by bidding with fifty beans, beads or similar small items, with the added complication of three special beads which can win a challenge for the player, win a challenge for another player, or allow the player to rewrite a sentence. This leads to bribery, temporary alliances between players, early attempts to kill off other PCs to eliminate other players' beans, and so on.

Players are awarded points based on the actions of their characters. The aim of the games is to tell a story that stays somewhere within the confines and tropes of the genre being played. While surviving is generally a good idea, some characters in some games might get more points by dying.

To use the provided example of play, "Massacre at Pine Woods", in which high school seniors are lost in the woods when their van breaks down, points would probably be awarded to the last survivor, but they would probably also go to the first victim. There would also be points for other points of the teen slasher genre, like the first player whose character 'realises' that they're trapped inside the deserted farmhouse, or the first player whose character screams and runs when another player's character bumps into them. Points are awarded for what you introduce, whether it is good for the character or bad. If you establish that the killer was hit by the van but when your character looks back the body is missing (!) you will probably be rewarded with a good number of points, as well as amused groans from the other players.

The games can be replayed, but are generally at their best when new and surprising, before the players have seen what their characters should have done to win (or lose) points. Laws suggests that "If you suspect that another player has sneaked a look at the score sheet without telling the others, avoid playing with him - he's a cheat and a d***weed. And you can tell him we said so." My asterisks, in case you're curious.

The games themselves - Grave And Watery (which I played in "beta testing" form at Edinburgh's ConPulsion 2000 this February) is an underwater sf horror movie game. Without giving anything away, one of the players will get more points if their character dies first than if they are the only survivor. Boardroom Blitz is a big American corporate soap opera, as a rich man's family fight over his inheritance. Points are awarded for slaps, catfights and affairs. The Big Hole is a heist gone wrong, with points for ratting out and killing each other over the loot. Destroy All Buildings is a Tokyo monster movie. Relatively normal human PCs are played as well as monsters, with points for the actions of both groups. This is probably the silliest of the games, with the score sheet encouraging weird plot developments and bad special effects. Pantheon is a creation myth, as the players' godly characters fight over who creates what. Unlike the other games, there is no suggested list of characters and no inevitable conclusion, making this the most free and open of the games.

Expect to see this book in use at conventions and university gaming societies soon. With a good group of players who don't generally know the specifics of the scoring but do know the games' genres, Pantheon And Other Roleplaying Games can be highly entertaining, chaotic and very funny.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Pantheon And Other Roleplaying Games
Author: Robin D. Laws Category: game Company/Publisher: Hogshead Publishing Line: New Style Cost: £4.95 UK Page count: 24 ISBN: 1-899749-25-X SKU: HP404 Capsule Review by Craig Oxbrow on 07/18/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science fiction Modern day Horror Comedy Anime Conspiracy Asian/Far East Diceless Generic	Pantheon And Other Roleplaying Games is the latest of Hogshead Publishing's New Style series of booklets describing far from standard game forms. Five games in 24 pages, no less. (According to Hogshead owner James Wallis, it was the result of John Tynes fitting two games into 24 pages with previous New Style release Puppetland/Power Kill and Robin D Laws insisting he could beat that.) The games are governed by a rules system referred to as Narrative Cage Match TM. They are games of competitive storytelling, each player taking turns to steer the story in a sentence, with points awarded for playing to the genre of the story being told. In this it somewhat resembles Wallis's first New Style release, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and its card-based predecessor Once Upon A Time. The five games (some people would call them scenarios, but Laws suggests "call them roleplaying games to annoy these people. If you see anyone getting hot and bothered over this issue on the Internet, be sure to mock them for us") each follow and satirise the rules of a genre of fiction, from the broad (pantheistic mythology) to the narrow (underwater sf monster movies). In form, the Narrative Cage Match TM is a round-robin story, where each player controls a character (two in one game, possibly several in another) and describes their actions and new events which affect one other PC in a sentence. If (or when, in some games) their character dies, that player is able to affect two other PCs in their round. The games' element of strategy is added by challenging sentences, done by bidding with fifty beans, beads or similar small items, with the added complication of three special beads which can win a challenge for the player, win a challenge for another player, or allow the player to rewrite a sentence. This leads to bribery, temporary alliances between players, early attempts to kill off other PCs to eliminate other players' beans, and so on. Players are awarded points based on the actions of their characters. The aim of the games is to tell a story that stays somewhere within the confines and tropes of the genre being played. While surviving is generally a good idea, some characters in some games might get more points by dying. To use the provided example of play, "Massacre at Pine Woods", in which high school seniors are lost in the woods when their van breaks down, points would probably be awarded to the last survivor, but they would probably also go to the first victim. There would also be points for other points of the teen slasher genre, like the first player whose character 'realises' that they're trapped inside the deserted farmhouse, or the first player whose character screams and runs when another player's character bumps into them. Points are awarded for what you introduce, whether it is good for the character or bad. If you establish that the killer was hit by the van but when your character looks back the body is missing (!) you will probably be rewarded with a good number of points, as well as amused groans from the other players. The games can be replayed, but are generally at their best when new and surprising, before the players have seen what their characters should have done to win (or lose) points. Laws suggests that "If you suspect that another player has sneaked a look at the score sheet without telling the others, avoid playing with him - he's a cheat and a d***weed. And you can tell him we said so." My asterisks, in case you're curious. The games themselves - Grave And Watery (which I played in "beta testing" form at Edinburgh's ConPulsion 2000 this February) is an underwater sf horror movie game. Without giving anything away, one of the players will get more points if their character dies first than if they are the only survivor. Boardroom Blitz is a big American corporate soap opera, as a rich man's family fight over his inheritance. Points are awarded for slaps, catfights and affairs. The Big Hole is a heist gone wrong, with points for ratting out and killing each other over the loot. Destroy All Buildings is a Tokyo monster movie. Relatively normal human PCs are played as well as monsters, with points for the actions of both groups. This is probably the silliest of the games, with the score sheet encouraging weird plot developments and bad special effects. Pantheon is a creation myth, as the players' godly characters fight over who creates what. Unlike the other games, there is no suggested list of characters and no inevitable conclusion, making this the most free and open of the games. Expect to see this book in use at conventions and university gaming societies soon. With a good group of players who don't generally know the specifics of the scoring but do know the games' genres, Pantheon And Other Roleplaying Games can be highly entertaining, chaotic and very funny. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)