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BEST OF FRIENDS (BoF) is a collection of short scenarios designed to serve as an introduction to PRINCIPIA MALEFEX, a modern horror RPG. The booklet is 30 pages long, comb-bound, with light card-stock covers and no internal artwork. It's also extremely cheap, £1.00 including UK shipping.

The booklet opens with a short contents list and the by-now standard disclaimer, followed by a short summing up of what Malefex (and BoF) is all about. For those unfamiliar with it, Malefex is a British horror RPG, with the accent on psychological, rather than physical horror. The game world does have supernatural elements within it, but the player characters aren't going to be constantly tripping over them as they do in many other games. Instead, Malefex focuses on the true horrors of the world, particularly those of modern Britain.

The first page states that the scenarios presented are cut-down versions of full games from previous or forthcoming releases, and explains that the short rules do not cover the supernatural, character generation (pre-generated player characters are included), advancement, or insanity/derangement. The combat system is stripped right down, and the range of skills available to players is substantially reduced.

The following page contains a one-page summary of the Malefex rules, and cover an explanation of the stats (12 in all), basic task resolution, skills, combat and fear.

As presented in BoF, task resolution is very simple. Malefex uses D20 and "D200" (D20 followed by a D10). Stats are used by rolling equal to or under the number on a D20, while skills are rolled on the D200, with the amount that the roll exceeds the skill by determining the degree of success. No details are given on how the skills relate to the stats, and there's no information indicating how one might attempt a skill that the character doesn't have (given the limited number of skills available in the book, this is an important oversight).

Combat starts simple, but gets messy fast. There is no initiative roll; the character with the highest Speed stat goes first. The player rolls D20 under his combat skill, and if he hits he rolls a D6, adds his strength, subtracts the opponents strength, and then takes the result off the target's Damage stat. While it's a lot more realistic than many games, it's almost guaranteed to bog fights down, turning what is supposed to be a game of subtle horror into a prolonged slug-fest. And where did that D6 come from? Right at the top of the page we're told that Malefex is based around the D20 and D200, and then we have to wheel out yet another kind of die later on.

Fear is dealt with far more simply. When a character suffers a sudden shock, he rolls under his Terror stat (presumably on a D20). If he succeeds, he reduces his Fear stat by one. If he fails, he reduces it by D6, and will react irrationally, attempting to get away from, or eliminate, the cause of his fear. When the character's Fear stat reaches zero, he's overcome and can no longer be played, being reduced to a "gibbering wreck".

The Scenarios

The first scenario is A Friend in Need, derived from a scenario presented in FOOL'S PARADISE, a full-length scenario collection recently released for Malefex. The adventure is presented in 5 pages, and details the desperate attempts of a street-level drug-dealer to make up a sudden debt to his bosses (and a loan shark). The tone of the piece is bleak, but neatly sums up the world of Malefex. This is a middle-class game. No-one is going to be saving the world, or taking out extra-dimensional horrors that can turn your brain inside out just by thinking about you. Fiction-wise, the closest I can think of to Malefex is the recent run of Hellblazer comics, where Constantine continually brushes up against purely human evil, with the very occasional foray into the deeper supernature. The scenario is entertaining, although there's a very odd coincidence in it that as far as I can see has no real reason to be there, and therefore strains the logic of the adventure. PC plothooks are slim, and there's no real reason for the characters to get involved. None of the NPC's are particularly sympathetic, and it's hard to find a reason to care about any of them.

The second scenario, Hostage, is extremely short, presented in the space of 2 pages. Despite this, it appealed to me greatly, mainly because of its simplicity. The characters are caught up in a botched bank raid, and are now trapped in the bank vault with the other bank staff and customers, along with three very frightened, very young armed men. One person has already been shot, and the whole situation is sliding directly into a disaster. Can the characters survive? The scenario provides a timeline of events, and hints for how to play the robbers. The purpose of the scenario is to get the PC's together in one place under stress, and as such it works quite well, provided the players understand that they aren't playing Hong Kong Action Theatre and get their characters killed. Given that the power is entirely in the hands of the robbers, whose fear is making them increasingly unpredictable, the players must use psychology to win the day, rather than brute force.

The third scenario, Ghost in the Machine, is presented over four pages and is simultaneously the most interesting and the least suited for the collection. It is designed to be run with characters who have some knowledge of the supernatural, or are beginning to learn about magic. The PC's are drawn into the story when one of them receives untraceable e-mails asking for help. This scenario has some interesting aspects that I can't comment futher on without spoiling it for prospective players, but I'm intrigued enough to want to see the full scenario that this reduced version was culled from, in the supplement Hollow Halloween. Again, this scenario is all about the brutal realities of life in a world that is very far from perfect.

All three scenarios suffer from the same problem; the characters aren't central to the plot. Most games are about the player characters making things happen, whereas, based on the scenarios herein, Malefex is mostly about the characters as spectators. I'm not sure if this is the author's intent or not, possibly making a statement about the helplessness of the average person in the face of the grinding relentlessness of the world, but if that's the case, Malefex is going to be a terribly depressing game to play. Does anyone really want to get back from their nine-to-five cubicle job and play another poor slob who can't change things either?

The remainder of the booklet is taken up with pregenerated characters, and a few pieces of flavour text designed to give the reader a feel for the world of Malefex. While the snippets of flavour-text are actually pretty good (the demonic monologue on page 9 is chilling), they take up far too much of the booklet, and the space could easily have been used to present another scenario.

Summing Up

BEST OF FRIENDS doesn't really work as an introduction to PRINCIPIA MALEFEX, because it never really shows us what is unique about the game world, but it can be easily used as a supplement to other games of urban horror, like KULT or UNKNOWN ARMIES. For £1.00, you can't really get better value. Even if you never use the scenarios as presented, there's enough here to spark the imagination for further adventures in urban psychological horror. Though the scenarios have a decidedly British slant, any GM worth his salt could easily translate them to any country in the western world (and given the drab hopelessness of the game world, that's a cause for some sadness).

BoF doesn't really do what it sets out to do, which is to draw players to the full game, but it does provide food for thought for pressured GMs and could well open up new avenues for your modern horror game.

Details of PRINCIPIA MALEFEX, BEST OF FRIENDS, and other supplementary material, can be viewed online at http://www.malefex.co.uk/ , and can be ordered directly from the publisher, or through Noble Knight Games (http://www.nobleknight.com ) in the US.

Best of Friends
Best of Friends Capsule Review by Chris Halliday on 05/02/02 Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 3 (Average) Introductory scenario booklet provides interesting adventures, but little in the way of excitement. Product: Best of Friends Author: A.Whetton & Ruari Armstrong Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Principia Malefex Line: Principia Malefex Cost: £1.00 (inc UK P&P) Page count: 30 Year published: 2000 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: yes Capsule Review by Chris Halliday on 05/02/02 Genre tags: Modern day Horror	BEST OF FRIENDS (BoF) is a collection of short scenarios designed to serve as an introduction to PRINCIPIA MALEFEX, a modern horror RPG. The booklet is 30 pages long, comb-bound, with light card-stock covers and no internal artwork. It's also extremely cheap, £1.00 including UK shipping. The booklet opens with a short contents list and the by-now standard disclaimer, followed by a short summing up of what Malefex (and BoF) is all about. For those unfamiliar with it, Malefex is a British horror RPG, with the accent on psychological, rather than physical horror. The game world does have supernatural elements within it, but the player characters aren't going to be constantly tripping over them as they do in many other games. Instead, Malefex focuses on the true horrors of the world, particularly those of modern Britain. The first page states that the scenarios presented are cut-down versions of full games from previous or forthcoming releases, and explains that the short rules do not cover the supernatural, character generation (pre-generated player characters are included), advancement, or insanity/derangement. The combat system is stripped right down, and the range of skills available to players is substantially reduced. The following page contains a one-page summary of the Malefex rules, and cover an explanation of the stats (12 in all), basic task resolution, skills, combat and fear. As presented in BoF, task resolution is very simple. Malefex uses D20 and "D200" (D20 followed by a D10). Stats are used by rolling equal to or under the number on a D20, while skills are rolled on the D200, with the amount that the roll exceeds the skill by determining the degree of success. No details are given on how the skills relate to the stats, and there's no information indicating how one might attempt a skill that the character doesn't have (given the limited number of skills available in the book, this is an important oversight). Combat starts simple, but gets messy fast. There is no initiative roll; the character with the highest Speed stat goes first. The player rolls D20 under his combat skill, and if he hits he rolls a D6, adds his strength, subtracts the opponents strength, and then takes the result off the target's Damage stat. While it's a lot more realistic than many games, it's almost guaranteed to bog fights down, turning what is supposed to be a game of subtle horror into a prolonged slug-fest. And where did that D6 come from? Right at the top of the page we're told that Malefex is based around the D20 and D200, and then we have to wheel out yet another kind of die later on. Fear is dealt with far more simply. When a character suffers a sudden shock, he rolls under his Terror stat (presumably on a D20). If he succeeds, he reduces his Fear stat by one. If he fails, he reduces it by D6, and will react irrationally, attempting to get away from, or eliminate, the cause of his fear. When the character's Fear stat reaches zero, he's overcome and can no longer be played, being reduced to a "gibbering wreck". The Scenarios The first scenario is A Friend in Need, derived from a scenario presented in *FOOL'S PARADISE, a full-length scenario collection recently released for Malefex. The adventure is presented in 5 pages, and details the desperate attempts of a street-level drug-dealer to make up a sudden debt to his bosses (and a loan shark). The tone of the piece is bleak, but neatly sums up the world of Malefex. This is a middle-class game. No-one is going to be saving the world, or taking out extra-dimensional horrors that can turn your brain inside out just by thinking about you. Fiction-wise, the closest I can think of to Malefex is the recent run of Hellblazer comics, where Constantine continually brushes up against purely human evil, with the very occasional foray into the deeper supernature. The scenario is entertaining, although there's a very odd coincidence in it that as far as I can see has no real reason to be there, and therefore strains the logic of the adventure. PC plothooks are slim, and there's no real reason for the characters to get involved. None of the NPC's are particularly sympathetic, and it's hard to find a reason to care about any of them. The second scenario, Hostage, is extremely short, presented in the space of 2 pages. Despite this, it appealed to me greatly, mainly because of its simplicity. The characters are caught up in a botched bank raid, and are now trapped in the bank vault with the other bank staff and customers, along with three very frightened, very young armed men. One person has already been shot, and the whole situation is sliding directly into a disaster. Can the characters survive? The scenario provides a timeline of events, and hints for how to play the robbers. The purpose of the scenario is to get the PC's together in one place under stress, and as such it works quite well, provided the players understand that they aren't playing Hong Kong Action Theatre and get their characters killed. Given that the power is entirely in the hands of the robbers, whose fear is making them increasingly unpredictable, the players must use psychology to win the day, rather than brute force. The third scenario, Ghost in the Machine, is presented over four pages and is simultaneously the most interesting and the least suited for the collection. It is designed to be run with characters who have some knowledge of the supernatural, or are beginning to learn about magic. The PC's are drawn into the story when one of them receives untraceable e-mails asking for help. This scenario has some interesting aspects that I can't comment futher on without spoiling it for prospective players, but I'm intrigued enough to want to see the full scenario that this reduced version was culled from, in the supplement Hollow Halloween. Again, this scenario is all about the brutal realities of life in a world that is very far from perfect. All three scenarios suffer from the same problem; the characters aren't central to the plot. Most games are about the player characters making things happen, whereas, based on the scenarios herein, Malefex is mostly about the characters as spectators. I'm not sure if this is the author's intent or not, possibly making a statement about the helplessness of the average person in the face of the grinding relentlessness of the world, but if that's the case, Malefex is going to be a terribly* depressing game to play. Does anyone really want to get back from their nine-to-five cubicle job and play another poor slob who can't change things either? The remainder of the booklet is taken up with pregenerated characters, and a few pieces of flavour text designed to give the reader a feel for the world of Malefex. While the snippets of flavour-text are actually pretty good (the demonic monologue on page 9 is chilling), they take up far too much of the booklet, and the space could easily have been used to present another scenario. Summing Up BEST OF FRIENDS doesn't really work as an introduction to *PRINCIPIA MALEFEX, because it never really shows us what is unique about the game world, but it can be easily used as a supplement to other games of urban horror, like KULT* or UNKNOWN ARMIES. For £1.00, you can't really get better value. Even if you never use the scenarios as presented, there's enough here to spark the imagination for further adventures in urban psychological horror. Though the scenarios have a decidedly British slant, any GM worth his salt could easily translate them to any country in the western world (and given the drab hopelessness of the game world, that's a cause for some sadness). BoF doesn't really do what it sets out to do, which is to draw players to the full game, but it does provide food for thought for pressured GMs and could well open up new avenues for your modern horror game. Details of *PRINCIPIA MALEFEX, BEST OF FRIENDS*, and other supplementary material, can be viewed online at http://www.malefex.co.uk/ , and can be ordered directly from the publisher, or through Noble Knight Games (http://www.nobleknight.com ) in the US.

Best of Friends