Yet another French game ...

Maléfices is historically a very important game in France, our first fantastic RPG. The theme is broader than just Horror. It is about the 1870-1914 period in France (between the defeat of Napoleon III against Bismarck, and the Great War), when ancient legends are still alive. Occult sciences (and mad science) are very popular ... but most of the times, the Devil himself is pulling the strings.
The PCs are ordinary people, who belong to le Club Pythagore, an association of gentlemen (and women) dedicated to fighting the darkness, with the help of Faith, Science, or even Magic.
Its over-simplistic system and the extraordinary quality of the published scenarii have made it quite a success, which paved the way for CoC in our country. The game began its career in 1985 and the last adventure (le Voile de Kâli) was published in 1991.
The game suffered from competition with L'Appel de Cthulhu (even if the mythical backgrounds are very different), especially since both games were published by the same company (Jeux Descartes). Chill was never really a success, and there were no other popular "classic horror" RPG (normal people against the unknown) to be published in France.

What does Maléfices mean ?

Maléfices means, literally (from latin), "evil act". More specifically, it's an evil spell, generally a curse.

What does the box contain ?

All those things :

the main book (56 pages) with 25 pages of rules, 15 pages of historical background and 10 pages about "real" occultism during that period

the adventure book (48 pages) with 2 scenarii : La Malédiction de Fontevrault (the Curse at Fontevrault) and Une Etrange Maison de Poupées (a Strange Doll's House) some background information

a very beautiful 4-panelled screen

2 10-sided dice

21 cardboard characters, with 21 plastic pieces to make them stand up

character sheets

How do we create PCs ?

The player decides the profession of her PC, and her/his sex

She rolls age and constitution (d100 looking at tables)

4 other attributes are computed (there's a general table) :

Capacités Physiques (Physical Abilities) depends on age, constitution and profession

Habileté (Dexterity) depends on age and profession

Culture Générale depends on age and profession

Perception depends on age and profession

After that, the player divides 20 points between Ouverture d'Esprit (Open-Mindedness) and Spiritualité , which are the 2 opposite attitudes towards the unknown.

After the 7 main Attributes are rated, the GM asks the player to draw 5 cards from a special Tarot Deck (included in the box). Four cards are shown to the player, and the last one is kept secret by the GM.

Why this Tarot draw ?

(spoilers : select the text below to have a look at it)

Most of the draws from the Tarot deck are used to rate one secret attribute of the PCs, plus two bonuses (used to avoid side-effects of spells). Only the GM knows the existence and value of these attributes.

Fluide : fluid (the base value is 5)

Seuil de Pratique de la Magie Blanche (SPMB) : Threshold (modifier ) for the Practise of White Magic (the base value is 0)

Seuil de Pratique de la Magie Noire (SPMN) : Threshold (modifier) for the Practise of Black Magic (the base value is 0)
Cards may also give you bonuses to Ouverture d'Esprit and Spiritualité.
For example L'Archange (the Archangel) and Le Vicaire give you bonuses to Spiritualité and SPMB, Le Diable and Le Sorcier give you bonuses to Ouverture d'Esprit and SPMN, Le Grand Livre gives you bonuses to Fluide, Ouverture d'Esprit and Spiritualité...
Also, some of the cards give you boons or curses. For example : La Chance (Luck) will save your life once, La Mort (Death) will allow the GM to kill your PC when he wants to ...
For some of the cards, the effect depends on how you've drawn the card. If you take some of the cards upside down, it's bad news for you ...

The 20 Tarot Cards are

La Chance : Luck

La Mort : Death

La Lune Noire : the Dark Moon

Le Grand Livre : the Great Book

Le Diable : the Devil

Le Sorcier : the Warlock

L'Archange : the Archangel

Le Vicaire : the Vicar

La Roue de Fortune : the Wheel of Fortune

Adam

Eve

Le Cabaliste

L'Alchimiste

Le Savetier : the Shoemaker

Le Centurion

Le Médecin : The Physician

L'Artiste

Le Juge

Le Moine : The Monk

Le Laboureur : The Farmer

What's the resolution system ?

Remember all those games in the middle of the 80's, with universal resolution coloured tables ?
Marvel Super Heroes RPG, Chill, Gamma World (3rd) ... even James Bond.
Maléfices is one of them : you have an attribute (rated 1-20), you roll a die (d100) and you obtain a result :

A (excellent)

B (good)

C (OK)

D (just done)

Failure

The result of every action is decided depending on this result code. There's even a optional system to rate the degree of failure (take the difference between your roll and the maximum for success, look in the column 10).

Spiritualité is used to resist occult manipulation ; Ouverture d'Esprit is used to resist fear (to simplify things).
The uses of the other attributes are more evident.

Table des Paliers (Threshold Table)

96-00
91-95
86-90
81-85
76-80
71-75
66-70															D
61-65
56-60
51-55
46-50																C
41-45
36-40
31-35
26-30																	B
21-25
16-20
11-15
06-10																		A
01-05
	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20

And Combat ?

An attack is done that way :

take your Habileté (Dexterity) level (for distant combat) or an average of Capacités Physiques andHabileté (for contact combat)
add a modifier depending on the experience of the character with combat : -4 to 6
substract a base difficulty (depending on distance for distant combat ; depending on the foe's Habileté)
add some modifiers (slippery ground, night ...)
roll on the threshold table
the degree of success is used to compute the loss of Constitution or other effects (depends on the kind of weapon ; there's a table for each kind of weapon)

The 2nd stage is completely up to the GM ; there are no formal skills in this system, so the decision is based on the profession of the character, her background and her experience.
The weapons are not very detailed : in the rulebook, only 7 kinds of weapons are given (5 guns, 2 blades hand & feet).
Here is for example the table used for melee weapons (with the loss of Constitution) :

Quality D C B
Short blade 2 3 5
long blade 4 5 7

An "A" result generally kills the opponent (or knocks him out ).

And Magic ?

(spoilers : select the text below to have a look at it)

There are 3 kinds of Magic : White Magic, Black Magic and Other Magic (including Psychic Powers, Seance, etc).
To every effect, a number is associated, called Seuil de Pratique de l'Acte (Threshold of Practice), which gives the difficulty of the effect, and the chance for disastrous side-effects.
If your Fluide (plus modifiers for rituals, components, etc) is superior or equal to the Threshold, then the effect happens (that's why it is important the Threshold is kept secret from the players). Otherwise, nothing happens.
BUT, once the spell is cast, the GM makes a roll, using the threshold of the spell as the attribute (after substracting the SPMN / SPMB of the PC, and the difference between his Fluid and the Threshold), and the result shows the side effect of the spell. Generally, a "A" side-effect is very very dangerous (and the spell sometimes fizzles), and a failure to this roll means everything's OK.

Example :
Gustave wants to cast a White Magic spell named La Poudre de Tarente (Tarantula Powder), which allows to prepare a potion to know the answer of a question about the future ; the Threshold of this spell is 10. He's a good Sorcerer, with Fluide 13 and a 2 SPMB (he's drawn the Archangel from the Deck at character creation, and he's an experienced PC). His (unmodified) Fluide is superior to 10, so the effects take place.
Then we roll for side effects : we take 10 (the Spell Threshold), we substract 2 (the SPMB) and 3 (the difference between Fluide and Threshold), for a roll using a 5 (not so dangerous).
Alas, we roll a 13, which is a "C" result. The description of the spell says Gustave gets poisoned from the venom of the spider, he gets ill and loses (PERMANENTLY!) 2 points of Constitution.
At least, he knows the answer.
With a "D" result, he would just be ill (no Constitution loss) ; with an "A" result, he would have permanently lost 6 points of Constitution ...

Magic is REALLY dangerous in this game (especially powerful spells)

There is NO sample spell in the basic box, which is a shame (the basic magic rules are here, though)

And Experience ?

There is no formal experience system in Maléfices.
As we've seen with combat, the GM is free to give bonuses or penalties depending on the background of the PC (including former experience), but otherwise Aptitudes Physiques, Habileté, Perception, Culture Générale only evolve with age.
The exception are Spiritualité, Ouverture d'Esprit and the secret attribute (Fluide), which evolve when the PC is confronted to strange phenomenon and when she achieves something magical. Those three attributes goes up and down , but globally, they go higher and higher.

This idea (the evolution of the characters being mainly focused on their perception of reality rather than skill) was the main inspiration for René le jeu de rôle romantique, my personal game, a.k.a. Wuthering Heights Roleplay.

So, what are we supposed to do ?

Maléfices is not about fighting monsters from the depth of space with ass-kicking k3wL p0w3rZ.
Evil is very subtle, monsters are rare (if you ever see one of them) and magic is something dangerous.
Maléfices is scary because you never know what you're up against, and you know death may be quick.

Le Club Pythagore, like S.A.V.E. in Chill, might be seen as an artificial way to force the PCs into action ... but using it is not an obligation ! Anyway, this society is the best way to justify a campaign.
Your grandmother with her bible, the farmer with his knowledge of folklore, the priest, the doctor ... : they're very different, but they unite against Evil, whatever it might look like this time : mad science, wrong use of magic, ancient sorcerous cult, angry magical creature ...

Think Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Poe, Jean Ray, Guy de Maupassant, Gustav Meyrink ... forget splatterpunk, gore and cosmic horror. In Maléfices, there's one responsible for all Evil : the Devil himself. You will never eliminate him, but you can slow him down by defeating his servants.

And the supplements ?

Two "big" supplements were published (112 pages each) :

A la Lisière de la Nuit (On the Edge of the Night)

Le Bestiaire (the Bestiary)

A third supplement (Enfer et Lieux Maudits = Hell and Cursed Places) was planned but never saw the light.

Strange as it may seem, Le Bestiaire contains no stats for animals and other creatures ! It is mostly a collection of legends and short stories about animals (some of them by famous people : Goethe, Dickens, Bierce, Nodier, Voltaire ...), with adventure ideas, and some spells.
A la Lisière de la Nuitis a similar book : it is not a "spell book", but a collection of legends and short stories, along with ideas, and some spells too.
Both books are excellent and are real tresures of ideas

Eleven scenarii were published, most of them very good. The titles are good indications of the mood. They are 48 page long (except Le Voile de Kâli, 112 page long).

n°1 : Le Drame de la rue des Récollets : A Tragedy in Recollet Street

n°2 : L'Enigmatique Carnet du Capitaine Pop Plinn : Captain Pop Plinn's Enigmatic Notebook

n°3 : Délivrez-nous du Mal ... : Free us from Evil (this one takes place in a monastery)

n°4 : Les Brasiers ne s'éteignent Jamais : Braziers Burn and Burn

n°5 : Le Dompteur de Volcans : Master of the Volcanoes

n°6 :Enchères sous Pavillon Noir : Bidding Under a Dark Banner (voodoo and treasures)

n°7 : La Musique Adoucit les Meurtres : Music Makes Murders Much Sweeter (a pun impossible to translate)

n°8 : Le Montreur d'Ombres : The Dark Show

n°9 : Folies Viennoises : Madness in Vienna

n°10 : Cœur Cruel : Cruel Heart

n°11 : Le Voile de Kâli : The Veil of Kali
Most of the scenarii involve some fantastic element, but not all of them !
Sometimes Evil is the only ennemy ...

There was two printings of the Maléfices box ; I own (and have reviewed) the second one, with the Tarot in colour.

Overall

Maléfices is a good game.
The resolution system is very fast, and the flow of the game is never hampered by the rules. The game emphasises the fact that the GM is the master of the rules, and that the players should never bother about the system. Almost all rolls are made by the GM, especially for things occult and magical.

This logic will be pushed to the extreme in another French RPG published in 1988 : Hurlements is a game (about lycanthropes and gypsies) where players had no character sheet and the rules were even more minimal and secret than in Maléfices

This secrecy is something which gives Maléfices its very special feel. Everything is done to involve the player into her character, instead of focusing on rules. The strange Tarots, the rules, the little devils drawn everywhere (there are funny devils in the rulebook too) give the game a very "satanic" feel, even if demons are (almost) never encountered. That's delightful for imaginative "role-player" Gamers.

The system is a bit old, though : this coloured table really shows its age, and the lack of choice for the creation of PCs is a contrast to modern and flexible systems.
Also, character creation is very random ... if your PC is a Priest and you drawLe Grand Livre, L'Archange, Le Vicaire, Adam and Le Moine, you end up being an ass-kicking exorcist (Fluide : 2 ; Ouverture d'Esprit: 2 ; Spiritualité : 8 ; SPMB : 6 ; all attributes: 2), but if you could also draw only useless or negative cards ...

I rate this game considering only the basic box :

Style : 4
A lot of work has been put into making every Maléfices product something really interesting to read, with pleasant and useful information. The rules are clear, except the rules for Magic which is a bit fuzzy (A la Lisière de la Nuit clarifies and enrich them a lot)

Substance : 4
Some regrets :

I can't see the reason for the small cardboard characters. That was the fashion, at the period (other RPG in France had these kind of gadgets too : Mega, L'Oeil Noir ...).

The Tarot in the 2nd printing is in colour, OK, but the back of the cards is not symetric, which is silly, because it is very important for some cards to see if you draw them upside down or not ...

The rules are really simple, with very few tables, so the 4-page screen has got 2 pages devoted to ... character creation !! I would have prefered tables with travel distances, prices and other practical things.

Magic is too vague in the basic box (no sample spell, etc.)
Despite these remarks, I must say the material is very good. Half the main book is devoted to background information. The screen is very beautiful (an overview of Paris early in the morning, from the heights of Notre-Dame de Paris). The scenario book also contains some background information (the cost of life, le Club Pythagore) and the 2 adventures show two facets of the game (old legends from deep France, paranormal phenomenon).
I would have given Substance : 5 if A la Lisière de la Nuit had been included in the box...

If you know French, and can find it, Maléfices is quite a must-have game.
If you want to allow your PCs to use Magic, I highly recommend A la Lisière de la Nuit .
Le Bestiaire is less important, but it contains interesting things too, plus a summary of the Magic rules if you don't own A la Lisière de la Nuit.
I also suggest you try one of the eleven published adventures, all of them are really different from each other.

Globally, I'd say Maléfices is still an enjoyable game, even if a bit dated, and the supplements are things well worth reading, for their litterary quality, for the information they give, and the excellence of the adventures.

Malefices