The Inside Scoop on Gaming

"You live to serve the Queen, for she is your Mother and your Goddess.

You are proud to dutifully take up arms in the name of the Empire against all her foes.

You willingly march for days on end in the blistering heat, ready to throw your life away in Her name, as did your kinsmen before you.

Oh, one more thing. You're an ant."

-- Mobtown Ace

Some miniature games sacrifice detail for simplicity, others discard fast play for realism. I'm happy to say Insecta does neither. In Insecta, players play mutant bugs desperately trying to escape from The Hive, reminiscent of the classic dungeon crawl (including tougher monsters on lower levels!) of early rpg days.

Everything but dice (and scissors) is included in the game. (This review is of the out-of-print Second Edtion. Check the link below to the Fat Messiah page for current edition availability and contents.) At 16 pages (6 for combat), the rulebook itself is short and concise (though sometimes I had trouble instantly finding information). The hex-based map has different underground "rooms" (terrain / arenas) where your bugs will face off. Half the stuff you get is cardstock. Lots of cardstock. Much time with the scissors cutting things cardstock. Cardstock for markers and tokens, cardstock for character sheets, cardstock cutouts of the crunchy insect bits you lay on your character sheet (no pencils needed to record stuff), cards representing insect opponents (think Monster Manual meets index cards), and useful handy reference cards. And there are those neat little rubber bugs. I've added some more from a friend's son's old Creepy Crawlers game, and some glow-in-the-dark thingies from a Halloween outlet store. Neat.

***

Mutant Design

Rather than playing average everyday bugs, players begin as build-your-own mutants. Mutant design is like a trip to the candy-covered insect shop: Each player picks one of three insect types (armored, venomous, or spinose) of instar (size) one, and selects from various existing insect parts, some for movement, but mostly for crunchy insect bits (one head bit, one abdomen bit, and three appendages), such as:
* Mandible, Chelicerate Fangs, and other painful things you haven't pronounced lately.
* Hornet sting: Always poisons your opponent if it hits.
* Web spinners: Entangles your opponent.
* Nasutus projector: Poisons **and** entangles your opponent.
* Pheremone projector: Force your opponent to move first, fail his instinct rolls, **switch sides**, or even **grow one size larger or smaller**. More fun than a 3rd level spell.
* Crinotoxic labium: Always hits for poison damage and useful for cheap teaser lines.
* Bombadier projector: Who hasn't seen this on the Discovery channel?

Despite the crunchy bits, each one has its balancing drawbacks: Appendages that grant high movement (wings) cannot be used on certain terrain (such as tunnels). Weapons with greater damage tend to be difficult to wield. Venomous weapons require the Venomous insect type and venom damage occurs at the **end** of a round (usually after your opponent has ripped apart half your body). Entanglement prevents appendage use, but causes no damage and is a temporary effect (too long when used on PCs, too short when used on enemy bugs). Projectors frequently miss beyond close range and can run out of "ammo". Players need to create a bugs whose appendages and weaponry compliment each other and that work as a team with the other bugs in the party. It's these limitations which turn PC generation into thoughtful character design, rather than a shopping list of skills.

***

Mechanics

All bugs move in order of their speed then all bugs fight. All projector attacks (ranged combat) occurs simultaneously before close combat. Close combat is performed in order of dexterity.

In movement, the fastest bug either takes his move or hesitates, forcing the next-fastest bug to take his movement (ie. moving or hesitating). For each unit of movement, a bug may move one hex, subject to terrain. Despite this simplicity, Insecta makes movement a decision, rather than a no-brainer. For example, in most miniature games where all pieces move before any attack, it's to your advantage to have your opponent move first. In Insecta, hesitation isn't always a good idea -- if you hesitate and a bug moves into your hex, your bug may be too distracted to move out of it! (A bug needs a successful instinct roll to leave a hex that has another bug in it. To make an instinct roll, roll a number of dice equal to your instar. If you roll below your instinct, you succeed. Insects sure are dumb.) Likewise, if you're a flying insect and decide to hover, you won't have to stop your movement in a hex with a non-flying insect, but your projectile range is increased, making a ranged combat attack more difficult.

The attacking mechanics show bug-to-bug logic and thought. The first step is called Battle Frenzy and works on the principle that Bugs Are Stupid. When a bug makes an attack, if another bug is as close or closer than the target, the attacker must make an instinct roll to attack the original target. Even this simple rule adds tactics to the game: If your insect ally has had half of its head eaten off, you need to position yourself suchthat it won't attack you. If your insect opponent has half of **its** head chopped off -- and all but two of your legs are now somewhere across the room -- it might be worthwhile to crawl into the same hex with that ugly-looking enemy in the adjacent hex and hope your opponent attacks **him** instead.

All insects then perform projector fire, which, again, is based on buggy principles:
* The farther away it is, the harder it is to hit it.
* Big things are easier to hit than little things.
* It's harder to hit something on the ground if you're in the air.
* Stuff that comes out of your butt is hard to aim.
* There's more stuff in a big butt than a small one.

If the target is in the field of fire of your weapon, you roll a number of dice and this total must be below your dexterity. This number is the number of hexes to the target (including the target's hex) plus your instar size minus its instar size. Add an additional die if you're hovering and your target isn't. In practice, this causes projector fire to be only one or two hexes away from the target, rather than out of close combat range, common in most miniatures and rpgs. (In other words, if your dexterity is nine, you'd rather roll two dice one hex away, than three dice two hexes away.) Insecta uses hit locations (head, appendages, and abdomen), and a projector fire hits a random location. After your attack, you might run out of ammo. Roll two dice and add your instar. If you roll below a seven, you're out.

Damage works on these ideas:
* Hitting an opponent does not always result in damaging it.
* Big bugs do more damage than little bugs.
* Big bugs are harder to damage than little bugs.
* Big weapons do more damage.
* Armored bugs are harder to damage.
* Damage results in impaired ability to fight.
* But you can still rip off a bug's legs and he'll still keep on fightin'!!

If the attacker hits, it rolls a number of dice equal to its instar and its weapon damage. The defender rolls a number of dice equal to its instar and armor. The difference is the amount of damage the defender takes. Damage to appendages destroy one appendage for every two points of damage. Damage to dexterity or instinct is one point for every point of damage. Even one die of difference can result in loss of two out of three appendages, or enough dexterity or instinct loss to fail rolls. But even if you lose two appendages, you didn't lose your head or abdomen weapons. Fight fight FIGHT!

Speaking of fighting, next comes close combat, and more buggy principles:
* Most dexterous combatants go first.
* Your ability to hit is based on your dexterity.
* Big bugs have a harder time hitting little bugs.
* Big weapons are harder to wield.
* Bugs with spinose (spines) are harder to hit.

In close combat, you attack a bug either in the same hex (grappling) or adjacent (engaging). Certain weapons only work in grappling. The order of attack is by dexterity. To hit, you roll a number of dice and this total must be under your dexterity. The number of six-sided dice you roll is equal to your instar, weapon accuracy (weapon clumsiness might be a better term), and target's spinose (spiky bits). If attacked from the front, the target is hit on the head (damage to instinct) or appendages (losing limbs and natural weapons). If attacked from behind, the target loses dexterity from the abdomen. Grapples damage a random body part (head, appendage, or abdomen).

Close combat offers a wide range of tactics. If your opponent's dexterity just barely allows him to hit you, attack him from behind, chew up his abdomen, and drop his dexterity to below his ability to hit. If your opponent is down to one set of movement limbs, attack him from the front, rip off his last set of limbs, then make projectile attacks from a distance to finish him off. If your opponent has his best weapons in his appendages, make an entanglement attack and have your allies make attacks from behind so he loses his dexterity and can't use them. If you're small and armored, grapple your opponent, prevent him from leaving the hex, and have your ally make a projectile attack into it. If your opponent is borderline clumsy, spray him with the ecdysteroid, make him metamorphosize into a larger instar, and force him to roll more dice when making an attack (you'll also have more food to eat when he's dead!). If your opponent is stupid, chew up his head, lower his instinct, hit him with the propaganda pheremone, watch him fail his instinct roll, and make him switch sides! Fun, fun, fun.

Once an enemy is defeated, it's time to eat. (The rules nicely state what happens if players cannot agree how to divide food: "Combat immediately begins.") Each erstwhile opponent has a number of food equal to its instar. An insect may molt by consuming a number of food equal to its instar. This will heal lost limbs, refill empty projectors, and increase the bug's instinct and/or dexterity (by three points to be distributed between instinct and dexterity). The player may also choose to metamorphosize, thus increasing in size to the next instar. **Don't** increase your instar if you don't have the instinct or dexterity to support it!

***

The Hive (and only The Hive)

The Hive is a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, starting at Trophic level 1 and going upwards. One of the players takes the role of a GM or Hivemaster, although rules exist for a GM-less game. GM-controlled bugs are naturally occuring bugs. The GM shuffles each level deck (remember the Monster Manual index cards?), and places one or more cards on each room of the map. The map represents one level of the Hive, and players can move from one level to another. As player defeat bugs and eat them, they grow in instar, instinct, and dexterity. The times I ran the Hive, players didn't survive past level 2, but we played enough to enjoy the game and had a good time.

Unfortunately, a dungeon crawl is all you get with the game. Insecta just begs for a roleplaying game. Ever since the "Grasshopper and the Ant", human traits have been anthomorphisized (sp) in insects. Through anthomporphism (sp), an rpg using insects is entirely possible. Ants become devoted soldiers. Dragonflies become lone wanders. Cockroaches become vile hordes. Praying mantises become stalking menaces.

***

Conclusion

Miniatures and "beer and pretzel" players will find this unique system well worth playing -- if they've ever wanted to play bugs. Roleplayers with a little creativity should find Insecta a good starting point for insect adventures. Though not as popular as it should be, Insecta has been around since 1995, a good game that's lasted longer than others.

Insecta website: http://www.fatmessiahgames.com/fmg/insecta/index.html

Mobtown Ace's original thread: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=e07db0d1636452db8495ae0974d9de09&postid=212337

Insecta (Second Edition)
Insecta (Second Edition) Playtest Review by Cedric Chin on 28/08/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 3 (Average) Don't mess with the crinotoxic labium. Product: Insecta (Second Edition) Author: Phil Eklund Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Sierra Madre Games / Fat Messiah Games Line: Insecta Cost: $20 Page count: 15 Year published: 1995 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: yes Playtest Review by Cedric Chin on 28/08/02 Genre tags: Science Fiction	"You live to serve the Queen, for she is your Mother and your Goddess. You are proud to dutifully take up arms in the name of the Empire against all her foes. You willingly march for days on end in the blistering heat, ready to throw your life away in Her name, as did your kinsmen before you. Oh, one more thing. You're an ant." -- Mobtown Ace Some miniature games sacrifice detail for simplicity, others discard fast play for realism. I'm happy to say Insecta does neither. In Insecta, players play mutant bugs desperately trying to escape from The Hive, reminiscent of the classic dungeon crawl (including tougher monsters on lower levels!) of early rpg days. Everything but dice (and scissors) is included in the game. (This review is of the out-of-print Second Edtion. Check the link below to the Fat Messiah page for current edition availability and contents.) At 16 pages (6 for combat), the rulebook itself is short and concise (though sometimes I had trouble instantly finding information). The hex-based map has different underground "rooms" (terrain / arenas) where your bugs will face off. Half the stuff you get is cardstock. Lots of cardstock. Much time with the scissors cutting things cardstock. Cardstock for markers and tokens, cardstock for character sheets, cardstock cutouts of the crunchy insect bits you lay on your character sheet (no pencils needed to record stuff), cards representing insect opponents (think Monster Manual meets index cards), and useful handy reference cards. And there are those neat little rubber bugs. I've added some more from a friend's son's old Creepy Crawlers game, and some glow-in-the-dark thingies from a Halloween outlet store. Neat. *** Mutant Design Rather than playing average everyday bugs, players begin as build-your-own mutants. Mutant design is like a trip to the candy-covered insect shop: Each player picks one of three insect types (armored, venomous, or spinose) of instar (size) one, and selects from various existing insect parts, some for movement, but mostly for crunchy insect bits (one head bit, one abdomen bit, and three appendages), such as: * Mandible, Chelicerate Fangs, and other painful things you haven't pronounced lately. * Hornet sting: Always poisons your opponent if it hits. * Web spinners: Entangles your opponent. * Nasutus projector: Poisons and entangles your opponent. * Pheremone projector: Force your opponent to move first, fail his instinct rolls, switch sides, or even grow one size larger or smaller. More fun than a 3rd level spell. * Crinotoxic labium: Always hits for poison damage and useful for cheap teaser lines. * Bombadier projector: Who hasn't seen this on the Discovery channel? Despite the crunchy bits, each one has its balancing drawbacks: Appendages that grant high movement (wings) cannot be used on certain terrain (such as tunnels). Weapons with greater damage tend to be difficult to wield. Venomous weapons require the Venomous insect type and venom damage occurs at the end of a round (usually after your opponent has ripped apart half your body). Entanglement prevents appendage use, but causes no damage and is a temporary effect (too long when used on PCs, too short when used on enemy bugs). Projectors frequently miss beyond close range and can run out of "ammo". Players need to create a bugs whose appendages and weaponry compliment each other and that work as a team with the other bugs in the party. It's these limitations which turn PC generation into thoughtful character design, rather than a shopping list of skills. * Mechanics All bugs move in order of their speed then all bugs fight. All projector attacks (ranged combat) occurs simultaneously before close combat. Close combat is performed in order of dexterity. In movement, the fastest bug either takes his move or hesitates, forcing the next-fastest bug to take his movement (ie. moving or hesitating). For each unit of movement, a bug may move one hex, subject to terrain. Despite this simplicity, Insecta makes movement a decision, rather than a no-brainer. For example, in most miniature games where all pieces move before any attack, it's to your advantage to have your opponent move first. In Insecta, hesitation isn't always a good idea -- if you hesitate and a bug moves into your hex, your bug may be too distracted to move out of it! (A bug needs a successful instinct roll to leave a hex that has another bug in it. To make an instinct roll, roll a number of dice equal to your instar. If you roll below your instinct, you succeed. Insects sure are dumb.) Likewise, if you're a flying insect and decide to hover, you won't have to stop your movement in a hex with a non-flying insect, but your projectile range is increased, making a ranged combat attack more difficult. The attacking mechanics show bug-to-bug logic and thought. The first step is called Battle Frenzy and works on the principle that Bugs Are Stupid. When a bug makes an attack, if another bug is as close or closer than the target, the attacker must make an instinct roll to attack the original target. Even this simple rule adds tactics to the game: If your insect ally has had half of its head eaten off, you need to position yourself suchthat it won't attack you. If your insect opponent has half of its head chopped off -- and all but two of your legs are now somewhere across the room -- it might be worthwhile to crawl into the same hex with that ugly-looking enemy in the adjacent hex and hope your opponent attacks him** instead. All insects then perform projector fire, which, again, is based on buggy principles: * The farther away it is, the harder it is to hit it. * Big things are easier to hit than little things. * It's harder to hit something on the ground if you're in the air. * Stuff that comes out of your butt is hard to aim. * There's more stuff in a big butt than a small one. If the target is in the field of fire of your weapon, you roll a number of dice and this total must be below your dexterity. This number is the number of hexes to the target (including the target's hex) plus your instar size minus its instar size. Add an additional die if you're hovering and your target isn't. In practice, this causes projector fire to be only one or two hexes away from the target, rather than out of close combat range, common in most miniatures and rpgs. (In other words, if your dexterity is nine, you'd rather roll two dice one hex away, than three dice two hexes away.) Insecta uses hit locations (head, appendages, and abdomen), and a projector fire hits a random location. After your attack, you might run out of ammo. Roll two dice and add your instar. If you roll below a seven, you're out. Damage works on these ideas: * Hitting an opponent does not always result in damaging it. * Big bugs do more damage than little bugs. * Big bugs are harder to damage than little bugs. * Big weapons do more damage. * Armored bugs are harder to damage. * Damage results in impaired ability to fight. * But you can still rip off a bug's legs and he'll still keep on fightin'!! If the attacker hits, it rolls a number of dice equal to its instar and its weapon damage. The defender rolls a number of dice equal to its instar and armor. The difference is the amount of damage the defender takes. Damage to appendages destroy one appendage for every two points of damage. Damage to dexterity or instinct is one point for every point of damage. Even one die of difference can result in loss of two out of three appendages, or enough dexterity or instinct loss to fail rolls. But even if you lose two appendages, you didn't lose your head or abdomen weapons. Fight fight FIGHT! Speaking of fighting, next comes close combat, and more buggy principles: * Most dexterous combatants go first. * Your ability to hit is based on your dexterity. * Big bugs have a harder time hitting little bugs. * Big weapons are harder to wield. * Bugs with spinose (spines) are harder to hit. In close combat, you attack a bug either in the same hex (grappling) or adjacent (engaging). Certain weapons only work in grappling. The order of attack is by dexterity. To hit, you roll a number of dice and this total must be under your dexterity. The number of six-sided dice you roll is equal to your instar, weapon accuracy (weapon clumsiness might be a better term), and target's spinose (spiky bits). If attacked from the front, the target is hit on the head (damage to instinct) or appendages (losing limbs and natural weapons). If attacked from behind, the target loses dexterity from the abdomen. Grapples damage a random body part (head, appendage, or abdomen). Close combat offers a wide range of tactics. If your opponent's dexterity just barely allows him to hit you, attack him from behind, chew up his abdomen, and drop his dexterity to below his ability to hit. If your opponent is down to one set of movement limbs, attack him from the front, rip off his last set of limbs, then make projectile attacks from a distance to finish him off. If your opponent has his best weapons in his appendages, make an entanglement attack and have your allies make attacks from behind so he loses his dexterity and can't use them. If you're small and armored, grapple your opponent, prevent him from leaving the hex, and have your ally make a projectile attack into it. If your opponent is borderline clumsy, spray him with the ecdysteroid, make him metamorphosize into a larger instar, and force him to roll more dice when making an attack (you'll also have more food to eat when he's dead!). If your opponent is stupid, chew up his head, lower his instinct, hit him with the propaganda pheremone, watch him fail his instinct roll, and make him switch sides! Fun, fun, fun. Once an enemy is defeated, it's time to eat. (The rules nicely state what happens if players cannot agree how to divide food: "Combat immediately begins.") Each erstwhile opponent has a number of food equal to its instar. An insect may molt by consuming a number of food equal to its instar. This will heal lost limbs, refill empty projectors, and increase the bug's instinct and/or dexterity (by three points to be distributed between instinct and dexterity). The player may also choose to metamorphosize, thus increasing in size to the next instar. Don't increase your instar if you don't have the instinct or dexterity to support it! * The Hive (and only The Hive) The Hive is a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, starting at Trophic level 1 and going upwards. One of the players takes the role of a GM or Hivemaster, although rules exist for a GM-less game. GM-controlled bugs are naturally occuring bugs. The GM shuffles each level deck (remember the Monster Manual index cards?), and places one or more cards on each room of the map. The map represents one level of the Hive, and players can move from one level to another. As player defeat bugs and eat them, they grow in instar, instinct, and dexterity. The times I ran the Hive, players didn't survive past level 2, but we played enough to enjoy the game and had a good time. Unfortunately, a dungeon crawl is all you get with the game. Insecta just begs for a roleplaying game. Ever since the "Grasshopper and the Ant", human traits have been anthomorphisized (sp) in insects. Through anthomporphism (sp), an rpg using insects is entirely possible. Ants become devoted soldiers. Dragonflies become lone wanders. Cockroaches become vile hordes. Praying mantises become stalking menaces. * Conclusion Miniatures and "beer and pretzel" players will find this unique system well worth playing -- if they've ever wanted to play bugs. Roleplayers with a little creativity should find Insecta a good starting point for insect adventures. Though not as popular as it should be, Insecta has been around since 1995, a good game that's lasted longer than others. Insecta website: http://www.fatmessiahgames.com/fmg/insecta/index.html Mobtown Ace's original thread: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=e07db0d1636452db8495ae0974d9de09&postid=212337

Insecta (Second Edition)