It’s a struggle a lot of young reviewers face: I find myself torn between conflicting interests. On one hand, I want to write an incisive, critical and useful review for you, the gaming public. And on the other, I also want to fall to my knees and worship at the Church of Our Lady Who Spends Every Waking Moment Feeding
Exquisite Kumquats To CJ Carella.
It’s a tough and narrow course to stay, but I’ll try my best.
In general, there’s not a lot new to say here, if you read my review of core rulebook. The Slayer’s Handbook is the first big supplement for the Buffy game, and Eden and CJ simply pick up where the corebook left off. Same brilliant writing, same gorgeous graphic design, same exquisite design, same approach to content, same love of ideas and applications. The result is a masterpiece so wonderful there were times when I literally wanted to lick the pages. Pavlovian much?
The book is a little slimmer, clocking in at 156 pages. But it retains the hardback, and the stylish cover art, this time featuring our three favourite Slayers and two well-known Watchers. The first few pages likewise keep the same glossy eye-dazzling double-spreads, all featuring the Chosen One showing off some of her large collection of expressions (Pouty Buffy, Aloof Buffy, Wistful Buffy, Mysterious Buffy – collect them all!) In fact, in the first ten pages, there are eight pictures of Buffy, and she dominates the rest of the book. Faith and Kendra also feature, but almost nobody else. The message is clear: this is the Slayer’s book. Not only is that some hardcore layout-fu from George, but it also means that the hottie factor is cranked so high this book will no doubt have to be foil-wrapped in some stores in Kentucky. Yowza.
The book also continues the masterful wordsmithing seen in the corebook. Once again, Mr Carella doesn’t just communicate his ideas clearly and effortlessly, he peppers every single paragraph with a dozen ideas that sit up, beg, roll over, play dead and fetch to be played, and presents them with more verve and excitement than the chorus line of A Chorus Line. He doesn’t just emulate the style of the show perfectly, he makes you laugh your ass off, with his own brand of wordplay, pop culture references, gaming gags and some exquisite easter eggs. I was reading it on the train with my non-gaming buddy, and he was continually demanding to know What The Hell Was So Funny, as every second page sent me into hysterics.
For example, when introducing a discussion about peopling your campaign setting with NPCs, CJ begins with “Unless the setting is a desert island (with beach tour boat, intrepid crew, and … ah never mind)…”. An off-hand remark, yet it’s a great gag, plus it made me want to play Ginger the Coconut Slayer that very second. Earlier, he describes Kendra perfectly with the phrase “Ninja Nun from Hell”. Later on, he sums up the fate of an entire town clearly and succinctly: “tree ate ‘em.” You get the idea.
But what, I hear you ask, is the book actually about? What do all these words make up? Well, if this book has a flaw, this is it. Not only is it not really about any one thing, it’s almost false advertising about what IS inside.
The title, for example, seems to suggest this is some sort of in-game product, like the actual (and eponymous) Slayer’s Handbook mentioned by Kendra in Series Two. The blurb on the back does little to discourage this line of thought. So the very first page has to spend quite a few lines explaining very clearly that this is NOT what the book is.
Nor is it really a book about playing the Slayer. Only the first thirty pages (chapter one) are devoted to this. Chapter Two (another thirty pages) contains new rules and equipment that have no real theme (let alone being Slayer-specific). Chapter Three is a GM guide to designing your campaign world; Chapter Four is three specific examples of this. And Chapter Five is an adventure. So in the great majority, it’s a GMs book, and indeed a lot of it a GM won’t want his players to see. I’m not really sure this is the best approach – players LIKE having books they can safely own themselves, and it makes even more sense given the newbie target market. Worse than lost sales, however, is the chance that the misleading title might cause players to buy it and be disappointed. You have been warned.
The upside of this approach is that it means there’s no place for waffling in this book. And let’s face it, the Buffy mythos is pretty loose, and being a Slayer isn’t that complicated. Thirty pages really does get the whole thing covered, and covered well.
We kick off with a look at the major components of a Slayer’s life: early life, the choosing, the training, the slaying and, yes, even the dying. For each concept, the various possibilities implied by the canon of the universe are described, and this is then followed with two sub-sections: Motivation, and Drama. Motivation is basically a player’s guide on how to use this part of your Slayer’s life to motivate your character, shape her choices and determine her character. Drama is the flipside, for GMs – how to use the part in question to squeeze your players, and tell great stories.
Once again, and unlike so very many RPGs, Buffy doesn’t just give you the what of the setting. It also shows you how to use it. It’s that same dedication to the application I mentioned when discussing the corebook. Marvellous.
We close the chapter with a look at all the Slayers ever mentioned in the show, including stats for the bad mother seventies slayer we all liked so much. Kendra and Faith get long rundowns, and full character sheets. Kendra is presented both as a Slayer and as a Slayer-to-Be, which is a new virtue we learn about in the next chapter.
Chapter Two: Heroes-R-Us is just a bunch of cool new stuff. We start with new Qualities, most of which are fairly straightforward, such that you could probably have figured them out yourself, and they’re not really iconic enough to be a template. I mean, do you really need a Quality to be an Occult Investigator? Isn’t that what half the PCs in the game are anyway? Still, they do make it easier to slap up a PC, and some of them have interesting twists (like Occult Investigators have to make Willpower tests to avoid satisfying their curiosity, even if at personal risk). Slayer-to-Be and Totem Warrior are the most useful, as they provide new ways to up the butt-kicking power of your squad without adding a Slayer. Totem Warriors are guys with animal spirits in them, and they’re almost as powerful as the Slayer herself.
You know, very few licensed games are this good at saying “well, here’s how to run something completely different to the actual show!” I think this is a good thing, but the game falls over itself to let hardcore fans that this information is entirely non-canon. In other words, it opens the floodgates, but hopefully without popping anybody’s paradigms.
Four pages of equipment and weapons follow, including such wonders as the chainsaw, the bullwhip and the rocket launcher, which players will no doubt have a lot of fun with. The real point of this section, however, is to supplement the alternate settings discussed later. So we also find stuff like neural jacks, six-shooters and pulpy-keen vampire goggles.
Beyond this we have new archetypes, and man, are they cool. Since this is the Slayer’s book, we have four new Slayers, demonstrating just how much variety you can achieve in both their background and their stats. The Slayer Heiress is my favourite. The next seven show off the new qualities, so we have Slayers-To-Be and Occult Investigators, Cops and Criminals, and more. The Criminal artwork is a direct steal from Vin Diesel. He’s also interesting in that despite being an ass-kicker, he’s a White Hat; likewise interesting is the Nosy Reporter who spent all his Hero points on non-combat stuff. Great examples of how to use the system to its fullest, and not get locked into the idea that Hero = Butt-Kicker.
Chapter Three is a guide to designing your own setting. After a discussion of what every setting needs (places to go, people to see and things to do), and how to create them, we move onto the three basic ways to start up a new show: change the place, change the time, or change the canon. Each gets its own section; each has general pointers, then a bunch of examples. Changing time, for example, talks about medieval, pulp and cyberpunk slaying – hence the equipment we see earlier.
Each of these gets a page or so, and cover both general feel and specific setting ideas. It’s inspiring stuff, and with the equipment provided, they’re all fairly easy to get up and running. But, well, would this be a Buffy product if it didn’t go the extra mile? Hell, would this be a Buffy product if it didn’t go the extra light year? I don’t think so.
Chapter Four is that lightyear. Three complete settings for your Buffy game are laid out. Each one provides history, major locations, major NPCs, monsters and Big Bads (complete with full stats), episode ideas and even archetypes to demonstrate possible characters. In short, all they need is a few monsters of the week and your players’ imaginations and they’re ready to play, right out of the box. Superb.
First up, we have the changing location example, and my favourite of them all: Grizzly Peak. In the forests of Oregon, another Hellmouth is causing problems and summoning wendigos. The natives who used to live there were given totem powers to keep them at bay, but they all got wiped out a hundred years ago. Now, some of the PCs have been chosen to be the big-time supernatural janitors, and hoo boy is there a lot of mess under the bed.
Haunted houses, powerful families, environmental terrorism and crazy old French mountain men are just some of the fun things you’ll come across in Grizzly Peak. The real stars of the show are the Totem powers, however. They don’t turn you into a beast, but they are cleverly designed. The bonuses break down into eight points of stat increases, spread around to suit your animal of choice, but the twist is that they get another bonus if they’re doing something which fits your creature’s way of thinking. Coyotes, for example, get a bonus to anything involving trickery, while wolves do better in anything involving teamwork. Nice.
Setting number two is the change the time example, and deals with a little town in the Old West known as Apocalypse. Of them all, this one has the most history and background, with three Big Bads waiting in the wings and a lot of bad stuff just waiting to happen. The hanging tree feeds on the blood of those lynched on its branches, and horrible serpent men prowl the badlands to the south. All in all, however, this one left me a little cold – there just seems less for individual episodes to be about (ever noted that almost all the great Western shows were travelling shows, like Wagon Train?), and the increased focus on the background is a symptom of this. However, this is just my taste in settings, and all is very much forgiven when we see the two provided archetypes – the quintessential Victorian ghost-hunter Watcher, and his Calamity Jane cowgirl Slayer. He wants her to dress all purty, on account that that’s more ladylike and proper, but she’ll be up and dayed afore she rides side-saddle. Yippy-ki-yay indeed.
Behind door number three is Hellworld, the change the canon example. What if Buffy fell fighting Glory at the end of series five, and the monsters from Glory’s world surged into ours? We pick up this post-apocalyptic hoe-down five years later, in a tiny conclave which survives because of a powerful magical shield. Only problem is that food is fast running out, and the shield won’t last forever. Luckily, the conclave is bursting with tough-as-nails rangers, and one of them just became the Slayer. To top it all off, a shattered, barely-sane Alex “don’t call me Xander” Harris, is also there to lend a hand.
This is a very high-powered setting, with demons coming from all sides, and giant sandworms in the desert the least of your worries. As a consequence, the PC powers should be arced up, and both the archetypes provided are Experienced Heroes. The problem with this setting, however, is that although it’s supposed to be hell on earth out there, we only get three demons as examples to kill. Meanwhile, the emphasis is placed so much on how bad it is and how survival is the first goal, it almost forgets to give the PCs anything to do. No Big Bads are provided, nor any plot arcs outlined, and even the adventure ideas are plagued by the same boring clichés that have dogged post-apocalyptic settings since Gamma World. Go find supplies, by searching in the ruins. Yay.
So you’re thinking that I really only got one and a half out of three here. And then you’re thinking well, what if I don’t like ANY of them? And since my already-running Buffy campaign is set five miles under the Arctic Ocean in a far-future, all-drag-queen mega-casino where the players are battling 1980’s video game characters who have escaped from their machines, how is any of this very specific campaign set up going to help me?
Well, if this is your situation, then first of all…well, first of all I want your number so I can play in that game, because it sounds great. Second, these examples do what all good examples should do: they show you how to do it yourself. By reading these, you learn more about how to design settings. You also get a lot of great NPCs, monsters and adventure hooks that, with a little tweaking, can apply to any game. Instead of just listing them randomly, they’re scattered through these three settings, but you can (and should) treat them like a narrative snackbar, scooping up whatever takes your interest and making your own happy snack-time feast.
Case in point: My Buffy Down Under adventure this weekend involved a giant Dreamtime Dingo. I could have come up with stats for it on my own, but the Beserker Demon on page 80 was perfectly suitable, and already written up and ready to go. Yes, it’s not specifically or completely a bestiary, or a campaign pack, or plot generator…but you can use it as one, and a very nice one at that.
And let’s face it, your player’s can’t fight the minions of Ms Pacman’s evil twin sister forever. Sooner or later, you’ll start another campaign or adventure, and then you can turn right to one of these. I’m betting there’s at least one which you’ll want to visit.
Being somewhat specific is likewise the great curse of the adventures we’ve seen so far for Buffy: by tying them all together around the same Big Bad, they’re great if you’re running a campaign but not always as useful as a stand alone piece. This week’s episode, The Chosen Two wisely doesn’t depend much on the Djinn (because not everybody bought the Director’s Screen) but it DOES really thrive on you running a campaign. It’s your classic mid-to-late-season big-ratings-winning two-parter, when the Big Bad stops kidding around and starts really hurting people. There is a way for it to be less dramatic, but that would be somewhat of a let-down, given what a masterpiece of adventure design this is.
The plot is quite simple: your classic Zeppo, the Xander character in your team (or an NPC if you have no one who fits - that's the less dramatic option), becomes a male Slayer. A strange British guy turns up and claims to be his Watcher. Everyone gets the wiggins. But there's no time to chat, because there’s a big cult in town trying to summon a tentacley friend of theirs back to the earthly plane, and a major smackdown is required. Luckily Slayboy can help…particularly since the stronger he gets, the more the Slayer weakens and dies. Not good.
The process can be reversed, but it requires pure demon blood, and gosh, we’re fresh out. However, if they let the cultists get their demon halfway through the door, they can hack off a tentacle, banish him back to Yuggoth and do the happy Slayer mambo as everyone comes back to life. Except of course, that the adventure then asks the GM to deliver a major deus ex machina as the Djinn makes this (rather painful, unlikely and very dangerous) solution somehow just not work, so that the PCs have to face the kind of god-awful decisions that made Buffy such damn fine television. Will your Zeppo give up his life for his Slayer? Will the Slayer understand that Death Is Her Gift? Will there be hugs, tears and Sarah Mclachlan music? Dear god, I bloody hope so.
In short, it’s great drama waiting to happen, but marred by it being forced. Frankly, I’d let the players TRY this crazy plan (“Hi Cthulhu, no, don’t get up, stars aren’t right yet, we just wanted a pint of your blood”) and if, through smart planning, nice dice rolls and good roleplay they pull it off, let them have their victory, and instead leave the question as “what WOULD they have done, if it had gone otherwise?” This way, if (as is so often the case) they do screw the pooch, well, the booby prize is actually the jackpot. Not a dry eye in the house.
And we applaud like crazy for one of the greatest adventures ever written. But don’t leave yet – Eden has an unexpected encore, and I don’t mean the excellent index or the completely updated tables. The last dozen pages are devoted to a guide to playing the stars of the show themselves, which I think a lot of us are probably going to try at some point. This is presented by highlighting key facets of each major character’s personality – Buffy, for example, is Martyr, Leader, Moody and Blonde. It’s an original and inspired way to do it, and frankly, something I’ve never seen before and never expected to see. Serendipitous is the word.
Kinda weird is another word. Well, two words, actually, but you get my point. Like a lot of the other stuff in this book, it’s not something everyone is going to use, or that many people will use a lot. And those who will use it a lot, are probably less likely to use any of the settings in Chapter Four. Someone running the Old West setting, meanwhile, has no need for cybernetic equipment, or the Cop template…but they may indeed have a lot of use for the Wendigos and the Totem Powers. It’s impossible to tell. Every game is unique, and gets different things out of every book; the Slayer’s Handbook makes things even trickier by being a big jumble to begin with.
In short, the great strength of this book is that it’s a grab bag of countless brilliant ideas. The great weakness of this book is that it’s a grab bag of countless brilliant ideas. To an extent, everything in it is useful, and some of it will be indispensable, to every group. But not all of it will be, and at thirty bucks a pop, that’s one hell of an expensive lucky dip.
But it’s a rules companion – by it’s very nature it expands on everything, so it can’t have a central theme. If you go in knowing that, you’re fine. The question is whether you want a book full of more cool stuff, in general. Frankly, if you liked the corebook, I think you probably do. Buffy was a masterpiece; adding another 156 pages of equally brilliant material along side it is by no means too much of a good thing. It’s extra helpings of a great thing.
On the other hand, if money is tight and you think you’ve got enough in the corebook, you can do without this one without any problems at all. And if you’re wavering somewhere in between, then it’ll come down to just how much of the lucky dip you think you can use. Now, if only there was some way you could find out just what was between those shiny covers, without getting thrown out of your game store for reading too much… Some sort of…review…
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