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I kid you not. You can bloody well play Xena. She’s the second archetype in the book. Barbarian Queen, page 72.
That caught my eye the very first time I picked this book up. It catches everyone’s eye. And they all are struck by how much that rocks.
It’s a good place to start because it sums up the two central aspects of the Angel RPG. Number one is that the game follows the mould of Buffy very closely, in quality as well as content. So of course it is stuffed with archetypes that rock so hard they are unsafe for pregnant women or people with heart conditions. It has to be. It’s written by the same author and produced by the same company.
It has the same high quality production values, the same high quality RPG design and the same level of incredibly brilliant writing as Buffy did. It perfectly encapsulates and emulates the content, feel and themes of the Angel TV show, with the same incisive examination of small details and the same spirit of fun as in the Buffy RPG. It is another masterpiece by C. J. Carella, a work that is very much a mirror of his previous achievement yet never feels merely like a work of cut-and-paste. It is derivative, even repetitive of its predecessor, but if the gaming world can withstand a billion D&D clones it can certainly only benefit from two versions of this singular opus.
The second thing the presence of the Barbarian Queen tells you is that everything is not quite as it was. That Angel isn’t merely a copy of Buffy. And the biggest difference isn’t the change in tone, nor the raised power level. It’s that things in Angel are much more generic, and much more expansive. Barbarian Queen and Psychic Supermodel might not appear in the same show, but they can both be done with Angel. Or, they might indeed appear in the same show, which is why they’re both among the archetypes.
It is a testament to how well the two books reflect their respective sources that the differences between them so strongly reflect the differences between the shows. One of the reasons Buffy was so strong and iconic a TV show was that it was more than just a monster-of-the-week show, it was also a high-school show. Angel lost that, and as a result, blended in with the crowd a bit more. On the other hand, it allowed it to do a much bigger range of stories than Buffy, from dimension hopping silliness to Elroy-esque cop drama, from remakes of Spartacus to old-fashioned saving the world. The scope widened up, too, for demons to have lives and culture and karaoke, for villains to be bigger and deeper and more complex, and lives and loves to be far more tangled and screwed-up.
And so it is with the RPG. Angel works very hard to be a game of much wider scope than Buffy. The high school romance feel is gone. In its place are more powers, more options, and far more toys to play with. Although L.A. is discussed, as are the narrative stylings of the show, the actual concept and content of your show is left far more open than in Buffy – and this is equally reflected in the writing and presentation as it is in the rules. Add the removal of the Slayer and it is easy to see that Angel is far more a “traditional” RPG than its predecessor.
For those who felt limited by Buffy – by the concept of the Slayer or by the strong high-school vibe – this is an incredible boon, allowing them to enjoy all the thrill and wonder of the Buffy RPG free from the shadow of Degrassi. They instead get a much more open game that allows an encourages them to do whatever they like, as long as it involves using kung fu on vampires in some way. The flip-side is a loss of focus. I’ve always preferred very tightly focussed games, where the genre is packed in so thick it drips off the pages and can’t be stopped seeping into your brain. While Angel is reminiscent of its show, it is nowhere near as strong in genre and mode, and for me, it is weaker for it.
The writing, for example, can’t be totally written in Buffy-speak because people in Angel talk more normally. The quotes aren’t quite as funny. There’s even less pretty pictures from the show, and fewer ads for the merchandise (and certainly no Christopher Golden short story) so there’s less of a visual association. The result is a book which, while still wry and well-written, is less funny, and less fun to read. It reads, alas, too much like any other RPG.
And right now, all the people who found the Buffy-speak grating are rubbing their hands in glee. And you begin to see why Eden were so right to release the games separately.
And while Angel may have less pretty blondes and red-heads decorating its pages, it still manages to out-do Buffy in the layout department. The black, soft-feel cover is exquisite, inescapably filling your head cool trench-coats billowing against moon-lit nights while a restless cello plays. Inside, the font is lovely, the typeface very clear and the colours much sharper, making it easier to navigate. It’s both clearer to the eye and prettier to look at, and that’s compared to a game which rewrote the book on visual quality standards. My hearty applause to George and Eden for not resting on their laurels and pushing the envelope even farther.
So enough, you say. Enough with the presentation! Tell us what’s actually in the damn book!
Fine then. I had another thousand words on the cool page numbers, but it can wait.
Chapter breakdown - and chapter content – follows Buffy very closely. Indeed, sometimes the parallels go down to the individual sentence level.
The first chapter has the standard Eden introduction, including very clear and useful notes on how the product relates to the Buffy RPG. Then we go on to a synopsis of the first three series of Angel (which is all that is covered in the core book). What’s different here is that each series write up is accompanied by notes on running a game during that series, then a similar section for playing a character in the same time period. Just as in Buffy, we see again an unprecedented dedication to the application, not just the content. Not just the information, but what to DO with it. An unexpected delight.
Chapter two deals with chargen. The feeling of deja vu is very strong here indeed, but there are a few twists in the tale. Most notably is that instead of Heroes and White Hats, we now have Champions and Investigators, respectively. The difference between them is simply ten more skill points each, but that tells you pretty clearly that Angel has a distinct step up in the power level department.
It’s also a step up in the options department. Only a handful are missing from Buffy (but unfortunately it includes some big ones like Slayer, Werewolf and Robot) but included are such fun career choices as Cop, Criminal, Ex-Watcher, Rogue Demon Hunter and Screwed-Up Adolescent. After these comes the much-vaunted demon design rules, which work just like the character design rules in that they are simply a list of powers with point values attached so you can build a template with a cost. Anyone with Buffy and its supplements will have seen a lot of these powers before (Psychic Visions, Natural Toughness, Telekinesis) but it redeems itself with far less simple things like adjudicating large damage weapons, special vulnerabilities and uncontrollable powers. It’s not long, and rather simple but it’s surprisingly complete, covering most of the kind of powers Angel players will be looking for. I certainly didn’t feel the need for a supplement to expand one…but I did have a sense that such a book (Encyclopaedia Demonica is the working title, I believe) would be a wonderful tool.
Closing the demon creation rules are some examples of the point templates in action – there’s the ronin Gri’ag, the super-smart Byblos and the Revenant, which is the best of them. The Revenant is a very tough zombie that shifts its soul to a new, freshly dead body each time it is killed, so as to rise up and continue to fight evil. Not only is this concept a fantastic one for gameplay, it would also make a great concept for a TV show. Which shows one of the things I truly adore about this game, and the whole Buffy line – it never stops thinking in terms of what makes a good TV show, as well as a good game. Which means neither the GM nor the players stop thinking along those lines either. The televisual medium is written into the very soul of these games.
We close chargen with the usual exemplary archetypes and character sheets for all the stars, including Doyle, Kate and the Groosalugg. The archetypes are, as mentioned, a wide range and very cool, including the bad-ass biker who found Jesus, the reformed cultist looking for chicks and Chow Yun Fat’s The Killer. Oh, and we finally find out exactly what a Rogue Demon is.
Chapter three covers the whole rules thing. There’s no avoiding it: the two games use exactly the same system so this chapter is exactly the same as the one in Buffy. I explained it quite well, I think, in my Buffy review, so I’m not going to explain it again here. Basically you roll a d10, add stat and skill and try to beat a nine. Count success levels over nine to get degrees of success. Damn, I think I just did explain it.
There are a few small changes in Angel, mostly in the combat section: a few extra manoeuvres, a few extra weapons, a few extra modifiers and options, all of which send a subtle but clear message that Angel is a bit more about the biff. I particularly enjoyed the wall-slam manoeuvre, myself. The best inclusion is definitely the vehicle rules which are wonderfully simple but model the show well, cover all the bases and are good fun to use. The basic rules, however, are just as you’ve seen before. Just as they were in Bufy, the rules here are first class and well explained, but if you know Buffy, you’ll definitely want to skim-read or skip ahead.
Ditto on the next chapter, which deals with magic. The rules are exactly the same as in Buffy – and equally as sketchy, too. This is less glaring in Angel because magic was much less a part of the show. So instead of it feeling skimpy, you’re impressed they included it in the first place.
But old hands will skip ahead once again to chapter five, and with good reason: therein lies the rules for generating covens, cabals and agencies, one of the big drawcards of the Angel book.
Like everything we’ve seen so far in the Buffy game, it is nice and simple, yet covers everything you might need. Rather than fiddle with small change, it breaks every category down into five or fewer levels. For example, in the finance stakes, the five levels run from a tiny firm struggling to meet rent and buy ramen noodles (level one) to a multi-billion dollar organisation that can buy God and put Cthulhu on a retainer (level five).
Each level costs the equivalent number of points. How many points do you have to spend? In a very nice balancing mechanic, this depends on your rank in the organisation. PCs who own and run their own shop have only a few points to start with. PCs who are at the lowest men on the totem pole can spend vast wads of points on private jets, mini-bars and direct phone lines to the White House – but they’ll hardly ever get to use them at their discretion. For example, Angel Investigations has 10 points, and Wolfram and Hart a massive 39 points – but Lindsay has a lot less freedom than Angel does.
These points are spent on tricking out your organisation. First comes Clout, the power to get things done. This is broken into Criminal, Financial, Governmental and Supernatural. Clout is rolled whenever you need to pull strings or impress someone with your credentials. After this comes figuring out where you hang your hat: how much floor space you have, how well protected it is and what kind of cool toys you have. Toys include cars, weapons, computers, labs, workshops, archives, and even special training rooms. The emphasis on simplicity means this isn’t exactly www.villainsupply.com but there are plenty of cool ideas and fun toys to spark ideas and make your players drool. Ever wanted your own pit crew? A helicopter? Or to store your files in a pocket dimension?
It’s also a fun system to play with. Although simple to use, there are a few hidden complexities. With higher Financial Clout, you can afford more toys…but you can’t get it without having significant Governmental Clout as well. Meanwhile Supernatural Clout demands a certain level of supernatural toys to justify it. And so on. This provides enough point juggling to keep a group of rules-monkeys occupied for half an hour or so (depending on how many points they have) but the over-riding simplicity means the design can never take over an entire session. Likewise, GMs can knock up a quick outline in ten minutes before game time if need be, or take their time building the perfect balance. As with the magic system in Buffy, the speed granted by the simplicity more than makes up for the graininess of the levels. Lovely.
I ran some examples, and was able to knock up both the A-Team (10 points) and Hellboy’s BPRD (34 points) in less than half an hour, and the system easily accommodated both of them. So I’d say it works.
Chapter six gives the lowdown on Angel’s LA. The coverage is short, but as with the magic chapter, that’s appropriate: Angel is rarely about individual locations, instead just using whatever is needed for the episode. Following this we get quick sheets for your typical lowlifes and street denizens, and then the same for minor cast members: David Nabbit, Merl the Snitch, and Anne. Having dispensed with the simply selfish, we move onto the truly evil, and the much more pointy in chapter seven..
After an overly-long discussion of how vampirism works, we get a big list of bad guys. There’s the big guns like Darla, Sahjhan, Holtz, Leyla and Lindsay, but also memorable one-off villains or antagonists, like the blind assassin girl, the abused telekinetic and Phantom Dennis. Demons and ghosts get a discussion of their natures and powers, and there is a whole separate section devoted to Wolfram and Hart’s operational modes and agents. Best of all, thanks to the rules in the chargen chapter, each demon listed is also attended by a point cost breakdown for using that species as a PC or NPC template. Not only does this allow you to easily throw in a Deathwok warrior whenever you need one (or a whole family of them), it also provides some great examples of the system in action, thus aiding your application of it. Good stuff.
Chapter eight deals with writing an Angel series and the episodes within. Once again, it follows the mould of the same chapter in Buffy very closely, but with a few small changes. Firstly, it’s fully adapted to the different plot structures in the Angel series, and secondly, it is longer, deeper and more developed. Perhaps it’s due to aiming at an older audience, or simply the benefit of a re-write, but whatever the reason, C. J. doesn’t just expand and re-imagine this section, he makes it an even more insightful and useful breakdown of the show’s narrative.
C. J. also beats his personal best in the final chapter, an inconceivably brilliant adventure called Blood Brothers. This tale juggles two plots to keep the players on their toes. Firstly, interrupting a group of cultists unleashes a doppleganger of one of the cast members by mistake. He interferes with the second plot which is hunting a special girl who is in turn hunted by Wolfram and Hart, a dangerous magician and the same group of cultists. The girl is a target because her visions don’t just predict the future, they can create it. The players have to navigate a long trail of clues (beautifully dripped out in little pieces) to find the girl and understand the cultist’s plans, and just when they’ve got that done they have to face hard-core demon combat and legal red-tape, all to protect a girl who could destroy the world, while avoiding the evil machinations of a very capricious doppleganger who knows everything about them, including their weaknesses.
Such a massive and thrilling episode can only end one way: To Be Continued, and indeed it does. Which is at once brilliant writing because you’ll be begging to know what happens next…and terribly frustrating design, as to actually use the adventure you really will need to get the first supplement. But if you enjoyed Angel enough to want to run it, you’re going to want the first supplement anyway. If it’s anywhere near as good as the first Buffy supplement, it will be a mandatory purchase.
We close with – just as in Buffy – a guide to Angel-speak (excellent, as always), a glossary, conversion notes for WitchCraft and a first-rate index. The provided character sheet is only one-sided, but the back of the Buffy one was pretty redundant anyway.
Which is yet another example of the tiny improvements that run throughout Angel. It must have been a little dull for C. J. to basically write the same game twice, but he not only made sure they were both of the very highest quality, but he also made all the tiny improvements and adjustments that the original work suggested. While the prose isn’t as funny, it is tighter and clearer. The rules are tighter and more expansive. There are more options for character design and background. And he also added extra material like the vehicle rules and the organisation creation system – while resisting the temptation to cut the magic rules or the adventure.
You know, it’s a tough call. Buffy was such a stunning game, a crowning achievement far exceeding my expectations and instantly becoming a classic. How can Angel compete with that kind of iconic glory? Or compare to the slap-in-the-face strong genre material that made Buffy one of the most immersive games ever published, yet also one of the easiest to run? Buffy the game and Buffy the TV show both won a special place in my heart (if only because they came first) and Angel can never replace them.
But.
Angel is a tighter game. It’s a more complete game and a more expansive game. It’s even a slightly more polished game. And it’s a more general game - which makes it more useful to the great majority of the gaming industry, and more appealing to those who don’t like the Buffy niche. In an objective analysis, you might even say it was the better game.
But why split hairs? The fact is, they are both masterpieces, extremely high quality games that perfectly emulate their source material in a way that is a cinch to run, a joy to play and a delight to read. Maybe Angel isn’t as singularly powerful and iconic as Buffy, but they are both of equal genius and flair. Those of you who love Angel will not be disappointed. Those of you who do not can – as with Buffy – move along. Or, since this game is so much more open, stay for the modern day occult butt kicking, whichever way you want it.
And those of you who like Buffy and Angel? Well, you could complain that since the book is a whole new core book and not a supplement, you’re paying an extra ten dollars and getting some duplicated material. True. But an Angel supplement would need chargen rules, new power lists, new combat rules, archetypes, character rundowns, a location guide, a monster guide, a style guide and an adventure to be considered complete. And it would be squashed into a 168 page book instead of presenting in all its glory in a 256 pager, thus skimping on the content.
Sure, you could have had a supplement. Or you can pay a measly ten bucks extra for a gorgeous hardcover stuffed with superb content and stacks of extra trimmings that also lets you have a second copy of the rules for your table. I know my preference.
So whether you’re a fan of Angel, a fan of Eden, or just a fan of occult butt-kicking with a fairly light system, you’ll find very much to enjoy in this game. It will catch your eye and spark your brain and fill your heart with a lust for drama and adventure. It will not disappoint.
Because it’s good.
Very, very good.
Style 5 Substance 5
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