Unbidden
Roleplaying Game of Horrors, Secrets, and Legends
Review by C. Demetrius Morgan
Synopsis
This review is for the 91-page PDF of the Unbidden role-playing game, written by the dynamic duo of Marc Bruno and Brett M. Bernstein, published by Politically Incorrect Games, and currently available from RPGnow for $6.99. There is also a demo.
Target Audience: Mature gamers who are 1) fans of horror and psychological thrillers, and are; 2) looking for something beyond the typical vanilla fantasy RPG fare.
Rating: 9 out of 10 golden apples. However, were this a movie, it would be released straight to DVD and have a content warning on the box. As such I tack on the following caveat to my rating for younger players: “requires adult supervision to play”.
The document looks nice; in fact the format is really pleasing to the eye, despite being in three-column format. However the game is not easy to summarize with a mere glance. Viz, “Unbidden is a role-playing game of horror predicated on legends and myths, more commonly known as the Secret Stories and perpetuated by a displaced people seeking a sense of mission.” Sounds straightforward enough, or does it? That‘s what I was left wondering even after re-reading the introductory paragraphs. In essence Unbidden is game where the players have to really be able to take on the foibles of a characters persona, for it is the characters battle against their demons, be they real or imagined, that is central to play. Unbidden is a game meant to be played with theatrical flourish. Thus it’s probably not your typical game of D&D, or even Ravenloft. Though, as I sit typing these words, I am not even sure if that brief summary properly captures what the game is all about. So, let us not dally, on to the individual chapters! top
Chapter-by-Chapter Overview top
Chapter 1: Game Mechanics - The first chapter lays out over 4-pages the core of the system’s action resolution mechanics for Basic and Advanced Tasks. From paragraph one you are informed of the need for a minimum of 2 six sided dice, that the dice are always rolled in pairs, and that the sum of the roll is referred to as the DICE TOTAL. This is important because the basic resolution system requires all resolution rolls to be equal to or less than a character’s Skill. The advanced system adds the additional wrinkle of task difficulty. Difficulty being rated on a scale of Simple to Impossible. A chart it provided.
Chapter 2: Characters - 11 pages covering characters and character creation. Characters in Unbidden are comprised of Traits, which are derived from “the mind, body, and spirit” and affect how adroit at using their skills a character is. Primary Traits are ranked from 0 (zero) to 6 (six). From here a background is chosen, then a caste, and then the character is fleshed out by allocating points to skills and endowments. Well-organized reference charts are also provided.
Chapter 3: Skills and Endowments - Exactly what you think it is. 12 pages listing skills and endowments.
Chapter 4: Violence - This 5-page section details the system’s combat rules from Declaration of Actions to Wound Recovery.
Chapter 5: The Darkness - This chapter details the flavor text, also known as the background, or campaign milieu. There are 10-pages here; beginning with a discussion of the nature of Evil, Darkness, God, and inter-dimensional beings of great power in relation to the game world of Unbidden. Next comes a discussion of Characteristics, Motives, and Schemes for “demons are creatures of shadow and blackness” and “Darkness feeds on base human emotions” and, as demons are essentially “Agents of the Darkness”. Obviously it helps to know a little about them, which is what this section is all about. We are even told how to create them. Yes, that’s right, this section has a modified version of the character creation rules designed to create Agents of the Darkness! Scary.
Chapter 6: Secrets and Legends - The eyes only, top secret, read upon pain of nightmares Game Master’s section! It’s 17 pages of timeline, back-story, and explanation of how to run a game of Unbidden.
Chapter 7: Dark Portents - Basically this section expands upon the sample background and offers some general idea of the nature of the world of Unbidden. A world that is very much like our own, yet subtly different. top
Summary top
Unbidden establishes a distinctive style for a modern horror milieu, and while its depth of psychological exploration may not appeal to all the same can probably be said of Stephen King novels. Yet we all know who Stephen King is, whether we’ve read his novels or not, don’t we?
The Setting: A darker version of our own world in which Agents of the Darkness, which is not quite the equivalent of the Biblical Devil, roam a world of Secret Stories and hidden truths that may or may not be Truth. It is a world sifted through a prism of individual perceptions, a reality shaped by character’s personal demons. Demonic forces against which characters wage a Secret War. The knowledge of these secrets comes unasked for and unwanted, and that is precisely what the game world is: Unbidden. top
The Game: Best as I can describe it Unbidden is designed as a psychological thriller whose goal is to explore the inner mind and determine how awareness helps to shape a characters perceptions of the world around them. The style of play is thus more about theatrical role-playing and social interaction than it is about wielding dice to determine how much damage has been inflicted against some foe or another. top
System Mechanics: Unbidden has two primary resolution mechanics 1) Task/Action Resolution and 2) Combat/Conflict resolution. Both are functionally similar. For instance, combat is essentially a pairing of the sum total of a character’s Trait and Offensive Skill score vs. the sum of an opponents Trait and Defensive Skill score. Advanced Combat tactics use a difficulty rating, expressed as a positive or negative modifier, to determine the outcome of such actions. Examples of advanced combat tasks include Quick Draw, Called Strikes, Second Attack, and etcetera. Whereas the basic resolution mechanic requires players to make a resolution roll (2d6) and compare it to a Skill or Trait, success indicated by any roll that is equal to or less than the TN. That is the crux of Unbidden’s resolution system, comparison of two sets of numerical values with additional complexity added in the form of an assessment of levels of difficulty; difficulty being rated on a scale of Simple to Impossible. top
Character Creation: Characters in Unbidden have six primary traits- Strength, Dexterity, Perception, Reasoning, Willpower, and Mythos- rated from 0 to 6 and three secondary traits. As with most PIG offerings these secondary traits are derived from a character’s primary attributes and are: Reaction, Stamina, and Dementia. In addition to traits characters also have Personal Demons and Skills. Personal Demons are essentially one of five types of disadvantages- these being Delusions, Fears, Triggers, Temptations, or Secrets- that can negatively impact a character’s Dementia rating. Thus these stats are an integral part of play. top
A while back, I forget when exactly, I posted a draft version of a game idea (with test mechanics) over at The Forge. I tentatively titled what I thought to be a rough gem Devils & Daemons, why that is important is because I was kind of (but not really) attempting to create a similar sort of gaming experience as found in Unbidden. Granted my posted draft was universally viewed as a pile of incomprehensible pig excrement, and that says a lot coming from a forum where borderline baffling new terms and theories are made up on the fly on a semi-regular basis. And understood by the participants! Then again the reaction could just have been due to the simple fact I was attempting to do way too much with a far too minimalist set of rules whose goal orientation and meta game objectives were beyond vague. Either way Devils & Daemons equals pig excrement while Unbidden would be the vegetable garden that grows out of such rich fertilizer. Seriously Unbidden, like any garden, is not just something you toss a few seeds in the air and expect to happen. It takes planning and toil, indeed you can tell while reading this game it obviously had a lot of thought and effort put into it. As someone who attempted something similar, and failed miserably in the misplaced effort, I can appreciate this system for what it does. That namely being set a tone and establish a style that not only is likely to appeal to the target audience but also clearly establishes what the goals of play are. If you don’t believe me you can go search the Forge’s forums. The aforementioned travesty of aborted game design is probably still there. Or you can get a copy of Unbidden, which is a complete game with clearly defined goals and working mechanics. Of course it’s your choice. Just remember what curiosity did to the cat! top
Negatives: For escapist fantasy this read as pretty depressingly dreary stuff. I’m not sure if that’s really bad or if the authors have played up to the thriller slash horror genre tropes too well. Too, this seems more a game designed to provoke thought, which some may not care for in their role-playing games. In short this is probably the sort of thing readers of murder mysteries would love to get together on a weekend to play. Or not. I’m not particularly fond of murder mysteries, at least in book form, so I could be off base. Then again I could see fans of Stephen King adapting the rules and basic concepts to play out a novel setting similar to It, Tommyknockers, or Storm of the Century. Lots of personal demons in there! top
Positives: The PDF, for the most part, looks magnificent. If you like horror or psychological thrillers then this is definitely worth checking out. Just keep in mind that the mood music isn’t included. For those of you worried about insidious DRM schemes designed to keep you from freely copying a file from your Internet computer to, say, the computer in your gaming room or a laptop or even a CDROM to take to Kinko’s and have it printed out (or whatever) Unbidden, while locked against editing, is otherwise unhindered by encryption schemes. Major plus. Oh, sure, there are one or two dull pages, but then not every page needs to be dressed up with background or border illustrations, do they? top
Spiritus ubi vult spirat: et vocem
ejus audis, sed nescis unde veniat,
aut quo vadat: sic est omnis,
qui natus est ex spiritu.
Copyright © 2004 C. Demetrius Morgan