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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”.
Initial
Impressions
Chapter-By-Chapter
Overview
Summary
The
Setting
The
Game
System
Mechanics
Character
Creations
Appraisal
Negatives
Positives
Initial Impressions
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
Appraisal
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
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