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It's Bite-Sized!
It's somewhat difficult to talk about Roanoke--not because it's incoherent, but because it's such a little thing, and despite being little, it's not at all sparce. One must tread a fine line to discuss its in-and-outs without negating the need to buy it. Here's a go.Roanoke is a horror roleplaying game with a powerful action slant; some of its inspirations, listed at the back, include Sleepy Hollow, Ravenous, and Brotherhood of the Wolf. Physically speaking, it's a 44-page, single-column .pdf file; unzipped, it's about one-and-a-half megabytes. There's exactly one piece of art, the evocative and cool-looking cover; the rest is unillustrated, but well-fonted. It lacks fancy background images to relentlessly consume printer-ink, and, um, I bet it'd smell like warm cookies (made of paper) when it comes out of the laser printer.
Welcome to Roanoke, Here's Your Mysterious Disappearance.
The game kicks off by telling you all you need to know about Roanoke the game (in Premise) and Roanoke the colony (in Setting). The low ammount of text might imply a lack of substance, but this is not so; the writing conveys a lot of information in a streamlined fashion. The Setting chapter rounds up with a brief discussion of spirit-magic, a low-key style that fits right at home with the Wushu system that powers Roanoke.
Chapters three and four, Character Creation and System, discuss how the game is played. Roanoke runs on the Wushu system, an extremely rules light and story-heavy system. The gist of it: characters have only four statistics, all of them customized Traits. Some of the example traits include Cleanse By Fire, Witchcraft, and The Trees Speak, among more mundane traits such as Folklore, Politics, and Women's Work. Three of them are helpful abilities, and one is a crippling fear that hinders the character.
There are numerous example characters to give players a feel for how a Roanoke character looks like. They're quite varied and give a healthy cross-section of the colonists and natives.
We Come to Kick Ass and Chew Tobacco Plants, and We Actually Haven't Discovered Tobacco Plants Yet.
Wushu is a unique die pool system. Rather than adding up the numbers of two or more statistics, how many dice you roll depends on how you describe an action, with more detail getting more dice (up to a maximum of five, to prevent going on and on and on). The player tries to roll under his trait's rating, or under 2 if he isn't using a trait, or trying to hit a measly 1 if in the presence of what triggers his fear; each successful roll is, well, a success. The more, the merrier.
The game is optimized for combat, both in the guns-a-blazin' style and The Crucible-esque courtroom exchanges, though it's not lacking in rapid conflict resolution either. The most interesting idea behind Wushu's combat is that what the player describes always happens. The only limits are for balance and flavor purposes: an action can be vetoed if it'd break the mood, and one can't just decapitate the Big Bad and leave it at that. Once their enemies have been sufficiently kung fu'd (that is, all their Lifeblood drained in combat), then the one who landed the killing blow describes how their enemy is kill't. (The same goes for villians: if a character runs short of Lifeblood, the GM gets to describe what the villians do to 'em, which includes hideous horrible bloody death).
Should one be driven to succeed no matter what the cost, the game is quite accomidating: by gaining a Doom point, a character automatically rolls a 1 on every die in his pool (encouraging a player to go utterly all-out on such a desperate attack). Gaining a Doom point is quite powerful, but there are two effects. In the short term, a GM can spend a Doom point for the benefit of an NPC (removing it from the gathered pool). In the long, it affects how the campaign will end; the further the players entrench themselves in Doom, the worse their characters' fates. Consequentially, the more they suck it up and are self-reliant, the better off they'll end up.
The system, incidentally, is fantastic: it encourages players to go wild, and, for GMs who can't get enough Faustian bargains, offers incentives to screw themselves over in exchange for instant power. Doom points are, and you can blurb-quote me on this, "the Drama Points of 2006!"
Countdown to Deathstruction
The second half of the book is the game master's section. It's written in the same lots-of-info, not-too-many-words style as the rest of the game, and is helpful not only for new GMs, but as an aid to get experienced GMs into the Wushu system mindset.
While there's a default setting in Roanoke colony, there's no default threat. The GM is left to devise his own impending destruction, or to choose one of the premades in the book. The sample foes cover quite a bit of ground: there's a mundane conspiracy, !!Zombie Vikings!!, and a good ol' fashioned Lovecraftian monstrocity, among others, plus a guide to the dangerous and fun-to-kill wildlife of the island.
The examples foes are quite well-done; the author is commendable for his informative and brisk style. The choice of Roanoke island, one of the most famous bits of "weird history," as a setting was an excellent idea. The example threats help spark the reader's imagination in the right direction.
Closing out the book is a small "random colony event" table and the bibliography. (Personally, I'd add Supressed Transmissions: The First Broadcast to the list, or, if you have a subscription to SJ Games's Pyramid magazine, you can read his Roanoke column online; it's the best guide to alternate/weird history gaming, and has some great ideas for Roanoke specifically.)
Five Bucks Well Spent
If you have a credit card and five extra bucks, I'd strongly reccomend giving Roanoke a shot. Here's a direct link to where you can buy it, though you have to sign up for RPGNow to do so. Alternately, if you have ten extra bucks and would rather not stare too long at a computer screen, you can get the print version.
Who out there would like Roanoke? Again, the game system is extremely rules light, so gamers who love lots of fiddly rules bits might not like it (then again, I love fiddly rules bits and I quite enjoy the game). If you enjoy narrative, rules-light games, then this practically has your name written on it, ditto fans of period horror or fancy action. Plus, the game is based on the generic Wushu rules system, making it a breeze to apply to numerous other games (although Wushu itself is available free, Roanoke has several key differences in its construction, particularly reguarding Doom points).
If this sounds at all interesting, try buying it--it's inexpensive, and it's better for you than a fast-food lunch.
In consulting DriveThruRPG we've come up with a number of products which we think might be related, but some might be inaccurate because the name, Roanoke, is so short. Nonetheless, take a look, as purchasing through the RPGnet Store helps to support RPGnet.
