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Picture Kult without the nihilism and the horror. Imagine The X-Files mixed with C.S.I., but with investigators who have access to paranormal abilities, and without any government conspiracy to cover things up. Now you’re starting to get what Aletheia is like. The most striking thing about this game is the fact that its setting is remarkably neutral. This is a straight-forward paranormal investigation RPG, without horror overtones or conspiracy theories. When you stop to think about it – surprisingly enough – it’s a pretty refreshing concept. Sometimes, less is more.

If that basic premise appeals to you, read on. I’ll try my hardest to make this review worth your while.

Style – An overall impression.

The visual side of things is not Aletheia’s strong suit. While its cover art is pretty and evocative, the visuals found inside the book are mostly bland. The images, which are few and far between, are nice to look at but did not get my imagination going like most RPG images do. The layout is run-of-the mill, and a non-standard font is used only to mark the beginning of each chapter. This said, two things work very well in Aletheia’s visual scheme. A big map of the PCs’ general headquarters is provided across three pages, and five pages of the setting’s “rosetta stone” are presented in the rulebook in full color. Those two things are very cool to look at, and they provide a dash of wow in the midst of the visual blandness of Aletheia.

Aletheia’s prose is written in clear manner, which lets the game’s content shine. While the text does not immerse you in the game’s setting per se, it does a very good job of making it believable from A to Z. The rules benefit from that same clarity, and they are supported by numerous examples. Finally, apart from a letter written “in character” by one of the NPCs, no flavour text is provided. Considering how most flavour text turns out, it’s probably a wise choice. Editing-wise, Aletheia is relatively devoid of typos.

In the end, Aletheia’s style is not its strong suit, but it does not harm the game either. This is a game you’ll buy for its content.

Content – Chapter by Chapter

The book’s second chapter is called “History". It presents the history of the Seven Dogs Society through the story of its founder. The story told here is that of a genius called Jericho Usher who delved into the mysteries of the paranormal. He went from riches to rags to riches again, and eventually bought a mansion in Alaska that he named the Hepta Sophistai. As he explored unexplained phenomena further and further, he built an odd annex to his mansion: a sort of paranormal corridor with nine doors opening onto different places throughout the world. Shortly thereafter he simply vanished, leaving behind only a collection of his notes – the Usher Codex – and a letter addressed to his acolyte. Jericho’s last wish was that his friend, Terrance Chastain, form a society of seven people to continue searching for the truth. Those seven people were to be chosen from a list of genealogies also left behind by Jericho Usher. Those genealogies, Chastain discovered, often went back several centuries and sometimes extended into the future. Following Usher’s wishes, he formed the first incarnation of the Seven Dogs Society. At some point during their investigations, a fire engulfed the group’s library and destroyed most of the pages of the Usher Codex, leaving just a few behind. Ultimately, after around thirty years of investigation, the first Seven Dogs Society disappeared just like Jericho Usher. Chastain proceeded to form a second group, which was promptly killed and left for him to find within a year’s time. The player characters are part of the newly formed third incarnation of the Seven Dogs Society.

In other words, Aletheia’s second chapter sets up the details of the game’s basic premise. In those five pages, you get the general idea of what this setting is going to be all about. Without revealing it, it establishes the fact that there is a single truth for the players to discover. This chapter’s biggest strength, however, is that it sets up a sense of history around the Seven Dogs Society. It makes the game’s setting believable, thus making it pretty easy to buy into it. Considering how much of Aletheia’s value to you as a gamer rests on whether or not you can roll with it’s basic premise, the “History” chapter does the job its supposed to do very well.

The third chapter, entitled “Hepta Sophistai”, presents the mansion that serves as a base of operations for the Seven Dogs Society. It goes into elaborate details about the whole structure, including the grounds. Although the amount of details almost feels indulgent at times, it leaves a lasting impression of luxury that explains why more materialistic characters would agree to leave everything behind to go on a paranormal wild goose chase, thus broadening the range of potential characters you can play whilst staying within the Seven Dogs Society framework. The most interesting part of this chapter, however, is the mansion’s annex with its nine doors leading to various places in the world. Each location is well covered, and includes potential obvious paranormal connexions when some do exist. For instance, one door opens to Khirbet Qumram, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, while another opens to Roanoke Island where English colonists disappeared during the sixteenth century. Overall, the annex is ripe with plot seeds, and a quick trip to Wikipedia reveals that some research went into the details provided about each location.

The fourth chapter, “Characters”, deals with character creation. Basically, character creation is dealt with through a segmented point-based method. You start with points to spend amongst the game’s four attributes, namely fitness, awareness, personality and reason, which are rated from 1 to 5. Each attribute is also assigned a descriptor, which designates the strong suit of the character in that attribute. Next comes points to spend on occupations, which are very broad skill groups encompassing whatever is pertinent to that occupation, and extracurricular skills, which are narrower skill groups. While the list of occupations is not exhaustive, there’s more than enough provided. The extracurricular skills, on the other hand, are fairly exhaustive. Points are spent on occupations according to their rating, which are based on how useful a given skills set is likely to be. Extracurricular skills have a flat cost, and feel like they’re mostly meant to complement the lower-rated occupations. Moreover, each occupation or extracurricular skill is assigned a level of proficiency, which is also bought with the second set of points.

The final segment of character creation is dedicated to supplemental points. While those can be spent on increasing your attributes, or buying addition descriptors, occupations and extracurricular skills, they’re mostly meant to buy powers. Every character in Aletheia has access to paranormal abilities, and each player must at least buy one for his character during the process of character creation. Nine powers are listed in total, and each has a rating according to its usefulness, just as with occupations. Because I’m such a nice guy, here’s a list of the nine powers provided: Presque vu (intuition), Déjà Visité (orientation), Remote viewing, X-ray vision, Postcognition, Precognition, Ghosting (insubstantiality), Teleportation, and Time travel. Once you’ve picked a power or two, you’re free to spend the rest on whatever else you want to buy with those points. You also get a free combat-oriented extracurricular skill at rookie level, or a non-combat skill if your occupation already covers combat.

Once that’s done, all that’s left to do is fill in the blanks of who your character is. Hit points are at a flat twenty points for each and every character in Aletheia. The only secondary stat you have to calculate is Will, which is equal to the sum of the rating of each of your powers. All in all, character creation is a painless process.

The fifth chapter is called “Mechanics”, and you can pretty much guess what’s covered there. Aletheia’s basic task resolution is fairly simple. The game master sets a target number, which represents the number of victories the character needs to score. Each level of proficiency in one (and only one) relevant occupation or extracurricular skill provides an automatic victory. Then, you roll a number of d6s equal to your attribute rating; each die that comes up a 5 or a 6 is an additional victory. Descriptors, when they apply, add a die to that pool. Finally, if you’re not happy with the number of victories you scored, you can spend a point of will to roll another d6 after the fact. If you’ve got a number of victories equal or above the target number originally set by the GM, mission accomplished.

The reason for the “automatic victories” rule is rooted in the idea that this is a mystery-solving game. The main thing that can go wrong in that type of adventure is the players rolling badly, and the characters ending up clueless (literally!) Thus, investigation works in a way that’s slightly different from the basic mechanics. To make a long story short, the target number set by the GM is the number of clues available from the scene that’s being played out, and each success represents one clue that’s discovered. Now here’s the kicker: the first victory always provides the vital clue, which is to say the one that’ll lead to the next scene. My impression is that this is very similar to Esoterrorists’ take on investigation, albeit in a way that’s more granular because of the inclusion of non-vital clues which still contribute to the overall investigation by providing details. I also think that the broadly-defined occupations and the possibility of scoring victories with the random element of an attribute’s roll also make this mechanic much less likely to lead to pixelbitching than Esoterrorists’ approach (from what I understand of it.)

Combat is handled in a very simplistic way. Initiative is determined by adding 1d6 to your fitness score. Attacks are a fitness roll against a target number equal to the opponent’s fitness, with occupations and extracurricular skills providing automatic victories. Each victory equal or above the target number represents one point of damage in hand-to-hand combat. You add +2 to the total if you have a blunt weapon, and +3 if you have an edged weapon. If you’re shooting a gun, each victory equal or above the target number represents four points of damage. That’s it. Like I said, simple.

Otherwise, you’re provided with rules on falling, healing, called shots, dodging, surprise, and other miscellaneous obligatory bits of rules you get to read in every single RPG book you buy. Move along, nothing to see here. More interesting are the rules concerning the paranormal powers. In most cases, it’s even simpler than combat: you just roll awareness against a target number of one. With precognition, postcognition and time travel, the target number is determined by how further on the timeline you want to get. In any case, the fact that the rules for powers are almost freeform make it fairly clear that the powers in Aletheia are meant to be used.

Before I move on to the next chapter, here’s one last intriguing bit of mechanics provided in Aletheia. Essentially, once the adventure ends, the characters are required to formulate an hypothesis explaining the phenomenon they investigated in the course of the adventure. If they get it right, each character earns a certain number of experience points. In itself, it’s a cool idea that really pushes forward the methodical investigation aspect of the game. When the characters don’t get it right, however, the players are required to make a reason roll. Based on the result, the GM grants a certain amount of experience points and corrects the mistakes in the hypothesis. This last part is what leaves me puzzled. On one hand, I understand the need for such corrections, as any large enough error is bound to send the players away from the game’s overarching plot. On the other hand, I have a hard time imagining a way for the GM to correct the mistake without deprotagonising the player characters or dissolving the game’s suspension of disbelief. The thing is, I’m convinced it can be done. Aletheia doesn’t provide any advice on how to do it, however, and I think it should have. The game’s rules and setting are clearly geared to make the player characters the main protagonists of the stories told with Aletheia, and the unfortunate side effects of “hypothesis-based experience points” feels out of synch with the game’s design goals. Still, it’s a minor rule which can easily be done away with, and I’m pretty sure a short amount of time spent thinking about it could yield several ideas on how to keep the rule while avoiding its adverse effects.

Okay, let’s move on. Aletheia’s sixth chapter is entitled “Anomalous Phenomena”, and it covers investigation from the players’ perspective. Here is where the game really shines. Starting off with a whooping four pages and a half of investigation advice, the sixth chapter really sets the tone the authors have envisioned for Aletheia’s gameplay. The advice provided is much more in line with C.S.I., Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Gregory House than with the half-arsed approach we’ve seen Mulder and Scully use in The X-Files. Investigation here feels pretty close to scientific research, and I kept having flashes of players doing white board brainstorms on what to do next as I was reading. The gameplay being promoted here makes Aletheia much closer to an elaborate game of Clue or Mystery at the Abbey than it is to the slightly pulpy take on investigations usually used in RPGs. Don’t get me wrong – I love the latter kind as much as the next gamer. The truth is, there are tons of those, and it’s nice to see a different take on it.

Following the advice section of the chapter is a list of paranormal phenomena commonly found, relatively speaking, along with a paragraph or three on each providing various hypotheses explaining them. Again, since I’m a nice guy, here’s a list: Vile vortices (like the Bermuda Triangle), Virgin births, Unnatural precipitation, Spontaneous human combustion, Agriglyphs, Animal rain, Alien abductions, UFOs, Near-death experiences, Ghosts and hauntings, Electronic voice phenomenon, the Hum, Automatic writing, Psychic surgery, Folie à deux, and Missing time. As with the annex, this is a part of the book which provides countless plot hooks.

Chapter 7, “Revelations”, starts again from the beginning and explores the various secrets of Aletheia’s setting. Everything gets covered: the cosmology, the story of Jericho Usher, Hepta Sophistai’s annex, the locations it leads to, the Usher Codex, and every single phenomena presented in the previous chapter. I won’t get into the details of those secrets, mainly because they’re one of Aletheia’s selling points, and I feel I’d be doing it a disservice by revealing those in this review. I mean, let’s face it people, this is not one of those games you’ll end up buying for it’s system. What I will do, however, is share my opinion. To make a long story short, I was very impressed. The “single truth” that the Seven Dogs Society seeks is a very tightly woven mix of science and mysticism, which manages to remain coherent and playable even when it goes into full-throttle spirituality towards the end of the intended overarching plot. Although the science aspects enter the realm of the distressingly complex at times, the authors do a good job of simplifying things with numerous sidebars. Some things stay a bit hard to comprehend, but it’s a lot more hit than miss.

The last part of the chapter is dedicated to the supporting characters, or NPCs, as the rest of us like to call them. This section is a mixed bag of allies, neutrals, and villains. Well, villain, really, because there’s just this one. It’s a good villain, but I would’ve liked to have one or two more presented, in order to have a wider range of opposition to throw at the players. Still, it’s a minor gripe.

The eighth chapter is called “Gamemastering”. It deals, well, with GMing Aletheia. Basically, this chapter is to the GM what the “Anomalous Phenomena” chapter was to players. The advice presented is mostly centered on building up investigations, and it mirrors the investigative method suggested to the players. The advice presented is very useful, and it’s something I’ll most likely refer to in the future when I need to come up with a mystery for any game. Otherwise, this section presents numerous suggestions on how to implement the overarching plot throughout a campaign. This advice was equally useful, but strictly centered on Aletheia’s back story. Finally, “advanced powers” are presented for players to discover and develop during the course of gameplay. Those powers are much less generic, and much more tied to the game’s setting, which is nice.

Finally, the ninth and last chapter is a sample adventure called “From the Heavens”. The story deals with alien abductions, and does a good job of showcasing Aletheia’s investigative structure. While it could’ve done a better job of showcasing the setting’s uniqueness, it’s a good adventure to start off a campaign with.

Playing it – A few random thoughts

I won’t be doing an actual play here, but rather I’ll share my impressions with you, dear readers.

As I came up with my scenario – which dealt with a man in a geriatric ward having repeated near-death experiences despite the fact that he wasn’t really dying – the first thing that hit me was how easy it was to tie whatever I came up with into Aletheia’s cosmology and big explanation to everything. The whole rationale the game proposes for the paranormal is very versatile, which is a nice plus. I then proceeded to flesh out my scenario by following very closely the guidelines provided in the rulebook. The end result was threefold. One, it was a lot of work. Two, it was an easy lot of work – I never had an easier time coming up with clues and leads and stuff than with this one. Three, it was worth it. As I went into the game, I felt I had my bases all covered, and that my scenario was rock solid.

For those of you who are wondering, it was indeed rock solid. The game went smoothly, and everyone around the table had fun. One player didn’t really expect to enjoy it, but he ended up liking the game a lot. In the post-game briefing, each of the three players said they were surprised by some of the twists and turns in the scenario. Those twists and turns being pulled directly from Aletheia’s official “single truth”, that’s a testament to the game, right there. At the end of the session, all three players said they would be willing to play in a more long term game of Aletheia as long as there was an overarching plot that linked all the investigations together, and as long as secrets were revealed as the game progressed. As it turns out, this is exactly how Aletheia is made to be played, according to the “Gamemastering” chapter.

System-wise, Aletheia is very much what you’d expect. Character creation was ludicrously simple, and I ended up making six characters in the span of twenty minutes (and I was watching The People’s Court at the same time, to boot!) In gameplay, the system was pretty much both unimpressive and invisible. It’s okay, though, because it’s not the kind of game you play to wonder at the ingenuity of its mechanics.

One minor hiccup: the system and the way characters are built do not actively encourage roleplay. When you consider that the investigation process is really a cerebral thing that engages the players much more than it does the characters, you can easily end up with characters that lack depth unless you have players who are able to roleplay by themselves without any prompting from the system or structure of the adventure.

The system did shine in how it handled investigations, however. Reading the whole “vital clue” revealed first, I had some misgivings. Basically, on paper, that means that the players succeed with no challenge almost every time. What I understood in the course of gameplay, however was that the function of the “vital clue” was to advance to the next scene. All the other clues, it turns out, had a much bigger impact than I expected on the players figuring out the whole picture. Moreover, Aletheia’s structure for creating investigations naturally led me to have the same “non-vital” clues come up in several situations, so it was not a big deal if they missed it in scene A, because the vital clue led them to scene B where they had another chance of discovering it. And so on.

Overall, the session went very well, and everyone around the table (including myself) was very impressed with the end result.

The Bottom Line

Substance-wise, Aletheia earns a 4. It’s a solid game (3) that is fairly unique (4), but it’s not ground-breaking (that would’ve been a 5). The game has a lot of charm, however. I felt the rush to play it before I even got to the revelations intended for the GM. All the players in my playtest ended up wanting more, and two of them bought the game afterwards. In the end, Aletheia ends up being a textbook example of how a game does not have to be perfect in order to be a good game you’ll want to play.

The bottom line here is that if you’re a fan of games centered on the paranormal or focussing on investigation, Aletheia is worth every penny you’ll spend for it. The advice on running investigations alone makes it worth your while, and chances the setting will pique your interest too.

Happy gaming,
Jocelyn

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