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Sadly, it feels like Colonial Gothic didn’t manage to grow past the homebrew stage and into a full-fledged game. This is a review of why.
Style – An overall impression
Physically, Colonial Gothic is 9” x 6”, perfect-bound, and 218 pages thick (with the last four pages being blank.) The binding seems plenty sturdy, and the paper is of slightly better quality than the standard paper used for a home printer. The game is printed in black and white.Visually, Colonial Gothic is rather nice. The front cover features a full-color image of a faded “Betsy Ross” flag, which sets the game’s tone quite well. The illustrations inside the book, part of which are actually clipart, have an old-school history book feel to them, also underlining the game’s nature. Each page is bordered at the top and the bottom with a black border, which features occult-like diagrams when you look at it very carefully. From the looks of it, those diagrams should’ve come out better, but were lost when the borders were printed too dark. It’s a shame, because that means that only the historical aspect gets reinforced visually, while the horror element of the game is left almost completely “imageless”, so to speak. Still, Colonial Gothic’s visuals do a good job at portraying the game world.
The game’s prose doesn’t fare as well, I’m sorry to say. The rules as presented often feel unclear, and could’ve used a lot more examples to support the explanations. The setting prose is clearer, but has a hard time being evocative. For the history aspect of the game, it wasn’t that much of a bother – it felt somewhat in-synch with the “history book” feel of the game’s visual scheme. It did hurt the horror aspect, however, because there’s nothing in there to establish the world as scary. There’s a huge difference between “occult mysteries and horror in the colonial era” and “the colonial era with monsters and magic.” Sadly, the written tone makes the setting fall within the second category, rather than the first.
Sometimes, an imperfect game can find huge appeal by cashing in on a very distinctive style. For this reason, any game should really strive to establish a style of its own, if only to counterbalance the pitfalls of its design. Colonial Gothic, while pretty to look at, doesn’t manage to establish a tone of its own. Therefore, the only thing left to judge the game by is its actual content.
Content – Chapter by Chapter
Colonial Gothic opens with a short forward, where the story of how the game came to be is presented for all to see. As I’ve mentioned above, the game is very much a labor of love, and it doesn’t hide that fact. Then, it jumps right it.The actual game material starts with “Chapter 0: Primer”, where the game is presented in broad strokes. Here, you learn that Colonial Gothic is going to be a game featuring larger than life heroes, in a colonial era where something “darker, malicious, and purposeful” haunts the land and its inhabitants. That’s all there is to it, but it has the virtue of clearly announcing what the authors wanted to do with the game. I hope you paid attention, because I’m gonna have to come back to it later on.
“Chapter 1: 12°” presents the game’s system, which is called – unsurprisingly enough at this point – 12°. Basically, what we have here is a roll-under mechanic, where you have to roll 2d12 against the relevant stat or skill, plus or minus any modifiers. That’s all there is to it. That’s also where the design starts showing heavy signs of homebrewing. Why 2d12? Why not 2d10, or 1d20? Frankly, 2d12 makes it pretty bothersome for either the players or the GM to estimate the probabilities of success on the fly. Somehow, the choice of dice feels counterintuitive for no good reason. If there was a design goal behind the choice, I would’ve liked it to be less opaque – sometimes knowing why a bit of the system was designed that way helps you use it to its full potential. If there was no design goal involved (apart from, you know, using d12s), it’s a doubtful choice which harms the basic simplicity of the game.
Moreover, there seems to be no good reason to send the stats into high numbers like that. A bit further in the chapter, the game provides a table pointing out what skill number represents what level of ability in laymen terms. There are nine different ranks, ranging from “Feeble” (1-3) to “World Class” (23-24). Again, either the design goals are very opaque, or the choice to have attributes ranging from 1 to 24 was made on a whim. As with the rolling mechanic – and they tie to each other so it’s only natural – this design choice harms the basic simplicity of the system. Nine ranks could’ve as easily been achieved by giving the skills and attributes a range of 1 through 10, and then using a d10 for the roll-under mechanic.
In other words, Colonial Gothic’s system is simple, but gets muddied by a lot of weird quirks that have no apparent design goal. The end result, I’m sorry to say, feels both uninspired and cumbersome.
“Chapter 2: Heroes” presents the rules for character creation. The chapter opens by presenting the characters’ five basic attributes, and presents what the game calls adjustable stats: vitality, sanity, and faith. Vitality points are hit points, and Sanity points are sanity hit points, which gets explained in more details in a later chapter. Those two aforementioned adjustable stats are determined by multiplying one or two attributes, which can bring the numbers pretty high, for better or worse. On the other hand, Faith, of which you have a flat 12 points, can be spent to raise a target number on a 1 for 1 basis. It can also be used to stave off death: by burning all the Faith points you currently have, you can bring your character back to one hit point if he ever find himself with no hit points left. The character, however, is still unconscious.
The creation process proper opens with a list of period backgrounds you can choose from. Those backgrounds, ranging from colonist, to native, to slave are probably the neatest part of character creation. Filled with sidebars on relevant topics, the section on choosing a background gives a good feel for what the setting and the characters within it are like. Unfortunately, the backgrounds end up having very little mechanical effect on the game, simply giving you a one point bonus to one of your attributes.
The process of buying attributes and skills is almost as quirky as the basic mechanic. You start off with 55 points to spend amongst your five attributes. So far so good. You then get 45 points to spend on skills, which you must buy at a minimum level equal to that of the attribute the skill is linked to. The basic cost in points is equal to the attribute level, which constitutes the skill’s base rank. Afterwards, you spend half the base rank for every point you want to add. For instance, let’s say you purchase a firearms skill, which is linked to your nimble score of 14. The first thing you need to do is purchase Firearms at 14, and spend 7 creation points per additional skill point you want to have. In other words, I need 28 points to get a firearms skill slightly better than my attribute.
That point distribution ends up generating several quirks. First, consider a Nimble score of 2. I purchase my base rank at the cost of 2, and then raise it by twenty points at the cost of half the base rank (1, in this case) per point. My complete klutz can now have a whooping 22 in firearms for 22 points, which is 6 points less than the character in my first example, who was pretty agile. I’m guessing that the base rank should be raised each time an additional point is purchased, but nowhere is this mentioned. Actually, it’s a purely mathematical guess on my part, because the rules as written actually seem to indicate that my klutz example is correct. In any case, the whole process makes for a very weird point cost progression.
Furthermore, the end result of any of the two mathematical possibilities is that starting characters begin with very few skills. This might have been presented as a feature rather than a flaw in a “realistic” game, but Colonial Gothic presents itself as cinematic. When you take into account the fact that the unskilled actions rule is fairly punitive, it means that the game really misses the mark on being cinematic except for a few specific skills for each character. Consider a character whose attributes are spread evenly across the five attributes. Any unskilled attempt is therefore made at a basic score of 11, minus 4 for attempting an unskilled action. In other words, any action outside of those covered by the few skills the character does have has about a 29% chance of succeeding. Such limited competence does not larger than life heroes make.
The next step in character creation is the writing of “Fate Cards”, which are basically cards that you can hand out to the GM in order to have some amount of narrative control over the story. The chapter provides a short description of how they’re supposed to work, and point out that clearer rules are provided in the GM’s chapter later on in the book. I’ll spare you the wait, and tell you about those rules right here. First, they are not rules, but rather guidelines and advice on how to integrate the Fate Cards into the overall story. Second, not only are they not rules, but the only actual rule provided is that the Fate Cards cannot be used to a mechanical effect. To use their own example, Fate Cards cannot be used as a deus ex machina that makes it easier to escape the bad guy, for instance. In other words, Fate Cards end up being an overly complicated way of saying to the GM that players are allowed to have input on their character’s background and how it comes into play. I echo this sentiment, but I feel like creating something that has the odor, flavor, and appearance of a game mechanic without being one is a bit of a roundabout way of saying it. Moreover, I must admit that I was a bit disappointed to discover that it wasn’t a mechanic after all. It would’ve been a nice contemporary touch to a game design that feels somewhat dated. In a newly published game, that’s a must.
The third chapter, “Chapter 3: Skills”, provides a list of skills from which to pick. The skills provided are fairly narrow, especially in the case of combat skills, which further deepens the failed cinematic feel problem. The low number of skills character have access to at the beginning of the game does not mix well with the fact that you need a different skill to fight empty-handed and to fight with a weapon, for instance. Apart from that, there’s not much for me to tell you that hasn’t already been explained earlier in the review.
“Chapter 4: Action” presents the game’s combat rules. Since all of them are a logical outgrowth of what has been presented before, there’s not much left to tell you about. Initiative is determined by rolling 1d12 the character’s “Nimble” stat. A few times during the chapter, references are made to the fact that characters can have more than one action in a round, but sadly the way to determine when this is the case is nowhere to be found. Defending against an attack (by dodging or parrying) counts as an action. Besides that, you know all you need to know from my earlier presentation of the system.
One thing you do not know about yet is the sort of damage an attack can do. The damage listed for each weapon is presented in the next chapter, but I’ll address this here as it is more convenient for review purposes. An unarmed attack is equal to the character’s Might. Remember that a character with even scores in all five attributes has a Might of 11, and that a character more focussed on combat can easily have a higher Might score than that. Melee weapons simply add a bonus to might. An infantry sword, for instance, causes “Might 3” points of damage. Pistols, which work best as short range, have a damage score of 1d12 plus a bonus of some sort, while long ranged weapons most often have a damage score of 2d12 plus a bonus. These design decisions are very likely to have an effect on gameplay, but this time around it looks like a feature rather than a flaw. First, the randomness of long-ranged weapons feel like they reflect the relative inaccuracy of firearms at that time. However, do bear in mind here that I know squat about historical firearms. Second, the predictability of how much damage you’ll do in melee – combined with how high that damage is compared to what you can score randomly with firearms – make Colonial Gothic a game that favors melee over long range combat. This is perfectly fine by me here, because it looks like a conscious design decision.
The fourth chapter is also where the issue of Sanity is addressed. Basically, every time you lose ten sanity points, you roll to see if you get a disorder. If you ever reach a sanity of 0, your character is out of the game. Lost sanity is recovered over time. A list of disorders are provided, which is actually pretty good. The list strikes a good balance between focussing on the more intense disorders (schizophrenia, severe depression) and offering a wide range of possibilities without any of them sounding silly. I especially like the fact that migraines and allergies were listed as disorders, as this provides some decent choices for people that would rather not roleplay mental illnesses.
The chapter ends with a list of diseases the characters can contract, and poisons they can use or fall victim to. The list of poisons is fairly standard, but the diseases end up being pretty fun and feel very much rooted into the setting. Apart from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Colonial Gothic is probably the only game I’ve seen that manages to make diseases fun to use in play. At least, it managed to make its diseases sound fun to me. Moreover, they sound like a great tool to establish how different things were back then, which is a primary goal when you’re doing historical roleplay.
“Chapter 5: Economics” presents the various currencies and trade goods involved in the economics of the colonial era. Here is where the stats for the various weapons are presented. More importantly, however, this is also where another part of the setting’s historical flavor is established. Each weapon and other piece of equipment is carefully described, which makes it pretty easy to imagine them. Tools and garments being staples of any given time period, the level of details is a nice touch which enhances the historical aspect of the game.
Speaking of Colonial Gothic’s historical aspect, “Chapter 6: America” is the part of the book where it really all comes to life. This chapter presents the colonies, major settlement by major settlement, and the native people, tribe by tribe. The “unnatural” aspect of the game doesn’t really enter the picture here; we’re treated to a purely historical point of view. The amount of detail provided is just right, sticking to what could be useful to know in an RPG and leaving out the rest. This said, that useful filter doesn’t deter from the chapter being cohesive and comprehensive.
As you may or may not know, I’m a French Canadian. That means I never studied american history. As such, a badly handled historical RPG about the american colonial era could’ve been unusable by somebody – like me – who has no basic knowledge of the history involved. That’s not the case here. Colonial Gothic manages to present a clear picture of the era, leaving me with the feeling that I have between my hands a book that gives me enough of a handle on the time period to be able to run stories in it.
“Chapter 7: Witchcraft” presents magic and how it works within the world of Colonial Gothic. The basics are pretty simple: each individual ritual is a separate skill, and spells work according to the skills mechanics. The main bulk of the chapter is dedicated to a list of spells, divided in two categories called “common rituals” and “arcane rituals”, representing how powerful and/or rare they are. The spells presented are a pretty comprehensive list of the usual suspects, which is to say the same type of spells you find in most games out there. It’s a feature rather than a flaw, in my opinion, because the historical era of the setting is what’s supposed to set Colonial Gothic apart from other games on the market. As such, wildly different spells from the usual tropes would’ve been fun, but they’re not exactly required for the game to reach its design goals.
This said, the spells as presented have both a big strength and a big flaw. The high point of the spells is how a paragraph in each spell description addresses the impacts of a critical success, a success, a failure, and a critical failure. It’s a nice touch; because that ensures that failing a spell roll doesn’t mean that “nothing happens”, which is sort of boring in a setting where magic is so rare. This said, the low point of the spells is that I would’ve liked to see the rituals necessary to cast the spell addressed in a bit more details. Sure, the book points out that no one ritual is alike, and provides a few sidebars providing advice on ritual components and some such. What’s missing is a paragraph or two dealing with the ritual’s magnitude. No guidelines are provided on how long a ritual takes to complete, or what sort of environment is required to perform them. Sadly, this leaves a huge gaping hole in how those spells are supposed to come up in the course of play. Can they be performed on the fly, or is preparation needed? If they can be performed on the fly, are they short enough that they can be used during combat, or do you need at least a few minutes to cast them? If preparation is needed, does the ritual need to be performed in an appropriate ritual room, or can it be performed on the road? None of those questions find any answers, and that weakens the flavor of Colonial Gothic’s magic significantly.
“Chapter 8: Secrets” is the GM’s section, and it’s really a mixed bag. The chapter opens with several pages of advice about historical gaming, secret histories, and alternate histories. These pages cover both how to best use the mix of history and fiction to tell good stories, and how to not tie your panties in a knot while trying to get every little detail right. The advice provided is very insightful, and probably the most comprehensive advice dealing with that issue I’ve ever come across. The part about not stressing over every little detail is particularly useful, and shows acute awareness of the fact that gamers can sometimes be an anal-retentive bunch. I know I am.
Besides that, the chapter offers a few pages of advice about villains and about running horror games. Those are pretty average; they make sense, but lack the level of insight found in the advice about history. Otherwise, the chapter presents rules and guidelines for using the traditional monsters of the horror genre: ghosts, vampires, zombies, and demons. Ye olde standard bestiary, minus the usual picture in the upper left corner of the page for each entry. Finally, the chapter ends with loose rules for using Fate Cards, which I’ve explained earlier in the review.
Sadly, what really weakens this chapter is not what’s presented, but what’s missing. In the game’s primer, the authors announce that the setting of Colonial Gothic is a world where something “darker, malicious, and purposeful” haunts the land and its inhabitants. It’s all well and good, but this is reflected exactly nowhere in the book. The “darker” part gets covered by witchcraft and the monsters, and I guess “malicious” could be derived from this also depending on how you define the term. But the “purposeful” part, which implies a coherent intent of some kind on the part of evil, is missing. The game does not provide any sort of background explaining why the hell monsters are haunting the land, and neither does it provide any sort of guideline for coming up with an explanation of your own. It’s a shame, because that makes the setting as presented merely a version of colonial America where monsters just so happens to be roaming the land, without any sort of clear rhyme or reason. Needless to say, I find this much less appealing than what was promised in the game’s primer at the beginning of the book.
The book ends with a sample adventure, presented in “Chapter 9: Adventure”. To make a long story short, the scenario deals with a group of cultists and the need to rescue some endangered children. I’ve found the scenario to be pretty good, and it definitely does a nice job of showcasing the specific setting flavor the authors had in mind when they came up with Colonial Gothic.
The Bottom Line
Style-wise, Colonial Gothic earns a 2. The clipart and illustrations do a good job of underlining the historical feel of the game, but the occult part is left out of the game’s visuals – partly because of the borders with occult symbols which came out too dark from the printer. The prose has some clarity issues, and fails to be evocative enough most of the time to impart the authors’ vision of the setting. If it wasn’t for the darkened borders and the clarity issues around some of the rules, the game would’ve earned a solid 3. Those problems do crop up, however, so I am giving it a 2.On the Substance side of things, Colonial Gothic feels like two games. On one hand, everything that deals with the historical aspect is very well done, from the details about the era to the advice given on how to handle historical roleplaying. On the other hand, the rest feels either counter-intuitive (the 12° system) or incomplete (the occult aspect of the setting). In the end, Colonial Gothic does not feature either a setting or a system that supports its design goal of portraying a world where larger than life heroes battle a darker, malicious, and purposeful force. As such, I’ve decided to award it a 2. RPG.net defines a rating of 2 as “Sparse,” which is definitely the case here. The basic concept shows promise, and the historical aspect – which should’ve been the trickiest part of creating this game – is very well handled. Everything surrounding this, however, needs more work.
This said, if the american colonial era appeals to you as a setting, you might want to look into Colonial Gothic. I can think of a few systems which could easily handle the concept better that the one provided in the book, and I’m sure you’ll think of some as well. If you don’t mind a bit of kit-bashing, this game might be worth your money.
Happy gaming,
Jocelyn
