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By MICHAEL ERB Staff Writer The Parkersburg News and Sentinel www.newsandsentinel.com
PARKERSBURG - In 1590 the colonists of Roanoke Island vanished, disappearing without a trace. This is their story. This is your story.
"Roanoke" by Clint Krause is a roleplaying game about the final days of the English colony of Roanoke, Va., one of historyás most fascinating unsolved mysteries. The game puts players in the roles of the heroes of the colony during its three years of existence. The player characters have the ability to save or doom the colony through their actions, and ultimately to save or doom themselves as well.
But there is a twist. The game uses the Wushu system, a set of rules designed to emulate the over-the-top martial arts of movies like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Kung Fu Hustle" and "The Matrix."
Combine the supernatural horror of the doomed Roanoke colony with the wire-fu theatrics of the Wushu system and soon you will have puritanical preachers bounding through tree tops surrounded by clouds of musket fire while being pursued by ravenous werewolves.
Awesome.
The book is relatively small, only about 38 pages, but at its $10 price tag is a steal. The Wushu system is narrative-based, so players take turns describing their actions while the game master sets up the overarching story and controls the villains and non-player characters they encounter along the way.
Characters are based on three Traits and a Fear. Your Traits include one of each: a combat trait, a social trait and a professional trait. The Traits are then ranked with a 3, 4 or 5, with 5 being your strongest Trait.
For example, the town blacksmith might have a 5 in Blacksmith (professional), a 4 in Stalwart (social) and a 3 in Brawler (combat). You also have a Fear, which ranks at a 1. Any situation that calls for a Trait your character does not possess would be considered a 2. The game uses six-sided dice, and you must roll equal to or below a trait to get a success.
In "Roanoke" there are two kinds of conflicts that call for dice rolls: simple conflicts and spotlight conflicts. Simple conflicts are when you are attempting to do something that has a simple pass/fail outcome. For example, if the blacksmith wanted to pick a lock, he would roll against his professional Blacksmith trait, a 5. On a roll of 6 he would fail.
A spotlight conflict, however, is when a player character is in opposition to another character. For example, if the blacksmith were trying to break someone out of a makeshift jail without alerting their captors, it would be a spotlight conflict, as the jailer is actively trying to detect any escape attempt.
In those kinds of conflict both sides narrate their actions, adding dice to their pool for each detail, up to six dice total. The higher number of successes wins the conflict and that player (or the game master for a non-player character) narrates the outcome.
Combat is very similar, except the player splits his narrative dice between defense and attack before rolling. Each successful defense roll negates an opposing characterás attack roll. If there are more attack successes than opposing defense successes, the character takes damage. Too much damage and the character dies.
It is relatively easy for a player character to be overwhelmed and killed by a group of enemies or a single superior foe, especially with a few bad dice rolls. This is when Fate comes into play.
At any point in the game a player can invoke Fate and all die rolls for that character are considered to be successes. This means a killing blow can be averted, a desperate attack can miraculously land and a bungled escape can be snatched back from the jaws of defeat.
But Fate has its price, and its price is the colony's Doom. Every time Fate is invoked by a player, Roanoke's Doom increases by a point. If a game master uses Fate to help the villains, the Doom score drops by one. When the game ends, the total Doom decides whether the colonists are destroyed or somehow escape their fate.
The setting information in "Roanoke" is wonderful, with just enough detail to add flavor to the game but not so much you get bogged down. Though the game takes place in a historical setting, it is far from a historical game, and the author encourages players and gamemasters to concentrate on the flavor and fun of the setting rather than on the little details. The Wushu system is easy to pick up and run, and the resolution system rewards players for creative storytelling and adding details to scenes. The Doom and Fate mechanics are my favorite parts of "Roanoke" and go a long way to keeping the horror feel of the game. I love the idea of a hero being forced to choose between his own life and the lives of those around him, and knowing at any time he can save himself at the expense of everyone else.
"Roanoke" includes seven sample scenarios that can be picked up and run at the drop of a hat, complete with plot hooks and central characters. They range from dark conspiracies to grotesque monsters to disturbing acts of inhumanity. Depending on your group and your mood, any of these can be used to create a wonderfully dark and fun session.
"Roanoke" is a creepy but fast-paced game that has a lot of appeal for horror and high-action gamers alike as the two genres mix surprisingly well. For such a short book there is a lot of game to be had, and at a dirt-cheap price. Check it out.
For more information on "Roanoke" visit www.clintkrause.com or www.indiepressrevolution.com. For more game reviews, visit http://merb101.livejournal.com.
Contact Michael Erb at merb101@gmail.com
