 Goto [ Index ] |
But there is wonder, too. Some adventurers and scientists have discovered strange anomalies in weather conditions. Some are obsessed or brave or curious enough to investigate. The lucky ones have discovered that certain caves, volcanic vents, deep-sea fissures and polar openings extend far deeper than anyone has ever realized. Those who manage to make it to the other side find a savage place where dinosaurs still roam the land. This Hollow Earth is stuck in a perpetual noon, as its one sun never seems to move from its position high up in the sky. Here, ancient cultures clash with each other, plants and animals seem larger and stronger than their surface counterparts and magnificent architectural accomplishments are hidden underneath vines and trees and hills. This is a place of giant reptilian creatures, of Amazons and of pirates, of Atlanteans and of other strange peoples. Getting back to the surface is difficult and sometimes nigh impossible, as navigation is extremely difficult due to the position of the sun, Earth’s magnetic field inside of the Hollow Earth is disrupted, two-way radios are rendered useless and time moves more slowly. Life here flourishes, though, and healing is occurs at a much faster rate than on the surface. Here, great discoveries can be made… and terrible tragedies can happen…
When the Hollow Earth Expedition creators claim their game is a ‘pulp adventure roleplaying game’, they mean it. As they point out in the book, it is hard to define pulp as a genre. After all, the pulps have produced not only Conan, but also Tarzan and Doc Savage. Some pulp stories were definitely rooted within science fiction, others within the western, mystery, adventure or horror genres. Still, there are some clear pulp conventions that this game adheres to: bizarre high technology exists, villains are truly Evil, characters are not plagued by moral dilemmas and cliffhangers are used liberally. Add to this the concept of a hollow earth, a hypotheses which was even supported by some real-life scientists and you have a myriad of possibilities to explore. In this game, the Player Characters can be fighting giant dinosaurs one moment and Nazis the next… which, by the way, does happen in the excellent introductory adventure included in this core rulebook. Also, adventures do not need to be set within the Hollow Earth itself: it is perfectly possible to set entire campaigns on the surface. After all, there’s an entire world to explore above grounds as well.
Hollow Earth Expedition starts off with 8 pages of fiction, presented as the diary of a civil engineer called Knut Fraenkel, who sets out to explore a strange weather phenomenon in a balloon. Nothing new here: the same kind of thing has been done before in Rifts, Shadowrun and other RPG’s, but the story does conjure up the right feel and is well written. Moreover, it is very well presented and the same goes for the entire book. The lay-out – two columns and a fairly large typeface – looks beautiful, the illustrations are all of decent quality and always fit with the accompanying text and the pre-generated characters are all presented in full-colour.
After a short introduction, the setting is presented. This is a very interesting section, as we get some information on recent history (from 1911 onwards), economy, clothing, entertainment and travel. There is also a good overview of the current state of the world, with some information stretching beyond 1936. After notes on capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism and the Spanish Civil War, several countries in each continent are presented. Under the header of Central and South-America, for example, we get one or two-paragraph treatises on Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Uruguay. Some readers may be a little disgruntled after reading this section, as not all countries are included. As Belgians, we would have loved to see our country being included here, but most large countries are mentioned, except for the ones where nothing much happened during the thirties.
The second chapter delves into characters. Character creation is fairly easy: either choose one of the 12 characters presented in this book (Big Game Hunter, Dying Moneyman, Field Biologist, Fortune Hunter, Imperiled Actress, Intrepid Reporter, Jungle Missionary, Lost Traveler, Mad Scientist, Occult Investigator, Rugged Explorer or Snooty Professor) or create one of your own. In fact, it may be worthwhile to check out the ready-to-go characters first, as they each get one page of stat blocks and one page of background and roleplaying notes and they’re all beautiful examples of the pulp genre. In addition, the full-colour illustrations are very nice indeed (especially the one of the very sexy Fortune Hunter).
To some veteran roleplayers, character creation may be a little frustrating. It’s a point-based system, but there aren’t very many points to go around. After an Archetype (Academic, Adventurer, Celebrity, Criminal, Doctor, Engineer, Explorer, Hunter, Missionary, Moneyman, Occultist, Reporter, Scientist, Soldier, Survivor, or create one of your own) and a Motivation (Duty, Escape, Faith, Fame, Greed, Love, Power, Revenge, Survival and Truth) are chosen, Attributes are bought. A character’s motivation is very important, as it determines one way of gaining Style points, which can be used during the game to get bonus dice, boost Talents or reduce damage. For example, someone who has chosen Faith as his or her Motivation gains Style points when his or her character’s viewpoints are supported or when (s)he converts someone to his or her beliefs.
There are 6 Primary Attributes (Body, Dexterity, Strength, Charisma, Intelligence and Willpower) and only 15 points to distribute. Players have to put at least 1 point in each Attribute. The maximum rating one can start with is 5, while a rating of 2 is deemed average. There are also several Secondary Attributes: Size (which almost always starts at 0 and which modifies Defense, Health and maximum Body and Strength ratings), Move, Perception, Initiative, Defense, Stun and Health. All Secondary Attributes except Size are figured characteristics.
Each player also gets 15 Skill points to buy Skills with. This is not much, as starting Skills – just like Primary Attributes – range from 1 to 5 and everything is bought on a one-for-one basis. It is, however, possible to get Skill Specializations. These cost half a point each, but characters can only ever start with one Skill Specialization per Skill. Advanced Skill Specialization can be purchased with experience points. Expect characters to begin with only 3 to 7 out of the 50 available Skills (including Skills which can only be purchased as Specialized Skills). This is a very low number and not very realistic, so many GM’s may want to hand out free experience points to starting PC’s, although this is not encouraged.
Characters also get ONE Talent OR ONE Resource. Talents work exactly like Feats in the d20 System or like Advantages in many other RPG’s. They often grant a +2 bonus to a Skill or a +1 bonus to an Attribute and there are even Talents which allow characters to use their Intelligence or another Attribute instead of Strength (or Dexterity) during combat. Most Talents aren’t very imaginative, but the most popular ones (such as Attractive, Blind Fight, Direction Sense, Iron Will, Long Shot, etc.) are included. The available Resources are Allies, Artifact, Contacts, Fame, Followers, Mentor, Rank, Refuge, Status and Wealth. These all have 5 different levels, which may be very frustrating to players as they can only buy a single first level Resource at this point during character generation. For example, a Wealth rating of 1 only grants a character a monthly income of $250, a house and a car, while a Rank of 1 means (s)he has an initiate rank and a few privileges. Now, we all hate power gaming here, but most of us have more skills and resources in real life than the characters created in this game.
Optionally, players can also choose ONE Flaw for their character. Flaws don’t grant extra points to purchase Attributes, Skills or Talents with; they are meant to encourage roleplayers to act out their characters. If a player roleplays his Flaw, (s)he will earn a Style point. This is a good way to promote actual roleplaying and we like this approach a lot, but some Flaws do seem to be a lot worse than other ones without granting any more benefits. For example, both Blind and Poor Vision count as one selection of Flaws.
All beginning characters start with 15 experience points to spend. This may seem like a good deal, but it’s actually fairly expensive to raise Primary Attributes or buy Skills and Specializations. This is fine during the actual gaming itself, but raising one Attribute from 2 to 3 (raising an Attribute from 3 to 4 would cost 20 points) already depletes all of the available experience points. Skill Specializations cost 3 points, while Talents and Resources cost the full 15 points.
All in all, while character generation is fast and comprehensive, using smooth, easy rules, it is hardly a rewarding experience. After all, the adventurers we play often are less skilled or physically or mentally endowed than we are!
Task resolution is very easy: just double the Attribute you’re using or add the Attribute rating to the Skill Rating and roll that many dice. Each dice has 50% chance of being a success. This is a nice system, as it is possible to use any dice: four-sided, six-sided, eight-sided, ten-sided, and so on. Just declare that evens are successes and odds misses, or that a result of, for example, 1-4 on a d8 is a success and a result of 5-8 a failure. The number of successes needed to accomplish a certain task is determined by how difficult it is (1 is Easy, 2 is Average and 6+ is Nigh Impossible). Of course, since both Attributes and Skills range from 0 to 5 or higher and since Skill Specializations add one dice to the roll, players will often need to roll a fairly large number of dice. As a HERO System gamer, I don’t mind this, but Exile Game Studio also produces special Ubiquity Dice which function as d1’s, d2’s and d3’s and which can be used to read the number of successes immediately. Let’s say you want to pick a lock. Your Dexterity is 3 and your Larceny Skill rating is 4. You also have the Lockpicking Specialization. Normally, you would have to roll 8 dice. If you are using Ubiquity Dice, you only need to roll 3 dice: two d3’s (with sides reading 0, 1, 2 or 3) and one d2 (with sides reading 0, 1 and 2). Just add up the numbers to find the number of successes attained.
It’s also possible to Take the Average: when the average number of successes of a dice pool is greater than or equal to the difficulty of a given action, a player can just choose to succeed automatically (but never admirably). If dice are rolled, the number of successes minus the Difficulty determines the degree of success or failure. Of course, trying again, extended actions, opposed actions and reflexive actions (variants of opposed actions) are all covered as well.
Combat resolution is also very easy. The character with the most successes on his or her Initiative roll gets to go first if (s)he is not holding his or her action and is not surprised. Combat is either resolved in turns or, optionally, as continuous combat (recalling FASA’s Doctor Who and Star Trek RPG’s or an optional rule once presented in a Rolemaster supplement). Continuous combat uses phases and appoints speed factors to all actions. This is a very nice system, even though the presented list of possible actions is rather short. Combat maneuvers include aiming, autofire, called shots, cautious attacks, charges, disarms, dodging, grappling, parrying, readying a weapon, reloading, running, sprinting, standing up, throwing, Total Attack, Total Defense, tripping and using items or Skills. Attack rolls have to beat the opponent’s Defense Roll, which includes his or her Passive Defense, Active Defense and Size. Armor, cover, wounds and certain combat conditions or effects all influence the Defense Roll. Just like in the d20 System, armor ratings are not subtracted from the damage taken.
Hollow Earth Expedition includes equipment, an excellent section on gamemastering which focuses on the pulp genre and setting conventions. This is good stuff and even though we’ve heard this kind of advice before, it’s nice to see the makers take care to establish the feel of the game.
The Hollow Earth itself is presented in the following chapter. This is a rich setting where a lot of different adventures are possible, so it’s a pity it only takes up 16 pages. However, these pages are used well. We get a lot of information on how the Hollow Earth can be reached and there’s even a box about real-life scientists who theorized such a place actually existed. All in all, this section does not present an entire fleshed-out campaign world. Instead, it is obviously meant to spark the imagination, present some ideas and let the GM develop his or her own campaign world. This it accomplished well enough, but still it would have been nice to see some more fluff here.
Chapter 8, Friends and Enemies, presents not only a few strange creatures, but also several secret and not-so-secret societies and other organisations which plague the Hollow Earth. This is a fun chapter to read and it also includes fully fleshed-out NPC’s.
Chapter 9, Bestiary, presents a lot of different dinosaurs (including all of the favorite ones) and a number of other critters. This is Hollow Earth Expedition, so don’t just expect your regular giant ape and spider. No, there’s even room for fantasy and mythic creatures here, such as the kraken, the roc and the unicorn.
The excellent 12-page sample adventure features a group of explorers (the PC’s) sent by the U.S. government to foil a Thule Society expedition to the North Pole. Of course, along the way, the PC’s discover the Hollow Earth and its denizens. This is a great introductory scenario with a fairly strong Indiana Jones vibe.
To wrap things up, we get 3 pages on pulp resources and inspiration, a glossary and reasonable-but-not-good index.
Hollow Earth Expedition is a fun roleplaying game with a solid yet easy-to-learn set of rules, a superb setting and beautiful artwork, but it also has a few flaws. The first is character generation. Characters just don’t seem to be very skilled except maybe in a few areas, making them worse generalists than we are in real life. The second is the amount of setting information. Yes, the feel of the game is established superbly and there are several excellent scenario ideas hiding on just about every page of fluff, but we would have liked to see more on the Hollow Earth itself. As it is, the book does succeed in sparking the imagination and GM’s are left to expand on the ideas and change any of the descriptions in this book. Nothing is cast in stone here and that’s okay, but we would like to see a more detailed default setting. The third flaw is the absence of rules for psychic abilities, magic and more, even though these powers are mentioned in the book. However, all of these have found their way in the first supplement, which was released in October 2007: Secrets of the Surface World. We would have liked to see them here, though, and we wouldn’t have minded paying a few bucks more for a few dozen of extra pages. If we would have had to buy the book, that is.
Despite these flaws, Hollow Earth Expedition is, first and foremost, a good RPG which deserves to be bought, read and played. There’s a lot more here than there ever was in the venerable Dream Park and the setting allows GM’s so much latitude that it shouldn’t be hard to please even the most demanding roleplayers. Nice!
More info: www.exilegames.com
Please help support RPGnet by purchasing the following (probably) related items through DriveThruRPG.
