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In Short

The Good:  The system was fun in play and easy for everyone to understand. The period details are helpful, succinct, and clearly reflected by mechanical support. The dice pool mechanic reflects penalties by allowing players to roll more dice, which can be fun.

The Bad: Character creation can be time consuming, largely due to the book's poor organization and need for editing. Character advancement is clunky, as is beginning with more skilled characters. More support for antagonists, magic, and adventure would have been very useful as what is here will work but a GM may quickly expend the limited resources included. A simple primer for players to read to allow them to get a handle on the social conventions of the era would be a wonderful inclusion for a 3rd edition.

The Physical Thing

Under the Cover

It's worth noting that for those who want to play in the Victorian setting without a lot of research, and who like worlds of imagination opened by the fantasy elements, Victoriana is immensely successful as a guide. The discussion of issues such as sex, class, work, wealth, sexuality, and more is superb and this book is an excellent primer for those otherwise unfamiliar with the Victorian era. The world is sufficiently different enough to allow for plenty of setting rules breaking, which is a particular boon to players and GMs who want a setting framework and then the freedom to easily change what they wish.

The greater setting of Victoriana outside London is meant to be familiar while being fantastic. Religion has real power though the religions presented here are somewhat varied from real worth faiths. Christianity, for example, exists in a different form where many of the events are the same but the names have been changed, and it can also be called upon to smite evil. The rest of the world is similar, with a little bit more wonder and all the details filed down. Several pages of attention are offered to each nation, with attention paid to the nation's current contributions to the world, social details, population, and current events. While a Victoriana games could be world spanning, I suspect most groups will find this information more useful generating foreign characters than anything else. The only downside is that some may find the general setting information to be a little on the dull side, more descriptive than imaginative on the whole.

With the first hundred pages dedicated to setting detail, the remaining 270ish is focused on game mechanics and character generation. Let's dive into the Heresy game engine before going any further. Heresy uses pools of d6s to resolve actions. Characters will create a dice pool based on their Attribute + Skill and roll that many white d6 dice with 1s and 6s counting as successes. A 6 also explodes, allowing the die to be rerolled for potentially more successes. To represent high difficulty the GM will ask the player to also roll black d6s. For each 1 or 6 a success is subtracted, though black dice do not explode as white dice do. Average tasks invoke no black dice, and generally difficult tasks bring in between 3 and 12 typically. A GM could easily adjust the amount of black dice to create a more action-packed or realistic game, as desired.

The number of total successes rolled determines the character's overall success level. While a single success is enough to barely make it, several successes enable a character to accomplish their goal with flair, faster than they intended, or with a positive side effect. When I first read this mechanic I was concerned that it would needlessly slow down play for the sake of an unusual method of rolling, but in play those concerns were set aside as the group had a lot of fun with rolling out all of the dice. Dice rolling can create fun tension at the table, and in this case both the fun of rolling and tension would grow in an enjoyable way as the difficulty of the task increased.

With the system basics out of the way, let's take a look at character creation. The book spreads character creation out over a great many pages, with lots of support information included throughout. This works ok for a person sitting at home, taking in the whole book, and building a single character. It does not work well for a group building characters together, for the GM building mutliple characters, or for a person already familiar with the setting and mechanics who knows what they want to do with the system. Be aware that Victoriana seeks to build groups of relatively weak 20-somethings and then have them progress notably in power over a lengthy campaign. It's the same sort of low-to-high power setup found in many other games. The biggest downside to it is that creating characters that are a little more experienced is unnecessarily challenging and time consuming, as the entire system is clearly designed around taking a person from first Rank (level) to twentieth Rank.

Character creation involves first selecting a social class and race to belong to. Not all races may belong to every social class, though there are Talents that may be purchased to allow a character to partially transcend their social standing. This isn't a mechanic I'm terribly excited about, as it seems that the various races would each be socially represented roughly according to their population in the setting, but in general the prettier races are confined to upper and middle classes while the uglier races are middle or lower class.

Each selection grants a character various advantages, with lower class characters being tougher and upper class characters being wealthier. All classes have social restrictions that prevents any one from necessarily being the most useful, and for groups that can find a reasonable way to mix different classes games can easily switch out as to which character is most useful for navigating the social environment. An upper class eldren lady, for example, is unlikely to be very useful when it comes to information gathering at the docks unless she's in disguise and well-trained at slumming it with the rabble.

Race offers alterations to the core Attributes in Victoriana - Strength, Dexterity, Fortitude, Presence, Wits, and Resolve – with different minimums and maximums based on race. After choosing social class and race a player receives three points to spend on Attributes. The average is zero and most characters will have several that are rated above average. Let's take a look at an example character!

Example: I am building an Ogre prizefighter named Surly Jim who does heavy lifting down at the docks and back room matches for some extra income. As an Ogre Jim belongs to the lower class unless I want to spend some points to increase his class, which I decline to do. As a lower class character he receives a +1 to his Fortitude to reflect his dreary and harsh life. His life as an Ogre grants Blunt Wits (attempts to bullshit him are easier and he receives 3 black dice when resisting), Iron Constitution (he doubles his Fortitude when determining Health), and Long Legs (multiply movement by 1.5). His starting Attributes are Strength 5, Dexterity 0, Fortitude 5, Presence -1, Wits -2, and Resolve 0. I place one additional point in Dexterity, one in Strength, and one in Fortitude for a total of Strength 6, Dexterity 1, Fortitude 7. I can now calculate my derived Attributes. Initiative for Surly Jim (Dex + Wits + Perception Skill) is currently a -1, Health (Fortitude x2 +2) is a 16, and Mana (Base Mana + Resolve) is a zero for now but will increase with Rank as the character gains some Base Mana. Surly Jim is slow but unbelievably tough. Compare his 16 Health with an average starting health of 3 for most characters and you get the idea.

Next, characters receive 50 points to spend on Skills and Traits of which at least 30 must be spent on Skills. Players may receive additional points, up to 10, by taking up to three Complications. The Skill list is a mixed bag of very focused Skills and very broad Skills. Combat Skills tend to be very broad – if a character has Firearms then they are proficient with any and all types of guns, while melee weapons are split simply into Blunt Weapons and Swordplay. Non-combat Skills are much more specific and can easily eat up a lot of Skill Points, especially for educated characters who want to be proficient in a social setting. In my view this best reflects games where social Skills are simply more valuable than combat Skills due to the frequency and danger of Social encounters. For a more action-oriented game the GM may want to switch this up a bit as the combat weak social character will be giving up an awful lot for rare moments of usefulness.

Example: With a set flaw system like this I prefer to pick my Flaws before everything else and gravitate towards Bon Vivant, Public Figure, and Bad Reputation. Clearly, the lower class is well aware of Surly Jim and normally stay out of his way what with all the stories of what he does after a boxing match and all that. I buy Income – Lower for 10 points allowing me to start every session with the ten pennies remaining from Jim's most recent fight. I also buy Pugilish 3 times for 9 points, allowing Jim to add 3 dice to any unarmed attacks he makes. Since he would normally be attacking off of Dexterity, this is a big advantage. I also spend 10 points to bump his Dexterity up by 1. With 31 points left for Skills I first purchase Fisticuffs at my Rank 1 (first level) maximum of 4 Ranks. My final Skill list looks like this: Athletics 4, Dodge 4, Fisticuffs 4, Intimidate 4, Might 4, Perception 4, Streetwise 4, Survival 3. His Ranks in Perception increase his Initiative from -1 to 3, a much nicer place to be at.

Character creation does have a few problems outside of how spread out the rules are. One of these is the Perception Skill, which is already very useful but here also controls Initiative. This Skill comes up with some frequency in play since it reflects the five senses, and it also comes up in every single combat or dramatic scene. In my view, this makes the Skill far too valuable as it is and it should never have been linked to Initiative as it has been. The flaw system here is also a bit of a let-down as it strongly encourages characters to take flaws, but does nothing to reward them during play or to balance out flaws so that their penalty reflects how they actually impact play. Further, some of the flaws are barely flaws at all and will easily fit into existing character concepts.

The various Traits and Assets that may be purchased with points can also be a little frustrating. On the whole they're well done and aid in developing a large variety of different character concepts. Some, however, seem pointless in group play. If the group has a wealthy noble then having a peasant character spend ten points on income that doesn't amount to one tenth what the noble has in his coin purse at the moment feels useless. It's unlikely that 10 points, an enormous amount to spend, will ever come up in a meaningful way at the game table. This is an example of the times when Victoriana becomes more interested in building characters than in augmenting play at the table.

That's the basics of character creation, let's turn now to the remaining aspects of Victoriana - equipment, combat, magic, and support. Most equipment exists outside of game mechanics in the realm of normal usefulness, but an important exception is combat items. Weapons have a damage rating, a required skill, and at times special benefits. Armor, rare in the setting, has a damage absorption rating. In combat a successful attack (Ex: Dex + Fisticuffs) deals damage based on the weapon's damage rating modified by extra successes and, in the case of melee combat, the wielder's Strength rating. This results in a system where guns are very dangerous, but getting hit by an ogre wielding anything at all is just about a worst case scenario.

Magic comes in several different forms in the setting. Mediums channel the dead or display subtle psychic powers. Those that use Faith magic tend to be champions of the light with abilities focused on undead/demon slaying and healing. Thaumaturgy is classic magic, involving throwing globes of elemental energy, curing ailments, and generally applying magic. Necromancy and Demonology and very focused on what they set out to do, and clearly marked by evil. Runelore is a much more free form magic system based on knowing Runes that represent certain concepts. Magical power is limited by a character's Mana pool, which refreshes over time and is used to cast all spells.

Spellcasting has been institutionalized in the setting, with colleges and licensing turning sorcerers into respectable middle class professionals. Players must purchase appropriate licensing during character creation for their spellcasting type or, in the case of Necromancers and Demonologists, on a spell-by-spell basis. Since they also have to purchase spellcasting ability, individual spells, a spellcasting skill, and perhaps spellcasting Traits, it's quite expensive to be a spellcaster. The system largely amounts to rolling against a set difficulty while expending a required amount of Mana to generate a set effect. Magic can be very powerful in the setting, though in combat situations my group found it to be on a level with all the other combat options.

The remaining support here is strong for a core book and certainly sufficient for several campaigns of play. A small but respectable bestiary, plenty of useful play suggestions, and a short but useful adventure complete the book. In play my group had plenty of material to work with, though some spellcasters may not have as many spells to choose from as they would like without the GM or player creating some new material.

My Take

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