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Rather than doing my standard, chapter-by-chapter breakdown, I’ll just focus on the three aspects I think someone would be interested in the book for: system, setting, and supernatural. And to save you some time, the short of it is that system isn’t all that special and in need of a bit of errata, the setting is extremely well done for those wanting a realistic colonial American RPG, and the supernatural elements are present but feel almost secondary to the force of “mundane” history.
The system is a fairly standard affair of adding an attribute plus a skill, and then rolling that number or less on two 12-sided dice. The lower you roll, the better you do, and the higher you roll the worse. A natural “2” is a critical success (called a Dramatic Success), and a natural “24” is a critical failure (or Dramatic Failure). Characters have “Faith Points” which they can use to modify TNs, and they gain them by playing “Fate Cards” to hook the current action to their character; it’s similar to Aspects in Fate games, except you use cards to record the information about your character instead of lines on a sheet. There are other uses for Fate Cards and Faith Points, and how they interact is a bit contradictory and unclear (at one point the book repeatedly says they give +1 bonus to a TN, but it also says that bonus is +2 in two other places).
Attributes consist of Might (or strength), Nimble (covering agility), Vigor (a measure of endurance), Reason (a character’s ability to reason), and Resolution (quantifying one’s willpower). Characters start with 45 points (or 55 depending on which paragraph you read) to divide between the five stats, with no less than 1 point in each and no more than 12 in any. The included skill list (of which characters seem to have a consistent 55 points to spend) is pretty good, and even has an interesting collection of different types of divination styles. The game uses skills to cover social interactions (tied to Resolution) in case anyone was wondering; you’d roll less than your Resolution plus Socialize for instance, rather than something like Charisma or Appearance. I’d like to discuss how you purchase skills, except once again the book contradicts itself. A table makes things out to cost one price, while the text implies another. I’m assuming the text is correct, but either way the system seems to make skills more expensive for people who have higher relevant Attributes. Going by the text, the first rank of a new skill costs a number of skill points equal to that skill’s governing attribute, and raising the skill a rank costs a number of skill points (or XP) equal to half the governing attribute. Honestly, there’s no way I’d play the game like this, as it rewards characters with poor attributes to excel in things they shouldn’t be good at. A better (if more mathematical) system might be to require all skill ranks to cost “12 – the Governing Attribute”; at least that way a character with a high Reason doesn’t have a harder time learning something than a moron would.
CG also has character background packages, covering a rather wide range of origins for characters, and helping to give players a rough feel for who their PC is and where they come from. I would’ve liked to have seen how the different backgrounds impact a character’s starting wealth and income, but it’s otherwise pretty good. Also, while it’s later in the book, character can start as magicians and/or alchemists. Each spell or Alchemical Art is bought as a separate skill (and thus suffers the same gripes I had with mundane skills); the more ranks you have, the more likely you are to beat your Target Number, and higher ranks can also have greater effect. I’ll come back to these two elements of the setting later though.
Anyway, the rest of the system does a decent enough job covering the basics. It’s not a highly tactical or deep system, instead favoring a fairly cinematic style of play. And the use of Faith Points and Fate Cards give players options for “editing” the story as well. But honestly, it’s a bit wonky system. I think I can make heads and tails out of it, despite the poor editing, but it doesn’t click for me. Personally, I’d just ditch it and move on to Savage Worlds or GURPS or some other system. But that doesn’t mean I think CG is a total waste. Far from it….
I’ll be honest: I don’t care for American colonial history. So I was very pleasantly surprised when Colonial Gothic actually managed to draw me into this time period and make it interesting without trying to cram contemporary mores down my throat. Honestly, I find it way more interesting than my school classes ever were. Having monsters and magicians helps, I’ll admit, but there’s quite a bit of attention to the time period in general. Numerous regional tribes are described, along with what makes them different from one another, so that a Chickasaw doesn’t feel like a Cherokee. Likewise, a goodly amount of detail is given to the 13 colonies, along with story ideas for each. As I mentioned earlier, different forms of divination that might have been used at the time are listed, and even if you aren’t using the default system, the skill lists in general can make for good reference material. Gear is also given some attention, along with the complexities of currency at the time, although the horrors of poor editing show up in the currency conversion table with the introduction of coinage that appears nowhere else (and the table’s a little user unfriendly anyway). About the worst thing I can say is that it portrays the colonists as the oppressed heroes. It doesn’t bother me, being a closet American patriot, but I can see how some may feel differently (I’m looking at you, you Redcoats!). Still, I find CG to do an admirable job of making the American Colonies seem more dynamic and engaging than history class ever did. And that’s even before we consider the supernatural.
When it comes to the supernatural elements of the game, I’m torn. There’s a small bestiary in the back of the book, but it contains a fairly comprehensive set of tools for designing your own monsters. And along with the “classic” monsters like ghouls, demons, vampires, and so on, it also has some regional Native faeries and monsters; it’s a bit sparse, and some of the Native creatures aren’t scary at all (descriptive words like “peaceful” tend to rob them of their horror), but what’s there is pretty good. There are also two types of magic detailed: Alchemy and the Arts. Alchemy is a combination of chemistry and magic (or is it?), and alchemists can expect to make anything from elixirs of ability enhancement, to acids, to explosives, to soap. It’s kind of neat since it really feels like modern mundane chemistry (perhaps on a more cinematic scale), only to an 18th century mind it seems almost magical and menacing. The arts meanwhile are straight forward spells. Common spells are just that, commonly known spells used for “minor” effects, like preserving a plant from the elements for a time, or creating a magical fire that won’t extinguish until the spell ends, or seeing things far away. They’re more powerful than “cantrips” in other games, but not by much. Arcane spells meanwhile are more powerful; nothing necessarily world changing, but much more impressive anyway. Summoning demons, turning invisible, travelling to the spirit world, these are the domain of Arcane spells. But with greater power comes greater cost, as using Arcane spells can drive a caster insane. One nice touch I greatly appreciated was that with each spell’s mechanics were the history of that spell. In CG, you don’t just learn a spell of invisibility, but rather you learn a spell that was stolen from a cursed book hidden in a small abbey and later translated and broadly published by John Dee. It’s a small touch, but it goes miles to get away from the sense of “in this game, our spell of invisibility uses the following mechanics” and actually make what has become a rather common and generic power feel special and relevant to the setting.
Style: At first glance it’s easily at least a high 3 or a low 4. The writing is pretty good and dynamic. The layout is clean and easy to follow. There’s no index, but a fairly comprehensive Table of Contents. The art consists of pieces from the period, along with some new art for the game, and wonderfully captures the more mundane side of the game at least. But the editing breaks a cardinal rule: the game mechanics don’t make enough sense due to bad editing. And for every mistake I noticed, I fear there are others I missed. So I don’t feel right giving it higher than a just under the line 2. A good, proper editing to patch things up and make the game more coherent from a mechanical stance would easily bump it back up to that 3 or 4.
Substance: Complaints about bad editing aside, the system isn’t bad. It’s not any better than Savage Worlds, or GURPS, or anyone’s system of choice, but the system does a decent enough job (aside from my one gripe about skills being too costly for those who should be talented in them). From a system stance I’ll give it a low to solid 3; it’s not bad, just average. The supernatural elements are a bit more sparse than I’d like, but there’s still some good meaty parts to it. I’ll give it a high 3 or maybe even a low 4; as is a GM will have to do some work to put the supernatural into his game, but he’s got plenty of tools to do so. As a general setting book covering the Colonies goes though, I think a solid 5 seems pretty accurate. This book makes the American Colonial period seem much more fun and interesting than I’d have ever though. So overall I’m giving CG a low 5; it’s not a mathematical average, it just feels right.
Conclusion: The editing is bad, the system is a little bland, and I wish there were more monsters actually doing stuff. But Colonial Gothic manages to impress me anyway. The image of American pioneers fighting rock-men in the hills of Virginia, revolutionaries having a swordfight against British naval officers in an attempt to free political prisoners, Anglican priests working with Native shamans to defeat a conspiracy of immortal Masons hidden in New York, it all just seems fun and exciting and dramatic. It’s a bit of work, but if you’re interested it might be worth it.
