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The image itself is obviously intended to stir up feeling and perhaps even court controversy. It depicts a smirking male recording the scene of which he is a part on a handicam whilst he embraces the corpse of a female whose eyes and right arm have been removed. The bloody hacksaw used to amputate the arm is nearby and a rat is running away with the one of her eyes. To add to the debate the female is extremely short and dressed only in underwear. Some have surmised that the female is intended to be a young girl, debasing the scene further (as if it really needed it). I personally didn't get the impression that the female is intended to be a child but then to my eyes it wouldn't have made a huge amount of difference because ultimately the worst thing about the whole package is the standard of the art. It really is crap. Pure and simple. Had the author and publishers wanted to knock out an edgy product then the content between the covers is what counts. This book does not look edgy, it simply looks like the product of a midguided and puerile mind or minds. There is an argument that if terrible images can be presented artfully then they can deliver a credible message without giving offence. This image offends me on two levels:
1. The expectation that the depiciton of a mutilated woman or girl in her briefs will excite/intrigue me into thinking this game will fulfill my needs for an edgy, mature gaming experience.
2. The art is fucking terrible.
Frankly I think the people responsible for this artistic decision are idiots.
That said, I DID buy this game. I have a malady you see, I buy games. Ninety-nine percent of the games I buy I never play but I'm fascinated with systems and in particular I like horror games so when I saw Noctum on the cheap my curiousity kicked in.
Opening the book, a sturdy, well bound and substantial affair we is a fairly typical introduction ie what is a role playing game etc.
The author states...
"It is no stranger than Monopoly or Chess. The only thing setting it apart is that role-playing games usually comes (sic) with a back-story... Also, there are seldom winners or losers in a role-playing game. It is a team effort to have fun."
This is followed one page later by a short piece of fiction that sets the tone for Noctum. A twelve year old girl self-harms to deal with the trauma of being abused and filmed by her father, to whom she is also pregnant. She then finds an ancient parchment in the library, casts a spell and stabs her mother in the neck.
Chess? Monopoly? FUN???
Beyond this staggeringly terrible and frankly juvenile start the opening stages of the book are surprising in a different way. It's not badly written (fiction aside of course) and the interior art is dark, moody, evocative and rather good. In fact it is jarringly different from the cover. Once into the meat of the text however problems occur rather quickly. The mainstays of dark edgy horror are present ie people are flawed, man's inhumanity to man, we are the real monsters etc. Here is where he starts to lose me for good...
"What defines an evil deed and what defines a good one? If one kills five evil men to save an innocent is that a good deed? Is it an evil deed to slay a good man to save five innocent children? Does the means justify the ends (sic)?"
Perhaps it is because I was always crap at algebra that I struggled so much with this. Or perhaps it was because this kind of musing on the nature of the world is at the level of a fourteen year old taking mushrooms for the first time.
It gets worse.
"A man who drinks too much, abuses and rapes his own wife is considered a bad person by most and evil by some. But what if time and again he thwarts bloody conspiracies and through that saves dozens of lives?"
By this point I'm now starting to understand why that specific cover was chosen. If the author ever reaches any level of actual emotional and intellectual maturity I hope he looks back on this and rewrites the entire thing, bins the cover and has another pop at this because the rest of the content really isn't that bad, with one or two notable exceptions mentioned below.
The game mechanics are unoriginal but workable. Attributes are the classic D&D six with a couple retitled (Strength, Appeal, Acuity, Dexterity, Intelligence, Resolve) with points distributed according to players wishes. Two additional attributes are derived from these (Stamina, Reflexes). Average ratings at character development are around four. Skills are attribute derived and selected according to profession templates a la CoC.
Also suggested by the profession templates are optional weaknesses, the games antidote to feats. Weaknesses are exactly that and seem to have no other function than to derail your character at inopportune moments. Simple example: A level 3 Drunk must pass a resolve test to avoid being pretty much permanently plastered.
It is in the weaknesses section that the ill-conceived excesses of the author come into play once again. Bear witness to the staggering game mechanic that suggests a player take the weakness of Sexual Deviant! The weakness is explained thus...
"For some reason or other you only get off on certain deviant sexual behaviour. You are incapable of having sex under other circumstances. Sexually deviant behaviour is often a result of some childhood experience."
And we're no talking nipple rings and custard here. The first suggested type of deviancy is...
"Biastophilia - Sexual pleasure from committing rape"
Jesus H Christ on a BMX! BUT BEHOLD, A DISCLAIMER...
"STOP: This weakness can make some gamers uncomfortable. Both the players and the Storyteller should be at terms when letting this into a game as the more perverse and criminal sexual deviation can be quite disturbing to role play."
Newsflash retard. You may think that others may be disturbed by your desire to ROLEPLAY RAPE but you're wrong. You're just a puerile fool stroking your fun sized Mars bar and, after we've all punched you in your cookie-dough face, you can stick this book up your arse and FOXTROT OSCAR while you're doing it.
On a positive note the concept of weaknesses without balancing feats is an interesting one but here it is poorly implemented and, other than giving one the opportunity to roleplay smoking crack, it has no real impact on game mechanics.
Another interesting concept is the fight-or-flight monitor, where Psyche points (or the depletion of) indicate where a character is on an anxiety scale and subsequent modifiers to attributes come into play. This is slightly flawed in execution but with tweaking and some further development it could be as good a depiciton of the effects of mental trauma on the mechanics of a game as I've seen.
Combat is simple, 1D10 plus skill rank and modifiers versus target number. Up until this point in the book I was quite happy with the stark, comic-book quality artwork. Sadly a piece of art in the combat section depicts a grimacing woman shooting a child (tied to a chair) in the face with a sawn-off shotgun.
A lengthy, obligatory section on mental illness offers the usual stultifyingly ill-informed descriptions of various conditions that are common to horror role-playing games and reinforces various myths (eg schizpohrenia is permanent, psychotics are usually violent etc) and then the book meanders off into a description of some pantheon of dark gods that have thus far (140 odd pages) gone largely unmentioned. Here is a taste...
"Only thirteen Vaakals made it through the rift; seven act on the behalf of the Harbingers, three serve Ahriman and the remaining three are lost but still iving."
According to this guff the aforementioned Biastophiles do not spiral into increasingly bebased acts of rape because of childhood experiences, or failing a resolve test. Apparently it's Asmodai the Lord of Lust's fault. What a prick! This section is fairly original I must confess. I've never come across another game that suggests peadophiles act on the malign influence of a Vaakal called Chemriel.
In the interests of being utterly comprehensive Noctum also has information on shadowy coporations, cults, sects, cabals, government agencies and more. All of it derivative villainous-organisation-by-numbers fare.
A bestiary section entitled Minions is up next. The first thing that struck me was that I was sure I'd seen this before somewhere. It all look remarkably similar in tone, presentation and artwork to Pelgrane Press's superb Book of Unremitting Horror. The Noctum supplement Vivisection is even less subtle in betraying its influences. Sadly both Noctum books lack the quality and charm of the Pelgrane publication.
Seeing as the book has covered everything else we also get a chapter on psychic powers and a storyteller's chapter which includes a starting adventure about a kid's day care centre that produces child pornography.
Sigh. There seems to be a theme here.
I have to rate this book so, in the interest of fairness, I will suggest that had Noctum had a decent editor who had insisted on a decent cover, the removal of certain pictures and ensured that it did not showcase the author's apparent obsession with violent rape and the sexual abuse of children I would have happily rated it a four for style on the grounds of decent presentation and art and quality binding, and a three for substance as it does present a workable system with some interesting concepts.
As it stands though I have to go with two for style. Some of the art is really poor and/or ill-conceived, the cover is just bloody awful AND distasteful and it is staggeringly puerile in places.
I will also go for a two for substance as the good things are terribly diluted by the bad and it suffers for the suggestion that I may find the idea of role-playing rape disturbing, rather than just inconceivably irritating.
For the sale price though (five quid) you may find enough of interest to justify the expenditure. Just don't leaving it lying around where your wife/mother/family/girlfriend/kids/colleagues/fellow human beings may see it or they'll think you're an utter prick. Unless they have anything to do with Chamriel nor Asmodai in which case they'll probably take it to the bathroom.
