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Graphics, illustrations, and design by Alex McVey, Kathy Capach, Don Higgins, and Bradford Younie
Softbound black and white book
Reviewed by Andy Vetromile
Hunting for ghosts seems all the rage these days; one can’t turn on the TV without seeing (or thinking one sees) orbs, shadows, and images at the edges of one’s vision as an anxious host plunges himself into darkness. Someone needs to shine a light in the corners, so why not The Unexplained. Billed by Carnivore Games as a non-fiction game, it turns players into the hosts of their own supernatural episodes.
Mystery Builds Character
True, it chronicles tales of the Foundation for Paranormal Investigation, a fictional group that seeks the truth behind some of the great mysteries: Bigfoot, Nessie, ghosts, UFOs, and other fringe beliefs. But this it does in a quiet and understated way, one set as much as possible in the real world, using ideas and beliefs couched in the here and now. This fits not only the setting but the underlying system, FUDGE, itself a fairly broad tool for telling stories.
The FPI first appeared in Now Playing, a game of role-playing in any television genre from the same company. The sample campaign there was an X-Files-style setup that had teams going about the globe in search of information about all manner of high weirdness. Started by a retired English soldier who witnessed bizarre goings-on during his time in the Middle East, it bankrolled others to start chapters worldwide so it could collate data. Now the organization – or at least its accompanying role-playing style – has a book all its own.
For those not acquainted with FUDGE, the quick version of the story is: It’s a customizable and descriptive system with Attributes and successes at different levels labeled Terrible through Superb. The dice are six-siders but they have an even distribution of blank sides and plus and minus signs; four of them are rolled for a result ranging from 4 to a -4. That’s how many descriptors up or down the scale the character’s success slides.
The Unexplained has a pretty non-granular take on it, using bare-bones accounting to create its characters. This works well for its “non-fiction” version of the world: The heroes are meant to be regular Joes with nothing spectacular about them save their views on the paranormal. Buying one of the powers in the game – psychic abilities, say, or some form of magic – sucks up a lot of character-building resources, so it often becomes the persona’s defining characteristic. Even then, these aren’t costumed comic-book do-gooders, so the special talents are subtle, unobvious effects to be used as tools, not plot-stoppers. Character creation is followed by sections on the various kinds of specialized equipment typically found in the field.
Contents May Be Unsettling
Most of the book is dedicated to an exhaustive dictionary of modern-day paranormal phenomena and the groups that look into them. Several chapters describe the various alien races said to visit Earth; the cryptids lurking in the unexplored regions of the world; and the thought-long-extinct animals whose existence is still a hotly debated matter. Each entry has notes on its habitat, the sorts of evidence presented thus far by those claiming to have seen it, and the conclusions drawn by the Foundation. The Storyteller sections suggest how to incorporate it into the campaign, sometimes with cross-references to other beasts or phenomena.
Some of the images used are stock, pictures that have made the rounds in paranormal journals and the like, but with the exception of some mocked-up photos, the graphics here are mostly originals. Not only that, they’re good ones. Some are a bit on the cartoonish side, but they blend with their material. The pencils are particularly noteworthy and display a complementary talent, especially where the natural world is concerned. The sketches of mountain lions and even the enigmatic bipeds and river creatures of lore look like something out of a naturalist’s guidebook, lending a professional sheen to the work.
The Unexplained sometimes concentrates too much on the wrong things, not least that it doesn’t contain as much tying it to the FPI setting as one might think. It has some history, some characters, and some notes on how to employ them in a game, but even that is mostly mechanical material about how information is filed. Their use throughout as an integral part of the campaign is lacking. The gear section has standard loadouts for paranormal investigators like cameras, recorders, and EMF meters, but there’s a lot about weapons, too. That’s inevitable in any RPG, but given that the book stresses research over trips into the woods to blow cryptids out of the trees, it feels unbalanced. Kevlar armor seems a luxury when facing Nessie. After a while, the entries for some of the ghoulies and ghosties start to sound homogenized – there are only so many ways to spin the many creatures you’re expected to go out and track down. And yet . . .
This is one of those areas where the book shows its chops: The bestiary is exhaustive. And since it’s not limited to unintelligent four-legged critters, Carnivore Games could very well have made these the subject of one or more other books. They still might, given all the myths to track down, but everything – more than everything – the GM needs to keep the show running for years is right here. Bigfoot and Nessie sit beside UFOs, ghosts, and mysterious disappearances, particularly those happening at sea. Psychic powers and rituals of witchcraft power plots both good and evil, though in a system as imprecise as this some of the mechanics for those systems end up being rather open-ended and lack sufficient tools to facilitate GM oversight.
It also offers Expedition: Bigfoot, a short adventure to get the group underway. The team tracks down a promising sighting of the big guy himself only to find they’re not the only ones interested in finding him. It’s another bright spot in the book, because the writing really excels in the GM’s voice, setting the mood and atmosphere with colorful descriptions and lively verbiage that makes the moment truly come alive. Cliché it may sound, but the read-alouds make it feel as though you’re right there.
This Means Something
As the role-playing equivalent of sotto voce, The Unexplained goes for a minimalist approach to play, keeping things simple and often using the unknown as a hook – the adventures never need to boil down to a simple snipe-hunt. Though the mechanics for spells and powers of the mind are weak, neither do they dominate the stage in a game that’s meant to be about role-playing something from the real world. It harkens back to its Now Playing roots, and GMs can transplant the action to another favored system or use the vaunted FUDGE customizability to suit things more to their tastes. Should it make the difference, the game touts that it’s endorsed by the East Coast Transcommunication Organization and Granite State Paranormal, which is understandable since, as a guide to weirdness, it’s gone global. Referees can now plant the seeds of an investigation for their game anywhere in the world. It may be unexplained, but it’s covered.
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