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INTRODUCTION

The name's Davenport. I review games.

It was my day off, and I was takin' it easy in my virtual office. I'd just fired up a nice, smooth virtual Lucky Strike with my virtual Zippo, when in walks that Summers dame.

She didn't bother to knock, and I didn't bother to care. I was too busy eyein' those great gams of hers, and wishin' I knew which season of the show she'd strolled out of -- that way, I'd know if I was a pervert, or just pathetic.

Then she had to go and ruin the moment by talkin'.

"Love what you've done with the place," she said, lookin' down her nose at my digs. "What's with all the noir-age?"

I shrugged. "Leftovers from my Mean Streets review. Decided I kinda liked the ambiance. Why? You gotta beef with that?"

"Nope! No beef!" she chirped happily. "Not even a veggie-burger. It's very nice. Very... Bogart-y."

Then she crossed her arms and gave me one-a those "end-of-opening-montage" scowls that told me she was gettin' down to business.

"So... you done with my review yet?"

I rocked back in my virtual office chair and smiled, propping my feet on my virtual desk. I do that when I get all nostalgic-like.

"Y'know," I said, pausing to take a drag from Mr. Virtual Cancer Stick, "this takes me back to 1997. After goin' back and forth for a while, I'd finally broken down and picked up this new game I'd seen around: WitchCraft, first edition. At first, I'd had it figured for one-a those New Age-y Wicca jobs, but sometimes ya just gotta say 'What the Hell,' right? So, anyway, I didn't regret the clams it cost me. Right off the bat, I was hooked on the whole 'supernaturally powered heroes vs. the Forces of Darkness' schtick.

"Then, not long afterwards, here comes the TV version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that hooked me, too. And I thought to myself, 'Y'know, this is almost like WitchCraft: the Series.'

"So a few more years down the road, color me happy and surprised when I find out the guy behind WitchCraft was makin' the roleplaying version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (hereafter "BtVS") for the company puttin' out the new version of WitchCraft -- using Unisystem, the WitchCraft game mechanic, no less! How's that for a match made in Heaven, eh? A favorite author of a favorite game writin' an RPG based on a favorite show, usin' the system from the favorite game!"

The Summers dame just kept starin' at me.

"Yeeeeeeah," she said. "So, anyway… you done with my review yet?"

I sighed, turned on the computer, and got to typin'. Never argue with a dame who can bench press a G'nortch demon.

(Disclaimer: While this book wasn't technically a review copy, I did get a reviewer's discount on it. Full disclosure, and all that jazz.)

CONTENT

Chapter One: It's the Slayer's World, We Just Play Here

This chapter serves to introduce Buffy fans to gaming, gaming fans to Buffy (as if that were necessary), and both of them to the Buffy roleplaying game. It starts with the usual "What the Heck is Roleplaying?" section, explains the layout and contents of the book, gives a general overview of the Buffyverse, and wraps up with a satisfying summary of the show through Seasons 1-5. In each case, the author deftly walks the tightrope of assuming no familiarity with the show while keeping the writing concise and engaging.

Chapter Two: Some Assembly Required

This, the character creation chapter, first addresses the question of group makeup. BtVS can accommodate pretty much any approach to the source material that a group prefers, from playing the original cast to playing completely original characters to anything in between.

Of course, given the nature of the show, the biggest question will be: "Who gets to be the Slayer?" The chapter offers several alternatives, from the strictly-canon "one female Slayer" to such outrageously non-canon concepts as multiple Slayers (well, more than two), male Slayers, and even (hopefully jokingly) canine Slayers. ("Vampire slaying is a real bitch. Now, so is the Slayer!")

Then it's on to actual character creation. For the most part, this process mirrors that of the standard Unisystem, which I described in my All Flesh Must Be Eaten review and playtested for my WitchCraft review. However, there are many significant changes that I will address.

Like all Unisystem games, BtVS divides characters into several broad Character Types -- not classes, really, but guidelines regarding the number and allocation of character creation points. The BtVS character types are, in order of increasing power in terms of attributes and skills:

• White Hat: Your basic Scooby Gang member, like Xander or early Willow. Roughly equivalent to AFMBE Norms and WitchCraft Gifted (not counting Metaphysics).
• Hero: Early Buffy or later Willow. Roughly equivalent to AFMBE Survivors and WitchCraft Lesser Gifted (again, sans Metaphysics).
• Experienced Hero: Later-series Buffy and Angel. True ass-kickers, exceeding even the ultra-tough WitchCraft Mundanes.

Mixing Experienced Heroes with the other types isn't recommended unless the players are okay with wildly unbalanced PCs, but White Hats and Heroes are expected to commingle. While there's still a bit of a balance issue there, White Hats get twice as many Drama Points as do Heroes, and that goes a long way to even things up. More on Drama Points in a moment.

Attributes

Attributes are identical to those found in standard Unisystem, but neither Endurance Points nor Essence are used in BtVS.

Qualities and Drawbacks

Again, most of these will be familiar to Unisystem fans.

Among the more important additions are Qualities that make the PC into a specific character type: Initiative Commando, Jock, Nerd, Robot, Slayer (natch), Vampire, Watcher, and Werewolf. Essentially, these are package deals of Qualities, Drawbacks, and miscellaneous perks. Note that the creature types are pretty basic -- don’t expect to have any cool accessories for your robot or fancy powers for your vampire just yet. Still, their very presence as options scores some big points with me -- especially the Robot Quality. When I saw robots, I knew this was going to be the sort of generous core rulebook I adore. How many robots have appeared in the series, after all, and would they really have been missed from the game? But they are part of the setting, and so they're included in the book.

Also noteworthy are the two Qualities important -- nay, vital -- for any self-respecting witch or warlock: Occult Library and Sorcery. More about those in "Chapter Four: Playing with Primal Forces".

Skills

Here's where BtVS really starts to leave the standard Unisystem reservation. BtVS uses only 18 skills: Acrobatics, Art, Computers, Crime, Doctor, Driving, Getting Medieval, Gun Fu, Influence, Knowledge, Kung Fu, Languages, Mr. Fix-It, Notice, Occultism, Science, Sports, and Wild Card.

Well, not exactly 18. "Wild Card" isn't a skill in and of itself, but rather an open slot for skills that are either more specific versions of the listed skills or not on the skill list at all. And it's certainly not difficult to get more specific than the listed skills, which are wildly generalized. Art, for example, covers any kind of art, from doodling to disco. Knowledge covers all non-technical, non-science information, from psychology to pop culture. And Getting Medieval covers every non-firearm weapon, ranged or melee, from crossbows to cattle prods. So broad are these skills, in fact, that they cost the same number of experience points to increase as do attributes.

The breadth of these skills may seem a little hard to swallow, even by Buffyverse standards. Thankfully, the game has two solutions. The first simply involves the application of penalties to skill uses that don't fit with the character's background.

* * * * *

Playtest: That came in handy repeatedly regarding the Knowledge skill, in particular. It just didn't make much sense for our group's staid Watcher to be an expert on American TV programs, for example. This process of establishing the limits of a skill based upon the nature of the character reminded me a bit of defining the limits of Traits in Over the Edge.

* * * * *

The second is that Wild Card skill I mentioned. Let's say you want your PC to be a good archer but not an all-around weapons master. Easy enough -- take the skill "Wild Card: Archery".

* * * * *

Playtest: Trouble is, Wild Card skills used in this way function as a kind of specialization in theory but not in practice. Our hypothetical archer, for example, would get no benefit to her archery prowess from increasing her Getting Medieval skill.

Now, she would have some advantage if using Wild Card: Archery in place of Getting Medieval at the same skill level. Using a bow is treated like a difficult use of Getting Medieval, resulting in a penalty. Someone using the Wild Card: Archery skill wouldn't incur that penalty, however. Obviously, shooting a bow isn't a "trickier" use of Archery -- it is the use of Archery.

That advantage isn't as clear-cut with non-combat skills, however, if it applies at all. That, combined with the fact that Wild Card skills cannot be broader than standard skills but cost the same number of points, greatly limits their appeal. I eventually decided to treat narrow Wild Card skills as stackable with relevant "standard" skills and cut their improvement cost in half. This has worked well so far, although one player did point out that from a game mechanic standpoint, the smart thing to do is to alternate between increasing the "normal" skill and the Wild Card specialization.

* * * * *

After the standard "finishing touches" -- name, appearance, and whatnot -- the chapter wraps up with two sets of ready-made characters.

The first batch consists of original archetypes, each with their own backgrounds, and I'd be hard pressed to imagine a better selection for grab-and-go play:

• New Slayer: Hero (A brainy Slayer, no less! And a hot one, too, if I may wax geek misogynist for a moment. Imagine Buffy crossed with Willow…)
• Former Initiative Agent: Hero
• Demon Hunter: Hero
• Martial Artist: Hero
• Watcher: White Hat
• Psychic: White Hat
(Hampered a little bit by the lack of actual rules for psychics -- for all practical purposes, a witch without spells. I suspect that the forthcoming Magic Box supplement will address this problem.)
• Scooby Gang Member: White Hat
• Football Player: White Hat
• Hacker: White Hat (A computer geek with some magic skills as well -- think Jonathan, not Willow.)
• Beginner Witch: White Hat
• Former Vampire Groupie: White Hat (A Goth chick who was almost once bitten and is miles from "twice shy".)
• Amateur Hunter: White Hat (Clearly based on the Frog Brothers of The Lost Boys fame.)

The second batch is the moment we've all been waiting for: the write-ups for Buffy and the Scooby Gang. The only notable missing faces are Kendra and Faith, who appear in The Slayer's Handbook (which has been read by yours truly and is on the "to review" list, by the way). For maximum flexibility, the stats are for the characters as of Season 5 (the last season covered by the book) or as of the season in which they left the show, whichever came first, with seasonal adjustments provided at the end. Here, as in so many other places, the book displays a commanding grasp of Buffy nuances -- Angel, for example, wasn't as tough as all that as of Season One, since he'd been doing little other than brooding and eating rats for a century or so.

* * * * *

Playtest: My group consists of three mostly intact archetypes (a New Slayer, a Psychic, and a Watcher(-in-Training)), one moderately tweaked archetype (a baseball player, based upon the Football Player), and three characters built from scratch (a "teen" Initiative robot, a "teen" Sidhe, and a teen gay half-demon Satanist magician, with the nonhuman aspects of the latter two being basically cosmetic). The character creation time required for the from-scratch characters ranged from 20-40 minutes, with each of the players reporting that the process was extremely simple. The broad skills, in particular, seemed to speed things along considerably.

* * * * *

Chapter 3: Rules, Borders and an End Zone

The Unisystem as it's applied in BtVS has been called "Unisystem Lite" or "Cinematic Unisystem". Again, the fundamentals of the mechanics are identical to those in the "standard" Unisystem used in All Flesh Must Be Eaten and WitchCraft, so I'll only address the changes here.

Basic Mechanic

The first change that struck me was the closed-ended die rolls -- in BtVS, there are no luck-based extraordinary disasters or successes. Drama Points help fill the latter niche, and I'll comment on how that works in play in my discussion of Drama Points below.

Ability Scores

The second, and by far more significant, change is the concept of "Ability Scores" for less important NPCs. These scores -- Muscle, Combat, and Brains -- are fixed target numbers derived from strength, combat skills, and intelligence/perception skills, respectively, with a 6 added to represent an average die roll. The idea here is to keep GMs from having to roll the dice at all. Instead, the PCs roll against the relevant Ability Score to affect the NPC or to prevent the NPC from affecting them -- a PC would make an attack or defense roll against the NPC's Combat score, for example. I haven't seen this idea used since The Whispering Vault, and I have no idea why. To my mind, this is a brilliant mechanic that deserves widespread use.

* * * * *

Playtest: In play, I really can't emphasize enough how liberating I find this way of doing things -- without having to roll for NPCs, I find it easier to concentrate on roleplaying them.

The method does have at least a couple of minor drawbacks, however.

The first is that because the NPCs' rolls are pre-calculated and fixed, so are the damage totals of their attacks. That got a little too predictable -- "If he punches me again, I'll take 21 points of damage!"

The second is that while the rules state that Ability Scores are optional and intended for less important NPCs, the actual write-ups of all NPCs -- even the Big Bads -- use this method exclusively. More on that under "Chapter 6: Creatures of the Night".

* * * * *

Combat

Another change: the multi-action rules. By default, the penalties for extra actions remain as they are in standard Unisystem, but BtVS adds a limit on the maximum number of actions that a character may attempt based upon his Dexterity. As a result, characters of less than peak human Dexterity will be limited to one attack and one defense per round.

An alternate method blows the top off of that limit, but it requires players to announce all of their characters' intended actions -- offensive and defensive -- beforehand, applying the cumulative penalty to every action, either that round or the next.

* * * * *

Playtest: None of these options really appealed to me. We found the default method to be too restrictive and, oddly, rather uncinematic. And I didn't go for the suggested for the alternative for the reason presented, ironically, on the WitchCraft web site: the difficulty of pre-determining the number of needed actions in a given round, particularly regarding defense.

On the flip side, I didn't think that using the standard Unisystem rule would be an acceptable alternative, either. Lacking the hazard of negatively open-ending rolls, there's not much disincentive to taking as many actions as possible.

I finally decided upon my own cobbled-together solution, allowing unlimited actions as per standard Unisystem but stopping all actions at the first failure and applying the negative modifier on that failed action to all actions attempted on the following round. This seemed to nicely simulate a combatant being thrown off-balance by attempting a flurry of attacks and/or defenses.

In the process of mulling over this mechanic, I also came to realize that the attack/defense dichotomy leaves out non-combat actions, such as movement. Because PCs always get one unpenalized defense, regardless of accrued penalties, I concluded that the system allows not one unpenalized attack and one unpenalized defense, but rather one unpenalized action (of any sort) and one unpenalized defense.

* * * * *

(Speaking of multi-actions, a relatively minor change from standard Unisystem is that players only roll once for all attacks (or other actions) and once for all defenses within a turn.)

The system breaks down attacks of all sorts -- spin kicks, bow shots, stakes to the heart, etc. -- into combat maneuvers, each with its own degree of difficulty and effectiveness. Note that these moves are not treated as skills, meaning that anyone can attempt them, and with a little luck and Drama Point expenditure (see below), even a White Hat can succeed at them. I'm a little iffy on that -- even on his best day, Xander shouldn't be going all Crouching Tiger. However, as is the case with the generalized skills, I'm willing to deal with this quirk for the sake of easier character creation.

Note that certain maneuvers are very much akin to sub-skills. This makes them candidates for Wild Card skills that allow penalty-free use of those maneuvers -- see the Bow Shot/Wild Card: Archery example previously described. Following that logic, it might be possible to have skills like Wild Card: Decapitate or Wild Card: Stake Through the Heart. This would give a substantial boost to the value of Wild Card skills, at least in terms of combat. The question arises, however, as to whether a penalty of any size can be countered in this manner. And applying the same principle to non-combat skills would be a little trickier -- is Physics a more difficult application of the Science skill than Biology?

* * * * *

Playtest: One important note about combat: Ganging up on foes works very well, since attackers get a bonus equal to the total number of attackers up to a maximum of +4. In essence, then, put enough White Hats on a single vampire and they turn into a pack of professional ass-kickers. This helps in part to answer the question of what White Hats are supposed to do to survive in combat.

I seriously underestimated this effect when gauging the opposition in my first combat, in which the outnumbered vamps were quickly overwhelmed. On the flip side, it requires some restraint on the part of the GM -- even our Slayer had some trouble with mookish vamps when they ganged up on her.

* * * * *

While I'm ambivalent about the value of some of the changes applied to the Unisystem for BtVS, the change to the damage mechanic definitely isn't one of them. BtVS goes with the alternate Unisystem rule that applies fixed damage scores for weapons, but translates attack success levels directly into damage bonuses applied to those scores.

* * * * *

Playtest: This sped combat up nicely as compared to standard Unisystem.

Unisystem's "Glass Ninja" problem -- or "Glass Slayer" problem, rather -- remains: Because damage increases as attack totals increase but doesn't decrease as defense totals increase, hard-to-hit combatants will only be hit by devastating attacks. Now, in my game, this happened most often to the Slayer herself, who could afford to soak up quit a bit of damage courtesy of her free levels of Hard to Kill. But not all hard-to-hit heroes will be so robust. Furthermore, the rules as they stand make Drama Points spent for Heroic Feats on failed defensive rolls (see below) doubly painful.

However, I also found that the increased transparency of the damage mechanic makes allowing defensive success levels to reduce damage much easier than it is in standard Unisystem, as is suggested in WitchCraft Chronicler's Shield. I've been playing it this way for several sessions now without a hitch.

* * * * *

Drama Points

These give BtVS its distinct flavor, making up for some of the game's (in my opinion) uncinematic Unisystem modifications.

Characters can spend Drama Points on:

• Heroic Feat: +10 bonus to one roll.

  * * * * *

  Playtest: Given the typical range of target numbers, spending Drama Points on Heroic Feats comes close to assuring a success. This gives the game an almost diceless feel at times, with the good and bad that goes with that. On the bright side, it gives players much more control over their PCs' fates and assures that "wild successes" aren't just products of a random turn of the die. On the downside, I found that Heroic Feats put me in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether or not to allow the PCs their moments of glory by having NPCs spend Drama Points of their own. (Granted, draining an NPC of his Drama Points in that manner furthers the PCs' cause, but it’s a little anticlimactic.)

  On a related note, I learned early on that when it comes to combat, Heroic Feats are akin to writer's fiat without the writer. They allow for the sudden bursts of competence that the Scooby Gang sometimes displays, but in the RPG, those bursts of competence happen at the discretion of the player. The result can make a Hero look pretty silly by comparison. During my game's first vamp fight, for example, a White Hat waltzed right up and staked a vamp with one blow while the Slayer had to engage a multi-round kung fu fight to dust her first vamp.

  * * * * *

• I Think I'm Okay: Cuts all current damage in half (not just the damage from the last successful attack).

  * * * * *

  Playtest: Considering the inherent deadliness of Unisystem, this was a vital addition for a Buffy game that saved the White Hats in my campaign several times over. It also served to keep some of my more important villains from dying anticlimactically several times as well, although I found out the hard way that even half damage can be plenty deadly. (Particularly since any slashing/stabbing damage that gets past armor is doubled, and there's an awful lot of slashy/stabby damage to be had in the Buffyverse.) The lesson there? While the ability to cut damage in half with Drama Points is great, don't get cocky.

  * * * * *

• Righteous Fury: +5 to all combat actions, if your PC has cause to be really pissed off...
• Plot Twists: Akin to Dramatic Editing in Adventure!. ("Good thing someone dropped a crucifix there! What're the odds??")

  * * * * *

  Playtest: For some reason, this hasn't come up much in my game so far. And when it has come up, it's mostly been to get some kind of clue that the players suspected they might otherwise have missed. This may be due to the fact that Heroic Feats kept them from needing to do any Plot Twisting.

  * * * * *

• Back from the Dead: Lets the PC return from the grave either literally (as a ghost, through resuscitation, etc.) or as a long-lost twin or the like. In a particularly nice touch, the number of Drama Points required depends upon how soon the player wants his "dead" PC to "get better". (In game terms, Buffy's return to life in Season One cost a lot more than did her resurrection in Season Six.)

The manner in which Drama Points are earned is just as important to the feel of the game as are the ways in which they may be spent. First of all, characters can purchase them with Experience Points at a 1-for-1 cost for White Hats and 1-for-2 cost for Heroes -- thereby helping White Hats play to their strengths. They're also awarded not just for heroic actions, but also for coming up with witty Buffy-esque lines, offering emotional support to Heroes (for White Hats), and getting screwed over by the GM.

* * * * *

Playtest: Oops. In the process of re-reading the rules for this review, I realized that I've been over-generous with the Drama Points -- I've been giving them for every witty line I feel is worthy, when in fact that's only supposed to happen once per session. But everyone's been having fun playing it that way, so I suppose I'll stick with it. I honestly can't tell you whether this system encouraged the players to come up with good lines, and I certainly can't guarantee that the results would be the same for other groups even if it did -- the members of my group are pretty quick-witted, if I do say so myself. I can definitely state that they enjoyed being rewarded for their wittiness, however.

I also observed that players gave me loads of leeway regarding GM fiat when I bought them off with Drama Points -- having important villains escape to fight another day, for example, or having the teen Initiative robot's secret come out due to a highly inconvenient vampire bite. (As if there were any other kind of vampire bite... but you know what I mean.)

* * * * *

Chapter 4: Playing with Primal Forces

In many fantasy/horror settings -- BtVS, for example -- magic tends to work however the writer wants it to work at any given moment. Naturally, this makes translating that magic into a coherent roleplaying mechanic a tricky proposition. Fortunately, BtVS does a better job of that translation than I had thought possible.

Like Talislanta's 4th edition magic system, the BtVS magic system is freeform in the rules but not in the setting. In other words, while players can make up their own spells, characters within the game cannot do so. From a character's perspective, he is learning a pre-written incantation, not creating one.

Learning the spells requires access to an Occult Library -- the higher the Occult Library score, the more the randomly-determined number of spells the Occult Library contains. This doesn't mean that any spell a player wants will be in a given Occult Library, however. In a sense, a character's attempt to find a spell matching a specific set of criteria represents the player making pretty-please puppydog eyes at the GM.

* * * * *

Playtest: From a character perspective, this system mirrors the show beautifully: "Do you think there's a spell for undoing this curse?" "I dunno… Looks like it's time to hit the books!"

Unfortunately, the player perspective runs counter to the character perspective. While the character is trying to find out the full extent of an existing finite resource, the player is aware that he is using up that finite resource just by the looking. As a result, players had reason to think twice about having their characters peruse their libraries, let alone allowing other characters to do so. After all, any spell that turned up (via GM approval) meant one less spell that could ever be "found" in the future.

This also resulted in a noticeable lack of the kinds of "cute" spells often seen in the series. From a game mechanics standpoint, a spell is a spell regardless of utility, so who in his right mind would bother "finding" a Redecorating spell when a Banish Big Bad spell might not be there when he needs it as a result?

* * * * *

The creation of the spell involves a determination of its Power Level, which factors in such matters as the magnitude of the effect, the number of targets affected, the duration, and the difficulties involved with the casting.

There are two main limitations on spellcasting.

The first is that while casting a spell simply requires beating the standard Unisystem target number of 9 with a Willpower + Occultism roll, to have it work properly, the number of success levels have to meet or exceed the spell's Power Level. If the spell roll succeeds but doesn't get the required success levels, the spell goes off, but something bad happens -- the more powerful the spell, the worse the likely misfire. This is simply brilliant design. Consider this: How many times have you seen a spellcasting fail outright on Buffy, doing absolutely nothing? Now, how many times have you seen a spell go horribly awry?

The second limitation takes the form of the cumulative penalties that build up with every cast, combined with extra penalties for repeatedly casting the same spell -- penalties which require two hours of sleep per spell Power Level to negate.

* * * * *

Playtest: Unlike the other limitation, this one didn't impress me all that much. It frustrated the player of our group's most powerful magician by preventing her from budgeting the magician's resources -- in a confrontation, his first spell would always be his most powerful, tapering off from there. Granted, that leaves more room for the Slayer & Co. to save the day. Still, I don't think this system mirrors the show very well. It seems to me that Willow's magic works more along the lines of a "magic point" system (such as WitchCraft's Essence Points), given the manner in which she sometimes steals power for her spells. And, like the Occult Library mechanic, it makes "frivolous" spells much less likely to be cast.

* * * * *

In the TV show, anyone is able to cast a spell, but only Witches and Warlocks can lob one at the drop of a hat. The game addresses this issue quite neatly with the Sorcery Quality. Similar to the Gift Quality in other Unisystem Games, Sorcery gives magicians the ability to take advantage of spells that may be "fast cast". (Certain spells cannot be fast cast by anyone, even Witches, however.) In addition, Sorcery levels serve as a bonus to all spellcasting attempts. Finally, in keeping with the show, Witches and Warlocks get telekinesis as an added bonus on top of their spellcasting abilities -- nothing Akira-like, but enough to throw around an opponent or stake a vamp long-distance.

* * * * *

Playtest: The player of the half-demon took the highest possible Willpower, Occultism, and Sorcery scores. In play, the character seemed to be a match for Season 6 Willow… almost. He could get off a really impressive spell with no problem early in a combat -- a "chain lightning" spell that fried four vampires with one shot comes to mind. But he'd burn out pretty quickly due to the cumulative penalties. If the fight lasted more than a few rounds, he'd end up in real trouble.

That, however, doesn't factor in Drama Points. Few foes short of a Big Bad could have withstood his offensive spells when he went on a Drama Point spending spree -- even when using Drama Points of their own to counter the damage -- and the casting penalties didn't even slow him down.

The lesson? Maxed-Out Witch = Brief Bouts of Carnage. Maxed-Out Witch + Drama Points to Burn = Apocalypse Now. You've been warned.

* * * * *

Rounding out the chapter are write-ups for six spells that have appeared in the series: Revoke Invitation, Thespia's Demon Detection, Spell of Blindness, Bloodstone Vengeance Spell, Lightning Bolt, and, of course, Amy's "Rat-ification" Spell. This hardly constitutes an impressive grimoire, but given the freeform magic system, it doesn't need to be. (And, at any rate, those requiring more pre-written spells will soon have The Magic Box supplement.)

Chapter 5: Sunnydale After Dark

The chapter starts with a brief history of Sunnydale, then offers up some explanations for why most everyone in town seems so damned clueless about the dangers in their midst.

An overview of various locales in town follows. It covers most of the bases, although I'm not sure how much good the descriptions would do someone unfamiliar with the series. There's also no map of town, which would have been nice. (Then again, with the "Since when was there a castle here?" geography of Sunnydale, perhaps that would have been an exercise in futility.)

After the "where", it's on to the "who" -- an exploration of the non-monster denizens of Sunnydale. It divides said denizens into two main groups: students and faculty of Sunnydale High, and everyone else. In the former category are write-ups of the average student, Jonathan Levinson, Amy Madison, Harmony Kendall (post-vamping, so okay, there is one monster in this chapter…), principals Flutie and Snyder (okay, two monsters…), and Jenny Calendar. In the latter category are Joyce Summers and generic cops and Initiative commandos. Regrettably, Andrew and Warren don't appear, their trio of supervillainy with Jonathan not having formed until after Season Five. And speaking of Jonathan, I have to question giving him less intelligence than either Joyce Summers or Principal Flutie, but perhaps he got a lot out of his first post-graduation year. Other than that, it's a nice selection.

Chapter 6: Creatures of the Night

What would a Buffy game be without beasties? BtVS covers the basics quite well: vampires (of course), demons, primals and shape-shifters, the restless dead (ghosts and zombies), and robots, with the most attention given to the first two. (Again, robots! I love that!) The chapter offers multiple examples of each -- some "generic", some characters from the show.

* * * * *

Playtest: One quick gripe: While the basic write-ups using Ability Scores are said to be for less important members of the supporting cast, every creature write-up uses this method -- even the write-ups of the Big Bads (see below). This isn't that big of a deal unless you get tired of creatures doing the same damage with every hit or if you want to use some maneuver other than one of those listed for the creature. In the latter case, you must quickly reverse-engineer skill scores based on the formula for determining ability scores -- not a huge chore, but not a whole lot of fun in the middle of a combat, either.

* * * * *

I have to confess some disappointment in the presentation of vampiric and demonic powers. It's not that there are too few powers -- on the contrary, the game once again gives a good general overview. No, the problem is that the descriptions of many of these powers go no further than simply stating that the powers exist. For example, under the demon power Telepathy, we get:

"At least one species of demon has the ability to communicate telepathically. Several demons can also read people's minds and find out their fears and desires. This power allows demons to coordinate their plans without having to speak, which can come in hand when sneaking around."

So basically, regarding "Telepathy," we're told that some demons have telepathy. Well, that's good to know…

This is forgivable to a degree, perhaps, since powers tend to run a distant second to old-fashioned butt kicking in the show. And the powers that do occur are seldom repeated exactly, so maybe creating rules for the various permutations of telepathy, possession, and the like would have resulted in an unmanageably large book. Still, this is a game of monster-bashing, so I find having to wait for the Monster Smackdown supplement for more complete rules to be a little irksome.

This isn't to say that the monster section lacks any mechanics at all. On the contrary, mechanics for the fundamentals of the included monsters are quite good -- in some cases, inspired.

A prime example of the latter is the rule for staking vampires. When characters attempt this classic dusting maneuver, they first must overcome a sizeable penalty to target the vamp's heart. That done, the normal damage for a sharp wooden thingy is multiplied by five. If the total would reduce the vamp's Life Points to zero, the vamp is, indeed, dusted; if not, the attack only does normal sharp wooden thingy damage.

Consider the full implications of this rule. If you want to stake a vamp in one shot, you'd better be really accurate and really strong -- like, say, a Slayer. But if you don't quite spring from Slayer stock, or if you're a Slayer-quality hero facing a tough vamp, you'll want to reduce the vamp's Life Points before going for the staking.

* * * * *

Playtest: The result is a mechanic that mirrors the source material perfectly. The players in my game quickly learned that just like in the show, they needed to have their characters beat on vamps for a round or three before making with the staking -- unless they wanted to burn a Drama Point for a Heroic Feat, in which case the action mirrored one of those single-blow stakings that even Willow pulls off on occasion.

As an aside, staking is the only method that destroys vamps right at zero Life Points. This made staking the most popular method for dealing with them by far, which, of course, also reflected the show's axioms.

* * * * *

Next, it's on to all the Big Bads from Seasons 1-5: the Master, Drusilla, Angelus, Mayor Wilkins, Adam, and Glory. All I can say here is that I'm overjoyed not to have to wait for a supplement to get these stats, even if they are in the shorthand Ability Score form.

Chapter 7: Episodes, Seasons, and Drama

The obligatory "How To GM This Game" chapter. This one proves to be remarkably useful.

First, it offers suggestions regarding where and when to set your game, and how to incorporate the cast of the show. Do you want to have your PCs coexist with the Scooby Gang, for example, or would you rather place them in a post-Buffy Sunnydale? Or perhaps at a different Hellmouth? Or are they not tied to any one location at all, instead wandering the land in search of supernatural foes?

Next, the chapter explores various types of PC groups, from the classic "Slayer and the Scooby Gang" format to Initiative strike teams.

The bulk of the chapter, however, is dedicated to an admirably in-depth look at campaign creation, including plots, sub-plots, big bads, and even "special episodes" like series premiers and finales. All of these are liberally sprinkled with examples from the show. On the whole, an excellent chapter.

Chapter 8: Sweeps Week

This is just what I look for in an introductory adventure: Short, but with plenty of room to expand and to illustrate various game concepts. It begins with a gruesome in-school murder mystery and ends up introducing the Big Bad for a campaign that continues on through the adventures in subsequent supplements.

As written, the adventure works best if the PCs are students or faculty members at Sunnydale High. It wouldn't be hard to transplant the happenings to a college campus instead, but any other changes would sacrifice some of the school politics the PCs will have to navigate in their investigations.

For spoiler-laced specifics, highlight the white text below:

The aforementioned Big Bad is the Djinn, one of those apocalyptically powerful supernatural creatures trapped outside of our reality and trying to bust back in. Naturally, the Djinn does this by granting wishes -- in exchange for souls. His first Sunnydale customer is a TV-obsessed nerd whose wish turns manifested characters from cheesy sci-fi shows into the tools of his vengeance -- specifically, shamelessly obvious knockoffs of Xena, Duncan McCloud, Capt. Kirk, and the Terminator. (Okay, so the last one's neither cheesy nor a TV show... but hey, I said he was a knockoff.) Complicating matters are a whole bunch of red herrings in the form of weird-acting students (this is Sunnydale) and a gang of Harley-riding, man-hating Hispanic female vampires (again, it's Sunnydale).

(End of spoilers.)

* * * * *

Playtest: Obviously, this adventure emphasizes the campier side of BtVS. That concerned me a little, but I needn't have worried -- everyone took the campiness in stride as just part of the whole "Buffy Experience". Indeed, the group had no trouble getting into the mindset of the game. Even by the end of the second session, they were already spending at least as much time on interactions between their characters and on character development subplots as they were on staking vamps. Granted, this could happen in pretty much any game, but this was the first time I've seen it happen to this extent.

* * * * *

Appendix

Rounding out the book, the appendix consists of three subsections.

The first is a hilariously savvy study of Buffy-speak in all its permutations. On the off chance that you have players who've never seen the show, this will get them up to speed on the show's feel in no time.

Unisystem conversion notes follow. These aren't particularly extensive, nor do they need to be -- this is, after all, just a "Lite" version of the standard Unisystem. It's worth noting that this conversion isn't enough to get you to standard Unisystem on its own, however, so don’t expect to pick up a non-Buffy Unisystem supplement and use it without some fudging if you don't own the main rulebook as well.

Finally, the appendix includes almost all of the tables printed elsewhere in the book, which should tide GMs over until they pick up the GM screen.

STYLE

This is the most visually perfect roleplaying product I have ever purchased, and I do not say that lightly. Not surprisingly, the book relies heavily on stills from the series, starting with the cover. These are put to excellent use throughout, most often fitting thematically with the surrounding text when they aren't just looking cool. Most of the original artwork is confined to the archetypes and to the adventure, and almost all of it is excellent. The style of the adventure pictures is noticeably different from the rest of the book, however. It isn't ugly, but just slightly jarring.

That aside, the book flows together wonderfully. The universal background seems based on that swirl of vaguely occult-y images that flashes on the screen during the opening strains of the theme song, with the borders featuring a different color and a different star's picture for each chapter for easy reference. (And speaking of reference, the book includes glossaries of both Buffy and game terms as well as an index.) For a book lacking much plain white space, the layout is extremely clear and the text is perfectly legible throughout.

As for the content of that text… When I saw that it was to be written in Buffy-esque style, I feared the worst. That sort of thing can be a weapon of pure annoyance in the wrong hands. Fortunately, C.J. Carella was more than up to the task -- not only was there a complete lack of annoyage, but I also caught myself laughing out loud more than once. I was also amazed at the encyclopedic knowledge of Buffy quotes that went into the book -- after every header, there's a relevant quote. There are some errors in the text, but only a couple of them were apparent to me without consulting the errata on the web site.

Overall, the book just looks and feels like a seamless extension of the show.

CONCLUSION

I can honestly say that running Buffy has been one of the greatest gaming experiences I've ever had.

Now, I have to give a lot of the credit for that to my group. However, I've gamed with many of them many times before, and while it's always been good, it's never been this outrageously fun.

I also have to give loads of credit to the source material. Not only is it immediately familiar to every gamer I know, but the geek-savvy and self-referential nature of BtVS turns ordinarily out-of-character behavior into in-character behavior. But I've run games in equally familiar settings before -- Star Wars, for example -- that haven't been nearly this fun.

So, there is something about the game itself that makes it something special.

In the final analysis, I've decided that the rules mostly do what Unisystem rules do best -- namely, fade into the background during play -- while simultaneously providing just enough Buffylike twists here and there to enhance game play in an already gamer-friendly setting. Somehow, it just all comes together in a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

That's academic, though. The point is, my group and I have had a wonderful, wonderful time with BtVS, and we continue to do so. (In fact, I was bribed with chocolate and homemade pumpkin bread to continue GMing this game in perpetuity.) I can only believe that anyone with the slightest fondness for the source material -- or even for the action/horror subgenre of which it's a part -- would have a similar experience. But even if Buffy and its ilk aren't your thing, the game would still be a solid purchase as an example of game design in general and genre emulation in particular at their finest.

SUBSTANCE:

• Setting
• Quality = 5.0
• Quantity = 4.5

• Rules
• Quality = 4.5
• Quantity = 4.5

STYLE:

• Artwork = 5.0

• Layout/Readability = 5.0

• Organization = 5.0

• Writing = 5.0

• Proofreading = -0.5

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