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That's been quoted on this site before. It, no doubt, will be quoted again. I don't care, because it is damn funny, damn clever, and proves conclusively that Thom Marrion is a god.
Not THE God, though. Not, like, the King of All Gods: that's CJ Carella. But Thom is definitely some kind of minor gods. He's probably in charge of war, or something and has a bitchin' hat to wear.
The point is, he's funny, and he writes well. It doesn't always flow with the same CJ easy, or sparkle with the same CJ verve, but it comes close, and on many occasions, will cause you to laugh out loud.
And along with the sharp, funny writing comes the rest of the Buffy package we've now come to expect. George lays down the same shiny layout and all the great, glossy pictures from the show (now with added Series Six goodness!). There is good quotage at every opportunity. Discussion at the front, adventure at the back, content in the middle, and the whole enchilada wrapped in a hardback burrito, which is perfectly bound, stain-resistant, wipes clean with a dry cloth and also comes in handy to smack surly players on the head with.
All in all, a tight little package. So why doesn't it fill with me glee? Why am I not 100% glee-sufficient?
Three reasons, really. Firstly, because of what came before: the Core Rulebook and the Slayer's Guide were so excellent, it's doubtful anything could have lived up to them. Secondly, by virtue of the subject matter, this is a reference book at best, about people we already know. As a result, it can't be terrifically exciting.
And thirdly....thirdly, because in some places, it falls shy of the mark. And in others, it misses by a mile.
Let's take it from the top. Monster Smackdown (hereafter MS) is a 168-page glossy hardback supplement for Eden Studios' Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. Along with the Core Rulebook and the Slayer's Handbook, it forms the last member of the what Eden is denoting the three core books of the game; hence it matches those two in look and feel. MS is the bestiary, the Monstrous Manual of this triumvirate of gaming goodness. Unlike D&D, however, the core book for Buffy had beasties in it already, and plenty of them. Thus, on the up side, this book is not necessary to play the game. On the down side, this book is not necessary to play the game.
Of course, The Slayer's Handbook was entirely optional too, but it packed every inch with ideas so new and exciting that they all-but leapt out of the book and bitch-slapped you around until you used them. Monster Smackdown is a monster manual of the show. The best it can do is retread what we've already seen. No matter how cool they make the write-ups, or how many story ideas they provide, they're still showing us the old, and it can't compete with the new.
The only time it ventures into the new is in Chapter One: Welcome to the Hellmouth. The game kicks off not with monsters to slay, but places for them to come from, for campaigns or adventures. We get five Hellmouths, and five Demon Dimensions. The suggested Hellmouths are in Massachusetts, Louisiana, Bavaria, Australia and Russia, and they are all interesting, varying and unique. The Australian one is all understated lurking dread - a desert town known only for the fact that the first white settlers there all disappeared without trace - while the Bavarian one is all gothic melodrama and vampire princes. The Demon Dimensions are less interesting, and less easy to see how to work into a game, but for one-off trips through the looking-glass, they'd all be useful. The Laboratory Dimension may just be where the Greys lurk in the Buffyverse, and Fairy Tale Land - where everything the Grimm Brothers wrote about is true - is just bursting with fun ideas. We only get a few paragraphs on each - but plenty to whet the appetite, and spark your own ideas.
After this, however, things shift somewhat back into neutral. I mentioned back in my review of the corebook that I didn't think it needed to spend so many pages explaining how vampires work in the Buffyverse. I can see that it's handy to have written down, but it's not particularly exotic or interesting to anyone who knows the show. And frankly, I don't think the show's writers think about it much anyway - whenever it matters (which isn't often), it's typically whatever they make up at the time. Which is the problem Chapter Two runs head-first into right from word go. Titled "Die Young, Live Forever", it's a twenty page dissertation on vampires in the Buffyverse. The problem is, we don't actually know very much about vampires in the Buffyverse, and what we do know is somewhat flexible. Angel apparently can't breathe (he can't resuscitate Buffy) but Spike can smoke. They can walk in churches without any problems, but are hurt by crosses and holy water. Most vamps claw themselves out of their graves, but some are up and biting in an hour. Moreover, it's never explained why they're hurt by crosses, or how their inner organs work, or if they instinctively desire to hunt and kill. And that's not even mentioning the whole "can a vampire be good" issue. So what we have in this section is a lot of guesswork and suggestions.
They're often very interesting suggestions and guesses though. And by pointing out everything we don't know, this section does at least collate everything we do know for easy reference. By pointing out that the siring process can vary wildly, they also imply free range to Directors to use it as the story demands. In short, it's definitely a useful and occasionally inspirational reference guide if you thought the section in the corebook was too short - but it's not exactly bubbling with ideas, or a marvellous read either. But then, I never found vampires very interesting to begin with, so I'm hardly the man to ask.
Chapters Three, Four and Five also feature a lot of familiar ground, but are far more interesting, and far more useful. Chapter Three: From Hell is an alphabetical listing of twenty-one demon foot-soldiers we've known and loved. Chapter Four: Everything You Ever Dreaded Under the Bed covers twenty non-demonic horrors of magic, spirit and science. Chapter Five: Bads, Big and Small, deals with thirty-three monsters who had more personality - or at least more lines.
It took me quite a while to get used to this split organisation. Quickly: if you're looking for Vengeance demons, which section would you pick? What about Ampata the mummy girl? Machida the snake demon the frat boys worshipped? (The answers are: three, four and five, respectively. Record your score and go onto page 23.) The intent, however, is admirable: instead of listing monsters by type, they listed them by how they might be used in the plot. There's that dedication to application I love so much in this line.
Although it's not a perfect sorting, Chapter Three focuses mostly on the easily defeated demons, who mostly just show up, then die when their plot immunity runs out. This runs from Chaos Demons (all slime and antlers) to Gavrok Spiders (a tasty snack), from Hellhounds (that hate mirror balls) to Quellers (snot monsters from outer-space), and from dragons (fire-breathing fun) to some nice men from the Order of Taraka (just ewww). All have Quick Sheet stats as per the Core Rulebook, and two paragraph write-ups about their role in their episode, plus a few quick suggestions on how they might be used again.
Chapter Four, meanwhile, deals with bads whose episodes were more less about slayage and more about discovering the nature of their badness, and figuring out how to stop them. Sid from The Puppet Show being a prime example, as well as the prime example in this chapter. This chapter isn't alphabetical, as it is split by type - such as ghosts and spirits, within objects or without, then there's zombies and the undead, primal beasties, things of fairytales, weird science, and just plain not-good people. This is the chapter with all the fun stuff - fish-men, hyena people, the buffy-bot, the Gentlemen, invisible girls, and those two crazy German assassins - all the best sparks of genius from the show at its most inventive. Best of all, we finally get stats of the greatest bad guy ever: Ethan Rayne.
Of course, when it comes to cool villains we want to see the stats for, Chapter Five is the mother lode. This chapter is devoted not to foot-soldiers, nor to the esoteric, but all those who were big enough or smart enough to have a plan, a past, and a personality. Some of these choices are dubious - like Sunday, she who disses freshman fashion choices before snacking on them or the Shaman, the blue-skinned Arabian demon for whom Giles played matchmaker - because they died pretty quickly when they ran into the Slayer, or played a fairly minor role in an episode. However, in almost every case - like Sunday, and the Shaman - they are also immensely cool, so it doesn't matter.
The big stars on this list are the biggest bads of them all: Adam, Angelus and Dru, The Master, the Mayor and Glory. Each gets not just a Quick Sheet but a complete full-page character sheet and a lengthy, detailed write-up. These are also often expanded and adjusted from those in the corebook, to make them more accurate to the show and to better capture their power level.
However, this is not just their party. All the bad boys and girls are here: the ever-cool Mr Trick, the vampire-cowboy Lyle Gorch, the giant heaving blob Mama Bezoar, the ...also a giant heaving blob only with a face Balthazor, the got-to-see-Buffy's-impersonation-of-Gandhi Ken, the cloven-hooves-are-the-new-black Kakistos and the baby-eating-and-proud-of-it Olaf the Troll. There's also those freaky little kids from Gingerbread, the stupid robot internet demon Moloch the Corruptor and a complete lowdown on D'Hoffryn and entourage. The entry for Sweet provides advice on running your very own musical episode (it's not great advice, but it's a nice touch) and the section on Doc reminds us just how brilliantly subtle and evil a character he was (and makes us wish we had Joel Grey handy to bring him to life). The entry on Dru sums her up perfectly as a "whimsical nutjob", and Dracula's write up does not forget that he owes Spike twenty quid.
I've always thought that sourcebooks are stories with the best bits taken out - the bits that turn encyclopaedia entries and plot outlines into actual episodes. So it's very nice to see that this section works very, very hard to be more than just a walk down memory lane - it tries at every opportunity to capture the humour, the style and the malevolence of each subject. All the little touches that made the character, and their screen time, so memorable are brought to the fore. I didn't think Sunday was worth including, but after reading her write up, I changed my mind.
Indeed, the smaller characters are often more interesting than the Big Bads, because the write-ups for the big boys read the most like an episode guide. Which is a constant niggle throughout the book, actually - there are times when the entries devoted to a creature or character could just as easily be found in one of the Watcher's Guides - which many Buffy fans might already own. Yes, they lack stats, but it is hardly difficult to produce them in this system. And yes, it is worth pointing out that being a bestiary just as other products are is all this book is required to be. It is, you might say, the whole freaking point, Steve. What more do you want?
Well, like I said at the beginning - I'm a little jaded. I've come to expect Buffy books which go the extra light-year, and there are times when this is nothing more than a well-written monster manual. Then there are times when it goes further, and fills you with the same kind of unstoppable cascade of nasty ideas that leapt off every page of the Slayers' Guide. There are times when they spend less time talking about the what, and more on why it worked so well, and how to make it do the same for you. And there just aren't enough of them.
Chapter Six: Monster Spawning is a good example. Here, we get rules for creating demons, which basically amount to a list of powers they might have. At first, it seems like they're going to make the mistake they made in the corebook, where the entry under telepathy explains that it allows you to read minds. Not so, almost everything here is statted out, from the damage of a tongue strike, to the speed of flight, to how often a demon should be allowed to use dimensional travel or teleport. Watch out for the new levels of Hypnosis, and the ouch-level of Temporal Disturbances. It's all good stuff; what's missing is an example of a brand new demon made from these. It's not essential, but it would have been a nice bonus.
Following this we have PC cast option demon qualities: Troll Warrior, Zombie, Miquot Clan Demon (the yellow stegosaurus dudes from Homecoming), Mok'Tagar (Buffy's first room-mate at college) and Vengeance Demon. The last two cost thirty seven and fifty points respectively, which you can get by having Experienced Heroes trade Drama Points for abilities. Although these costs are huge, I liked the fact that they actually bothered to cost them, giving an actual measure of their power level, instead of just filing it under GM Fiat and leaving us in the dark.
Examples are provided here, as the sample archetypes include a zombie, a troll and a miquot (but no vengeance demon, alas). Useful, yes. Inspiring ... not so much. Not the way the archetypes in the Slayer's Handbook were. The Questing Troll hero is funny, the Cowboy Slayer sucker-punched my sense of wonder in the gonads. It's all about comparison. They're good...but I know this line can make my brain tapdance when it wants to.
So far, though, all the problems I've mentioned have stemmed from comparisons with previous material, or the necessary content of the product, or just simply taste. The real fly in the ointment comes in the adventure the end, and there's no context to explain my disappointment: it just plain sucks.
The idea is grand, sweeping, wonderful, and emulative. After the Chosen Two (in the SHB), things have really heated up with our recurring bad guy, the D'jinn. Now, we're moving into the last four or five episodes, and the D'jinn is officially entering the Major League of badness. He's powerful enough now to set up a feedback loop of wishing, tapping into a vampire's wish for an army of demons, and at the same time, any other demon's wish to be part of a strong, world-conquering body. The end result is a new vampire king has arisen, found some magic weapons, formed an army, and everyone's invited.
And we mean everyone. Miquots. Hellions. Slimey simian things. Hellmouth-opening green tentacley guys. Sisters of Jhe. Disgusting Brazilian pus-worms. And a dragon. It's like GenCon for evil. What can our heroes do against such an army?
Well, according to the adventure: nothing at all. Apart from two short fights which allow them to discover the army's existence, the adventure then runs almost entirely on NPC autopilot. The text assumes they will send in a friendly demon to investigate; if they don't, one can come along and offer. After the NPC does this and reports back, Lyle Gorch will come along and offer to help them steal the magical weapons. After they do this (and we get very few details on it), the bad guys come and find them and bust up their hood. Not being able to stop an army, deux ex machina does instead.
As an episode, this would be great to watch. As a game, though, there's just way too much watching going on. No matter how many cunning plans or great quotes the group comes up with, they really can't do anything without Lyle pointing them onto the plot, nor can they do anything to change the final outcome. Yes, a deft GM could pull it off; it's a good enough story that players might not mind (or, if you're very lucky, even notice) that they're having their butts saved - but it's cheesy and it's weak writing. There are better ways to do this.
Okay, I lied. It is an issue of comparison: we've seen such good adventures in previous books that the let-down is a factor here. It's a mediocre adventure, but it's definitely plunderable. It's also a long way from the quality to which Buffy readers have become accustomed.
But you know what? I didn't like series four of Buffy much either - but it was still Buffy. Which meant it was better than 95% of everything else on TV. And this is true here. Compared to the Core Rulebook and the Slayer's Handbook, this isn't quite up to snuff. It lacks the same originality, deftness and regular sparks of genius, and at times it sags fully into mediocre. However, in absolute terms, this is still a high quality product. It sets out to provide a nigh-exhaustive guide to vampires, demons and bads, to pepper your campaign with their stats and fill your head with dancing possibilities - and it does just that. The background is covered well, the selection is formidable and interesting, the stats useful and the ideas plentiful. There are new toys to play with, and the weak link is probably the thing in which people are least interested. If you buy this, you will undoubtedly find something to smile about as you read it, and are guaranteed to slip it in and out of your shelf on a fairly regular basis.
It's not perfect, nor a must-have, but it is a very useful resource for any Director in need of more monster stats, or ideas, all laid out and ready at the fingertips. Which is just what you want in a monster manual. It's not as sharp and stylish as Mr Pointy, but it gets the job done all the same.
Style 5 Substance 4
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