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The name's Davenport. I review games.
So there I was, just relaxin' in the hot tub with that swell Rosenberg dame – swimmin' trunks optional, if ya know what I mean. Wasn't like anyone was gonna get a free peep show or nuthin', though, since we were behind this big screen thingy. Didn't know why it had all these tables and figures all over it, but who cares? It was gettin' the job done.
"So, listen, doll," I says, "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I thought you didn't swing this way anymore."
"Hey, big guy," she says with that cute little grin of hers, "a door can swing the other way with the right person pushing, can't it?
"But what about you?" she says. "Last I checked, you were married."
"Oh, me and the wife, we've got us this understandin'," I says. "See, turns out she's got this thing for blonde Limey vampires..."
She laughed.
I laughed.
She snuggled up nice and close...
* * * * *
...then the @#$% phone woke me up.
I'd been facedown on my desk, nose-to-nose with the picture of that Summers dame on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Director's Screen I was supposed to be reviewin'.
Damn decaf.
I picked up the phone.
It was that Summers dame, wantin' to know when I was gonna be done with my review of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Director's Screen.
ANYway... I'm not the most organized guy around, so a GM screen's usually right behind the core rulebook on my shoppin' list. Buffy's no exception – I don't care how "lite" its version of Unisystem is supposed to be. And besides, this one came with three adventures, somethin' that's always a nice bonus for a busy guy like yours truly.
How'd it turn out? Let's take a look...
CONTENT
The shrinkwrapped pack includes an 11" x 34" color four-panel screen and a 56-page 8.5" x 11" self-cover staplebound black and white booklet.
The Screen
The interior of the screen includes all of the following:
- Magic Table
- Ranged Attack Chart
- Spell Side Effect Table
- Fear Test Modifiers Chart
- Panic Table
- Armor Table
- Base Damage Table
- Rules Cheat Sheet
- Breaking Stuff Table
- Drama Points Usage Chart
- Injury Table
- Base Modifiers Table
- Turn Order
- Additional Actions Table
- Additional Actions Penalty Table
- Success Levels Table
- Combat Maneuvers Reference Table
That's a lot of information – every table from the core rulebook likely to be referenced during play, in fact.
Playtest: I can't say that the screen kept me from needing to reference the rulebook at all, even when it came to rules the screen summarizes. The rules for grappling and for tasers are a bit more involved than what's included on the screen, for example. For the most part, however, the screen was a huge help, allowing me to go hours at a time without needing to crack the book. It's definitely one of the most useful screens I've used, and I've used plenty.
The exterior is all art, so I'll cover that under "STYLE" below. The only content-related observation I have is a vague longing for the days when most GM screens featured tables useful to the players on the exterior.
The Booklet
The booklet contains four chapters: a "GM tips" chapter and three complete adventures.Episode Zero: The Do's and Don'ts
This chapter offers eleven pages' worth of GMing advice. Some of it I found useful, such as the suggestion to drop hints about plot developments well in advance of the plot coming to fruition.
Playtest: I had planned for three different characters to be body-swapped with three different villains, all independently and by completely different means. Based on the advice in the booklet, I had the swaps take place at least a whole session before their full impacts were felt, giving the players – including the swap victims – plenty of time to wonder about their companions' bizarre behavior.
His tips regarding knowing one's audience also proved sound.
Playtest: My players complained about too much combat and too little character interaction in one adventure, so I adjusted the next adventure accordingly and was rewarded with a more enjoyable session.Now, in all honestly, I don't recall if the advice in the booklet influenced my thought process on the subject, but I can, at least, attest to the value of the advice.
There's also a good deal of space dedicated to what to do about "deep ending" – players having their characters take bizarre and extreme courses of action that run counter to their characters' concepts and previous behavior. One clever example: If the characters successfully adopt a policy of total demonic genocide in their town, the demons will begin to flee the area... thus paving the way for the arrival of some Big Bads with serious gumption, eager to take advantage of the lack of "small fry" to get in their way.
On the other hand, the author has some obviously strong opinions regarding how Buffy games should be run, and he offers these opinions as facts. (Hence the section title, no doubt.) To the author, Plot is King and must be protected at all costs. PCs must be herded back on track through such hamfisted means as exterminators bug-bombing the library to prevent hopeless book research, and random chance must never be allowed to derail the story – if the characters are "supposed" to find a certain spell, then they will. Now, granted, this is a perfectly valid style of play, but it is a style, not the One True Way.
Also in the mix are a lot of generic suggestions about the importance of description, props, etc. It's nothing that an experienced GM hasn't heard a hundred times before, but it could prove useful to roleplaying newbies attracted to the Buffy license.
** WARNING: Adventure spoilers follow!! **
Episode One: When Giants Clash
Episode Two: All A-buzzContinuing the saga of the wish-granting Djinn from "Sweeps Week" in the core rulebook, this adventure begins with two loser vampires named Mark and Gary bemoaning their lack of the vampire powers of legend. To their surprise, the Djinn appears and grants their wish, giving Mark the ability to control the minds of other vampires and making Gary freakishly large and amazingly strong even by vampire standards. Shortly thereafter, the two form their own vampire gangs – the Vipers, led by Mark, and the Granites, led by Gary – and go to war on one another.
The PCs must find a way to stop the war and destroy the leaders before "civilians" get hurt. Their investigations lead them into the crossfire as the two gangs fight a final battle in a local shopping mall, followed by a confrontation with Mark and Gary freshly pumped up still further by the Djinn – Mark's mental powers now work on humans, and Gary becomes even bigger and stronger.
Playtest: When the PCs first witness the gang war in action, it's stipulated that the leaders must escape. Ordinarily, that sort of railroading irritates me, but the Buffy policy of rewarding players slighted by such actions with a Drama Point helped make it much more palatable here.
In the research department, the key information regarding the location of the gangs' lairs requires the sort of seedy underworld contacts my players lack – the same problem that cropped up during my playtest of "Sweeps Week". Thankfully, the adventure includes a turncoat Granite as an optional NPC, eager to cut a deal with the Slayer in order to put an end to Gary's bullying.
The largest problems with the adventure crop up around the climax in the form of a rapid-fire series of illogical developments.
First of all, it's a battle that rages all over the mall, with the Vipers scattered and using hit-and-run tactics out of the air ducts while the Granites rampage about everywhere. Yet somehow, Mark and Gary are supposed to figure out simultaneously that both of their gangs are losing to the heroes and decide retreat.
Playtest: This was a logistical nightmare I simply couldn't manage to work around. Instead, I ended up throwing in a fourth party into the fray: a team of Initiative commandos in the guise of the Gang Intervention Task Force (a.k.a. the GITS). I had them drive the vampires all in the same direction through sheer numbers and superior firepower while simultaneously flooding the mall with knockout gas to minimize civilian witnesses. This not only left Mark and Gary with no doubts as to their situation, but it also ensured that the PCs – all but one of whom had to breathe – would run in the same direction and witness the duo's flight.
The adventure further requires that the pair flee together to the sewer chamber where they first encountered the Djinn in order to plead with him for more power. Now, these vampires aren't statted out as being dumb. Mark, in fact, is rather intelligent. But from here on out, they both appear to be abysmally stupid.
First, why would they return together to the Djinn, apparently without trying to stop each other? I mean, if you and your archenemy were both running to a weapons locker, wouldn't you try to stop him rather than jogging side-by-side and grabbing weapons for a shootout once you got there?
For that matter, if they knew that asking for more power was an option, why wouldn't they have asked for it the first time one of them failed to wipe out the other?
And their initial wish was based on a vocalized lament, but now they know they're making a wish. How much brains does it take to say "Make me invulnerable"? Or even "Kill all my enemies"? Why just ask for more of the same? The text describes the pair as "unimaginative", but c'mon – this isn't that hard.
Playtest: At this point, the adventure includes a dramatic FX-laden pause while the Djinn pumps up the vampires, allowing the pursuing PCs a free shot at staking them if they've caught up. The two strongest PCs in my cast had caught up, but for whatever reason they chose not to strike until the augmentations were complete. (Not sporting, perhaps.) I was glad of that, because the result would have been a climax consisting of nothing more than some vampiric soul-eating and smug commentary by the Djinn.
In the fight that followed, it was Gary vs. the teen robot and Mark vs. the Slayer. The former was a pretty good fight, with the two fairly evenly matched. In fact, Gary might have won, had he been able to match the robot Drama Point-for-Drama Point.
Mark, however, had a much tougher time of it – his mind control abilities simply weren't sufficient to overcome the Slayer's high Willpower. On the other hand, the Slayer had to make a (Willpower x 1) roll just to attack Mark every round due to his powerful aura. That kept him alive until two more Scooby Gang members caught up to the fight, at which point Mark successfully commanded the more weak-willed of the pair to clobber his companion with his trusty baseball bat. The heroes dispatched both vampires shortly thereafter, but at least Mark got one good lick in.
Which brings up another minor point: I ended up being glad of having including the Initiative's use of knockout gas, because it also kept some of the PCs out of the final confrontation with Mark and Gary. Given the power of superior numbers in this game, the fight would have been even shorter than it was had the whole group been on hand.
The Djinn grants the fervent wish of a dormant giant insect demon for a return to the Good (really) Old Days when its kind reproduced like mad and terrorized their puny human prey. Unfortunately for both the big bug and Sunnydale, the granted wish involves it laying an unnaturally (even for a bug demon) large clutch of eggs, requiring her to do a whole lot of spine-sucking to feed her hungry larvae.
The plot is simple: Find the bug, squash the bug. The PCs will hear of and/or witness a whole string of attacks from which to piece together the creature's modus operandi and (possibly) a way to capture and kill it. They'll also need to figure out that there's a nest in the swamp outside of town to destroy as well, either from the muck on the bug's body or by following the beast back to its lair.
All of this, however, is meant to be just the framework some Buffy-esque mundane drama to be designed by the GM to fit the PCs, forcing them to deal with love interests, bullies, annoying younger siblings, and the like while trying to hunt down a demonic insectoid monstrosity. It's all too easy to get totally wrapped up in monster slaying in Buffy, and I'm glad to see an adventure that takes advantage of the less horrific aspects of the setting. (Or, at least, that's designed to let the GM take advantage of those aspects.)
Playtest: I chose this adventure to start introducing the signs of those body-swaps I mentioned. In retrospect, I probably should have stuck with one of the suggested mundane plots instead. The body-swaps were always meant to be in the background, which forced the bug hunt into the foreground – the story shell became the nut, so to speak, and there just wasn't much there. This made the adventure seemed rushed.
Even if I'd used the adventure exactly as intended, however, I think one problem still would have manifested: the adventure assumes that the PCs will take breaks from the hunt to go about their normal lives, or, at least, rest, all the while knowing that the demon bug almost certainly will claim more victims. In my game, the characters showed no inclination to take such breaks. Swatting the bug was their top priority. Based on this experience, I would strongly recommend the following:
- Make any mundane obligations the characters have during this adventure very pressing indeed. Are heroic PCs really going to worry about missing an exam or finding a dress for the big dance when there are lives at stake?
- Dish out harsh penalties for lack of sleep – so harsh that the PCs will fear facing the demon bug while groggy.
The bug itself is very tough – tough enough to soak up a hit from a Lightning Bolt spell in my game, in fact, which is a big plus for my Big Bads. The heroes ended up fighting the thing in its lair, where it didn't have room to fly, and it still put up a good fight. I'd speculate that it could have done some serious damage out in the open, where it could have taken full advantage of its aerial maneuverability and ability to pick up and drop opponents.
The fact that the fight was in the lair meant that they had to deal with the demon bug larvae as well. They were more of a nuisance than anything else, although one did manage to deliver a nasty bite to a PC who wasn’t being careful. If the PCs manage to kill the demon bug outside its lair, however, this scene has "anticlimax" written all over it. If the PCs have access to heavy weaponry of some sort – mundane or magical – the encounter will consist of nothing more than blowing the larvae – or the whole lair – to smithereens. If, on the other than, they decide to settle things man-to-mandible, the most entertainment you'll get will be in describing the disgusting results of the bug slaughter – which I seriously doubt will be sufficient to alleviate the boredom of the pointless combat.
Episode Three: The Bricklayer
I haven't run this one yet, mainly because the chain of events in my campaign after "All A-buzz" fairly demanded some homebrew adventures. However, I can offer some insights based upon my reading of it.
The adventure begins with the PCs coming across a mysterious British stranger buying magic components from a cowardly local vampire. If confronted, the stranger – one Rafael Taylor – claims to belong to an organization known as the Bricklayers, who have sent him to Sunnydale in order to perform a ritual to prevent the escape of the Djinn – hence, the purchase. He'll then ask for the group's help, first in procuring a long list of other components, then in mystically locating the ideal location for the ritual. After that, he'll claim that it's far too dangerous to involve them further... until he discovers that the site has become a vampire nest, and that the vamps may, in fact, be working to free the Djinn themselves!
All's not as it seems, of course. Taylor is, in fact, attempting to free the Djinn. Taylor's not even his real name – he killed the real member of the Bricklayers by that name and stole his passport. The climax finds the PCs trapped inside magic cages as part of the mystic pattern designed to summon the Djinn, who will use the PCs to get the last of the energy it needs to break out. Taylor will get the PCs into the trap either through trickery (if they haven't figured out his scheme by now) or through blackmail and brute force (courtesy of the sizeable troupe of vampires at his disposal – at least two per PC – and a hostage). The heroes must escape from their mystic prison and disrupt the ritual before it's too late.
This is one of those adventures that takes the dangerous route of presuming heavily upon PC actions.
First off, Taylor starts out extremely tight-lipped – so much so that if the PCs don't open up about their own supernatural street creds, Taylor won't ask for their help in the first place. Depending upon how you read the wording of the text, he might not ask even then unless the PCs also drop the name of the Djinn.
And then there's the question of whether the PCs will help even if asked. Knowing that my players and their characters are suspicious sorts, I seriously doubt they'd chip in to assist in a ceremony just based on a stranger's word.
If the PCs do decide to do some digging, there's plenty to make them suspicious. Taylor lies to them about his day of arrival in the U.S., for example, and the ingredient he purchases from the vampire is a demon horn can only be cut from the demon using human blood.
And if the heroes don't help, the adventure basically skips straight to the climax – it's just that Taylor will have to use coercion to get them there. (Taylor's another one of those "untouchable-by-fiat" types until then.) In other words, the entire adventure will then consist of the PCs escaping from a trap and/or beating up vampires. (Taylor himself will flee as soon as things get hairy.)
If the PCs follow their expected course, I can see this being an entertaining adventure. But there are just too many assumptions.
STYLE
Why waste time describing the exterior of the screen, when I can show it to you here? (Go on, have a look. The picture's at the bottom of the page. I'll wait.)
In Steve Darlington's review of this product, he refers to the images as "static" but argues that they make sense, looking appropriate for the cover of a Christopher Golden Buffy novel. I'd agree on both counts. I find the imagery both attractive and, more to the point, thematic – the cast is, after all, largely a collection of covergirl/boy types, at least one of whom may be seen on cosmetics commercials. Seeing them posed fashion model-style works for me. I also appreciate the fact that they didn't neglect characters from the earlier seasons in the "group shot", such as Angel, Oz, and yes, even Riley.
The only quibble I have is in regarding the rather iconic appearance of Spike's head looming in the background like some peroxide-coifed deity. That has more to do with my feelings regarding Spike's eventual centrality to the series, however. Especially considering the way the series ended, it's certainly fitting here.
The tables on the interior are a joy to read, nicely spaced out and with gunmetal blue bands highlighting alternating lines for maximum legibility.
Physically, the screen is large enough to hide a whole armada of GM materials and stands up admirably during play.
As for the booklet, the art consists almost exclusively of NPC portraits, aside from the repeated Buffy images from the screen on the front and back covers and a couple of series stills on the interior – all in grayscale. The NPC portraits are far more utilitarian than the almost impressionistic ones found in the core rulebook adventure, but are also quite good.
The layout follows the same format as that in the other Buffy books, including the ornate background and page borders. The latter lack the color advantage that makes accessing specific chapters in the core book so easy, of course; however, they also use the same picture of Buffy in the small corner portraits for every chapter. Using a different character for each chapter as the core book does might have taken up the slack for the lack of color.
The pages are of a glossy magazine-style stock, which, to be honest, I could have done without. It looks nice, but I found that the pages were harder to turn and that they wrinkled with disturbing ease. They do look nice, however.
The writing is a bit of a mixed bag. The GM advice section struck me as somewhat pedantic in places, and the opening fiction for "When Giants Clash" just seemed silly. (And the name of that adventure annoys me, too, seeing as how only one of the two vampires in question is a "giant". The archivist of our online game sessions decided to use the name "West Side Gory"...) On the other hand, the opening fiction for the second and third adventures helps set the mood nicely. The balance of the text is mostly unremarkable but clear and error-free.
The booklet ends with a two-sided character sheet and a three-per-page set of NPC "Quick Sheets".
CONCLUSION
Buffy may be "Unisystem Lite", but if you're like me, a quick rules reference of some sort is just this side of indispensable for any game, no matter how "lite". In this regard, the Director's Screen excels.SUBSTANCE:
I am also a huge fan of adventure modules, and so was pleased that the screen comes with three complete adventures. Having read all three and played two, I'd have to rate them as perks rather than big selling points. And as nice as some of the GM tips may be, I'd have to say the same for them.
So, in my case, all this adds up to a very good GM screen with some decent but unspectacular bennies for $20. The realities of licensing costs aside, that seems a little steep to me. However, based upon the degree to which it enhanced my Buffy game, I think it's worth it – especially since it's the only Unisystem Lite GM screen on the market at this time. And if you do get some use out of one or more of the adventures, the screen becomes a better deal.
In short, I wouldn't buy the screen to get the booklet, but if it's the screen itself you need, I think it's worth the bite. And if you get some use out of the booklet contents, well, that's some nice gravy.
- Setting
- Quality = 3.5
- Quantity = 4.0
- Rules
- Quality = n/a
- Quantity = 5.0
(I'm just factoring in the quantity of rules featured on the screen itself, here. There are no new rules in the booklet.)
STYLE:
- Artwork = 4.5
- Layout/Readability = 5.0
- Organization = 4.5
- Writing = 3.5
- Proofreading = 0.0
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