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Review of Into The Shadows RPG
Usually I find poor game worlds or half-pages of mediocre ideas and rules on spiffy-looking homepages, or mediocre gamer-written supplements on dumpy homepages. One day I found Craig Griswold's Into the Shadows when I was looking for D6 game worlds. Curse his name- up until the point I found his game I was ready to call it quits for finding something of real gaming value for free on the internet. Since I found this site, I've been spending a lot more time on the Internet for the possibility of finding a game as great as his.
I could go on about it all day, but it would be best if you went and checked it out for yourself- http://members.tripod.com/~into_the_shadows/index.html. For real, after reading through the 146 page Player's Book, the 166 page Book of Shadows (GM's guide), youfll hardly believe that one person wrote all this.
Into the Shadows (ITS) is a modern horror/conspiracy game written using a modification of the D6 rules released by West End Games. Imagine, if you will, the themes of Conspiracy X and Call of Cthulhu mixed with the easy-to-play Star Wars system. I myself love the Star Wars/D6 system- it is arguably the easiest, yet most comprehensive (as opposed to, say, TWERPS), system to learn.
And man, does Mr. Griswold really use this system. As you read the files, you'll be thinking that this is a published game- it is that well written. He gives a long, detailed description of every attribute, skill, and rule of the game. Most people who put their games online figure that their readers will figure out those parts for themselves, creating their own tables for difficulty numbers and the like. They layout of ITS is so professionally done that it looks like Star Wars Revised and Expanded without all the colored pictures. The rules are written for anyone to read. The equipment section at the end is so well researched and expansive that it puts many published RPGs to shame.
His tweaks to the system are brilliant as well. Here are some examples:
- In ITS, Sanity as a skill is included, so you can bring your CoC characters over with very little trouble. His rules for "sanity damage" are clean, fast and easy to understand.
- Damage isn't the Star Wars "wound level" system, nor the D6 "Life Point" system, but both. You calculate life points for your character, and if you take a certain amount of damage from an attack, you can take wounds as per the Star Wars system. The charts for damage differ than the Star Wars tables- Mr. Griswold really put together a unique system.
- There are rules for three kinds of "Special Effects"(Masterbook lingo for "magic", "psi", "The Force", etc)- Magic, Psi and Priest spells. Each has its own flavor, and each system is tight with several examples of use. There are no grey areas here.
Anwyay, I could go on and on about the game, but I suggest that you just go directly to the site and download all the books, adventures, and resources for yourself. Since I last checked, there is a Player's Guide, a GMfs guide (both are huge books, 300+ pages together), several adventures, character sheets and supplement files written by the author and others.
Summary
The Bad- I have to say something, right? Well... Uh... um... hmm... Oh, the files are in Rich Text and Word for Windows. Hopefully, Craig Griswold will have access to Adobe Acrobat. Also, since his account is at Tripod, it sometimes can't find the file you're looking for- email him and he'll send it to you.
Finally, I'd just like to say that Craig Griswold's free praxis online was a blow to me. It was an inspiration to me and it should be an inspiration to all game writers- This is how a game should be written, even a free one. When I compare this free game that Mr. Griswold shared with all of us to printed "professional" or other "real" games and game supplements (like that absolute turd of a game Obsidian), I can't help but feel overwhelmed by what one person can do if they set their mind to it.
Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)
