Review of Vis Imperia Victoriana

"Lost cities, bandit tribes and the sort of place where a stiff upper-lip and the ability to ride well were damn near all a gentleman needed and, unless a plucky adventuress or a native princess took pity on an imprisoned chap, women were hardly seen."

MetalMan's Review of "Vis Imperia Victoriana" by Colin D. Speirs

Vis Imperia Victoriana is a free RPG released by Britannia Game Designs based on their Chivalry & Sorcery: Essence rules (which is also a free download). VIV takes place during the 19th Century when Imperialistic England was expanding across the globe. VIV attempts to recreate the adventure tales of that time (a forerunner of the Scientific Romance which eventually became Science Fiction).

The Premise:
VIV recreates the adventures in faraway lands type of literature that was so popular during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Lost cities, fabulous treasure and high adventure were all trademarks of it as well as the typical gentleman English adventurer who upheld the high moral ground.

What Ya Get:
VIV is available as a eight page PDF file. You will need the Adobe Acrobat reader software to view or print it.

Cost:
Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Gratis. Free.

Appearance:
The appearance of VIV is, to put it mildly, very text dense. There is easily enough information crammed on the eight pages of the file to fill up sixteen or more pages of your typical published book. This is done by using an extremely small font size. All the text appears to be eight point type or smaller. If you have problems reading small text, you may want to get out your reading glasses/magnifying glass or skip this one. There are no illustrations on it in favor of making use of as much space as possible for text. Interspersed with all this text is numerous tables that you will need to refer to.

The Game:
Lets be upfront about VIV shall we? Gary Gygax's Dungeons & Dragons went over to England and had a love child. If you are familiar with Chivalry & Sorcery (of which VIV is a modification of), you'll immediately know what I mean. It is an extremely rules heavy system with a lot of charts and tables. This, incidentally, is the one big problem with VIV in my opinion, but if you like rules heavy systems such as Rolemaster, by all means take a look at VIV there is probably a lot here for you if the setting strikes your fancy. By no means take my opinion on anything. This is my analysis of a reading of the rules and is subject to my whimsy. Your interpretations can and will vary from mine and, at eight pages, the impact on your time taken to look at it is negligible.

Characters are created by rolling for nine attributes (Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, Wisdom, Discipline, Appearance, Bardic Voice and Piety). These are calculated by rolling a d20, halfing the result, round up and add five. After this you get an additional three points to put in any of them you wish. Once that's done, you need to calculate your Body Points and Fatigue based on your attributes. Skills and Skill Points are assigned based on the player's choice of background and vocation (i.e. Upper Class European Doctor). Rules are given for how to roll for attempting skills and potential modifiers for it such as assistance from other players or NPCs. I would give a more detailed explanation of the mechanics behind this but it would use far too much space than I deem necessary. I will let it go saying that they are very detailed, math intensive and best handled by a GM who is comfortable making snap decisions on difficulty rankings. I like the approach to skills but I severely question the mechanics for their use in game as they seem very convoluted and time intensive as you have to hunt down modifiers or wait for the GM to assign them to your action. VIV might be a good choice for a PBeM where the interruption of game flow is more acceptable.

Page two covers the various socio-economic backgrounds that characters can have that range from working class to jungle foundling (such as Tarzan) and lists the bonuses to attributes and skills associated with each. Rules are given if the player wants to play a half-breed as well. Although, looking at the rules, why anyone would want to play one outside of a challenging roleplaying experiment is beyond me. Vocations are covered next and gives a general overview of the most common types of vocations employed in the genre and the bonuses to attributes and skills they award. No rules are given if you want to play a vocation outside of the ones listed, but a good GM should be able to work with you to accommodate your idea. A small section of the role of women in VIV wraps up the second page. Ladies, if you want to play VIV, be forewarned that it takes few compromises to accommodate you unless you want to play a woman of few morals or one that has substantial money. Otherwise, I hope you have a sense of humor or really can involve yourself in the roleplaying experience. There is little for you here if not.

Page three is a skills and weapons list page. A skill list is given that gives a brief description of the skill and lists its linked attribute and how much each level in the skill will cost you. The rest of the page is taken up with tables for armor, melee weapons and shields. These tables generally give a brief description, their cost and how much damage they reduce in the case of armor and shields or how much damage they inflict in the case of weapons.

Page four covers combat. Initiative is handled by going in decending order of highest Agility ranking to the lowest. Combat rounds are one minute long and are subdivided into "blows" that are calculated by the size and type of weapon the character is using. Additional rules are given to such actions as Desperate Defense and Reckless Attack. A brief section is given on muscle powered ranged weapons such as bows, crossbows and spears. Rules for firearms wrap up the page and this is really what distinguishes VIV from its C&S: Essence roots other than the different setting. Combat seems pretty fluid once a character has calculated a few things once and written them down for easy reference. You don't want to have to figure out how many shots you can do per round and the recoil compensation that each shot will take on your skill chance to hit every time you employ your weapon. Combat seems a task that would flow much smoother if the GM enforced careful bookkeeping by his players.

Page five starts with a table that lists the most common types of firearms of the 1800s and their game stats as well as any appropriate notes that affect skill chances when firing or attempting to conceal them. The main bulk of the page deals with magic characters such as occultists, witchdoctors and native priests. Tips are given on how to modify the mechanics if you decide that magic is arcane or divine in nature in your game. Rules are given for how these characters can increase the range, duration, etc. of their spells and how the mechanics for resisting a spell effect is handled. The page ends with the start of the spell list.

Page six continues the spell list and divides them into if they are common to both civilzed and native, civilized only or native only. Spells are listed their skill point cost of casting, if it is a ranged spell and if it has a duration. A brief and very unsatisfying section on Missionaries is included that really doesn't do much motivation for playing a missionary. Experience award rules are given on how to award experience and how it can be used to improve skills and attributes. the page finishes with a section on arbitrating odd situations that might arise during play that are not covered by the rules as well as a table of various wild animals and supernatural beasts.

Page seven covers money for those of you unfamiliar with British currency and has a small table listing the costs of various common items during the time and for the genre. The vast section of this page deals with giving the potential player and GM ideas for characters and settings during this time frame as well as suggestions on where to go to look for material if you wish to run a Scientific Romance or Steampunk game. Page seven ends with the start of a section on sample adventures.

The final page of VIV continues the sample adventures. These, in my opinion, are the true highlight of the rules. All are extremely well done and shows an incredible amount of research into the history of the times. Considering how this product is free, these are worth the price of admission alone. Even if you don't intend on using VIV for this setting, these ideas should be lifted. VIV ends with a short timeline of important events of Imperial and World History from 1803 to 1902.

Overall Impression:
VIV is a great setting and one rife with ideas and potential for high adventure. Unfortunately, I question the choice of using the Chivalry & Sorcery ruleset for it. Its too rules bound to simulate the quick flow of an adventure tale in my opinion. I would recommend VIV for its setting information and the sample adventure ideas as they are the best I've seen outside of Forgotten Futures. Definately worth a download for evaluation. If I learned one thing from looking at VIV, its the my reading library is woefully inadequate. *grin*

MetalMan signing off.