James Nicoll Reviews

Tomas Härenstam’s¹ 2023’s Dragonbane: Mirth and Mayhem Roleplaying is the English language edition of the most recent edition of the venerable Swedish tabletop fantasy roleplaying game, Drakar och Demoner (DoD).

Dragonbane began as the Swedish translation of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying and the Magic World supplement from Worlds of Wonder. It has evolved greatly over the decades and I am not sure how many editions it has had (have fun working out which versions were true new editions and which were merely variants!).

What waits the modern player inside the hefty, sturdy shipping box?

WARNING: Excessively Long Review Follows

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2022’s Blade Runner the Roleplaying Game Core Rules is an alternate-near-future/science-fiction/police-procedural roleplaying game. Tomas Härenstam was lead designer, Joe LeFavi was lead setting writer, with additional writing by Nils Karlén and Gareth Mugridge¹.

As one might expect from the title, this is an adaptation of the film Blade Runner … from a certain point of view. It is put out by Swedish game company Fria Ligan (Free League).

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L. Douglas Garrett, George Macdonald, and Steve Peterson’s¹ 1985 Danger International is a modern-day roleplaying game (modern per 1985), intended to cover adventures set ​“from 1945 to the year

2000 and beyond.” Published by Hero Games, Danger International (or ​“DI” as it was known to aficionados) is a descendent of the rules pioneered in 1981’s Champions.

And what did one find in the box? First, that there was no box. Danger International replaced the box sets of previous Hero Games, games with a 174-page perfect-bound text² (176 if you count the ads).

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Steve Jackson’s GURPS, 3^rd Edition (Revised) is (as one might expect) the third, revised edition of GURPS, whose first edition was published in 1986. Also, as one might expect, it is published by Steve Jackson Games¹, founded by GURPS designer Steve Jackson (human Texan)².

In a previous review, I discussed the sad history of the venerable tabletop roleplaying game The Fantasy Trip (TFT). It was doomed to decades of oblivion by a combination of clashing personalities and business setbacks. But all was not lost. We soon heard that Steve Jackson was working on a great unnamed roleplaying system, to be given a shinier name once Steve Jackson thought of one. In 1986, that shiny new name was revealed: GURPS. Which stood for Generic Universal Roleplaying System.

GURPS prevails. While a 4^thedition is available, this is a (commissioned) review of the 3^rdedition.

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Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner’s Swords of the Serpentine¹ is a fantasy roleplaying game (RPG) set in Venice Eversink, an entirely fictional secondary world fantasy city that is simultaneously a geological mystery, a thriving trade community, and the living embodiment of a goddess. Core mechanics are based on Robin Laws’ Gumshoe game engine. The game emulates the heroic fantasy of Howard, Leiber, Lackey, and Pratchett.

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Pete Nash and Lawrence Whitaker’s¹ Mythras is a Basic-Roleplaying-derived table-top simulationist fantasy roleplaying game.

In the beginning there was Chaosium’s RuneQuest and Greg Stafford saw that it was good. Fast forward three decades…

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Ben Riggs’ 2022 Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons is an account of the rise and fall of TSR, publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as many related works. 

Although there were precursors to table-top roleplaying games (including the Bronte siblings’ 19^th century foreshadowingof the pastime), Dungeons and Dragons is generally acknowledged as the first modern roleplaying game. Having founded the field, publisher TSR dominated sales. Roleplaying fans and game merchants, therefore, were taken aback when in the mid-1990s TSR suddenly imploded. Only timely intervention by cash-rich Wizards of the Coast gave the game a new owner and new lease on life.

Perhaps the chief question addressed is ​“What went wrong?” 

Having read the book, perhaps a better question is ​“how did nemesis take so long to catch up with TSR?”

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Aaron Allston, Steve Peterson, and Michael A. Stackpole’s 1984 Justice Inc. (JI to its fans) is a tabletop roleplaying game. It is based on the pulp fiction of the 1920s and 1930s. 

And what did roleplayers of the long, long ago find when they opened Justice, Inc.’s attractive and sturdy box? 

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Mike Larrimore and Brian Pivik’s¹ 2022 Destined is a superhero roleplaying game. But not your usual game; Destined is set in a world of comparatively low-powered superheroes. 

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Design Mechanism’s 2020 Lyonesse roleplaying game is a fantasy roleplaying game based on the Lyonesse novels—Lyonesse (AKA Suldrun’s Garden), The Green Pearl, and Madouc—of Jack Vance. It was written by Dominic Mooney, Dave Morris, Pete Nash, Mark Shirley, and Lawrence Whitaker¹.

Despite the best efforts of Andrew Wheeler, I am not myself a Jack Vance fan. Why, then, acquire a copy of a licensed roleplaying game set in a Vancian world I’ve not read?

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