Review: Barbarians of the Aftermath

Introduction
I previously reviewed Barbarians of Lemuria for which this is supplemental/replacement material. BoL is an excellent product with a strong focus and some innovative ideas. Barbarians of the Aftermath isn’t quite so great and doesn’t add a fantastic amount to BoL but what it is, is a good source of inspiration and ideas. It doesn’t present an ‘after the apocalypse’ world but, rather, provides a toolkit for you to create your own. I’ll include some examples of what I came up with using the tables in the book, after the review proper…

Background
There isn’t one. As mentioned before this book is more of a toolkit for coming up with your own ideas and backgrounds and what it does well is to generate fairly scant backgrounds via random tables (reminiscent of a simplified Central Casting) which you can then hammer into a vaguely cohesive gameworld.

Mechanics
BotA has some rules additions but none of them are particularly major. There’s a lot of technological gear, random antagonist generation, new careers – and their descriptions – mutations, psychic powers, vehicle rules, modern weapons and a bunch of other stuff which sounds like a lot but these are mostly implications and expansions upon existing rules.

The meat of the book is really the random generation tables for world generation, antagonists, adventures and so forth, great for pick-up or convention games where you might need ideas – and characters – swiftly.

I’m not 100% convinced that the career system works as well for a post-apocalyptic setting as it does for the original Barbarian setting. Skills are simply too diverse in a remotely modernised setting to be covered in this fashion and for it to make sense. Some way of taking individual skills separately to careers would fix this, but would also defeat the point of the career system. It’s a bit of a pickle to solve that one.

Atmosphere
Since the book has no central apocalypse theme and tries to cover all the possible bases at once there’s no real, cohesive atmosphere. The artwork evokes the sort of post-pulp trash fiction of the 50s to the 70s which doesn’t necessarily lock-in to modern concepts of an apocalyptic event, though it does evoke nostalgia in anyone who’s read those old paperbacks. This is part of the problem with producing a generic book, you can’t have a specific vision of it that fits for all these different interpretations.

Artwork
The lineart ain’t great and it’s a shame ‘Grumph’ couldn’t reprise his role as artist from the BoL book. The old-style art is good, but out of step with modern sensibilities and not subject to the same nostalgia level/worship as Pulp or Victorian style art. The book could have really done with having one or two artists do everything, new, so that there was a cohesive style/vision.

Conclusion
A good source of ideas and great for pick-up games, not hugely worthwhile otherwise and a little crude/scant where I’d have liked to have seen more detail. Expanded and spruced up a bit (larger tables with more options, more cohesive artistic vision) and the score would go up by about a point. I’m still not convinced the career system works well within many of these settings but it would work very well for something like Enslaved or Thundarr.

On the plus side:

• Full of ideas.
• Covers a lot of ground.
• Plenty of rules expansions.

On the minus side:

• Tables could be expanded more.
• Lacks focus.
• Bad line art.

Score
Style: 3
Substance: 4
Overall: 3.5

Apocalypse Example
I rolled:
An ongoing Biblical Apocalypse with technology reduced to a renaissance/steam level of accomplishment. Basic resources are available to those who work hard for them, nation states still exist but on a smaller level, reduced to a number of fortified city-states loosely allied to form a nation. There are psychic and supernatural powers, triggered by the presence of the divine and infernal.

My interpretation:
Heaven and hell are warring over the Earth and their struggles have decimated the human population. Some places are resisting both sides, seeking their own way, trying to fight back or escape notice but these are subject to the attacks of zealots as much as angels and devils. Outside the cities – most of which are under the patronage of heaven or hell – the countryside is a blasted wasteland, the two sides in stalemate for the present, trying to sway the survivors to one side or the other.

Adventure Example
I rolled:
The mission goal is to survive. The characters have the bad luck to run into an old missile silo in the wilderness which is infested with strange plants under the control of an otherworldly entity. The reward for completing the adventure is access to pre-disaster technology. The entity’s goal is to seize control of resources.

My interpretation:
Driven to take shelter in the missile silo in the teeth of a horsefly swarm of epic proportions – sent to scour the land by Beelzebub – the characters find themselves in a strange, overgrown military base which is overgrown with plants and filled with plant-zombie succubi, agents of the demon lord Buer who has mastery of the realm of plants. Buer is tasked to take and hold facilities such as these because nuclear weapons – as ‘unnatural’ creations of man, are one of the few things that can harm a devil or an angel – perhaps even a god. If they succeed they’ll gain access to the leftover missiles as well as a stash of military equipment and ammunition – which is in short supply at present.

Enemy Example
I rolled/My interpretation:
Furie Flower
Str 1
Agl 3
Mind – Plant
Appeal 3
Brawl 0
Melee 0
Ranged 2
Defence 1
Attacks – Blade 2
Poison Spit – d3
Lifeblood 3

Siren flowers are women, infected with Buer’s plant-essence at the point of death, their flesh turned green and shiny, their bodies made lush and attractive but they are vicious creatues, Driven to kill and – thus – make more of themselves. Despite this, if they can be captured and denuded of their thorn-claws and poison glands, they have a certain ‘value’ on the black market.

Review: The Laundry

Introduction
Charles Stross is an excellent SF author whom you should all read the work of, perhaps his best known work is Accelerando but of late his ‘Laundry’ series, starring Bob Howard, have been attracting a lot of attention with their mix of Lovecraftian horror, office politics, bureaucracy, civil-service mickey-taking and existential terror. They’re sort of like ‘The IT Crowd’ meets ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’. The series is marked by a modern, ‘geeky’ sensibility, the mixing of themes between red tape, horror, cynical comedy and espionage action.

That sounds like a hell of a mess, but it works and you should read them.

The Laundry is Cubicle 7’s RPG ‘omage to the series, nearly 300 pages of hardback, tentacular goodness with a distinctly modern twist.

Let’s be clear on one thing though, despite so, so many appearances to the contrary, this is not Call of Cthulhu.

Background
There are many different layers to reality, like an onion of strangeness. Each layer of reality is just a quantum thickness away from the other ones and out there, in other universes, things exist. These things are hungry, curious and know how to reach across the universes. So do we, in our own, fumbling, bumbling way by using rituals and multidimensional mathematics. Manipulating the nature of the universe and reaching across the quantum void requires a lot of luck… or a lot of processing power. These days we have the processing power and that means computers and technological devices are more than capable of channelling – or helping to channel – occult forces.

At the end of WWII a treaty was signed to keep these strange technologies out of the hands of the public and not to use them in war. This has largely been followed but still people in the public arena keep discovering – and rediscovering – the mathematical and occult tricks that tap into these forces and so enforcement is needed.

In America the well-funded, heavily militarised and deeply sinister Black Chamber enforce the treaties and pursue transgressors, weaponise magic and get up to all sorts of dodgy stuff in the name of home-dimension security. Elsewhere in the world professional and well-funded organisations do the same within their own borders.

You’re not in America, you’re in Britain and you’re not part of the Black Chamber, you’re part of The Laundry.

The Laundy is not particularly well-funded, it operates out of a nondescript and fairly dilapidated building. Everyone on staff doubles up their duties. It is mummified by red tape and struggles under a weight of bureaucracy that might go so far as to require you to get your bullet receipts signed by the cultists you shoot with them.

All that stands between Britain and annihilation by forces beyond imagining are men in grey suits, IT geeks and secretaries who moonlight as a Poundland James Bond.

Mechanics
System-wise The Laundry uses Basic Roleplaying (BRP), which should be familiar to one degree or another to anyone who’s played Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Elric or any other BRP derived systems. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is the same though, while you could play it perfectly well with other BRP interpretations this is – in many ways – the updated and more modern interpretation of BRP that the last incarnation of Call of Cthulhu should have been.

Key differences include:

• The inclusion of a ‘major wounds’ system, allowing for crippling and lasting injuries, ‘criticals’ after a fashion.
• Personality types – With skill bonuses that help define your ‘role’ in the team.
• Assignment and training – Supplements profession skills with some specialist training.
• A much improved magic system.

You also get all the weird techno-occult devices you care to shake any number of sticks at.

Atmosphere
The book is a bit of a jumble between three different perspectives, all under the conceit that the book is actually a leak to C7 from the ‘real’ Laundry. This semi works, but the cutting between game rules, Laundry files and Bob’s observations on the book (often doodled in the margins’ mess up the cohesion a little – even though it’s a great idea.

The artwork is a mixed-bag when it comes to creating the atmosphere but the layout and textual contents are largely on the money. My only slight annoyance is that, to me, the books don’t read – directly – as humorous. It’s more the ridiculousness of the situations, Bob’s gallows humour and sarcastic cynicism commenting on the events that make them humorous. There are some genuinely dark and horrible moments in the books but, reading The Laundry RPG it’s angled more towards comedy than, I feel, the original books are. To be sure it’s a difficult balance to get right in presentation, in play and in writing, but for me, it’s not quite there.

I’m not sure how much fun all the bureaucracy and governmental nonsense will be in play, but as part of the book and in evoking the right atmosphere to someone who might not be that familiar with the books, it’s spot on. The memos and forms in particular are great – something I also like about SLA Industries, another game from C7’s stable.

Artwork
Aside from the cover and inside cover, this is all B&W and it’s very mixed. The cover and inside covers are all great but inside art is a bit sparse and some of it look disproportionate and wrong (and not in the good way that Lovecraftian ‘others’ should be wrongly proportioned). Some of the greyscale work lacks contrast and ends up looking a bit ‘muddy’ which is also a pity. I think that, as regards presentation, photomontage and manipulation might have been a better route to take, grounding the game in modern reality – at least for 5-10 years or so before everything looks outdated!

This section seems the best to talk about layout… this is a text heavy book but isn’t messed up with dark backgrounds or huge borders, so it’s a nice, clean read. However, one pet peeve of mine is text ‘justification’ which ends up with a few sentences spread… out… across… the… page… in an annoying way. I hate that. Grr.

More illustrations of the ‘baddies’ would have been nice, as they sort of feel like they’re missing.

Conclusion
The muddiness of some of the art and the slightly off tone are the only real drawbacks for me to the book. I’ve given it a 3 for style but it really scores more like a 3.5, I just have to be harsh in reviews and promised myself I wouldn’t do half-marks on the Style/Substance parts.

This is a great, modernised interpretation of BRP and the Cthulhu mythos great for any fan of the mythos, not just fans of The Laundry. The updated and more open systems are a vast improvement and the book also forms an excellent sourcebook on British Secret Service and Police operations and divisions for the wider gaming circle.

This book has essentially everything you need, though some tech-bashing rules and an expanded pantry of Q-Division goodies would be nice for a supplement.

While there is a sample adventure in here – something I normally regard as largely being a waste of space – this one is aimed at also being a source on the Dunwich facility, which means it isn’t a waste after all. Bravo gentlemen.

On the plus side:

• Complete in one book.
• Great interpretation of BRP.
• Packed with material.

On the minus side:

• Muddy art.
• Text…justification…annoying…
• Slightly too canted to the funny.

Score
Style: 3
Substance:  5
Overall: 4