Witch Girls Adventures: Review

Review: Witch Girls Adventures

Written and Designed by Malcolm Harris

http://www.witchgirlsadventures.com/

Witch Girls Adventures is a new "Drama Diaries" game, using the "Drama Dice" system from Malcolm Harris. It is aimed at new players predominantly and girls in particular. Now despite be WAY out of the target demographic for this I was pre-inclined to like this game. I do, but I am not cutting it any slack here. In fact I might be a little TOO critical in places because my expectations are high. How high? Well I bought the book online and while waiting for it to be shipped I got impatient and ordered the PDF as well. So I can review this book from the point of view of both the physical book and the digital file and the "Nice" and "Wicked" versions.


The book begins with 10 pages of the Witch Girls Adventures comic, which one you get depends on whether or not you have the regular edition or the "Wicked" edition. This, plus the cover art, is all the differences between the two. The PDF download on DriverThru or RPGNow is the normal "Nice" edition.


It goes on to your typical introduction into what is a roleplaying game and is written for a young or teen girl audience ("just tell the geek (trust me; they are used to being called geeks) behind counter you need... ") cute. But too much of this would ruin the presentation of the game for me. Thankfully this is the only time, but it does establish one thing right away; this game is going for a different audience. The intro stuff continues with some terms both for the game and for RPGs.


It makes an odd left turn to give us optional rules (we haven't had any rules yet for these to be optional to) about how to run a "Harry Potter" like game with this. Eh. Nice, but this should have come last, not first.


Chapter 2 gives us "Cliques" . So perfect. In another game these would be "Factions" or "Classes" or even "Traditions" or "Associations" or "Backgrounds", but given the Middle-school/High-school this is great. Cliques basically give your starting dice and what skills you are likely to have. The system is very easy. The dice system (The Drama Dice system as it is called) quickly reminds one of Cortex or Savage Worlds. Attributes are scored d2 to d12 for most types. The spread even looks the same as Cortex and Savage Worlds. Not surprisingly, afterall it is a logical progression. You have six attributes Body (which combines Strength, Agility and stamina), Mind (intelligence), Senses, Will, Social and Magic. Right away you see there is only one body type attribute but four mental ones. This is the way it should be really, WGA is not about beating people up, it is about the social aspects of the game and about magic, our last attribute. There are some secondary attributes that are derived. Rolls are made depending on the dice vs a difficulty table very similar to d20 or Unisystems' success levels. Cliques are detailed and they are your basic magical girl stereotypes (the Goth, the insider, the outsider…) . Plenty here to work with and if you are so inclined create your own (which is what the "Harry Potter" bit tries to do).


Chapter 3 moves onto skills. Each chapter has some fiction to introduce you to the Witch Girls world. It seems to be a cross between Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Buffy and the Craft mixed in with anime magical girls. Skills. Unlike Cortex or Savage Worlds, skills are given a + score like Unisystem or d20. Roll the die associated with the attribute (each skill is connected to an attribute like d20) add the bonus the skill provides, check your success, or roll greater. There are 34 mundane skills and 10 magical skills. A little too much in my book, but I am willing to see how it works out here.


Chapter 4 Traits details traits, which are like Edges or Qualities. They are broken up into Talents (which you can get later in life) and Heritages (which are inborn and never change). Heritages have both a positive and negative aspect to them. Typical ones are there like "Beautiful" and others which have to be unique to this game like "Drama Queen".


Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are all well detailed and very straight forward.


Chapter 5 is Magic. Really this is what we came here for. There is a lot more here on what magic is and what it means to a witch. There are different types of magic (necromancy, mentalism, cybermancy…) which you can spend points on to improve your rank. This can provide a lot of variance between witches. Think of it as somewhere between Harry Potter's classes and Mage's spheres. As GM (a Director in WGA) I might limit some of these to NPCs (Guest Stars) and not to PCs (Stars). Spell casting is broken down into a lot of detail. More than maybe the seasoned gamer needs, but given the audience it might be about right. Effects are broken out into Magic Type Rank (MTR) and the overall feel is like a table you might see in Mage or Mutants & Masterminds with what MTR (read as Power level) you need to achieve a certain effect. Want to cast that spell across the world? Better have an MTR of 9.
There are rules for Signature Spells, which take less Zap (read: Mana, Essence), choose only one and from the "School" with your highest MTR (which makes sense really). I like the idea of the signature spell and might try it in my other games too.
This is all followed by 20 pages of spells and these by no means seem to be all of them. Since your cast member (Star, remember) isn't going to be buying swords, guns or anything else that characters spend money or points on then this is a good thing.


Chapter 6. Your Star gets an allowance allowing her to buy things like magical computers, flying Vespas, and more brooms than found in Home Depot. There are familiars, clothes, wings and all sorts of magical equipment here as well. You could build an adventure on just shopping for these things cause I am sure getting them is not as easy as going to the mall. Lots of neat wands and I have to say the books for young witches are pretty funny ("Samantha's Guide to Merry Mortals" yeah that made me laugh). And a bunch of mundane stuff like DVD players and skateboards. The allowance system is nice, I like it better than the Modern d20 purchase DCs and easier than keeping track of cash.


Chapter 7 is some odds and ends. A character questionnaire (nice) and a filled out character sheet (also nice). Good detail on what things mean and if you are new to games a certain boon.


Chapter 8 is for Directors, so all the rules of the game. The system, some combat rules (yes this is the FIRST game I have seen where the rules for shopping are longer than the rules for combat. ;) )
Some nice background fluff and some ideas for different types of stories, basically you can do Buffy, Good vs. Evil, Charmed, and Magic School. The experience system is "interesting" (Voodollars), but it looks like it works.


Chapter 9 is the world background. Now this one is kind of neat. I details the various races (witches are a different race) and they are not alone. Some history, some magical places (Santa's Workshop, No joke and it looks cool!) The ruling council of Witches (I am yoinking this for my Unisystem games), Spelling Bees, groups and other schools. Even how the mundane world reacts to all of this.


Chapter 10 presents some creatures. But if the art is any indication most of these are not for combat purposes, but potential dates (well there is only one witch kissing a vampire…) Nearly every kind of creature is covered from fairies to Cthulhu like horrors. But no demons. Seems a bit odd, given it all. Some NPCs (Guest Stars) of note.


Chapter 11 details the Willow Mistt School. Lands, buildings, faculty, everything you would expect to find is here. Willow Mistt is not Hogwarts, but it is easy to make the comparisons. I actually found it closer to Claremont Academy from Mutants & Masterminds.


We close with a sample Episode, some plot ideas, a lexicon, and a list of Witch names (see how many you recognize!), and very important, a sample class schedule.


The Good:
Harris obviously has a love for this genre and it shows. The rules are well crafted and while there is nothing earth shaking here, they are familiar mechanics done up in a very nice way. The point of view of the work is nice. This is anti-Grim-Dark. It's not all unicorns, princesses and kittens (though it does have all that), it's a fun game. The art is not D&D 4e, but it is good and more to the point very appropriate for this game.
For new players this is a great little game. More experienced players may want more, but that is not due to the game itself, but rather expectations. Do not expect this to be "WitchCraft: The Junior High Years" (though you can do that).


The Bad:
I know Harris is basically a one man operation so I am willing to cut him some slack here. But there are a number of typos that should be fixed and some terms that might have either been mistakes or from earlier versions (the Magic attribute is called "Zap" in one spot.) I am willing to overlook those IF they are corrected in say, 2^nd Edition.
There are some issues in my printed version with some of the pages being so dark thee art is hard to see (ex: one of the teachers is so dark her face is obscured) this is not the case of the PDF.
Lastly I would have done the skills a different way myself, but I am not willing to second guess the design until I have plated it a few more times.


The Ugly? (not really)
A book like this REALLY should have full color art inside, but costs may have prevented that.
The optional rules should have come in an appendix.


So. Who is Witch Girls Adventures for?
Well , that sort of depends but here is what I see.

• New players and Game Master get a lot with this book. I see them having a great time.
  
• People that enjoy the more social aspects of a game (and of gaming) rather than a bunch of combats.
  
• Anyone that is a fan of Magical Girl Anime, Witches or even high school based games.
  
• Anyone that has ever wished for a Harry Potter RPG.
  
• Anyone that looks at the setting and resists the urge to make it "darker". WGA is not about being dark. You can be evil sure, and as a witch the entire world is after you, but the setting does not need the WoD feel at all.
  

AND
Anyone playing Cortex or Savage Worlds that craves a more granular, customizable magic system.
This is a big one really. For a list price of under 20 bucks, use this book's magic system in place of the system you have now. Make "Magic" an Edge (SW) or a Trait (Cortex) and then buy spells like skills. You don't have to convert much and it will work fine. Plus it is much better than the built in magic system in the Cortex Core book (Sorry Jaime!) and an improvement over the Savage Worlds core.


Last WordsThis is a fun game. Take it as it is, not as you want it to be, and you will have fun too. If you are an old pro, use this game to introduce younger people to the hobby. I hope that Malcolm Harris is successful and ends up getting a lot of new people, boys and girls, to our hobby.


In RPG.Net style:
Style: 5/5 (this game oozes style)
Substance: 4/5 (I wanted more, but was happy still)

Witch Girls Adventures

http://www.witchgirlsadventures.com/

180 pages, + Comic, character sheet and a page of ads. (190 pages total)

Print and PDF reviewed.

Everything Old is New Again, sorta

I was making the tour of the various Old School / OSR / Retro-clone blogs and forums today and I noticed a lot posts on new spells, new monsters, and various house rules. For a bit there I had to make sure I was not flashing back to 1992 for a bit during the height of the netbook days on the net.

In some cases you could just replace "anti-TSR" stances with "anti-WotC" ones and barely know the difference. Except for the fact that Wizards totally ignores the sites and still pretty much gives away their best toy ever, the OGL, for free and it powers all the clones out today.

Today of course people can openly SELL their D&D-like or D&D-inspired creations and Wizards is not even likely to bat an eye. Back then of course TSR threaten legal actions and all the best fan-created stuff had to go underground. I am still waiting for my password for Morpheus' Anti-TSR D&D site.

But that got me thinking. How much of that formerly "banned" material could make it back as retro-clone material?

Now certainly most of what made up the bulk of AD&D material on the net back then was the "new" Second Edition material. But 1^st ed and Basic were still out there to be found. I mean could I pull out the AD&D Guide to Vampires (called the "Vamprinomicon" in places) and clean it up and present as "new retro"? Could I still raid the files of MPGN or the Great Netbook Archive to find items who has time has come again?

Most of those old sites are gone. Deleted when the doc com bust killed their ISPs, when people graduated college and just from neglect, not corporate interference. Modern technology, the OGL and Wizard's own website policy changed everything. People have higher expectations now even from a free game (though I still have my doubts over the legality of some).

Plus, and let's be honest here, the great majority of that stuff was dreck. I mean not just in terms of non-existent layout or editing, but in terms of just writing and game design. While sometimes the original rules they were supposed to be supporting were not much better, today's gamer again demands more. OSRIC is a prime example of why this is. There is nothing really in OSRIC that is not theoretically in AD&D 1^st Ed, but the organization is much cleaner and clearer.

But who is to say? One person's dreck is another's gold.

What were your favorite Netbooks back in the day? What would you like to see come back under the umbrella of a retro-clone (either netbook or game)?

Desert Elves & Orcs

I was working on a desert based adventure for my son's game the other day and I got to thinking about some things I really liked from AD&D 2^nd Ed. Desert Elves and Al-Qadim. In my Mstaroerth world I have an area that is roughly equal to the Sahara desert. I am thinking of putting some the Al-Qadim stuff there. I would include Desert Elves, that also appeared in 3^rd Ed. For me the desert elves would be tall, thin, dark skinned and be the merchants and royalty of the land. I would use them to typify what is thought of as the best stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs (the hospitality, the reverence for tradition and religion), not that there would not be "Bad" ones per se, but I am saving my bad guy role for another race. Humans. Humans of this land fell prey to the Necromancer Kings and thus most humans are seen as defilers, infidels and outright evil. Most of the time this stereotype will play out.

But what about Orcs? Well if the desert elves are the sultans and emirs of the land, then the orcs are their body guards. That's right. I want elves and orcs working together. What happened was many millennia ago when the Necromancer Kings rose to power it was the elves and the orcs that fought them. Once united they then discovered that they had skills that were mutually beneficial to each other. Orcs are still militaristic with small war cadres connected to powerful elf families. For an orc it is an honor to serve since the more powerful the elf family the stronger their own cadre is respected. The stronger the orc cadre, the more respected the family is and the more likely they will get goods to trade. An elf sultan will travel without his wife for example, but never without his orc escorts. I am also thinking that these groups of elves and orcs have also never heard of the elf-orcs wars that plague their cousins. Again stealing a bit from Al-Qadim here, but that is cool. Unlike Al-Qadim I was thinking of making these elves monotheistic and the orcs still worshiping altered versions of their own gods. For example Grumush was a great military leader, not a blood thirsty killer.

There were no Halflings, gnomes or dwarves here. But I will use Yuan-Ti, or rather my world's counter-part, the Ophidians. I have not decided on classes yet, but I am sure they will be slight alterations on the existing ones. For example a Sha'ir will be a normal magic user in OD&D or Spellcraft & Swordplay, and maybe a special kind of warlock in 4e. I have not figured out all the lands yet other than basics, but I am getting the urge to pull down my Al-Qadim information. I'd add some Dark Sun into it as well, IF I felt it fit and it really doesn't. Dark Sun always felt more "John Carter of Mars" to me than "Arabian Nights". What I like most about this idea is it is not Tolkienesque-fantasty-Europe.

I mentioned my Ærypt is a pastiche of Arypt, Erypt and Egypt with Gygax's Necropolis and Ravenloft's Har'Akir thrown in. So this is the lands west of that.

Looking forward to seeing where this takes me.

Ghosts of Albion at GenCon Indy

Ghosts of Albion: Blight and Obsession



My games have been accepted for GenCon Indy and I will soon give you all dates and times for the Ghosts of Albion games I will be running. I am running "Blight" and "Obsession". I ran Blight at GenCon last year to a couple of small crowds and it went great. So if you played it last year, then this the same adventure. Obsession is one I ran at a mini-Unisystem con I did in Chicago a couple of years ago. I ran that for one group.
Blight is good if you love Irish myth. Obsession is a bit more adult in themes.

More details when I have them myself.

Hybrid Class Playtest and Character Concept II

Yesterday I posted my brief idea on a using the new hybrid rules in order to get a particular character concept. The idea I think was sound, but as it turns out I didn't need to go through that much effort.

The character in question is "Heather" a character from 1^st Edition that was a multiclassed Bard/Wizard with some Ranger thrown in for good measure. Her magic I imagined was always due to her voice, she sang her spells in other words. Not such a new idea now, but back in the 1^st Ed days that was new stuff! So today I took break and worked her up as a 4^th level, 4^th Edition Bard. I used "Arcane Power" and gave her the Virtue of Prescience. This fits since I always viewed her as mildly psionic as well. Fourth Edition Bards have spells, even their basic attacks are called spells. The Arcane Power book provides a lot of new ranged attacks, so that sort of covers the Ranger-like abilities I wanted get. The Bard skills allow me to give her some of the skills like her 1^st counter-part had. The Ritual Caster feat from the Bard is really nice and helps fill in some holes in concept and the Half-elf dilettante power allowed to take Eldritch Blast from the Warlock as an Encounter Power. Comparing her two sheets, the 4^th Ed one from today and the 1^st Ed one from 1986 I can draw parallels between the two. To me they do look like the same character, just different ways of expressing her.

 

I think I am going to save my hybrid Bard/Warlock for my gnome, Jassic Winterhaven. This might be better since I wanted to do up a gnome bard and a gnome warlock and my regular DM won't allow hybrids yet and he hates gnomes. Heather on the other hand is ready to go!

So in the end a Bard, with the Euphonic Bow Paragon Path, was all I needed. It will be interesting to see how she plays compared to her orginal version.

Hybrid Class Playtest and Character Concept

One of the things I have been doing in 4e is re-stating up older, 1^st Ed, characters of mine to see how well they translate into the new system.
Among the first was one of my first ever characters, a human paladin. There are differences between the 1^st Ed version and the 4^th Ed version, but all in all I can see far more similarities than differences. Plus since my concept of him was more cleric than paladin it is possible that the 4e version is a much better fit. My witch on the other hand was a different story. I still don't quite have her right. I have generated half-a-dozen characters of her for 4E in the last year or so and none are really close.

Normally I would create a witch class like I did for 2^nd Edition and 3^rd Edition, but I really didn't want to do that this time. I have mostly settled on a Fey Pact Warlock with some add-ons from Arcane Power. She is not perfect yet, but really, really close. Again, to me it has been more about character concept than anything else. The Warlock seems to work the best, so far. Now before you think "well 4e just can't do it" I will point out that at this point in 3.0 Ed the same character had been a Sorcerer and that was not a good fit at all. At least with 4E I have sorta found an out-of-the-box solution.

But I still have one other character that I have wanted to re-build. Heather.

Heather owns the distinction of being the last 1^st Ed character I ever made. Well, the last while I was playing 1^st Ed and the last before 2^nd Ed came out. She is a half-elf Bard/Wizard/Ranger house ruled to all hell. He character concept is that of a wandering bard that uses magic and song to defeat evil. The 2^nd Ed Bard, while easier to use, lost all of what made the Bard cool. The 3^rd Ed Bard came close again and with 3^rd Ed's multitasking it was really easy to make her IF I figured that she had all the powers I wanted her to start with at 11^th level or something. Now 4^th Ed originally disappointed me here with the multiclassing rules. Great for most of my multiclassing needs, completely horrible with regards to how I wanted to do Heather. That is till I got the new Hybrid Class Playtest rules from my DM.

The Hybrid rules allow me to do something I used to do all the time in my D&D games, have a character start out as one thing but then later become something else. The Hybrid rules do allow that. So I know Heather is going to be a Bard/Something, but what? Well in 1^st ed she was mixed with a Ranger and Wizard. In D&D4 I can get the things I liked about the 1^st Ed Ranger in feats and skills (tracking, preferred enemy) so I think my Hybrid here will be Bard and something Arcane. Going to concept Heather originally learned her magic from her mother and the rest on her own. So Wizard, Warlock or Sorcerer. Sorcerer and Warlock complement the Bard's spells much nicer than the Wizard does, though Sorcerer still takes a hit. I am not enamored with the Sorcerer. It has some neat tricks, but nothing in the way of concept I like. The Cosmic and Dragon ones are cool, but if I build those it will be as something/someone else.

Hybrid classes in a sense split the classes in two and then allow you to combine them. Simple enough. Most often you get something that is not quite equal to a dedicated role character, but for a concept I am totally willing to take a performance hit. A Hybrid Bard/Warlock is a combination Arcane Leader/Striker. Since Heather in concept always had a high Charisma (and will here too) this makes her good for being the party face. Both classes have the same key and secondary abilities: CHA, CON and INT. She takes a hit on armor for her warlock half and weapons. Both classes use wands as an implement and both have similar saves. HP at 1^st are the same, per level is the same and there are similar skills. The full Bard has more healing surges than that of the Warlock, so they are rounded down. I now need to take a feat to get a class-specific Hybrid talents options. So, in the end, I have a Warlock basically, with Skill Versatility and a per Encounter Majestic Word. On balance not a bad trade. Now for the Hybrid Talent feat, I make take it to gain the Warlock's Fey Pact Boon, it fits the concept well enough, but that seems so little for a feat. Plus I like to think of her as a Bard with some warlock training. So Words of Friendship or Majestic Word are worth the price of the feat. So put all her points into CHA followed by INT, and then either DEX or STR, if I am staying true to the concept then DEX for her bow. Make her Half-Elf and take an At-Will Wizard power as her Dilettante power, most likely Magic Missile, though there is not much to set it apart, fluff wise, from Eldritch Blast. Thunderwave might be better.

Now hybrid characters are verboten in my regular 4E game, so I am going to have to run her in one of my Family Game night games. I'll have to see how she fares. The great thing is that a lot of what I took Ranger for in earlier rules I can get with Warlock now. But only time and gaming will tell me if this is a better way than to do a Bard Multiclassed Warlock. But concept-wise it fits.

Mystoerth: Hyborea / Hyperborea

One of the common links on my Mystoerth world is Hyborea / Hyperborea. Both seem to be about the same thing, that is a pastiche of "the cold lands to the north". Given the roots of D&D in pulp fantasy it seems odd not to have one. With my world the question then is not so much of why to have it, but where to put it?

Mystara's Hyborea is on the continent of Brun far to the north in what would be the Arctic Circle, a rough analogy to Earth would Alaska. Oerth's Hyperborea is also firmly in the Arctic circle, some 30 degree south of the north pole, west of the Dramidj Ocean, north of the Sea of Hyerpborea. Not really an overlap, but close enough for me. On the Mystoerth Map, what would have been Oerth's Hyperborea is now the Empire of Alphatia and the Island of Dawn. So my solution is to go with the Mystara placement of it. Works and helps me fill in that area some.

Now what to do with it? Ah, that is the reason for the post.

Over at Jason Vey's The Wasted Land Blog he has been working on his Hyperborea. Now I respect Jason's opinion when it comes to Old School, anything remotely Conan or Howard related, so if he has something to say about it I listen. Plus he has really cool ideas. I'll import the White Orcs from Mystara to use in place of his orcs. I like the idea of Hyborean Halflings/ Hobbits. This might even help me solve the "problem" of hobbits vs. Halflings and why both hemispheres of my world are populated with the same sorts of creatures. The hobbits of my western world (Mystara) are the Tolkienesque hobbits that like to sit around, be fat and not really adventure. Hyborean hobbits are hardier and more prone to pick up a weapon. The Halflings of the eastern world (Oerth) are more adventure prone and are more like the Halflings of 3e/4e.

Adding Hyborea gives me license to add all sorts of other weirdness. And that is always good.