I Am The Weapon. This Is A Review.

I Am The Weapon lives rent-free in my head and it doesn't even exist (outside an RTF file). It's Demon City's sister game and the only means of getting your hands on it is slam-dunking Zak's wallet directly. In short: it's a superhero TTRPG. In shorter: AH FUCK.

(1 of 2 public pieces Zak has made for the game) 

I didn't care for capes or comics once-upon-a-time. I went on with my pretentious life, turning my nose up on gross comic-lookers with their spandex and their bimbo-babes; not wanting to waste time/money (ignore how my life revolves around elfgaming for a moment). This was all until I cracked open that $20 RTF file. 

It's got dice (sorry tarot-bros) and it's got lots of tables (LOTS OF TABLES). Its skeleton is grafted from its sister's, also being based around the focus on gameplay-as-discussion its sister emphasizes.

"Coldbro blasts Inferno-Hottie with twelve miniature frosty surfboards. Hottie isn't fighting with a full deck right now and because of the elemental situation, grab another throw, Bro." 

Throws are the dice that you lock and load when you're describing what you do in the scene, you get a minimum of 1 but some other factors can hook you up. They scale from a static 2 if your ability or skill is inept to whole d100s if your powerlevel is godlike. Additional throws act as in-the-moment rerolls. Got 3 throws? Roll 3 dice and take the highest. 

(Morrison's Doom Patrol)

It's very solid and the only trad/open superhero system that I've brought myself to run/play. Your Super is randomly generated with a gigantic list of powers with A/B choices here and there to decide between. The decision making behind these tables does a great job at avoiding a hero being a wet noodle in a fight. Skills, like in Demon City, are chosen. You're also incentivized to limit and therefore further define your character. Chargen has "Boosts" that you can gather by defining weaknesses to your powers. The more severe: the more boosts. 

"Cool; I rolled up some pretty strong cold explosion attacks but I want to Boost my Toughness some. What if I can only use my blasts if I'm clearly in moonlight?" 

"Cool take a Boost and now we can define you more with a moon motif.

"Sick! What if the strength of the power weakened under anything less than a Full Moon, completely turning off during New?" 

"Go for it! Maybe something on his costume changes to reflect this waxing and waning?"

Don't play this game if you're picky or someone who wants to argue RAW instead of discussing the reality of the game's situation, it's meant to be a constant discussion; just be cool. If you want a more objective/crunchy Supers game, they're out there.

(Byrne's Fantastic Four)

There is something player-facing that I find lacking: PC progression. What's given is your standard "be heroic, become stronger," type of jam. Not horrible but a far cry from Demon City's sexiness. It at least implies that you'll be playing a long time before gaining a power. I'm talking hundreds of sessions before you "earn" another power RAW. When was the last time Spider-Man got a new power? The present villain hack also retools the advancement for dastardly acts so that's cool. 

I don't have an immediate solution for this feeling. Perhaps I'll develop downtime advancement akin to Demon City that uses the game's power Tags; if I'm a hero with 2 powers tagged occult and 1 tagged science, I can buy 2 occult and 1 science worth of those respective downtimes. I really like how FASERIP handles Karma, maybe I'll tweak with that. 

The Host section, like with its sister game, cannot be glossed over. It's got a plethora of cool setting and NPC ideas. Best of all though is Zak's breakdown of what a Cape-game is and how to capture the essence of a comic book. The advice to "put the work in" from Demon City is here tenfold with Zak putting it plainly that why Supers don't work in RPGs is due to comic books simply being a visual medium and TTRPGs... are not. 

Basically what's put forth is: if you aren't willing to draw some shit or actively surf the internet for images to help bring your evocative descriptions to life, don't bother. This is simultaneously extremely motivating and unmotivating for me. I lacked any interest to learn how to draw or anything like that prior but have been slowly learning since reading IATW. I ran a handful of sessions without worrying about art and at some point in every session, spending too much time trying to describe a villain or monster's elaborate design. "Oh well keep it simple." I've been running RPGs far too long to do that and every cool Supers TTRPG group I've seen online has cool either group-made or commissioned art. I agree that visuals genre necessity.

(Mignola's Hellboy)

But Zak's words weren't the only thing to convince me that comics are sick, just reading the good shit did. IATW presents an excellent list of recommended reading that goes over the core of what makes Cape Comics art. From the most trad to the avant-garde with an emphasis to look for your own shit. Personally, I prefer the "Transforming/Henshin Hero" motif found a lot in Japanese media like Kamen Rider. The recommended reading here, either way, focuses on the works that have the most lessons on display from an artistic, narrative, and setting perspective for the prospective IATW Host.  

(Kamen Rider Amazons)

To top it all off, there's even the shadow of an implied setting offered wherein all of the Supers and information about them has been practically wiped from the galaxy. This is very OSR in the sense that the setting is recovering from a pseudo-apocalypse; the remnants of past deeds, monuments and would-be crypts of superheroes litter the world and the PCs can do some cool exploration while picking up the pieces. Not to mention, Demon City's Pitches make a return, of course geared toward hacking IATW to fit a certain flavor of comic book to help get those creative juices flowing faster. 

(Nihei's Blame!)

I Am The Weapon, at the end of the day, is still currently in its playtest phase. Even so, it is a unique beast that demands your attention if you're into DIY TTRPGs and/or Comics. Like Demon City, it'll equip you with a unique insight of either medium all the while giving you a vehicle to explore the unique and underplayed combination that they make. 

Buy it.

Demon City: the Ultimate Horror RPG: the Review

Demon City is a contemporary horror tabletop role-playing game written and with pictures by RPG-Land's Zak S, with several contributors adding creatures, scenarios, and some art. Before continuing, I need to emphasize the incredible one-of-a-kind graphic design attributed to Shawn Cheng. The book is carried by his efforts in equal measure of Zak's.

I don't mean to discount the actual game itself, Shawn's work is just that good. Anyway, the game's got a lot of sexy mechanics that make it stand out, namely how a cut tarot deck takes the place of traditional dice and how advancement serves as a direct reward for survival. For the former, the game's Host builds a "Horror" deck based around the themes of the particular nasty their players will be confronting. Werewolf conspiracy? Toss Strength & the Moon in the deck. At a minimum, the Horror deck needs a single card representing a scale of 1 to 10. Depending on how committed the Host is, every single card in their Horror's deck can (and should) hold some significance to the mystery the Horror is at the center of. This, to me, adds clues/hints at a meta level. I think of it like when you go to a movie or read a book, even if you do all you can to avoid spoilers, simple word of mouth or the cover/promo material of the content will implant some expectation of what's to come in your mind and the Host of a Demon City game has a unique opportunity to mirror that expectation.

"We don't know what the fuck is going on, but we know that John just threw the Magician and that politician has been thrusting a print copy of his new bill into the air every time he's on TV in the exact same way; it's too suspicious, we should check him out."

Afterwards, the Player deck is made with the remaining non-royal/major arcana cards. We're talking a simple 3 of everything 1 to 10. When both decks are made, the Host then decides if the players or the Horror gets The Fool. This is personal preference but gives one side the ability to fail catastrophically if it is thrown alone.

Throws are the game's catch-all for what you do when you're being contested. At a minimum you're going to draw 1 card from your respective deck. The system hinges on the details of the scene. Before revealing what you drew, you're meant to argue/discuss why you're in an advantageous position over your competition. You're allowed more throws (drawings of the deck) if it's agreed that you have situational or statistic advantages. When the scene is established, cards are flipped and whoever has the highest single card is the one to succeed (or their entire "side," wins, depending on the situation). Some may denounce this as a "mother may I" style of gameplay but due to it being the entire system, it does more to add to the necessity of cementing the scene/world than encouraging players to powergame or otherwise be litigious. And if you do have "that kind" of player, ask them to chill or to scoot.

Characters are generated in an OSR-adjacent fashion. Core attributes are randomly generated (with options for a down-the-line or picking and choosing priorities) but a few skills are chosen. Demon City has "Motives" in place of classes. They serve as horror archetypes opposed to fantasy but serve the same purpose. The Curious is involved with the Horror because it's a Horror; there's just something alluring about the situation they can't resist. The Investigator is here because they're being paid to look into it; a cop, health insurance investigator, stuff like that. There's a total of 5 and they all make unique tweaks to general gameplay and downtime actions.

One of the aforementioned sexy-bits of the system, you advance in Demon City via downtime actions. When there is time to rest your head and forget about the fucked situations of the game proper, make a Throw based on what you're doing when not risking your life and your core stats may improve. It's very fast and leaves room for as much or as little detail as you want to add. Meditate, work out, spend time with loved ones, do people things. When you're done, then you're back to the adventure.

Not strictly a mechanic but equally important to the overall product is the practical advice on how to actually run a horror game. I've been around the block of horror RPGs from various c/nWoD products to Kult to CoC and while all of them have excellent elements to them, I've found that they all lack on the GM advice front. Anyone even remotely familiar with directing or theater production knows that "dimming the lights and lighting candles" is super spooky or how "having a relationship web helps develop/track a conspiracy" if you've seen any corkboard conspiracy meme.

What we have in Demon City are 360 pages dedicated to the Host. After an evocative fluff piece on the "metaphysics" of a Demon City (akin to Zak's introduction to Frostbitten & Mutilated) to get you into the headspace, sections here are no-nonsense breakdowns of various Horror-oriented processes: Crime, Murder, the Occult and pretty typical suggestions on how to start writing horror adventures. But again, they are presented very plainly and directly, which is very appreciated. What isn't typical are the "Adventure Formats." A few originally published on Zak's blog, these further the practical approach of the rest of this section by plainly giving you formats by which to create elaborate multi-tiered mysteries/conspiracies. A good portion of the rest of Demon City is also on Zak’s blog – but the layout in this book elevates it to 11.

Following that goodness is a section that collects Pitches ("hacks" of the system that uniquely tailor the game to a subgenre of horror) Sketches (developed broad-stroke Horror and adventure ideas to get your gears turning) a collection of prewritten/statted Horrors collecting familiar and exotic myths. And finally, sexy-ass random-gen tables. Really the whole Host section and after is a DIY GM's wet dream. It's basically just Zak telling you "hey fucker, you've got to put in the work but I'm going to help get you started."

There is no implied setting in Demon City, hell, there are even sections dedicated to run horror adventures beyond the city. You're meant to do most of the leg work going forward, perhaps creating your own developed Kult/WoD/Universal Monsters-esq setting out the gate or in the long run; Demon City gives you an unparalleled 450+ page toolkit full of unique ideas.

Many of the contributors, while contributing quality content at the time, have since joined the harassment campaign designed to defame and cancel Zak. The list of harassment campaign contributors includes:

 

Kenneth Hite

Zedeck Siew 

Jordan Shiveley 

Zzarchov Kowalski

Richard Guy 

Fiona Geist

Mabel Harper

Scrap Princess

Evan Elkins

Logan Knight

Be aware that, while they did contribute to the excellent final product that is Demon City, they also added fuel to the fire that was defaming an innocent man with zero proof on the matter beyond them simply having personal gripes with him and a long-discredited accusation of an unwell ex-partner. It is one thing to dislike someone and another to wish them dead or otherwise wish their life ruined and then to contribute to either outcome.

I've already seen some remark on how disappointed they were with the final product or took issue with how long it took to get out. There have been many dumb, baseless presumptions of quality spread by people looking for someone to group-hate on instead of being patient and trusting the quality of one's their past work and making a judgement based on personal analysis.

I understand that the book has taken a while to come out but I have been running the fully-equipped playtest document for years now and can unequivocally say that it is the horror system for the DIY GM bar-none. It's unique, open-ended, nuanced, and motivating in exactly the way every RPG should be. I pray that designers in the future take note not just of the art and graphic design but to what makes a quality DIY foundation for an RPG.

 

Buy it.

On Planescape

I hate D&D. Rather, I hate the samey nature of D&D. I hate the implied setting, color-coded dragons being the norm, the brain suckers and the eyeball-fucks. I hate every nerd who tells me that I can't do XYZ in their game "cuz." I hate goblins, elves, orcs, and everything pillaged from Tolkien's tomb. 

Why am I bringing this up? Because-Because Planescape lives rent-free in my head. Published originally for 2e AD&D, I can't think of a worse combination of setting + system out there. It's nonsense. You play in a not-industrial fantasy city on the inside of a giant car tire at the top of an infinite spire in an infinite world of pure-neutrality. How do we know this? We just do, berk, don't ask questions. In this city, locals speak a dumb cockney slang with a plethora of added gobbledygook. 

What makes the city so special? It's got a bunch of portals to anywhere you wanna go. "CUT THE LINES OF ADVENTURE AND JUST PORTAL YOUR WAY TO THE FUN STUFF," the setting touts. What constitutes a portal? Literal portals. Doorways, gateways, windows, open furnaces, do you surround a place and act as an entry way into another place? Well sir and/or ma'am, you might just be a portal! But the portals need keys... What's a key? Thoughts, items, feelings, actions; literally anything that can be presented to your gaping entryway of choice may be the key!

"But where do my players go when they take a portal," I hear your cries. Any/Everywhere! Namely, other Planes. What are Planes? Well, a bunch of infinite worlds that correlate to the alignment chart that everyone knows and loves (with some extra bits sprinkled through for flavor). Want to LARP in your RPG and reenact A Paladin in Hell? That's just a portal away! 

"Dang! That sounds awesome! There must have been a lot of content put out for this setting to support all of these infinities!" Woahwoah, heynow. Let's not get excited. Were it created today and by some homies with OSR sensibilities, there may be some mechanical edge (random tables galore) to compliment the implication of countless countlessnessses... but sadly, none-to-be-seen. Like much of the other content of the 90s, it's got a lot of setting fluff and flavor that is a fun read but poor for gaming. This aforementioned tire-city (called Sigil (pronounced Si-GILL by its locals)) is iconic in its own right and the sexiest and most developed part of the setting.

I attribute this to White Wolf's dominance of the RPG-space in the 90s. I also look at Planescape as not only TSR's natural reaction to the EDGE-filled climate of the time but also their reaction to the faction-based settings of White Wolf's games. 

If Sigil is Planescape's sexiest aspect, the sexiest aspect of Sigil is its many factions. These are all expected to be joined/playable by the players and handle the municipal functions of Sigil. Join the Xaos-exterminating city guard with your buddy the knock-off Judge Dredd and tolerate the book-worm nerd who gets off to learning about laws. The possibilities are endless (as long as your definition of endless is around 15.) But don't worry, you're not some square who sits around doing paperwork all day. With the bulk of Planescape taking place in D&D's Planes of Belief, belief is power and that's the factions' main priority. Spreading your philosophy far and wide in the infinite infinities. Or at least, that's one option if your players give a shit about over-the-top goofy twists on real world philosophies in this over-the-top goofy city. 

Not only does it make no sense from a world-building point of view (however intentionally) but what are you meant to do in the setting? Fight a spiritual war against those who think differently than you? Sure, what rules are we screwing with again? Basic trad-fantasy might & magic sword-and-sorcery-derivative sameness? Aaaaand you lost me. Beyond faction-oriented twists, nothing mechanical was added to the mix. Welcome to Sigil, where everything is the same but with a fresh coat of paint on it. At least Ravenloft had the balls to squirt out a horror/madness system. 

But fuck me if I don't love huffing paint. 

I look at the 2e setting as a "lie of infinity." I'm immature for thinking that a game could support such a wild and crazy idea in the long run but TSR's also kind of dicks for not changing things up beyond a few added races and creating the factions that may or may not appeal to your players. 

How about we fix it then! 

Maybe. When I had my first blush with the setting years ago, I converted the factions to 5e. I'm not interested in running established settings anymore but I do encourage you to maybe hunt down some PDFs and look at some pretty pictures and read some funny words. 

That all being said, I'm not alone in this. There are many Planescape-inspired works out there, from other games to likely other settings and other blogs that have paid reference to it. The greatest example of "this could be so much more" is none other than its CRPG; Planescape: Torment. The mechanics of 2e and overdone implied setting of D&D take a backseat for the excellent story and setting exploration of the game, there effectively being little to no "D&D-isms" present in the game and best-of-all: inaccurate depictions of established lore. Play it.

The Planescape fansite. Full of early internet cheese and original Planescape content and fiction.

My aforementioned 5e conversion.  I won't be editing it going forward, let me know if it finds you well. 

A late homie named James O' Rance converted the setting to White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension. I love Mage and while I haven't playtested this combo myself, it's worth considering if you're thinking about running Planescape.