The final book of the Adventures
in Fantasy role-playing game
boxed set is Book III: Book of Creatures and Treasures. This slim, 49 page manual has a Pepto-Bismol
colored cover with red letters and the material inside is also presented in red
lettering. I am sure this was done for
copy protection back in those days but it can lead to some rough reading. The cover art depicts a lone dragon sitting
with wings spread and one foot on what I can only assume to be a giant’s skull
from the size of it.
INTRODUCTION
The words of the introduction
take up approximately one-third of the page.
The authors explain their main source for the creatures came from “the myths of Europe and the Mediterranean ” while some creatures come “from other sources” but those other sources
are not mentioned. The aim of the creature
section was “to provide a mythos composed
of those creatures that comprise the major segment of our mythological
heritage” and to describe them with “the
attributes and background they possessed in the myths of their origin”. There
are also a few words about treasure in the introduction. The random treasure tables have been set up
for a large amount of variation while not allowing too much treasure. The sample artifacts included came about from
the research of the author. These
artifacts should be rare and the treasure tables have been designed to reflect
that.
CREATURE DESCRIPTIONS
The creatures section of the rule
book contains 31 pages of information. These
31 pages are split among 29 pages of creature descriptions and a 2 page list of
basic creature information at the end. Every entry contains the name of the creature along with average hit points (hit points without
rolling), movement (flying also), alignment, body type (for combat purposes), and hit dice (for when you want to roll for hit points). This
information is typically followed by a short paragraph or two describing
physical appearance, culture, intelligence, weaknesses, and some encounter
notes. The information seems sufficient
enough for game use and, most importantly, the reader is not smothered in a
mountain of details and statistics that seems to be the norm in many modern
game systems.
The largest entry in the
creatures section – and the one that most people will probably find the most
interesting – is the one detailing Dragons.
The information on Dragons takes up 9 pages of this section because
there is no static list of entries to use.
Each Dragon is unique and must be generated before campaign play. Every Dragon has 13 Characteristics – Form, Age, Size, Sex, Intelligence,
Egotism Index, Greed Index, Personality
Index, Alignment, Breath Value, Magic Rating, Interests,
and Hoard – that are generated by
rolling on a series of provided tables.
The typical length of most of the
other creature descriptions is around one-third to one-half of a page. Of course, there are some descriptions that
fall outside of this range. Bits of mythological information can be learned by
reading the creature descriptions. Bugbears
are closely related to Goblins and their name was intended to mean “Goblin
Bear”, Ogres are the offspring of the Troll and Trow, if Black Elves are
exposed to sunlight they will automatically turn to stone without a saving
throw, and Vampires can change into 6 different forms. It is nice to see some actual mythology used
for the monsters and also some connection to stuff like Hammer Horror. Some players will probably dislike the fact
that Adventures in Fantasy is very human-centered because many of the monster
races have weakness or other disadvantages that will make them highly
unattractive for use as player characters.
The only other negative that I can really see is that this is just the
basic game and there were many supplements planned that would have expanded
Dragons, the Jinns, and others; nothing more was ever published so one can only
imagine what might have been.
TREASURE
The second half of the book uses
18 pages to cover topics such as gemstone values, miscellaneous treasure, magic
items, and artifacts. Following a brief
introduction, there are three pages of charts and explanations. The General
Treasure Chart determines if a treasure consists of coins, gem/jewels,
miscellaneous treasure, or magic items.
There is also an individual treasure chart with the results affected by
activity, location, and social status for solo encounters.
The next nine pages of the manual
cover the subject of magic items. This section begins with some basic
information about magic items. There are
two types of magic items: natural and artifact. Natural magic
items derive most of their power from the material used in construction while
artifacts are granted their power mainly from the workings of the maker during construction. Characters can even
begin play with a family heirloom magic item on a successful roll against their
age.
The magic items included in the
game are split into five basic groups: swords,
armors, amulets, talismans, and miscellaneous. The magic items avoid the
straight up “sword +1” and similar labels that seem to plague many games these
days. Swords are very individualized
with attributes such as unbreakable, pierce rock, magic dispeller. Swords may even turn on a character if found
instead of inherited. Armor has an
enchantment level expressed as a percentage bonus to defense and only one armor bonus can be used for
improving defense. Amulets function
like armor because they are “always on” when worn and Talismans function like
swords and have to be put into use.
These items grant the user abilities such as increasing saving throws,
increasing strength, warding against magic, granting future knowledge, or an
assortment of other benefits. I did not
notice any cursed items but maybe that was planned for a future expansion.
The final five pages contain
details for artifacts in the game. The
largest part of this section is an alphabetical listing of 24 miscellaneous
artifacts. Some examples of the
artifacts include The Bow of Locksley, Waters of Life, Flying Carpet, and the
Wand of Light. The descriptions seem
pretty clear and easy to comprehend. I
get the impression they would be quite fun in play with sense of discovery and
a little bit of unpredictability in some cases.
This section closes with a sample campaign artifact table that one can
use to randomly determine which artifact is discovered.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
This was the easiest book in the
Adventures in Fantasy boxed set for me to fully grasp. I admit that the other two books had me
scratching my head in spots. I do not
think it is necessarily because they were difficult reading but because they
seemed vague and even contradictory to me at times. After making it through this manual with
relative ease I am really interested in going back through the other books and
giving it another shot. Maybe I will do
that sometime in the future…
ADDENDUM
Okay, I am not quite done
yet. I do have some other stuff I would
like to do with this game including:
I have searched for a character
sheet for Adventures in Fantasy and have had no luck at all. I have some published stat blocks provided by
a fellow blogger that will help me design a character sheet to make available
for download.
There were three reference sheets
in the boxed set. I am in the process of
cleaning these up and making them available for download.
I am interested in going back
through the rules and noting some house rule decisions that will help me
understand this game better. If I am
successful at this task then I will make those notes available for download.
If I get really motivated then I
would definitely be interested in developing a new game based on my perceptions
of Adventures in Fantasy. This game
would be written in the same way that Tunnels & Trolls was written as a
reaction to Dungeons & Dragons. I
make no promises…
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