Fright Night 2nd draft

Fright Night: Haunted House is a small-ish book from Hogshead Publishing. Not the old one, but the "new" Hogshead (I think the guy bought the name). It's a d20 horror supplement. What flavor of d20? Well, that's the tricky question. It's actually sort of a mini-game for d20, similar to FFG's Horizon line or the now defunct Polyhedron section of Dungeon.

I have no idea why I bought this, really. I sold some stuff on ebay, and I had $10 or so leftover in ebay money/paypal (which is real tricky for me to convert to real money) after buying OGL Ancients, and spotted it by accident (the seller was also selling OGL Ancients, though I bought that from someone else). It just looked interesting, and thought it might be useful if I ever get the copy of OGL Horror I ordered.

It's basically 4 parts. One, tips on running horror games. Two, rules for modern d20 horror games, Three, an adventure location (an old mansion/school), and Four, a scenario, using everything else in the book. The location and adventure are actually pretty much the same thing, but you get an overview of the place first, then the adventure. That takes up about half the book, the other half are tips/rules.

Some of the tips for running horror games were new to me. Most notably, the idea of running the game in a basement at night.

The rules are something of a stripped down mini-d20 game. You get a modern skill list, some modern feats, and 6 classes. These are all "Psychic" classes, presumably because the premise of the adventure is that all the PCs are psychics. I couldn't tell if it was based off of the 3.0 or 3.5 System Reference Document, because it features the "Pick Pocket" skill, which was changed to "Sleight of Hand" in 3.5, but it does have "Survival", which is what "Wilderness Lore" used to be. (It does refer to the Player's Handbook, so it's based off of one of them)

The classes only go up to 10th level, so they might be useable in d20 Modern (though the attack and save progressions are a bit wonky for a couple of them, which doesn't matter in a mini-game, but can be tricky when it comes to integrating them with other stuff). Basically, psychic powers work like skills, but they cost psychic power points to use. There's telepathy, psychometry (reading the history of objects), remote viewing (seeing things far away), telekinesis, channelling (talking to the dead), and divining (predicting the future).

There six classes are: The Guru (kinda like Doug Henning, but with real powers), the Profiteer (aka, Uri Geller), the Believer (a religious type of some sort, new age or traditional), the Gifted (sort of a gypsy), the Denier (who denies his own powers), and the Freak (sort of an outcast). Really, the classes are how they view their own power, and so you can't multi-class, really.

To a certain extent, the psychic powers are realistic, in that they don't work very well. Or have very limited effects. I've also known a number of supposed psychics in real life (mostly remote viewers and channellers, though not with the dead, but other things which is kind of hard to explain) and the classes in this actually handles their personalities/views quite well.

There's also some horror related rules. Rules for fear, rules for being in the dark, rules for listening to Barbra Streisand (by that I mean, "Madness and Phobia" rules, and rules for running away, screaming). They seem to work pretty well, at least in theory, as I haven't tried them out yet (if I do run the scenario in this book, it will probably be using Call of Cthulhu d20 or possibly OGL Horror)



The adventure itself reminded me a lot of the movie The House on Haunted Hill (not to be confused with the Haunting of Hill House), the remake, at least in the basic premise. Which I thought was a pretty good movie, though I really could have sworn it was James Woods in it. It really really looked like James Woods. And sounded like him. But it turned out to be Geoffrey Rush. But man, it really looked like James Woods.

Anyway, the players are invited to a haunted house for a chance to win $1 million. But rather than stay the night, they are supposed to try to scare the other guests. Sort of a game (could be a reality TV show, almost), because the premise is, the owner of the place is a really rich guy who wants to run a murder-mystery inn, only with a haunted house theme. So he wants someone good at scaring people. And so he's holding a frightening contest, with the winner getting the job of "Fright Director", which will pay a $1 million the first year.

So why doesn't he call a special effects company? (Inn-dustrial Light & Magic perhaps). Or at least Brian Brown? Well, because there is more to meets the eye. It has to do with the psychic-ness of the PCs, he has a dastardly plot to dethrone Miss Cleo, and become the reigning phone psychic king by recruiting psychics into his evil psychic phone empire. Well, not really, but it's almost as sinister. But it did remind me of a plot of a movie that starred both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (which actually could also happen in Episode III if the rumors are true, and some of the special editions of the IV if Lucas gets carried away).

Seriously, it's meant to emulate haunted house movies, and it actually does pretty well. From the premise to the events during the contest, to the finale.

The location (an old school) is detailed fairly well, as you do get descriptions of several NPCs. Good descriptions, but not great. You get the gist of them, but not things like eye/hair color or even height. The stats also tend to be very bare bones (though this scenario doesn't really put much emphasis on combat or even all that much in the way of skill use, for most NPCs). Actually, the things that get the most detailed background information are the ghosts of the place. My favorite is "Skitter", which is sort of a spider-cat.

The artwork is well, odd. On the one hand, you have some very photorealistic and gorey pictures, but heavily greyed out (they actually look like computer art, similar to what you would see in Resident Evil or Silent Hill or an Olsen twins game). Then you have somewhat abstract line art, mostly of the PC classes and NPCs in the book. It's not bad, but it seems to have been re-sized in many cases, to fit the white space in the layout. Thus often stretching or distorting the art. For the gorey/grey stuff, this makes it look even creepier, but the line art sometimes looks impossibly tall. The maps are pretty spartan.


To be completely honest, in many ways, this book is a bit amateurish, and while the new rules introduced aren't terrible, they aren't great, either, and are probably redundant for most people (what with d20 Modern, Spycraft, Call of Cthulhu d20, OGL Horror, etc). And really, they aren't comprehensive enough to handle campaigns beyond this scenario (and even this scenario could be tricky). And the adventure is awfully sketchy in places.

But, I like it. Quite a bit. The premise is neat, it does deliver an adventure that is a synthesis of the haunted house horror movie, and it has a certain charm and enthusiasm to it. I bought it new (albeit at a discount), and I have no regrets buying it. I'll probably be buying later entries in the series (if they happen), especially the Ghost Ship one. B

OGL Ancients (4th Draft)

OGL Ancients is the 3rd in the OGL line of books from Mongoose. OGL being Open Gaming License, which technically means little (since systems other than d20 have been released under the OGL), but generally is shorthand for d20 without certain restrictions (mostly, character creation and nudity). Like the two previous books in the line, it's $39.95, 256 color pages, and hardback. Unlike the two others, this seems derived from the original d20 System Reference Document (aka D&D), rather than d20 Modern.

Though in many aspects, it's a complete rewrite of key rules, like classes, combat and magic. (It does bear some similarities to Conan, but the rules in this are far grittier). Like its kin, it's a stand alone book, in theory, this is all you need to play it. And in practice, it seems pretty complete for a 256 page book (actually, 258, you get 2 extra pages of maps).

It's focused on the Ancient World before the rise of the Roman Empire. It specifically deals with Ancient Greece and Egypt, though there is some mention (and rules support) for other areas of the region. There is some support for "mythic" gaming (that is fictional, where magic and gods do exist), but it's essentially a very gritty, realistic game. Definitely not meant to recreate the Hercules and Xena TV shows, but the actual legends themselves.

The OGL series from Mongoose is apparently meant to be "rulebooks", basically like the PHB/DMG combination for D&D. I don't have OGL Horror yet (If you're read any review I've written this year, you'll probably be tired of me mentioning that I ordered it in January, but haven't received it yet), but I do actually have OGL Cybernet, and it has no setting at all. This actually does have a little setting material (call it 20-30 pages), but it is mostly a rulebook.




Know thyself

Characters are fairly complex and generally work the same as the typical d20 character - same 6 attributes and class. While there is no race, like in most other d20 games, there is background. In this, there is national background, that is, what country or region a character is from, along with social class - slave, middle class, noble, etc (actually, social class is supposed to only apply to Greek or Egyptian characters, but I don't see why you shouldn't also apply it to others - they had social classes, too).

You can also pick a Mythic background option, like divine favor, divine parentage, or divine boon. Divine parentage is a bit weaker than I imagined, usually being a +1 to 2 ability scores or a +2 to one. Divine Boon is extremely powerful, but comes with a Divine drawback. I probably wouldn't allow Divine Boons in my game, but they do match the legends. I would also probably double the divine parentage bonus.

There are twelve core classes in OGL Ancients. (And thankfully, no prestige classes).

The Aristocrat - A member of nobility. A more leisurely or political member of nobility, as opposed to a fighting one.

The Artificer - This is someone like Hero of Alexander, who made all sorts of steam powered stuff, or the fictional Daedalus, the guy who built flying wings.

The Bard - Like Orpheus, not like the D&D style bard

The Courtesan - Pretty much like what it sounds like. Sometimes called the "Haetera"

The Egyptian Priest - A priest of one of the many gods of the Egyptian Pantheon. Like the bad buy from The Mummy. Also versed in Egyptian magic, or Hekau

The Greek Priest - Slightly different than the Egyptian Priest, besides the gods worshipped. This one focuses more on learning, also a bit better at combat.

The Noble Warrior - Very similar to the D&D fighter in game mechanical terms, this is the sort of fighter that tends to come from nobility, and fights in single combat.

The Sage - A seasoning. Good in soup. Really, experts at learning.

The Seer - Someone who predicts the future. Tiresias would be a good example.

The Thief - Not very much like the standard D&D 3.0/3.5 rogue, this is more the sneaky sort of thief.

The Warrior - The common soldier, these are used to fighting in groups or formation.

The Witch - Meant to represent the Greek sort of witch, like Medea or Circe or the Gabors

Basically, only 2 classes are good at combat (not surprisingly, the Noble Warrior and the Warrior). The rest are pretty much terrible (two are "average" at combat, in D&D terms, the Bard and the Greek Priest).

The Egyptian Priest class and witch class can cast spells, but it uses a skill based system, not even remotely similar to the standard d20 system. The two priest classes can also ask the gods for miracles, which uses a similar system.

To a certain extent, the classes are not really balanced. Most of the classes are weaker than the standard D&D class, except for the Noble Warrior, which is close to the Fighter, but with 2 more skill points.

However, they are realistic. The Noble Warrior should be a better class than anyone else - nobles were better fed, better trained, better educated. Most of these classes should be lousy at combat. If this had been a d20 game/D&D supplement, I probably would have preferred the classes to be balanced. But as a stand-alone game, I prefer the more realistic take on them.

One thing that is missing are NPC classes. Like the Expert, Commoner, etc. While the classes in the book pretty much cover every possible PC, there are several likely NPC roles missing. Surgeon/healer, slaves, craftsmen, shepherd. To a certain extent, even if you have the D&D core books, you couldn't borrow the NPC classes from them, because they would be out of balance. Not a big deal for the most part, but in some cases, the PCs are expected to own slaves or have servants, and most players will want stats for them. And Paris (of Helen of Troy fame) spent much of his early life as a shepherd, so he would be hard to stat as is in this game.

Skills essentially work the same way as in all d20 based games (that is, roll a d20, add the skill rank, and compare the result to a Difficulty Class number to see if it suceeds), but the skill list has been revised quite a bit, and pretty much all of the text has been redone. Many of the DC tables feature examples specific to the setting, rather than generic examples. For instance, one of the entries in the Bluff table is "The Greeks have all gone home, Trojan. They left this enormous wooden horse as a present."

Feats also basically work the same way, and the selection of them is pretty much comparable to that in the PHB.




Combat!


This is quite possibly the most realistic and most detailed combat system for d20. While it still uses hit points, it also has a "grievous wound" system. Each character has a grievous wound threshold, equal to the average of their strength and constitution, and if they receive a blow that does more damage than they, then they are sorely wounded.

Grievous wounds can cause the character problems, such as infection and fevers. They generally get worse if not cared for. One of the options for dealing with them is cauterizing them (ie, burning them), and this is described in agonizing detail.

Armor is also handled quite differently. While it does use a fairly standard damage reduction as opposed to just making the character harder to hit, also added is an armor coverage mechanic. Basically, when someone is hit, they have to roll to see if the armor covered the blow. The fuller the armor, the more likely it is.

Further complicating things, each armor type is rated three different ways, once for each type of damage: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning. Even further complicating things, is that armor degrades as it takes damage. There are also rules for handling shields, something very important back then (at least in Greek warfare). Also, the "Active Defense" option is used, that is, instead of armor class being based on 10 + modifiers, it's based on a d20 roll plus modifiers.

The net result is actually surprisingly realistic, but at the expense of being somewhat slow and requires a lot of record keeping. But the author demonstrates in an combat example how this system can emulate the source material (in this case, the Illiad) almost exactly. I'm actually very impressed at how realistic d20 can be, still using hit points.

I haven't actually run a whole game with the combat rules, but I did make some characters and take them out for a couple of test combats. It actually plays a lot like combat in the BRP system, which is Chaosium's rule system, based around a d100, and used in Call of Cthulhu, Elric!/Stormbringer, Runequest, and many of their other RPGs. In that, you roll to hit, then the opponent rolls to duck, parry, or dodge. Then if hit, the attack rolls for damage, while the defender rolls to see how much damage was stopped.

But there's a lot more room for error in this - in BRP games I've run, combat was too deadly, because characters tended to have around 10-15 hit points, and if they roll badly on their armor rolls, they were toast. In this, if the armor is missed, there's a similar "D'oh" moment for the player, but they generally will have more hit points to start with, and so have a higher chance of survival. I think this strikes a pretty good balance, though combat at very low levels is still quite deadly.


Still, if it's not your thing, you can go back to using the regular d20 system (assuming this isn't your only d20 book). But it's nice to see some experimentation done.


The Greeks and Egyptians get a full range of armor and weapons. There is also a selection of armor and weapons from other cultures.

There's also rules for chariots in combat, which is not something the Greeks were big on, but used extensively by the Egyptians and others.


It's a Kind of Magic


There are 3 types of magic. Witch magic, Egyptian Magic, and Miracles (i.e., asking a god to do something for you). Each sort of magic has a related skill to it, and spell casting basically consistings of making a skill check.

Miracles are basically free for the caster/asker (but have really high difficulty classes to actually cast) but Witch and Egyptian magic costs hit points to cast, and to keep going. These aren't physical wounds, but fatigue/energy.

There are 88 different spells, grouped into about 13 different categories (bewitchments, blastings, consecrations, curses, exorcisms, healings, inovocations, makings, manifestations, manipulations, seemings, transformations, and unmakings). Each spell has different difficulty classes for type of magic that can cast it (not everything can cast every spell).

As you might expect, magic tends to be somewhat subtle. It's not the flashy D&D style magic, fireballs and explosions and monkeys flying everywhere, it's pretty much the sort of thing you expect from Circe or Medea. Probably the flashiest spell is "Solar Flare", which is an Egyptian magic spell that is a blast of light. But that's about the only exception of the bunch.


Setting

There's about a 10 page timeline of the Ancient World, from 2000 BC to the death of Alexander the Great. There's also a long paragraph or two about each of the major Greek and Egyptian gods.



Critters

About 10 or so pages are devoted to monsters. About 14 of them. Gorgon (the greek version, not like the D&D version), Hound of Hecate, Minotaur, Nymph, Werewolf, Ketos, Triton, Siren, Wicked Spirit, Death Lantern, Prowling Corpse, Akhkaru (sort of a vampire), Lilit, and Defiled One (sort of a mummy).

If the book has a weak spot, this is probably it. While it's easy to find books containing mythological beasts from Greece, Egypt, and the whole region, they don't come with stats for them.

For me, it's not that big a deal, as I have close to a dozen d20 monster books, and the D&D monster manual has fairly close to Greek myth versions of the Hydra, Harpie, and such. But for others, it's potentially a problem.



The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships

It's a very nice looking book. Not the fanciest, but clean looking and has some nice touches. Not all that much in the way of art, not completely bare, but a bit on the sparse side. Most the pieces are also pretty small. One artist really stands out, though he uses a logo to sign his work, so I don't know whose (looks like two es surrounded by a | ). He does some really nice landscapes (and very colorful). Another noteworthy piece by different artist is an Egyptian style Tomb Raider (as in Tomb Raider the franchise). Kinda funny. All of the artwork is good quality and does use color to its fullest (being bright and vivid). Many color RPG books don't actually use color to it's fullest, but this one does.

Also nice is that the graphics in the outer margin contain the name of the chapter. On the down side, there is no index, which is a big enough deal to give it a 4.5 out of 5 on style, instead of a 5. Also in some cases, it can be a bit cluttered, like when the descriptions of the Greek gods is superimposed on a picture of them. Similarly, the tables often have a gigantic eye on them, presumably of some Egyptian god or maybe Liz Taylor. I don't find it hard to read, but some could.

There are a couple of editing quirks. But pretty much what you generally find in books that were cut down from a larger manuscript, not the terrible blunders that marred OGL Conan. There are a couple items in the equipment list that might have inadvertantly been left in from the SRD, like the "Alchemy Lab" and the "Silk Rope". There is no alchemy skill in the game (though maybe that was an oversight, supposedly Alchemy started in Egypt, with the emerald tablet of Hermes Trismegistus) and while silk was available, through trade from the east, I imagine it was a bit too expensive to be used as silk.



Achilles' Last Stand

This is an excellent book. Not only does it do what it promises, it's a great resource for those running a Conan game - the vast majority of things from this would fit into Conan as is. To a certain extent, there is a lack of GM support material, ie, there are no NPC stat blocks or all that many monsters. But I'm not sure that could be helped, and there is actually little to no wasted space in the book. While there is some copy & pasting from the SRD, there seems to be very little, most of the book is original text (unlike say, OGL Cybernet). So it seems like a good value - it would have been nice if it were longer, but there is no white space, and the space in the book seems to have been used well.

I also think Mongoose has a OGL license that will let others put out affiliated books, though I'm not sure if it extends to OGL Ancients, or is just for OGL Cybernet. But the book is actually almost entirely open content.


A solid A.



I do have to say, how you like this book depends on what you expect from it. I suspect it's something of a love it or hate it book. (Though I do think you have to give the author credit for writing a lot of new material).

It's essentially a rules book, if you want to play an RPG set in the Ancient World. It's not really a setting book, while there is some setting, you'll likely need history books. It's also far grittier than you expect from d20 or even RPGs, as I said in the begining, this is not something you would use to recreate the Hercules/Xena TV shows (which did occasionally have people die, but it was fairly rare, and never all that messy). You can recreate the Illiad or Odyssey pretty well.

Personally, it was exactly what I was looking for. Frankly, I've never been much of a fan of various other historical d20 products that simply used the default D&D rules. Like most of Avalanche's stuff - you'd have clerics and wizards and sorcers and paladins traipsing about medieval Europe, China, etc, etc, etc. That made no sense to me. Similarly, there is an otherwise excellent looking PDF product about the Trojan War, from Steampower Publishing http://www.steampowerpublishing.co.uk/, but in the preview, we see that Paris is a D&D style Ranger. WTF? At least he doesn't use 2 scimitars.


While I'm hardly an expert on the region, I do have several books on the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks and I have several books on mythology. And I have Clash of the Titans on video tape. So I don't really need setting material, I really need rules material tailored to the setting, and this delivers. I would have liked to have seen a bit more rule material for the Persians, since they were pretty big back then, too, but they at least got some coverage.

If you are looking for something more D&D-ish, you might wait for the upcoming Relics & Rituals: Olympus from Sword & Sorcery/White Wolf or the upcoming Troy book from Green Ronin. If you just want a setting sourcebook for Greece, then you might check out Gurps Greece (which is mostly setting).

Fright Night: Haunted House (first draft)

Fright Night: Haunted House is a small-ish book from Hogshead Publishing. Not the old one, but the "new" Hogshead (I think the guy bought the name). It's a d20 horror supplement. What flavor of d20? Well, that's the tricky question. It's actually sort of a mini-game for d20, similar to FFG's Horizon line or the now defunct Polyhedron section of Dungeon.

I have no idea why I bought this, really. It just looked interesting, and thought it might be useful if I ever get the copy of OGL Horror I ordered.

It's basically 4 parts. One, tips on running horror games. Two, rules for modern d20 games, Three, an adventure location (an old mansion/school), and Four, a scenario, using everything else in the book. The location and adventure are actually pretty much the same thing, but you get an overview of the place first, then the adventure. That takes up about half the book, the other half are tips/rules.

Some of the tips for running horror games were new to me. Most notably, the idea of running the game in a basement at night.

The rules are something of a stripped down mini-d20 game. You get a modern skill list, some modern feats, and 6 classes. These are all "Psychic" classes, presumably because the premise of the adventure is that all the PCs are psychics.

The classes only go up to 10th level, so they might be useable in d20 Modern (though the attack progressions are a bit wonky, which doesn't matter in a mini-game, but can be tricky when it comes to integrating them with other stuff). Basically, psychic powers work like skills, but they cost psychic power points to use. There's telepathy, psychometry (reading the history of objects), remote viewing (seeing things far away), telekinesis, channelling (talking to the dead), and divining (predicting the future).

There six classes are: The Guru (kinda like Doug Henning, but with real powers), the Profiteer (aka, Uri Geller), the Believer (sort of a gypsy/new ager), the Gifted, the Denier (who denies his own powers), and the Freak (sort of an outcast). Really, the classes are how they view their own power.

To a certain extent, the psychic powers are realistic, in that they don't work very well.



The adventure itself reminded me a lot of the movie The House on Haunted Hill (not to be confused with the Haunting of Hill House), the remake, at least in the basic premise. Which I thought was a pretty good movie, though I really could have sworn it was James Woods in it. It really really looked like James Woods. And sounded like him. But it turned out to be Geoffrey Rush.

But anyway, the players are invited to a haunted house for a chance to win $1 million. But rather than stay the night, they are supposed to try to scare the other guests. Sort of a game (could be a reality TV show, almost), because the premise is, the owner of the place is a really rich guy who wants to run a murder-mystery inn, only with a haunted house theme. So he wants someone good at scaring people.

So why doesn't he call a special FX company? Or at least Brian Brown? Well, because there is more to meets the eye. It has to do with the psychic-ness of the PCs, he has a dastardly plot to dethrone Miss Cleo, and become the reigning phone psychic king by recruiting psychics into his evil psychic phone empire. Well, not really, but it's almost as sinister.



In many ways, this book is a bit amateurish, and honestly, while the new rules introduced aren't terrible, they aren't great, either, and quite possibly, redundant for most people (what with d20 Modern, Spycraft, Call of Ctuhulhu d20, OGL Horror, etc) and really aren't comprehensive enough to handle campaigns beyond this scenario (and even this scenario could be tricky).

But, I like it. It has a certain sense of charm and enthusiasm to it. I bought it new (albeit at a discount), and I have no regrets buying it.

OGL Ancients, 3rd Draft

OGL Ancients is the 3rd in the OGL line of books from Mongoose. OGL being Open Gaming License, which technically means little (since systems other than d20 have been released under the OGL), but generally is shorthand for d20 without certain restrictions (mostly, character creation and nudity). Like the two previous books in the line, it's $39.95, 256 color pages, and hardback. Unlike the two others, this seems derived from the original d20 System Reference Document (aka D&D), rather than d20 Modern.

Though in many aspects, it's a complete rewrite of key rules, like classes, combat and magic. (It does bear some similarities to Conan, but the rules in this are far grittier). Like its kin, it's a stand alone book, in theory, this is all you need to play it. And in practice, it seems pretty complete for a 256 page book (actually, 258, you get 2 extra pages of maps).

It's focused on the Ancient World before the rise of the Roman Empire. It specifically deals with Ancient Greece and Egypt, though there is some mention (and rules support) for other areas of the region. There is some support for "mythic" gaming (that is fictional, where magic and gods do exist), but it's essentially a very gritty, realistic game. Definitely not meant to recreate the Hercules and Xena TV shows, but the actual legends themselves.

The OGL series from Mongoose is apparently meant to be "rulebooks", basically like the PHB/DMG combination for D&D. I don't have OGL Horror yet (If you're read any review I've written this year, you'll probably be tired of me mentioning that I ordered it in January, but haven't received it yet.), but I do actually have OGL Cybernet, and it has no setting at all. This actually does have a little setting material (call it 20-30 pages), but it is mostly a rulebook.




Know thyself

Characters are fairly complex and generally work the same as the typical d20 character - same 6 attributes and class. While there is no race, like in most other d20 games, there is background. In this, there is national background, that is, what country or region a character is from, along with social class - slave, middle class, noble, etc.

You can also pick a Mythic background option, like divine favor, divine parentage, or divine boon. Divine parentage is a bit weaker than I imagined, usually being a +1 to 2 ability scores or a +2 to one. Divine Boon is extremely powerful, but comes with a Divine drawback. I probably wouldn't allow Divine Boons in my game, but they do match the legends. I would also probably double the divine parentage bonus.

There are twelve core classes in OGL Ancients. (And thankfully, no prestige classes).

The Aristocrat - A member of nobility. A more leisurely or political member of nobility, as opposed to a fighting one.

The Artificer - This is someone like Hero of Alexander, who made all sorts of steam powered stuff, or the fictional Daedalus, the guy who built flying wings.

The Bard - Like Orpheus, not like the D&D style bard

The Courtesan - Pretty much like what it sounds like.

The Egyptian Priest - A priest of one of the many gods of the Egyptian Pantheon. Like the bad buy from The Mummy. Also versed in Egyptian magic, or Hekau

The Greek Priest - Slightly different than the Egyptian Priest, besides the gods worshipped. This one focuses more on learning.

The Noble Warrior - Very similar to the D&D fighter in game mechanical terms, this is the sort of fighter that tends to come from nobility, and fights in single combat.

The Sage - A seasoning. Good in soup. Really, experts at learning.

The Seer - Someone who predicts the future. Tiresias would be a good example.

The Thief - Not very much like the standard D&D 3.0/3.5 rogue, this is more the sneaky sort of thief.

The Warrior - The common soldier, these are used to fighting in groups or formation.

The Witch - Meant to represent the Greek sort of witch, like Medea or Circe or the Gabors

Basically, only 2 classes are good at combat (not surprisingly, the Noble Warrior and the Warrior). The rest are pretty much terrible (two are "average" at combat, in D&D terms, the Bard and the Greek Priest).

The Egyptian Priest class and witch class can cast spells, but it uses a skill based system, not even remotely similar to the standard d20 system. The two priest classes can also ask the gods for miracles, which uses a similar system.

To a certain extent, the classes are not really balanced. Most of the classes are weaker than the standard D&D class, except for the Noble Warrior, which is close to the Fighter, but with 2 more skill points.

However, they are realistic. The Noble Warrior should be a better class than anyone else - nobles were better fed, better trained, better educated. Most of these classes should be lousy at combat. If this had been a d20 game/D&D supplement, I probably would have preferred the classes to be balanced. But as a stand-alone game, I prefer the more realistic take on them.

One thing that is missing are NPC classes. Like the Expert, Commoner, etc. While the classes in the book pretty much cover every possible PC, there are several likely NPC roles missing. Surgeon/healer, slaves, craftsmen, etc. To a certain extent, even if you have the D&D core books, you couldn't borrow the NPC classes from them, because they would be out of balance. Not a big deal for the most part, but in some cases, the PCs are expected to own slaves or have servants, and most players will want stats for them.

Skills essentially work the same way as in all d20 based games (that is, roll a d20, add the skill rank, and compare the result to a Difficulty Class number to see if it suceeds), but the skill list has been revised quite a bit, and pretty much all of the text has been redone. Many of the DC tables feature examples specific to the setting, rather than generic examples. For instance, one of the entries in the Bluff table is "The Greeks have all gone home, Trojan. They left this enormous wooden horse as a present."

Feats also basically work the same way, and the selection of them is pretty much comparable to that in the PHB.




Combat!


This is quite possibly the most realistic and most detailed combat system for d20. While it still uses hit points, it also has a "grievous wound" system. Each character has a grievous wound threshold, equal to the average of their strength and constitution, and if they receive a blow that does more damage than they, then they are sorely wounded.

Grievous wounds can cause the character problems, such as infection and fevers. They generally get worse if not cared for. One of the options for dealing with them is cauterizing them (ie, burning them), and this is described in agonizing detail.

Armor is also handled quite differently. While it does use a fairly standard damage reduction as opposed to just making the character harder to hit, also added is an armor coverage mechanic. Basically, when someone is hit, they have to roll to see if the armor covered the blow. The fuller the armor, the more likely it is.

Further complicating things, each armor type is rated three different ways, once for each type of damage: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning. Even further complicating things, is that armor degrades as it takes damage. There are also rules for handling shields, something very important back then (at least in Greek warfare). Also, the "Active Defense" option is used, that is, instead of armor class being based on 10 + modifiers, it's based on a d20 roll plus modifiers.

The net result is actually surprisingly realistic, but at the expense of being somewhat slow and requires a lot of record keeping. But the author demonstrates in an combat example how this system can emulate the source material (in this case, the Illiad) almost exactly. I'm actually very impressed at how realistic d20 can be, still using hit points.

I haven't actually run a whole game with the combat rules, but I did take them for a couple of test combats. It actually plays a lot like combat in the BRP system, which is Chaosium's rule system, based around a d100, and used in Call of Cthulhu, Elric!/Stormbringer, Runequest, and many of their other RPGs. In that, you roll to hit, then the opponent rolls to duck, parry, or dodge. Then if hit, the attack rolls for damage, while the defender rolls to see how much damage was stopped.

But there's a lot more room for error in this - in BRP games I've run, combat was too deadly, because characters tended to have around 10-15 hit points, and if they roll badly on their armor rolls, they were toast. In this, if the armor is missed, there's a similar "D'oh" moment for the player, but they generally will have more hit points to start with, and so have a higher chance of survival. I think this strikes a pretty good balance.


Still, if it's not your thing, you can go back to using the regular d20 system (assuming this isn't your only d20 book).


The Greeks and Egyptians get a full range of armor and weapons. There is also a selection of armor and weapons from other cultures.

There's also rules for chariots in combat, which is not something the Greeks were big on, but used extensively by the Egyptians and others.


It's a Kind of Magic


There are 3 types of magic. Witch magic, Egyptian Magic, and Miracles (i.e., asking a god to do something for you). Each sort of magic has a related skill to it, and spell casting basically consistings of making a skill check.

Miracles are basically free for the caster/asker (but have really high difficulty classes to actually cast) but Witch and Egyptian magic costs hit points to cast, and to keep going. These aren't physical wounds, but fatigue/energy.

There are 88 different spells, grouped into about 13 different categories (bewitchments, blastings, consecrations, curses, exorcisms, healings, inovocations, makings, manifestations, manipulations, seemings, transformations, and unmakings). Each spell has different difficulty classes for type of magic that can cast it (not everything can cast every spell).

As you might expect, magic tends to be somewhat subtle. It's not the flashy D&D style magic, fireballs and explosions and monkeys flying everywhere, it's pretty much the sort of thing you expect from Circe or Medea. Probably the flashiest spell is "Solar Flare", which is an Egyptian magic spell that is a blast of light. But that's about the only exception of the bunch.


Setting

There's about a 10 page timeline of the Ancient World, from 2000 BC to the death of Alexander the Great. There's also a long paragraph or two about each of the major Greek and Egyptian gods



Critters

About 10 or so pages are devoted to monsters. About 14 of them. Gorgon (the greek version, not like the D&D version), Hound of Hecate, Minotaur, Nymph, Werewolf, Ketos, Triton, Siren, Wicked Spirit, Death Lantern, Prowling Corpse, Akhkaru (sort of a vampire), Lilit, and Defiled One (sort of a mummy).

If the book has a weak spot, this is probably it. While it's easy to come up with books containing mythological beasts from Greece, Egypt, and the whole region, they don't come with stats for them.

For me, it's not that big a deal, as I have close to a dozen d20 monster books, and the D&D monster manual has fairly Greek myth version of the Hydra, Harpie, and such. But for others, it's potentially a problem.



The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships

It's a very nice looking book. Not the fanciest, but clean looking and has some nice touches. Not all that much in the way of art, not completely bare, but a bit on the sparse side. Most the pieces are also pretty small. One artist really stands out, though he uses a logo to sign his work, so I don't know whose (looks like two es surrounded by a | ). He does some really nice landscapes (and very colorful). Another noteworthy piece by different artist is an Egyptian style Tomb Raider (as in Tomb Raider the franchise). Kinda funny. All of the artwork is good quality and does use color to its fullest (being bright and vivid). Many color RPG books don't actually use color to it's fullest, but this one does.

Also nice is that the graphics in the outer margin contain the name of the chapter. On the down side, there is no index, which is a big enough deal to give it a 4.5 out of 5 on style, instead of a 5. Also in some cases, it can be a bit cluttered, like when the descriptions of the Greek gods is superimposed on a picture of them. Similarly, the tables often have a gigantic eye on them, presumably of some Egyptian god or maybe Liz Taylor. I don't find it hard to read, but some could.

There are a couple of editing quirks. But pretty much what you generally find in books that were cut down from a larger manuscript, not the terrible blunders that marred OGL Conan. There are a couple items in the equipment list that might have inadvertantly been left in from the SRD, like the "Alchemy Lab" and the "Silk Rope". There is no alchemy skill in the game (though maybe that was an oversight, supposedly Alchemy started in Egypt, with the emerald tablet of Hermes Trismegistus) and while silk was available, through trade from the east, I imagine it was a bit too expensive to be used as silk.



Achilles' Last Stand

This is an excellent book. Not only does it do what it promises, it's a great resource for those running a Conan game - the vast majority of things from this would fit into Conan as is. To a certain extent, there is a lack of GM support material, ie, there are no NPC stat blocks or all that many monsters. But I'm not sure that could be helped, and there is actually little to no wasted space in the book. While there is some copy & pasting from the SRD, there seems to be very little, most of the book is original text (unlike say, OGL Cybernet). So it seems like a good value - it would have been nice if it were longer, but there is no white space, and the space in the book seems to have been used well.

I also think Mongoose has a OGL license that will let others put out affiliated books, though I'm not sure if it extends to OGL Ancients, or is just for OGL Cybernet. But the book is actually almost entirely open content.


A solid A.

I do have to say, how you like this book depends on what you expect from it. I suspect it's something of a love it or hate it book. (Though I do think you have to give the author credit for writing a lot of new material).

It's essentially a rules book, if you want to play an RPG set in the Ancient World. It's not really a setting book, while there is some setting, you'll likely need history books. It's also far grittier than you expect from d20 or even RPGs, as I said in the begining, this is not something you would use to recreate the Hercules/Xena TV shows (which did occasionally have people die, but it was fairly rare, and never all that messy). You can recreate the Illiad or Odyssey pretty well.

Personally, it was exactly what I was looking for. While I'm hardly an expert on the region, I do have several books on the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks and I have several books on mythology. And I have Clash of the Titans on video tape. So I don't need setting material. I would have liked to have seen a bit more rule material for the Persians, since they were pretty big back then, too, but they at least got some coverage.

If you are looking for something more D&D-ish, you might wait for the upcoming Relics & Rituals: Olympus from Sword & Sorcery/White Wolf. If you just want a setting sourcebook for Greece, then you might check out Gurps Greece (which is mostly setting).

OGL Ancients - Second Draft

OGL Ancients is the 3rd in the OGL line of books from Mongoose (OGL being Open Gaming License, which technically means little, but generally is shorthand for d20 without certain restrictions). Like the two others, it's $39.95, 256 color pages, and hardback. Unlike the two others, this seems derived from the original d20 System Reference Document (aka D&D), rather than d20 Modern.

Though in many aspects, it's almost a complete rewrite of key rules, like classes, combat and magic. (It does bear some similarities to Conan, but the rules in this are far grittier). Like its kin, it's a stand alone book, in theory, this is all you need to play it. And in practice, it seems pretty complete for a 256 page book (actually, 258, you get 2 extra pages of maps).

It's focused on the Ancient World before the rise of the Roman Empire. It specifically deals with Ancient Greece and Egypt, though there is some mention (and rules support) for other areas of the region. There is some support for "mythic" gaming (that is fictional, where magic and gods do exist), but it's essentially a very gritty, realistic game. Definitely not meant to recreate the Hercules and Xena TV shows, but the actual legends themselves.


Know thyself

Characters are fairly complex and generally work the same as the typical d20 character - same 6 attributes and class. While there is no race, like in most other d20 games, there is background. In this, there is national background, that is, what country or region a character is from, along with social class - slave, middle class, noble, etc.

You can also pick a Mythic background option, like divine favor, divine parentage, or divine boon. Divine parentage is a bit weaker than I imagined, usually being a +1 to 2 ability scores or a +2 to one. Divine Boon is extremely powerful, but comes with a Divine drawback. I probably wouldn't allow Divine Boons in my game, but they do match the legends. I would also probably double the divine parentage bonus.

There are twelve core classes in OGL Ancients. (And thankfully, no prestige classes).

The Aristocrat - A member of nobility. A more leisurely or political member of nobility, as opposed to a fighting one.

The Artificer - This is someone like Hero of Alexander, who made all sorts of steam powered stuff, or the fictional Daedalus, the guy who built flying wings.

The Bard - Like Orpheus, not like the D&D style bard

The Courtesan - Pretty much like what it sounds like.

The Egyptian Priest - A priest of one of the many gods of the Egyptian Pantheon. Like the bad buy from The Mummy. Also versed in Egyptian magic, or Hekau

The Greek Priest - Slightly different than the Egyptian Priest, besides the gods worshipped. This one focuses more on learning.

The Noble Warrior - Very similar to the D&D fighter in game mechanical terms, this is the sort of fighter that tends to come from nobility, and fights in single combat.

The Sage - A seasoning. Good in soup. Really, experts at learning.

The Seer - Someone who predicts the future. Tiresias would be a good example.

The Thief - Not very much like the standard D&D 3.0/3.5 rogue, this is more the sneaky sort of thief.

The Warrior - The common soldier, these are used to fighting in groups or formation.

The Witch - Meant to represent the Greek sort of witch, like Medea or Circe or the Gabors

Basically, only 2 classes are good at combat (not surprisingly, the Noble Warrior and the Warrior). The rest are pretty much terrible (two are "average" at combat, in D&D terms, the Bard and the Greek Priest).

The Egyptian Priest class and witch class can cast spells, but it uses a skill based system, not even remotely similar to the standard d20 system. The two priest classes can also ask the gods for miracles, which uses a similar system.

To a certain extent, the classes are not really balanced. Most of the classes are weaker than the standard D&D class, except for the Noble Warrior, which is close to the Fighter, but with 2 more shill points.

However, they are realistic. The Noble Warrior should be a better class than anyone else. Most of these classes should be lousy at combat. If this had been a d20 game supplement, I probably would have preferred the classes to be balanced. But as a stand-alone game, I think I prefer the more realistic take on them.

Skills essentially work the same way as in all d20 based games (that is, roll a d20, add the skill rank, and compare the result to a Difficulty Class number to see if it suceeds), but the skill list has been revised quite a bit, and pretty much all of the text has been redone. Many of the DC tables feature. For instance, one of the entries in the Bluff table is "The Greeks have all gone home, Trojan. They left his enormous wooden horse as a present."





Combat!


This is quite possible the most realistic and most detailed combat system for d20. While it still uses hit points, it also has a "grievous wound" system. Each character has a grievous wound threshold, equal to the average of their strength and constitution, and if they receive a blow that does more damage than they, then they are sorely wounded.

Grievous wounds can cause the character problems, such as infection and fevers. They generally get worse if not cared for. One of the options for dealing with them is cauterizing them (ie, burning them), and this is described in agonizing detail.

Armor is also handled quite differently. While it does use a fairly standard damage reduction as opposed to just making the character harder to hit, also added is an armor coverage mechanic. Basically, when someone is hit, they have to roll to see if the armor covered the blow. The fuller the armor, the more likely it is.

Further complicating things, each armor type is rated three different ways, once for each type of damage: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning. Even further complicating things, is that armor degrades as it takes damage. There are also rules for handling shields, something very important back then (at least in Greek warfare). Also, the "Active Defense" option is used, that is, instead of armor class being based on 10 + modifiers, it's based on a d20 roll plus modifiers.

The net result is actually surprisingly realistic, but at the expense of being somewhat slow and requires a lot of record keeping. But the author demonstrates in an combat example how this system can emulate the source material (in this case, the Illiad) almost exactly. I'm actually very impressed at how realistic d20 can be, still using hit points.

Still, if it's not your thing, you can go back to using the regular d20 system (assuming this isn't your only d20 book).


The Greeks and Egyptians get a full range of armor and weapons. There is also a selection of armor and weapons from other cultures.


It's a Kind of Magic


There are 3 types of magic. Witch magic, Egyptian Magic, and Miracles (i.e., asking a god to do something for you). Each sort of magic has a related skill to it, and spell casting basically consistings of making a skill check.

Miracles are basically free for the caster/asker (but have really high difficulty classes to actually cast) but Witch and Egyptian magic costs hit points to cast, and to keep going. These aren't physical wounds, but fatigue/energy.

There are 88 different spells, grouped into about 13 different categories (bewitchments, blastings, consecrations, curses, exorcisms, healings, inovocations, makings, manifestations, manipulations, seemings, transformations, and unmakings). Each spell has different difficulty classes for type of magic that can cast it (not everything can cast every spell).

As you might expect, magic tends to be somewhat subtle. It's not the flashy D&D style magic, fireballs and explosions and monkeys flying everywhere.



The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships

It's a very nice looking book. Not the fanciest, but clean looking and has some nice touches. Not all that much in the way of art, not completely bare, but a bit on the sparse side. Most the pieces are also pretty small. One artist really stands out, though he uses a logo to sign his work, so I don't know whose (looks like two es surrounded by a | ). He does some really nice landscapes (and very colorful). Another noteworthy piece by different artist is an Egyptian style Tomb Raider (as in Tomb Raider the franchise). Kinda funny. All of the artwork is good quality and does use color to its fullest (being bright and vivid). Many color RPG books don't actually use color to it's fullest, but this one does.

Also nice is that the graphics in the outer margin contain the name of the chapter. On the down side, there is no index, which is a big enough deal to give it a 4.5 out of 5 on style, instead of a 5.


This is an excellent book. Not only does it do what it promises, it's a great resource for those running a Conan game - the vast majority of things from this would fit into Conan as is. To a certain extent, there is a lack of GM support material, ie, there are no NPC stat blocks or all that many monsters. But I'm not sure that could be helped, and there is actually little to no wasted space in the book. While there is some copy & pasting from the SRD, there seems to be very little, most of the book is original text (unlike say, OGL Cybernet). So it seems like a good value - it would have been nice if it were longer, but there is no white space, and the space in the book seems to have been used well.

A solid A.

OGL Ancients - first draft

OGL Ancients is the 3rd in the OGL line of books from Mongoose (OGL being Open Gaming License, which technically means little, but generally is shorthand for d20 without certain restrictions). Like the two others, it's $39.95, 256 color pages, and hardback. Unlike the two others, this seems derived from the original d20 System Reference Document (aka D&D), rather than d20 Modern. Though in many aspects, it's almost a complete rewrite of key rules, like combat and magic. (It does bear some similarities to Conan, but the rules in this are far grittier). Like it's kin, it's a stand alone book, in theory, this is all you need to play it. And in practice, it seems pretty complete.

It's focused on the Ancient World before the rise of the Roman Empire. It specifically deals with Ancient Greece and Egypt, though there is some mention (and rules support) for other areas of the region.



There are twelve core classes in OGL Ancients. (And thankfully, no prestige classes).

The Aristocrat

The Artificer - This is someone like Hero of Alexander, who made all sorts of steam powered stuff, or the fictional Icarus, the guy who built flying wings.

The Bard - Like Orpheus, not like the D&D style bard

The Courtesan - Pretty much like what it sounds like.

The Egyptian Priest - A priest of one of the many gods of the Egyptian Pantheon. Like the bad buy from The Mummy.

The Greek Priest - Slightly different than the Egyptian Priest, besides the gods worshipped. This one focuses more on learning.

The Noble Warrior - Very similar to the D&D fighter in game mechanical terms, this is the sort of fighter that tends to come from nobility, and fights in single combat.

The Sage - A seasoning. Good in soup.

The Seer - Someone who predicts the future. Tiresias would be a good example.

The Thief - Not very much like the standard D&D 3.0/3.5 rogue, this is more the sneaky sort of thief.

The Warrior - The common soldier, these are used to fighting in groups or formation.

The Witch - Meant to represent the Greek sort of witch, like Medea or Circe or the Gabors

Basically, only 2 classes are good at combat (not surprisingly, the Noble Warrior and the Warrior). The rest are pretty much terrible.

The two priest classes and witch class can cast spells, but it uses a skill based system, not even remotely similar to the standard d20 system.



Combat!


This is quite possible the most realistic and most detailed combat system for d20. While it still uses hit points, it also has a "grievous wound" system. Each character has a grievous wound threshold, equal to the average of their strength and constitution, and if they receive a blow that does more damage than they, then they are sorely wounded.

Armor is also handled quite differently. While it does use a fairly standard damage reduction as opposed to just making the character harder to hit, also added is an armor coverage mechanic. Basically, when someone is hit, they have to roll to see if the armor covered the blow. The fuller the armor, the more likely it is.

Further complicating things, each armor type is rated three different ways, once for each type of damage: slashing, piercing, bludgeoning. Even further complicating things, is that armor degrades as it takes damage. There are also rules for handling shields, something very important back then (at least in Greek warfare).

The net result is actually surprisingly realistic, but at the expense of being somewhat slow and requires a lot of record keeping. But the author demonstrates in an combat example how this system can emulate the source material (in this case, the Illiad) almost exactly.

Still, if it's not your thing, you can go back to using the regular d20 system (assuming this isn't your only d20 book).




It's a very nice looking book. Not the fanciest, but clean looking and has some nice touches. Not all that much in the way of art, not completely bare, but a bit on the sparse side. Most the pieces are also pretty small. One artist really stands out, though he uses a logo to sign his work, so I don't know whose (looks like two es surrounded by a | ). He does some really nice landscapes (and very colorful). Another noteworthy piece by different artist is an Egyptian style Tomb Raider (as in Tomb Raider the franchise). Kinda funny.


This is an excellent book. Not only does it do what it promises, it's a great resource for those running a Conan game - the vast majority of things from this would fit into Conan as is. To a certain extent, there is a lack of GM support material, ie, there are no NPC stat blocks or all that many monsters. But I'm not sure that could be helped, and there is actually little to no wasted space in the book