Victoriana
Reviewed by: Wayne Tonjes
Victoriana by Heresy Gaming LLP is a new Fuzion campaign variant for anyone interested in a mixture of the Steampunk genre with fantasy. The campaign is set in a variant Earth during the rule of Queen Victoria at the start of the Industrial Revolution, focusing on Western Europe as a primary location and London in particular. This volume goes beyond many campaign supplements of presenting just the background of the world with the odd skills or class changes to some base set of rules. A complete restructuring of the system is provided in this volume, including all the necessary social class structures, appropriate skills, equipment, and magic systems needed. There is a significant shift from the core Fuzion rules provided here as a result, and the issue of translating between core settings and Victoriana are outlined in an appendix. On top of the campaign related transitions, there is also a complete streamlined, compact system for managing non-player characters and lesser opponents provided to help speed such encounters the characters may have with flunkeys and the like. Granted, a good deal of the book does focus on the fairly detailed setting. The divergences from the historic, real world are thoroughly addressed, with an extensive bibliography provided in the appendix for those whose appetite for the period is roused by this work. A strong emphasis on the social conditions of the time is provided, because these are crucial for modern players to truly grasp and play in this setting. It is a period of vast growth and revolution, but this setting is significantly at odds with the modern mindset. Half the challenge and interest of the campaign is seeing from just where the present world came.
From the product website:
“Based in real world history and enhanced by fantasy the world of Victoriana immerses you in a dangerous and oppressive world of progress and revolution, where life is cheap - unless you're an aristo...
From the rookeries and satanic mills of London, to the Colonies of India and Africa, the world is ready for change, the laws of civilization have become stifling and corrupt. The elite few live in luxury, while the proletariat masses are left in squalor. The planes shift and ancient sorceries gain new power daily while old gods once again try to make their presence felt through the seams of reality.”
The first third of the book focuses on the setting. It starts with a general introduction that includes the basics of ‘this is role-playing’, but then dives into society. The three tiers of social levels are described in terms of their conventional positions, resources and ethics. An overview of the social system is also provided here with primary political movements and religions detailed in similar formats to those of the classes. Common entertainments and activities of the time are also outlined here. One of the chief emphases of this section is how stratified and rigid the social system of the time is. This very stratification is one of the primary sources of adventure and is crucial to playing this setting. The care taken to make this absolutely clear is excellently done. The second chapter turns to the technological features of the era. There are some differences from the real world, due to the inclusion of magical effects and creatures. Wyvern cavalry and sorcery have had only limited impacts on the development of rail, steamships, and industry, generally due to prohibitive costs. Limits of travel and communication are explained in this era where railroads are still new, highways are still subject to banditry, telegraph lines are just being laid, and there is no official post. These features are again crucial to playing in this setting. The third chapter provides details on every continent and major nations around the world. Each nation aside from Britain is given a statistical block with language, religion, population demographics, literacy percentages and government type. This is followed with a description of the nation, sometimes with prominent cities or colonies similarly described. Maps of the world are included here. This helps set the stage for play, although it does give away some secrets that should be for the game master only. This is unfortunate, since much of this information should or could be available to player characters and having a section for them here would have continued the excellent chain of material provided in the prior chapters.
Character creation is the first mechanic presented in the next chapter. It uses a point system with separate points for attributes, skills, and options. Social class limits how many points a starting character has for attributes and skills and there are default races for each social class. The six attributes can be bought from one to ten and some of them are modified by race type. Several derived statistics are computed from four of the six attributes. Body is effectively strength and health with five derived statistics. Dexterity is coordination and speed, determining movement rates and initiative. Intellect is general insight and reason, combined with dexterity to determine initiative. Finally, resolution represents force of will and has a derived score that is modified by damage and exhaustion that drugs and magics can drain to penalize all actions. The races available are human, beastmen, eldren who are effectively elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and ogres. Most of these conform to fantasy standards, with beastmen being somewhat new as a relatively flexible racial type that allows free mixing of animal aspects with humanoid forms. With this race, one can pick an animal that makes sense to the attributes like ox for a strong character or rabbit for a quick one. All the non-humans have some bonuses and penalties to attributes and some side perk or complication, like dwarves moving slower than typical due to their stature. Skills are also bought from one to ten and limited by social class exposures to childhood experiences and careers. Skills can be either selected from preset groups defined by such experiences or by custom selection. Option points are then used to purchase higher attributes, skills, or derived statistics, talents, or privileges. These latter two give access to magic use or property, again with limitations imposed by social class. More option points can be gained by taking complications, which can be limited by social class or more general like partial blindness or opium addiction. Starting equipment is also derived from the option points and a partial listing of equipment is given in the following chapter. A description of the British monetary system is given here, which given the coinage of the time period is necessary. Six sample characters are provided, five of which are derived from the introductory story, in the equipment chapter as something of a secondary thought. The next chapter turns to mechanics with skills. Basic checks involve rolling three six-sided dice and adding the appropriate skill and attribute scores and comparing the result to a target difficulty value or an opposed roll. The skills are defined in this chapter as well. Some of them, such as swordplay and pistol shooting are only partially covered in this chapter, as the next describes the combat system for the complete description. Combat uses the same types of dice checks and the particulars on damage, situational modifiers, effects of armor, and listings of weapons and armor with prices and combat values are all given here. Other systems are described in the next chapter, such as environmental hazards of fire, disease, drugs, and electricity, handling chases, the mechanics of taking damage, recovering and using experience to improve characters. The final chapter in this section details the five magic systems of this setting. Two of these systems are consider lesser magics by the officially tolerated system of the predominant church while the two remaining magic systems are considered strictly evil, as they lead to demonic possessions or undeath. Each style of magic has different skills and abilities, with mediums having three skills for slightly different groupings of abilities, and the other four styles having one skill each respectively and separate spell lists. Magic is available, but relatively scarce so there is only a small listing of spells in this chapter. Details on magic relics are included in this chapter, rounded out by eight sample items. These rules make some deviations from the core Fuzion rules. The most prominent one is the streamlining of the key attributes into only six scores with derived values instead of ten independent statistics. Other shifts are more setting dependent such as period skills, different mechanisms for handling more primitive firearms, ritualized magics, and appropriate privileges to the era. Most of these are handled pretty well, although some of the magic details are a little fuzzy.
The last section details game mastering elements. This starts with the simpler system for handling lesser foes by two scores to handle mental and physical statistics, health, a few prominent skills, and typical combat actions. This shortened character system is much quicker to develop for minor characters, and the listing of twenty-eight humanoid character types help make this even easier. Most of these short characters Seventeen beasts and seventeen monsters are also included, with only notes on a few of the beasts and full write-ups on the monsters. The next chapter turns to running a game by offering several modes of play to explore, campaign themes, some of the secrets of the world, and a selection of sets for important fights. These sets are quite useful, providing sample props, common modifiers, possible hazards, and the all-important quick escape route for heroes and villains alike. The last chapter presents a complete, sample adventure. The story provided covers a good selection of angles and plot lines for different types of characters that highlights elements of the setting quite nicely.
Victoriana has a rich setting and a pretty decent system behind it. The biggest problem has to do with the presentation. There is a dreadful inconsistency of using capitalization or bold formatting for key terms that leads to a sloppy look. Spurious sidebars that repeat blocks of the main text verbatim, failure to address differences in racial aging rates when discussing backgrounds, and the textual description of the catapult without any game description are all other problems. The layout is generally good, although some of the structuring could have been a little better. Putting the sample characters in a specific chapter at the end of second section is an example. The art is gray scale images that vary from type images from the Victorian era to new artwork. Unfortunately, a number of character images get used repeatedly, giving the feel that they are merely space fillers instead of interesting images worthwhile in their own right. Some of the images are quite worthwhile, but the repetition of other images is somewhat unfortunate. Overall, this is a pretty good game, despite the grammar glitches. The setting is intriguing, the system is solid, and the adventures await heroes to come. Take a look, but mind your manners. Social standing defines all that matters, after all.
For more details on Heresy Gaming LLP and their new Fuzion campaign variant, Victoriana, check them out at their website http://freespace.virgin.net/j.tuckey/ and at local game stores.
(Product Summary)
Victoriana
From: Heresy Gaming LLP
Type of Game: Fuzion campaign variant
Written by: John Tuckey, Richard Nunn, and Scott Rhymer
Game Design by: John Tuckey
Additional Design by: Richard Nunn
Developed and Typesetting by: John Tuckey
Editing by: John Tuckey
Proofreading by: Mark Pacey, John Hereward, and Hilary Hereward
Art Direction by: John Tuckey
Cover Art, Maps, and Logo by: Ursula Vernon
Additional Art by: Tara K Labus, Kelly Hamilton, Svetlana Chmakova, Ursula Vernon, Matteo Lolli, Samuel Araya, Ed Davis, Shawn Brack, Fufu Frauenwahl, and The Illustrated London News Archives
Number of Pages: 304
Game Components Included: Soft Cover Book
Retail Price: $29.99 (US)
Item Number: VIC1001
IBSN: 1-904649-00-9
Email: Victoriana@heresy-gaming.co.uk
Website: freespace.virgin.net/j.tuckey/
Reviewed by: Wayne Tonjes
Added: July 21st 2003
Reviewer: Wayne Tonjes
Score: 
Related Link: Victoriana at Heresy Games
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Language: eng |
