Reading TTRPGs - 56 - Salt Butter Edition
Other versions
I'm getting back into the routine and trying to unpack some of the RPGs in the queue. Of course, the pile is disorganized and things I wasn't expecting show up and take the place of what I had planned to read.
Moonlight on Roseville Beach, by R.Rook Studio
This is a review of the french edition
This game had been sitting in my to-read pile for ages, and at the last Queervention, I found out that a French version was available from Éditions Spectrum. So I jumped at the chance to buy the physical version in French.
Let's talk about the object first.
The book has a very pleasant satin (?) texture, with thick pages and the overall quality seems good. The whole book is illustrated with images taken from pulp magazines. This gives the book a retro feel that's totally in tune with its subject. These full-page illustrations are a delight to look at. The translation is of good quality, and I didn't notice any particular typos. If you're allergic to inclusive writing, you'd better move on.
Because Moonlight on Roseville Beach is a queer game, and is 100% proud of it. If that makes you bristle, there's nothing I can do for you (and you should probably seek help).
The game is mainly a game setting. Roseville Beach. A stretch of island on the American coast. A village where the LGBTQ+ community gathered and stuck together in the 70s. Cafés and nightclubs, bodegas and mini-markets, youth hostels and bungalows, beaches and wooded areas, this is an unspoilt resort, almost free from prejudice. There's the presence of magic and strangeness, hidden from the eyes of the uninitiated: sorcerers, mermaids, changelings, demons and even a few aliens. The player-characters know this hidden side, and are, in a way, the protectors of the place.
The game's setting is defined by numerous leads. NPCs, locations, plots, several scenarios, random tables... All this will enable you to design your own Roseville Beach.
What's lacking, however, is the material for a full-fledged campaign that isn't just a collection of one-shots (with recurring characters). A progression mechanic, a global threat: a campaign framework, in other words.
In terms of the game system, it's a hack of the Otherkind Dice system seen in Psi*run. How does it work? You collect d6s according to your abilities and the situation, roll them all, and assign a die to each of the necessary tables: Success, Injury, Luggage, Magic... Depending on the situation, you'll need to fill in more or fewer tables, and choose where to allocate your good and bad results.
Characters are created in a very narrative way, by choosing a past, an occupation and relationships. More or less positive. Luggage. People we protect. People we seek out. People who seek us out. The creation of the characters skillfully blends narrative and mechanical construction.
I really like the concept of the Guests. In the campaign, these are pre-started characters that can be supplied to a player arriving just for an evening. There's a whole bunch of them, with concepts like the actress who only plays monsters on screen, the awake statue or the surfer who's a little too tanned.
Moonlight on Roseville Beach is available, in french, at Éditions Spectrum. It is also available in english at R.Rook Games.
Butter Princess, by Brian Sago
Butter Princess is an incursion for Trophy Dark. A descent into hell in five circles for characters doomed in advance. All for the sake of a Butter Princess, a butter bust representing the winner of a beauty pageant. Set in the present day. In Minnesota. And there really is such a thing...
So we'll be playing characters who attend Minnesota's State Fair in order to steal a bust carved in butter. You might think of it as a setting for Fiasco, but no, this is Trophy Dark. There's no real fantasy (just a few micro touches). The horror isn't directly visible either, but it lurks in these pages all the same.
The layout is unsettling. Firstly, with its very stretched format, but also with these images, which sometimes produce a very Americana horror, very folk horror, where butter is predominant. In the organization of the script, there's also a nice escalation in the horror of this kind of event. The temperature rises, the butter melts and permeates everything. The crowd crushes the individual, and the absurd breaks down the characters' resistance.
The horror is there, and no character will emerge from this day unscathed. Just what you'd expect from a Trophy Dark incursion.
To find out more about Butter Princess, listen to the dedicated Fear of a Black Dragon podcast episode.
Butter Princess is available on itch.io.
The Mithril Mines of Airgead Canyon, by Gabriel McCormick
I'll probably have to say a bit more about Trophy Gold soon. Which I've already reviewed in these pages. And that I'm rediscovering by diving back in.
The convention "Colloque de Bob le Rôliste" took place in Nantes last weekend, and I got it into my head to play Trophy Gold in the afternoon. But for that, I needed a short incursion, quick to set in motion, fairly classic yet well suited to the game.
I was directed to these mithril mines, and the reading convinced me that this was a good candidate. An intro that wastes no time and gets the risks explored. Three distinct zones, each with its own atmosphere and objectives. A build-up of tension, and tropes well exploited, while at the same time subverting some of them. Just what I needed.
The scenario is fairly classic. A mithril mine abandoned a few years ago following a massacre at its heart. An abandoned place with difficult access. Claustrophobic underground exploration. A twist for the climax with a hell of a challenge to get out in good condition.
My players didn't go all the way, preferring to retreat once some meagre loot was in their pockets. Then, thanks to the one-shot nature of the game, the conclusion almost turned into Trophy Dark, with the group breaking up and betraying each other.
Would you like to discover Trophy Gold in a classic and effective way? These mithril mines will do the trick!
The Mithril Mines of Airgead Canyon is available on itch.io