RPGPundit Reviews: Conspiracy of Shadows

Conspiracy of Shadows, by Keith Senkowski, is my first review of the new year.  Its a pity that its a neat little medieval conspiracy horror game with no actual conspiracy, and too many Forgisms instead.

I mean, this game could have been really good. It has a medieval fantasy setting based on Poland, which is way cooler than the overdone anglo-franco-german setting for medieval fantasy. And I say this not just as someone of Polish blood, but because it is a setting that is recognizable but exotic to the standard gamer tastes.

And, mostly, Senkowski does a good job of that. Judging by his last name, its of personal interest to him, too.
But unfortunately, you can pretty well read all the instances where his Forge-influences were allowed to utterly fuck up the system. And, in my eye, it seems like first he made the system, then he tacked on the Forgisms.  The system itself is nothing out of this world or radically Swinish, only certain rules are. This smacks to me of Senkowski trying to put in these rules based on whatever is hip at the Forge right now, just to be fashionable. I note that the version I'm reviewing is the "revised" edition; which leads me to wonder if the original edition was marvelously Forgism-free, or if the Forge influence was there right from the start?
In any case, this game is NOT a Storygame; its clearly an RPG, its just a perfect example of how real RPGs can get ruined if the people writing them get confused and subverted by GNS-gobbledygook.

And then, the final clincher for my disappointment in this game is that it hints at a setting where the characters become aware of a dark conspiracy brewing in the pseudo-polish kingdom, trying to subvert the nation, with all of the gaming goodness that it implies. Except, in the end, there's no actual fucking conspiracy.  Just a bunch of supernatural creatures doing nasty things in general; but no master plan, no dark secret, no people in high places that can't be trusted, none of it. Hell, the game's intro says "CoS is a role-playing game that places characters in an underground cell in order to fight an insidious conspiracy in a gritty medieval world".

Gritty medieval world? Check. Pretty cool.
underground cell? Check. The cell creation rules are pretty cool.
"insidious conspiracy"? Um... well... no.

The actual structure of the PDF is fine, it runs fine, its illustrations are all black-and-white, but they're nice enough (if few in numbers) and fitting to the genre.
The layout of the game is fairly confusing though; stuff like Combat being explained before character creation, things like that. There are also a few minor typos of the "teh instead of the" variety.

The basic system is very straightforward: roll 2D6+attribute+skill. Nothing out of the ordinary here; no wicker baskets or pogs or hula hoops or other gimmicky crap that the Forge seems to love. But in the section on "conflict resolution" we get to our first unfortunate Forgism: the idea that in conflict resolution the winner (be it a player, another player, or the GM) gets to dictate the what happens as a result of a roll. That's GM country you're stepping on there. Still, this is something that can very easily be changed back to re-empowering the GM, which is incidentally even more preferable when you're talking about a fucking HORROR game.

Combat itself is mostly fine; though it would have benefited from a quick guideline at the beginning of the various steps and mechanics.  There's another forgism, all "conflict resolution" has to be exactly the same; so there's ideologically a motivation NOT TO be more careful in explaining combat steps, even though that kind of conflict resolution is likely to be much more significant in this game than most others.  Instead, we get an intentional confusion borne of an ideological desire to downplay combat in comparison to other actions.  Which is monumentally stupid, given that the game itself clearly considers combat important; important enough that Senkowski bothers to detail various special "combat maneuvres" (stunts like charging, feinting, stun attacks, etc), and damage ratings etc etc.
It also creates one of the most unintentionally silly moments in the book.  You see, part of that Forge "combat shouldn't be emphasized", "all mechanics are (equal) conflict resolution" mentality seems to include the idea that all "conflict resolution modifiers" should be lumped all together.  So we have the "weapons and armor" section, which is clearly meant to imply modifiers for all sorts of conflicts, but mostly consists of lists of medieval weapons and armour to modify actual combat.  Even so, one of the most powerful "weapons" available there is "church authority"! It gives you a whopping +3 (against opponents of the same faith), so apparently the best possible warriors out there would be priests, who would be able to kick the shit out of not only an unarmed warrior, but would even do far better than a warrior armed with, say, a war club (which only grants a +1), or even a sword (+2).  And god help you if the priest should also happen to be armed with anything over and above "church authority"!
I mean, fuck, clearly the intention of the author was to imply that priests received a bonus to social checks, and not to combat.  But because he'd swallowed Ron Edward's koolaid, he wasn't allowed to say that. Instead, he had to turn his game into a laughing stock. How sad.

On the whole the basic combat system is fine, it looks like it would be nice solid and firmly rooted in traditional RPGs (which only makes its Forgicization all the more unfortunate). It even has a couple of neat little innovations, like the idea of "momentum" (whereby on his turn a character can take up to four rolling actions, so long as he keeps succeeding at each action, and thus continues to have momentum; if he fails, his turn ends).

There's also the little detail that your character can't actually die in combat unless the player chooses to. You'd think that this might be something else I'd rail against, but really its not. Its this combined with disempowering a GM that could be dangerous, but by itself I don't really have any beef with the idea that in certain RPGs a character shouldn't just die "randomly".  Any GM worth his salt, running a real RPG where he has authority, could certainly pick any number of fates worse than death for a PC.

Being meant to be a good horror game, there have to be sanity rules.  And there are, in this case called "taint"; but they are much more clearly inspired by Unknown Armies than Call of Cthulhu. Not that there's anything wrong with that; UA has very neat sanity rules. Like UA, in CoS you gain different levels of "taint", each level of which makes you harder and more vulnerable at the same time; it gives you a "positive" quality and a "negative quality".  The higher your overall level of taint, the easier it is to develop some kind of temporary or permanent insanity.

Everything I've talked about up till now (combat, "conflict resolution", initiative, insanity, etc.) takes up the first 26 pages of the 154 page PDF. Its only at page 27 that we get to the actual character creation process.  There are a couple of interesting mechanics presented in character creation:  namely "piety" and "doom".  You couldn't have a good RPG in set in fantasy Poland (or any Poland for that matter) where faith wasn't a big deal. Much less a horror game set in fantasy Poland. The Poles are some of the most religious people in the world.  As such, you assign a piety rating to your character that affects his rolls where he is acting for and staying true to his faith.
Your "doom" is a vague description of your character's eventual grisly end. At any point a character can gain a point of Doom in order to immediately "end a conflict in his favour".  However, when the PC reaches 6 points of Doom the GM will then bring the character's doom into play, and the character gains a penalty of -6 to all his actions from then on.

Character creation itself is point-buy, and the attributes are all quite traditional (Fortitude, Reflex, Knowledge, Temperment).  The skills are likewise pretty traditional, and bought with points.

But one of the really neat aspects of the game is the rules for "cell creation".  Essentially, this could be modified to fit any kind of "adventuring party creation" if you wanted to play a more straightforward fantasy game.  Cell creation is the process by which you define what resources the group as a whole has. Depending on the social class each character picks upon creation, each character gets a number of "asset points".  These points are then used to buy resources for the whole group, all pooled together. Sample resources include affiliations (like to a noble house or a merchant company), useful allies, occult artifacts, equipment, real estate, mentors, magic rituals, and much more.

And right after that really awesome mechanic, we get a couple of other obvious Forgisms that try to dictate how the game is played: a "group trust" mechanic (that tries to enforce the players co-operating with each other), and the monumentally stupid concept of "kickers", where each character gets to dictate to the GM exactly what action-packed way he wants to be introduced into the game. Fuck those.

By page 50 we get to the section on the Supernatural, and more specifically the Witchblooded, which are people with innate magical abilities (who are of course highly suspected by anyone in authority, so usually act in secret). Players have the option of risking playing a witchblood, and there's a good amount of sample powers they could choose from. Then we get a section on ritual magic, that is also very well done with a lot of good examples. No problems here.

Finally, we have a section on "Supernatural Complications", which, I guess, is the cheesy pretentious Forge word for what any of the rest of us would call "monsters".  Perhaps they think that Monsters isn't a politically correct term anymore? I don't know. Other than the title, there's really nothing wrong with this section; again, lots of good examples abound.

The next chapter is all about "The Conspiracy". Great! The Conspiracy! A really central part of the game setting, I would hope.. what kind of dark motherfucking monstrosity is rotting away at Fantasy Poland from the inside? Let's read along:

The heart of Conspiracy of Shadows is the conspiracy itself.

Fucking right! Yeah! Woo Hoo! It says so right in the name of the game! There's only two things we need to know about Conspiracy of Shadows, and one of those is that its a conspiracy! Yes!

It is the sinister organization that the characters are trying to thwart.

Yes! Fuck yeah! Let's thwart those bastards! Oh man, this is going to be good...

However, there is no set conspiracy in this game.

Yeah! Woohoo.. wait.. what? WHAT THE FUCK?!?

I mean, really. What a fucking cop out.  Its just bad form. Instead of actually having the balls to think up a conspiracy, Senkowski gives you "guidelines to create your own conspiracy" or some shit like that. I mean for fuck's sake, let's skip out on the one part of the setting that is so utterly and absolutely central to the game that its what makes up the fucking title.

Instead, we get a relatively ok toolkit to make up our own conspiracy.  Really, I think it would have been better to have actually given us one big conspiracy, or a number of small ones, AND give us the toolkit. As it is, it just smacks of a kind of intellectual cowardice on the author's part.

The toolkit itself is, as I said, ok. It gives you a few possible sources for the conspiracy ("trade guilds" i.e. the Freemasons being at the top of the list; city government and religious institutions being the other two options), gives you a couple of options for what the conspiracy would do to the PC group if they know of their existence (destroy them, or infiltrate them), and a list of "stuff conspiracies do" (like.. "assassination" and "sabotage").  This is really nothing that one couldn't have figured out for one's self.  There's nothing spectacularly useful here, which makes the absence of an actual in-setting conspiracy all the more disappointing.

After this we get a section on "GM advice" about running a campaign, with lots of Forgey stuff about "themes" and "screen presence", and how CoS "is built around the idea of collaborative play with both the players and Game Master constructing the shared imaginary space".  Fuck that. Fuck shared imaginary space. Also, Keith, I think you're lying: Too much of what I read from this game hints to me that it started as a bog-standard decent RPG that got a bunch of Forge crap about "shared imaginary space" tacked onto it at the end because you wanted to suck Ron Edward's cock. I've seen games that were designed from the get-go to be GNS-filled Forgearamas and this game doesn't read like one of them. I bet many of the Forge Swine will end up criticizing parts of it for being "not Forgey enough".

There's some shit after that about how to construct adventures, how to add flavour to people or places, stuff that is a mix of conventional RPG wisdom and Forge shibboleths. There's little or nothing here that will be news to anyone experienced in running Horror RPGs, and other books have written this stuff better; then again, others have done it worse too.

By page 107 we get to the details of the fantasy world of Polian.  Like I said already, the core setting is a fantasy version of medieval Poland, something I find very cool, since medieval Polish culture was on the one hand similar to but on the other hand quite different from medieval France, Germany, or England.  Poland was, throughout the middle ages, both the gateway to and the bulwark against the East. It defended western europe from all comers, and was basically the end of the Catholic world for a very long time. It was at the same time a culture that maintained its own strong uniqueness, had different concepts of social hierarchy, and in certain forms a more egalitarian society than the rest of western europe.  There was more upward mobility (though within limits, it was still medieval europe after all). It also had a truly unique system of government, with both serious flaws and great virtues.
In the game setting, you have the default nation of the Valadrin (who are basically Poles), the Vors (who are the remnants of this setting's equivalent of the Roman Empire, and are basically like the Italian city-states), the Norderin (this world's post-viking scandinavians), and the Narrlachi, which are a kind of cross between Mongols and Turks.
The religions of the setting are also very important, obviously, and you get a Polian version of the Catholic Church (with all the wonderful stuff that came with medieval catholicism, like the obsession with saints and relics), the Cathar heresy, a couple of different "old pagan" faiths (one norse, the other more like the strega cults), and a kind of polytheistic version of Islam.

The sections on the history of the setting and the geography are very complete, with details of the different lands, their people, and folklore, and there's a simple but adequate map. In all, the setting is excellent, too bad it lacks an actual conspiracy. Ah, well.

For reasons that will soon become apparent, I will give my conclusions about this game in the reverse of my usual order:

The Ugly: The way an otherwise decent system is plagued with all kinds of tacked-on nonsense from Forge gaming Theory.

The Bad:  The fact that a game about an occult conspiracy doesn't actually come with a default occult conspiracy.

The Good: The fact that both of these things can actually be rectified by a GM that is willing to go to the trouble of doing so.  Strip away the Forge stuff, and the basic rules are mostly quite good.  Add in some kind of conspiracy, and the setting itself is great and treads ground not often covered in Fantasy RPGs.

In all, I want to like this game. I think it can be salvaged. Its unfortunate that it has the flaws it has, but those flaws are not insurmountable. The system at its core is very good, and mainstream once you take out the Forgisms.  The setting is well worth checking-out. But never have I seen a clearer case of how everything that's really good about this game is there DESPITE the input of Forge nonsense, and not because of it. Everything that is added to get one's Forge Groovy Card punched makes the game poorer.  I hope Mr. Senkowski wakes up to this fact, and makes his next "revised revised" edition into a mainstream game that shrugs off all the drivel he felt obliged to tack onto the game.

Oh, and next time, put in a fucking conspiracy.  Either that or change the game's title, for christssake.

RPGPundit

Of the Forgie games I own this is by far my favorite one. It would have been nice to have a default conspiracy though. Funny enough it seemed less forgie than others I own.

I don't know about whether CoS was written before Keith joined the Forge, but it is one of the few games coming out of the Forge that I like, probably because I can strip out the crap or ignore it and get to the good stuff. Keith is also a damned good person, a real nice guy, so that helps. I have to agree that he should have put in a conspiracy and left in the conspiracy generator - best of both worlds - and beefed up the generator a lot. Another excellent review, Pundit!

-clash

The setting sounds awesome!  Is the setting material alone worth the price of admission?

I would say it would be yes, especially considering that the rules, de-Forgified, are not bad.

RPGPundit

I've long been a fan of CoS and, to be honest, part of me wonders if Keith's affiliation with the Forge hasn't kept the game from finding a wider audience. I know people who are not interested in the game because of that affiliation -- not because of anything that Keith has done, mind you, but because of the horribly bad publc image that people like Clinton Nixon, Jared Sorensen, and Ron Edwards have foisted upon the entore community. That makes me sad.

Thanks for the review.  Just to clarify, I wrote the first edition and was just about finished with it prior to finding the Forge, though it was definately influenced by Sorcerer and Sorcerer & Sword, which I had bought the year prior at my local game store.

As for the lack of a conspiracy, I understand why folks have issue with it.  I had written one originally, way back when, but left it out purposfully.  I can look back now and see that it was honestly my reaction to my disappointment with the meta-plot of the World of Darkness stuff (and let's be honest, it wasn't sop much a meta-plot as it was fucking bad, bad fiction).  If I had it to do all over again, I would include three different conspiracies plus the beefed up generator (which is on my site now along with a bunch of other shit).

Clash stop it... You are making me blush...

James, we have traded PMs on the subject of the affects of affiliation (in particular my affiliation) with the Forge.  It might be something to pursue on another thread (or here).  I've often thought that one of the contributing factors to my struggle for garnering wider appeal is that I am associated with the Forge, but do not really have a game that has more in common with tradditional games.  Burning Wheel I would site as the example of the opposite (association, but wide appeal).

Ah yes, classic highschool review: "I didn't understand parts of this, so the author is an asshole and I'm going to talk trash about him. I know, I'll accuse him of being an intellectually dishonest homosexual. That'll score points with the jocks and the cool girls."

Keith's a friend of mine, so personally, I'm fucking insulted by this shit you talk. But more than that, I'm embarrassed by your paternalistic, ignorant, myopic excuse for an opinion.

You accuse Conspiracy of Shadows of failing to provide a great conspiracy. Let me retrieve my Call of Cthulhu (5th edition) book and reference it...

Where's the section on how to build a conspiracy? Why, I'm shocked, there isn't one! One pages 72 to 73 there's a bunch of vague claptrap about Keeper Strategy and Maxims: "Stoke your love for the mysterious..." which follows with advice for using funny voices, "Mythos always corrupts or injures" followed by "Acquiring Mythos knowledge should never be bland or routine;" then the brilliant advice, "Don't kill investigators off-handedly." Genius. And similarly profound, "Give motive to the investigators."

Lynn and Sandy really go to town there and create a classic, eh? The example scenario they provide isn't even one from the game. They simply summarize "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." It reminds of the GW painting guides where they show you the primed piece, then base coated, then beautifully detailed and finished. Thanks guys, I think we missed a few steps.

You see? Even the greatest horror conspiracy game of all time doesn't provide you with the tools to build your own. It simply assumes you're familiar with the source material. Which is, in my opinion, a huge failing in game design.

At least Conspiracy of Shadows makes a solid attempt to put the tools of creation and manipulation into the hands of the GM and the players. This is far more than any of the CoC or WW stuff ever did. The only place that Conspiracy of Shadows falls down is that it doesn't provide a good example of the process. However, the game is supported by an extensive wiki and good forums, so such can easily be had.

The point here, is that the review is clouded by obscene bias and lacks real knowledge of roleplaying games as a medium -- both via actual play and historically. It's merely a sophmore opinion piece written by a child who can't be arsed not to curse, belittle, bully or do any research -- like playing the game.

-L

"I didn't like this review, so I'll just make every possible logical fallacy I can!"

:rolleyes:

Quote from: keith senkowskiAs for the lack of a conspiracy, I understand why folks have issue with it.  I had written one originally, way back when, but left it out purposfully.  I can look back now and see that it was honestly my reaction to my disappointment with the meta-plot of the World of Darkness stuff (and let's be honest, it wasn't sop much a meta-plot as it was fucking bad, bad fiction).  If I had it to do all over again, I would include three different conspiracies plus the beefed up generator (which is on my site now along with a bunch of other shit)

So, how good is the "conspiracy generator" in this game?

I think if it kicks ass, that might actually be a plus for me. I hate fluff and I believe gamers know best what will appeal to them and their group.

Since you are saying that in retrospect you would also include conspiracies, does that mean you aren't satisfied with it, or is it more a case of trying to satisfy more customers?

Anyway, I think it was a great idea! Would like to know how it was implemented.

Luke,

I don't even know why you bother to read the Pundits reviews. Normal Pundy pounds on games that have even the slightest forge smell to them.  For CoS though I think he actually liked the game for the most part.

The more you post here the less respect I have for you and your games. Try being less of an asshat. :fu2:

Quote from: Consonant DudeSo, how good is the "conspiracy generator" in this game?

I think if it kicks ass, that might actually be a plus for me. I hate fluff and I believe gamers know best what will appeal to them and their group.

Since you are saying that in retrospect you would also include conspiracies, does that mean you aren't satisfied with it, or is it more a case of trying to satisfy more customers?

Anyway, I think it was a great idea! Would like to know how it was implemented.

Not that I am disatisfied.  I just think it would satisfy more customers as well as serve as an example of how you can use the conspiracy generator/toolkit.

You can actually read the conspiracy generator/toolkit on my wiki here.  The game material is under the creative commons license (but not the setting material) so all the rules and stuff are posted on the site free.

Wow. Luke did it.
Again.

Quote from: lukeAh yes, classic highschool review: "I didn't understand parts of this, so the author is an asshole and I'm going to talk trash about him. I know, I'll accuse him of being an intellectually dishonest homosexual. That'll score points with the jocks and the cool girls."

Keith's a friend of mine, so personally, I'm fucking insulted by this shit you talk. But more than that, I'm embarrassed by your paternalistic, ignorant, myopic excuse for an opinion.

You accuse Conspiracy of Shadows of failing to provide a great conspiracy. Let me retrieve my Call of Cthulhu (5th edition) book and reference it...

Where's the section on how to build a conspiracy? Why, I'm shocked, there isn't one!

-L

It's not "Conspiracy of Cthulhu..."

Geez.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIt's not "Conspiracy of Cthulhu..."

I'll totally name my next character "Chtulhu Rothschild"...