Crustaceum Games
1986
Introduction
Creeks and Crawdads is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game with a twist, no rugged armored sports car driving heroes, no scantily-clad three-breasted pyrokinetic mutant babes, no cyborg bears with laser eyes, just sapient crawdads. Yes, in this world only the lowliest creatures survived the atomic war and you play as hyper-intelligent mutated crawdads. Just to be clear here, when I say “hyper-intelligent” I of course mean by crawdad standards, by human standards they’re profoundly stupid. For example, the most intelligent crawdads have the noteworthy abilities of being able to count to 7, remember how many members are in their group and all their names, and remember things for several “sleeps.” So let’s dive in—okay I swear that’s the only aquatic pun—and check it out.
Setting: 3/3 [+]
As unique and interesting as the setting is, it’s fairly straightforward: you are semi-intelligent crawdads living in a creek. Environmental specifics are almost non-existent, and it’s even stated that the crawdads aren’t likely to know of places they haven't been or remember places they have. The majority of the game’s world is defined by the stupidity of the crawdads and how they interact, which is humorously illustrated with a number of examples. The game’s monsters also keep up with the “survival of the lowliest” theme, providing a selection of creatures that’s almost entirely devoid of vertebrates. Some monsters also provide other small bits of world-building lore—such as mentioning that mutant clams have a rudimentary barter system.
Unfortunately, I feel that I cannot adequately explain just how fun this setting is without quoting large sections of text from the book, so I’m just going to move on.
Character Creation: 3/5
PCs—player crawdads—are given a choice of three professions: fighter, tool-user, and thinker, who specialize in—shockingly—fighting, tool use/creation, and thinking respectively. A crawdad’s profession affects what and how many dice are rolled for generating each of the crawdad’s nine characteristics—Strength, Dexterity, Fighting Ability, Tool Use, Intelligence, Awareness, Constitution, Armor Protection, and Speed. While that may seem like a lot of attributes for a “beer and pretzels” game, they’re the only hard mechanical stats—no skills or anything along those lines—so it kinda evens out.
Mechanics: 3/5
Specialization Is the name of the game—well, technically the name of the game is Creeks and Crawdads—and in general PCs are restricted to only the most simple of tasks within their profession. As you may have suspected from the fact that thinking is a special skill, Intelligence checks are required to do anything outside those most basic of tasks. Basically, “If you think of an idea that seems clever, you’ll have to roll to do it”. For example, the process of sharpening a stick to use as a weapon may require a thinker to make a successful Intelligence check to realize that a pointy stick does more damage, then another to figure out that a regular stick could be made into a pointy stick. Next a the thinker would have to explain the idea to a tool-user, who would need to make a successful Intelligence check to understand the concept of transforming a non-pointy stick into a pointy one, then a tool use check to actually point the stick. Additionally, it is possible—and likely—that any such discoveries will be forgotten if the idea isn’t constantly reinforced. From the previous example: the entire scenario is entirely possible even if they had previously used or created pointy sticks, but not recently. This also opens up possibilities like arriving in a new village and forgetting that it isn’t your home, getting distracted in the middle of an adventure and just kind of wondering off, or waking up and not recognizing a tool you made the previous day. Now I realize that having to constantly roll to do anything that isn’t stupid and constantly forgetting how to do those things sounds like an infuriating mess, and if it does you’re missing the point.
Generally, skill checks are made by rolling 3d6, attempting to roll equal to or lower than relevant attribute. Bonuses and penalties—in the form of dice or static modifiers—are added based on difficulty, how familiar the action is, and whether or not it relates to the PC’s profession. Combat is resolved similarly with both parties making Fighting Ability—or Tool Use if a tool user using a tool—checks, a combatants attack hits if their check was successful and their opponent’s was not, or if both checks were successful and their roll was higher. This may seem counter-intuitive as it gives the advantage to the player with the worse roll, but it also statistically favors the character with the higher Fighting Ability. There are also a set of fairly complex movement rules, but the author more-or-less says not to use them, so I’m not going to bother.
My only real complaints are an insistence that a hex map and miniatures aren’t necessary, despite giving multiple indications that they are, and a lack of specification of monster size—which I guess you would only need if map and miniatures were necessary.
Writing and Presentation: 4/5
This is one funny book, sure there’s the occasional “I’m the designer and all I care about is that you bought my book” joke, but in general the content is presented humorously without sacrificing clarity—although some rules can take a few read throughs to fully get the hang of. The author makes it clear throughout that the rules are guidelines and shouldn’t get in the way of fun, which I’m pretty sure is the intended purpose of games. Numerous gameplay examples help to show not only the mechanics, but the depths of idiocy that you’re encouraged to sink to. Also notable is the “Taking the Game Seriously” section, which literally just says “don’t.”
The rules are laid out in numbered sections and lettered subsections which makes for a easy reading and reference. Unfortunately, there are more than a few big editing oversights, like a couple places where something from a previous section is referenced as being in a later one, references to a “MA” stat—which I believe must have been an earlier name for Speed—and general obvious typos. That being said, I am reviewing the PDF version and don’t know if said errors appear in other ones.
Well I guess every game has to have a weak point, and this is this one’s. Illustrations are sparse, and while some are nice others look like they were made by an amateur on a mid-80s computer—which they probably were. There’s also one illustration of a crawdad that’s used four different times, and while I assume this was done for comedic purposes it just doesn’t come across that way. Also, there’s things that should really have illustrations but don’t—like the mutant clams with arms and legs who are noted as being advanced tool users… Actually, I’m just going to go ahead and draw that myself.
Content: 2/3 [•]
Aside from the core rules, the only content is the selection of monsters. That being said, there are 20+ monsters included, which is far more than you’d expect from the silly little post-apocalyptic crawdad game—although I would prefer having them in alphabetical order. Honestly, I wouldn’t fault them for having half that many.
Creeks and Crawdads is dumb stupid fun, if you’re someone who can only play to win then it is not for you, but if you’re the type who would voluntarily fail checks if the outcome was funny, then I’m pretty sure you’re exactly who this game was made for. And even if you have no interest in playing such a game, the book is still definitely worth a read.
Base Points: 9
Character Creation: 3/5, Mechanics: 3/5, Presentation: 3/5
Adjustments: +2
Setting: +1, Writing: +1, Content: +0
Overall Score 73% (11/15 Points)
Good if you like fun, bad if you only care about winning.
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