Modern (horror, occult)
Politically Incorrect Games
2003
Complexity: 3
Y’all ready for some spooky ghost story themed role-playing? Well then Ghost Stories, I guess technically does offer that, but it’s really more of a general occult horror game. That being said, it does have something to offer in terms of some casual spooky gaming.
Setting: N/A
Okay, so I’ve decided that I’m not going to bother writing up reviews of modern settings anymore unless they vary at least moderately from the real world, or provide a very specific setting. I just don’t feel like writing “it’s like the real world, but with ghosts and stuff,” over and over and over.
Character Creation: 3/5
Primary attributes can be generated via d6 roll roll or a point-buy system, skills are then bought with points. There’s also ‘optional’ backgrounds for characters, which I have a bit of an issue with because some of them grant bonuses to checks or access to special abilities, while others give no benefit. Special abilities are treated as skills, in that each specific ability must be bought with skill points rather than just as one blanket skill.
Mechanics: 2/5
Checks are made by rolling and adding together 2d6, which may be modified with bonus or penalty dice. Both bonus and penalty dice add to dice rolled, but the presence of bonus dice means only the two lowest dice results are kept, and the two highest with penalty dice—bonus and penalty dice cancel each other out, so it’s impossible to have both on a single roll. Now this makes perfect sense once you know that this is a roll-under system, and the goal is to roll equal to or under the combined value of the relevant attribute and skill—something the book doesn’t mention until a chapter after explaining bonus/penalty dice. There are also ‘optional’ advanced task resolution rules, and by ‘optional’ I mean the rest of the rules are written assuming you’re using them. Advance rolls add a difficulty level and require you to subtract your roll from the target to determine a ‘margin,’ a ‘challenging’ task requires a margin of 3 or higher and an ‘impossible’ task a margin of 6 or higher. I can’t really say why that wouldn’t just be handled by adding a penalty to rolls instead—there's a special symbol used to bonus/penalty dice, so there wouldn’t be confusion between the two penalty types. Now fortunately there’s also a handy chart on the character sheet where you can just look up your margin relative to difficulty and determine your success level—values for success levels are only given on this table, but are a ‘triumph’ at a margin of +4 higher than minimum for success. Unfortunately, the values on the table are different than the ones given in the rules, giving a required margin for challenging and impossible tasks of 2 and 4 respectively, rather than 3 and 6. Ne thing I find interesting is that special abilities—magic and whatnot—hove no real limitation on use—i.e. no mana points, spells per day, etc—and are instead balanced by requiring a large investment of skill points, and just not being overpowered in general.
Writing and Presentation: 3/5
This book is written strangely, the best way I can describe it is that it seems like there was a conscious effort made to try and make the game seem more complex than it actually is. Things are written in the longest way possible—okay, yes, I too have been known to, on occasion, use slightly less than what one might consider to be the most concise possible wording for the given situation—terms are defined and then never used again, and they make up special symbols for things for which they really aren’t necessary. It just feel like the author is trying to impress us with how #professional they are. But once you get past that, the ideas are conveyed, and they are understandable, and I only noticed two errors.
The layout is aesthetically pleasing overall, with some nice geometric embellishments and nicely laid out text and tables. I’m pretty sure this is just the publisher’s standard layout, but it doesn’t make it less nice. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have complaints though. One issue is that there isn’t really much strong separation sections, which can make the whole document kind of bleed together. But my bigger issue is that content is definitely not presented in the best order. Like, they discuss character attributes, skills, backgrounds, and special abilities, then just tack on the character creation rules at the end of the chapter. And the very first thing in the main document text is that the game uses two dice added together and explains how bonuses and penalties work, but not how rolls are made. Now this information is relevant, as some backgrounds and abilities involve bonuses and/or penalties, but this is the only point where they’re ever explained, in a small preface before the first chapter. There are however a good number of summary tables that do help keep track of the scattered information.
[It's worth noting that the paragraph regarding magical misfires is nearly identical to the one in Evil Dead D6, since Evil Dead D6 came out in 2002 and this in 2003, I'm assuming they both took it from a third source, but until I know what that source is I won't make any harsh judgements.]
Content: 2/3 [•]
The best and most notable thing in Ghost Stories is the three types of special abilities included—ESP, sorcery, and faith-based—which manage to each be distinct, rather than just different names for magic. I particularly like the faith-based abilities, sure there’s the standard healing, creating light, purify food and drink, etc, but also things like inspiring members of your faith to help them avoid getting spooked and forming a congregation to strengthen the faith-based abilities of its members. This feels more ‘faithy’ than just being “magic, but from a deity.” There’s also a number of pre-made characters and short adventures included, which are always a good thing to have—especially for introducing new players to a game, or the hobby in general. And the monsters, well, they’re technically there too. For the most part monsters are only given a description and one or two special abilities, with it being stated that the game-master can just make up stats if they need them. That’s cool I guess, I mean it’s not like designing game content is literally a game designer’s job or anything. Thanks for explaining what a zombie is, I guess I’ll just take it from there.
Final Remarks
Ghost Stories feels much more like an occult supplement than it does a complete game. It’s not really missing anything that would prevent it from being a complete game, but just comes across very lackluster.
Base Points: 8
Character Creation: 3/5, Mechanics: 2/5, Presentation: 3/5
Adjustments: +0
Setting: N/A, Writing: +0, Content: +0
Overall Score 53% (8/15 Points)
2spooky4monster stats.
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