Macabre Tales... A Review (Part I)

Macabre Tales is a .pdf book written by Cynthia Celeste Miller and released through Spectrum Games.  For the record, this is my third purchase from the company and I do not know Cynthia, though I was an early play tester for the WWE - Know Your Role role-playing game, a game for which she was one of the writers.

The Quick Review For Those Attention Disorders...

It is a unique take on Lovecraftian Horror...  A back-to-the-beginning approach with no inspiration that doesn't come from H. P. Lovecraft's own pen.  It has a lot of elements that might turn away prospective players...  It is designed for a single player, it uses dominoes instead of dice and it is heavily grounded in the three-act model of storytelling.  All that said, it is a bold and unapologetic purist wonder of a game.

OVERALL GRADE-A

The Real Review...

Dubbed “a role-playing game of Lovecraftian horror”, the cover and introductory pages look like the pulp fantasy magazines that published H. P. Lovecraft’s assorted works during his career.  From the very start I like this approach.  While the rest of the book has little in the way of art, this style helps carry the style of the era and the fiction just fine.

The book begins with “The Statement of Randolph Carter”, a tale of terror by H. P. Lovecraft.  Chaosium are in the habit of including Lovecraft’s short stories at the beginning of books these days too, and I personally find it a good choice to present players with a little sample of the inspirational material behind these games.

Part One – Welcome to the Arkham Cycle

We begin with a brief word about Lovecraft, his writing and the role-playing games based upon it.  There is also a word about using the less encompassing “Arkham Cycle” instead of the seemingly all-inclusive “Cthulhu Mythos”.

Next, we hit the major factors differentiating this game from its contemporaries...  Macabre Tales focus on one-on-one player-centric play and the use of dominoes instead of dice.  This is not overlong, but just a quick look into Cynthia’s reasoning and design decisions.

We get the obligatory “What is a Role-Playing Game?”, which I’m certain is not needed but takes up only slightly more than a single page anyway.  To be entirely fair, it is a reasonable snippet of a play session, with as much of the word count dedicated to explaining the duties of the Referee (Narrator here) and player.

Finally, we get a discussion of Lovecraftian Horror.  This is a couple of pages dedicated to establishing the core aspects of almost all of his true horror tales...  Pessimism, contact with forbidden secrets, terrifying encounters with hidden horrors that are incomprehensibly alien and so on.  These few pages are excellent!  Capturing what really makes eldritch and cosmic horror so wonderful for fans and aiding players approach the game with the right mindset.

This chapter is better than that in Call of Cthulhu, where the attitude is “Go read the books”.  I mean obviously anyone playing any Lovecraft-inspired game ought to read the books, but I do like Macabre Tales taking the time to introduction to his work and fictional world.

Part Two – The Game Rules

Interestingly, the three-act structure of storytelling crops up right here at the start of the rules.  The game becomes more dangerous and potentially climactic as the player moves through the acts, enforcing the narrative style of the game.

Now we get into familiar role-playing game territory, statistics!  There are three statistics and many aspects in which a player’s character may specialize.  These traits are quite broad, with Body controlling all physical aspects of a character, Mind controlling the mental aspects, and Soul the spiritual and social.

Statistics have a simple grading system (normal, good and excellent), while aspects have a rating between one and five.  Very simply, statistic grade determines which domino face a player counts towards an action and the aspect rating is a bonus.

Of note, Macabre Tales has the “Forbidden Truths” aspect, representing knowledge of the supernatural.  Just like “Cthulhu Mythos”, a player character cannot begin play with this aspect.  For gaming purposes, this makes sense, though it does not reflect the fiction.

Dominoes are used conjunction with statistic grades and aspect ratings to make checks.  Only important acts warrant checks.  A player has three dominoes in hand to choose from, discarding them and replacing them over the course of play.

Ordinarily, NPC roles succeed or fail as determined by the Ref’, but opposed checks are possible, as are extended checks for long-term tasks such as research.

In brief, the core system is simple enough.  There are a few special instances for blank and double dominoes, but everything else seems easy with a single read through.  I cannot really say the use of dominoes over dice seems entirely warranted...  I do not think there is anything in Macabre Tales that would prevent you just using two differently coloured six-sided dice instead.  However, this is a review and not an actual play and it may be that the dominoes are less of a gimmick than they seem when used at the table.

As true blow-by-blow combat is almost entirely absent in Lovecraft’s fiction, it always seemed strange that Call of Cthulhu had so many rules dedicated to fighting.  I suppose that is simply the close association with early D&D showing through.  In Macabre Tales, the approach is somewhat different...  Instead of combat rounds, we have “Tension Scenes”.

The Ref’ calls for a tension scene when the player faces terrible danger, the risk of death or madness at the discovery of horrific secrets.  Each tension scene has the potential to END THE GAME!  Read that again...  Any tension scene can be a few minutes away from you putting character sheets away and going home!  This is especially true of tension scenes in Act 3 of an adventure.

Momentum”.  Whether this is fighting, fleeing, or some other combination of desperate actions intended to keep the character alive and sane depends on the scene.  However, once the dominoes are played, the scene closes, and if the player did not keep momentum above zero, that is it!  The Referee ends the game with an appropriate epilogue...

This approach to potentially deadly (or sanity shaking) encounters is certainly unique and is true to the fiction in a way no other role-playing game has been before.  However, it is quite different to how many players will be used to resolving combat, I think it will surprise even experienced Call of Cthulhu players.

The following pages explore the details and implications of Tension Scenes, including recovering from harm and picking up the adventure after such climactic events.

“Genre Points” are Macabre Tales disposable resource.  Now, anyone who has read my blog over the last year or more will know I have no love of luck points, fate points, willpower points, etc.  I feel that most rolls represent a character’s very best efforts with all the favour the gods are willing to give them...  That said, I accept many games feature something along these lines.

A character earns genre points for clever ideas, the player narrating in a suitably Lovecraftian style or having the character’s personal flaws prompt him to act in a less than wise manner.  Genre points boost check results, replace dominoes in hand, restore reduced statistics or alter some aspect of the current scene.

Next is a word on supporting characters and creatures.  Supporting characters do not make checks, so they do not need statistic grades.  Instead, they have challenge ratings for the player character to exceed with a check in order to affect or influence them.

The chapter ends with a discussion on how including more player characters affects the rules of Macabre Tales.  I suppose this is an inevitable addition to the rules since the default for most role-playing game groups is more than two members.  It look workable, but obviously is not what the game was designed to do.

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My Thoughts So Far

Macabre Tales is well written, clear and easy to read.  Cynthia makes no excuses for how she wants the game to play and no apologies for doing things differently.  The rules are quite unique, but clearly a lot of consideration has gone into using them to facilitate a game experience reminiscent of the fiction.

Come back later in the week for the second part of this review.

My Macabre Tales Review:

Part 2 & Part 3
The Secret of the Dead Man's Satchel