Game: The Conjunction
Publisher: Glen Taylor Games
Series: The Conjunction
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 17th, July 2005
Reviewer’s Rating: 7/10 [ Good ]
Total Score: 7
Average Score: 7.00
The Conjunction from Glen Taylor Games is a write up of that old New Year’s Eve roleplaying special – the players find themselves in a dangerous and thrilling fantasy world. If that concept isn’t an old classic for you or if this seems a little unclear then read on. If you know what I’m talking about then keep reading too. The Conjunction will work in either case.
There’s a fake handout in The Conjunction. There’s a player’s handout for the roleplaying game “Conjunctions” published in 1977 by the Silver Equinox Games Company. The supplement is a bare bones edition. Players take five minutes to whisk up some characters (any more time than that and you’re going to be struggling with players who simply won’t be able to adjust to The Conjunction mindset). A d20 is rolled to see where the group of new PCs come from and then as that die comes to a halt on the table it begins to glow, reality begins to blur and the players find themselves – clutching pizza, with their BlackBerries still clipped to their hips, dice in hand – in the world of Andral. The sample beginning (from where I stole the glowing die idea from) has the players do well by grabbing the rules from the table but then quickly charged by masked men on horseback.
You’re playing yourself transported to a roleplaying world. There’s nothing stopping you playing a “real” person from our Earth transported to Andral though and this is a good thing. I don’t mind the one off “play yourself” games but I don’t like the idea as campaign material. Fantasy escapism, I think, is best kept as removed from reality as possible. Having said I don’t particularly like the idea of playing myself – or running a game where players play themselves – I’m going to set that aside for The Conjunction. The truth is that The Conjunction doesn’t attempt any (annoying) psychology on this and instead uses the hook simply as an element on fantasy.
Conjunctions are not unheard of Andral. They’ve happened before and I think this is perhaps the biggest surprise for the players. (Let’s face it; getting them to write their real name down on the only name slot on the character sheet is a bit of a give away.) Strangers from a different land have brought radical ideas and alien technology to Andral before and the Conjunction itself is a bad omen, marking a time which generally ends in confusion and war. Our “player-characters” may quickly find that its best not to make a big deal out of their unusual arrival to Andral.
The player-characters will also quickly discover not to get in fights if they can at all help it. For a start the player-characters will not have much in the way of combat skills (cue the debate to how much combat skills the players actually have) and combat in The Conjunction is pretty damn brutal. Combat is vicious here because the rule mechanics are fast and simple. A high level system (rather than a low level and bitty one) only has a few states of health before death.
One of The Conjunction’s best system mechanics helps counter the effects of a deadly combat system for new characters (our startled player-characters). Characters begin with a lot of luck, find out that it runs out quite quickly and is a real chore to buy back. Whenever luck is used it’s risked. Each point of luck you’re willing to risk gives you an extra d6 on your dice roll – an awful lot at low levels. In a life and death situation each 6 rolled on the bonus luck die reduce the character’s overall luck pool by one. You begin with a luck value of 6. If you risk one die of luck and roll 6 on it then you enjoy a +6 but your luck value is now only 5. The same player might need to be really lucky a little on and could roll up to 5 extra luck dice but if two of those also show 6 then their luck total is now only 3. This is only for a real life and death situation too. If the character is just being lucky for some other roll (their life is not endanger) then they’ll risk loosing a luck point on the roll of a 5 or 6. If the character is risking their luck while being hostile to someone (like trying to hit them) then the luck total is reduced on a roll of 4, 5 or 6. There’s also the added twist of getting a “bad break” whenever you roll a 1 on your /skill/ roll when luck’s involved.
The luck value is the only stat players need write down at the start of the game. The character sheet otherwise begins only with one primary skill and two secondary skills which are determined by the character’s role. At the start of the game, before the players are supposed to realise that they’ll also be the characters, they’re supposed to pick a role. A role is simply an occupation or, shall we say – character class, and include the likes of Ranger, Monk, Bard, Druid and, er, Ninja from a list of over twenty. There are no attributes as every thing runs off skills.
There are seven core skill levels – unfamiliar, familiar, novice, expert, adept, master and then grandmaster. An uber-value of Paragon is optional if the GM chooses to use it. The different skill level simply indicates which dice should be rolled. There’s no die to roll if you’re unfamiliar and so you must rely on luck (someone can know what a sword is and still be unfamiliar with Melee). Characters level up through specific skills by getting experience points in them. Once enough XP are accrued in any given skill then that specific skill improves. Some skills are tougher than others to learn. The advantage of having a skill set as your primary is that it is much easier to learn and secondary skills are a little easier to learn.
If you’re looking for a roleplaying game which isn’t county or mechanics heavy and yet which doesn’t have characters inexplicably master skills they never use of develop a powerful feat of agility-in-combat out of the blue then the Conjunction certainly is an RPG you should consider. Players earn experience points for skills by using them and learn new skills through lesions and practise.
Combat’s brutal and characters develop through the use and application of skills. This is a game where players are encouraged to think rather than dive in there with swords drawn.
I quite enjoy another of The Conjunction’s core system mechanics too: corruption. There’s no D&D concept of absolute good or evil here (how could there be when the game’s hook is to use real people rather than fantasy stereotypes). Certain actions that players or NPCs do will earn them corruption points and although these fade with time they can begin to stock up. Having corruption is a mixed bag of bones; you’ll find it hard to socialise as people can sense it but it’s also easier to scare people. If you’re awfully corrupt then especially compelling amounts of purity can repel or even harm you. There’s no alignment system in The Conjunction RPG but once you have 200 or more points in Corruption then that’s reached the “Evil” level (400 points or more for Diabolic). Instead of luck you can call on your corruption (once you’re corrupt enough) and although this gives you a bonus roll it also gives you a new point on corruption. You can see how things might begin to spiral out of control. Corruption is karmic and corruption is a magical principle which states that your actions do come back to you in one form or another.
The Conjunction RPG uses spell lists (and so the spells take up a decent chunk of the 140 pages of the PDF). There are no magic points just a skill level required for casting the spell and a cost in fatigue. The feature which spices up the spell system for me is that so many of the listed spells have another spell as a pre-requisite. It’ll be these pre-requisites which stop the magic users’ collections of spells blooming into libraries and it’ll be these pre-requisites which can be used to weave together a chain of incentives (deal to get the first pre-requisite, adventure to get the next and then agree to study with NPC #4 and finally learn the spell you wanted).
Andral is a magical land. Dragons were creatures of Starshine and Dream when they reached Andral. The dragons found the Elder Things here already. Elder Things are as Lovecraftian as you want – just being exposed to them will send your Corruption score rocketing. The Dragons and the Elder Things warred. The Elder Things, already weakening for some mysterious reason, were pushed back. In order to stay on Andral the Dragons had to shed their Dream essence. They did and so accidentally created the Fae. Only very few creatures have ever killed a dragon; the Elder Things and the Fae have. Humans have too. Before mankind came to Andral the Fae and the Dragons warred. When mankind rose the Fae took interest in them and so their conflict with the Dragons simmered to a stall. It’s the Fae’s meddling with mankind which has resulted in the Halflings; these are half-man and half-other races. Greyfolk (think elves), giants, ghouls, ogres and goblins are among their number.
The PDF whisks through the mythic history of Andral and then travels around the current regions and languages of the land. We don’t have an encyclopaedia like entries for the current state of affairs in any region, conflict and tension there or who their historic enemies are. In this sense The Conjunction is a typical fantasy RPG. There are as many (more) pages of the bestiary as there are on shopping and the economy or the politics of a kingdom. There is much more on the history of the vampyr as than there is on the Rise of the Empire of Baz, the Age of the Tower and the Age of Chains together.
The Conjunction has a fantastic front cover. We have a painting of a mythical chess match; a human in shirt and jeans pushing a giant chess piece over the board while his smiling opponent, a titanic dragon, watches. The interior art is a different story. The art’s used well but all we really have here are pencil sketches which seem awfully out of place at times. It’s easy to see that The Conjunction was a game that’s evolved to maturity over a couple of years. The art looks like it was whisked up as filler for the PDF in a week. It would be easier to forget that you’re reading, and have paid money for, a write-up of some gaming group’s favourite in-house project had it not been for the sketch art and that’s disappointing.
There are some glitches with the handout too. The fake Silver Equinox Games player’s guide uses a heavy typewriter style font (with smudged Ms and the like) but it doesn’t seem to have an apostrophe. We have “white squares” throughout the handout. I really doubt Silver Equinox will fool any one; it’s a nice idea, but it too transparent.
I have to say that I’m not a fan of the crunchy bits. I’m a “give me the die and tell me what I have roll” type roleplayer – but I have been impressed by Glen Taylor’s rule mechanics. I’m not a fan of playing yourself in a fantasy game – but The Conjunction is the best commercial presentation I’ve seen of this idea yet. This particular RPG has managed to overcome quite a few of my prejudices and that must be a winning signal.
I really think The Conjunction is one of those little known but rather good RPGs which should simply be bought slyly online, downloaded, printed off and then used to surprise your players. It strikes me as a classic in between typical campaigns breather game as well as being one of those games which remind you why you like gaming.
