First Fantasy Campaign

First Fantasy Campaign
Playing Aid
Dave Arneson and Richard Snider

This book can be purchased from Ebay but it will probably set you back a few hundred dollars.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign is a 64 page book comprising notes from the original Blackmoor campaign.  It was published in 1980, the year before I started gaming.  The copy I have has a paper khaki-colored cover.  As I go through this, you will see that it is a fun historical document.

The book starts with two introductions, one by Bob Bledsaw and one by Dave Arneson.  Arneson's is more interesting to me.  As you read it, you learn about some rules that were used in the campaign which did not make it into the published Dungeons & Dragons game in 1974.  There is some history of monsters, as well.  One interesting rule that did not copy over into OD&D is that character hit points did not improve after character creation.  Instead, characters got more difficult to hit.  What is even MORE interesting is how this was accomplished.  Apparently, characters made a saving throw when hit, and if successful, no damage was done.  As saving throws improved with level, higher level characters were more difficult to damage.  Fighters gained advantages with this saving throw but magic-users and clerics did not.  Remember folks, these were the only three classes in OD&D prior to the Greyhawk supplement.

The first chapter of the book is strictly army lists and costs for troops.  Since I don't play wargames, I have little interest in this chapter, other than as a curiosity.  I will point out that the original Blackmoor campaign included firearms.  Bombards are a standard weapon, with cannon being optional.  We also learn that Tarns can be purchased.  I'm pretty sure these are the giant birds from the Gor novels but perhaps they also existed in different fantasy, as well.  I am really curious what a "Female (special)" slave is.  The cheapest one costs more than the most expensive "Female (white)" slave.  In my deviant mind, I'm thinking a special female slave is a succubus or naga or something like that.  There are price lists for the Earl of Vestfold, City of Maus (where our special slaves are purchased), Regent of the Mines, the Duchy of Ten, and Egg of Coot.  

There is also included a price list for armor and weapons.  Some interesting notes in this section are that prices for pistols, muskets, and arquesbuses are included.  Or is it arquesbusi?  For how much can your character sell that cart full of weasel pelts?  As it so happens, a weasel pelt goes for 4 silver pieces, so how many pelts are in your cart, hoss?  We also learn here that Arneson was as hot and bothered about shields as Gygax was with polearms.  There are nine different types of shields listed!  Don't worry folks, slave prices are listed and it's cheaper to buy a slave off this list than the original list.

There is a small section following, which describes where the Blackmoor campaign is located on the Outdoor Survival map.  

Speaking of maps, a small map of the campaign setting is included in the book but it is very small and is drawn with very thick lines, making detail difficult to make out.  The book does come with fold-out maps of the setting which are much more useful.  My copy has what I believe are a player map, including outlines of the land, major cities, and geographical details surrounding the cities, and a much more detailed map, which I assume is for referees.

The following chapter details player characters and non-player characters from the original campaign.  Egg of Coot, of course, is the most cool.  How can a character not be cool with this name?!  The Egg enjoys things such as writing dirty words on latrine walls and creeds such as "never give a sucker an even break".  The other characters covered are Ran of Ah Fooh (a dragon breeding fellow), Gin of Salik (powerful wizard who travels the land banging chicks), Marfeldt the Barbarian, Duke of the Peaks, The Blue Rider, Mello, The Great Svenny, and the Bishop of the Church of the Facts of Life (the tv show came out in '79, so this name might just be coincidence).

Facts about the kingdon of Blackmoor follow, including population, history, and points of interest.  Personally, I think the population is way off.  According to this book, 1000 peasants reside in a kingdom of 4,346 square miles.  I'm certainly no medieval population guru but these seems to be an extremely small number.  I believe this is a typo.  An amazing old school graph paper map of the town of Blackmoor is included in this chapter.  There is also a map of Blackmoor castle, as well as a list of its haunted rooms.

Encounter tables for the area are included, as well as yet another equipment list.  Once again, we have slave prices, and once again they don't match what came before.  Fortunately, we have both wholesale and retail prices, so if your party has a huge haul from slaying the latest dragon, buying slaves in bulk will save a lot of coin!  

Specific rules for designing your own campaign come next.  This information would be useful, I believe.  One of the rules is about population density.  This here is why I believe that the preceding population is wrong.  Based on the rules here, there is fully a 40% chance that every hex will have a hamlet of 50-500 people or a 30% change of a village of 100-1000 people.  Taking the median numbers of just these two population results, the entire Kingdom earlier would be filled in 2 or 3 hexes.  Fans of the modern "hex flower" layouts are going to freak when they see the author forcing a square peg into the hex hole on page 27.  Trust me.

The Blackmoor Dungeons is the next chapter.  This is what people mostly know about the Blackmoor campaign.  We have ten fully keyed and mapped dungeon levels as well as an additional minor dungeon.  Fans of modern, thought-out dungeons will have to forego their sense of versimilitude and just enjoy these encounters for what they are - a pioneer of the hobby just writing stuff down, probably as it came to him, for his players to encounter.  Your character might encounter a mummy, or a hydra just wandering around underground, or maybe a pack of giant weasels.  It's all good.  Does your wussy magic lamp ONLY give you there wishes?!  You chump!  This dungeon can grant 20 wishes from one encounter!  I see your silly encounter with 10 goblins and raise you 200 goblins in this room right here!  That pansy Gandalf struggled fighting one balrog?!  Delvers are tripping over them in this dungeon!  It is a heck of fun jaunt reading through the dungeon key.  The maps are pretty good, oozing that OG vibe.  The scale changes based on the map and most of them don't include a scale.  Those of you familiar with the sample dungeon in the OD&D rules will recognize how freaking difficult mapping will be in the Blackmoor dungeon.  Ain't no virtual table top N-S and E-W corridor 5e crap here!  

The next 3 and 1/2 pages are about magic swords and rules for generating unique swords.  Fortunately quite a number of them are really handy when fighting balrogs, you are going to want one of these.  There is a lack of swords which get the bearer a good deal on buying female (special) slaves, however.  Your adventuring party will have to buy them the old-fashioned way!  Joking aside, this chapter is really cool.  Creating unique magical swords is in most versions of D&D.  Arneson kicks it up a notch, here.

Gypsy sayings, legends, and Chance cards follows.  The book does not actually tell us what a "chance card" is.  I assume that Arneson wrote this information on index cards and randomly pulled one when needed.  The "cards" in this book are organized into a d100 table, though, so this is perfectly workable.

Notes on the original Blackmoor magic system comes next.  Something interesting I find here is that magic-users only advanced in level by using spells, whether in the dungeon or just practicing.  Some magic items listed include Tricorder, Borer, Skimmer, and Robots.

The next section is something I wish would have made it into the D&D rules - special interests.  Loot taken from the dungeon does NOT award experience points until it has been spent (unless the character's interest happens to be stockpiling).  If the character's special interest in wine, then he needs to throw some raging parties!  Just a funny nitpick here, the book states that the booze has to "consumed by the player" and not player character.  No mention on whether your character gets extra XP if you ply the referee with fine wines as you, yourself, get hammered.  Clerics will convert GP to XP by donating the gold.  Yes, for those of you who have kept up with our female slave soap opera, spending gold on "room plus extras" will allow you to convert that gold into experience points, as well as allowing your character to release some stress after a high adventure dungeon delve.  In a surprising 1970s twist to "current year" players, your character can convert GP to XP by snuggling up to the slave gender of your choice.  There are % chance rules to determine your character's special interest.  It would be amusing to have a paladin whose special interest is women - not sure how that would play out!  The book mentions the original three classes earlier on but also brings up here, in this section for special interests, the newer classes.  They are:  fighting man, cleric, magic-user, ranger, paladin, assassin, merchant, and sage.  These last two are not from any OD&D supplement but they probably came from The Strategic Review magazine.

There is a quick blurb on page 52 on adjusting monsters so they can advance in levels similar to PCs.  If the referee wants to create a "hero" (i.e. 4th level) monster, this goes over XP requirements for the monster.  Unless the monster is being run as an adventurer by a player, I don't see the point of this.  The ref will just make a monster better without racking up XP.

Four maps of Svenson's Freehold follow.  It is spelled Zvenzen on one map.  I am guessing, but perhaps the player and Arneson each drew maps or wrote down notes and one of the two wasn't corrected.

Richard Snider's Additions is the final chapter.  We see detailed dragons indexed by color and level.  Dragon breath weapons causing damage equal to the dragons maximum hit points is included.  My players in the Dragonlance BX game I ran know all about this.  Breath weapons were the demise of many a PC and NPC.  We learn here, as well, that as dragons get older, their movement rate suffers.  I don't recall reading this anywhere else in D&D lore.  For those who find it amusing that D&D rules cover the characters subduing dragons, we here get rules for dragons subduing characters!  Subdued characters might be taken back to the lair because "junior might want a pet to play with".  The rest of the rules here are not as exciting.  A couple of pages of notes on Loch Gloomen are included, and then the book ends with information on some specific creatures such as orcs and nomads.  Those who have read the Lord of the Rings books will get a kick that Isengard orcs are listed.  Unfortunately, Saruman isn't statted out.  There is a listing for Tarns, where we learn that they are large Rocs.  Oh, and Balrogs yet again make an appearance.  I swear, you can't swing a dead cat in Blackmoor without hitting a freaking balrog!

Before I go into my rating, I must point out that there is an EXCELLENT documentary about this setting, and the pre-history of D&D.  It is called Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons.  If you have ANY interest in D&D history, this movie is an absolute must.  I cannot stress this enough.  This movie is two hours long and it ends with D&D being created.  There is all sorts of history in it that would be difficult to find anywhere else.  I bought it on Amazon but I assume it is available for purchase or rental at other places as well.

⇒ GRIT: ★★☆☆☆: I am going to just say this here, this book is a lot of fun but it is only usable by a niche market.  It is more an historical artifact nowadays than a game supplement.  If you are looking for an actual Blackmoor campaign setting, buying one of the WotC era fantasy game books is probably going to be a better value.  This book hints at Blackmoor the Setting-isms but doesn't have a lot of setting meat on its bones.  I really like this book but it is extremely unlikely that I would ever use it in a game.

⇒ VIGOR: ★★★☆☆: Like the above score, this score is sort of arbitrary.  The longevity of this book is primarily in the Blackmoor dungeon.  The dungeon itself is extremely bare-boned and the referee is required to flesh out everything other than the treasure, the monsters, and the massive balrog population.  When fleshed out, the dungeon should provide many sessions worth of gaming.  The additional information on armies will help a high-level campaign, assuming that the players want to move into wargame territory.

⇒ GRACE: ★★☆☆☆:  The First Fantasy Campaign is not a pretty book.  The mountains on the cover look cool but the red on brown is very difficult to read.  The book is US Letter sized, but other than that, it matches the old school layout you would expect from a vintage 1970s D&D book.  What elevates this book from its OG peers is the art.  Ken Simpson did nearly all of the art, with Dave Arneson knocking out some art as well (I assume this is his original Blackmoor map in the book, as well as the dungeons and the pull-out maps).  Mr. Simpson's art is good and there isn't a bad piece.

Colony of Death

Colony of Death
Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 17th Century Maryland
Mark W. Hess

Available at https://www.drivethrurpg.com or lulu.com, which is where I got it, I believe.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Colony of Death, Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 17th Century Maryland, is a supplement for Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) including a setting and several adventures.  As it is a supplement for LotFP, it is recommended for folks 18 years, or older.  In fact, on the title page, it states precisely this.

Taking a quick side-trek, I lived in Maryland for three years, in a town between St. Mary's City, which this supplement is for, and Washington, D.C.  It was really fun reading about places I have actually visited and reading about a cryptid that I actually heard tales about!  If y'all get a chance to visit, take the time to do so. There is (or was before the covids) a reenactment from the colonial times in a rebuilt village.  Lots of cool history.  Plus, if you have any interest in visiting churches, some of the oldest Catholic ones in the USA are here).

Back to our regularly scheduled review.

As this supplement is for LotFP, which is a standard OSR game, this setting can be used for any OSR game.  I don't own LotFP, and when I run the adventures in this book, I will use real D&D, White Box, Blueholme, or something similar.

The book starts with a quick introduction and then gets into the colony of Maryland.  George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, was granted the lands on which to build St. Mary's City.  Lord Baltimore wanted to prove that Catholics and Protestants could live, and work, together without fear of the hangman's noose or burning pole.  When the colony is settled, there were natives inhabiting the lands.  The natives were mostly friendly with the English. 

A page and a bit of the next page include a timeline from 1608 through 1650, when the adventures in this book take place.  Included in the timeline, which very well could affect interactions within the settlement, are accounts such as:  witchcraft being made illegal in 1635 (burn them all!), the Susqeuhannock indians, along with New Sweden, going to war with Maryland in 1644, a Protestant uprising during the English Civil War, ending with King Charles getting a "nip off the top" in 1649, somewhere around the shoulders; of course the Prots decided to attack the Caths in this period.  Puritans set up their own settlement in 1649, as well, which will put even more pressure on what was intended to be an exercise in Catholic-Protestant harmonious living.

This is where we stand - the year is 1650, St. Mary's City, once the home of peaceful coexistence between Protestant and Catholic English, and some friendly Natives, has suffered ten years of warfare.  Can the two groups of Englishmen repair the breach?  What about the Indians?  Will they continue to coexist with the English, or will they want war?  Can Maryland protect the interests of its various inhabitants against the aggression of neighboring New Sweden and Virginia?  The colony is ripe for adventure!

After the timeline, there is a listing and a bit of info on St. Mary's City, Providence, and Kent's Island.  These are the only cities listed and referees are encouraged to add villages, trading posts, etc.

Next, we get a page and a half about the people in the colony, as well as a very small hex map of the region, from criminals and indentured servants, to the local native tribes, to the European settlers.

Following, we have two pages on New World diseases.  Every month, characters make a saving throw to not catch a disease.  That's pretty hardcore.

The next two pages are encounter tables.  All good OSR settings need encounter tables.  Colony of Death, being a good OSR setting, has them.  The tables include real life critters like black widows, pirates, black bears, and rattlesnakes, but it also includes some disputed critters, such as sasquatch and the very, very Maryland cryptid, the Goatman!  When I read this far into the book, after I bought it a couple of years ago, I was tickled!  There are eight pages detailing these critters, following.  I wish more art was added in this section as there is a lot of white space, which could have been filled with line art, even if it is old timey clip art.

This ends the primarily setting information.  Several adventures follow, many of which include more snippets of setting information.

St. Mary's Shoemaker adventure includes a map of St. Mary's City, as well as some businesses in town.  The adventure involves the characters trying to solve a murder mystery.

The Hell's Bell adventure finds the characters discovering an unknown German village.  Hopefully one of the players chose German as a language slot!  This adventure is very Lovecraftian - village of hicks in the woods who are a little too closely related on the DNA scale, if you know what I mean.  What is with the bell?  Why do people keep going missing?

The Hand and Eye of Loki take the adventurers in the lands claimed by New Sweden.  Again, people are going missing.  Are Indians killing settlers, or is it something more mysterious?

To Burn a Witch is the next adventure.  Providence is a Protestant town, through and through.  The characters arrive just when a local gal is about to pay the price for wallowing with the Devil.  She is young and beautiful.  Is she guilty?  Is she innocent?  Will the characters rescue a damsel in distress or let her burn?

Another side trek.  Did y'all know that before he got famous for being a king and having the Bible, which was forever to include his name, translated into English, James was hip to the ways of witchcraft?  He wrote a book about it.  Sometimes the only way to deal with a witch is to burn it.

The Appendix of the book includes four pages of common names, broken down by both male and female, and by language - Algonquin, English, German, and Swedish.

A two-page spread map follows the first appendix.  It is a lovely map, 10 miles per hex, but unfortunately all of the important settlements are in the gutter of the page.  Splitting the map in two and leaving half an inch per page for the gutter would make the map so much more useful.

The final appendix discusses tobacco as currency, and growing tobacco.  This is another historical shout-out since tobacco was actually used as currency in the Maryland colony.  There are rules for running a tobacco plantation and the consequences due to soil depletion.

There is another cool town in Maryland you can visit called Port Tobacco.  It is in a Charles county, right off US301 highway.  It's another place you can visit in real life if you happen to travel through the area.

In conclusion I will say that I love Colony of Death.  Love it, love it, love it.  It is not perfect and I certainly have gripes, but I can wholeheartedly recommend that any referee who wants to set a campaign in the New World, pick this up.

⇒ GRIT: ★★★☆☆:  Being a mere 58 pages, with half of that relegated to adventures, this book doesn't give a whole lot of wallop.  What it does include, though, will whet the referee's appetite for sure.  I would love to have seen more details on the culture of the local natives.  I really would have liked to see a price list for items for sale in both St. Mary's City and the trading posts.  It is mentioned that prices are included in the LotFP rulebook, which I don't own.  As tobacco is the currency in the colony, having a list of gear which can be purchased, with the corresponding price in tobacco, would have been excellent.

⇒ VIGOR: ★★★★☆: As with GRIT, since the supplement is so short, you won't get years of play with only what is included.  However, what is included will get a game group quite a few sessions I believe.  Adding in things like trade routes between the various colonies could increase the vigor of this product.  I also would have liked to have a page or two of adventure hooks.  The adventures included are delightsomely dark and twisted, but what about more "normal" adventures?  A list of adventure hooks is always gold.

⇒ GRACE: ★★☆☆☆: The book is perfectly functional but not beautiful.  The cover is pretty cool, with a Schneller Geist flying over what appears to be a homestead next to a hill.  Internally, the book is well-layed out with a single column on most pages but two in the few places where it makes sense to have two columns.  The line art is functional but there should be more when there is a half page of white space.  The map, as noted, really, really needs to be split into two.  This map is my biggest gripe about the book.  If the author decided not to include art to fill up the white space, removing the white space would give another page, which could be used for adventure hooks, price lists, or something else.

GORE (Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine)

GORE Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine

by Daniel Proctor
Goblinoid Games, 2007

It can be purchased from https://www.drivethrurpg.com  This appears to be pdf only and as I have it as a softback book, it was available in this format at some point, as well.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

GORE, written by Dan Proctor, is Goblinoid Games' contribution to the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) world, using OGL 1.0a.  Unlike the BRP "Gold Book", GORE is trim and sexy, weighing in at 52 pages.  This game includes its own license for 3rd parties to use called the GORE License 1.0.  As far as I know, Stuart Marshall's The Secret of the Whispering Wood is the only other GORE product, but I could certainly be mistaken.

If, dear reader, you are familiar with any other BRP game, nothing in GORE will come as a surprise.  For those of you who may not be familiar, all BRP games are percentage-based, where a skill of 40% means that your character has a 40% chance to succeed, barring any modifiers.

GORE uses the standard polyhedral dice.  It is an attribute and skill-based game without the need for classes or levels.  The ability scores are pretty much like every other game from the 1980s.  The two exceptions being Size (character's mass) and Power (force of will, and innate magical ability for setting which use magic.  The other attributes are strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, and charisma.  Scores are figured by rolling 3d6 for each, with an alternate method for higher-powered characters, which uses 2d6+6.  Hit points are figured by averaging constitution and size.

If an ability score needs to be tested, it is multiplied by 5 and the percentile dice need to beat this number.  Sometimes, characters will have to determine if something is successful when being opposed.  This is called Opposition.  The traditional arm-wresting is a good example.  To determine the % chance of success, the character pits his strength against his opponent's strength, looking a chart (the Opposition Table) which will give the actual chance the character will succeed.

Most tests the character will make, however, are based on skills.  Every character has a base % chance to succeed at any skill (5% for art, 35% for climbing, 15% survival as examples).  The Dodge skill defaults to the character's dexterity x 2.  Some skills, computers for instance, have a base % chance based on era.  In a standard fantasy setting, the skill would not exist; in a 70s blacksploitation movie setting, it might default to 5%, whereas a modern spy thriller setting might default to 40%.  Players may want to choose a profession for their character, which can be anything.  The book does have 25 or so professions, covering the most common genres.  The GM and players might need to brainstorm a bit for professions which are not included.  Each profession gives five to seven suggested skills.  Professions are not required, though.  Players can put skill points into any skill available for the setting.  Professions just give the player some things he can focus on for his character.

There are 35-40 skills or so in the rulebook, but not all will be available in all genres.  Some skills, for example Science, may require a specialty.  Characters get 250 points to spend on skills, keeping in mind that all skills have a base %, so if the player drops 20% into a 5% base skill, he now has 25% in that skill.  Make sense?

Improving skills is one of the great thing about GORE, and other BRP games.  Instead of gaining experience points and then at some point, voila! I'm a 3rd level dwarf, each skill is improved separately.  The two methods included are 1) the player gets to pick three skills he wants to improve when the GM says it is allowed, or 2) the player makes note when a skill has been used exceptionally.  In either case, the player rolls d%, and if the result is higher than the current skill level, it goes up by 1d10%.  No skill can be improved beyond 98% though, so there is always a chance for failure.

A roll of 00 results in a fumble.  A roll of 20% of the skill score results in a critical success.  In the case of our 40% score I mentioned in paragraph 2, this means that a roll of 01-08 is a critical success.  I think this complicates the game a bit too much.  Some newer BRP games rule that dice rolls which succeed, and are also doubles (11, 22, 33 for our 40% dude) are considered a critical success.  I prefer this.

 The Game rules chapter follows.  In includes the majority of situations which might arise in any genre.  Acid, drowning, and fire are pretty universal for any setting, but this chapter includes things that you may not consider until the situation arises.  Examples include air pressure, aging, and radiation.  In this chapter is also included fumble charts for weapons, which I believe should be relegated to the combat chapter.  In addition to fumbles, injuries, light blows, and the optional hit locations should also have been in the combat chapter.  Two rules to note here are poison and radiation.  These make use of the Opposition Table, pitting the potency of the poison or radiation against the constitution of the character.  A cool Radiation Exposure Table is included for what happens when a human is dosed with them good ol' rays. This table is for "realistic" game genres, though.  Gaining x-ray vision or learning to shoot eye lasers are not options!

The Combat chapter is next.  Players will quickly realize that GORE, and most BRP games, are based on RuneQuest, which is a rules-heavy combat-based game.  Place in combat is based on Strike Ranks (initiative).  Both the attacker and the defender roll their weapon skill.  Combatant A has 40% scimitar skill and Combatant B has a 30% hatchet skill.  Depending on how well each combatant rolls, determines the result of the attack.  Combat adds another complication by adding impale as a result, in addition to fumble, failure, success, and critical.  Every blow in combat needs to have a chart consulted to find the result.  If Combatant A is attacking and rolls a 36 (success) and Combatant B is defending and rolls a 02 (critical), then no hit is scored.  The crunchy factor of combat in GORE puts me off running the game.  If I was to run this game, I would disregard the table and find a much more streamlined way of judging combat.

There are a few other rules in the combat chapter for mounted combat, gun malfunctions and reloading, unarmed combat, etc.

Magic comes next.  Magic-using characters know a maximum number of spells equal to their intelligence attribute.  The ability score, power, determines if the character can learn spells, and how many Magic Points he has to power his spells.  By default, a power of 16+ is required to be a spell-caster, but like everything else, this can be adjusted for different genres.  There are nine pages of spells, including many old standbys from D&D or OSR games, such as web, purify food and drink, cure wounds, spider climb, and remove disease.  The more powerful offensive spells such as fireball and lightning bolt are not included.

We are now through page 44.  Page 45 is a one-page distillation of the rules called Lite GORE.  This is my jam!  GORE, excepting the painfully crunchy combat, is a smooth game.  It isn't "rules lite" but it is very close, by default.  Lite GORE tells us to ignore hit locations, serious wounds, and most skills.  It consolidates the 40 or so skills previous into 27, which will be trimmed again, depending on genre.  Initial skill points needs to be cut back for this abbreviated list.  The book recommends a maximum of 200 points for characters.  Unfortunately, the author didn't take this opportunity to take a virtual scythe through the combat mechanics and distill it down into a more simple form.

The next seven pages are equipment lists, broken down by time period.  Four of the lists are all rotated from portrait to landscape, making you flip the book to read.  This is an annoyance but the lists are serviceable.  

The book then ends with the two licenses I mentioned above.

⇒ GRIT:  ★★★★☆ This book includes nearly everything you would need to run a game in many genres.  I think it fails in a couple of regards, however.  It includes realistic rules about radiation but where are the rules for a Gamma World game?  I want my Hoops, dangit!  If you want to play a D&Dish game with both wizards and clerics with varying spell lists, you will need to do some work separating spells and probably adding some more.  I am giving it 4 stars since you will be able to run 90% of common game genres with just this one book.

⇒ VIGOR:  ★★★☆☆  Like the grit score, GORE includes enough, rules-wise, for a long-lived campaign.  Since this is a concise book of mechanics, there is no fluff.  If this game was genre emulation of one genre, the score would be 1 or maybe 2 stars.  Since it is trying to be a universal system, and the advancement mechanic is so very simple, GORE is solidly 3 stars.

⇒ GRACE:  ★★★☆☆ GORE is not a pretty book.  It is certainly competent.  The small amount of art included is decent.  The cover I like quite a bit, with the red on black Cthulhu chilling in the sea.  Most of the included line art appears to be a cat named David Sharrock, and is all Cthuluesque or snakemen.  I enjoy it.  The layout of the book could certainly use some work.  For example, the SCUBA skill is listed on the very bottom of a page, bolded, and the page has to be flipped to see the details.  This happens a couple different times.  The tables changing view is an annoyance.  I think that all tables could have been made readable in portrait mode.  The book is certainly more readable than some of its 1980s forebears, however.