Bill Willingham on Polite Society

 Face it, if you want something in this harsh and unforgiving world, you have to do unto others as the royal and filthy rich have done unto you: you gotta steal it.

-   Mark Finn

 

Mark Finn, raconteur both extraordinary and professional, has a ‘zine in this year’s Zinequest.   Polite Society is all about heists and big-time capers a la the greatest heroes of Sword & Sorcery.  What does Mark Finn know about Sword & Sorcery?  Mark literally wrote the book on Robert E. Howard. 

 

Yes, it’s that Mark Finn.  So you know it’s going to be good.

 

But don’t take my word for it.  Here’s what Bill “Fables” Willingham has to say:

Let me tell you some of the reasons you should consider buying Mark Finn’s new ttrpg zines called, POLITE SOCIETY: The Zine for Thieves, Scoundrels, and Ne’er-Do-Wells. 

First of all, Mark writes good rules. Like him, they’re aged in fine oak casks, and go down as smooth as 20 year old scotch. No critique intended against every year’s new crop of hot young gunslinger rules writers – you all have your place keeping the games fresh and alive – but give me rules by one of the old guard rpg guys with nothing more to prove. He’s already spent a lifetime behind the dice, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and we reap the rewards.

Polite Society works. And, believe me, as one of its playtesters (along with Bill Williams and Brad Thomte), I tried in every way possible to wreck, ravage, and undermine those rules, because trying to get away with all kinds of sabotage is part of a playtester’s remit. Test To Destruction is the operable term. No destruction occurred, and instead we had a wonderful extended campaign. I’ve playtested many a game (including, but not limited to TSR’s Star Frontiers, and Top Secret, and too many D&D modules to count, and the original revamp of Jeff Dee’s and Jack Herman’s Villains & Vigilantes), and this is the first time the system being tested didn’t need a ton of work, just to make it minimally playable.*

But a set of cool rules (to quote Spicoli) isn’t enough. That’s the same as admiring a well-written recipe and actually eating the dish that results from it. Can you plan and execute a good, workable caper with Polite Society? The answer is unequivocally YES. Not only can you run a good heist, and maybe even a great one, but you can do so with only a few minute’s preparation. One of the best parts of every playtest sessions was after the fact, when Mark would run down the checklist of what went into planning that day’s caper. The job, the twist, the unexpected complication, and so much more – it’s all in there, every time.

So then, without reservation, or hesitation, I invite you to back Mark’s crowdfunding campaign, and/or buy the zines as they appear. In this brave new age of larceny-themed fantasy role playing games (and movies it seems) this is an addition to the popular new subgenre that’s guaranteed to stand out.

Thank you for listening,

Bill Willingham

Former TSR staff artist; lifetime gamer; creator of the long-running comic series Fables.

*For example, in Top Secret did you know there was originally a defensive fighting position one could get into during Hand to Hand Combat in which you could not possibly be touched? Of course you didn’t, because we found it and fixed it. And the hand grenade damage rules were flummoxed by us playtesters by taking turns swallowing each grenade thrown. Since it only did a single d10 of damage, but did it to everyone in its area of effect, we’d just take turns taking the hit for the team.

 

And yes, it's this Bill Willingham:

A Great Deal: Monty Haul #1

Monty Haul is a sweet little ‘zine written for 5e D&D but with its feet firmly planted in the Old School cool. It gives off a bit of an ‘80s DRAGON vibe but is a lot more friendly with a stronger personal tone. TL;DR: some neat stuff to make spell-slingers more S&S/Lovecraftian eldritch, plus other goodies worth checking out.

Disclaimer: I backed the Kickstarter and got a sneak peek at #1 so I could help with proofreading. More than that, Mark Finn is an awesome guy I used to hang out with every chance I had when I lived in Austin (which mostly meant seeing him at conventions like ArmadilloCon). He's a literal raconteur of exceptional skill. And his brother was my therapist for a while. I think Mark rocks on and off toast.

More importantly for this discussion, Mark is a widely recognized Robert E. Howard scholar. (And yes, Amazon gives me a kickback if you buy from that link). So when he talks about Swords & Sorcery, he knows whereof he speaks. And he worked for Chessex in the ‘90s. The dude has been around and he has some stories to tell.

So, what is Monty Haul? Mostly material Mark’s created for his home game: homebrew rules, world-building, monsters, and other fun stuff that isn’t what you’re finding elsewhere.

Monty Haul #1 is dedicated to spell-slingers, specifically wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers. Because he’s writing for 5e, this means subclasses. Because it’s Mark, they’re not the usual sort of stuff. For instance, he’s got a new warlock patron, the Yellow King, who gives your warlock the power to blast enemies with mind-jarring visions of Carcosa. There’s a new sorcery origin, eldritch ancestry, that allows you to pick from three different flavors of eldritch horror (the Black Goat, which is all about chthonic deities and tentacles, the Void Dweller who are all about warping time and space, and the Deep Ones with their aquatic powers). My favorite bennie for these comes at 6th level: whenever you take physical damage, your eldritch birthright boils out from under the thin shell of your ruptured flesh, allowing you to deal greater unarmed damage to your attackers. The more hits you take, the more wrongness erupts through the holes in your skin, and the more dangerous you become. There’s also a new school for wizards, That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know, that starts off giving you some AC bonuses (due to your extreme paranoia) and ends at 14th level where the simple act of casting your spells causes psychic damage to those who can see and hear you.

There’s also a trio of “monsters” designed to plague spell-slingers specifically. I put monsters in quotes because these things have no stats; if you can see them, you can squish them pretty easily. But each is a parasite that infests the body. The ear worm is a sort of anti-babble-fish, translating the words you hear into a random language you might not understand. There’s also the mind mite (aka the brain cloud) that eats spell slots.
If you’re not into spell-slingers, there’s still some good stuff for you, including a nifty melding of the TSR-era reaction table with 5e’s social skills that I’m now using in my campaigns.

My favorite section is probably the Design Notes for a Magical City. This is not a keyed map of a magical city, but instead ideas Mark has used to make one of the city’s in his homebrew campaign more magical. This makes them very easy to slap a new coat of paint on and drop into your home campaign.

Even better, the first section is Mark’s design notes for all the different sections, the why’s and wherefore’s of the choices he’s made. Since you know why he made the choices he’s described, you’re in a better position to judge how useful his work is for your campaign and how you might want to tweak it for optimal performance at your table.

You can get Monty Haul #1 at drivethrurpg.com as a .pdf. I’m not sure if there are options for getting it in dead tree form if you missed the Kickstarter (you might contact Mark directly if that’s something you’re interested in).