[Review] Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (Core Rules) Pt. I; Trad Game

[Core Rulebook]
Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (2016)
Brendan Davis, William Butler and Dan Orcutt

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Know ye wanderer, that before the time of the Great Storygamer Migration, the Retroclone Wars and the rising of the OSRmen, there was a time when Great Beasts wandered the earth. Each one large enough to encompass in its bulk many OSR Games, these behemoths could only be brought into being by the momentous efforts of multiple sorcerers, and each one was a singular creature, with a distinct vision and system of resolution. So heavy with character options and spells were these archaic monsters, that in the end there were not enough players to sustain all of them, and so they warred among themselves until THE D20 IMPACT finished off all but a handful. It was the age of the TRAD GAME. Today they are rare and more precious then gold.

Know ye that the dreaded Bedrock Brendan, publisher of the Accursed Arrows of Indra manuscript among many others things, has reached out unto the Prince of Nothing, and asked him to review his mighty works. 492 pages long, its table of contents alone stretching out to 16 pages, a majestic dragoon from an earlier age. Is my reviewer prowess up to this momentous ordeal? I was incarcerated for 3 months after my review of Imperial Matchmaker [1]. Am I still as energetic and quick as I once was?

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is an RPG in the traditional post-AD&D style, a complicated behemoth of races, skills, equipment and abilities, set in the mystical land of Qi Xien, a fantastical analogue to the China of Journey to the West and Wuxia films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of the Flying Daggers. The subject matter choice is excellent: Rather then trying to compete with a thousand other generic fantasy settings (although he does have another game called Sertorius), Brendan dives into a niche subject with absolute abandon, and strives to create a game of interest to the coinnaiseur. Has he succeeded? We will find out over the course of the review.

I cannot express how grateful I am that Davis tackles his inspirational material immediately into the preface so as to render the work somewhat comprehensible to an outsider. Alongside a lengthy list of Wuxia tv shows, films and even a rare few authors, who do not appear to have been translated into English, Davis explains the historical parallel of Song era China, giving a prospective GM enough tools to expand and extrapolate upon the exotic setting described in the book.

A brief overview of the setting in question (there is a superabundance of setting material given later on). The characters are heroic renegades, practitioners of supernatural martial arts hailing from the last rebellious province in a vast empire ruled by a malign despot. The heroic founders of the Martial Arts traditions sacrificed themselves to bind the demonic sorcerer Yao Feng into the Golden Palace. Their disciples guard the world from his return. After a brief period of peace under the Righteous Emperor, his son, the Glorious Emperor, rules with an iron fist, and through sorcery creates his own army of practioners. Only the province of Hai’an remains safe from his depredations…for now.

The basic resolution system appears to be some sort of unholy offspring of the Storyteller system, or more likely Exalted, provoking wary mistrust. Checks take the form of D10 dice pools, rolled against a target number. The highest number that is equal or above the Target number counts as a success, with a natural 10 counting as a more spectacular Total success. This is married to a class-less Skill Rank system determining the number of dice to be rolled, a point-buy XP system and an ersatz level system known as Qi. Character creation is quite involved, consisting of 13 steps, some of which we will cover during this part of the review.

As always, I find it easiest to just dive into character creation and explain the concepts along the way. The book actually begins with something that is, and really should be, optional: Races. In my opinion this section could even have been covered somewhere in the appendix. While it is quite strong and illustrates Davis’s creative range, it feels a bit removed from the world of martial arts practitioners that we have just been introduced to.

The races proper are quite well done. The worst outcome would have been some sort of point-eared, slanty-eyed elves, bald dwarves etc. but all the races are conceptually unique, coming across as very high fantasy [2]. A race of decrepit island-dwelling Goat men with unicorn-like horns that infallibly detect a lie, a race of four-armed cannibalistic giants that are reminiscent of Tharks if anything, the plateau-dwelling Ouyan who are possessed of a third eye that detects emotions and the Kithri, a six-souled race of men that frequently serves as the ruling caste for the peoples of the south. The abilities are all distinct and the presence of any of these races will radically impact any single adventuring party, but at the same time, each race is extremely specialized, the penalties to ability scores meaning rendering them suitable for only particular roles. Descriptions are half a page or less, avoiding encyclopedic detail.

Sample of the writing

By the standards of Qi Xien, the Juren are barbarians. They eat humanoids, worship fire and are constantly warring among themselves. The Juren have a tradition of ripping apart a four-limbed creature (preferably a humanoid) on their wedding night as
a sacrifice. Then they attempt to divine the future of the couple by reading the blood. If the reading is unlucky the couple are advised to remain vigilant and watch out for hardships.

We ignore the optional races and go for a human Martial artist. We now have to pick Two Primary Skill groups, in which we will receive 12 points. We will receive 6 skill points in the other 4 groups. There is a so-called Scholar Option that allows us to invest 24 points in the Knowledge group and 6 in all others but fuck that, we are here to punch things and do martial arts. We pick the Skill Groups: Combat and Defence.

Each of these skill groups consists of six or more separate skills. The cost of increasing a skill increases linearly. It takes only 1 point to raise a skill to level 1 but it takes 3 points to raise it from level 2 to the maximum of level 3.

Combat is one of the broadest disciplines, and covers everything from kicks, grapples and throws to various forms of ranged and melee weaponry. Since we want to make a Kung Fu guy, we put 6 points in Leg Strikes, raising it to 3, 3 points in Grapple, raising it to 2, and 1 each in Throw, Arm strikes and Simple Ranged. Kicks are less accurate but have more reach and do more damage then Arm strikes. It is possible that taking points in both will screw us over down the line, but that is something we’ll have to take for granted. Unarmed combat does damage based on our Muscle attribute while weapons deal damage based on the weapon in question. Grapple seems to have the most potential so far, immobilizing the opponent, limiting his attack options, and requiring the opponent succeed at an opposed test to escape. Prolonged grapples have a chance of triggering a Total Success, which allows the Grappler to disarm, throw or wound or even Immobilize the foe completely. Throws are a weird extra class of melee attacks that are checked against the Evade Skill, rather then the Parry skill which applies to all other melee attacks.

Leg Strikes – 3
Grapple – 2
Throw – 1
Arm Strikes – 1

Defense is vital in Wandering Heroes of Ogre’s Gate. Unlike many other skill groups, the Defence skills are passive. They are used to establish the target number against which an attacker must roll. The combat system is reminiscent of something like Warhammer. The attack roll must overcome either the Parry Value or the Evade Value depending on the attack type, and subsequent damage rolls are made against your Hardiness value. If the Hardiness value is overcome, you take a Wound. If it is overcome with Total success, you take two wounds. Also included in this group are the Stealth, Wits and Resolve skills, which defend against detection, deception and self-control/magic. Oh yes kids, we have a fucking social combat system.

Base value tends to be set at 3 + the number of skill ranks. We have all of twelve. Lets go for a principled 6 points in Hardiness, since we will be using that regardless of the attack form, 3 points in Parry so we are insulated against melee attacks, and divide the remainder across Evade (ranged), Stealth and Resolve. The target number of these defences tends to be 3 + number of skill ranks. Estimating hit chances in this game might be a bit tricky when compared to the simple D20 + bonus against a target number, but we shall have to make due.

Hardiness – 3
Parry – 2
Evade – 1
Stealth – 1
Resolve – 1

No Wits 😦

Already working up a sweat and this is only step 2. So four more skill groups with separate categories. Specialist – A weirdo collection of Medicine, Divination, Meditation, various Talents and specialized trades, Survival skills and Ritualistic magic. Most of these are Open, meaning they only apply to a specific useage. Some of these seem very open-ended. Divination is so vague as to be almost entirely up to GM fiat. Medicine on the other hand is a highly advanced skill, allowing for everything from the diagnosis of disease to the treatment of wounds to more esoteric applications like assessing someone’s Qi. Like most Trad Games, it is vital at least one person takes medicine. However, we have only 6 points, and it is best combined with the Trade (poisoner). We’ll skip both of them and put 3 points in Meditation instead, which is used to restore Chi imbalance (covered later) fight off possession and alchemical rituals. The remaining 3 points are divided between Survival (Cities), Talent (Snake Charming) and we take one point in Ritual. The specific ritual will be selected later.

Meditation – 3
Survival (Wilderness) – 1
Talent (Snake Charming) – 1
Ritual – 1

A point of critique, some of these talents like the crafting skills are, with the exception of Alchemy, so open-ended that arbitrating them requires a great deal of GM’s discretion. That is not a disaster as the focus of the game is acrobatic martial arts but still.

TRADE
Trade is an open Skill, meaning that each time you take it you must specify which Trade Sub-Skill you want. Each Trade Sub-Skill is based around a particular medium. Characters use Trade to make or design things. Trade Skills can also be used to disarm traps of the correct medium.
Trade can be used to build (or create), design, repair or to modify existing structures or objects. Repairing/building a simple object or device takes 1d10 days. On a Normal Success, you repair/build the object in question. On a Total Success, you do so at a much faster rate (hours instead of days).
To modify an object or device, or rig it for Failure, takes 1d10 hours. On a Normal Success, you adjust the object accordingly. On a Total Success, you do so at a much faster rate (1d10 minutes).

It doesn’t go into raw materials cost or whatever so this is a little barebones.

Are we done yet? Whew. Mental Skills. Fortunately our would-be martial artist is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed so we only have to distribute 6 points. Mental skills envelop all sorts of social mechanics which I am finding rather unpalatable after my stint in the OSR, but here goes. I will contemptuously avoid taking the Reasoning skill which ‘is your ability to think logically and analyze pieces of information.’ I think I can already do that. The Empathy skill shall be ignored for the opposite reason. Detect is by far the least egregious of the skills, meaning we shall allocate 3 points to it. A second 3 shall be going to one of Deception, Persuade and Command. My problem with these social skills is that unlike combat mechanics, when and where a particular social skill can be utilized is nowhere nearly as clearly delineated. Deception, Persuade and Command (which in this case pulls double duty as Intimidation), these end up being used interchangeably by clever players. This is not a problem that is particular to Wandering Heroes either, something like Dark Heresy the RPG has the same thing. It doesn’t really make much sense to take more then one of these. Anyway, 3 points in Persuade.


Detect – 2
Persuade – 2


Almost there. Physical skills are an odd group as some skills are core attributes that will end up affecting every single combat like Speed or every melee damage roll (except Throw) like Muscle, but then you also have skills that cover situations that, while certainly not unthinkable in a game about Martial Arts heroes, are a bit more peripheral. Athletics is a good combined jumping/climbing skill, Endurance is so open it may as well be vestigial (I am assuming there will be a section later on enabling you to estimate the difficulty of any given task), Swim is something we might take up as a leisure activity once we have mastered all of Kung Fu and so we are left with the extremely useful Speed, which governs not only movement per round but also initiative, and the aforementioned Muscle. 3 Points each. Ride and Sail are both open skills with some rudimentary chase rules which serve in a pinch, but they tend to fall into the same ghetto as Drive in Dark Heresy. How often are you going to end up rolling Drive: Wagon?

Speed – 2
Muscle – 2

Knowledge Skills. Knowledge skills always seemed a bit dubious to me. Conceptually it makes sense to create a system to randomize the amount of obscure in-universe information that is available to the player characters that cannot be inferred by the players (usually because it is the result of something magical or some fake event), but practically speaking I wonder if it is not simpler to just give your players a basic overview and the answers to common sense questions and handle everything else via NPC Scholars and Sages. To be fair, Bredan does tackle this in his description of knowledge skills, and prevents the exponential multiplication of dice rolls by automatically granting PCs access to all knowledge of their level or below, requiring a roll for any knowledge that is one level above the PC’s level. Unlike every other skill, knowledge runs from 0 (untrained) to 6 (Celestial Authority), although at the play levels of Wandering Heroes, only level 4 (Rank 3 with an Expertise in a particular area) is possible. All knowledge skills are open skills, so even your specializations have specializations. The type of specialization ranges from sensible (Creatures (Demons)) to highly obscure (Classics (the 26 Strategems of Jiang Laozi)). I appreciate the nods to medieval era [3] chinese classical literature like Szun Tsu, the I, Ching or the Book of Lord Shang but when the hell are you going to get some use out of these, unless the GM is willing to bite the bullet and read these books. Which, arguably, if you are going this hard into a niche, he might damn well do.

To this is added a decadent 3 tiered language skill system for different grades of mastery which interacts with a seperate Read Script ability. Someone has read their dragon magazine articles because the different languages of Qi Xien do not each have their own seperate alphabets but many of them end up using the same. I can see something like this being working if you lean a bit harder into the emulation part of the RPG hobby but for me I must confess it is a bit much. In a rare confluence of utility and historical authenticity, languages tend to be confined to regions instead of obscure fantasy creatures so we can envision they would be gradually picked up as the characters journey across the Empire although this is another one of those cases where a more Linear or Cinematic style of game, which is nowhere near uncommon with these types of games, means that once you are going to go to a certain area, the GM will either extort one of the PCs into taking the damned skill already or alternatively must provide an interpreter.

It seems a bit…vestigial? Ornamental perhaps? for the purpose I expect to use this character for. Anyway, we want a broad education for this one. We automatically get Language (Fei) 3 ranks. The rest is divided among 6 knowledge skills for a well rounded education in the local area likely to yield the highest returns in the early game.

Language (Fei) – 3
History (Era of the Glorious Emperor) – 1
Creatures (Spirits) – 1
Places/Cultures (Hai’an) – 1
Martial Discipline (Waijing) – 1
Institutions (Imperial Bureacracy) – 1
Read Script (Feishu) – 1

After this is done, we can now select our Sect and Sifu although this is optional and your character can be trained by a lone master. These martial arts sects represent a force outside of the control of the empire, and can be divided further into Orthodox and unorthodox sects, with the unorthodox representing schools that are willing to resort to unconventional techniques and strategems in their approach to martial arts and have a correspondingly poor reputation as a result. These schools determine the Kung Fu techniques (which in this game will likely take the place of spells) the character is likely to be able to master.

The schools are interesting. Each is tied into the elaborate history of Qi Xien and can trace back its origins to the original Masters Sunan and Bao who imprisoned the Demon Emperor, is described in terms of numbers of initiates, masters and disciples, with a philosophy resulting from those events and a list of allies or enemies. Say, the Golden Dragon school hates the Purple Island sect because it was started by one of its exiled masters (who was kicked out for having carnal relations with a fellow master). Orthodox sects tend to have strong views of the use of poison, sorcery or forbidden techniques. Each has an elaborate list of techniques at their disposal. This immediately fleshes out the setting and elevates it above the simple dichotomy of Martial arts vs the Empire.
There’s Kung fu nuns seeking to reclaim the Wind Saber of Sunan and killing Jade Fox the Witch of Zhaoze Zhao. There’s sect rivalries over techniques and philosophy. There’s beggar monks, esoteric confucianist crusader monks, ex-military terrorist monks, the descendants of an ancient lineage of priest-kings now turned religious assassins to bare-chested criminal scum. It is very good, and the unfamiliarity with the source material renders the whole very fresh.

Ehh…we shall take the ultra-orthodox Dehua Sect, and assume that our Sifu will be some Senior disciple of The Five Masters who lead it.

Next up in this series, Reputation, Martial Disciplines, Kung Fu techniques oh my!


[1] Now granted, this was for stabbing a homeless man, this had nothing to do with the review
[2] The source is mentioned as The Guideways Through Mountains and Seas, a Han-dynasty era historical tome
[3] Or whatever name is used to indicate literature from the thousands of years of pre-modern chinese history

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