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| You know this is the shit, right? |
Anyway, Free League's latest offering in this vein is this literal bad boy:
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| Whaaaaaaat? |
The basics
Mörk Borg was written by Pelle Nilsson; this is the only thing by him in English, so I have no idea what else he's done. This doesn't seem like his first rodeo, though! You know what I mean??
Anywho, the artist/graphics guy is Johan Nohr. He's similarly unknown to me, but I can see he's done work on a number of other Free League joints. I confess to not digging any deeper into his corpus of work; to be honest, Free League art is consistently excellent, so that's good enough for this unpaid effort. Besides, since he's the sole credited artist in MB, I can see his work very clearly right there.
And what I can tell you is that there is a lot of stylistic variation executed with earned confidence. There are messy fantasy pieces that remind me of a cross of 80's British Fantasy with Scrap Princess (look at that cover, for instance). But there are also woodcuts and other pieces done in medieval styles. There are also collages of photos and other bits and bobs...I won't rule out that some of that came from the editing team; more on them below. I'll post a few images from these rules, and I want you to remember: this was all one guy.
And what I can tell you is that there is a lot of stylistic variation executed with earned confidence. There are messy fantasy pieces that remind me of a cross of 80's British Fantasy with Scrap Princess (look at that cover, for instance). But there are also woodcuts and other pieces done in medieval styles. There are also collages of photos and other bits and bobs...I won't rule out that some of that came from the editing team; more on them below. I'll post a few images from these rules, and I want you to remember: this was all one guy.
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| No, not this guy! |
Oh, I almost forgot: indie OSR darling Patrick Stuart (or as I like to call him, Patstu) was in charge of the English adaptation. The writing is nice and bouncy without being too precious, so thank old Patstu for that.Let's get into the nitty-gritty of mechanics, and then we'll get into the whole mouthfeel of MÖRK BORG.
Everyone has the ability to cast a number of spells a day based on their Presence, but they need to possess scrolls for any spells they would cast. The game gives you ten "unclean" spells and ten "sacred" spells, undifferentiated by level.
One thing that I like is that armor is rated in terms of a damage reduction die. I've been saying for a while that this is a good idea, and here's a nice example of it. Armor does impair your Agility and defense, but I don't think you go into a game like this expecting realism. It's meant to be quick and dirty (more on the dirt in a little bit).
But my first impression of these mechanics: The Black Hack with armor done right.
There are a few other features I like about these rules, and a couple of complaints. First, the game has lots of tables for lots of things, including character creation, and I like that. They're the good kind of tables that lend themselves to chaotic events and adventure hooks. Second, the classes are optional, and they're very distinctive. No generic "warrior" or "thief," but you do get "fanged deserter" and "gutterborn scum." Third, it comes with an adventure, and it's an excellent compact dungeon crawl.
To be honest, with all the tables and flavor, it reminds me more of Troika! or Into the Odd than The Black Hack. Maybe a tiny bit crunchier than those two, so perhaps where they all meet?
There are really only two things that I don't like. First, I wouldn't have picked that breakdown of abilities. Three physical and one mental? Considering they are really the only stats in the game to measure a character's, well, ability, I would be inclined to make them more like areas of expertise. Almost like classes, to be honest.
But you know what? That's easy to fix if you want to. A bigger problem I have with the rules is the experience system. You basically level whenever the GM thinks it seems appropriate. I don't like things being quite so loosey-goosey. Also, the system of advancement is pretty lame. Roll 1d6 for each ability. If the ability is currently between -3 and +1, then rolling a 1 means you lose a point but a roll of 2 to 6 means you gain one. If your ability is +2 or more, then rolling higher than the ability causes it to increase by one but rolling equal or less to the value causes it to decrease by one.
HP is similar but not quite as bad. Roll 6d10; if that's higher than your current HP, add 1d6 more.
I haven't mentioned another important mechanic: player-facing rolls. The players make all the rolls for this game. Some people won't like that. Personally, I'm fine with it for such a rules-lite game. It definitely keeps things nice and pacey if the players are holding the dice and rolling them, and the GM is just saying what happens. But it does smack of solipsism in elf-gaming, so I am not exactly enthused.
Anyway, the game proudly advertises its metal inspirations. I'm not a metal guy, but here are the bands that the text lists up-front:
I randomly googled a bunch and the "stoner rock" tag seemed to come up a lot. The only ones I had heard of before were Electric Wizard and GY!BE.
Hey, that's not doom metal! Stoner rock is its own thing. There's nothing to be ashamed about, Mörk Borg!
Setting all that aside...the word I'd use to describe this game would be Gothic. This game is Gothic as fuck. For example, before the rules for character generation are given, the rules for the apocalypse are given. This is very simple and nice; depending on the timeframe the GM has in mind (which can vary from "years of pain" to "the end is nigh") the GM rolls a die that varies from d2 to d100, every game day. If the result is a "1," the GM rolls on the table of portents. On the seventh sign, the world ends.
That right there may tell you all you need to know about whether this game is for you.
The aesthetic is very arty, very reminiscent of Mothership. I looked at the credits for both, and I see two names in common: Fiona Maeve Geist and Jarrett Crader. Fiona was one of the authors of Mothership while Jarrett was the editor, and they are both listed as editors for Mörk Borg.
There's a lot of changing up of fonts, art styles and layouts with a collage approach that reminds me more of what you might see in arty magazine layouts. But it's really not distracting at all! There's a lot of whitespace to let the text breathe - the book's 96 pages could have easily been halved, but it would sacrifice some of the clarity. It does this while being very pretty and memorable.
Let me give you a screenshot of a two-page spread that illustrates a lot of what I'm talking about:
This is all extremely stylized, but clarity doesn't suffer. Quite the contrary; if you're holding this as a physical book, you'll have a lot easier time flipping to the right page. Each spread looks so different.
Mechanics
Front and center: the game is really simple. It has a basic d20 mechanic at its core with ability modifiers that range from -3 to +3. Outside of that, however, the game is no retroclone. There are four abilities (Strength, Toughness, Agility and Presence) and Hit Points, and...that's pretty much it, except for equipment.Everyone has the ability to cast a number of spells a day based on their Presence, but they need to possess scrolls for any spells they would cast. The game gives you ten "unclean" spells and ten "sacred" spells, undifferentiated by level.
One thing that I like is that armor is rated in terms of a damage reduction die. I've been saying for a while that this is a good idea, and here's a nice example of it. Armor does impair your Agility and defense, but I don't think you go into a game like this expecting realism. It's meant to be quick and dirty (more on the dirt in a little bit).
But my first impression of these mechanics: The Black Hack with armor done right.
There are a few other features I like about these rules, and a couple of complaints. First, the game has lots of tables for lots of things, including character creation, and I like that. They're the good kind of tables that lend themselves to chaotic events and adventure hooks. Second, the classes are optional, and they're very distinctive. No generic "warrior" or "thief," but you do get "fanged deserter" and "gutterborn scum." Third, it comes with an adventure, and it's an excellent compact dungeon crawl.
To be honest, with all the tables and flavor, it reminds me more of Troika! or Into the Odd than The Black Hack. Maybe a tiny bit crunchier than those two, so perhaps where they all meet?
There are really only two things that I don't like. First, I wouldn't have picked that breakdown of abilities. Three physical and one mental? Considering they are really the only stats in the game to measure a character's, well, ability, I would be inclined to make them more like areas of expertise. Almost like classes, to be honest.
But you know what? That's easy to fix if you want to. A bigger problem I have with the rules is the experience system. You basically level whenever the GM thinks it seems appropriate. I don't like things being quite so loosey-goosey. Also, the system of advancement is pretty lame. Roll 1d6 for each ability. If the ability is currently between -3 and +1, then rolling a 1 means you lose a point but a roll of 2 to 6 means you gain one. If your ability is +2 or more, then rolling higher than the ability causes it to increase by one but rolling equal or less to the value causes it to decrease by one.
HP is similar but not quite as bad. Roll 6d10; if that's higher than your current HP, add 1d6 more.
I haven't mentioned another important mechanic: player-facing rolls. The players make all the rolls for this game. Some people won't like that. Personally, I'm fine with it for such a rules-lite game. It definitely keeps things nice and pacey if the players are holding the dice and rolling them, and the GM is just saying what happens. But it does smack of solipsism in elf-gaming, so I am not exactly enthused.
Vibe
Now I'll talk about setting and aesthetics. These would ordinarily be distinct topics, but this game really conflates them. In fairness, the mechanics also reflect the same atmosphere, but perhaps not as strongly.Anyway, the game proudly advertises its metal inspirations. I'm not a metal guy, but here are the bands that the text lists up-front:
I randomly googled a bunch and the "stoner rock" tag seemed to come up a lot. The only ones I had heard of before were Electric Wizard and GY!BE.
Hey, that's not doom metal! Stoner rock is its own thing. There's nothing to be ashamed about, Mörk Borg!
That right there may tell you all you need to know about whether this game is for you.
The aesthetic is very arty, very reminiscent of Mothership. I looked at the credits for both, and I see two names in common: Fiona Maeve Geist and Jarrett Crader. Fiona was one of the authors of Mothership while Jarrett was the editor, and they are both listed as editors for Mörk Borg.
There's a lot of changing up of fonts, art styles and layouts with a collage approach that reminds me more of what you might see in arty magazine layouts. But it's really not distracting at all! There's a lot of whitespace to let the text breathe - the book's 96 pages could have easily been halved, but it would sacrifice some of the clarity. It does this while being very pretty and memorable.
Let me give you a screenshot of a two-page spread that illustrates a lot of what I'm talking about:
Do you see what's going on here? This is that doomsday clock mechanic on the first of two facing pages. The second facing page contains a d66 table of possible signs of the impending apocalypse. But note how the table is printed to resemble Bible verses? It's almost too clever, that's how cool it is.
This is all extremely stylized, but clarity doesn't suffer. Quite the contrary; if you're holding this as a physical book, you'll have a lot easier time flipping to the right page. Each spread looks so different.
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