A quick look at a big book: His Majesty the Worm

 

A "problem" that I imagine affects many of us is that it is much easier to find the time to read, than to play. Fortunately reading is still an enjoyable pastime. In this (intended) series, I write up my impressions from a read-through of the book, with all the caveats that come with that.

The first entry in this series is Josh McCrowell's highly anticipated Big Book RPG His Majesty The Worm. Hopefully soon available again.

At first glance, the game looks like OSR fare: desperate adventurers venturing into the megadungeon in search of fame and fortune. That is, until you look closer at the mechanics, which are different from any OSR game I have ever seen. Coming in with some familiarity with RPGs, The Worm reveals itself to be a different beast entirely, as if someone attempted to reconstruct the OSR dungeon experience from first principles using only the fiction, while rejecting the mechanical baggage of D&D. I was not surprised to hear Brad Kerr of Between Two Cairns repeatedly (and excitedly) exclaim "You can't do that!" when speaking wish Josh.

Nova of Playful Void emphasises the "delightfulness" of the game in her review, which is easy to pick up from the text. It is written in a conversational tone, and it is clear that it wants you to have fun, both reading and playing. This means that even at 400 (large) pages, it never feels like a slog to read, Josh is not too proud to throw in little jokes - it's just a game, why take it so seriously? It reads closer to a friend explaining you the game at board game night than a dry technical rules manual.

It is also interesting to note that the game text is very explicit about being in conversation with the RPG community and the blogosphere, e.g. citing Chris McDowall's blogpost on types of monsters, and suggesting using Skerples' Tomb of the Serpent Kings as a dungeon level. It feels unconventional (but not in a bad way) to see this type of direct intertextuality in a big, printed, published book. McCrowell's work does not just stand on the shoulders of giants, it is actively conversing with them. I think this is good? It might seem odd when someone picks up the book from the used games shelf in 20 years and the internet has devolved into useless AI sludge, but the book is not for them, it is for us reading it right now.

The art is a bit of a weird one. I think all of it (or near enough that it makes no difference) is good! However, other than all being black and white, I find that it lacks a unified style. Likely a result of being commissioned piecewise over the slowfunding period of the game, it could have used a stronger art direction to come together to a unified whole, even if the pieces are individually good.

In terms of content, in many ways it feels like three books in one: 

• It has the game itself, the mechanics and procedures of play specific to His Majesty the Worm
• It has the generation tools: do you need some inspiration to create a City or Dungeon for the elfgame of your choice? look no further - the tarot draw tables easily create something interesting but vague enough in terms of mechanics that it can easily be slotted into whichever game you want to play - the tables could even be reskinned and you can use the bones of the generation for other genres
• It has the GM advice - everywhere in the book, but especially in the latter half, the text is peppered with advice for running the game that could really be applied to any OSR style game, and sometimes even beyond. How to come up with good traps, how to make dungeons interesting and presenting this information, etc.

Of course, this all ties into the DIY ethos of The Worm - the GM is also a player, and part of the play is preparing the dungeon for the adventurers to venture into. The game wants to create a specific dungeon crawling experience, and tries to give the reader all the tools necessary to do this, including copious amounts of play examples to illustrate both mechanics and desirable play styles - this is especially well motivated for the resolution and "challenge" mechanics (the latter being the game's terminology for the combat phase of the game, as these will be unfamiliar even to experienced roleplayers.

The game also exclaims to be anti-canon, bringing only an implied setting which can be used or not, as long as you have The City and The Underworld. However, all this lore is fantastic, McCrowell is a master of writing creative and engaging places, creatures, and items. As much as it is against the ethos of the game, I would love to see a McCrowell-penned setting book with a city and its dungeon (though it could be argued that the examples in the appendices are exactly that).

The most significant departure from standard roleplay culture lies in the randomisation, where The Worm eschews the traditional dice of various denominations, opting instead to embrace the tarot deck. While superficially seeming like a gimmick, it turns out that the game's resolution systems are deeply tied into the peculiarities of the traditional tarot. This does lead to somewhat of a missed opportunity, in that there is no tarot deck tie-in, but does give me an opportunity to show off all the tarot decks I have accumulated because I liked the art. An "official" worm tarot deck would have been a cool extra, but a full tarot deck is a majestic undertaking for an artist, so I understand why this has been skipped.

Unlike most of its OSR cousins, I would not describe The Worm as rules light (unless you want to get into some terminology fight where you call all of your rules "procedures"), however, the more I read of the book, the more everything fits together, and some odd choices start to make sense. There are mechanics for things that are usually handwaved, or handled through freeform roleplay, but it has a board game feel to it in the sense that the mechanics are the fun, unlike many other RPGs where it feels like the the mechanics facilitate the fun (perhaps this distinction is only meaningful to me, who knows?). Everything is handled by one of its currencies: cards in your hand, inventory slots, wounds, bonds, resolve, and money. But crucially, these currencies are the same across all classes: while a magician might use resolve to cast a spell, it may also be used to activate the ability of your kin, other classes' talents, or to gain advantage on a test. No worrying about expending spell slots (though the number of different spells that can be cast is determined by your spell components, each taking up an inventory slot. Another resource relevant to all!). The Worm has taken DnD 3e's vision of a unified resolution mechanic and cranked it up to eleven, while at the same time aiming to make it fun.

Some choices initially puzzled me, the best example is the mechanic of bidding lore: each "rest", each adventurer has a finite amount of times they can ask the GM "would my character know X?" which rubbed me the wrong way: whether my character knows something should not depend on how much they have known recently, it should be decided by the fiction! However, it turns out to be tied into the elves kin talents in interesting ways, and it is not as harsh as it initially seemed. My final opinion on this mechanic will have to be determined by playing.

And indeed, everything seems to be set up into a machinery that works just so. I would be afraid to modify anything: even the number of inventory slots is chosen to line up with the number of cards in the tarot deck, so if a random item is destroyed, it is easy to adjudicate! Whether the machine runs smoothly or not will have to be determined through play, because it certainly has a lot of spinning cogs, hopefully all fitting perfectly together.

And that might be both the game's greatest weakness and its greatest strength. This is truly a game meant to be played. Of course, the creation mechanics can just be stolen wholesale, but the game is a very specific system for a specific type of play: dungeon delving campaigns. While I am sure it is possible, this game does not seem made for one-shots, when you play, you are locked in. And indeed, with a book this size, it would be a lot of reading to do just for a one-shot. I imagine that the game needs an initial session or few for the mechanics to properly imprint on the brain, before the game starts really running smoothly. It is not a game to quickly throw in on an off week. When you go for The Worm, you better commit. I hope I can find the time to properly play it one day, because it certainly seems exciting on the page. In any case, I am sure I will have fun with its city and dungeon generation mechanics.