Skull & Bones

Game: Skull & Bones
Publisher: Green Ronin
Series: Skull and Bones: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 5th, October 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 9/10   [ Something special ]
Total Score: 10
Average Score: 5.00

I was really looking forward to Skull & Bones. This tends to doom the book. My expectations are generally high, too high, and this is enough to take the shine off an otherwise brilliant book. I’m disappointed that Skull & Bones doesn’t have more illustrations in the Hollywood sexy pirate style.

This Mythic Vistas book tends to default to the more historically accurate portrayal of the pirate, in silly (but truthful) period costume, and with scratchy line drawings for that ye olde effect. Hmm. Let’s see. What else? I was disappointed that Skull & Bones doesn’t get up and make me coffee in the morning. There’s very little else to be disappointed with Skull & Bones.

Pirates! Actually, pirates and voodoo in fairly equal measure. Skull & Bones does an excellent job of bringing the d20 system to the Caribbean of the late seventeenth century. The d20 system is totally lousy for any attempt for grim or realistic recreation RPGs. Skull & Bones deals with this serious problem rather well.

The book doesn’t entirely avoid the problem, nor does it rush to tackle it head-on – we still have black and white alignments, for example.

Instead, Skull & Bones succinctly rewrite those parts of the core d20 mechanics that conjure up much of the system’s inherent cheese fantasy ambience. There’s a new set of character classes. The likes of clerics and paladins are gone. Forget wizards and sorcerers. The bard isn’t tempting at all, druids are unlikely but barbarians might just suit island savages of Scottish highlanders. The ubiquitous fighter class is a goer though. Rogues will work as well.

There are replacement classes, seaworthy characters like the sea dog, shantyman or buccaneer. It’s not a surprise to find that there are prestige character classes too.

The wizard and sorcerer classes are left to sit in the corner of your traditional fantasy game wearing a great big dunce pointy hat on their heads because Skull & Bones has an entirely new system for Voodoo magic. Voodoo isn’t annoyingly aggregated into “good” and “bad” magick nor is it a dark alternative to Christianity. As with most d20 magic-cum-religion systems, it’s simply a codification of belief and effects.

The setting is especially interesting when it comes to Voodoo too. The religion hasn’t yet settled into typical Voodoo as yet, the blend of religions and convictions that become Voodoo are still swirling around. Two of the new classes are strongly connected to this real-world magic, the Bokor and Hougan.

As you’d expect there are new skills and feats in the book. Many of these compliments the nautical flavour of the game. Later on, in chapter ten of 192-paged book, we’ll find the rules for ships and sailing.

I think there are three big ships in the d20 nautical market. There’s Living Imagination with their Broadsides! and recent Pirates! supplements enjoying several weeks lead over Skull & Bones.

There’s also the Mongoose’s Seas of Blood series and although we’ve not seen anything from that line in a while it has already given the high fantasy races navies of their own. The name to note from the front cover of Skulls & Bones might well be Ian Sturrock, an Ian Sturrock who might well be the very same who writes for Mongoose.

The third of the three big ships in the d20 nautical market is Skull & Bones. It’s good enough to immediately claim the title. T.S. Luikart and Gareth-Michael Skarka are the other two of the front page credited authors.

Skull & Bones makes good use of Backgrounds and Fortunes. These are character quirks, either of personality or circumstance, that’ll affect gameplay to the point where it’s worth codifying.

That’s the theory anyway and it’s a theory subscribe to. My suspicion is that those who don’t like advantages/disadvantages or merits/flaws might just find that they dislike the mechanics here. I like them though.

Combat is interesting in Skull & Bones. What? Is that believable? I’m one of those gamers who tend to switch off if the combat rolls continue too long, too fiddly or too dominant.

How can combat be interesting? Combat in Skull & Bones is cinematic. It succeeds in getting the mix of intense action and fast action scenes exactly right. We have the Cannon Fodder to thank for much of this. These unfortunate souls line up alongside the PCs and the NPCs as the second type of non-playing character.

These are the red shirts, those scenery characters that’ll die in the first barrage of grapeshot or meet the sharp end of the PC’s sabre in the first round. Cannon Fodder has no hit points. Damage goes straight to their Constitution. Our fortunate characters only have to take those Constitution hits after their Hit Points run out.

If a character takes too much damage then he’ll be faced with Rolling the Bones in order to keep going. It’s not quite grim and gritty; let’s say it’s bold and bloody.

It’s perhaps typical of a d20 game, even for one as thoroughly professional as Skull & Bones that the lifestyle roleplaying comes in the chapter after the combat rules. The pirate’s life chapter looks at such important issues as wages and wenching! Yo-ho-ho. It’s a pirate’s life for me!

There are also rules for fame and the special Duello code for pirate duels. Throughout the book, there are insert biographies for famous pirates. Touches like this are one of the reasons the RPG oozes pirate flavour.

Just under half the book is placed in the Game Master’s Section. Skull & Bones does carry the d20 logo and so there’s no need to describe the character creation rules (and they’re not allowed to have them anyway). I think about 80 pages on the nuances and broad strokes of running a pirate game are about right.

That’s to say there are about 80 pages of campaign styles, rule observations, mechanics for plunder, monsters, spirits, islands, adventure and wonderfully detailed appendixes.

At the beginning of Skull & Bones, as they strip out the magic classes and promise significant magical revisions later on in the book the idea of a monstrous bestiary seems quite unlikely. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Skull & Bones manages to offer up.

There is a bestiary and it’s an interesting mix of creatures that might just be real if you belief Caribbean myths and legends and those encounters which are probably only suitable for the D&D inspired d20 system. The Djab are worthy of a mention of their own. The Djab aren’t just another monster, they’re a monster type in their own right and are significant spirits and entities from Voodoo mythos.

Islands. This book is full of islands! Almost like a geographical bestiary, the island charts in Skull & Bones provide quick summaries and illustrations (mini maps, I guess) of islands in the Caribbean.

It’s a format that supports a GM flicking through their book and looking for somewhere suitable for a particular scenario – exactly how a GM might use a monster manual or creature collection. GMs in a hurry will appreciate the sample/pre-written adventure before the superb appendixes.

Skull & Bones is a gorgeous book. I might have preferred more of a fantasy view of pirates in the illustrations but I can’t deny that all the artwork is top class. The book is a pleasure to read. The text size is small and tightly packed together.

Despite the large and decorative margins, there’s little doubt in my mind that the book is great value for money at. $27.95 is a steal. It’s easy plunder! Occasionally the large margin is put to use and hosts some sidebar information.

Throughout the book, the large margin, eye-catching, readable font and clever layout combine in a visual feast. You could pick up Skull & Bones, flick through the pages and be convinced then and there to buy it. Green Ronin is getting very good at producing extremely tempting books. The Mythic Vistas series, with Testament and Skull and Bones, is one to watch.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one campaign setting for pirates – then it’s got to be Skull & Bones.