lyle.spade
Adventurer
Product information... View for more details
Chill 3rd Edition
lyle.spade
Adventurer
5 out of 5 rating for Chill 3rd Edition
I played the original Chill from Pacesetter 30+ years ago and liked the world it built and vibe it sought to evoke at the table. Upon revisiting it in the last few years, however, I found the system to be clunky and not fitting for the type of game I want to run or play these days.Enter Chill 3e from Growling Door Games, which Kickstarted successfully in late 2014 and shipped to backers in late summer of 2015. If you played 1e or Mayfair Games' version, which existed in the 90s, a great deal of the world will feel familiar to you: monsters/ghosts/evil entities come from "the Unknown;" they wield powers of the "Evil Way," and SAVE, a world-spanning secret organization with impressive reach and finances, exists to study and combat the darkness on behalf of a largely clueless world. 3e updates the storyline to the 20-teens, with SAVE having been shattered after attacks from without and seeming betrayal from within. It's up to your group to determine the extent to which SAVE exists and operates along its original model, or if SAVE is something that barely exists at all. The book provides enough background to enable a group to make this decision and make it work with what's in the 290-page rulebook, which I'll break down by chapter below.
Forward/Intro: 18 pages - the genre, general background, and world conceits are outlined here, along with a 10-page graphic novel-style story that helps to establish the type of horror game this is. Clearly-worded and direct, you know what you're in for as a gamer or GM ("CM" from here forward) after reading this.
Ch1: Envoy Creation and Traits, 53 pages - everything you need to create characters or human NPCs for the game, including several complete pregens, several customizable character templates, and descriptions of all the various character stats, traits, skills, and mundane abilities. Character generation is point-based, with no rolling involved at all. Everything is percentile, with 50 as the average, and the system enables the creation of characters that are at least above average, depending on how you allocate points. There are five attributes and four derived traits, and when taken together these represent the mind, body, and spirit of your character. Skills are broad, with one per attribute or trait, for a total of only nine skills. For example, the Agility attrbute is related to the Movement skill, while Perception is related to the Investigation skill. The authors are explicit about how they wanted to keep the skills list short and geared toward things that are useful in the game. If you want to state that your character can also play chess really well, so be it - but that's not likely something that will come up often in fighting werewolves, so it's left off. Each skill can be further refined by taking Specializations, of which there are several per skill. For example, Investigation has Specializations like Forensics, Murder, and Trailing. Skill and Specialization scores are rooted in the related stat, and can be built up by either increasing that stat - possible during character generation or through experience - or by buying Beginner, Expert, or Master ranks in Specializations. This is all done through Character Points during character generation or Development Points (that is, XP) during gameplay. There are also selections of Edges and Drawbacks, which either cost or provide CPs, respectively. Finally, characters are shaped by a Drive and a Takeaway, which are story-related elements that have mechanical implications during the game. I'll hit on those more a little later. Overall, Ch1 follows a logical sequence, is well-written, and provides everything you need to create a unique character that can fit into the world and be immediately playable.
Ch2: The History of SAVE, 74 pages - This is all story background, in the tradition of the old Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook. There's a great deal about SAVE's origins, its evolution over time, interesting cases, and problems in the late 20th Century and early 21st. Hints at why things went awry aren't as plentiful as descriptions of what happened, and I think that's a good thing, as it leaves enough of the world to the gaming group to decide. There are also descriptions of places of interest throughout the world, which would serve as the foundation for any number of individual adventures or a long campaign.
Ch3: The Art, 24 pages - This is where you'll find everything about the quasi-magic system for PCs, broken down into different categories and within each presenting several different disciplines. It's comparable to DnD's schools of magic, although the 'spells' (disciplines) within each aren't divided by level, nor do they need to be learned in sequence. It's a flexible system that is assumed as part of the default world, enabling PCs to heal and defend themselves, as well as have access to other powers that will help them investigate and understand the Unknown.
Ch4: Game Systems, 22 pages - The rules, bringing everything together. You might want to read this chapter right after the Forward and Introduction, then go back to Chapters 1-3, given how short it is, but it's not critical. The basic mechanic is percentile based on whatever stat, skill, or specialization is in use. That number is modified up or down by situational variables or condition variables - it's dark so you can't see well... -10, or you have a Minor wound, so it's -10. This determines the 'Target Number' (TN). Roll under your TN and you get a Low Success - you accomplish what you set out to do and that's that. Roll under half of your TN and you get a High Success - you do more damage, or heal more, or find out another clue. Roll a success with doubles on the dice and you get a Critical Success and more good things flow your way. Roll higher? A failure. Fail with doubles? That's a Botch, which is when you get led astray by false clues or you shoot you buddy instead of the thing that's chewing on him. It's a really easy system to understand and run at the table with all sorts of players. Ch4 explains how the system works in different contexts: combat, investigation, dealing with fear ("Trauma"), and how characters can seek to mitigate negative effects. A major facet of the system is the use of tokens, which are dark on one side and light on the other. Players can flip light tokens to gain an instant +10 to a TN, activate a discipline of the Art, and do some other things. CMs flip dark tokens to create situational penalties to TNs (-10), have their creatures use the Evil Way, and do a few other things. It's a simple system that creates an economy at the table through which you get a bonus or access to something cool at the price of providing access to something that will complicate your life later in the session. As I mentioned earlier, each character has a Drive and at least one Takeaway. Drive is the core motivator to fight the Unknown, like "I will avenge my father." Players can use their drive once per session as if they'd flipped a token from light to dark; and the CM can activitate that Drive once per session for the opposite effect. The Takeaway is something learned from a case - "Ghosts are often anchored to a place or person" - and they're used in the same manner. Notice that the player can use these to his benefit, while the CM can use them against the player, which is a neat story mechanic. Yes, you want to avenge your father, and that gives you courage. But it also might make you reckless. It's a neat, simple system. All that said, this chapter is written for both players and CMs.
Ch5: The Chill Master, 33 pages - For the CM, it revisits rules systems from the CM's perspective, with an emphasis on how to adjudicate rolls at the table and set initial levels of damage, Trauma, and the like. Time is also spent on how to devise clues for players to find. An interesting aspect of this game is how investigations function, and this is addressed in the most detail in Ch5. Much like the Gumshoe system, Chill ensures that "Vital Clues" will get in the hands of players. PCs learn information through three different skills: Communication, Investigation, and/or Research. That is, PCs learn through talking with people, examining places, and/or studying archives or information sources. Regardless of the roll, the PC will always learn a Vital Clue - one that is necessary to moving the story forward. The roll results provide the CM with the opportunity to add more to the story through other kinds of clues: Interest, Esoteric, Extraneous, or a False Lead, along with that Vital Clue. Interest clues - ones that are helpful but not critical - come with a High Success. A Critical Success brings an Esoteric clue, one that's not essential but extremely helpful. A failure brings with it an Extraneous clue - something that might mislead, but is more likely to just cloud the issue a bit. A Botch gifts you with a False Lead along with that Vital Clue...give players two seemingly useful things and let them chase their tails. I think this is an elegant, simple way to keep the story moving, and there's a good amount of writing devoted to how to come up with these clues, with examples provided.
Ch6: Creatures of the Unknown, 58 pages - This chapter includes the rules governing creatures' use of the 'Evil Way' (monster magic), monster creation and their various traits and aspects, and a list of monsters of different types. Monsters are rooted in only three stats: their Evil Way Score (EWS), Reflexes, and Stamina. The EWS is the most important, and is somewhat akin to Hit Dice or level, as it sets the overall potence of the beastie. REF and STA govern how fast and physically tough it is in combat, but the EWS governs how powerful all the creature's Evil Way disciplines are. The disciplines themselves are the sorts that you'd expect from evil entities: they can darken rooms, influence minds, conceal themselves, wound people, animate corpses, and so on. The EWS determines how powerful the individual uses are. There's a wide selection of powers, and a good selection of different types of monsters and minions and such.I've run this game several times for friends and for two convention games, so I've got what I think is a good working perspective on the system, world, and book. Below are my thoughts on the whole.
The Good:Chill is easy to learn and play, with a flexible system that works well in every situation I've thus far created or been pushed into. It strikes a balance between a universal mechanic that's easy, but not vanilla. Characters are easy to create and customize. Monsters are really easy to create and customize, with that entire system and set of options prime for the type of GM/CM/Whatever who wants to create unique foes without spending hours leafing through tables in books. I put together a nasty ghost that lived in a television and devoured people when they voluntarily jumped into a pool of water after it'd broken their will with dreams of being able to join departed loved ones...that took about 10 minutes after I had the idea, and that included typing it up and printing it.The system also ensures that the story will progress through the guarantee of Vital Clues, regardless of rolls, although those rolls will shape how the story proceeds. Trauma (fear) has a real impact on PCs and I've found that it puts the players on a timetable: they have to get on with solving the mystery and defeating the beastie or they're going to get beat up emotionally and spiritually by being exposed to the thing. I like that, and because it works along the same mechanical lines as physical damage it's easy to play out at the table. Finally, I think they've done a great job updating the world and creating a default setting for the type of horror that involves characters having some chance of winning, at least in the short term - no cosmic madness here. I've run stories that are more like the show Supernatural, and games that are within the default world, with SAVE as a source of information and resources.
Areas for Improvement:The only thing I can point out is that some of the art in the Creatures section is not that great. The rest of the book is mostly populated with pictures that are appropriately creepy and relevant - it's just that section that falls short in some places. I also wish there were an introductory adventure in the book, but that's really small beans - especially since there are free downloads from the publisher's site.
Overall:I think this is a great game and I've already had a number of really solid, even creepy, sessions with a variety of players using different play styles. I like the simple, flexible system, and I've already started converting old 1e modules to the new rules, which has been really easy - even though the system is different, it's still rooted in same ideas. Overall a big winner for me and my players.
I played the original Chill from Pacesetter 30+ years ago and liked the world it built and vibe it sought to evoke at the table. Upon revisiting it in the last few years, however, I found the system to be clunky and not fitting for the type of game I want to run or play these days.Enter Chill 3e from Growling Door Games, which Kickstarted successfully in late 2014 and shipped to backers in late summer of 2015. If you played 1e or Mayfair Games' version, which existed in the 90s, a great deal of the world will feel familiar to you: monsters/ghosts/evil entities come from "the Unknown;" they wield powers of the "Evil Way," and SAVE, a world-spanning secret organization with impressive reach and finances, exists to study and combat the darkness on behalf of a largely clueless world. 3e updates the storyline to the 20-teens, with SAVE having been shattered after attacks from without and seeming betrayal from within. It's up to your group to determine the extent to which SAVE exists and operates along its original model, or if SAVE is something that barely exists at all. The book provides enough background to enable a group to make this decision and make it work with what's in the 290-page rulebook, which I'll break down by chapter below.
Forward/Intro: 18 pages - the genre, general background, and world conceits are outlined here, along with a 10-page graphic novel-style story that helps to establish the type of horror game this is. Clearly-worded and direct, you know what you're in for as a gamer or GM ("CM" from here forward) after reading this.
Ch1: Envoy Creation and Traits, 53 pages - everything you need to create characters or human NPCs for the game, including several complete pregens, several customizable character templates, and descriptions of all the various character stats, traits, skills, and mundane abilities. Character generation is point-based, with no rolling involved at all. Everything is percentile, with 50 as the average, and the system enables the creation of characters that are at least above average, depending on how you allocate points. There are five attributes and four derived traits, and when taken together these represent the mind, body, and spirit of your character. Skills are broad, with one per attribute or trait, for a total of only nine skills. For example, the Agility attrbute is related to the Movement skill, while Perception is related to the Investigation skill. The authors are explicit about how they wanted to keep the skills list short and geared toward things that are useful in the game. If you want to state that your character can also play chess really well, so be it - but that's not likely something that will come up often in fighting werewolves, so it's left off. Each skill can be further refined by taking Specializations, of which there are several per skill. For example, Investigation has Specializations like Forensics, Murder, and Trailing. Skill and Specialization scores are rooted in the related stat, and can be built up by either increasing that stat - possible during character generation or through experience - or by buying Beginner, Expert, or Master ranks in Specializations. This is all done through Character Points during character generation or Development Points (that is, XP) during gameplay. There are also selections of Edges and Drawbacks, which either cost or provide CPs, respectively. Finally, characters are shaped by a Drive and a Takeaway, which are story-related elements that have mechanical implications during the game. I'll hit on those more a little later. Overall, Ch1 follows a logical sequence, is well-written, and provides everything you need to create a unique character that can fit into the world and be immediately playable.
Ch2: The History of SAVE, 74 pages - This is all story background, in the tradition of the old Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook. There's a great deal about SAVE's origins, its evolution over time, interesting cases, and problems in the late 20th Century and early 21st. Hints at why things went awry aren't as plentiful as descriptions of what happened, and I think that's a good thing, as it leaves enough of the world to the gaming group to decide. There are also descriptions of places of interest throughout the world, which would serve as the foundation for any number of individual adventures or a long campaign.
Ch3: The Art, 24 pages - This is where you'll find everything about the quasi-magic system for PCs, broken down into different categories and within each presenting several different disciplines. It's comparable to DnD's schools of magic, although the 'spells' (disciplines) within each aren't divided by level, nor do they need to be learned in sequence. It's a flexible system that is assumed as part of the default world, enabling PCs to heal and defend themselves, as well as have access to other powers that will help them investigate and understand the Unknown.
Ch4: Game Systems, 22 pages - The rules, bringing everything together. You might want to read this chapter right after the Forward and Introduction, then go back to Chapters 1-3, given how short it is, but it's not critical. The basic mechanic is percentile based on whatever stat, skill, or specialization is in use. That number is modified up or down by situational variables or condition variables - it's dark so you can't see well... -10, or you have a Minor wound, so it's -10. This determines the 'Target Number' (TN). Roll under your TN and you get a Low Success - you accomplish what you set out to do and that's that. Roll under half of your TN and you get a High Success - you do more damage, or heal more, or find out another clue. Roll a success with doubles on the dice and you get a Critical Success and more good things flow your way. Roll higher? A failure. Fail with doubles? That's a Botch, which is when you get led astray by false clues or you shoot you buddy instead of the thing that's chewing on him. It's a really easy system to understand and run at the table with all sorts of players. Ch4 explains how the system works in different contexts: combat, investigation, dealing with fear ("Trauma"), and how characters can seek to mitigate negative effects. A major facet of the system is the use of tokens, which are dark on one side and light on the other. Players can flip light tokens to gain an instant +10 to a TN, activate a discipline of the Art, and do some other things. CMs flip dark tokens to create situational penalties to TNs (-10), have their creatures use the Evil Way, and do a few other things. It's a simple system that creates an economy at the table through which you get a bonus or access to something cool at the price of providing access to something that will complicate your life later in the session. As I mentioned earlier, each character has a Drive and at least one Takeaway. Drive is the core motivator to fight the Unknown, like "I will avenge my father." Players can use their drive once per session as if they'd flipped a token from light to dark; and the CM can activitate that Drive once per session for the opposite effect. The Takeaway is something learned from a case - "Ghosts are often anchored to a place or person" - and they're used in the same manner. Notice that the player can use these to his benefit, while the CM can use them against the player, which is a neat story mechanic. Yes, you want to avenge your father, and that gives you courage. But it also might make you reckless. It's a neat, simple system. All that said, this chapter is written for both players and CMs.
Ch5: The Chill Master, 33 pages - For the CM, it revisits rules systems from the CM's perspective, with an emphasis on how to adjudicate rolls at the table and set initial levels of damage, Trauma, and the like. Time is also spent on how to devise clues for players to find. An interesting aspect of this game is how investigations function, and this is addressed in the most detail in Ch5. Much like the Gumshoe system, Chill ensures that "Vital Clues" will get in the hands of players. PCs learn information through three different skills: Communication, Investigation, and/or Research. That is, PCs learn through talking with people, examining places, and/or studying archives or information sources. Regardless of the roll, the PC will always learn a Vital Clue - one that is necessary to moving the story forward. The roll results provide the CM with the opportunity to add more to the story through other kinds of clues: Interest, Esoteric, Extraneous, or a False Lead, along with that Vital Clue. Interest clues - ones that are helpful but not critical - come with a High Success. A Critical Success brings an Esoteric clue, one that's not essential but extremely helpful. A failure brings with it an Extraneous clue - something that might mislead, but is more likely to just cloud the issue a bit. A Botch gifts you with a False Lead along with that Vital Clue...give players two seemingly useful things and let them chase their tails. I think this is an elegant, simple way to keep the story moving, and there's a good amount of writing devoted to how to come up with these clues, with examples provided.
Ch6: Creatures of the Unknown, 58 pages - This chapter includes the rules governing creatures' use of the 'Evil Way' (monster magic), monster creation and their various traits and aspects, and a list of monsters of different types. Monsters are rooted in only three stats: their Evil Way Score (EWS), Reflexes, and Stamina. The EWS is the most important, and is somewhat akin to Hit Dice or level, as it sets the overall potence of the beastie. REF and STA govern how fast and physically tough it is in combat, but the EWS governs how powerful all the creature's Evil Way disciplines are. The disciplines themselves are the sorts that you'd expect from evil entities: they can darken rooms, influence minds, conceal themselves, wound people, animate corpses, and so on. The EWS determines how powerful the individual uses are. There's a wide selection of powers, and a good selection of different types of monsters and minions and such.I've run this game several times for friends and for two convention games, so I've got what I think is a good working perspective on the system, world, and book. Below are my thoughts on the whole.
The Good:Chill is easy to learn and play, with a flexible system that works well in every situation I've thus far created or been pushed into. It strikes a balance between a universal mechanic that's easy, but not vanilla. Characters are easy to create and customize. Monsters are really easy to create and customize, with that entire system and set of options prime for the type of GM/CM/Whatever who wants to create unique foes without spending hours leafing through tables in books. I put together a nasty ghost that lived in a television and devoured people when they voluntarily jumped into a pool of water after it'd broken their will with dreams of being able to join departed loved ones...that took about 10 minutes after I had the idea, and that included typing it up and printing it.The system also ensures that the story will progress through the guarantee of Vital Clues, regardless of rolls, although those rolls will shape how the story proceeds. Trauma (fear) has a real impact on PCs and I've found that it puts the players on a timetable: they have to get on with solving the mystery and defeating the beastie or they're going to get beat up emotionally and spiritually by being exposed to the thing. I like that, and because it works along the same mechanical lines as physical damage it's easy to play out at the table. Finally, I think they've done a great job updating the world and creating a default setting for the type of horror that involves characters having some chance of winning, at least in the short term - no cosmic madness here. I've run stories that are more like the show Supernatural, and games that are within the default world, with SAVE as a source of information and resources.
Areas for Improvement:The only thing I can point out is that some of the art in the Creatures section is not that great. The rest of the book is mostly populated with pictures that are appropriately creepy and relevant - it's just that section that falls short in some places. I also wish there were an introductory adventure in the book, but that's really small beans - especially since there are free downloads from the publisher's site.
Overall:I think this is a great game and I've already had a number of really solid, even creepy, sessions with a variety of players using different play styles. I like the simple, flexible system, and I've already started converting old 1e modules to the new rules, which has been really easy - even though the system is different, it's still rooted in same ideas. Overall a big winner for me and my players.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
