by Demian Katz
Santa's Soldiers: Second Edition
Written by Bill Kte'pi, Todd Downing and Gavin Downing
Illustrated by Steve Hartley and Todd Downing
Published by Deep 7
60 page PDF
$7.95
When the first edition of Santa's Soldiers was announced a couple of
years ago, I was mildly amused, but I wasn't quite intrigued enough to
pick up a copy. When Deep7 started distributing the game, I took a
little more notice but still failed to take action. When the second
edition was released, expanded to sixty pages and revamped to use the
XPG system, though, I decided that I had waited long enough, and
greedily requested a review copy (hey, it's the season of giving,
right?). I was not disappointed.
One of the problems with many humorous games is that they rely entirely
on their concept for their humor. Sometimes this works, but usually
such products are revealed for what they truly are: one-joke wastes of
time. There's certainly a risk that a writer working with the
delightful concept of paramilitary Christmas elves would get lazy, but
that is most certainly not the case here. The world of Santa's Soldiers
is carefully thought-out, full of interesting characters and
organizations, and, in a really twisted way, strangely logical.
All Santa wants to do is deliver toys, of course, but such a noble task
cannot be completed without opposition; thus, the Order of St. Nicholas
(or OSN) was formed to fend off the jealous minions of such fearsome
foes as the Boogieman and the Anti-Claus by force of festive arms, magic
and vehicles. The OSN itself consists of several brigades, each named
after a different famous reindeer, and the interactions and
specializations of these brigades are just as interesting as the
relationships between the various holiday-related and anti-Christmas
forces of the world. I would say more on the setting and its
inhabitants, but I really don't want to spoil too much. This book is a
surprisingly fun read and, even more surprisingly, has a lot of campaign
potential.
The delightful setting of Santa's Soldiers is well-suited for the solid
XPG system. The XPG rules support a good level of detail (and this is a
more detailed game than you'd expect), but they're also fast and easy,
allowing quick-paced, humorous anarchy to take place comfortably. My
only complaint about the XPG rules is that I can foresee gamers growing
tired of reading them again and again in every Deep7 release. It might
be nice to see a generic (and perhaps freely downloadable) XPG core book
which could be used to reduce redundancy and save ink and toner around
the world. Of course, this complaint really doesn't apply here;
although the XPG rules presented by Santa's Soldiers are very close to
those I previously encountered in Mean Streets, they're peppered with
humorous examples and silly asides that make them entirely worth reading
for a second time. Still, were this not a humorous game, I would be
complaining about the redundancy.
In addition to the chuckle-inducing humor sprinkled throughout the text, the game
is also enhanced by lots and lots of original artwork. There's scarcely
a character or item that isn't accompanied by an illustration, and most
of the pictures have just the right ridiculous mix of cute and tough. I
have only two minor complaints. First of all, since this is a digital
product, the game could have been presented in full-color
beyond the cover; the spirit of the game is really suited to full-color,
and I don't think it would have taken a whole lot of time to flood-fill
the various line-drawings to a state of tacky brightness. Secondly, the
elves in the drawings, though amusing, don't quite look right to me -
the text mentions pudgy bodies and skinny limbs, but the illustrations
portray fairly normal proportions; a bit more exaggeration would have
been nice.
Although this game was really a whole series of pleasant surprises for
me, one of the most pleasantly startling developments was found in the
quality of support material included. There's all the usual
stuff, of course: background material for character creation, spell lists,
equipment, NPCs, etc. In addition to this, though, there are lots of
unexpected touches: a glossary of OSN slang ("Tree Trimmed and Stockings
Stuffed, boys; let's not Scrooge this up!"), a well-above-average "what
is role-playing?" segment (imagine that!), a genuinely useful discussion
of how to run a humorous game, and, as icing on the cake, a working
index. Add to all this an assortment of inspired and strange adventure
hooks that allow plenty of room for fun improvization, and you're ready
for an evening of ultraviolence that will provide happy holiday memories
for many years to come.
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