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Cold, Hard World
Length: 74 pages
Price: $8.00 (PDF)
Publisher: Atomic Sock Monkey www.atomicsockmonkey.com
So, not only does Chad have an excellent game in Dead Inside, but he puts out really good supplements, too. Not quite as good as the original game, for reasons I'll go into in a minute, but still very good. Cold, Hard World is a very solid offering, covering all sorts of elements of Dead Inside play outside the Spirit World and in the "real world". It's especially nice as a PDF, where I don't have to print the pages that don't work for me.
What do you get, then?
Well, Chapter 1 is called "Real World Recap", but it's really more than that. It doesn't just repeat rules, it expands them, and throws in a lot of interesting additional material as well. There's more detail on "normal" people, and how they percieve and interact with supernatural beings, from Ghosts to Qlippoth, and of course Dead Inside. There's a wonderful sidebar on animals and plants (and their relation to the supernatural), a succinct yet detailed sidebar on religion, and an excellent sidebar regarding mental health and its interaction with the supernatural, particularly for those without a soul. There's an overview of the supernatural as it interacts outside the Spirit World, including its affect on history (minimal, thank God), how ensoulment works outside the Spirit World, and an excellent section on supernatural talents, as adjusted for the "dampening" effect of the Real World. There's also more info on Soul Contracts (how to bargain away some's soul) and cracking a normal person open to steal their soul and make them one of the Dead Inside.
Chapter 2 is called "Lay of the Land", and is about the "Supernatural Set" -- the cliques of people in the Real World who deal with the supernatural, as a sort of subculture all their own. There is a detailed discussion of Places and Times of Power -- areas in the Real World where supernatural talents work better, or differently -- including some notable locations to drop into your campaign, like the elite Zombi meeting place, the Alacandra Funeral Home, and Ibrahim's Grocery, a place unstuck in space, and notable regular events, like Gateseal Eve, when the supernatural goes on the wane.
Then there is the section on groups.
This is the bit that bothered me. Oh, there are some very good groups there -- I'll get to those in a moment -- but there's a couple that stick out like a sore thumb. See, one of the things I liked about Dead Inside is the way it walked the line between horror and urban fantasy, without getting too goofy. Well, in the groups section, Chad lets out his goofy Monkey, Ninja, Robot, Pirate side, moving into parody in a way that clashes, in my opinion, with the delicate tone of Dead Inside.
First on my list of groups that concern me is the Cryptozoo Revue... This is a minor example, a silly name, which I can forgive because the group consists of supernaturals that like "pranking" normals, something which I could see existing.
Second is the Gothiks. This is a group of Dead Inside who thinks they're vampires. It's obvious that Chad is making fun of White Wolf and some elements of goth culture here, in what would be an otherwise interesting idea, and his desire to parody overcomes his good sense and my suspension of disbelief. I find it hard to believe that the symbol for a group of people who thinks they're vampires would be a smiley face with bat wings and fangs, and throwing the Gothiks in a game would move a game from De Lint to Scooby Doo in a heartbeat. Not something I consider to be desirable.
Third is the Worldspacklers. These are people who have had direct experience with the Void, and dedicate their lives to stopping outbreaks of Qlippothic energies. This is a very cool idea for a group, but again Chad's sense of humor overwhelms my suspension of disbelief: I find it hard to believe that any such group, even one founded by people from Pennsyvlania, would call themselves "Worldspacklers" and take a spackling knife as their symbol. If my entire home town suddenly ceased to exist and I escaped with my skin barely intact, I wouldn't compare bracing reality itself to slap-dash construction. Call me crazy.
Really, those are only minor blemishes, though in the middle of otherwise good material, they stick out even more. The other groups aren't bad, though generally this section has a "I'm writing splats for White Wolf" feel and doesn't seem to be infused with quite as much creative energy as the other sections.
Regardless, I particularly like the Helots of the Darkling Glass (your basic Qlippoth bad-guy cult) and The Beautiful People, a group of Free Spirits that have used a ritual to become the archetypal incarnation of the jet set, with a nasty supernatural twist. (The latter, in particular, rises above the "yeah, okay" feel of the rest of the groups.)
There is also some wonderful NPCs to drop into one's game and a section on magickal objects which round out the chapter, bringing it up from the low it dipped into in the Groups section.
Chapter 3 is called "Seeds and Scenarios", and is exactly what it says on the tin. There is some good general advice, and several example scenarios, which can be chained together into a campaign. This section is solid, but not outstanding.
Chapter 4 is called "Cosmos Reloaded", and is some fun stuff for GMs. It gives a variety of alternate campaign frames from the "default" cosmology, giving different ways the Real World, the Spirit World (if it exists at all), and the supernatural in general can interact. These vary from minor tweaks (making the Spirit World more dangerous, so people want to hang out in the Real World) to more extensive changes, such as "nailing the Spirit World and the Real World together". Each section gives a detailed account on how the mechanics change (if they do), and what sort of campaign such a cosmology is good for. The best part of the section is the bit on "Mysterious Escapes", which focuses on a one-shot or short-term game where the characters are trapped in a terribly flawed reality, using the Dead Inside rules, including a sample scenario in such a world, a bit of biting satire on the normal, workaday business world.
Chapter 4 is a godsend for people who liked some, but not all of the ideas in the standard cosmology, and want something a little different -- and ideas direct from the designer on how to tweak the system to match.
All in all, ignoring part of the warty Groups section, there is a lot of useful information and ideas here, even for GMs who want to remain focused on the Spirit World. Very much worth the $8, especially since the worst problems can simply be fixed with one's one creativity, such as renaming the Worldspacklers. Really, the book is worth it for Chapters 1 and 4 alone, let alone the additional material. It is perhaps of more use to GMs than players, but there's nothing wrong with that. Hell, it would still be worth $8 for just Chapter 1 and the first part of Chapter 2: There's some very good stuff there.
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