While I was originally planning to write a lot of fan supplements for an existing game, I’m having trouble finding a game I can invest in to that degree. If you’d like to recommend something to me, please do here or on BlueSky. Typically, what I’m looking for is something reasonably removed from the real world where a game can be completed in under 3 hours and no d20s are used.

Yes, I know One Page Rules exists, but all their game rules read like store brand Games Workshop. Not meaning that as an insult, because I think they do good work. But it’s like buying an RC instead of a Coke when you don’t even like cola: it’s still got the same taste I didn’t want, even if I like the company better.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Osprey Wargames lately because they’re publishing a new edition of A Billion Suns, and after being deeply disappointed by Firestorm: Armada’s new direction I’ve been looking for a space game that doesn’t hate me. Checking out the amazing selection of Osprey Wargames books at my FLGS, I saw something a little different.

And that really caught my eye, because I don’t think I’ve ever played a strictly cooperative wargame before. When I kept reading, I saw key words like “emphasizes quick resolutions,” “narrative system,” “longer campaigns,” and “long-term playability.” I don’t know about you, but something I desperately want out of my wargames is long, narrative campaigns. Full disclosure, I won’t have enough time this week to play a game of WNC, so this is strictly a review of the rulebook and some highlights as I saw them.

If you’ve ever played 3.5 D&D, you’ll feel at home with some of the game design here. Not to that level of complexity, thank god, but much of the design sensibilities like free actions and attacks of opportunity (though here it’s just called a Free Attack triggered when you Disengage from melee). I like all of that, actually. Familiar and functional structures are a good way to get people into your game.

The general vibe of WNC is that of the table-top equivalent of a rogue-like action/horror game. I like all of that. The game focuses on a team of around 5 investigators, all with plenty of flavorful character customization. There’s no “economy” in that you’re not paying money to buy gear (thank god). Instead, based on your character stats, youll have a number of inventory slots to populate with equipment and weapons.

The game opens with a brief “Narrative” sequence that’s more or less a prolonged initiative roll to determine unit placement at the start of the combat phase. It’s also where you can insert flavor and descriptors of how the monster problem started and setting the scene to help get you (and, optionally, your friends) invested in the combat encounter. That’s real good, I like it.

The enemies run off some very basic drives so you can quite easily determine what they’ll be doing without the need for a player to control them. This and the abstracted rules used in the Narrative sequence is how WNC is able to run entirely without a Game Master or another player dedicated to the monsters or cultists or whomever. And that does work, but coincidentally I also think it’s a weakness.

WNC reads like an ambitious prototype, something working really hard to create an original game mode. The effort it puts in to removing the need for a Game Master is one of those experimental elements that harms as much as helps here, because it takes out of play an investigative element that could strengthen the experience that they’re trying to achieve here. Trade-offs, am I right?

So here’s what I mean. Characters have three “Primal Attributes,” which are Body, Mind, and Spirit. Your team ends up needing to overcome a number of “Challenges” (randomly determined between 1 and 3). You overcome the challenges by describing a method for how you’d like to attempt it. Physical solutions require Body rolls from all investigators. Reasoning with people requires Mind. Lying, flirting, or bluffing requires Spirit. If you’ve used one Attribute to overcome a challenge, you can’t re-use it to overcome the next challenge (hence the max of 3 challenges).

You also roll on a table of “NPC Organizations” to see who you’re opposing in these challenges and on another table for “where”. So let’s say you rolled Academia and the Criminal Element at the Waterfront. You go ahead and invent some sort of reason why these groups are involved at this location. Some high profile art thieves tried to steal an ancient artifact from the museum, and were intercepting it at the Docks. But something killed them, and the museum curator is down there pulling his hair out over the damaged artifacts. You decide to lie to the curator and say you’re insurance agents, so you roll Spirit to find out what was being shipped. Then you go and find the thieves and roll Mind to reason with them that you’re going to kill the creatures that did this to them, so they tell you where the things went off to.

The sum of your successes and failures on these rolls determine whether or not your starting position in the combat phase is good, bad, or neutral. That’s it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like this. But there’s potential here to feed the investigators clues about how to equip themselves for the combat to come. However, that potential only exists if there’s a GM. If there’s no GM, everyone already knows what sort of creatures they’re fighting OR they’re being generated by random dice rolls by you and your fellow players. Of course, if that’s the case, you’ve invented your own tables for that because the game doesn’t have random Dark Spawn generation tables.

Character creation is phenomenal. It’s split up into different sections of the book, which I really wish it were all in one place, but like I said this game reads like a prototype. As soon as you put a bit of your own effort into things, you’ve got something here. But I love character creation, and let me show you why. I have, for years now, had this fantasy of putting together a monster hunting team of B-movie horror side-kicks, and this game can let me do that!

Below you will find completely legal, totally playable characters made using the basic character creation rules in WNC and I absolutely love that this game enables me to do things like this. Literal dream come true.

Just because I can, I’ve used the tables and materials in WNC to produce a full adventure, called a case, based on the movie Virus (1999)! Technically, the game is only intended to apply to supernatural or magical creatures, but think of this as a flexibility test for the system!

Cases are made up of 6 incidents with escalating threats, so mostly what I needed to do was provide the inciting incidents and the types of enemies.

A series of gruesome deaths have occurred on the Deacon Falls Waterfront. The city blames the deaths on animal attacks, given that parts of the bodies appeared to be eaten. However, your sources say those missing parts were removed with surgical precision.

Unfortunately, it’s taken your team some time to travel to the city of Deacon Falls, so the trail is Cold by the time you’ve arrived. First Responders are on scene, but the local Criminal Element may know more about what happens on the docks than the cops. Get past the police barricade and find someone who knows what’s going on.

You’ve tracked these bizarre robotic spiders to one of the warehouses on the Waterfront, but it’s not clear what they’re doing inside. Search the shipping crates they’ve ripped open for clues, and when you find out what they’re building? Destroy it.

Electronics are going missing from the University Square, but it’s not just the mundane sort of theft. The perpetrators have stolen the security cameras and the copper right out of the walls without being seen! Thankfully, the trail is still Fresh! Speak with the Academics and convince them you’re there to help.

With the dorms largely vacant for the summer term, the machines have set up some sort of data processing center inside a college dormitory building. Search some of the rooms until you find out where their computer core is and destroy it.

The killings have started again, same as on the docks, but now it’s happening in the Suburbs! The media is taking things very seriously, and News Media are out Sensationalizing the scene. Once you get around the cameras, see if any of the Suburbanites heard anything.

The machines thought to hide the sound of their operations by taking over a construction site for two new homes. It looks like they’re assembling the electronics they stole from the university with the human remains they’ve been collecting to construct something much larger and scarier. They’ve kidnapped people and hidden them throughout the construction site (Points of Interest). Rescue them, and put a stop to their construction (Nexus) before it’s finished!

Later in the campaign if you need to recruit a replacement investigator, consider using one of the people rescued during Incident #3.

After your daring rescue of the suburbanites that those alien machines were going to use for spare parts, the city’s First Responders came out to Secure the scene. Unfortunately, you’re sure those machines have snuck past the cops and over the walls into the gated community of the Estates next door. Get past the police and find out if any of the more Affluent residents have seen where the machines went.

You’ve chased the machines into a mansion, but can’t be sure where they’re hiding. It looks like they’re doing research on the city of Deacon Falls. Check the piles of discarded books and photo albums the machines have left behind to find out what they’re up to, then destroy their nest of charging cables.

Just when the case has gone Cold again, you’ve heard about some unusual activity at the summer camp on the Outskirts of Deacon Falls. Strange noises and lights in the woods might indicate the machines are hiding out there in an old cabin. See what you can learn from the City Workers and First Responders keeping an eye on the camp

The machines have taken over an abandoned cabin in the woods! Examine the solar panels they’ve set up in the woods, and follow the cables to what they’re building so you can destroy that, too.

A number of high status city officials have gone missing recently, and things have escalated faster than you could respond. The situation Downtown is now Critical with First Responders trying to hold people back while the News Media interview what City Officials are accounted for at present.

The machines have used the mayor for spare parts and built a cyborg mayor thing in an effort to take over the city of Deacon Falls! You’ve gotten inside City Hall just in time to smash everything.

When Nightmares Come looks like a lot of fun, but I don’t think I’ll be using it as designed out-of-the-box. I’m hopeful I can GM a game with this: be present to teach the rules, and to run the monsters, and leave all the decisions up to the players. Just adding a bit of personal spin from a GM’s angle could really make this memorable as hell, so once I get enough models together for a game I’ll be playing this one and writing about it again.