Publisher: 9th Level Games
Designer: Chris O’Neill and Dan Landis (with art by John Kovalic)
Year: 2007 for the currently available edition
Players: Two or more as it’s an RPG
Ages: 13+
Playing Time: As long as you want to play because it’s an RPG; truthfully more of a pick up game to play from time to time
Pages: 48
Genre: Humorous Fantasy RPG
Retail Price: $10.00 as a PDF
During a sale late last year at DriveThruRPG I picked up Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx as well as a truckload of other roleplaying games which I’d been curious to dig into. I’d heard good things about KAMB and, as I feel the genre of beer and pretzels games has gone a bit of the way of the dodo, I was eager to give the title a peek. After reading through KAMB I’m glad I gave the little gem from 9th Level Games a chance.
First let me explain what I’ve always felt to be a beer and pretzels game. Yes, I know the definition as people like to present it – someone needs to stop me from slapping the person who wrote the Wikipedia entry – but what the vast majority of folks consider to be B&P I find to be overly simple or downright boring; mainly this comes from people who are relatively new to the hobby, with no understanding of table top gaming history, hijacking a term long time gamers understand. This wasn’t always the case as in my teenage years of gaming there were plenty of B&Ps out there and they ran a wide spectrum of themes. All in all a beer and pretzels game is a title which you could knock out in say an hour or an hour and a half, didn’t drown you in rules minutia, required minimal setup to begin playing and encouraged the players to simply focus on having a good time. Nowadays I hear everything from Agricola to Descent to Warhammer 40k referred to as beer and pretzel games. Well senator, I know beer and pretzels games and those aforementioned titles are not beer and pretzels…
B&P games were always designated that way because of their mechanics, as opposed to what the theme tackled, so as an example Fletcher Pratt’s Naval War Game is old school B&P while Harpoon is not. A beer and pretzels title is simple to play but not designed as a game for dummies by any stretch.
For a truer feel of beer and pretzel hit Google and take a look at the sort of games long defunct companies like Microgame Design Group, Metagaming Concepts, and Task Force Games used to produce as well as those titles the current king of B&P – Steve Jackson Games – released to get the company established. These weren’t games which were light on strategy or completely silly but just quick playing and focused on keeping you entertained; even if you were playing a game to rescue the hostages in 1980 Iran (SJG’s Raid on Iran).
KAMB is built around the BEER Engine – something I’ve been known to run on myself – and it’s a clever bit of mechanics which could easily be utilized in more robust RPGs due to its sheer genius of simplicity. In essence when a character is trying to accomplish something one of four corresponding attributes (Brawn, Ego, Extraneous or Reflexes) will be rolled against. The GM, or Mayor in KAMB speak, sets a difficulty by way of the number of D6 the player must roll to score equal to or less than that attribute in question. As an example let’s say Grich possesses Reflexes of 9 and is trying to swipe a sleeping baby from her crib. Under normal circumstances this should be pretty routine and the Mayor might not even require a roll to see is Grich succeeds. Yet what if Grich also has the farmer’s puppy clamped onto his behind, one of the farm’s mousers clawing at his eyes and momma and poppa snoring away ten feet from the little tyke? This is going to require a roll just to see if Grich can even gather up the babe without accidentally drop kicking the bundle of tastiness – I mean joy – halfway across the room. The Mayor might call for three or four dice to be rolled to see if the player can score 9 or less. If Grich makes that roll they still have an angry dog and cat to contend with, as well as the sleeping parents, but at least he’s got the baby in his grasp. If the roll fails, let the true mayhem commence!
Clocking in at 48 pages, Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition is broken down into four sections:
Introduction – Four pages devoted to the age old question, “What is a Kobold?” I’ll stand in firm agreement with the authors because I haven’t clue how kobolds went from little ratty dog-like low level cannon fodder to little reptilian miniature lizard men in the world of RPGs. Granted, regardless of their appearance a couple of them could decimate a dozen first level magic users in the old D&D games; “Poor Vangore of the Ever Seeing Eye and his single hit point. We barely knew ye before the onset of a head cold shuffled you off this mortal coil…”
Also in the chapter is a dictionary of terms used in-game including actual gameplay terminology as well as nuggets from the KAMB world. Yes, kobolds love to eat and one of the finest meals is that of human baby. If baby isn’t on the menu the little buggers can only hope their next favorite may be: other kobolds. A lot of the focus here is on putting yourself in the right frame of mind for a game of KAMB as you aren’t setting out on a career of glory, adventure and fame as you would in most RPGS but your lot in life is more likely than not going to be ending up impaled on a farmer’s pitchfork or being blow up in some evil wizard’s experiment. To live long and prosper is not in your game plan kids.
Kobold Creation – Here you’ll get the players creating their tiny tornadoes of terror and the process is very straight forward. Four attributes (the aforementioned Brawn, Ego, Extraneous and Reflexes) are rolled for on 2D6 and secondary stats such as Hits (obviously hit points), Meat (damage bonus and extra hits based on Brawn), Cunning (based on Ego to determine how gullible your kobold may be), Luck (sort of a catchall although it can have a major impact upon life or death when your kobold fails a roll) and Agility (how hard you are to hit mainly and this is based on Reflexes) are determined by the bases.
During the creation process players will also choose skills for their kobolds. Each kobold can choose up to six skills, although this number can never exceed their Ego so it may be less, and due to the fact the critters have fairly short attention spans a skill from each of the base attributes must be selected before doubling back to pick a second skill in any given category. Also some skills are considered “EveryKobold” skills – Cook is a great example – and if you decide not to add these to your repertoire expect dire results. Some skills are more useful than others while a few are considered to be dangerous. Dangerous skills don’t require a roll to determine success but there’s nearly always some side effect to using a Dangerous skill. There are even kobolds who know a magic spell! Of course they usually don’t have an inkling as to what the spell does but they know it!
Finally dice are rolled and random tables consulted to determine what starting equipment, or scavenged junk really, the character liberated from some trash heap to include in their possessions.
The gist of creating the character isn’t to craft the biggest, baddest, most likely to see the light of tomorrow’s morning sun kobold but to piece together a ratty heel alter ego who’ll be a blast to roleplay. The process is easy and shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to get everyone around the table ready to play. The process of rolling up RPG characters isn’t normally something I’d consider gist for a lot of jokes and laughs but in KAMB you’ll find everyone busting each others chops and cracking wise so not only is the process a breeze but a lot of fun as well.
How to Play – Fewer than twenty pages are devoted to the actual process of running KAMB and if you were to take out the art, quick examples of play, as well as the wiseassery you’re probably looking at about a dozen pages of rules. That no doubt sounds like very few but the truth is the package works; we’re not talking about Pathfinder of D&D 4th Edition here but KAMB.
This chapter runs the gamut from turn order – mainly moving clockwise around the table from the Mayor – to initiative to what a kobold can do in a turn to how to lay out a beat down and what happens when the beat down comes to you. As I mentioned in my initial discussion of beer and pretzel games the onus isn’t on bogging you down with a truckload of rules; I swear I’ve read KAMB in its entirety three times and I don’t believe I’ve seen the words “grapple” or “grappling” once! Here we’re looking at getting the game bopping along and the people around the table having fun as quickly as possible.
Finally, a discussion of Victory Points ends the chapter as well as how those VPs gained can improve the surviving kobolds from any particular adventure. Just typing that last sentence made me smile knowing how unlikely it will be for many kobold characters to “level up.” I mean they’re kobolds and not dragons for crying out loud! They’re barely zero level characters in the first place!
Is None of Your Damn Business – Here’s the info for the Mayor including guidelines on setting the number of dice for difficulty, tips on running a game of KAMB, stats for all the critters and creatures and townsfolk the kobolds may encounter as well as a sample adventure. Mainly we’re talking about a lot of random charts because players who will take to KAMB are going to rotate who the Mayor is anyway so it isn’t as if anything included is super secret info in the end. As someone with about three decades of running RPGs under my belt, and mainly having the experience of crafting stories and campaigns revolving around a horror RPG (CofC), I’m less than a fan of random charts than most but the charts give a GM like me a good base to work from as opposed to blindly subscribing to dice rolls. I know I’m an old school sort of GM because I never use random charts of any kind but I understand the inclusion of them here.
By this point you probably have the impression I really like Kobolds Ate My Baby Super Deluxx Edition and that impression is spot on, although I’ll point out the product isn’t perfect and it isn’t going to appeal to everyone.
Normally I start off a review with talking about component quality and so forth. Knowing KAMB has been available in print form over the years I can’t speak to what any of the books may be like, because I purchased the PDF, so I saved my overall impressions of presentation toward the end since the reality is I’m just reading a digital file on my tablet. That said, what the team at 9th Level set out to do is reflected very nicely in the presentation; KAMB is meant to be fun and not an exercise in heavy mental lifting. The book is spiced with artwork from John Kovalic (of Dork Tower and Munchkin fame) which is completely in the spirit of the game and, outside of possibly an example or two, is right on the money. The style of the layout adds to the humorous undertaking as well and shines quality throughout. I will mention some of the jokey-ness of the rules falls a wee bit flat from time to time as one gets the impression, on a few occasions, the authors are trying to be clever just for the sake of being clever and some of the humor is recycled a little too much whereas it loses its punch. On that note though, I’ve seen plenty of RPGs which were supposed to be funny – and weren’t – so even a misfire or three doesn’t take away from the appeal of KAMB. It’s safe to say reading through KAMB is going to leave you with a smile on your face and possibly lead to a few laugh out loud moments.
Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition is fun as the game is meant to be enjoyed in total over an evening and, although I’d be hard pressed to conceive an ongoing campaign within KAMB, I believe the designers accomplished what they set out to do swimmingly – present a good time which doesn’t require everyone at the table to be a rules lawyer or bust out their smart phones to start running min/max apps. Will KAMB jump to the fore for people who play D&D, Pathfinder, Shadowrun or any other system which has hardcoded into their fans the need to continually build upon a library of supplements in order to get together and game on a weekly basis? I doubt it, as outside of picking it up for some chuckles as you read through, the appeal to the core hack and slash crown is going to be minimal. Thankfully people who have an interest in roleplaying aren’t only turning to two or three game systems to address their need.
Well known RPG author and Cthulhu expert Ken Hite once told me over pizza and beer the easiest way to stay poor in the gaming industry is to publish a roleplaying game. I completely get that as once you’ve laid out the setting and mechanics of a system there are plenty of GMs out there with the experience and confidence to use your building blocks to take your creation down avenues which will never require those gamers to ever spend another solitary penny on your creation; KAMB is like that as you have the tools out the gate to keep your friends entertained for a long, long time. Sorry to say until the recent Kickstarter project for KAMB supplemental material really wasn’t available – Ok it’s still not available but it’s being Kickstarted – and that’s a drawback for any system as too many designers and developers get too amped up and shoot their load the first time out while leaving little room for advancement. Or they release so little of substance, the buying public feels like they’re being taken for a ride and bail on the system almost immediately.
I think KAMB is very solid for gamers out there who love the more freeflowing style of one shot roleplaying like Fiasco or Space Patrol who may like to roll some dice from time to time to see what happens as opposed to being told what happens by someone else and it’s not going to appeal to gamers who want to strongly associate with their roleplaying character or take a deep dive into a campaign which could last years. Let’s be honest, in KAMB you’re playing the little monster your first level Ranger smoked like a cheap cigar in order to gain twenty experience points. Thankfully, you only need to smoke 100 more of them to get to level two…
As with any RPG it all boils down to what’s your bag of tricks and something I think is great may leave you cold or vice versa. Reviewing roleplaying games is even trickier than board games because there’s so much more personal investment in an RPG than in a board game which can lead to some people only playing RPGS while others only play board games; the level of investment is hugely personal and the concept of taking on the role of wee bitty monsters who treasure nothing more than eating baby flesh will come across as repulsive to some while others will understand no children were harmed (or even conceived of being sniffed, let alone being eaten) during the playing of KAMB because the game is about flipping the preconceived notions of the characters you play in a roleplaying game.
I can’t review to personal taste but only draw from my experience as to what’s worthy to take a look at, and deserving of a purchase, and what you may what to pass over. I can personally say Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition is worth a buy even if you just want to have some laughs or crib some ideas as to putting together a rules light RPG; even better if you want to run the game with your friends!
I think at this point our usual audience at TGG knows I believe in as much transparency as we can possibly provide as well as my personal somewhat lack of glowing enthusiasm for gaming Kickstarter projects in a whole unless A) I can personal vouch for the people behind the project and know in my bones they’re going to put a quality product in your hands or, B) The company in question is rock solid and they’ve taken every precaution to ensure you are going to get a great game in your sweating palms. As to the former, I don’t know the guys at 9th Level in any way, shape or form while my latter criteria leads me to believe supporting their KS project is a solid investment overall, but if you’re not interested in crowd funding the KAMB Kickstarter, you always can always grab a copy of the previous edition of the book at DriveThuRPG
I began the review by talking about what beer and pretzel games are thought to be and what they are in reality; Or at least in the reality those of us who’ve played games for more than a few years, and were buying games in the heyday of solid beer and pretzel games, consider as B&Ps. I have no problem raining on people’s parades when they think B&Ps are simple, stupid, easy, boring or requiring little thought. A beer and pretzel game isn’t silly, humorous, tongue-in-cheek or not to be taken serious as a “solid” design. I’ve never been a fan of people trying to redefine something because they don’t understand the definition or want to pigeonhole in order to make it more understandable to themselves; Agricola isn’t a beer and pretzels game nor is Descent, Warhammer 40k, Dominion, Pandemic, or any slew of games which anyone once played and drank a beer while snacking on something salty.
If that were the case every game you ever played can somehow be coined as B&P. I’ve drank plenty of beer playing Twilight Struggle or the old Avalon Hill title Third Reich but neither one is B&P; drinking booze and eating snacks does not a B&P make.
Kobolds Ate My Baby Super Deluxx Edition is beer and pretzels because the focus is on having a blast, getting to the table to start playing right away, banging out the game and then giving everyone a big hug as your gaming gang breaks up for the night, while an hour later wondering which one of your friends dripped mustard on your carpet and shaking your fist to the heavens. No muss, no fuss, enjoying the time frame of game play enormously and then calling it a night is beer and pretzels.
Under this criteria, Kobolds Ate My Baby Super Deluxx Edition is stellar!
