Wonderland No More is a recently released Savage Worlds setting from the brain trust that is Triple Ace Games. A lot can be said of the fun that comes from playing Chessmen, Cards, Animals, Plants and anything else you may want to imagine.

And with that in mind, I grabbed the intro adventure of Egg of Seven Parts and took the crew of Game Night™ at the International House of Johnson® into the Looking Glass Lands, to see what they could do with it.

Most of the group wanted to just jump into the action, so I had printed up the large number of pre-generated characters TAG offered, laid them on the table, and had them choose their new alter ego.

Here’s how the starting cast lined up:

• King’s Rook White, a Chessman Pawn, played by Gunnar
• Felicia Moon, a Rose (Plant) Lady Thief, played by Laura
• Gunflower Stan, a Sunflower (Plant) Mercenary, played by Laura’s husband, KJToo
• Reverend “Fred” Grolps, a Frog (Animal) Alician Priest, played by codeshaman
• The Cheshire Kit, a Cat (Animal) Prankster, played by Mr. David Mead
• Magpie,¹ a Magpie (Animal) Gourmancer, played by Nycteris

The adventure began.

SPOILER ALERT! If you are a player, and you think you may be playing this adventure sometime in the future, you may want to stop reading.

Our heroes were minding their own business when they happened upon a tragedy. Humpty Dumpty, that intelligent being that is constantly being put back together by the White King’s men and horses, had fallen again. But, this time, someone had run off with most of his pieces, leaving only his face upon the ground, which cried for help.

Running to provide assistance, the heroes arrived in time to be blamed for the pushing by both the egg and the arriving Lion, leading the horses and men.

Luckily, the Lion was dubious of the egg’s claims, but charged the party with the recovery of Humpty’s pieces, lightly veiling an “or else” within the words.

With that, the Lion and forces returned to Whitefield, and the heroes began a search of the premises around Humpty’s place of impact. Only a few minute passed before a small piece of ivory and a dollop of honey were found. A bit of pondering on these clues led Gunflower Stan to announce that he thought the trail led to the Field of Flying Elephants. KJToo earned a bennie for putting this together and saying, “Elephant Bumblebees?” I thought this was probably as close as they’d get without just making some Common Knowledge rolls for the characters. Thus, the party commenced on their journey into the Chessboard Fields.²

A few hours of uneventful travel followed. But, during the time in the fifth rank on the western edge, a squad of twelve Red Pawns rushed out from cover, ambushing the party.

Reverend Grolp quickly raised his hands, calling out that they were on a Most Holy Quest for Alice and the poor Humpty Dumpty, begging that they be left unmolested and allowed to continue, while also espousing the tenants of his religion. codeshaman earned quite a few bennies as the Frog as he roleplayed wonderfully with a great voice and took on the frog priest’s personality. The Red Pawn leader actually had dropped the tip of his spear and was about to let them on their way when King’s Rook White, sworn enemy of the Reds tried to charge them.

Some quick thinking and action on the Frog’s part halted that action, but unfortunately it did not escape the attention of the Red Pawns. “Whitefield!” they accused, and charged as well.

Thankfully, Magpie was ready. She quickly popped one of her specialty hot pepper cakes into her mouth and immediately blew fire upon the wooden opponents. Four of them went up in a blaze. The remainder split up, attacking the party evenly, though a few extra went after the hated White Pawn.

The rest of the fight was a bit of a blur, including a Frog riding a White Pawn, having cast a spell of Speed upon the wooden “steed.” Gunflower Stan doing what he did best in a voice that kept me, the GM, laughing, though it tended to grate a little on the other players. I couldn’t stop laughing. Magpie, Felicia, and Kit did their thing as well. Soon, all were dispatched and a funeral pyre was blazing, presided over by Grolps.

NEXT: A swollen river is hazardously crossed and flying elephants are met.

1. this one was the only non-pre-gen character
2. The Chess Board Fields is the name given to a vast area, divided into an 8 by 8 grid of squares, by a network of streams and brooks. It covers the majority of the Looking Glass Lands. The fields once served as the battleground between the Red and White forces. Now, save for the occasional skirmish, they are fairly peaceful.

At last count, I had over 200 board and card games, including various expansions and such that comes out for them. As for RPGs, I have well over 100 books for a large variety of systems.¹ And, on top of that, I’ve been purchasing RPG PDFs for quite a few years now,² and I think I have twice as many PDFs as hard copy books, though I haven’t counted those up in quite some time.

The saddest thing of all, though, is that I don’t have anywhere near the time I would like to play all this stuff. It’s a happy yet sad problem. Anytime we³ head out to visit family or friends, I usually load up a milk crate with a small selection of games, in the hopes that I may be able to sit someone at a table and play something. My wife supports this, thankfully, as this hobby is very social.

Actually, it was one of her long-time friends⁴ who first got us into this whole “Eurogaming” thing years ago. They would do the same thing whenever they came⁵ to our house. We could always count on them to bring a new stack of games they’d found. They introduced us to Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, Evo,⁶ etc. We also always had to play a number of games of Euchre.

These days, my gaming addiction is fed when I go to the International House of Johnson, where lives Overlord Johnson himself, his lovely wife, and his young apprentice. We meet every two weeks and play, well, anything. These days, we’re in the midst of a Savage Worlds RPG game set in Roger Zelazny’s Amber, and GM’d by none other than Overlord Miller himself.

But, damn, I wish I could game more than that. Why? Because I want to play Exalted. I want to play True20. I want to play Mutants & Masterminds, D&D 4e, Burning Wheel, Untold, Star Wars Saga, Pathfinder, Fantasycraft, Fireborn, Legend of the Five Rings, Alpha & Omega, etc.⁷

I want to play Descent, Battlelore, Arkham Asylum, Cosmic Encounter, Age of Conan, Dominion,⁸ Pandemic, Race for the Galaxy, Smallworld, Keltis, Tomb, Wasabi, Titan, etc.⁹

Thankfully, my gaggle of gosslings are getting to the age where they’re interesting! Yes, old enough to read and write and count. Thus! Old enough to game! Yes, I can pull out Settlers of Catan and play with my two oldest sons and the wife. I can pull out Battlelore and wage war on my oldest son. I can toss down some Munchkin and backstab and steal to my heart’s content.

Well, usually. They still have to do their schooling and chores. And I have my own honey-do list to work off. But, thankfully, I can usually toss in one, maybe two, more game nights into any given month with just my family.

Haha to all you people that stood in shock and wonder when I said I had six little shin-kickers. Little did you know that I was training my own “next generation” in gaming!

But, damn, I wish I could game more…

1. Keep in mind this counts for all the D&D 4e books and Star Wars Saga books, etc.
2. Curse you, RPGnow.com!
3. The Gaggle of Gosslings, as it were.
4. Hyun Joo and Jason Zuck, for anyone that may know them
5. Usually after a 3-5 hour drive. Yes, they lived a fair distance away.
6. If you haven’t played Evo, by the way, you really, really need to. Let me know when you want to play, and I’ll come over with my copy in hand.
7. And yes, I have all of these. Sick, ain’t it?
8. Another must play, by the way. MUST!
9. Again, yes, these are all in my collection.

What do all of these systems have in common? Books. Some have a lot of books. Some have only one. Some of the books are large, some are small. Some books are even going electronic, while others are staying in the good ol’ pulp era. But, they’re still all books. Books you have to read. Books you have to carry around. Books, especially if you’re a GM, that you need close to hand in case a dreaded Rules Lawyer shows up at a game.

Now, don’t mis-understand, I love books. I like to hold them and smell them. I like to crack them open and feel the pages. I like flipping through them and generate a small breeze to ruffle my beard… Oh, uh, perhaps too much info?

Anyway, books.

But there’s a new game on the scene that doesn’t have any books! No, books?! Nope. Nary a one. And, get this, you don’t even need a character sheet?

But, Goose, come on. How can you play without books? Easy. You use cards!

Cards?! Yes, cards.

Untold is a new game and game system coming out from our good friends, The Wandering Men.

“Untold is a revolutionary new role-playing game (RPG) from Wandering Men Studios designed to combine all the best elements of Role Playing Games (RPG’s) and Collectible Card Games (CCG’s) but leave out all the crap. Untold is a CBRPG™: Card-Based Role Playing Game. It is exactly the same as any other RPG, but the primary physical “tools” of the game are different. Instead of rulebooks and character sheets, the only “tools” you need in Untold are cards!”

Klik Roller

I was fortunate enough to have been in contact with these good folks and was invited to play during the beta test. While I did sign the NDA with every intention of running my oldest goslings through an adventure or two, the opportunity did not arise. However, the Men had many a beta tester and so did not lack for support. And they’ve put out a very good product.

Your attributes and skills and everything else that defines your character can be found on cards. You lay them out before you and voila, time to game. I won’t get into the mechanics in this post, but suffice it to say they are easy to grasp in a rather short time (shorter, even, than it took me to get M&M 2e under my prodigious belt). The one mechanic I will mention here that I found most intriguing was damage. Hit points, you say? Nay! As you take damage, you start losing cards. For the most part, you get to say what cards or points you lose, but this is a unique way of having damage directly affect your character. Rather than using a number system, wittling away with each punch or stab, while your character otherwise shows no effects until it drops dead when it gets to zero, the PC finds himself losing power and/or effects with each heavy hit.

And that, my friends, is awesome.

On top of it all, they have great artwork to give you a hint of the kinds of characters you can play as well as a world that is well-written and fleshed-out to the point that you can immerse yourself for a good evening of gaming.

Untold, the CBRPG™ that is Full of Awesome Sauce™!

So, on my not-yet-patented Suck-O-Meter: This game Really, Really Doesn’t Suck!

Designed By: Lisa Steenson, Lori Dieda

Published By: Gut Bustin’ Games

# of Players: 2 – 6

Playing Time: 60 minutes (this per BBG, but I disagree)

At a Glance: Do you say Redneck like it’s a bad thing? A roll of 2 dice determines the grade you complete in school, which sets you up for one of 11 fabulous careers such as Mullet Salon Operator or Monster Truck Announcer. Journey through Blue Collar Americana by going into debt to purchase a vehicle, get married, divorced, re-married, purchase a home, and raise a passel of young’uns. Through accidents and brawls, players lose teeth during the game. Buy some back if you can… as the player with the most teeth remaining at the end of the game wins!

What The Goose? Let me start off with this simple comment: This game was a hoot! When the Go Redneckin’ card that announced the judging of a REAL hog calling contest was to begin, my mouth dropped open. And then the hog calling commenced. Let me tell you, it was hilarious! If I hadn’t hurt myself laughing, I think I may have wet my pants.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Set-up of the game was fairly straight forward and simple. Set the board out, shuffle the cards and put them in the marked spaces, fill the plastic sheet with all the “rigs” we get to buy, usually on credit. This was probably my main gripe on the game, the separation of cards. The Go Redneckin cards were so tightly packed together, and of such low quality, that they stuck together. The came apart well enough, but it definitely took extra effort.

Put your pawns on the starting crushed beer can, and you’re ready to begin. Oh, but wait, first you have to roll up your redneck name. This consisted of rolling a red and a blue six-sided dice, and then comparing those numbers to a chart. Billy Bob, Bubba Jr., etc. Then you jsut roll the dice and move your mice… er, pawns. On a side note, it is suggested you use your favorite beer caps in place of the cheap plastic pawns. Yes, this would’ve added another small dimension of fun.

This is a roll-and-move game, and heavily dependent on that luck. You land on the spaces and do what the space says. You could hit a tooth out with a beer bottle while driving, or you might be swatted by your Uncle Reverend, and loose a tooth.

There are a few spaces on the board that you MUST stop on, no matter the roll, and follow the directions. This included getting your education and subsequent job (which consisted of anything from a Ciggy Shack attendant, a Monster Truck Rally Announcer, and even a Mullet-shop Owner), getting hitched (you roll for your spouses name), then divorced, then rehitched (you roll again, and hope to get either the same name or something close due to tattoo removal fees), and some gambling.

You start the game out with no money, and you quickly go into debt. When you get your education and job, that’s it! You don’t get to change your job and attached pay. Throughout the game you’re going to get some young’ens, including quite a few red-headed step children named Darryl, each of which lowers your pay by $10. They do come in handy at the end of the game, but otherwise they’re just a drain on your non-existent resources.

This game was a blast to play. It’s definitely one you need the right group of friends to enjoy and it’s probably a game you won’t bring out all the time. But when you need a good, hard laugh, this is one to pull out, slap down and easily waste a couple of hours with a redneck drawl and some hog-calling.