Review of Envenenado and Fantasmas Asesinos

Today I will show you the review of the games Envenenado (Poison'd) and Fantasmas Asesinos (Murderous Ghosts), both written by D. Vincent Baker (author of Apocalypse World, which I reviewed previously in this post) and published in Spain by conBarba.

Both games are published together in a A6 (148x105 mm) sized box, so they are appropiate for travel if we don't want to carry bulky books.

Envenenado

Envenenado is a game about Caribbean piracy in 18th century treated from a realistic point of view, so it's recommended only for adult players: instead of finding characters like Jack Sparrow or adventures of films like Cutthroat Island you will deal (or will be) the worst kind of individuals (although I hope you want reach such extremes as those of people so dangerous as Jean-David Nau, also known as François L’Olonnais).

Players will begin their adventures and misfortunes creating a group of pirates (or using the sample characters) that will be part of the crew of The Dagger, the ship of the recently deceased Captain Brimstone Jack, and will have to inmediately decide what to do in some important matters shaped as Cruel Fortunes (the way of the referee to place situations helping to craft adventures): the H.M.S Resolute of the Royal Navy is chading them, they need fresh water and food supplies and the ship needs repairs.

Similarities of this game with Apocalypse World are obvious regarding creation of characters because the use of descriptive terms to define them and calculate its characteristics: for Devil (the ability to face danger) and Soul (calm against adversity) scores it will be necessary to know sins commited, for Brutality (violence and acting without scruples) score misfortunes held against them and for the Ambition (their craftiness) score their motivating ambitions, finally their Brinkmanship (courage against difficult situations and confrontations) score will be in accordance with the highest characteristic among the previous ones.

As in Apocalypse World relationships between characters are established through outstanding bargains among themselves and with other individuals determined by referee.

As for the basic mechanism of dice rolls the game uses the roll and success saving, namely players and referees throw as many as D6 as the score of the characteristid they are using, outcomnes 4, 5 and 6 of each dice marks a success that can be accumulated and used later.

To finish this review of Envenenado mention to you that referees will also find at the end of the book notes, tips and a brief history about piracy of the time so they can successfully run the game.

Fantasmas Asesinos

Fantasmas Asesinos (Murderous Ghosts) is a game for two persons, player and referee, introducing us in ghost stories setled in abandoned places and brought under the typical format of gamebooks, so the story is'nt a lineal one and is developed through jumps to specific pages of the book depending on which options are chosen or what its rules says.

In this case the game is divided in two books, one for the referee playing the ghosts, and the other for the player performing the investigator decided to explore the site where the action takes place, both books complement as the investigator and the ghost do their actions and steal from a deck of cards to biuld their hand in a way that the score obtained by the player and number of suits of the referee's hand will establish the course of events, hopefully the investigator will survive the experience...

To finish this second review only remains for me to recommend this game if you like scary stories and want to spend an amusing time, thinking about it it can be easily adapted to other genres or situations like the last part of the Alien movie or spy pictures where the main character tries to escape with stolen secrets and enemy agents are searching for him.

This entry it's also available in the following languages:
Castellano Català