RPG perspectives: Vaults of Vaarn review

 

Vaults of Vaarn – Leo Hunt ~2022

 

The following table tells you most of what you need to know about Vaults of Vaarn, an indie TTRPG released in limited edition hard back in 2022-23.

The underlying chassis of the game is Ben Milton's Knave rule set, a riff on D&D basic and modern gutted down to 7 pages of tables and a core system. My general view with short page count games is you get what you include pages for. You can strip down the rules but situations that occur regularly in game will need to be bridged by the GM and players. In short I think the modern trend of ultra-light games is with a few exceptions ill judged. Vaults of Vaarn is an exception for two reasons.

 

First it is loaded with great tables. Tables that bring its dying earth Vancian, Wolfe-ian setting to life more than any pages of background or lore could (why do people like lore so much?). Long-time RPG fans might say this looks like Gamma World, or even Metamorphosis Alpha, and they would have a point. This is Sci-fantasy distant future post-apocalypse, but the cultural touch stones are different. Those 70s-80s games drew from trade paperbacks like Hiero’s Journey, films such as the Omega-Man, and nuclear paranoia of the era. Vaults of Vaarn leans more into the dying earth genre in some ways feeling more reminiscent of Dark Sun. It also references Dune and apes the excellent video game Caves of Qud. It has a western – eastern feel with wandering swordsmen and sharp shooters in an alien blue desert littered with ancient ruins and artefacts.

Back to the tables, there are a lot of them. They flesh out the character generation, gear and special abilities but also factions such as the Faa Nomads, and bounty hunters. They cover locales, ruins, archaeologies, camps, and ancient archives. These are practical tables, the kind you could use to generate sessions on the fly with a bit of experience. They are very evocative tables that yield funny and immersive results. I could roll up an arcology dome populated by warlike amnesiac clones with a surplus of books but a lack of children, or ruined bathhouse converted into a brothel but also used for a Titan shrine.

This brings me to my second point, this is actually a complete and substantial game. Most modern indie stripped down RPGs (OSR?) leave most of the work to the GM and bring very little to the table. The old D&D clones avoid this error, as TSR knew how to construct a game back in the 70s & 80s, as do some savant designers such as Kevin Crawford with his Stars Without Number games. Vaults of Vaarn gives me subsystems for most game situations, hiring NPCs, fighting NPCs, travelling, reaction rolls etc. It is a little lacking in this area, the games economy is hand waved as a barter based system. In worldwhere water scarcity is a key driver and equipment slots are at a premium a basic table of equipment values against a standardised currency would help a lot. Equally there is no bespoke stealth system or henchmen loyalty. Classic D&D systems such as listening at doors and spotting changes in the dungeon environment are also gone. Much of this can be done with the general die rolling mechanic but a lack of guidance in this area is a miss.

The book rounds off with a city setting which leans heavily into Dune and a couple of mini tomb raid adventures. These are fine and I would consider using them, but they are not the strongest material I have ever seen.

 

Physically the deluxe hard back edition is a nice book. It has thick textured covers and decent amateur Moebius esc art that has become popular in recent years and good quality paper.

 

This gets a strong recommendation from me. I suspect the hardback edition will sell out and have gaps between prints due to its small press nature. The game originally released as a series of zines that are either free or very cheap in pdf from online retailers.