By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer

Initiative Round
The Mountain Witch is an independent role-playing game from Timfire Publishing. It is presented as a 148-page softcover by Timothy Kleinert and featuring color and black-and-white artwork by W. Don Flores. The Mountain Witch retails for $24.00.

Somewhere on the slopes of Mt. Fuji lurks the dreaded O-Yanma, the Mountain Witch. A group of ronin are hired for the simple, yet terrifying task to kill this menace. But regretful pasts and dark fate conspire against the mission, testing both the loyalty and courage of the samurai. When every heart holds betrayal, who can you trust?

The Mountain Witch is a self-contained role-playing adventure combining elements of Japanese mythology, horror, and film noir into a tale of trust, betrayal, and confronting one’s fate. You see, each character is in a desperate situation, with both everything to lose and everything to gain. But the payoff of this mission may allow them to restore some semblance of normality and recover part of what they have lost.

The drama of the game comes not from battling the Witch and his minions, per se, but rather is driven by the mounting tension between the characters. Ultimately, The Mountain Witch is not about confronting a demonic presence; it is about dealing with one’s inner demons. The adventure underscores the conflict between free will and duty. On the surface, it may seem just as any other role-playing game, but deeper down, the elements take on new meaning.

Characters have two special characteristics that define the game; Trust and Fates. Trust is accumulated based on how much a character trusts other members of the company. Trust points can be used to help or betray the other characters in conflicts, the combat resolution of the system. Fates, on the other hand, can be used by the players to introduce NPCs, events, and other facts about the game world related to their character’s Fate. At the start of the game, each character is given one of six dark Fates. Each represents a failure of some sort, and is meant to force the fated character to question commitment to the mission and the company, as well as to force the company to question their trust in the character. Each player is responsible for bringing their own individual fate into play.

Three is the recommended minimum number of players; four to six is optimum. The full adventure can be expected to run for about 10 hours. It is divided into chapters, each of which should require about 2 hours of playing time. Each chapter is divided into scenes, typically 2 to 4 per chapter.

The game requires on six standard dice, character sheets, and a deck of Fate cards. The Fate deck is simply a collection of six cards representing the six fates available to the characters.

The heart of the system is the “Fortune-in-the-Middle” mechanic. After general intent is declared, each play rolls 1d6, with the high roller declared the winner. The losing number is then subtracted from the higher die, and the difference used to determine the “Degree of Success,” a measure of how well the winner fared. After the roll is made, the winning player narrates the actual events in accordance with the Degree of Success.

Degrees of Success are rated as partial, mixed, regular, critical, and double. A regular success indicates that whatever was being attempted went according to plan. A partial success puts the situation in the favor of the character, but is not a complete success. A mixed success grants the winner a regular success and the loser a partial success. With a critical success, the effort succeeds with a little something extra. The best result, a double success, indicates that the effort has succeeded far better than intended, technically granting the winner two regular successes. Ties result in a stalemate.

Alternatively, a character may challenge an opponent to a duel in lieu of a conflict roll. A duel typically represents a battle to the death between two opponents, but could also represent domination over an opponent without necessarily killing them. Duels work a little differently in that each player takes 3d6 and rolls one of them, hiding the result. A participant must then decide whether to wait or charge. If either participant charges, both players reveal their rolls and the Conflict is resolved normally. Otherwise, each rolls a second secret dice and adds the result to the first. Now they must decide whether to charge or wait once again. If both wait, they roll a third secret dice and then both parties charge immediately. All dice are added together to get a total.

Though the game does not use hit points, characters do suffer damage. In terms of mechanics, damage results in a cumulative -1 penalty to all Conflict rolls. That said, damage can mean a lot of different things in-game, including (but not limited to), confusion, loss of social standing, spell effects, fear, physical injury, bad timing, or any of a hundred other possibilities. It is also possible to attempt to damage a character’s abilities, removing that ability from play until the wound is healed.

Duels typically result in wounds, ranging from flesh wounds, which last only until the character’s next Conflict, to Take Out, which means that a character has either been killed or incapacitated. It should be noted that dead PCs, though they can no longer interact with the group and actively participate in Conflicts, can still spend and receive Trust to aid, betray, or Buy Narration. In this way, the player can still have a profound effect on the outcome of the game.

Trust points are handed out at the end of each chapter. Each player gives a number of Trust points to the other players (individually), demonstrating how much faith they have in that character. Because Trust points can be used both to help and hinder, one must consider very carefully before offering Trust points. Further complicating the matter, Trust points are tracked individually for each character. If you have no Trust points from a given character, you cannot help or hinder them in any way. Trust points at the start of the game are based on the zodiac signs of the characters.

Each character has up to three unique abilities. These are determined by the individual characters and could represent a unique skill, a special item, or a minor magical spell. Abilities cannot grant mechanical bonuses or penalties to Conflict rolls, cannot allow automatic success at a Conflict roll, and never allow the re-roll of a Conflict. Beyond that, the players are free to come up with nearly any ability they can explain (and that the GM will permit).

Beyond this, the book contains all the information the GM will find necessary for running the adventure, including design of a typical Japanese fortress, sample minions of the Witch, and the Witch himself. The appendices provide some common Japanese names (male and female), titles, and suggested reading/viewing lists.

Critical Hit
What I really like about the system are the Trust mechanic and the fact that players are encouraged to fill in parts of the narration. In that sense, it is truly a “storytelling” system. For example, a character in the Witch’s fortress may encounter a hallway filled with shelves upon which rest human heads. In describing the scene, the GM tells the player that her character recognizes one of the heads and asks, “Whose is it?” In this manner, the characters help build the story and it makes the game fun for all, even those who characters might have met an unfortunate end.

Critical Fumble
The downside is the price. True, you are getting a complete role-playing system and adventure for $24.00, but it’s a very specific system, the mechanics of which do not lend themselves to extended campaigns. With a little work, it might be expanded to include further adventures, or even an entire campaign, but for the most part, this is a one-shot. Remember, unlike many role-playing games, the focus in The Mountain Witch is not on increasing the power of your characters, but on the interactions between them.

Coup d’Grace
For a single adventure to kill a few sessions, this can be a fun adventure. The system works well within the context of the adventure itself and character creation is fairly quick and painless. As a one-shot at a convention, it could be a lot of fun to play.

I give the mechanics and design an A, the price a C, and the layout and presentation a B, so a B, overall.

Final Grade: B