Monday, August 15, 2022

OSR Mail Call, Unboxing, & Review Of Victorious: Victorian Role Playing Adventure in the age of Supermankind By Mike Stewart From Troll Lord Games


"Gaslight street lamps pour fitful illumination through the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian cities. Menacing figures lurk in darkened alleyways. Desperate men with nothing to lose and the determination to take what they can from others plot.

"This is an RPG where masked vigilantes pit their fantastic powers against all the evil that settled in the darkened streets of a Victorian past that both was and was not!"

"Victorious, the newest core game powered by Troll Lord Games' celebrated SIEGE engine, allows you to create a wild assortment of heroes, from the wickedly smart to the inhumanly powerful! Victorious can be scaled to meet adventure with investigators of crime, defenders of society against evil monsters, and even mad scientists foiled by masked superheroes."

• Character classes that run the gamut of Fantastic Victoriana, from Contraptionists to Magicians, to Investigators and Mesmerists and more!

• A system to create your own unique character.

• Details of life in the Victorian era, with emphasis on London and New York City.

• Combat in all its forms, and how the Supernatural can impact both melee and missile combat. Carriage chase rules are provided as well as combat from trains to ships to the air.

• An individualized magic system as well as rules to use the Castles & Crusades magic spells if desired. Conversions of characters from C&C and Victorious to each other’s rules are a

snap and guidelines are given for such.

• An introductory adventure where the death of Dr. Henry Jekyll is investigated and is not what it seems.





 It's been a while since anything appeared from Troll Lord Games & miraclously a package appeared on the doorstep. And there was a huge sale & this includes one of our favorite steampunk supers games Victorious by Mark & Elizabeth Stewart. What makrs Victorious different is the origin of the supers who have time travelled to alterative Victorian era.  The supers are stuck there or have settled in depending upon your perspective. 



Victorious: Victorian Role Playing Adventure in the age of Supermankind doesn't get it's due in the gaming world because of several glaring errors from the editors. That being said Victorious was one of my most successful campaigns over the years. The players couldn't get enough because this game hits several key themes at once. One it's a super hero game and a solid incarnation of the Siege engine system. Two it's alternative history & an alternative Earth. Three this is a cinematic rpg that is easily convertable with Castles & Crusades. 


Victorious takes the usual super hero PC classes & spins them toward a steampunk streamlining of the Siege engine and it's very customizable we get  the Contraptionist (gadget guy), the Hypnotist, the Inquiry Agent (Sherlock Holmes), the Magician, the Paragon (Victorian Super-men), the Radiant, the Strongman, and the Vigilante (Gaslight Batman). And this use of the Siege engine rpg in Victorious means that customization for both PC's and campaign work is easy & well done. 


Everything in Victorious is geared for getting into your PC & then diving into the Victorian era of Superhumankind. The information here is solidly done and the design from the grounp up favors play of the mini campaign to long term campaign style. And Victorious is a fun game with solid options along the way for players & DM's to make it their own. 


Mike Stewart's design & writing is done by a hobbyist and rpger who knows his subject. And there's lots of options on the table for campaign play from solid design for adventures, PC generation, several chapters on the Victorian age, equipment, well done fire arms rules, and some excellent monsters. 


All in all, Victorious: Victorian Role Playing Adventure in the age of Supermankind doesn't get half the love it deserves because of two issues. There are number of glaring errors within the hardback itself from missing page numbers to more obvious issues with mislabels. These mistakes rests squarely on the shoulders of the editors at Troll Lord games. That being said the play testers spotted them right away and this is on the Trolls. For the ten dollar mark this is a bargain for an rpg of excellent quality. 
Unfortunately, Drivethrurpg decided to erase my copies of the Victorius Bundle and quite frankly I'm a bit upset with Drivethrurpg at the moment. I bought the bundle quite nicely from my own money ages ago when it was on sale. And Drivethrurpg better restore this bundle into my pdf  library sooner rather then later. 
Is grabbing a physical copy of Victorious: Victorian Role Playing Adventure in the age of Supermankind worth it?! To me it certainly is. 


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