Hollow Earth Expedition
Well, it doesn’t have much to do with Howard Phillips Lovecraft, nor anything too terribly evil, but it is set in the 1930s. And since the 1930s happen to be right after the 1920s (when most of the Cthulhu Mythos stories Lovecraft wrote took place), and it deals with pulp stories/whacked-out ideas that deal with the hollow earth theory, the game can be said to be related to the Lovecraftian market.
Not that I am saying Lovecraft ever thought much about the hollow earth fiction set forth by Edgar Rice Burroughs and others, but if he were alive today, who’s to say that the setting would not be his new thing. All that and the fact that the guy gave out really cool tee-shirts and free dice at the play-testing session I sat in on at Gen Con.
Hollow Earth Expedition, or H.E.X., is a game soon--possibly this winter--to be released by Exile Game Studio, LLC. Jeff Combos is the game designer as well as the company’s president, and he took time out of his busy job to run a test scenario this year at Gen Con instead of having one of hundreds of staff members do it for him. Such attention to detail seems to be a strong point both for the man as well as the game.
The game system itself is decidedly different than the prevalent D20 that makes up so much of the market these days. Specially designed eight-sided dice (marked “0" and “1;" “0,” “1,” and “2;” then “0,,” “1,” “2,” and “3.”), are divided into d2, d3, and d4. The player tries to roll above a preset number based on his character’s Body, Dexterity, Charisma, Intelligence, and Will. The skills are handled in much the same fashion, and the attributes can modify a skill roll.
Combos states that the system is similar to White Wolf’s “Storyteller," or GURPS, but alternating dice helps differentiate and move along his “ubiquity system" without using too many dice in the process. Frankly, I’ll have to take his word on this because I never saw a Vampire game where the GM did not just cheat for his girlfriend and best friend, and even when I try to understand GURPS I get sleepy. Combos did not cheat for Melissa, his lovely assistant and RPG stunt PC, and I was far from sleepy as I figured out which dice combinations I could use to optimize my rolls for better chances of success. The system by itself is terribly fun.
The setting is really what sold me on the game. I happen to be a fan of the Pellucidar novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, as well as the Warlord DC comic of some years ago. Combos has done more research than even that. He has tied in polar explorations, Jules Verne, and Atlantis theories as well into the milieu. Of course there are the obligatory dinosaurs and prehistoric humanoids.
And from the artwork on the GM screen he was using during the game, he has a psionic system developed, though we never got into it during the introduction adventure. But the woman casting the spell had more navel showing than Dejah Thoris in a heat wave, so I am sure the system rocks.
I almost forgot the 1930s action novel/movie feel to everything. You can very easily Indiana Jones your way through the adventures, with only mild life-threatening injuries to your character-–trust me on that one, I know. Though my own Indiana Jones came off as more of a Capt. Jonathon Archer, I was still shot up pretty well and able to run away before a great big explosion topped the adventure off.
Now H.E.X. might not be for everybody. That is if you are not looking for a fun game system and a cool adventure setting.
Clark Ashton Lumley
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