It was a pleasure to review Broken Compass, the latest RPG produced by Two Little Mice, the talented creative ensemble that produced Household, winner of the Italian title of Gioco di Ruolo dell’Anno 2019 or RpG of the Year. To our very the great pleasure, they sent us the manuals and materials of this, their most recent effort, so we could share our impressions with you.
Broken Compass is an action-themed adventure roleplaying game which raised almost €50,000 in an international Kickstarter campaign in 2020. The game allows you to experience Adventures (yes, with a capital “A”), such as those of Indiana Jones, Uncharted, or National Treasure. The cinematographic component is not just a reference point, however, but a featured trait aimed at distinguishing and embellishing the product. From the citations to the general approach, everything refers back to those works that have been able to keep us all on the edges of our seats in front of screens both large and small. It provides a game setting that wisely integrates and exploits the characteristic elements of the genre. There is a director’s cut in the structure of the Adventures, which are called “Episodes” and collected in campaigns called “Seasons”.
This review takes a look at the Kickstarter offer bundle, which features many exclusive elements. Currently, the digital version of the core manual is on sale at DriveThruRPG for $24, while the digital version of the Golden Age manual is available for $19.
The Bundle of Broken Compass
The main manual is a c. 6 x 9 in (15 x 23 cm) colored hardcover, with elastic closure and a shape and consistency that recall the journal of an adventurous archaeologist. It consists of approximately 230 pages and contains everything you need to play Broken Compass.
There are also two other manuals of the same size and materials. One is dedicated to Adventures set in the 1930s and is named Golden Age. Inside, there are insights, explanations, and inspiring ideas to best set the Adventures in the golden age of the genre.
The second manual, called Luck Tales (a clear homage to Uncle Scrooge McDuck), is like a treasure chest. It is a collection of various items to deepen your game, such as unlikely objects and advice on traps and puzzles. There are also instructions for playing Episodes featuring young teenagers and for engaging the younger ones at your game table. Eleven episodes signed by authors and prominent personalities of the Italian RPG scene complete and add greater meaning to the title.
Various accessories complete the Broken Compass bundle we received for this review. A coin, a world map, two playbills, a celebratory poster, six postcards that briefly describe as many cities ready to host adventures, two “passport” booklets (one for the record sheets of characters yet to be created and one with compiled sheets of ready-made characters, possibly antagonists), and a dice bag made of raw cotton muslin (commonly used prior to the Industrial Revolution for shirts and shifts). The faces of the dice show the cardinal compass points and the Broken Compass symbols instead of being numbered. Many small gadgets and many wonderful details affirm the quality of this bundle.
Let’s Dive into Adventure
I begin with the introductory sentence of each of the three manuals (I didn’t have the English version, so this is a translation):
This manual is more of a kind of track than a real rulebook.
Why is it important? Because the spirit of the game is the spirit of Adventure. Rules, suggestions, advice, and directions are certainly important and form the basis on which you start playing but, in Broken Compass, what matters most is the spirit of adventure that permeates the sessions and thrills the hearts of the players, much more so than in many other products. It differs from many other RPGs in the authors’ co-responsibility for the stories. The game master, here called “Fortune Master”, is in charge of managing the Rivals, the Extras, and the action, but the story, the Treasure, the narrative, and descriptive elements of the Episodes must be developed and carried forward together with the players.
All the adventures are based on three pillars: travel, discovery and action. The Episodes are based on a certain mix of these elements. Another feature explained here, but which should be much more common in many other systems and on many other tables, concerns the concept of failure. Failure isn’t just not being able to complete some act successfully, it is completely stripped of any negative meaning. Adventurers know very well that the feats they want to accomplish are difficult, not being able to do something is part of their stories. Failing in Broken Compass means generating unexpected events, rather; it means discovering a new path for the story; it means adding spice. In gamer jargon, we call it Failing Forward.
If It Was That Easy to Become An Adventurer…
Broken Compass is a very pragmatic game, and character creation reflects that. Almost all of the attribution of skills is based on the choice of two (or three) tags from a pool of 18. Points are distributed through the tags, yielding a greater number of dice to throw in resolving challenges. Three places in the world are then chosen: where the character come from, and where he or she grew up and worked. In those places, the adventurer is more familiar with the environment or has a certain number of contacts as resources.
You choose a lucky charm, prepare your backpack, pull the straps well … and you’re ready to go!
In the Golden Age manual there are 6 additional tags, and as many are proposed for the Teenage version of the game. Surely, there will always be new ones with the release of new expansions.
Review of the System of Broken Compass: Challenges and Dangers
The Broken Compass system largely echoes that of Household. All character tests are divided into four difficulty levels: Basic, Critical, Extreme and Impossible. The players roll a number of d6s varying between 3 and 6 with the goal of generating the highest number of identical faces. It is possible to withdraw a couple of times, the first time risking little (or nothing) and the second time risking everything. Feelings, situations, or objects can lend advantages (more dice) or disadvantages (fewer dice).
When a character is actively executing some actions we are talking about Challenges. For basic Challenges, a pair of dice showing matching faces is enough to succeed, while it takes 5 for impossible ones. Because the “classic” concept of failure doesn’t exist here, the calculation of probabilities actually matters little. The important thing is to step into the shoes of a hero and give 100%.
On the other side of the coin (in this case at least of a cursed medallion) there are Dangers, events driving the adventurers to take big risks. The resolution procedure is similar: the Fortune Master makes it very clear what risks the heroes run (always divided between the 4 levels, above) and the players must meet them with the successes on their dice. Some situations may be composed of a number of simultaneous hazards, but addressed with a single die roll. It often takes a lot of luck!
Review of the System of Broken Compass: Luck and Feelings
Luckily adventurers are often gifted with a great deal of luck! In Broken Compass, characters have 10 Luck points. These can be spent to obtain a daring Success versus a danger against which the dice have not granted a reprieve. Luck is recharged with a rest in a safe place. After the Luck is spent, only the lucky charm remains. A coin is then thrown, perhaps the token provided in the bundle. Your character is saved when the “cross” comes up, and you keep the lucky charm. You still save your character with “heads”, but you lose the charm. There are many ways to succeed, and the system invites you to dare them. You are playing heroes who put everything on the line to achieve their goals!
The Feelings, by contrast, are momentary labels that can give advantages or disadvantages, the results of character history and not of careful character design. A character may have positive conditions based on how s/he feels, which is the result of how s/he behaves. For example, there is Self-Confidence (advantage on Society rolls), and Daring (advantage on Guts rolls), but Love, or being Invincible, or whatever else best describes a state of mind recognized by the Fortune Master as having enough weight to influence game play may also be used. On the flip side, there are just as many negative Feelings to inflict disadvantages, and if you accumulate too many you Feel Shattered, with disadvantage on all rolls until you rest in a safe place.
Review of the System of Broken Compass: Traps and Enemies
The next things that I want to point out in this review is that the Broken Compass system is quite light and the other remaining elements, Traps & Enemies, are framed by the same rules. Traps are Dangers that can first be identified with a clue. Enemies are Dangers that must be hit multiple times by three successes of their own level (characters are also divided into four levels) before you can get past them to move on.
There are further rules and clarifications, but the basic structure is simple and even intuitive, very suitable for an action narrative in which you aim precisely to obtain something by taking calculated risks and rising to the challenge of unexpected twists. The players are encouraged to dare greatly, and the backbone of the system helps to generate excitement and encourage immersion in an excellent union of mechanics and narration.
Much Good Advice
In the basic manual, many pages are dedicated to creating and managing adventures and general game play. It talks about creating Treasures, distributing clues, Rivals, wealth, and time management, as well as the structure of Episode and Season plots, the heroes’ growth, the number of players, always maintaining a cinematic view. There is mention of pilot Episodes, of the season finale, of spin-offs, and the NPCs who have been transformed into “Not a Protagonist, Clearly”.
The focus on the end goal drives a degree of immersion that makes games which are really easy for a reader to get carried away with so easy to create. Even if something is missing or if you don’t know something, it doesn’t matter, because we’re not talking about a manual full of tables, nor rules for everything. As I mentioned at the beginning, the authors themselves call it “a track”.
The track ends with ideas, insights, examples of extras, and a pilot Episode, more on that in a moment.
For the more ambitious there is also the hard mode where “Luck is short, Time is running out, money is scarce and the Rival is really bad”.
The Golden Age manual
Each manual could well have been presented in separate reviews. Kudos to those who have read this far! The Golden Age manual is a well of new possibilities.
After the Introduction and the presentation of what adventuring and adventurers were like in the 1930s in the first part, the second part describes the world of that era generally, to provide deeper context for the stories. New Extras, new Treasures, and lots of other information are also provided. The third part is dedicated to the supernatural, with examples and tips for managing those elements in play.
The last two parts present the Throne of the Serpent arc(a ready-made Season) and five “on-demand” Episodes, respectively, with directions to play them in the context of the Throne of the Serpent or independently.
This is not an essential manual. It is “only” a supplement. It is truly rich in information and ideas, however, and may become indispensable to all those who want to experience adventures in the early decades of the century, perhaps preventing the Nazis from getting their hands on some strange artifact. Nazis always work as Rivals, you know.
The Luck Tales Manual
The Luck Tales manual (that I’m going to review), exclusive to the backers of the Kickstarter campaign, was not written by the same authors as Broken Compass. It is an anthology signed by many people who live and breathe role-playing games. There are 6 instructive chapters and 11 actual Episodes. The authors are in the image alongside.
The instructive chapters deepen the theme of “Failing Forward” that drives the plots, giving advice and suggestions for Traps and puzzles, for travel management, for the creation of Unlikely Objects (above all, the Chicken with Pulley). There is still a chapter on how to play a Teenage version of Broken Compass and one on Wayfinder Inc., a company of adventurers and archaeologists.
And then there is the meat on the fire, the roast behind the smoke, the Episodes themselves. I have not described any so far because I have read only a few, as I intend playing the rest, and not as Fortune Master. The management of the text of the Episodes deserves a separate recognition because their structure is important.
The Episodes
Forget 50-page adventures with text boxes that tell you what to say to players and when, starting with the tavern where the adventurers find themselves. Forget diagrams, maps, and lengthy introductory exposition. The ready-made Episodes of Broken Compass are all ready, fast to play and, above all, multifaceted. These are mostly linear plots in the prevailing style of the genre, in which there is a well-prepared basic structure sub-divided into unexpected, surprising, threatening and rewarding scenes. The faces of many of these, however, are not defined and are left to the Fortune Master and players.
We are faced with text full of labels, some functional, others yet to be defined. For example:
Without [the clue] it will not be possible to prevent [the rival] from taking [the guide] captive.
What is the clue and who the rival and guide specifically are must be defined by the Fortune Master. This requires a little work but also allows each structure to be adapted to many different tastes and situations.
Before the laziest of you complain, know that the Episodes are already provided with a ready-built structure, so you can play them as is – or “On-demand”, to maintain the cinematic theme.
Art and Layout
The art and layout are faithfully maintain the quality already established. From the point of view of page and space management, the manuals are beautiful. They are easy to read; the chapters are opened with illustrated splash pages, easily recognized. Varying colors differentiate the titles, borders, and backgrounds of the various parts of the manuals. The ideas are reminiscent of notes from notebooks or files from an archive and running alongside the text are columns that deepen or expand some concepts.
In short, the manuals are beautiful and practical. It is difficult to find fault.
In regards to the art, I would like to coin a new term I consider synonymous with the word “beautiful”: Giubellinian. Anyone who still does not know Daniela Giubellini should seek her work out on Facebook, ArtStation, and Instagram, to mention just a few digital platforms where her work can be seen. She illustrated Household and is collaborating with Two Little Mice in illustrating Inferno (I strongly urge you to go and preview the illustrations). Of course, art is subjective and her work may not be to your taste. Personally, I like her work a lot and I find them very suitable for the game. The whole Broken Compass bundle is full of her images (of which you can admire a few included here in this review). Should I add more?
Final Considerations
Re-reading what I have written, I realize how enthusiastic this article is. As you probably understood thanks to this review, Broken Compass is a product I really like. The attention to detail and the care taken creating fine physical products and high-value content won me over. It is an RPG created for playing cinematic adventures full of action and spirit. Its attractiveness and longevity depend on the personal preferences of each player who approaches it, naturally, so the financial investment must be commensurate with the use each buyer intends to put it.
If you are interested or simply have a desire to add to your collection, you have my word that this bundle is an excellent product. After Household, Two Little Mice has confirmed itself as a real force in the Italian role-playing game market, capable of offering high quality and well-finished products, a pleasure not just to play but simply to browse and to own.
I invite you again not only to enjoy Broken Compass, but also to take a look at their next project: Inferno, a reinterpretation of Dante’s Inferno for D&D5e!
If you want to get a closer look at this bundle, you can download both the quickstart and the pre-made character sheets from the Two Little Mice website.
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