Chaos Progenitus dice game
Chuck Smith
idea as to how well this game plays. Does its lack of popularity speak for
itself? Any comments?
The starter set and booster pack is available from Corsair Publishing,
though I would bet it is now out-of-production.
Chuck Smith
cas...@ksu.edu
Allen Varney
Here's the review I wrote for INQUEST magazine, published in (I
believe) issue #19:
Chaos Progenitus
Designer: Lester Smith
Publisher: Destination Games
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Set Size: 130 dice (starters) + 78 dice (boosters)
Release: August 1996
Packaging: 13-die Starter Sets; eight-die boosters
Suggested Retail: $9.95 per Starter; $6.95 per booster
Last year Dragon Dice designer Lester Smith left TSR,
Inc. for a new Destination -- Destination Games, the company
he started with fellow TSR and GDW alumnus Tim Brown. Chaos
Progenitus, a weirdly named "trading dice game" a la Dragon
Dice, shows Destination's TSR roots, but Chaos is an original
-- a fun, fast-playing class in Monstrosity Blood-Shedding
101.
The 13 random dice in a Starter Set ($9.95) represent
the body parts and weapons of an other-dimensional "fiend."
(Please! We don't call them demons now!) You'll find it hard
to picture your fiend, a screwy mix of arms, legs, brains,
lungs (with gas attacks), eyes (ray attacks), pincers,
shells, stingers, tails, wings, and the ever-popular
tentacles. Still more imagination may explain how this creep
is wielding axes, bellows, shields, darts, maces, scythes,
staves, swords, tridents, wands, or whips. But you need no
creativity to understand your fiend's goal: munching its
opponent. The last player who can roll a body-part die wins.
Players who struggle with the Dragon Dice rules may find
the four-page Chaos rulesheet puzzling too. But I had no
trouble, and soon my three-legged, two-armed, four-winged
fiend was swinging its scythe and maces against a loathsome
multi-tentacled something with lungs and stingers and
shields. Fiends take turns rolling attacks. A roll turns up
"minus" icons to hinder enemy rolls, plus hits measured by
strength (how hard they are to block) and result (stun,
wound, entanglement, etc.). Each wound inflicted removes one
enemy die from play. The attack roll's blocks, initiative
symbols, and minuses also defend against the ensuing counter-
attack. It's delightful in a bloody way.
It's not pretty, though, given the garish Koplow dice
and crude symbols. (In the advanced game, different colors
identify demon types; they have powers of varying
usefulness.) Also, once you lose a few more parts than your
enemy, it's hard to recover. Fortunately, the killing blow
usually falls quickly.
Like the genocidal struggles in Dragon Dice, the battles
in Chaos Progenitus are defined as both endless and
pointless. But though your fiend achieves nothing by its
victory, you'll still have fun biting, stinging, and spearing
your unimaginably ugly opponents.
--
-- Allen Varney
http://www.allenvarney.com
Delete second Austin to reply
DDiceRC
learn, yet there is still enough variety to be interesting. And, like DD, we've
found a way to play it online on occasion (honor system only at present). I
don't know if Corsair or Lester Smith have any starters left, but I believe
Chuck Pint has starters (but no boosters) for sale on his site.
There have been some small stirrings of a revival for CP if Dragon Dice does
well in its new incarnation. I don't know how much substabce there is to these
rumors, but I'd certainly like to see it make a comeback.
Steve Braun, general editor
The Dragonmaster
http://members.aol.com/DDiceRC/dragonmaster.html
Chuck Pint
on their website. I believe from some of the things that Lester has said,
that he (and Tim) own all rights to the game. Lester is interested in seeing
the game make a comeback, but is too involved in his current projects to
spend much time on it. I've bugged SFR to consider CP as a "pre-starter" to
Dragon Dice. This will get people that consider Dragon Dice too complex or
younger players, interested in CDGs.
I haven't put much more that a trade page up about CP, because I thought
Lester's website did it best. However, if there are questions, I'd be happy
to start some FAQs, and perhaps even write up a quick-start example for game
play. Bruce did have a nice page for starting out with CP, but has moved on
to other things. I could ask him if he still has it somewhere and host it
for him.
And yes, I do have starters for the game, but alas no boosters. I have a
large inventory of dice, and am more that willing to trade or sell any
extras I have. Finally, there is a netring just for CP. It's at:
http://CPring.chuckpint.com
Chuck Smith
would you charge for two starter sets? I have no interest in this as a
collector. I'm curious about the game and enjoy trying something different.
Would you be interested in making a fair "package" deal? Take two starter
sets and throw in some of your extras kind of thing... then charge a fair
price for the package.
Also, Dragon Dice will be republished? In the same format?
Chuck
"Chuck Pint" <ne...@chuckpint.com> wrote in message
news:HXzT6.28347$Uo3.1...@news6.giganews.com...
Chuck Smith
find them at:
http://lester.smith.net/chaosp/cprules.htm
Chuck
Guus
>Also, Dragon Dice will be republished? In the same format?
check www.sfr-inc.com