[Supernatural Role-playing Game Pdf Download
Laurice Whack
The Supernatural Role Playing Game is a role-playing game by Margaret Weis Productions that was released in 2009. It is based on the television series Supernatural and was the final game to use the Cortex System.
Like most role-playing games, Supernatural requires several players; one person to be the Game Master and two to five others to play hunters such as Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester. It also requires multiple polyhedral dice ranging from four-sided to twelve-sided.
The Supernatural Role Playing Game is set in the world of the Supernatural TV series and focuses on an elite group of hunters who deal with supernatural threats ordinary people do not believe exist. The very first chapter of the book sets the scene and is called Be Afraid of the Dark. It was produced in 2009, before the fifth season had aired and so doesn't contain any information relevant to the series after this date, but uses information from the show, the graphic novels, and the novels.[1]
Supernatural was the final role-playing game published using the Cortex System, and the final one by Jamie Chambers; all subsequent games from Margaret Weis Productions have been produced under the Cortex Plus system. The system itself uses dice of various sizes ranging from 2 sided (a coin) to 12 sided for attributes, skills, Assets (positive character traits), and Complications (negative character traits). When trying a challenging task, roll the dice for the relevant attribute, skill, and any relevant assets and complications, and compare against a target number decided by the GM. Character creation is point buy by category, with a separate pool for skills and stats, and the size of the pool depending on how powerful the characters are intended to be.
The rights to the license were acquired in the spring of 2007 by Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd (MWP). It was also around this time that New York Times best-selling author Margaret Weis announced that the license to Dragonlance was not renewed so that the company could focus on the Supernatural RPG as well as their work on the Battlestar Galactica RPG.[2] The Supernatural Role Playing Game was one of the three new Cortex media games published by Margaret Weis Productions, one each year between 2007-2009, after the Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game (2007) and the Demon Hunters Role Playing Game (2008).[3] It was finally released in August 2009.
Early indications by Jamie Chambers place the first official game event to be at Gen Con 2007 in Indianapolis, Indiana. This will include "two adventures that will allow players to experience the Supernatural Role Playing Game for the first time outside of our internal playtesting and development."[1]
The Supernatural Role Playing Game was designed by Jamie Chambers and published by Margaret Weis Productions in 2009. The TTRPG was in development since 2007 and utilizes the Cortex System. This system puts the focus on story development and characterization before other parts of the TTRPG experience. The Supernatural Role Playing Game was actually the last role-playing game released with a Cortex System design, and was the last role-playing game made by Chambers.
However, anyone looking to get their hands on a copy of the Supernatural Role Playing Game or Supernatural Adventures nowadays will be making quite a costly investment. Both the core book and supplement book retail for over $100 dollars each, so for now it may be best to just remember the Supernatural Role Playing Gameas a collectible TTRPG, and appreciate the impact it had on the genre overall.
A bit about me in relation to this book - I'm a fan of the Supernatural TV show. Not totally hardcore, but I do spend time on Supernatural fan sites and discussion forums, and I've seen almost every episode. Before the RPG was announced, I figured the premise would be great for an RPG. It solves a lot of problems that other premises have. The players are hunters, they hunt supernatural evil. If the GM puts out a plot hook of supernatural evil, the players will stick together since that's what they're supposed to do. If they don't, they're really breaking from the theme and you can boot them. No excuses of playing in character to be a dick.
Setting up adventures is also pretty simple. Think of a supernatural threat, create a background, some people involved, a location, and clues. Drop the hint, or start the adventure off saying they're visiting X town based on reports of Y happening. Everything will be pretty predictable. There will be a good mix of social interaction, sleuthing, problem solving and combat. Each is pretty crucial, so most players will be happy.
You've probably noticed that I haven't talked about the actual product yet. I'm disclosing my bias, I'm fully expecting to like how it will work. I'm a fan of the show, and I like this type of game. If you were nodding your head as you were reading the above two paragraphs, we're probably on the same page.
Given what I've said, I figure that whether the Supernatural RPG succeeds or fails rests squarely on how good the GM advice and support is. I'm happy to say it delivers very well. Chapter 7: The Story, which focuses on GM advice and how to run the game is a full 26 pages. I haven't counted exactly, but I'd guess it's roughly the same amount of text as Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, which comes in at 32 pages, but the pages are smaller. The advice is very good, it addresses what makes the Supernatural TV show popular, and what you'll want to include in your game to make sure it delivers what people expect. It covers game styles (hitting the road, which is like the show, evil at home, which would be fighting consistent evils locally, like Buffy or Angel, and professionals, which would be like X-Files). It covers atmosphere. It covers player management. And finally, and most importantly, it covers how to set up an adventure in the vein of how episodes in the TV show were set up. I wouldn't say this chapter itself is worth $30, particularly when you can get Robin's Laws and apply that to the TV show if you prefer your own system, or even skip that entirely as it's fairly self explanatory, but I got some good stuff out of it, and it does cover what needs to be covered.
Chapter 8: The Supernatural covers the bad guys the characters will be facing. The categories are Demons, Ghosts, Shapeshifters, Shtriga, Vampires, Wendigo and Zombies. From 1-3 examples of each are given, some of them are from the TV show and some of them are new. Some people might think this isn't enough, but if you think back to the TV show, a good portion of the bad guys are ghosts. The trick is figuring out where the body is, burning it, and then figuring out that there's either an object or body part left over that's still holding the ghost back. You can get a lot of play out of ghosts that way. Shapeshifters also showed up in multiple forms, so should be able to get some good secondary play there. Demons also showed up quite a bit, and dealing with them is fairly similar to dealing with a ghost, although each one has a slightly different solution. Shtriga I was surprised to see in there, I didn't see them as having much replay value. Vampires, Wendigo and Zombies I can see somewhere in the middle. It's not bad, the hunters could just specialise in certain types of enemies - some even hunted Vampires exclusively. It's a good amount to start with, although eventually you'll have to start inventing your own villains.
Chapter 9: The Mundane provides stats for a bunch of animals, a bunch of sample humans, and multiple sample locations with suggested plots. The animals I don't see getting much use out of, but having stats for humans they'll be interacting with helps a lot, and the locations I think are invaluable. You can basically take a location, take a supernatural villain, figure out how they interact, and then populate the local municipality. Combined with some of the advice on different regions of the US, you even have the type of temperament of the locals.
The GM material is good. It's not quite like the 4e DMG in terms of giving advice for different types of games (con games, weekly sessions, etc), but it's far better than most RPGs I have read which seem to assume you've just figured it out from playing D&D and want a better system.
The rule system is Cortex. I didn't know anything about it before reading this (I was a fan of BSG, but couldn't see at all how it would make for a good RPG setting). It's not quite bog standard point buy, but it's pretty close. If you know point buy RPGs, you already know 90% of the Cortex system - the last 10% is just details. A couple things stood out to me that I really liked. The first was specific advancement point numbers for accomplishing different tasks. Most point buy RPGs leave it entirely up to GM discretion. Supernatural gives something a bit more concrete.
The really cool thing about the system is complications. While like in a conventional point buy system, complications give you extra character points to start with, they also tie in with plot points. Plot points are pretty standard action point/hero point analogues - you can spend them to improve results of a roll, or to introduce a story element (such as Bobby Singer showing up out of nowhere to save Sam and Dean, not quite Deus Ex Machina, but it's close). They tie in with complications in that when you roleplay dealing with a complication, you get plot points. So not only do the complications make things interesting, they're also crucial to get the plot points so you can survive. That's just a sweet point as far as the system goes itself. Supernatural RPG takes it a step further by integrating them nicely into the setting. Demons (and to a lesser degree Ghosts) can possess people with emotional chinks in their armour. These chinks are the complications. If you're dealing with a complication, it sets you on edge and makes you susceptible to demonic possession. Slick! If it weren't for that I wouldn't care much for the system, and would just run things using ORE (Nemesis or A Dirty World) or recommend everyone just use their existing system of choice. The way complications are merged with demonic possession is very crucial to the setting, and would take some work to duplicate it in another system. This combined with the supernatural villains and pre-statted mundane encounters and locations makes it a worthwhile system for the game.
795a8134c1