Powers and Perils

Powers & Perils is a role-playing game written by Richard Snider and published by Avalon Hill in 1983 as a boxed set. It consisted of four main rule books (The Character Book, Combat and Magic, The Creature Book, and Treasure and Human Encounters) and a fifth book describing an adventure set in Modara County. A second boxed set contained information on the world, named Perilous Lands, in the form of three books, The Map Book, Sites of Power, and The Culture Book. Subsequent expansions were printed in Heroes magazine and an adventure for high level characters, Tower of the Dead, was released in 1984. Unfortunately Avalon Hill had no previous experience with role-playing games, being primarily a producer of strategy and war games such as Risk and Axis & Allies, and Powers & Perils died before its time. Overpricing and strong competition from 1st ed. Dungeons & Dragons saw P&P on store shelves at 2 to 3 times the price being asked for its contemporaries. The game was discontinued after 1984 and all support for it dropped. All questions since then regarding errata and reprinting have been rebuffed by Avalon Hill, Wizards of the Coast, and Hasbro as the company and rights changed hands, this despite the number of people still playing the game over 20 years after it went out of print.

What makes Powers & Perils different from most role-playing games is the high level of detail in all aspects of the game, from characters to magic to the world itself. Characters’ skills and spells gain expertise and power through use. Likewise using magic and participating in combat increases the characters magic experience and combat experience levels respectively which in turn grant points for increasing characteristics such as strength, stamina, dexterity, agility, intelligence, will, empathy, eloquence, appearance, and constitution. It may seem complicated, but once past the learning curve the system results in greater responsiveness and potential for character growth than any other modern role-playing game.

As an example of the level of detail in the game world, the County Modara adventure book is 24 pages long. About 10 of that is the actual adventure. The rest is details on people of note within the county, geography, economy, demographics, legal system, background events such as the hereditary curse covering the ruling family (which is breakable by the players should they realize it exists and dig deep enough), history, current events, a timeline for certain events, and other things. Even the random encounters are a notch above that commonly found in fantasy games with the traditional fantasy races (elves, dwarves, goblins, etc.) being joined by a host of rarely heard of creatures some of which are intelligent on a level well above human.

Example: Caldo – The country was originally populated by 30-50 ft tall giants until the Caldons drove them into the Elder Mountains and claimed the cities for their own. A militaristic people, the Caldons have the best armed, armored, and trained army in the region. When Donara, a much larger country on Caldo’s southern border, demanded tribute from Caldo the Caldons invaded Donara, marched south to the capitol capturing everything on the way (over 1/3 the length of Donara and longer than the length of Caldo), burned and sacked parts of the capitol, and then turned around and went home reestablishing the original border with minor changes in the process. Just to prove the point. A common punishment under Caldon law is trial by combat. If the convicted can survive from dawn to dusk in the arena against all comers (and there is a line to sign up to fight) he is allowed to keep whatever he scavenges from other combatants and is escorted to the nearest border before being released. Caldon men are compulsive and enthusiastic gamblers and will take any bet if they think they stand a chance of winning. Consequently women hold the purse strings and run the family finances. A Caldon man will literally give his wife/mother/sister, as appropriate, all his wages and receive an allowance. Marriage in Caldo is almost always a political or business proposition but neither partner is considered weaker. Children belong to the clan of the same sex parent for most purposes. The national sport of Caldo is TROLL BAITING. One person goes out into a field with minimal armor and weapons and essentially calls “Here troll, troll, troll!!!” Then when one shows up he has to hold the troll off until his friends can get close enough to try to kill it.

The Unofficially Official website for Powers & Perils www.powersandperils.com Alternative address http://abroere.xs4all.nl/pnp/index.htm Many of the books are available for download here with the blessing of the game’s creator.

The World Map for Perilous Lands http://abroere.xs4all.nl/pnp/lands/fullmap.jpg You can click on the map to zoom in to read the names of the countries, cities, and major tribes. Each hex is 21 miles and every name on the map has an entry in the culture book. Yes, that means that there are between 90 and 100 entries in the culture book (not counting details on individual cities), all of which are more detailed than the shortened summary of Caldo above. The full entry on Caldo is a page and a half.