Puffin, £3.99, ISBN 0-14-034396-2
Fantasy, 1990
Blacksand! will always have a fond place in my heart because it is my introduction to tabletop RPG splatbooks. Oh, I know they exists, but up till then, I never really looked into one. I bought this one by mistake, assuming back then that it was a bumper-sized Fighting Fantasy gamebook. Oops, my bad, it turns out to be a splatbook for kids that want to graduate from gamebooks to tabletop games while still playing in the same sandbox world. This is a mostly a gazetteer of the infamous den of thieves and smugglers, and for once, the place finally comes alive.
It’s sad, but while I am always up for a rollout and showdown in a city of lowlives, Port Blacksand never really came alive in any of the gamebooks set in that place. A big reason for that is that those gamebooks never allowed for much exploration—folks are given maybe an option of picking one out of two or three streets to go down, and then be railroaded back to a common path later—and hence this place was more like Port Missed Opportunities.
Well, that changes now. Of course, Marc Gascoigne and Pete Tamlyn need to ease kids into the whole tabletop RPG concept first, so the introduction compares the DM to a director controlling the players based on a script, with an alert to expect the players to go off-script at times and for the DM to be prepared to deal with those moments. It’s not a bad start, really. Then we ease into a condensed overview of the world of Titan and the deities worshiped by the folks there (no doubt to help with players setting up their characters), a more detailed look into the rules along with extra spells and skills thrown in. I personally never find the system used in the gamebook to translate well into tabletop RPG, but honestly, there is no reason why DMs use this one solely for the setting and implement their own favorite system into the resulting campaign. Seriously, implement this system and spellcasters will end up hating the whole thing.
There are also rules and tips on populating buildings and neighborhoods, which are important because it helps novice DMs to create realistic scenarios in buildings that are not described in detail in the gazetteer. Mind you, some of the rules are more like common sense, such as how many people should be inside a medium-sized building, but then again, DMs may appreciate having fewer things to worry about when they have to corral annoying snowflakes at the table accusing the DM of being ableist because the evil wizard didn’t make the dungeon user-friendly for people in wheelchairs.
And then, the best part of this thing: the gazetteer. There are so many details and plot hooks here for days, maybe months. From feuding estranged couples running businesses at different parts of the city to the various guilds of criminals running the place from the shadows, Blacksand! finally comes alive for the first time in the lifetime of Fighting Fantasy. The only eye-roll part of me here is the history of the place and the focus on the ruler Lord Azzur, because that guy is shrouded in so much contrived mysterious awesomeness that he all but sparkles in the moonlight. That bloke was so much cooler when he was not given the spotlight like this.
This one ends with a campaign for the DM to kickstart a campaign, and I am pleasantly surprised by this. It’s actually good. The party is a bunch of mercenaries hired by a rich merchant from Port Blacksand to ensure his safety while carrying out a business transaction with a shady fellow. This merchant ends up murdered, and further investigations suggest that he was killed by foul magical means. With nothing else to do, the party head back to Port Blacksand and get a chance to finally earn their pay when they are asked to discover the culprit behind the murder. This one is well-paced and there is everything—crazy break-ins. psychotic villains, cameos by important NPCs, NPCs that are detailed enough to be interesting, and a hilariously insane climax that sees death and destruction raining down on everyone. This is a campaign that can be easily tweaked to be incorporated into any setting, actually, because it’s simple yet fun and elegant all at once.
I do have an issue with the illustrations here. They are too busy most of the time, and because everything is in black and white, it can be hard to make out what is actually happening in a particular illustration.
Still, Blacksand! is a well-done effort to bring to life a setting so that it can thrive outside the limiting confines of a gamebook. I’ve had a great time, and it’d be good to visit again.
