The Sage's Library: Powers & Perils

[@larryg.6118]

There's a sadistic part of me that wants to watch Trevor doing a Featureless Gray Plain with this game.

[@drillerdev4624]

"Welcome to Combat Accounting 101"

[@cybrim1]

​@drillerdev4624 no, it's a 300's class

[@shaunb8294]

Trevor: I love crunchy, skill-based games! Trevor after Powers & Perils: The next season of MM&D is going to use Risus!

[@brianjenvey]

I played this once almost 20 years ago at the behest of our DM who wanted to try it. It took our group several hours to build characters, literally. We'd get together once a month and play from Noon until early morning, and out characters were done around 6 or 7 that night. To date, it is the only game where when we were told we leveled up at the end of the session, the group (7 or 8 of us) let out a collective groan of pain. We didn't have a session 2 of that system. I'm glad I'm not the only one that had this issue trying to get into the system.

[@jts8053]

"I tried to play it.", "I ran it once...sort of." - every Powers & Perils gamer ever.

[@valmorgul708]

Trevor, I own my copy of the box from the 80s and like you, sometimes I end opening the books determined to finally find a way of playing. I am a roleplayer and wargamer and as such byzantine rules don't scare me at all: I am used to them. But as you rightly said, while reading the books, there is a breaking point where you realize that the effort you have to put into every single rule for every single skill and action and the way they are presented and resolved is really too much for they are giving back to the table and to the players. And you close the box, again, defeated but knowing that in a year or two you will try again! It definitely has a special place on my shelf.

[@trondsi]

I had a bit of an experience like that with Rolemaster, until the point where I realized what was going on, and also realized how it could be fun. I suspect this game does not have such a point.

[@slaapliedje]

​@trondsi I had a blast playing this, still one of my favorite RPGs. Is an amazing way to teach your kids math too!

[@wadewilcox441]

I found this game plus the one adventure and settings box for it at HPB back in the 90's. Yep. It's complex and convoluted with a maze of acronyms and subsystems, but myself and a couple of friends gave it a whirl for a few sessions during a group break, and boy, did we have fun. We took it slow to try to do things correctly, and as the game progressed, we started to understand the interrelationship of the various mechanics, to the point where it wasn't to clunky. My biggest gripe was the setting material. There are something like 5 different calendars for the world, and when the author detailed a region, he would use the local calendar for dates. This made it very difficult to determine when things happened in relation to other events in other regions.

[@waltterihaapaniemi4341]

I love how even the D100 dice pair is difficult to read.

[@DiscoBarbarian]

that's cause he hasn't colored in the numbers yet... which is a thing we used to do.

[@waltterihaapaniemi4341]

@@DiscoBarbarian oh really!? That's interesting! Did most of the box games come with uncolorized dice? If I have understood correctly boxed ttrpgs was the thing back in the day (even tho they have now been partially returning)

[@EpicEmpires-pb7zv]

@@waltterihaapaniemi4341 The numbers weren't colored in. Also some of the books were in invisible ink that you used to have to rub on with a special pen to divulge their secrets.

[@marccaron6008]

@@waltterihaapaniemi4341 Yes it was like that. We used kids wax coloured crayons to fill the numbers.

[@RedwoodRhiadra]

@@waltterihaapaniemi4341 Yep - One of the D&D boxed sets even came with a crayon specifically for coloring in the dice. And the dice were made of really crappy plastic, too - they developed pits within only a few years.

[@MrJHDK]

Powers & Perils for Season 4? Let's get a poll going 😄

[@drillerdev4624]

Some people just want to see the brain cells burn

[@waltterihaapaniemi4341]

Episode length: 45min Time filmed: 19 hours

[@mr.vortex1]

This game looks absolutely insane! Never in a million years would I have the patience to sit down and learn it. I love games that give me as little friction as possible between reading it for the first time and feeling comfortable enough to run it.

[@Spacemutiny]

“Your success…..as an entertainer.” Trevor sounded so defeated here. 😂

[@OldPaw]

This is so classic 70s, when TV and Internet were not expected to compete for gamer time, and the expectation was that you would spend hours and hours learning a game. Nice nostalgia, definitely not worth present eBay prices.

[@lkim100]

i miss the days when i could spend a week on a single game...

[@JackMcCarthyWriter]

Whew! I'm exhausted just listening to Trevor try to parse this game out. It's a great reminder of why i personally prefer rules-lite games.

[@ebreiss]

This is on another level of "crunch." It is so crunchy you bite into it and the crunchiness scrapes your gums and the roof of your mough.

[@Stephen-Fox]

While I also prefer rules light through rules medium for TTRPGs, I'm not sure it's fair to judge the difficulty of rules heavy games by that thing. Numbered paragraphs, while great for referencing, make things harder to learn, and it appears this particular book was written in the most convoluted way imaginable, both the text and the ordering of the paragraphs.

[@NefariousKoel]

I grew up learning Avalon Hill and other such wargames with manuals such as this. Gotta say, this thing looks more difficult to figure out than any of those and they had a similar layout. This looks like an intriguing but largely nightmarish learning experience. 😆

[@8urk3]

Cant wait for new season of solo

[@solorpgguy]

I ran that game back in the 80s as a teenager, I look at it today and go "what was I thinking?"

[@StatsScott]

Wow that is definitely like an old school wargame rule book with tons of tables to cross reference. Thanks for showing some of those mechanics to help convey how it is supposed to work.

[@03dashk64]

18:16 you can hear the brain hamsters running and sanity leaving. This is what happens when you fail a san check in Call of Cthulhu while reading a book 😂

[@arrghhscott2785]

Reminds me of the Star Fleet Battles manuals. Very engineering influenced. Love this video.

[@swirvinbirds1971]

I had the exact same thought. 👍

[@redrum3405]

Played this three or four times back in the day. I wish we’d played more because I rolled an incredible character who seemed very powerful. It reminded me of Stormbringer in that good rolls could get you a really powerful start

[@nicholasbielik7156]

Glad to see some light thrown on these sorts of 80s simulationist games, so thanks for digging into this game’s craziness. If I’m remembering correctly, Aftermath, another hyper-complex game of the period, has a table for determining how long it takes to get your futuristic armor off so that a character can receive medical attention. Amazing, brilliant, excessive and clearly also the folly of these games.

[@redrum3405]

Having played both Aftermath and Powers and Perils long ago I’d say Aftermath is much tougher to play and more lethal for characters

[@guilhermeferrari9125]

If I'm not mistaken there was a separated box describing the rest of the setting named Perilous Lands.

[@bellmontcreative1525]

Just wanted to compliment your excellent production value on this episode, the extra care with the camera, lighting, and color grading goes a long way! I’ve not heard of this game previously, but always worthwhile to hear the great sage impart ancient and storied RPG history.

[@agrayday7816]

We looked through this box as kids so many times, but we bounced off it to Runequest & we ran Dragonquest from SPI. We had a similar experience with SPI's Universe RPG, and we bounced of that to Traveller.

[@dustinshorter2391]

I got great enjoyment out of watching the struggle! I feel like this sometimes trying to figure out mechanics also. It's all part of the fun! I am so glad writing RPG books have improved in the recent years!

[@Walross]

Yay!! I’m so happy you finally did this one! I’m still semi-obsessed with this game, but not enough to actually try GM’ing it again. I’d love to play it though. We did actually make it through one session back in the day - we played a truncated version of the intro adventure. It went…reasonably well - about as well as you could expect I guess. One thing that you probably didn’t notice - because it doesn’t really become apparent until the magic section - is that it is very difficult to decouple the system from the world. And since it’s a world with fairy realms and other planes, etc, it was just a tad too fantastical for me. I do LOVE the human encounters book though and still make use of it.

[@swirvinbirds1971]

I bought this game as a teenager when it came out and I was in the same boat as you. I was enamored with the game and spent hours trying to figure out character creation and how to run it. I never really got it figured out and I never had someone to play it with to try it out. The game felt mysterious.

[@FroggyMojo]

I had never heard of this game and so thoroughly enjoyed the overview. As an older gamer who grew up on WFRP, I am strangely attracted to RPGs produced in the 80s. I can see how, by today's standards, both mechanics and manuals can come across as a bit 'clunky'... but seen through the lens of nostalgia, there is great charm in those wonderful products. Thank you for another fantastic video, Trevor.

[@NeuroZombie]

This was the first RPG I bought. I had just played Red Box BECMI the winter beforehand and found this the following summer for five bucks at a Big Lost in Kentucky. Never figured it out and it was destroyed in a hurricane in Florida. It's been in my get again list since as I loved the art, and the source, even if I never figure it out. There is so much to pull from it.

[@andyreimer7745]

I remember being in high school and falling asleep night after night trying to comprehend the Advanced Squad Leader rules. Pretty sure never got past section 10.2.3. I'll have to keep eye out for Powers & Perils to help me get a good night's sleep.

[@drillerdev4624]

My first thoughts were about ASL. Never played it, but it was a meme in BGG back in the day

[@Garghamellal]

Thank you for your intellectually honest review. As a die hard fan of Powers & Perils (it is simply my favourite fantasy rpg) i feared the usual review full of despise towards this game but that was not so. At the same time i'm sure you could play and have fun with it someday if you persevere. You are right when you say that it is written in a byzantine and convoluted way (like a technical manual) and that it requires investment, whereas i can't agree with you about defining it "impenetrable, inscrutable". Sure, it IS intimidating, as you yourself said, but can be mastered. I have played it extensively with my players for years. (There are still plenty of photos depicting us on the web) 😊 But i must admit that i spent two weeks of my life studying the manuals while doing nothing else before playing it for the first time. So to anyone i always suggest "close yourself at home for two weeks reading SLOWLY the first two books and when you finish you'll be a P&P gamemaster" (no kidding). That was my way, literally two weeks to entirely dedicate to this obscure relic of the past.

[@nutherefurlong]

Ohh, this one. I only learned about it recently. To be honest, sort of glad it didn't become more popular, there were a lot of rules particulars I wasn't too fond of, apart from the whole thing being a beast of a manual. Big appreciation for you actually going through some of the systems in this one, and also kudos for trying to give it a shot way back when

[@sirguy6678]

Great video! Always enjoy the Sadist’s Library

[@danj1101]

I'm glad I waited a bit to watch this one, because all the comments saying "yeah we never got past session 1, either" really adds to it. Ps hope your thumb gets well soon!

[@marccaron6008]

So cool to see this game! I was always curious about this game. In a way, I still love rules written with numbered sections. We did like complexity back then. You should try Dragonquest 2e by SPI, it's d100%. Played it once in the 80s. I wanted to reconnect with it. I just powered through the rules and played two sessions. It's simulationist and very deadly. A 5% or less roll can inflict injuries rolled on a d100 table. Far less convoluted than P&P.

[@cirrus.floccus]

In all seriousness though, I LOVE the idea of different kinds of experience, like combat-experience, survival-experience, social-experience and that kind of stuff. Although I wouldn't really know how to implement that into the rules light systems I tend to gravitate towards... but still!

[@billedmunds80]

I love this! More of these fun retrospectives, please! How about K.A.B.A.L., Element Masters, or Dragon Quest?

[@tkelly5422]

Ive run and played this game exclusively for fantasy setting from mid 80s till mid 90s. Quirky game that requires a LOT of house rules to make for smooth play. Still, a ton of fun!

[@drillerdev4624]

After seeing Professor DM's latest video with all the cameos, it'd have been cool to have him here to talk about this (law degree disguised as a) game. It would have been colorful, to say the least.

[@EpicEmpires-pb7zv]

What do you need to roll to succeed in Powers & Perils? No it's not an 8...this game uses percentile dice. But it's not a 65 (I know what you're thinking). It's WD/20 x STd + Win x 425 + WV - ADV (--1), round down if magical, round up if iron, divide by 13 if silver. SIMPLE!

[@drillerdev4624]

@@EpicEmpires-pb7zv It'd be easier to solve the Anti-Life Equation

[@Renkaru]

I really don't have anyone to play these kind of games with, but I love looking at the rules and ideas. If only to take them and implement a system or idea into my own games to make my campaign more interesting.

[@williamroeben]

On e of my favorite unplayable games - so awesome! There was at least one supplement, an adventure, and I remember a boxed set about the world...

[@animatorFan74]

ooooh man..... looks so so complicated! Holy crap. I do remember playing MERPS back in late nineties and that system is the most complex system I've played in. Anything more complex than that I'm not sure I want anything to do with. :P And as you say, this is definitely indicitive of 80's roleplaying where a lot of things were unnecessarily complicated. :P I also remember that OCV and DCV were used in GURPS as well.... one of the very few things I remember from GURPS. :P

[@MrJHDK]

😁 Really enjoyed the genuine frustration from revisiting this system. Very relatable. I too buy things which have previously inflicted their wrath on me. So that I may gaze upon them as a defeated foe; never shall they be free to wreak carnage and pain upon others. Mostly, these are bottles of absinthe, which I know i will never open. 😅

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

There should be a drinking game, every time your accent changes everyone takes a drink LOL

[@BondingWithBoardGamesRPGs]

More Sage’s Library. I love these episodes.

[@Adamthegeek70]

That coat is awesome btw.

[@dougalstanton]

I don't know what I thought role playing games were before I actually saw one in action, but I probably imagined this game: many tables, many acronyms, lots of page flicking and pieces of paper with small boxes and little numbers in them. Part of me would definitely like to start coding it up, automating all the formal steps and tables. But really, even if I had an infinite amount of free time, I still know that the outcome wouldn't be worth it.

[@SingularityOrbit]

I got this as a gift at age 12. I already had Basic and Expert D&D, Star Frontiers, and Boot Hill. I was using those in elementary school. I tried to make a Powers & Perils character a couple of times and had to give up. Look at that box art. A wary swordsman and a cool mystic woman facing off against a mad wizard and his lizard-beast on a snowy mountainside. That's what you expect from the game. What did we get? Math, and a character generation process that differs from filing taxes only in that it is possible to file taxes. That system reminds me of a review of the Cadillacs & Dinosaurs RPG, when mentioned that the resolution of damage for using dynamite involved a math problem: "What is a square root doing in my game about dinosaurs?" I suspect the valued place that Powers & Perils has on the shelves of the Sage's Library is safely locked up in its box where it can't hurt anyone.

[@donnieinman8049]

Ah Avalon Hill. We loved them and we hated them. They made such epic games that we were always drawn in, but the rules. So often such a huge hurdle (especially for younger players, as we were) that we often never got them to the table.

[@artistpoet5253]

Gawds!! I thought Top Secret and early GURPS was crunchy.

[@Robofussin23]

Love this channel! Another great Sage's Library. I want to try out Harnmaster because Harnworld is amazing, but it feels just as byzantine as this. lol really cool little box set though of a game I've never heard of.

[@Acmegamer]

I recall when that came out, man what a dense system. I love mechanics and I tend to get into them like you do Trevor, but that one was too dense to be playable really. Thanks for review and reminder of its existence! heh.

[@stephenharamis4786]

Appreciate your channel! Keep making great vids

[@billn5866]

Reminds me of every time I've tried to figure out Magic Realm.

[@RedwoodRhiadra]

I got up through playing the 5th complexity stage once (with the bands of wandering locals you could fight or hire). Of seven stages (apparently there was a 2nd edition with only four, but I had 1st.) I still have the box, but it seems to be missing some important cards and pieces now, or I'd give it another try.

[@billn5866]

@@RedwoodRhiadraYeah the revised/2e rulebook made it possible to play. I have a copy of the game and also the update. But a friend of mine has this elaborate upgrade of the game, I think the components came through Game Crafter, maybe?

[@8urk3]

Cant wait for new season

[@nebulanz8232]

I love it that you are a harnmaster fan & the intro hovers over harnmaster 3. . Suburb rpg in every way. Great work.

[@dougsundseth6904]

Never did look seriously at Powers & Perils. But I did spend quite a bit of time with Chivalry & Sorcery, Aftermath, and Space Opera. At the time, I loved the idea of byzantine complexity. Not so much anymore. 8-) Probably a good thing you never got seriously into that game, at least for your stated purpose. IME, the people who like to exploit the cracks and crevices of RPG systems are generally the best at understanding byzantine systems. And systems with that kind of complexity tend to have so much interplay between disparate subsystems that there are lots of cracks and crevices.

[@norwolf01]

Aside from the rules box set there was also the Perilous Lands box, The Book of Tables box, and the Tower of the Dead adventure box. The Book of Tables included a bunch of the tables from the core books in one booklet, 3 DM screens (combat, magic, and encounters), and an adventure character record sheet pad.

[@wellHumouredCheetah]

Damn! And I had trouble reading 2nd ED Ad&D 😂

[@henrikstornblom]

O, the memories.

[@EpicEmpires-pb7zv]

I'm not sure what you mean about complexity. The Damage Tolerance Value (DTV) of a character equals ((C/20 + StB) x (-- 1), round up. Was it the rounding up that was confusing you?

[@richardkeenan1250]

I grew up playing Avalon Hill wargames, so I am very familiar with their style of rulebooks. Many of them used a Programmed Instruction style to teach you the rules in bite sized bits, which helped a lot. Listening to Trevor reading from this book, I imagined my friends breaking out the Atari 2600 after about twenty minutes and suggesting that we play Frogger or Missile Command instead.

[@sebastienparadis9115]

So, basically what this games requires is a visual help to understand the concepts, putting the concepts in order of required knowledge and some training method

[@superpheemy]

Don't feel too bad noble sage. P&P got away from me too. I remember this thing from my early days of gaming in the mid-80s. It was definitely an old Avalon Hill game. Role-playing with the complexity of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich designed by Engineers.

[@tabletopsolo]

When I was just a kid I asked for Dungeons and Dragons and got this game for Christmas. I NEVER understood how to play it.

[@flipmoviemaker]

I think Advanced Squad Leader from Avalon Hill, at its core rules, isn't even as complex as Powers & Perils!

[@robertdean52]

I had to stop this and check on dates. Avalon Hill published P&P in 1983 and dropped support for it in 1984. I was wondering how anyone thought that having this game in the same catalog as RuneQuest (3rd edition) was a good idea, and it looks like the answer is that they got the licensing deal for RQ in 1984. It would make sense that they would throw their support to RQ, which was complex by today’s standards but actually playable. AH also published the simpler, albeit somewhat wild, Lords of Creation by Tom Moldvay. I’d enjoy a Sage’s Library session on either of those …

[@bizzy5439]

LOL This game reminds me of my first time trying to read Bushido! What an incomprehensible game. Still cool tho LOL

[@alejotm000]

Thanks for showcasing this, somehow this is the first time I've heard of this game. It's like an overly complicated version of Rolemaster, so I'll stick to RM, haha. Fun to learn about, though!

[@dodger0101]

WOW! That's a hard core game :) Trevor - sometime in the future, I would love to hear your "sage take" on 1st edition Shadowrun and it's crazy dice pool mechanic.

[@chrishousenick6105]

I'm wondering if this game might work if you were able to digitize it - with all the references and cross - references, having each piece in electronic form, automatically calculated and updated and presented might just make it workable. They way it looked and was presented, it seemed more like a codebook than an RPG manual.

[@TortugaDMStudios]

Please cover Mythras. I've got a pdf for it but i haven't been able to read through it yet. I would love to hear your take on it!

[@DavidAlastairHayden]

I use to own P&P. I took me several hours to make a character. Several more to try combat. Within days, I forgot how it worked. I knew I wouldn’t be willing to keep on with it. DragonQuest is an easier game within this vein, and I spent a few years playing that one.

[@mavfan21]

Avalon Hill, man, they seemed to always put out very niche games with rules that were soooo complex that my 13 year old brain couldn't compute. Too much work!!

[@Bryon1187]

We LOVE Harnmaster!

[@NiallMor]

This game must have been designed by accountants!

[@gorywriter326]

I could feel my brain twisting to the point of breaking while trying to understand all those stats and rules. I'm sure Powers & Perils is/was a great game in its own right, but, holy hell does it seem crunchy! Still, thanks for showing this one off! Really shows how far TTRPGs have come since the days of yore, making this an interesting little time capsule of sorts.

[@Adamthegeek70]

Had it , never got to play it. I think I have a book or two left in my 'damaged' and lost part of box.

[@GeezerGeek0]

Kinda weird this never caught on...

[@Lee_Adamson_OCF]

You should do one of these on Aftermath. :D

[@cabrielleholden]

The anxiety is palpable and it's giving me anxiety.

[@unowhatireallysaid]

I just bought this and share your assessment- want so badly to play it but even if I understood it, I fear the mechanics, even at a player level, would chase players away. The implied setting is very tantalizing, the art and flavor is tasty, but gods, I hate math and this game insists I enjoy it. That said, I did crack the c ombat system pretty quickly, and think it worthy in itself. Good video.

[@victoryspath4116]

One wonders if this is a game that was ever actually play tested before release. It's really fun to create games on paper but the true challenge is when you actually try to play test. Funny enough I spent a lot of time laughing at this and thinking about how awful this game is and simultaneously being really tempted to try to find a copy and read through it myself. 😂

[@ChonmageXIV]

Interesting video. I think I prefer games with more complex items, spells and events rather than complex rule calculations 😅 Hope your thumb's alright! Would love to watch you play or even talk about League of Dungeoneers. It's been described as Warhammer Quest on steroids. Love the lighting in this video btw!

[@agrayday7816]

Trevor have any experience with Skyrealms of Jorune?

[@shaneintheuk2026]

It’s great to see a review of a game that gets it wrong. A rule book that is disorganised and lacking a clear vision. I noticed that you chose a game so old that you are unlikely to cause offence too. I’m really looking forward to your views on Mythras and hopefully you will compare it to RuneQuest too. I have the Mythic Britain expansion book and love it.

[@NefariousKoel]

Mythic Britain is an interesting setting. Have you ever checked out "Monster Island" for RQ6/Mythras which came out around the same time?

[@shaneintheuk2026]

@@NefariousKoel no but I will have a look now.

[@NefariousKoel]

@@shaneintheuk2026 - It's a fantasy sandbox campaign for Mythras which is similar in style to "Isle Of Dread" for B/X, but has the usual Mythras detail & spin. I was impressed.

[@trondsi]

18:52 how do you know which is greater until you have rolled both? Or do they mean whichever multiplier is greater?

[@tkelly5422]

I have three Powers & Perils box sets. None of them came with grey and white dice. Mine came with green and white dice.

[@karlheilmann9172]

Wow, this is a lot. Would it ever flow smoothly? It seems more complex than the Johnny Reb American Civil War miniature wargame. Lots of acronyms, too. What happened to the KISS rule? Lol.

[@Gidizz]

Hilarious episode. What a needlessly complicated system. Still, it has a certain charm. The acronyms, though 😅

[@DocFlamingo]

Avalon Hill made great board games but NEVER got a handle on RPGs. Funny enough, Gary Gygax first tried to sell D&D to them and they scoffed at it.

[@xaxzander4633]

I had this in the 80's i gave up on it as well, kept the dice, tossed the game.

[@APaganPerspective]

great vid

[@wbbartlett]

Numberwang: The RPG

[@Bryon1187]

We played P&P, once.

[@davelanciani-dimaensionx]

Ah, the "technical manual." Yeah, I think we all forget that the original RPGs and D&D were borne from miniatures wargaming. Lot's of technical jargon, charts upon charts, statistics, etc. The original gamers were nerds and brainiacs (myself included) who were into all that stuff, and rules weren't meant to be easy to read. I am so thankful that we've come along to the point where we can simplify things and just play games. It's no longer an exercise in long-winded rules and setups that take longer than actually playing and enjoying the game itself. I am a big "rules-lite" fan.

[@ThePixelPear]

Would you be willing to do a sages library on a "bad" game and what lessons qe can learn from it?

[@Stephen-Fox]

One thing I will say about the numbered paragraph style is that it makes referencing and cross-referencing rules super easy. ...But dear lord is that style miserable to learn from at the best of times, and from the sound of it, this example is far from the best of times... (Thankfully the board games I have with rules written in that style mostly have separate learn how to play documents which are often 'set out the game and follow this book's sample game as we walk you through the rules,' almost like a video game tutorial in book form)

[@SkittleBombs]

I wonder if they made this into a video game at some point. I'm assuming most of the Old school games had this much calculations becuase everone was doing their BEDMAS instead of using calculator computers in their pockets for everything and of course they didn't have computing to code games yet so all the complex ideas were done manually by super nerds. now gaming exists we have made TTRPG as simple as possible so it's more accessiale as a a video game might be

[@G-Funk42]

So I guess this is your choice rules system for Season 4?

[@noir3231]

Do you have Phoenix Command in your library?

[@pete8299]

Found this game somewhere, mine didn't come with a map?? Is it supposed to??