What Got Me Hooked on TTRPGs - Planet Apocalypse
A review of my favorite TTRPG Supplement to date, as well as a response to a video!
Author’s Note: This is a response to a video titled: “The Moment I Knew I was HOOKED on RPGs!” by YouTube user Diversity & Dragons.
I. Preface
I’ve talked a lot on here about how I am still a relative newcomer to the hobby as a whole, having sat on the fence most of my life and watched with doe-eyed fascination of Dungeons & Dragons, since about 3.5 when I finally got myself the core books. I never had the appreciation for TTRPGs that I do now and it was through my time with 5th Edition D&D that I started looking into the past of D&D as a whole, beyond my experience with the arcade game “Shadow Over Mystara” (which I also intend to talk about in the future). I admit, I was and still am, a bit intimidated, when I see and read about others experience since the 70s and 80s and I never wanted to step on any toes. With my limited experience, I want nothing more than to learn about the history of this hobby and enjoy it with others.
Thanks to the pandemic and speaking with people within the space, I became a DM for 5th Edition, making possibly every mistake a new DM can make, but nevertheless, I enjoyed the experience. It was a feeling of wonder and excitement that I had long missed, something taken from anime (localized anime) and video games. This led me to my players recommending to me other games and systems, one of my favorite being Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. My reaction when I learned of the author of the game, no word of a lie was: “…Sandy Petersen?! Goddammit!” I will elaborate more on this later, because its important for the subject of this article.
One day, around Halloween of 2020, one of my players linked me a product that forever changed me and got me hooked on TTRPGs as a whole.
I present unto you, dear reader:
(Image provided by Google)
II. A Funny Story
Before I get to talking about the man himself, I want to share a story of mine that relates to this. Now, 2020 was a big year for me, as I had once again found my love for a series that Mr. Petersen was involved in for a time: Doom! In celebration of the release of Doom Eternal in March of that year, I had decided to play through every commercially released Doom game, with some side games thrown in.
Ultimate Doom (which included Thy Flesh Consumed)
SIGIL (By fellow id Software OG, John Romero)
Doom II (which included The Master Levels and No Rest For The Living)
Final Doom (which included TNT Evilution and the infamous Plutonia Experiment)
Doom 3 (which included Resurrection of Evil and Lost Mission)
Doom 2016 (funny enough this one released the day after my birthday, still one of the best birthday presents I have ever received and will live forever in my memory.)
I would ultimately succeed in my goal, planning everything to the hour of Doom Eternal’s release. By far one of my greatest victories to date.
January 2020, is also the time I would begin running Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, as my local group was itching to play a second game in addition to our normal Sunday game. If you haven’t guessed, I am a bit of a Doom nut and peppered bits of it within the game, just enough to keep things exciting for my players. Throughout the year, because lockdowns were a thing, I was looking into collecting TTRPGs, if I was going to be sheltered in place and I got bored of video games, I wanted something else to do. I got most of what had been released of 5th Edition throughout the year, getting Call of Cthulhu, which I’ve played a few times and ran once, I think that was also the year I managed to get reprints of the 1e AD&D books to kind of learn the history of the game.
October 2020, I would be told of Planet Apocalypse by one of my players, who saw a spot for it on Critical Role. I wouldn’t get the book until early the next year. Thankfully, Petersen Games provide PDFs with purchase of their physical books, so I had something to tide me over until I got mine.
III. A Bit of History on Sandy Petersen
Mr. Petersen has been in the gaming industry for a little over 40 years now and has one hell of a resume.
As I mentioned previously and in other articles, Sandy Petersen is the author for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, hence the earlier comment, when I found out… “Sandy Petersen?! Goddammit!”
All relevant I promise, as he was also a level designer for Doom (which he designed 19 Maps) as well as Doom II (Which he designed 18 Maps). Credited for designing some of the more infamous maps in each of those games.
Examples include:
Halls of the Damned (Doom, E2M6), actually one of my favorites believe it or not, still gets me now and again, and I’m decent at Doom I would say.
Slough of Despair (Doom, E3M2) “Hey let’s make a level shaped like a hand!”
Limbo (Doom, E3M7), a map which I still hate to this day!
Barrels o’ Fun (Doom II, Map 23), not the best but annoying in its own way
The Chasm (Doom II, Map 24), fuck this map… seriously, fuck this map…
Aside from some of the more frustrating levels of Doom, Call of Cthulhu, he has worked on Quake I & II, Age of Empires, Halo Wars?! (Whoa…) I’m saying the man is no stranger to game design and, for the most part is good at what he does. If he wasn’t I don’t think Petersen Games would be a thing. The man also knows horror, quite well.
IV. The Game Itself
First, this is a 5th edition supplement, but I have found that it can easily be adapted, as I have used themes and monsters from the book in my Castles & Crusades game. In the book, it gives ideas on how you can bring Hell on Earth to your campaigns, whether it be destroying your world, or menacing it. It also provides a few scenarios to put in as part of a campaign, which can be adapted for short games or longer campaigns.
It has only a few subclasses, which is a little disappointing, just for the fighter, barbarian, monk, rogue and sorcerer, I’m sure you could find a way to create subclasses for the rest of the classes. My favorite is the Path of the Trophy Hunter subclass for Barbarian, as it focuses on harvesting demon parts for armor as well as material components for spells for other members of the party, or to sell off, as in a post-apocalyptic world who knows what use you could get out of such materials.
The main selling point for me, is the monsters. As previously stated, I am a huge Doom fan and you can see where Mr. Petersen put in remnants from his past games.
Remember the Icon of Sin from Doom II?:
(Screen cap provided by the DoomWiki)
This Guy?
(Lord Baphomet, from Sandy Petersen’s Planet Apocalypse)
Looks kind of familiar, doesn’t it?
This, right here, and the cover seen above are what sold me. It’s clear what Mr. Petersen did here and I am absolutely in love with it. This guy, is one of the many Arch Lords you will find within the pages of Planet Apocalypse, each with their own mechanics which are akin to Legendary Actions, called Shadow Actions, where they can change the battlefield in their favor. Each of them have different ways to terrify players and can be quite deadly.
And that’s about as much as I can review, I don’t want to sit here and bore you with the content of the book, as I want you to be able to experience it for yourself.
Instead, let me share some of my own experiences to sell you on it.
So, I’m running a game of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, an interim game whilst I prepare to run Out of the Abyss and that’s when I get the idea to set up for that game, I am going to have them slowly creep into areas of the world. I wanted to start small, some undead, some First Circle Fiends, some Void Minions, just to get them used to the mechanics. As part of a player’s backstory, we worked together to create a scenario in which the Paladin’s adopted father has been manipulated and controlled into bringing him sacrifices, constructing the gateways (called Doomgates in the book) to allow more of them to come in and grow their army for a large scale invasion. They’re first encounter came in the City of the Dead, investigating the disappearance of members of the City Watch, and the way these fiends work, as opposed to say Devils from the Nine Hells or Demons from the Abyss, unless you have a special marking, you are not able to see them. To keep it fair, I have made it so that their silhouette can be made out with a decent Perception roll.
Keeping with the theme of Doom, I added a surprise… a Pain Elemental:
(Art courtesy of deviantArt user highdarktemplar)
Yes, the one from Doom 64, using a homebrew stat block that I modified. This monster is not in the book, but keeping with the themes of Planet Apocalypse of not being able to see them without a special mark, I made this thing a legit threat. After dispatching the zombies raised by the fiends, the party could tell something else was here, something massive, and if allowed to leave the City of the Dead, it would be a massive problem later. If you know how Pain Elementals work, they spawn Lost Souls:
(Art courtesy of DoomHD)
The field soon became filled with these things, as the Pain Elemental can spawn two on each of its turns. Now, what happens when it dies? It explodes and spawns more Lost Souls! Anyone caught in the blast radius takes fire damage, which took out both the Sorcerer and Paladin players.
This was probably one of the best encounters I have ever designed and my players still talk about it to this day. It was challenging enough to be a little unwieldy, but fair enough that when the players fail, it is of their own doing. That’s the only way I do things.
Keep in mind, that these monsters were not in the book itself, but I still used it to make it seem like they were apart of it.
V. Conclusion
It is a great book, whether you’re a Doom fan, a Sandy Petersen fan, or you want to bring something new to your table, Planet Apocalypse has something for everyone.
This supplement has solidified my love of the hobby as a whole, despite it being for 5th Edition, I’ve found that it can be adapted for any system and, as I’ve said before, I still use it for Castles & Crusades, which is the main game I run now.
I’ve finally gotten around to doing a review of it, as I’ve been gushing about it since I started here.
You can find a PDFs on Petersen Games’ website and DriveThruRPG, or you can get the physical book from Petersen Games, which also includes the PDF with purchase. It makes a great addition to any TTRPG collection.
Hopefully you enjoyed this review/response to Diversity & Dragons’ video, as always, more content to come.
Have a good one!
Author’s Note: I have no intentions to ever monetize this content. Therefore it is provided free and whenever I get the itch to write something. If you enjoy this content, please like, share and subscribe!