The Dee Sanction Core Rules by Paul Baldowski and Graham Ward is a role playing game supplement published by Just Crunch Games and is the core book for the system.
The supplement is available for $8.99 from DriveThruRPG as a PDF and is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price thanks to a special offer. The main PDF has 70 pages with one being the front cover, one the Contents and Credits, one the Patrons of Dee, which is backers, and one the character sheet. There is also a second version of the PDF that is missing the front cover and doesn’t have the keywords in bold, and a third PDF is a single page character sheet.
The Sanction of Magick explains that Queen Elizabeth passed a sanction against magick, with an amendment at a later date – the Dee Sanction – which allowed the practice of magick in defence of the realm or for its benefit. Details are given on John Dee and Francis Walsingham, supporters of the Queen. It’s also explained that, in Elizabethan times, people truly believed in magick. There’s a brief timeline of John Dee’s life and then it looks at what The Dee Sanction is.
This explains it is a role playing game in which the players are Agents working under the Dee Sanction against magickal and supernatural threats. The game isn’t based on historical accuracy, but is instead considered to take place in an alternate Europe. Also, the players and GameMaster should play the game they want to play. The game uses d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12, but it can also be played with a deck of playing cards with jokers; throughout the book, card alternatives to dice throws are given. Agents are not heroes, as they have many issues, so superheroic fantasy, or even heroic fantasy, this definitely isn’t.
A Short Tudor History is a couple of pages giving details on Tudor society; in truth, this isn’t a section on the history of that period, but more what it was like to live then.
Becoming Agents of Dee explains that Agents are measured by their Resources. There are three game attributes; Physicall, Intellectuall and Supernaturall. The value of these are assigned through six dice steps and no Resource can have fewer than one dice step. The dice step increases the dice of the resource used, with a minimum of one being a d4 and the maximum of five being a d12. Physicall is the measure of force, manual acuity and targeted violence, Intellectuall is structure learning, clarity of thoughts and wits and lore and Supernaturall is how attuned they are to the otherness that permeates the world.
Following this is a character sheet that has been filled in as an example. The Agent’s Back Story consists of crucial events in their past, with tables at the rear to generate one. Favours of the Angels are the magical influences that Agents can exert, and are rolled on. Abilities are general areas of knowledge and each Back Story has a brief Description and choice of Abilities; the player chooses three of the eight Abilities on offer.
Hits are the amount of harm an Agent can withstand and Unravelling can cause Agents to display uncharacteristic behaviour. Fortune can be spent to re-roll any roll and characters start with one; additional may be assigned. Sometimes things do go down to pure luck which can be done by flipping a coin or rolling a d6; however, pivotal clues should never be left to chance. Optional and frivolous elements can then be added to round a character off.
Tradecraft is the pool of resources on which a group of Agents can draw, and has both narrative and mechanical features. Two possible uses are to use it as if an Ability was possessed by the entire team, or to cancel or neutralise a Mark. There are six broad influences to Tradecraft; Access, the people, groups and associations the Agents know, Conspiracy, that which questions the status quo and common-sense, Kit, which is an Agent’s preparedness, Magic, which is knowledge of such, System which is effectively an Agent’s ability to work the system, and Vigilance, which is watchfulness.
Following this are two d10 tables for determining occupation, one d10 table for association and one d10 table for focus, and a four column d10 table for Favours, with column then result determined.
The Heart of the Game is the game’s mechanics. Players state what they want to do, then roll dice to determine the result. The GM tells them the potential positive or negative outcomes, the Resource used and any Advantage or Disadvantage. On a 1 or 2 on a d6, the Challenge Falters, which is failing forward; anything else is success. A Challenge’s difficulty can be increased or decreased by various factors. Threats are anything that could hurt or hinder characters; these are also done like a Challenge. How combat is run is also covered. After this, how antagonists are laid out is covered.
Unravelling measures the effect that the changes that resulted in the return of the supernatural have on people. When Agents confront unhuman horrors or the supernatural, the Unravelling Die is rolled. If the roll Falters, the die steps down. The Agent then suffers an immediate effect and an ongoing consequence, which lasts until the Agent has a chance to rest. Unravelling needs professional intervention to recover. The different effects, both immediate and ongoing, are then covered.
Tools of Arch Defence are the tools that the Agents have to use against their foes. Details are given on five tools, with a description of their availability and details on what they are like and what they do.
Enemies of Elizabeth looks at some of the major antagonists on the world stage at the time. It looks at propaganda, the Pope and the Catholic Church, Mary, Queen of Scots, Rudolf II and the Holy Roman Empire, King Philip II and Spain, William of Orange and the Low Countries, the fae of the Great Wood and the practitioners of the School of Night. Most are fundamentally mundane; two are not.
The Tudor Age explains that the players and GM may choose to focus on the Queen and her court, or not. The game is also not a historical game and shouldn’t be treated as such. Conspiracy and superstition were rife in the period and monsters are real. In the setting, monsters are not something that are believed to exist; they do exist.
GM Tools has a selection of things aimed to help the GM. It starts with a reaction table for randomly generating those of NPCs that aren’t otherwise stated. It looks at Fortune and complex Consequences. Experience is gained at the end of every second adventure and an Agent gains a new Ability from the eight available at character creation. This will eventually increase Hits and add occupations, associations and foci. There are rules for resolving various kinds of hazards.
Running the Game explains that the GM should adapt or add to the rules as needed. It suggests using the first session to create a couple of characters for each player, so players can replace deceased Agents immediately and can also select which Agent to use depending on the planned session. The game is intended to be fairly free form and records should be kept by players, which the GM can then mine for plot hooks and recurring NPCs. The game is intended more as a series of one-shot adventures than a campaign. Following this are tips on converting existing adventures and monsters and a list of references used to help design the game.
Lost in Translation is a one-shot sample adventure for the game, set on the continent whilst John Dee and Edward Kelley were touring the European court. The characters are sent to find a relic for Dee in Poland, and taking this relic may well have consequences.
Appendix starts with Possessions, which is a set of six d10 tables of items that agents might have. Manors & Mannerisms is a collection of five d12 tables, with subsidiary tables for the first, to determine where an agent is from and their mannerisms. Random Names has a table of male and female names and surnames. The Bestiary is primarily a selection of monsters, with some ordinary foes as well. The Glossary of Terms explains various terms used in the supplement. The Appendix also contains the Patrons of Dee and character sheet as previously mentioned.
The Dee Sanction Core Rules in Review
The PDF is bookmarked, covering the major and minor sections. The Contents is less thorough. Navigation is decent. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be almost free of errors. There are a lot of black and white illustrations, up to full page in size, with a style that is reminiscent of period woodcuts but which appear to be custom. Presentation is decent.
The use of bold on keywords in the main PDF feels more than a little excessive; pages are filled with bold words. This makes the second version of the PDF that lacks this much easier to read.
This is fundamentally quite a simple game in concept and play. It’s also designed to work with either dice or a deck of cards, which is unusual but does make it easier for anyone who much not have access to a range of polyhedral dice. The characters are also rather less heroic than is commonly found in fantasy games; this is definitely at the darker end of the fantasy spectrum, even if it’s not exactly a grim game. Characters are just comparatively ordinary people with a bit more knowledge and a few more tools, and could be overmatched if they aren’t careful. As a game, it also has a range of possibilities when it comes to play, from heavily supernatural to heavily political and everything in-between. The Dee Sanction Core Rules is a bit of a different game and it can be found by clicking here.
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