Author: David Lewis Johnson
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TLDR
Gathox Vertical Slum is a must-own for any tabletop RPG enthusiast who enjoys gonzo science fantasy settings or has a leaning towards the "sword and planet" genre. It features excellent writing, vivid illustrations, and is organized in a manner that makes it easy to both read through for pleasure and use at the table. It is - like many of the other great setting books in or associated with the OSR - great to use on its own, or taken apart and used piecemeal in your own game setting. While designed for use with the Swords and Wizardry Whitebook rules, it shouldn't take long to adapt it for use with other rulesets.
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Review
Concept and Setting
The concept for Gathox Vertical Slum is both original and captivating: a mixed technology city, centuries old and densely packed, built atop the back of a planet-hopping Godling. Over the millennia, a variety of races have made Gathox their home, slowly expanding the city in unique and dangerous ways. Teetering buildings smashed close together create a city full of improbably small alleyways and arcades, winding markets, putrid trash heaps, and very vertical environments.
The layout of the city - split into three distinctly flavored districts - lends itself well to a hex- or point-crawl style game, and the variety of original and alien cultures gives the GM all the necessary details to create plenty of random encounters for their players.
The mobile nature of Gathox is also versatile in that it allows the GM to plunk it down in whatever setting they're currently using. Want to place the city in the middle of a steamy mega-jungle? Go for it! Want to have the city on the back of a Godling slowly work its way through an arctic tundra or mountain range? That works too! How about an ocean? Sure! The variety is limitless in this regard.
As a big fan of urban settings for my old-school RPGs Gathox differentiates itself in one other notable way: gang wars. One of the key parts of the setting are the factions vying for control of tight spaces. As a city limited very strictly in its horizontal boundaries and resources, these gangs (or as the book calls them, Neighborhood Friendship Societies) fight ruthlessly over control of vertical space and influence. These groups inform much of the flavor of the setting and its atmosphere, and also allow for the unique mechanics of PC gang creation. This enables a nice loop of moment-to-moment and meta-game thinking, as players consider what actions to take in order to improve their reputation, acquire a new property, or take out another faction's leadership.
Overall, the concept and setting are top-notch.
The layout of the city - split into three distinctly flavored districts - lends itself well to a hex- or point-crawl style game, and the variety of original and alien cultures gives the GM all the necessary details to create plenty of random encounters for their players.
The mobile nature of Gathox is also versatile in that it allows the GM to plunk it down in whatever setting they're currently using. Want to place the city in the middle of a steamy mega-jungle? Go for it! Want to have the city on the back of a Godling slowly work its way through an arctic tundra or mountain range? That works too! How about an ocean? Sure! The variety is limitless in this regard.
As a big fan of urban settings for my old-school RPGs Gathox differentiates itself in one other notable way: gang wars. One of the key parts of the setting are the factions vying for control of tight spaces. As a city limited very strictly in its horizontal boundaries and resources, these gangs (or as the book calls them, Neighborhood Friendship Societies) fight ruthlessly over control of vertical space and influence. These groups inform much of the flavor of the setting and its atmosphere, and also allow for the unique mechanics of PC gang creation. This enables a nice loop of moment-to-moment and meta-game thinking, as players consider what actions to take in order to improve their reputation, acquire a new property, or take out another faction's leadership.
Overall, the concept and setting are top-notch.
Quality and Quantity
The quality of both the writing and illustrations are excellent. Descriptions of the city and its people are vibrant, with just enough detail left out for the reader or GM to insert their own imaginings. The interconnected vignettes that begin each chapter of the book (done by Josh Wagner) are also very well done, breathing more life into the city from the viewpoints of its various inhabitants and cultures. Illustrations vary in style and content, but all are great and break up the text nicely.
I also found that the new mechanics introduced throughout the book - new PC classes, Wheelhouses, the gangland meta-game, healing/dying/resurrection - are all well thought out and work well at my table.
New PC classes include:
I also found that the new mechanics introduced throughout the book - new PC classes, Wheelhouses, the gangland meta-game, healing/dying/resurrection - are all well thought out and work well at my table.
New PC classes include:
- Militant, broken into three sub-classes: Street Tough, Soldier, and Martial Master
- Mentalist, broken into three sub-classes: Spiritualist, Faith Healer, and Cosmic Doctor
- Mutants, with both beneficial and harmful mutations as well as psychic powers
While I love all the small but useful options each new class brings to the table (with the exception of the Mutants, which are the most detailed), I found myself wanting more! This isn't really a knock against the book, but more that I liked it enough that I found myself wishing there had been more original class options or race-as-class selections for the new original races in Gathox. Wheelhouses are Gathox's take on skills, split into broad and malleable categories that can cover pretty much anything. A player with an appropriate Wheelhouse (i.e. Subsurface Environments, or Methods of Assassination) could improve a given check by 1d6. It's a useful system that I've gone and incorporated into my other games as well.
I also found myself wanting more in the way of random tables: for people, places, encounters, and the like. Again, this isn't really a criticism. What's there is excellent and useful, but the unique flavor of the book lends itself so well to random zaniness that I found myself thinking of the many things that could be added and randomized.
There's also a long and fun bestiary that adds a whole host of unique monsters with especially fun-to-read details.
Layout and Ease-of-Use
Overall, the book is well laid-out and easy to use, with an appropriate font size, an overall organization that worked for me, and all of the random tables reiterated at the end of the book for ease of reference. Illustrations are well placed and break up the text nicely. My only minor complaint is that occasionally there seemed to be big bits of unused blank space when the text and illustration didn't fill up a page completely. This was most apparent in Chapter 3. Otherwise, again, the PDF was well laid out and organized, and easy to use at the table.
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I purchased the book via dtRPG and am excitedly awaiting the physical copy when it's printed.
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