Through the Breach is an RPG set in the gaming world of
Malifaux. You know that crazy Victorian times meets Old West, Steampunk,
fantasy, magic stuff and some Lovecraftian horror game setting. It all sounds
like a giant mess of genres tossed together……and it is. I have played a few
games of the tabletop game and thought why not give the RPG a try. Especially
outside of a convention I’ll never get a chance to try it.
I grabbed a pre-gen character from a stack, one Mr.
Balahadra Raju a fated dabbler…which meant I was some sort of spell caster from
India. . I did my best not to just
channel Mola Ram and Apu. I could go all astral plane out of body. I could also
summon eldritch tentacles toy throttle my enemies. Plus I had a creepy human
skull that I drew my power from/ acted as my spell focus/ spell book. I joined
up with an old west-ish gunslinger and large beefy Scandinavian woman with a steampunk
artificial arm and a pension for smashing stuff. We were hired to investigate an
iron mine out in the wastes where more than just rock was being brought to the
surface. We did discover what was going on, yet my character’s survival at the
end of the game was really up in the air. Between the attacks from a giant
shadow jumping spider and being shot (by accident) by the mining camp captain of
the guard while fighting said spider, I was “unconscious” and hauled out from
the mine.
It was a pretty straight forward convention game. You know
where you have some roll play talkie bits, some combat and some type of skills
challenge. It moved fast and we were a well-oiled team. It helped only having
three players that kept on track. It made for a very enjoyable game.
Through the Breach uses the Malifaux suit modified deck of
cards…or Fate Deck instead of dice. Here you flip a card and add the number to
whatever skill, attack roll, spell etc. that you are trying to use. The players also have a small hand of cards
they can use to “cheat fate” by playing a higher card or suit than what was originally
flipped. It makes for a very different mechanic than using a handful of dice. Especially,
the “cheat fate” bit because you can alter the card draw and make sure you pass
that skill or hit that monster with your attack.
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| The best, Red Joker, and the worst, Black Joker, cards in the game. Guess which one I drew three times during this game... |
If I knew more about this game world and had interested
people I wouldn’t mind running Through the Breach. Ideally, I would rather play
than run the game though. It checks a lot of my pop culture boxes; Old West, horror,
magic, fantasy, steam punk and Lovecraft stuff.
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