The Valley of No Return: A Supersystem 2 report

(Editor's note: Inspired by reports of the new Blasters & Bulkheads title that takes the Goalsystem into space, CSW member Don shared photos and a writeup from a game he ran last year using Supersystem 2.)

"The Valley of No Return" was a three-player 28mm cooperative game where three of the world's most famous hunters (Alan Quartermain, Kraven the Hunter, and Ka-Zar the Savage) were sent to a valley to hunt some big game. Although they were working together, each player had some secret objectives.


During the game, the group was beset upon by a host of creatures including renegade Chinese troops, a giant spider, and King Kong (or is that Mighty Joe Young?)! Then for the final curve ball, a Predator was secretly hunting all three during the game which led to a truly pulpy (and by that I mean bloody) climax. As with all my games, a prize was given out to the overall winner (a Predator DVD) which was Kraven the Hunter I believe.



Supersystem 2 worked really well for all these disparate elements, and my players — who are not hard core gamers — picked it up quite fast. There is a a lot of dice rolling, but it goes pretty fast, so all players are engaged. It also helps to have each player pursuing secret goals unknown to the other players, which leads to great backstabbing. Stats for the characters can be generated fairly quickly, as there are ample examples for a balanced game, and if you do some google-fu you can find various other creatures that only need a bit of tweaking.

One complaint about the Goalsystem games are that fights can take a long time. This was supposedly addressed in the Victorian Horror game Chaos in Carpathia and I will report once I run a trial game.

— Don, CSW club member