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Tired of your average fair of role-playing games? Are you cynical about the whole scene? Think the D20 system is antiquated crap and that there has to be more out there than Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf? Well, looks like the guys and gals at Hogshead Publishing agree with you, because they have a line of games directed at this very market. These games fall under their label New Style and blow away all preconceived notions about role-playing games.

But before getting into the review proper, let's familiarise ourselves with Hogshead Publishing and the 'real' games they make. Impressively, they are the largest of RPG publishing company in the British Isles (or at least so their web page tells me). A guy by the name of James Wallis leads the team there, and since 1994 Hogshead has been making England the home of dark, edgy and innovative role-playing games.

Their games line up is headed by the critically acclaimed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, a truly old soul in the gaming industry. This thing has been around forever really and, unlike the rest of the oldies, is still available in its first edition and doesn't show it's age too badly. They had the good sense to pick up the licence from Games Workshop and have continued supporting it by keeping previously released source books and adventures in production and releasing new source books such as the recent Realms of Sorcery.

They also publish S.L.A Industries, a game initially produced by Wizards of the Coast that was dropped by them and released back to its creators Nightfall Games'. Hogshead gave it a new home and it appears to be alive and kicking.

And on the up-and-coming shelf is a new game, Nobilis. It looks pretty interesting, and they have been saying big things about the production quality, so you might like to keep an eye out for it.

So, now that you know the who's and what's, back to the point: their New Style line. That is, games which are (as their web-site professes) "...high-quality, low-price, genre-bending, envelope-pushing RPGs...". The games in this line so far are The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, De Profundis, Violence, Puppetland (which includes a metagame Powerkill) and finally Pantheon and Other Games.

These role-playing games are small on size, so small on price. Each is around 32 pages or less, and if you can get them at a store, will set you back a pretty modest sum. They are distributed to a pretty large number of retailers in the U.S. and can also be grabbed over there via wizards-attic.com.

Living at the arse end of the world (New Zealand, about as far from England as you can get), Baron Munchausen set me back a little more because I had to mail-order it, but most of the rest I picked up in a store while on a trip to Australia, while Hogshead were kind enough to send me Pantheon when they heard I was reviewing the line. All in all, the set cost me the same as one standard RPG might have. This isn't to mention the fact that there is no need for any supplements, so if you don't have a lot of dosh, and like stuff a little different from the norm, these are a good option.

Considering the price, the quality is high. No shoddy printing or poor binding here, while the layout of each book reflects it's style. Violence resembles your average RPG, although it does lack a contents page. But with only 32 pages, this doesn't pose much of a problem, especially as it's worth reading this one cover to cover.

Puppetland is my personal favorite in terms of layout - it has a contents page on the inside cover (again not vital, but nice), the headings have character and artwork is liberally spread throughout, without getting in your way when reading. Also, the back of the book is reversed (upside down, back to front) to provide a space for Powerkill which, at 3 pages, is too short to need a contents, but still retains the polished look so that it doesn't feel like it was just 'tacked on'.

Pantheon's layout is a little unusual, as there are sections which aren't supposed to be read until after you have played each of the 5 games. It might have served the game better if these were all placed at the end of the book, rather than throughout after the introduction to each game, as accidentally reading them could ruin the surprise, and thus, some of the games appeal.

Baron Munchausen has a contents, but this doesn't really help you decipher the game any quicker. It's major plus is the summary sheet on the last page, which is a great help in explaining the rules to a new comer.

Puppetland and Violence have high quality artwork, utilizing the skill of Clint Langley for both titles' covers and all the internal art for Violence. Malcolm Davis also worked on the Puppetland cover, while the internal art done by Raven Mimura looks excellent and really evokes the right imagery for the game. Pantheon's art by Franz Irving is functional, but doesn't give you much a of a feeling towards the game other than the stereotypical scene the pieces depict. However because of Pantheon's nature this is not a huge problem.

De Profundis has little art to speak of except an excellent cover by Dennis Detwiller. Its cover is also glossy and appears a little sturdier than previous titles.

Finally the printing and cover quality of Baron Munchausen is perhaps a little lower, being the oldest game in the range, however this could also be attributed to the fact that all the art is the work of Gustave Dore, thus from the 19th Century. All the books have colour covers with black and white pages.

Violence has my favorite art, but that's probably just because I am fast becoming a Clint Langley enthusiast after being exposed to him via recent Warhammer Fantasy and 40K artwork.

Ok, so they look good, now for the big question: What are these games like?

Firstly, with the exception of Violence, these aren't your typical RPG systems. They aren't kidding with that New Style bit. Some are diceless. A couple appear so far and away removed from the norm that you may have trouble identifying them as role-playing at all. This has some ups and downs. A plus, aside from their freshness and uniqueness, is that they can be introduced to people who have no interest in 'standard' roleplaying. This could be preferential, because so far outside the box do these games stand that some role-players might have trouble getting around their preconceptions. On the down side, it might make it hard for your regular roleplaying crowd to get into them, with so many other familiar products competing for their attention.

The most extreme case in point is De Profundis. While other games may claim to be 'involving', this is the only one I have come across that in the right hands, could become a way of life. (Of course, being just a game it should not, and there is the obligatory warning about this on the second page.)

On the other end of the New Style spectrum to De Profundis sits Violence by Designer X. This game would play out pretty much like any mainstream role-playing game you are familiar with. Writing up character sheets, rolling dice, gaining experience and eating pizza. Actually nix that last one; I doubt anyone could keep the pizza down.

In fact, forget it all, because if you actually wanted to play the damned thing you'd be a braver or sicker man than I. Because while at a glance Violence looks like a normal role-playing game, tables and all, it's subject matter is so degrading, so disturbing, so vile and loathsome that you may very well never recover from reading it, let alone playing it.

And that's the point, because "Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed" sends out a message loud and clear about the lows of the gaming industry by sinking down to it's foulest depths, giving up any hope of actual gameplay and instead focussing on getting the biggest possible fix of what it's title suggests: violence, blood, guts and mayhem. For this reason, I will be using it for my first review, because if you weren't sick of the repetitive, mindlessly violent dungeon hacks produced by the mainstream gaming industry before reading Violence, you sure as hell will be after. Sick right down to your stomach. And what better place to start a journey into a new way of gaming than shunning the old to explore the new?