From: [terry mccombs] at [the-matrix.com] (Terry Mccombs) 
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Pandemonium  -=- Review -=-
Date: 10 Oct 93 18:48:00 GMT

PANDEMONIUM!
Adventures in Tabloid World.

I have just gotten a new game by Stephan Michael Sechi from M.I.B.
Productions and Deja Vu Studios called Pandemonium: Adventures in the
Tabloid World, and I thought that I would turn in my impressions of it
in this review.

What we have in Pandemonium is another funny RPG to go along with
other funny RPGs such as Toon, Paranoia, Teenagers From Outer Space,
and others of that type. In this one you play a paranormal investigator
who works for the Weekly Weird News and are sent by your Editor (the GM
in this game who is an almost player character) to investigate such
things as UFOs, Elvis sighingings, Animal Mutilations, Lake Monsters,
Bigfoot, Men In Black, Weird Cult Activities, Famous people and other
tabloid type things and combinations of tabloid type things.

First of all this one is VERY heavyly into farce, and the rules are
to say the least easy to learn, in fact they seem to be aiming at
having a game that you could buy and play that night without anybody
really having to spend a lot of time study it, that have two sets of
rules the E-Z Rules, which are that indeed, and the Very Complicated
Rules for Anal Retentives, as they put it. But really the very
complicated rules are briefer then most easy versons of the rules in
other games.
Also this game has even less atributes than G.U.R.P.S. having only
Mind, Body, and Spirit. The other parts of character make-up are.
1. One hobby that they have which can be almost anything.
2. Any where from 1 to 3 Paranormal Talents which can be such things
as Channeling, Collecting, Geek, Multiple Personality, Palm Reading,
Serios Photograpy, or Speak in Tongues to name a few of them.
3. A phobia, everybody has one.
4. Past Life, everyone starts out with one past life which can be
amoung others Issac Asimov, Aleister Crowley, Gandhi, Geronimo,
Groucho, Liberace, Marilyn Monroe, and Napoleon to name but a few, each
of which gives the P.I. diffrent talents and skills.
5. Possessions, which are weird things that the P.I. will find
usefull in the game such as Magic Eight Balls, Elvis Records, Orgone
Accumulators, Decoder Rings, Pyramid Hats, and Ouija Boards.
6. And Instant Karma Points, which are there verson of XP-points
which can be used as soon as they are gotten.

All in all I found it a light and breasy game that could be fun for a
change of pace type fast weird game, but I really don't see it as
something that a group would really want to spend a lot of sessons
playing.