Woof, this game. This is The Adventures of Indiana Jones Roleplaying Game (1984). It takes all the problems of the licensed Conan modules, extrapolates them and puts them in a big old box set that has some of the most heinous graphic design I have encountered in RPGs (though the screen boasts some nice vista illustrations).

System is simple: seven attributes, each tested with a percentile. Skills are abstract, tested using the associated attribute. So, knocking down a door would be a Strength test, throwing a punch a test of Prowess. That’s basically it, which would be appealingly light if the game didn’t use results tables. There aren’t even hit points, just four levels of damage — light, medium, serious and uninjured. So you can’t die! Well, you can, but it is a function of narrative rather than mechanics.

But no one is going to die because all the characters are pre-gens from the then two films (there is no rule set, in any product in the line, for creating your own characters). Assuming you somehow get through the Gordian Knot of only one person being able to play Indiana Jones, it’d feel real weird if, like, Marion actually does get blown up or someone shoots Sallah dead. Between this and the simple system, it renders the game down to a kind of re-enactment engine for the two movies. There are other adventure modules, but they all feel pretty much exactly the same. There is a surprising lack of imagination on display here. Especially since Justice Inc was out there, doing pulp adventure RPGs justice. It is weird that TSR didn’t rip that off even a little bit?

The only thing of note this game produced came out of its downfall. The game sold terribly and TSR let the license lapse. When it expired, they had to pulp the remaining stock. Some folks in the UK office burned theirs, a scrap of which was preserved in a crystal trophy — in 2000, it became the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, thanks to how the fire burned the words.