The reviewer appears to be a bad egg...[updated x3]

Shockingly poor journalism

What the Reviewer says...

WHY SPOTLIGHT THIS CAMPAIGN? This RPG spins out of a historic persecution of witches, the 1563 Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, combined with a sanction allowing witchcraft used in the defense of the realm. This 60-page RPG utilizes an original system similar to The Cthulhu Hack. Set in late Tudor England, you’ve been pressed into using your powers to serve the Queen for good or ill. This concept falls into murky historic territory as these persecutions resulted in thousands of real life legal murders by the state, to which you’ll play a collaborator. While I’m in no way implying that this game or its creators are trying to offend with this project, it’s important to keep in mind that your table may have varying degrees of acceptance of this setting and premise. One way or the other, using a real world witch genocide as the basis for this RPG is a bold move likely to engender discussion of the mindset of Elizabethan England.

What the Kickstarter says...

Story - Face the threat of the supernatural as a traitor with a chance of redemption in the service of Queen Elizabeth I, in an alternately historical tabletop RPG from the creator of The Cthulhu Hack. When Elizabeth Tudor succeeded to the throne in 1558, she found herself under assault from all sides, paying for her father's arrogant machinations, and the weakened barrier between worlds his split with Rome had caused.

As magic and creatures of the supernatural proliferate throughout the land, the Queen passed an Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, making the punishment for acts of magic more severe than others, but in many cases drawing the line before a death sentence. In 1564, John Dee and Francis Walsingham convinced the Queen to pass an amendment to the Act — The Dee Sanction — permitting the practice of magic in defence of the realm. You are an Agent of Dee; not out of choice, but out of some twisted sense of self-preservation. Somewhere between conscription and penance, you work for Walsingham and Dee to make amends, with a faint hope that you can use your talents to earn your pardon and absolution. You can see light at the end of the tunnel. If only you can outrun the shadows of your past and the horrors of the present… This is The Dee Sanction. 

 

The Dee Sanction is a tabletop roleplaying game about serving Queen and country in the late Tudor period, in a time where kingdoms vie for power, the Church splinters under the pressure of reform, and creatures of folklore emerge from enforced hiding seeking revenge against those who imprisoned them. You're a bad person — sentenced to hang for dabbling in magic — given a chance to redeem yourself and earn freedom in service to Queen Elizabeth's newest line of defence.

What the historical facts say...

513 witches were put on trial there between 1560 and 1700, though only 112 were executed. The last known execution took place in Devon in 1685.

The last trials were held in Leicester in 1717. Overall, some 500 people in England are believed to have been executed for witchcraft.

Conclusion...

• The review is extremely poor and misrepresents the Dee Sanction.
• The game described above by the reviewer is not the game described by the Kickstarter campaign.
• The reviewer significantly exaggerates the number of deaths for witchcraft in England and employs hyperbole by using 'genocide'[1] to describe this.
• When questioned about this on Facebook, the reviewer ridiculed the people questioning this and didn't answer the questions. For someone who is showing such concern about people being offended by the Dee Sanction, they seem to have no problems with offending people with their own writing.

I can only conclude that they are a bad egg, and their reviews cannot be trusted.

12 November 2020

Edit - I have highlighted some text in the review, which has been added. The reviewer has also removed a comment that the game was about witches vs. witches which was raised as an issue. They have left no reference that an edit has taken place on the page. They continue to misrepresent what the game is about.

Edit2 - the entry on the Dee Sanction has now been pulled by ENWorld.

Edit3 - ENWorld have now run a decent interview with Paul Baldowski, the author. https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-dee-sanction-investigate-the-supernatural-as-an-agent-of-the-elizabethan-court.676505/

[1] "the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group."