Mail Room: Blue Rose RPG

Look what came in the mail today, the Kickstarter version of the Blue Rose RPG. The book is too beautiful to open, so I am using the PDF to learn the rules. I know, it sucks when a game comes and the darn thing is too pretty to open up and use. I am a fan of the old three-ring bound D&D books that were meant to be snapped into a Trapper Keeper in middle school and smuggled into lunch room dungeon sessions. To further accentuate the point:

The sides of the pages are gold-leaf color. Nope, damn it, too pretty to use as a gaming book and I will more likely print out the first hundred or so pages of rules of the PDF so I can learn them and have something I can fold, bend, scribble on, and hand to grubby players. Or she better be wearing white lace gloves with this for me to hand it over.

The book even has a little cloth bookmark built into the book, so that is a cool extra touch.

It looks to be a fun game with rules that won't scare off people, and it also has some fun mechanics where the corruption of the world directly is responsible for some of the monsters there. Does the mayor have a dark secret? If so, watch out, as the inherent corruption of the world may overcome the poor soul and turn him into an evil NPC, or worse into a lich. It is admittedly cool stuff, and I like to see world-specific mechanics integrated into the rules like this.

The only downside to this game is that it isn't D&D or Pathfinder. That is also an upside as well, given the group. It uses the AGE system as seen in the Dragon Age RPG, so it shall be familiar to some, which helps get a group interested. Some may see the 'romantic' theme of this game as possibly a bit silly, but I really don't care - we could stand to see some fun and interesting themed RPGs on our shelf these days. There should be something for everybody, and I am happy tabletop gaming is getting a bit diverse in the experiences we can share with groups.

More soon as we check things out.

Mail Room: Blue Rose PDF

The Kickstarter books have finally started shipping for the Blue Rose (AGE System) RPG and I just got my PDF copy - and the book is on the way. Needless to say, I am impressed by the PDF, and it meets and exceeds the art direction and quality for many modern releases - Pathfinder and D&D 5 included. More on this soon as I flip through the PDF and wait for my copy in the mail.

Would I play this over Pathfinder or D&D 5, especially for dramatic adventures? That is a good question, and from what I have seen this does a good job at being different. I get this feeling in both Pathfinder and D&D 5 of playing those games to "be in a D&D type world" and I feel at times that familiarity can become a burden at times - what is known is known. You got the drow, the mind flayers, the beholders, Golarion's goblins, the planes, demons, dragons, and so on - what has came before is new again in a JJ Abrams style of reboot and going over the same old for nostalgia reasons and good feelings.

I don't mind nostalgia, but there are times when I want to be thrown out of that box and dive into something new. Something where I have no clue on who is who and what is what, and have a completely unknown and new world to explore.

Blue Rose does a good job at presenting a dramatic-experience themed game. But from what I have seen, the world is vastly more interesting and compelling with all sorts of social relations and interactions, great evils, and dark forces at work looking to destroy the world. This is not just "romance fantasy gaming" per-se, but a real Game of Thrones style fantasy world worthy of consideration and exploration by serious fans of fantasy.

This is not just a narrative game. There is plenty of room in here to go gamist, simulationist, and go dark in story and content, and as someone looking for that dramatic "something more than dungeons" in my shared storytelling experiences I am very interested.

More soon, and this looks to be an underappreciated, but compelling and wonderfully readable and approachable classic.

Mail Room: Blue Rose PDFs (Original True20 Game)

Today the Blue Rose Kickstarter PDFs came as a part of the backer rewards. Now, these are the original game's PDF files, the new game is going to use the system created for Green Ronin's Fantasy Age game.

Now, the original game is powered by Green Ronin's True20 Adventure Roleplaying, and it feels like an odd match to me. I had this instant reaction where a d20-based game is a poor choice for a narrative and storytelling style game focused on romance. The d20 nowadays is synonymous with D&D and Pathfinder style dungeon crawls, and even having a system remotely related to that play style just feels wrong for me with a game based on drama, soap opera style conflicts, and romance.

I pick up the d20 and I am thinking THAC0, CMB, DC, and armor class. For anything else but dungeon-crawling hack-and-slash, I can't do it. The d20 feels like a poisoned die for anything else, and when you use it in a game the question at the table feels like, "Why aren't we playing D&D with that?"

It is pop culture, and it is roleplaying dogma. The only game I saw that came close to breaking the D&D death-grip on the d20 was FGU's Aftermath, and that was a roll-under system.

So my gut reaction is d20 is a bad choice for dramatic roleplaying, just because of its stigma of being a dungeon crawling game. Add to this the d20-ish repertoire of skills and feats in the game, and you get a romantic roleplaying exchange like this:

Prince Charming: I pick the lock to Cinderella's room!
Referee: Okay, what is the level of your Disable Device skill?
Charming: 10, what is the DC on that?
Referee: 20, before you do that, give me a DC 15 Notice check.
Charming: Passed!
Referee: Okay, a tower guard is sneaking up behind you, and you notice his shadow creep across the wall.
Charming: Okay, remember I have Improved Uncanny Dodge, and I can't be flanked....

My desire to be romantic has just left the room, along with the target market for a game like this. Yes, there are gamer geek girls out there and I love their geeky pride, but really? And don't get me wrong, there are a good many male players out there too that enjoy the roleplaying and dramatic side of things too, so there is equal sides to this market. If you are going to go into this much d20 voodoo and rules fiddly-ness, you have lost me as someone who cares more about story and drama than character builds. If I want this type of game, honestly, I will play Pathfinder.

But the Fantasy Age system feels like a better fit. Characters are simple and self-contained and level up with focused choices. There isn't much in the way of rules-lingo to learn. You are not sitting at the table chanting arcane abbreviations, reciting rules like tax form instructions, and the sound of playing the game isn't something that would scare off a casual observer.

The dice rolls are simple. For the most part, they are add your ability score and a +2 for a focus, referee sets the target number, and that's it. You could sit someone at the table, hand them a character sheet, and have them roll the dice without having to understand attacks of opportunity, flanking, advantage, or any other concept. Sit there and roll the dice plus that number, and tell me if you beat this number. Let me know if you roll doubles, because that is when something good happens.

Conceptually, it is simple, and simple is great if you are trying to focus the game on something else but the rules. That line is so important, "something else but the rules." If you want your game to be focused on drama or horror or any other concept, you cannot create rules so complicated that playing the game and understanding the rules takes away all of the time from what you wanted to focus on in the first place. People only have so much "CPU power" to pay attention to a live event, and if you are requiring them to recite rules and modifiers and feat lists, you are taking the game's focus and putting it squarely on the rules.

Simple Fits Nicely

Fantasy Age gets it, and I feel it would be a great fit. The core rules for Fantasy Age and its sister game Dragon Age are only something like 12 pages long. The rest of the game is under a hundred pages, and you don't need to understand all of it to play. Yes, it is a great game for new players, but it is also a game that gets out of the way and lets you focus on the feeling and situation, rather than the rules.

Complexity is one of the huge problems we have in roleplaying today. Many games create gigantic temples to themselves out of rules complexity, and they become these monolithic and all-encompassing juggernauts that are designed to consume 100% of your mental acuity to play them. You don't have time to think about anything else or play anything else, because this one super-sized rules system is all you can handle. This was the game design and business model introduced with D&D 3, and it is a legacy of system design and support to this day with its descendants and other games as well.

Compare that to a simple game such as Fantasy Age, and I will throw in Basic Fantasy on the simple side of things as well. These are simple games. You can play them without needing to own a library, and memorize a shelf full of books in your head to understand them. You can use a simple set of rules to simulate a great many things, because you have the mental free time at the table to relax and focus on the story, not the rules. You can focus the game on a single activity, romance or reacting-to-the-referee dungeoning, and you can still have enough "me time" and mental freedom to have fun and be yourself.

I am looking forward to the finished Blue Rose game next year, and I hope the designers stick with the spirit I see in Fantasy Age, and keep the game simple and focused on the theme. It has been an interesting day in the mail room, and I am looking forward to some interesting gaming next August.

Is it really a whole other year away? Wow. We may just have to play this version and let you know how things go, The world and lore look fun, so there is a lot of other stuff in these PDFs to enjoy and soak in until the game is released, so I am still happy with the Kickstarter project and my support. More on this soon.

Kickstarter: Blue Rose, Romantic Roleplaying Pen-and-Paper - Last 12 Hours!

It's the last 12 hours for the Blue Rose RPG over on Kickstarter, and they are looking to push the goal over the 90K level, if you are interested, please show your support! It is a great project from one of the great companies in the business, so let's help them out.

Dragon Age RPG Preorder

This is one I am excited about. Green Ronin is releasing a combined book for their Dragon Age RPG this month, and it looks like a fun one. I like the crossover products from video games to the RPG world, since it is an inviting path for new players into the hobby, and it leverages an existing world and lore that many are immediately familiar with.

If you pre-order now, you get the PDF for $5, and that is a great deal for a full-color PDF and what looks like an incredible book. Best of both worlds, PDF and a hardcover, good stuff.

The mechanics of this game look super easy as well, a straight 3d6 roll (2 normal dice, one dragon die) and an addition/beat a number mechanic with special rules for doubles. Something not d20 for a change? Count me in.

And we get Youtube videos previewing play?

There is a sequel to this video as well, and it looks like a fun beer-and-pretzels RPG with simple "on the dice" mechanics. I know I shouldn't be this excited about a game, but it looks fun and the production values are out of the roof, on par or better than even 5th Edition D&D.

We live in an interesting time where non-d20 games are more and more compelling to me. I mean, we've been with 3rd Edition in one way or another for 15 years, D&D for over twice that, and the competing market is getting interesting. And yes, the retro-clones are always cool and go-to options. Mind you, this still isn't an open game with an OGL license, but if I am going to play and enjoy a closed-source system, it might as well offer something new and interesting to grab my attention.

I think this is as close as we are going to get to a Skyrim style dark fantasy pen-and-paper RPG, so I'm in.

Also, if you are interested, the Blue Rose Romantic Fantasy RPG 2.0 is in its last days of it's Kickstarter campaign. This game uses the same rules as the above Dragon Age RPG and there is only three days left to get in on the fun. I am a proud backer, because I like the concept of a relationship-based and less hack-and-slash game with interpersonal mechanics.

They both are the same system after all, and maybe the two worlds shall meet for a strange dark fantasy versus romance world? Sounds fun, I'm in.