Dragon Age RPG Set 1 is currently available in .pdf format and in pre-order status for the physical product, which is a boxed set including the following:
- A 64-page Player's Guide with an introduction to tabletop roleplaying, background on Thedas and the nation of Ferelden, a complete guide to character creation, rules for character classes and talents, a primer on magic, and the basic game rules.
- A 64-page Gamemaster's Guide with an introduction to this key role, advice on the art of game mastering, advanced game rules, and an introductory adventure that plunges the characters right into the world of Dragon Age.
- A beautiful poster map of the nation of Ferelden, the opening setting for the Dragon Age RPG.
- 3 six-sided dice.
http://www.greenronin.com/store/product/grr2801.html
Set 1 consists of characters and adventures from levels 1-5. The next three sets will cover the higher levels in five-level increments and are scheduled to come out in six-month periods.
With that aside, it's time to review the .pdf product.
Production Value
The production value for both .pdf files is top-notch. The art ranges from fair to high-quality art (and includes some pieces of concept art from Bioware's team, but it's a minority). Some of the artwork is nice and sharp, while other pieces of artwork go from pastel-colored to smudgy. Overall, it's better than a lot of other stuff out there and captures the essence of the Dragon Age setting.
The style of the books is the blood-red, in-your-face motif that Dragon Age is known for, and the text is quite legible. Vital details, such as task resolution, have a pink background and are in red text, so that it stands out from the rest of the text and easily catches the eye of even someone looking through it at a glance. Any other side notes are displayed in a similar fashion with the title of the side note in white with a red background (such as The Grey Wardens or The Nine Ages). On the bottom of the pages, the page numbers are found at either corner (left for even-numbered and right for odd-numbered) written over a dragon-shaped splash of blood (the iconic Dragon Age logo) followed by the name of the chapter at the opposite end.
Overall, the production value of the .pdf files matches with that of the top-tier products offered not only by Green Ronin, but of the RPG industry in general.
The Player's Guide
The Player's Guide starts off with an introduction to roleplaying games, what you need to play, explains what a player character (PC) and a game master (GM) are, provides an example of play, group dynamics, the core mechanic of task resolution, the game dice, and the six chapters found in the book. The above mentioned will be explained as the review goes on, but I just want to point out that I especially like the section on Group Dynamics. Basically, here's the premise: you want to have a group of characters who can cover the basic needs of the party (combat, social interaction, offensive magic, healing magic, and subterfuge) and have a reason for staying together as a group (loners are generally bad for a group environment like role-playing). What's also important (perhaps more so) is to have a group of players who'll get along, treat each other respectfully, and don't try to exclusively have the spotlight. Communication is key between the players and the game master, so if there's an issue that needs to be addressed (such as not enjoying the character you're playing), it needs to be said so that the game master can rectify the matter.
As for the core mechanic of task resolution, it is as follows: whenever a character wants to accomplish a task where the chance for success is not automatic and when it matters to the story, he rolls 3d6 (three six-sided dice) and adds the relevant attribute and focus. If the total meets or beats the difficulty of the task (a target number set by the GM), he succeeds. Otherwise, he fails. There are a couple of permutations, such as modifiers to the roll, rolling doubles, and the Dragon Die, but the core of it is as follows:
3d6 + ability + focus >= target number? Success.
3d6 + ability + focus < target number? Failure.
Before I go on into the review, whenever you roll 3d6, one of these dice (one that is different from the other two) is going to be the Dragon Die. The Dragon Die is an important feature in the game, especially when it comes to stunts and determining degrees of success. But that'll be explained later (starting with the Magic chapter).
Chapter 1: Welcome to Ferelden
This chapter gives a primer to the country of Ferelden, the main setting of Dragon Age: Origins. For those that have played DAO, there's nothing here that can't be found in the Codex; however, this chapter is designed so that anyone who hasn't played the video game learns as much about Ferelden as someone who has played the video game. It starts from their predecesors, the barbaric Almarri, and continues up until the reign of King Cailin, the current king of Ferelden at the start of DAO. Two maps are included in this chapter: one of Thedas (the world where Dragon Age takes place) and one of Fereldan itself (which is the same map as in the video game). This chapter also talks about the country itself, how the land and climate are, the outlook of typical Fereldans, their social structure, how Fereldans view and treat mages, dwarves, and elves, the significance of dogs in Fereldan (with the Mabari war hound being the creme de la creme among them), and how life is inside the cities of Ferelden.
What's interesting is the power structure within the social classes of Ferelden. In typical medieval societies, the commoners are little more than serfs, and it's the nobility that owns the land. In Ferelden, however, commoners are free folk and THEY own the farms, where nobles are more like elected officials and, while having the privileges that a noble normally has, also serve the people through military might.
Chapter 2: Character Creation
Before you can start playing, each person in the group (except the GM) must create a character to roleplay. There are eight steps to creating a character in DARPG.
- Create a Character Concept
- Determine Abilities
- Choose a Background
- Choose a Class
- Pick Equipment
- Calculate Defense and Speed
- Pick a Name
- Choose Goals and Character Ties
After determining your character concept, it's time to determine your abilities. Each character has eight abilities: Communication (social skills), Constitution (physical toughness), Cunning (smarts), Dexterity (reflexes and coordination), Magic (magical ability), Perception (awareness), Strength, and Willpower (mental toughness). For those familiar with DAO, you'll notice that most of the abilities listed are from the video game, with the addition of Communication and Perception to handle tasks that were handled differently in the game (such as the Coercion and Survival skills). Starting with Communication, you roll 3d6 and reference a chart to see what your starting ability is (ranging from -2 to 4, with 1 being the average). This number is important, because this number is added to the 3d6 roll whenever you test that ability, so higher is better. After you've generated a score for each of the abilities, you can swap out two abilities.
Whereas some folk may not like this method of generating ability scores, it serves two purposes: speedy character generation and the fact that you have to make due with what life throws at you.
Along with abilities are ability focuses. An ability focus is an area of expertise within a given ability. For example, Perception has the following ability focuses: Empathy, Hearing, Searching, Seeing, Smelling, and Tracking. If the GM were to ask you to roll Perception (Empathy) to see if the person you're talking to is sincere, you'd roll 3d6 + your Perception score, and if you have the Empathy focus, you add 2 to that roll. Your background and class determines what focuses you start with.
When you choose a background, you're determining where you're character is from. Besides saying something about you, each background confers a number of predetermined benefits and random benefits, as well as what classes you can choose from. The backgrounds are as follows:
- Apostate: Technically, any mage who is not a member ofthe Circle of Magi. This is one of the more dangerous backgrounds, since the Circle of Magi and the Chantry Templars hunt down apostates. Apostates can be elves or humans.
- Avvar: Descendants of the Almarri clans who refused to unite with the rest of the clans under the rule of a king, unlike the rest of Ferelden. They are hillsmen who live in the Frostback Mountains, isolated from the rest of the world.
- Circle Mage: A mage who is a member of the Circle of Magi. For the most part, they reside in the Circle Tower, apart from the rest of the world, practicing their art under the watchful eye of the Chantry Templars. Circle Mages can be elves or humans.
- City Elf: Elves that live in human lands. They are treated as second-class citizens and live in isolated ghettos called alienages. City elves who work are mostly servants and laborers, and many who don't turn to crime.
- Dalish Elf: Elves that refuse to bend to human rule. These elves are wanderers and seek to keep the traditions of their people alive, though much of their lore has been lost.
- Fereldan Freeman: Any Ferelden human who is not a craftsman, priest, or noble. How far a freeman can go depends on their ambition and ability, and some have even risen to very high ranks in the nobility due to their merits.
- Surface Dwarf: These are dwarves who live outside of the subterranean dwarven cities. In dwarven society, they rank amongst the lowest in their caste system, alongside the casteless and criminals. Ironically, surface dwarves are very valuable to the commerce of not only non-surface dwarves, but to humans and elves as well.
- Mages can cast a wide variety of spells, from offensive to healing to support to debilitative, but are generally the least hardy of the three classes.
- Rogues are sneaky and opportunistic, and while they may be able to deal large amounts of damage to unsuspecting foes, they're not frontline fighters.
- Warriors are the frontline fighters. They can dish out lots of damage and take it as well. While they excel in combat, they're not nearly as adept as rogues in non-combat situations.
Characters start off at level 1, and each level confers a number of benefits. Level 1 gives characters the most benefits, since it sets the groundwork for characters to grow. Each level after the first allows characters to acquire more health, an increase in one ability, an additional ability focus, an extra talent, an extra spell (if you're a mage), or some other additional capability.
Once you've picked your class, it's time to get geared. Each character starts with a set of standard gear, such as a backpack, traveler's garb, waterskin, and the essentials for your class. You also start off with a random amount of money (in silver pieces) which you can use to acquire more equipment in the Equipment chapter or save for future use.
After gearing up, you calculate your character's Defense (how hard he/she is to hit in combat) and Speed (how far he/she can move in one combat round). Dexterity is the base ability that affects both, modified by armor or shield and race.
Once you're done with that, it's time to pick a name for your character. There are a number of sample male and female names, depending on the background you took.
Last, but certainly not least, are your character's goals and ties. They are the reasons why you adventure (both long term and short term) and the ties you have to the other characters in your group. This is a nice touch which serves as a unifying purpose for the group as well as an engine to propel your character forward into adventure.
Chapter 3: Focuses and Talents
Focuses and talents are capabilities that allow your character to become more unique from everyone else. The way focuses work have been explained previously (add 2 to your 3d6 + ability roll if your focus is relevant). Each ability has a number of focuses underneath them. Basically, any singular activity that is covered by an ability can be made into a focus. The beauty about focuses is that they're given a one-sentence description and it's up to the GM to determine when a given focus applies. It helps move the game along quickly without bogging into minutae, unlike other more detailed games (unless the GM memorized the rules to the T or is good at eye-balling difficulties and modifiers).
Talents are capabilities that are separate from your character's abilities. Each talent is divided into Novice and Journeyman levels, and I predict that later sets (probably Set 2) will cover Expert and Master levels of each talent. A talent either lets you do something you couldn't do before, or provides an additional benefit to something you could already do. Many talents have certain requirements before you can acquire them, such as class, a certain level of ability, or a particular focus.
Chapter 4: Weapons and Gear
This chapter goes over currency and the things you can purchase with money. The three units of currency are copper pieces, silver pieces, and gold pieces. 100 copper equals 1 silver and 100 silver equals 1 gold. In Ferelden, copper pieces are called bits, silvers are referred to as silvers, and golds are referred to as sovereigns.
The main purpose of armor is to reduce the amount of damage you take (its Armor Rating). The heavier the armor, the more damage it stops, but the slower you are and if you don't have the proper Armor Training talent, the more your Dexterity is penalized. Shields, on the other hand, reduce the chances of you getting hit, but without the Weapon and Shield Style talent, medium and heavy shields protect you as much as light shields.
Weapons are discussed afterwards. Each class as a specific list of weapon groups in which the class is trained in, and using a weapon that you are not trained in gives you hefty penalties, such as suffering a -2 penalty to your attack rolls and dealing only half damage. Yes, two-handed swords may be able to cleave a horse in two, but if you're a rogue, you'd probably do as much, or more, damage with a short sword and you won't miss as much either. The type of weapon you use determines not only what ability you roll in order to hit, but what ability modifies your weapon damage. Strength is used to hit with heavy weapons, while Dexterity is used to hit with light and ranged weapons. For damage, Strength modifies melee attacks, while Perception modifies ranged attacks. Each ranged weapon also uses a particular action to reload, which may be reduced by having the appropriate talents.
After the weapons section is the section for adventuring gear as well as stats for service animals, like mounts, dogs, and falcons.
Chapter 5: Magic
This chapter briefly describes the Fade, which is an ethereal realm where dreamers, demons, and the departed roam. Mages, too, can enter this realm, but only in astral form. However, they are beacons to malevolent demons who wish to possess them and wreak havoc in the physical world; such possessed mages are called abominations and are among the greatest threat to the Circle of Magi and the Chantry Templars and are known to have wiped out entire villages.
At level 1, a mage starts with three spells at his disposal and can learn more as he gains more levels. Casting a spell requires both a Magic roll (using the spell's school as the ability focus) and an expenditure of mana points (which are used up whether the spell is cast or not). Wearing armor makes spellcasting more taxing by increasing the amount of mana points needed to cast any spell.
Some spells can be resisted, and this is where Spellpower comes in. Spellpower is the target number needed to resist a particular spell and it is equal to 10 + Magic + the applicable focus.
An interesting feature when casting a spell is Spell Stunts. Whenever you roll doubles on a successful 3d6 roll, you activate one or more Spell Stunt, in addition to the spell's normal effects. In this case, look at the Dragon Die to determine how many Stunt points you generate, as each stunt uses up a number of stunt points, and they must be used immediately. For example, let's say you cast a harmful spell on your target and you roll doubles. You've activated a spell stunt, and your Dragon Die comes up as a 3. You can either use up all 3 points to summon up a Mana Shield (for extra protection), or split it into Mighty Spell for 2 points (deals an extra d6 of damage to one target) and 1 point in Puissant Casting (increase your Spellpower by 1 for that casting). This stunt system mixes it up nicely, and certain talents allow you to either reduce the stunt cost of a particular stunt or to perform all-new stunts.
As far as the spells themselves are concerned, for those of you who have played DAO, they're all the first-tier spells found in the video game, except for Disorient (which is called Daze in DARPG) and Lightning (which seems to be a redundancy, since Arcane Bolt does the same thing: single-target damage at a distance). Many of the damaging spells deal penetrating damage, meaning that armor does nothing to reduce the damage you take.
You can recover your spent mana either hourly (1d6 + Magic) or in eight hours of uninterrupted rest (recovers all of your mana).
For levels 1-5, this spell list is diverse enough without becoming overpowered. I expect each additional set to contain the subsequent tiers of spells found in DAO.
Chapter 6: Playing the Game
This is the chapter that explains how to play the game itself and how all of your traits come into play. Some of what I've mentioned earlier in the review comes up in this chapter, such as ability tests and the Dragon Die (in part). There's the basic test, which is handled in one roll, and a list of target numbers for the corresponding difficulty (from Routine being a 7, while Nigh Impossible being a 21, and they are separated in 2-point increments). The opposed test is when it's multiple characters testing against each other: the highest roll wins, and ties go to the higher Dragon Die or higher ability if the Dragon Die is also a tie.
Normally, the important thing to know is whether or not you succeed at a given task, and simply rolling at or over the target number is fine. However, when it's important to determine how well you succeed, that's when the Dragon Die comes in. If you succeed at a task and it's important to know how well you did, you look at the number rolled on the Dragon Die: a 1 means you barely pulled it off, while a 6 equals a resounding success.
This part is probably my only quibble about the game. First off, how good you succeeded at a task is purely random, with no account for how good you rolled over the target number whatsoever. The advantage to this is that you can simply look at one die and determine how good you did, as opposed to subtracting the target number from the total result rolled, which takes a bit more time and thinking. Second, for incredibly hard to succeed tasks that require you to roll at least a 14 on the dice just to make the target number, the only types of success you can achieve are great ones, not "by the skin of your teeth" types. This is great for emulating those 1-in-a-million moments where the weaker guy catches the more powerful guy with a "WTF?!" moment and obliterates him, but not so great for "just barely dangling on the edge of the cliff" moments. I guess it's all up to how one interprets these things, but for the sake of trying something new and giving things a chance, I'll let it slide. When I actually play or run a DARPG game, I'll comment on it in the future.
When it's time for combat, time goes from narrative time (just saying what happens and skipping over the boring, unnecessary parts, like working the farm or traveling through a road with nothing eventful happening) to action time (time split into 15-second rounds, where you can only take a certain number of actions per round). At the beginning of combat, each participant rolls Dexterity (Initiative), and each combatant takes their turn from highest to lowest. Actions are divided into major actions (usually an attack or some other sort of committed action), minor actions (usually moving or some sort of supplemental action), and free actions (actions that take a negligible amount of time). In a round, you can take either one major action and one minor action, or two minor actions. You generally don't have a limit to how many free actions you can take.
When making an attack, you either roll Strength or Dexterity, along with the applicable focus, to land a hit with your currently equipped weapon against your target's Defense (10 + Dexterity - armor penalty). Should you land a hit, roll your weapon's listed damage and subtract your target's Armor Rating from the damage. If the remainder is above 0, the target loses that much Health. Should Health reach 0, your target dies. If your Health reaches 0, you die in 2 + Constitution rounds unless someone stabilizes you. You can also choose to pull a killing blow, so that your target falls unconscious with 1 Health.
Like with spells, you can also execute stunts in combat, and in the same way, too: roll doubles on a successful roll and your Dragon Die determines how many stunt points you get, which must be spent immediately.
After combat, if you're not dying, you can take one breather and recover some Health, or more if you get six hours of restful sleep. And there's always magical healing.
Remainder of the Book
There's a one-page glossary explaining the most common terms found in DARPG for quick reference and a one-page index after that. On the last page, there's a one-page character sheet where you can write down all of the relevant information your character needs.
Conclusion
All in all, the Player's Guide is great product that does what it's intended to do: teach players a bit about Ferelden, create interesting characters relatively quickly, showing them how mostly everything they want to do is covered by a simple mechanic, and teaching them how combat works. The game is intended to introduce new people to roleplaying, and Green Ronin has chosen a fantastic IP in which to do this with: probably the greatest RPG of the year. Not only that, it's done so in a classic format, the boxed set, with small, yet effective separate books for both players and game masters.
The idea of splitting them up into four boxed sets irked me at first, but it has its advantages. Due to the intervals at which other boxed sets will come out (six-month periods), there's plenty of time to enjoy going from levels 1-5, if you can meet up from 2-4 times a month (I wish that were my case). Many other RPGs, such as Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, come equipped to level a character from 1-30, for example, but who ever reaches level 30 or even 20? And how much time would it take to reach those levels, starting from scratch? For the most part, a campaign stops at a certain point and a new one gets started weeks or months later, resulting in unused material.
I, personally, am going to try to get a group going for DARPG. Coming up with the adventures is the easy part; the hard part will be in getting and maintaining a group. To those who want to play a game that has a quick pace and scratches that fantasy itch or to those who want to continue their adventures in Ferelden beyond the video game, this is the game for you.
The Game Master's Guide capsule review will be out soon...
Thanks for taking the time to write this review.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your dragon dice and minimum combat numbers. If i'm understanding it correctly if i need a 16 17 or 18 to hit i will always be doing a stunt when i hit (because i need at least one set of doubles to get that high) even though it should be a tough shot if i make it i will be doing it in style.