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THE Sword & Sorcery game you NEED! Buy this NOW!
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This is an excellent collection of adventures you can throw into any of your games, taking place across a wide array of areas and locations, great for pick-up games, want to throw in something different and relax a bit more as a GM, for one shot games or just want to add new areas and places into your games. I go over this in more detail in a video.
Here is a link to my video talking about this in more detail https://youtu.be/OUtTWpnkA90
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This is one of the most interesting and varied ShadowDark adventure book I've read. A must own for GM's and players alike. Check out my full review here - https://youtu.be/JDtzILeW1AE
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An excellent OSR-adjacent, sword & sorcery adventure game. It is to 5E as DCC is to 3E, meaning it takes a more modern version of D&D and reverse engineers it to be more old-school. Simply an excellent game, great art and the solo support is also quite nice. It's in the same niche as 5 Torches Deep and Shadowdark, but ToA emphasizes emergent play and the sandbox approach more than those two, and has a bit more crunch. ToA is also considerably more low fantasy than its predecessor Low Fantasy Gaming 1e, in terms of character power levels and competence. This a true gem, up there with DCC, WWN and other such OSR-adjacent classics! 5/5
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This is the single, best game I expect you've never heard it. Everyone needs this in there collection for the wonderful design, layout and game mechanics. Don't believe me, please check out my review https://youtu.be/-Y92cxcuycI Thank you
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Seems like a vastly inferior version of the original LFG with 80% of the text copy pasted. The remaining altered 20% features an unnecessarily convoluted system which turns every weapon the same almost, and the magic user is unplayable with the already oppressive DDM system rolled with a D8 right out of the gate. Health pools are gutted for all the classes without doing jack to the enemies, exploits can be done once per full moon and if you fail you're SOL since there are no retries available. Engaging in combat is straight up punishment with no rewards, which drives avoiding combat at all cost and investing into higher charisma + non combat stats to become meta for gaining exp, which can take you only up to lv9. which in itself is artificially limiting PC power from the original edition.
As for the weapons being samey, they no more have unique passives that encourage experimenting, they all do more less the same thing on NAT 19 and roll from a new table per weapon dmg type which makes them much less interesting to use, save for the shortsword which became meta for the initiative bonus as nothing else matters in this edition. For example, the greatsword got cucked since the turn skip to the end of round is useless as you roll initiative per round, potentially crapping the whole encounter for your party. I'm not even going to bother talking about the blaring issue with rescue being usable once per adventure only.
I have a friend who stubbornly claims this is way different from the generically named final version and unironically simps for this system, but based on the comments I highly doubt it's going to be much better, if any at all and have 0 expectations towards the upcoming game night. I could be wrong and the system is greatly improved after the shockingly bad first impressions, but I can't help but to feel you'd be better off cherry picking some of the updates and slapping them on the original, the changes I see here do not warrant a new edition in the slightest, and at most it's just a poor supplement.
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This is wonderful. No singular gimmick that soon loses its appeal for a selling point but instead, many well thought out additions and modifications that create probably the best D&D style RPG out there!
It's super. I'm looking forward to playing this and seeing what Pickpocket Press have up their sleeves next.
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If you enjoy, DCC, Shadow of the Demon Lord, OSR, low magic settings, and a non-bloat set of rules, Tales of Argosa is the game for you.
I am not good with reviews and since most of the good bits have already been described by some of the reviews, I will just let you know that in over 35 years of reading and playing TTRPGs, this is by far one of my most favorite RPGs.
If you got space in your collection for another stupendous game, add this one to your collection immediately.
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This is a great cave adventure and layout of the document. Easy to follow and understand. Love it!
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This is an excellent TTRPG system that is not overly-complex and also not overly-simple. It sits right at that perfect spot where everyone can pick up and learn to play the RPG but there's lots too it. More importantley it actually feels like your games are a challenge - the HP curve is smaller, and magic and monsters are truly dangerous. Your level 1 PC is not going to go up against a massive dragon unless it wants to get smeared into paste. This adds a touch of realism I've not experienced in other RPGs before. The combat system is lively and actionable - no slog to wade through here - PCs can attempt minor & major "exploits" that encourage creativity in their attacks making no combat quite the same as the next.
The rules are well-laid out and indexed, it's a breeze to find subject matter and definitions. What's more is the printed book is distinct (with it's light design) and dual bookmarking ribbons. It's quite beautiful actually. The outer bounds of the book include the GM "cheat-sheet" so it's handy to grab in a pinch. I'm not sure any RPG could do better than this publication honestly, it's that good! I've also tried a few of the published adventures which are equally amazing and very accessible. I recommend the Tales of Argosia (ToA) platform 10/10!
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This might be one of my favourite games of all time. I have a two part full review on my channel if you would rather watch me talk about the game. Part 1 https://youtu.be/dGIaBWwQLp0 Part 2 https://youtu.be/IZEVRnwAILM
Il start off with some simple reasons as to why and go into details on some examples of the book and play. I have a Kickstarter copy of the game so POD might have some differences I am not sure. Its a total system with 262 numbered games plus built in GM screen two in the front two in the back giving details on important infomation. It is backed with just about everything you would want and need in any game. The game its self is fun and pretty simple at its core while yes there are lots of different procedures most are not things you will be doing every 10 mins or even every game. Character creation is simple rolling dice for stats, backgrounds (these add more unique differences between any possible character classes that are repeated by giving you extra skill points, an ability point or even items to start off with) The classes are Artificer, Barbarian, Bard, Cultist,Fighter, Magic User, Monk, Ranger and Rogue. These classes work as you might expect example the Cultists is a Priest/Cleric type character with the ablities you might expect but when it comes to the Gods you have this is where it can get intresting IMO game gives you 5 Gods to pick from and will give you extra bonuses as well as tenets to follow, its done clear and simplely and I can see how I or someone else could create their own Gods to use in the game. This is a common theme in the book everything is easy to understand and clearly written something that can be more uncommon than not in TTRPGs. The game has great solo systems in the book from dice and the deck of signs you can get for the game that make it easier to be objective and riff off the cards as to what might be going on and the dice system is a simple but effective oracle system I would pick these up if you plan on doing solo gaming. The game also gives simple but common sesne rules and ideas on how to run other systems content if you have some for example shadowdark adventures you might want to run it gives a simple way to do so. As as feel to the game it has a AD&D sort of feel but with more modern ways of doing things from the abilities and skills you have and can learn it has the best of what is old and newer in this aspect. Magic is also something I love magic in this game is powerful, it is unknown and dangrous things can go badly on you if a spell backfires maybe your hair will fall off every inch of your body or maybe you can become deformed, it reminds me of how DCC does magic and I love it, magic should feel like a big powerful tool but big powerful tools also have big kickback. The game has charts for everything, you have downtime cool there are simple systems for getting pets, gambling your coin away, black markets to get goods (great way to have extra story telling in a game, you pick up a cursed item that slowly chips away at a character over a long period of time) classic horror/fantasy theme. You are finding buying potions expensive? well try brewing them for yourself. There are rules for everything from sicknesses, charts for dungeon crawling, wilderness, random events and encounters, travel events, weather, building structures, Hex crawling, dungeon generation. Want some extra help on an adventure rules for hirelings and how to advance them and of course more great charts for them to help make them more unique and who knows maybe turn one into a player character over time. Oh you want to be a sea based game going from Island to Island checking out old ruined buildings and dungeons? Good thing there are ship rules from roaming and boarding ships to how to get away and even artillery weapons. The game also has many different kinds of combat traumas to add even more flavour to the game if you so wish to use so, maybe two of the characters were badly hurt one ways hurt with a blast of maybe an artillery strike and is shook up or another got their leg badly hurt from an arrow and sword strike there are simple charts to add more flavour and negative effects so things will feel more different when more than one person is hurt. There is even a mass battle system and I wasnt expecting that when I first got the PDFs a good while back now a welcome suprize for me. Need treasure/loot no worries lots of charts for that, weapons and how to create your own with simple ways to add effects be it water breathing on lets say a holy symbol or just a simple +1 to a weapon. There are seveal pages on traps from how to use them to different kinds of traps and effects. The monster list is something I enjoyed alot as well they are layed out well different types of monsters grouped together by their kind as well as of course all the stats but also a simple description and how they are/act as well as having simple methods to make something more powerful different abilties or bonuses you can give to any monster and simple creation tools as well. There is so much in this 262 page book and as I keep saying its all well written out and simple to read and understand there is much more in here you could spend all day talking about it. There is a system or ways of doing everything checks for skills and ablities. This game has become one of my go to games and I think it will be for good. It is simple enough that new people can learn easy but there is so much meat on here this is why I said it reminded me of AD&D as well. Its in my top 3 games I can not wait for more and I have the third adventure Pickpocket press has made on the way from DrivethuRPG I can not wait to play this coming week again. One final point is the ART!! it is stunning its like they took old school pulp fantasy art and made it with a modern look and system, it is very striking detailed but keeps that style of classic fantasy pulp. The creators of this entire book, system really out done themselves I hope more people will pick it up, it deserves to blow up big time IMO.
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This is my favorite rpg at this point. Was already a big fan of the previous edition (low fantasy gaming) but this one improves on it a lot in many different ways. The tools are great and among the best I have seen for the emergent playstyle the author is going for. This makes it easy to pick up and play sessions with less prep and run adventures that involve a more sword and sorcey flavor.
For me the biggest surprise is the support for solo role playing. The deck of signs is one of the best open question oracles I have seen and has helped me move my sessions forward in ways that other oracles could not. In addition there are other awesome tools like the activity die, the dungeon generator (you don't see too many of these and it integrates well with a lot of the other tables in the game), lone wolf rules for running 1 pc, and a few others. These tools are also great for group games as well and allow you to handle many different situations with little prep.
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Great system for that Sword and Sorcery low fantasy feel! It has rules for all sorts of activities and other things you would need for sword and sorcery games (except for a setting but I believe the author is going to revamp his Midlands setting for Tales of Argosa). You could always make you own setting through emergent play and/or with random tables and an oracle of some kind or use an existing setting. (I'm not overly fond of the included oracle, but your mileage may very, as they say). Overall, I'm very satisfied with it. Recommended!
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Absolutely great game, that should have more attention! The system is well-designed, its a mix of interesting mechanics, with just the right level of crunch. Super cool system to run OSR-styled campaigns, but also the classes have enough options for the players - in fact, endless options, because on some level-ups you get the features, that you make up with the GM - so the only limit here is your imagination! Couldnt recommend the game more
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Its like someone combed through prior additions of D&D and compiled the best rules and mechanics into a workable system.
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