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Romance of the Perilous Land (first edition) Pay What You Want
Average Rating:4.1 / 5
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Romance of the Perilous Land (first edition)
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Romance of the Perilous Land (first edition)
Publisher: Trollish Delver Games
by Hamish A. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/10/2016 18:53:32

Introduction My god, I have never been so excited to read through a rulebook as much as I have been with Romance of the Perilous Land. Being British myself, British Folklore has always been something I've been fascinated by. As soon as I read the subheading saying it was a roleplaying game based on British folklore, I've never clicked the add to cart button so bloody fast!

Ruleset The rules are a perfect balance of simplistic and interesting. It's simple enough for me to sit down and play a campaign with my mum yet interesting enough to keep me and my friends hooked. If you have had experience with pretty much any tabletop ruleset, you will be able to DM without much hassle.

Classes I'm really pleased with the classes, they're not too extravagant so that they wouldn't fit the lore but they're also unique enough where you would be interested in playing each one. I still think there is room for more classes but it isn't something that is needed imminently, they would just be more material to work with. Each class fits a certain players playstyle:

There's a Knight class for the chivalrous warrior type player There's a Ranger class for the ranged preferred scouting type player There's the Thief class for the cunning, devious, backstabbing type player There's the Cunning Folk class for the magic wielding type player There's the Barbarian class for the heavy hitting, high damage type player And there's the Bard class for the charismatic and charming charmer type player

Each class gains the ability to increase attributes over their levels which means each character feels evenly powerful at higher levels. The Class Features are also diverse and interesting.

Character Backgrounds I would prefer for there to be a better mix of backgrounds, currently, there are 5. I feel like there aren't enough backgrounds for certain characters, It would be much better to have a background like 'Commoner' or 'Farmer' put into the mix for players wanting a different storyline or wanting their character to be normal.

Weapons, Armour and Items Even though there aren't as many weapons and items as, say, D&D. I think that because of the setting, it fits more. The limited amount of weapons fits because of the setting and time era. Personally, Only small adjustments needed to be made in this department, other than that, its good.

Playing the Game The actual gameplay is quite delightful. The combat is simple and easy to learn. Attribute tests are simple and generally all the rules fit into the 'easy to play' feel.

Magic Romance of the Perilous Land aims to give magic an extra special feel. Magic is supposed to be this rare and extraordinary thing that the common man could only dream of doing. Magic works on a point system, each spell requires a certain amount of points, very simple. The thing I like in particular is that the character can try to cast a spell above their level but with the risk of consequences, this feels really exciting to me because it means any cunning folk could attempt to pull off an amazing spell, if they have the points for it.

Bestiary All the beats featured in Romance of the Perilous Land come straight from British Folklore, as the title suggests. It's quite satisfying to see the creatures we read be translated into playable forms. I also like the way creatures are more scarce in the game, a whole campaign could be focused around finding one monster.

Conclusion I highly recommend this title to any fan of British Folklore, the Arthurian legend, or even the BBC series Merlin.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Romance of the Perilous Land (first edition)
Publisher: Trollish Delver Games
by Marshall W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/14/2016 22:21:10

Using the (excellent) Black Hack as a base, Romance of the Perilous Land has a much tighter focus and also fixes up a lot of rules. The result feels like more of a 'NextGen' Black Hack rather than just another derivative or re-skinning. That said, the author demonstrates a very keen sense of how to add more content to the base game without increasing the complexity- a very tricky thing to pull off as well as this game does.

This is, without doubt, my favorite product to come from the "Hack" family of games thus far and I'd love to see more games of that line follow this approach. Highly recommended!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Romance of the Perilous Land (first edition)
Publisher: Trollish Delver Games
by Szymon P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/14/2016 14:29:40

Romance of the Perilous Land is a small, but rather well-made retroclone set in fantasy medieval Britain. On about 50 pages it has everything you need to play, including a short introduction to Role-Playing Games. Gameplay: although RotPL is based on the old rules from the 70's, it has some modern ideas (Thank God!), that make adventures less stressful – player characters have a bit more HP and don't die instantly after it drops to 0, every character class has an useful Feature, for example – the “Fighter” (Knight) can also protect other party members from damage, rather than just swing his sword and hope for the best. The game also uses a simple skill system, where the players and NPCs need to roll under a specific target number inorder to succeed, the players often have to roll under their attribute score, that is modified by the strength of the foe they need to overcome. Spellcasters spend spell points (mana), rather than using Vancian Magic. Something that surprised me a bit: there are no Experience points in this game. At the beginning of each adventure, the GM should explain the players what their current quest is. If they succeed – they level up, simple as that. The armors in the game also work differently, they “suck up” incoming damage and need to be repaired after every serious fight. Content: RotPL has everything you need to play, but some chapters could use a bit more work and “meat”. There are only 5 character backgrounds to choose from, what I miss is some kind of “Magical” heritage, a mysterious “Unknown” background and someone from the simple folk. The equipment chapter is also pretty poor and I would love to see some massive tables with prices for land, castles and servants. The bestiary is definitely the best part of the game, it is filled with interesting creatures from the British folklore. The game also contains a setting with some ready-to-use adventure seeds. Another thing that bothers me: no official character sheet :-( Layout: the game uses some Royalty-Free art and illustrations done by Fat Goblin Games. Some of them are a bit out of place (example: the big illustration on the mostly empty page 34). The font is nice and readable. I would like to see some old, medieval paintings, that could fill up all the empty white spaces.

Score: 4/5 RotPL is a small and neat OSR-inspired game, that is easier and less painful to play than some other retro games, yet it contains some errors and flaws, that can be removed with a bit more work. For the price of... well... “Pay what you Want”, I can't complain.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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