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Disclaimers: Warning, this review contains (justifiable) hype. Also, I have yet to try running this game for folks and my impressions are subject to change.
Fabula Ultima TTJRPG is an absolute triumph of a game, and I will summarize why with some highlights:
- Clean page layout with crystal clear writing; I wasn't able to find a single typo which is a big deal for me
- A wonderful mix of modern rules from a variety of sources without feeling like they've been haphazardly thrown together; this feels like its own game with its own identity, theme, and origin
- A respectable committment to the optimistic, colorful worldbuilding of classic JRPGs with attention paid toward inclusivity and safety for the play group
- Smart progression and metacurrency rules (i.e. "Fate Points") that are intrinsically linked to the core tenets of the game (characters, villains, bonds, etc)
- Excellent prompts to get you started with creating worlds, characters, and more
- Thoughtful advice to walk you through any questions you might have about the rules and expectations of the game
- A colorful and playful art style that feels consistent throughout the book
This game is a perfect fit for you if:
- You prefer a "theater of the mind" playstyle
- You like lots of character customization options
- You want tactical depth without all of the headaches
- You can be satisfied with a certain level of narrative abstraction rather than relying on realism
- You enjoy collaborative worldbuilding with your play group
- You like having creative leeway as a Game Master when adding new items, monsters, and villains to the game world
I'll leave the rest for you to discover, but I will say this:
- There are 15 classes each with 5 skills (many of which can be taken multiple times). Each character level means 1 skill from 1 class. Characters start at Level 5 and can go all the way up to 50! There is a lot of room for expressing yourself through character building just like any good JRPG "Job System"
- The core dice mechanic is simple and fun, you will only ever roll 2 dice of varying sizes and add their results together with any other bonuses/penalties that apply. This core mechanic is twisted and expanded in various ways to give you lots of tools depending on the situation.
- I personally think Fabula Ultima has a chance at being one of the greats. I read a lot of RPGs and this one just has something special about it. I can see Fabula Ultima serving as an excellent replacement for groups that grow tired of more popular fantasy games.
What are you waiting for? Action, Adventure, Drama, and more are all right around the corner!
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Creator Reply: |
Thank you for your kind words Brett. Hope you'll enjoy running Fabula Ultima as much as you loved reading it! |
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Haunted West is an incredibly ambitious undertaking and could be this decade's quintissential Weird West game.
The $39.95 buy-in price is steep for a PDF, but it definitely delivers on content and quality. There is just SO much within these 800+ pages. Histories both broad and personal, adventure hooks, unique and exciting character options, alternate rules, intersectional and inclusive prose, and some excellent advice for running the game.
In terms of rules, Haunted West seeks to please as many people as possible. There's an ironclad foundation of traditional gaming rules, variants for more narrative-oriented play as well as options for crunchier combat, and there's even an entire Powered by the Apocalypse hack towards the end of the book too. You are bound to find a style of play that works best for you.
In terms of setting, it's obvious that the author did some thorough research of the time period and there are so many wonderful details behind each plot hook, NPC, and location. But Haunted West turns the Western genre on its head by incorporating Weird West elements (which isn't all that nuanced with Deadlands being a thing) and, more importantly, by heavily prioritizing and highlighting the marginalized peoples of the era.
My only gripe is that the page layout is a little too traditional for my tastes, and I would have liked to see some infographics that show how some of the rules work, but that's just me being picky.
This is a monumental achievement for Historic/Old West Roleplaying and I'm so glad I took a chance on this.
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After sifting my way through a handful of supers games trying to find the right one for me, I believe Spectaculars comes the closest to a perfect fit.
The layouts of the Rulebook, Setting Book, and Adventure Series are excellently done which makes the game all the easier to learn and set up.
The rules themselves are either elegantly simple, or highly evocative of superhero themes and tone. The Continuity / Retcon mechanics are particularly inspired as are the Team Popularity rules.
If you're hunting for a more freeform, improvisational, quick-and-easy supers game, look no further!
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tl;dr
If you're into a more old-school or freeform style that doesn't get bogged down with too many rules, Astonishing Super Heroes is an immaculately clean super hero game and is definitely worth the $5.
Overview
Astonishing Super Heroes (ASH) is a retroclone of TSR's Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) with some minor changes for the sake of streamlining and modernization.
To sum up the game in 2 sentences, ASH is a lean but comprehensive d100 game that utilizes a color-coded matrix table called the Universal Table or "Uni-Table". A Character's Abilities and Powers have "Ranks"; the better the rank, the lower the roll needed to succeed on the Uni-Table.
Using the Uni-Table will take some adjusting for new groups, but ultimately I think it adds a lot of flexibility and variable power levels without the need for a laundry list of bonus/penalty modifiers that some of ASH's contemporaries use.
After spending some time studying the differences between ASH and MSH, I believe ASH's most notable innovations include:
Feedback
Conclusion
In summary, ASH is awesome. I'm super excited to try it out and see how it runs. Great job to all and excelsior!
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Creator Reply: |
Thank you for the wonderful review! We are looking into options for a more accessible Uni-Table; you are absolute right in calling that out as something we need to add sooner rather than later! |
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I've been a huge fan of Whitehack for several years now and have been incessantly begging for an official PDF. I am so genuinely happy that this wonderful game can now become a part of gaming libraries around the world!
There are other reviews that explain the nature of Whitehack better than I could and probably aren't as biased. That said, I'll briefly try to explain why I'm so passionate about this game.
- Mixing old school games with collaborative elements is hard to pull off. Whitehack does it beautifully.
- Universal mechanics can often feel stale if executed poorly. Again, Whitehack triumphs.
- So many old school games have the same pastiche fantasy tropes baked into the character options. Whitehack breaks this norm in a smart way.
It's amazing to me that Whitehack achieves all of the above while also innovating other brilliant mechanics like its Auction system (which helps simplify macro-level scenes like chases, large scale battles, etc). And it does all of this in so few pages.
The only feature that might turn some players off is that Whitehack doesn't have much in the way of art. I actually appreciate this design choice though because it furthers the notion that the fantasy world is for you and your players to build together.
Whitehack 3rd Edition is well worth your money. It's my go-to system of choice, and even if your goal is to make your own OSR hack, you will almost assuredly be inspired by the mechanics Whitehack has to offer.
Also, if you find yourself loving this game, I strongly encourage you to check out the desginer's other work; I recently purchased his fascinating sci-fi game called Suldokar's Wake and it's dense in the best of ways.
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The Black Hack's original iteration started a new sect of the OSR/DIY D&D movement and became one of the most hacked games since D&D.
However, the original TBH made a lot of compromises to speed up play. Some of the rules were weird and wonky, and on top of that, the game made odd decisions for the sake of uniqueness (I mean, let's be honest, calling Wizards "Conjurers" was...interesting)
I think the slightly odd rules almost demanded that each table tailor the game to their liking. Which in a way has its own merits. But out with the old and in with the new.
Simply put, this new rendition of The Black Hack is a masterclass in design. Not a single rule made me scratch my head. Each page made me nod in agreement. The armor rules are awesome. The class abilities are great. The leveling system is fresh and will make sessions way more fun. And adding backgrounds finally brings TBH up to Whitehack's level of worldbuilding. So much amazingness in just the first 20 pages!
The art, the Game Master sections, and everything else are not just functional, they're wonderful. The page layout is so good it makes me emotional. This book is full of tools, tables, generators, and much more. $6.00 is a ludicrously low price for what you're getting.
If you want to try simpler D&D, look no further.
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There's really nothing too special about Knave. But it's because of this that it might just be one of the greatest additions to the OSR that I've ever seen. A lot of brilliant OSR games out there do one of three things: emulate the wheel, attempt to reinvent it, or a little of both. (read "wheel" as D&D) Labyrinth Lord? Emulation. DCC RPG? Reinvention. LotFP? A little of both
Here is what I believe lies at the core of the OSR: There are as many unique systems as there are gaming groups. Every group has different tastes, and the easiest way to match those tastes is by taking away or adding rules to the game.
However, all of the games out there, including old-school D&D, have assumptions built into them. DCC RPG assumes that your gaming group would rather have a crazy romp than a serious hexcrawl. LotFP assumes the opposite. ACKS assumes you'll make it to the later levels to use its subsytems. Even OD&D had the assumption that characters should be differentiated by classes/abilities. These assumptions are what create followings behind certain games. But what if there were a game that focused on having as few assumptions as possible?
In comes Knave. It doesn't try to emulate or reinvent the wheel. Instead, it seeks to be the axle that turns the wheel. The easiest way to explain Knave is to say that it just "is". It's like if you took the math problem 1+3=4, but got rid of everythning except the 1. Knave is the integer of role playing games. The lowest common denominator. You can't really say it's objectively bad, because it possesses no inherent meaning; that's something you and your group will flesh out as you play.
To wrap things up, I'll say that fantasy adventure games are meant to inspire wonder in players because of all the choices and freedom. Knave still does this. But it inspires Referees too because there's so much freedom to hack and add to the system.
Knave need not be your system of choice, but if you're interested in crafting your own game from the ground up, save yourself some time and use Knave as your foundation.
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TO PREFACE:
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The OSR community is often bustling, intriguing, and is constantly putting out great content to use for games new and old. A couple of shortcomings (in my opinion) with OSR games is that they typically focus solely on the player and never the character, and also, combat can get really swingy for groups that are less initiated.
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Apocalypse World has changed the face of tabletop RPGs for better or worse. Mixed success (while not necessarily invented by AW) is a fantastic mechanic that keeps play at the table compelling. Some of the shortcomings with most PbtA games (again, in my opinion) are that they rarely challenge the problem solving skills of the player, and also, events can move too quickly for players to feel truly immersed in the world. Finally, PbtA games aren't usually lethal, which can definitely be a good thing, but lethality brings out qualities in players that are rarely seen elsewhere.
- I love both of these communities greatly despite being near-polar opposites of each other. But just like Romeo and Juliet, forbidden love is always interesting. Vagabonds of Dyfed is the baby that PbtA and OSR had out of wedlock. Nobody asked for it (well, maybe some people did), yet I truly believe that it is the chosen one.
TO BEGIN:
The book is objectively well put together. It's a neat little 8.5" x 8.5" square clocking in at approximately 105ish pages. The page layout is among the finest of OSR games. Most elements or subheadings do not go beyond the page they start on, making it incredibly easy to read through the rules as well as reference them later when needed.
The artwork probably won't make your jaw drop, but it gets the job done. The pieces, like the rules, are concise as well as easy on the eyes. The star of the show is honestly the cover art which is well colored and does a good job at showing what the game's about. The old man looks like he has the lid of a coffin for a shield which makes me smile. And the tattoos on the face of the knife-holder are mysterious and intricate. Also, if you look closely, the characters are battle-damaged. A nice touch.
I would imagine that character creation could take a while for a brand new group as they carefully decide on their traits, but the examples provided in the book are helpful tools whether it's for use or inspiration. Lineages are cool and enticing depending on the player, and Techniques are fun little feats/abilities that can go a long way in an adventure. The equipment section is awesome and provides the GM with the skeletal framework of how to make more which is great.
I don't think I need to go over the mechanics too much because it's all so well laid out on the product page.
Overall, this game really shines from the Game Master perspective. All rolls are condensed into a single mechanic, so GMs can spend their time focusing on the important stuff: making traps, puzzles, magic items, adversaries, plot hooks, and a more believable world
TO CONCLUDE:
Vagabonds of Dyfed is simultaneously quick and dirty, and beautifully elegant. I have yet to test it out, but it looks more than capable for handling great adventures as well as stories with interesting characters. This game piqued my interest with its fusion of my two favorite RPG communities, held my attention with excellent mechanics and great page layout, and blew me away by changing the way I look at OSR. This is the first RPG book I have ever read cover to cover (and I've seen a LOT). Do yourself a favor and buy the PDF at least.
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One must understand two things about 7th Sea: Second Edition before playing it.
1) This is not the same game as 1st edition, so prepare for the big bad change monster
2) This RPG, like pretty much every RPG out there, is not for everyone
The faster that those two facts are realized and accepted, the easier it is to fall in love with this game. I truly believe that 7th Sea: 2nd Edition is one of the most brilliant systems I've ever seen. Since 1st edition, John Wick has clearly become much more of a storyteller. I don't think it's even possible for a rule in this game to stop play for more than 45 seconds. The system is so intuitive that the action can just keep on going. Seriously, players could probably achieve campaign-level drama/adventures in the time it takes players to go through a dungeon in D&D. It all just depends on the GM, which brings me to my next point.
The raises system is really neat and it adds a small metagame to rolling dice that's just easy enough to keep the story moving, but just different enough to make players take a second and think about how they want to make their raises. All of the other rules in the game are so simple to add on that it truly makes 7th Sea: Second Edition a breeze to play. So it really is completely up to the GM to move the drama in unique and interesting ways. The GM is to be constantly (and creatively) setting new consequences for the risks the players take, while simultaneously thinking of opportunities that are enticing enough for players to risk taking the consequences for. It can be a little daunting because the difficulty of the game is 100% in the GM's lap, but ultimately, I love how much freedom I have to tell a compelling story with my players.
I'm not going to lie, crunch in a game can be a fun time. But at the end of the day, I don't want my players to feel like they cheated death because of some mechanic, I want them to feel like they've surpassed their obstacles by being creative and pariticpating in telling a good story. It's the stories we remember most about gaming. Of course, many games still work great if you just ignore some of the rules, but 7th Sea: Second Edition is meant to be a game built from scratch for the purpose of telling an elegant, cinematic tale of swashbuckling, sorcery, romance, intrigue, and adventure.
In conclusion, I think John Wick and his team took a huge risk by making such dramatic changes to this beloved game. However, while this might not be a system for grognards, it certainly is a masterpiece for the purposes of storytelling.
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