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Ring Side Report- RPG review of MythCraft Core Rulebook
Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!
Product- MythCraft Core Rulebook
System- MythCraft
Producer- QuasiReal House
Price- $9.95 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/460856/mythcraft-core-rulebook?affiliate_id=658618
TL; DR-New and old combine to make a fun D20 game. 90%
Basics- Welcome to the world of Ancerra! MythCraft is a kickstarter from last year that works via several talents and a base system you already know if you played most other DnD style games. Let’s look at how the system works.
Base Mechanics- This is d20+attribute for attacks and D20+attribute+skill ranks for skills. You attack with a sword? Add your Strength to that d20. You shoot a bow? Add your Dexterity to that d20. You know it, I know it, and we both love it.
Attributes- each level you gain +1 attribute point. Your bonus in an attribute can NEVER be more than half your level +1. So a sixth level fighter can’t have a strength greater than +4. It’s easy enough to keep track of and familiar enough to be easily applied.
BOP-Characters are built from a Background, Occupation, and a Profession…. and a lineage. Lineage is your race. You gain features at specific levels that are lineage specific. The lineages range from your standard human to constructs to even undead and kind of robot people. Backgrounds give you skills you can put points into and occupations it should lead into, and professions are the job you do for money and it provides additional skills and bonuses. Both professions and occupations deal with tags. Tags are information that the game uses to identify important things and prerequisites for bonuses.
Classes- At second level you can choose a class and here is where the game REALLY opens up. There are over 10 classes. These classes have different paths that lead to different talents that give you different abilities. This game uses talents for lots of different abilities and honestly you could use the word feat from DnD and Pathfinder and you would completely understand what the game means. But unlike the strategic direction that DnD 5e went in to avoid feat trees, this game leans HARD into feat trees for the different classes and subclasses within each.
Skills- Your background provides you with a number of skill points, and skill and subskill options you can spend those points on. You gain skills each level as well. The amount of skill points you can put in each skill is limited by your background.
Combat-All the normal things you know and love for combat are here. You roll initiative at the start of combat but it's based on your awareness attribute instead of Dexterity or Perception. BUT here is where MythCraft separates itself from other games in the DnD space. Each action takes action points. Instead of DnD’s Move, Minor, Standard or Pathfinders three actions, each character gets three action points and more based on your coordination attribute up to 8. Each action you do takes different action point costs. Some spells cost one point while some might cost over four! Stab someone with a dagger will be two points, while some things like a Greataxe are eight minus your strength score, minimum four. You may need to build up to the big boy big toys that do massive damage, but a nimble elf with a dagger might get four solid dagger strikes in a turn. If you hit the armor score, you do damage via rolling different sized dice.
Magic-Magic is more akin to Final Fantasy in this game. You get spells via talents and classes, but you don't prepare spells like in DnD or Pathfinder. You have your pool of points, and you spend those points as well as action points to cast spells. You can cast the same spell all day long as long as you have the points you need for it.
Ok, Let’s do my thoughts.
Mechanics or Crunch-This game is different and the same at the same time. The D20 system and its children are alive and well. It’s put to good use here being both new and old at the same time. It’s easy to pick up, but not a carbon copy of 5e, 4e, 3.5, or Pathfinder. It is easy and fun to play. I don't know if most people will get to level 30 and have a crazy high coordination to get those crazy turns, but it is an interesting game where you get to do all kinds of different actions or the same action. 5 /5
Theme or Fluff- My complaint about this game is there is a lot here, but not enough story about the world. The different character options provide a story, but there is not enough about the world as a whole to draw me in. The races all have backgrounds that are cool and intriguing. The classes have story in them and the art makes you see what they are. The gods and pantheons are all interesting. But, there is not a world story in this book. You get that there is some planet you are playing on and there is some fantasy things happening like demons bad, but beyond that I have no idea who’s doing what. I want to know more, but give me more in this book. There's awesome here, but I need more. 4 /5
Execution- This book makes interesting design decisions that alternate between paying off and not quite getting there. First, the simple issue of too many different words for the same thing. You have talents and features. Just call them one thing and give them different tags. This game gives out lots of tags to label stuff that’s important. Good, so just have talents with tags for the linages and say you can take them at different levels. It’s what Pathfinder does and it works. The book has several pages with introductions of each class and a picture. It then says go to page XX to see all the class stuff. That’s cool! Those pages are several pages of words explaining each talent. That’s boring, but needed since this is a feat based game. Then after all the feats, the book has each feat tree for each subclass. Honestly I would put those in between each class to show how the different talents/feats have different requirements for each other. I love the diagrams and don't even mind if they are not hyperlinked inside the pictures. But breaking up 50 pages of text with some pictures will help your readers. Otherwise, this book does the job well, though with a few minor issues. 4.5/5
Summary- This book is someone's labor of love and how they see d20 RPGs being played. It’s close enough to your old D20 favorites that you will learn how to get playing fast. It’s also different and has enough options that you won't call this a simple clone of any other game out there. Its issues are in the execution, with a few choices that I feel need a bit more work to reach perfection, and a lack of world story that I feel other books will address. I just wish they were in this one! If you don't want to play another 5e game but want the simplicity of the math, and you don't want Pathfinder but want the flexibility of the action mechanics, Then this is the game you and your group should pick up. 90%
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