Product– Distal RPG

System- Distal RPG

Producer– Wrel

Price– free here https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/wrel/distal 

TL; DR– DCC and DnD5e had a more realistic baby!  93% 

Basics– For Edervale!  Distal is a new RPG currently being kickstarted.  The writer has provided a MASSIVE preview that includes a lot of character options, several pregens, and even a short adventure.  Let’s break it down for a review. 

Basics- This is a d20 rpg.  You have five statistics and a combination of 20 skills and knowledges.  When you want to do anything, it’s D20 plus the statistic for checks or D20 plus the statistics and the bonus for the knowledge or skill.  That’s it.  Common things are a DC8 most are a DC10, and things can get EXTREMELY hard with some things being a DC22.

Dice steps- Like DCC RPG, this system uses dice steps.  Distal sticks to normal dice with the dice chain being d4-d6-d8-d10-d12.  No funky dice here!

Character creation- This system has a ton of options and a ton of randomness if you want it.  Characters choose a race/lineage and a class.  There is also a background.  Backgrounds provide what you would expect:  additional skills, items, and knowledges based on the life events you experienced.  What makes them interesting is you can also randomly roll on several charts to randomly build a background!  No traveler death during character creation though!

Combat- Combat is round based, but not based on your normal initiative score.  After the GM determines who has the drop on the other side, each side does one action, then the other side does an action, alternating between the two.  Characters get the expected actions in a combat round with a move, an action, and smaller things like techniques that are quick actions.  In addition to the checks above, characters have an attack bonus based on their class, and it’s just D20 plus that bonus to attack.  Damage is dice based like DnD with bonuses based on your statistics.  The interesting change here is damage reduction with armor.  Armor doesn’t really provide a bonus to defense, but reduces damage taken.  Each armor provides a damage reduction die.  If you roll a 1 on that die, then you don’t reduce much damage and the die gets one step smaller.  Go too small and the armor is completely broken!

Willpower-  Characters have willpower dice as part of their character class.  These dice are gained at the start of combat and through other events, or as my favorite:  story candy and buying the GM beer.  When a character wants to add just an extra bit of extra to a D20 roll, a character can spend willpower and roll their willpower die to add the result to their total.

Magic- Magic is very similar to DnD5e.  Characters either prepare spells once a day or know so many depending on their level.  In either case, the caster can cast so many a day depending on their level and then they are out for the day.  Characters might not be able to cast a lot of spells, but spells are extremely powerful with the ability to easily kill a first level character straight out!

Death- Death is PERMANENT!  There is no resurrection.  If your guy dies, hes dead!  You do get deathmarks, however.  When you drop to zero hit points, you begin to die and take a deathmark.  These build up as you continue to die and each time you fall down again.  You can remove some as you relax, but get too many and eventually you will not be able to get back up again, EVER!

Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.

Mechanics or Crunch–  This is an interesting RPG.  It is not a copy of either DCC or DnD5e.  It is VERY close to both, but in good ways.  It’s not brutal nor gritty, but it is more realistic as damage hurts bad and death is close.  The mechanics are simple.  Maybe a bit too simple and you don’t get a ton of skills, but that’s by design.  Combat is not too simple, but simple enough to make the game flow easily. Overall, it’s good, but not the most original RPG this year.  4.5/5

Theme or Fluff–  The fluff of this world is interesting.  The preview doesn’t provide everything for good reason, but what is presented is good.  It might not be the most original setting as it feels like many of the classic RPG setting pieces I know and love.  It sticks with the more usual suspects like undead, monsters, and dudes with militaries being the bad guys, but those are fun things to smack back into place to save the world.  Not the most original setting, but still a fun place to play. 4.5/5

Execution– This is a solid preview.  There an OVER 100 PAGE document showing the system and world WITH HYPERLINKS!  There is a full adventure with at least four premade characters.   This is exactly what I want when I see a new RPG kickstarter.  It’s new, but shows what’s to expect.  I love what I’m seeing, AND IT’S ALL FOR FREE!.  5/5

Summary– Used to love DnD5e and I love DCC.  This RPG is a solid mix of those two right down the middle.  Simple mechanics with just a D20 plus numbers, but skills and knowledges for all.  A simple world where there are bad guys and how the world addresses that.  It’s the most new in any category, but it is done well.  I can already see the first source book as the one group is summoning undead and those undead are running around, and I didn’t see a player character undead race.  Given what I’ve seen, this will turn out to be a solid RPG that will get my silly friends to be a bit more serious and my serious friends to play a bit more loose!  93%