Product-Darkwood Adventure Arc #1- The Deft and the Deadly

Producer-Saga RPG

Price-~$13 available here

System-Pathfinder

TL; DR– A well done 1st product from a new company-90%

 

Basics– Welcome to Darkwood, Mudder.  Seeking either revenge, glory, or money, you and your friends stumble into Darkwood.  This is a town on the fringe where several powerful people (and not people) battle for dominance in a new world.  Can you make your name out here, or, will you end up face down in the mud you’re covered in?  This is the first adventure in a five part series.  Besides the adventure, the book provides large appendices on Darkwood, new items and diseases, example start characters, rules for coalition affiliations, NPCs, and a whole new world!

 

Fluff or Story– The people at Saga RPG put together a heck of a product for story.  Every part of the town gets a bit of writing.  All the shops have stories and a menu.  The main story is more sandbox and with linier sections.  This is to be expected as the characters are entering the world and have to be giving some quests to move them along, but eventually, the players are just told to have some fun and make some money in town.  It’s a lot of fun.  Aside from the main quest, the book covers a whole new world and its kingdoms.  That’s pretty ambitious for a new RPG company’s first product.  For less than a Paizo adventure product, you’re getting a higher page count of stories. I’m pretty intrigued on what going to happen over the course of this story. 5/5

 

Crunch or Mechanics-You don’t expect much mechanics from your standard adventure or a third party, but, these guys went above and beyond on this.  There are a new mechanics ranging from measuring faction relationships to a new god with two new domains.  Of course, there are new items and all the other standard things expected for a Pathfinder adventure, but, this comes from a third party.  It’s well done, thought out, and an excellent addition to the systems library. 5/5

 

Execution– Here is the ONLY place I have negative things to save about this product, and at WORST these guys are above average.  One thing I hate is recycled art.  These guys reuse the same art a few times across their first book.  The second thing I don’t like is there are some layout problems.  It opens a little slow on my iPad, but that’s ok.  However, there are some layout choices I would not have made for spacing.  That leads to the third problem I have-“text book problem”.  This book has A LOT to say.  The book moves from AMAZING depth in a town to a whole new WORLD.  That’s a lot of ground for one book to cover.  That said the book covers it in depth, but does so with more than just a few pages of just text.  That’s not the worst sin out there, but it makes this read a little like a text book in places.  I would have liked a bit more art to interrupt the text, grab your attention, and guide the reader’s eye.  But, I’d like to put that in perspective.  I am complaining about there being too much in this book.  3.5/5

 

Summary-This is a well done product.  If you’re tired of the Paizo product scene, this product is done well enough that is up there with a standard Paizo project with a compelling story and interesting additions to the system.  I would like a player handbook like the other Pathfinder products I’ve read, but, this product is already full enough.  My complains are in how this thing looks, not what it contains.  This is one of the best Pathfinder products I’ve seen in a while. 90%

 

Disclosure– I was provided a review copy of this product.

Game– Castles of Burgundy

Producer– Alee

Cost– ~$40

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-30 min per player (2-4 players)

TL;DR-Theme, instructions, and execution hurt excellent mechanics. 78%

 

Basics– Time to prove who the best duke is!  In Castles of Burgundy, players take the roles of different dukes trying to develop their land better than their rivals.  The game is divided into rounds and turns.  A round is five turns.  At the start of each round, new tiles are set out.  Tiles represent new places to build onto your kingdom.  At the start of each turn, new goods are delivered by ship to different locations on the main board, and, each player rolls two six sided dice.  Each turn players get to do up to three actions.  Two of these actions are controlled by dice, and, one is controlled by money.  With the dice, a player can get tiles from the main board, place tiles on their own board, sell goods, or get workers.  The main board has six spots for tiles representing different types of locations to develop.  By spending a die you can take a good from the main board in a section on the main board that matches your number and put it in your reserve. You can also spend a die and place a location on a section of your board that matches your die AND the type of location (town, field, castle, shipping, etc).  Thus placing tiles must match color and number.  When locations are placed you get extra effects that range from getting free tiles, placing tiles, points, or getting good from the main board.  The goods also have numbers ranging from one to six, so as an action, you can sell as many goods of the same number as the number you have on a die.  Each good is worth points and money.  The last action you can do with dice is spending them for workers.  Workers can be spent to change the number on a die by one, increasing or decreasing the number as desired.  The dice in this game are looped, so, a increasing a six by one makes the value a 1.  And, decreasing a 2 by two makes the value a 6.  Aside from the dice actions, a player can once per turn, spend two money to get a tile from the center board and place it in his/her supply.  The player can’t place the tile in his/her own board with money though.  After the 5 turns, the land tiles are removed, new tiles put out, and more goods added.  After 25 turns or 5 rounds, the game is over, and the player with the most points wins!

 

Mechanics– This is a really strange one, but it’s really awesome.  The game is a mix of complex and simple mechanics and ideas.  The game is also a mix of strategy and randomness.  Here’s the really strange thing:  it all “works!”  The workers make the randomness work.  Nothing to do with the dice you have?  Get workers and next time that happens you have options! You can create combos if you plan your tile placements well.  I never felt cheated by options I had or didn’t have because of the randomness or strategy.  Honestly, this game plays well and is a blast to sit down and play. 5/5

 

Theme-Here things fall a bit flat.  You’re royalty, but I never felt like I was royalty.  I enjoyed the game, but, that was more for the mechanics and less for the theme.  I did feel like I was developing a town and land, but it was a bit divorced from the royalty theme.  Theme is here, but, it’s not that amazingly strong. 3.5/5

 

Instructions-These instructions are not the best instructions I’ve ever read.  The get the point across, but I don’t think they do it well.  The first game we played, we only played 5 turns, not rounds, because we were all confused.  Some parts of the game the rules don’t do a good job of addressing important issues like how turn order works with shipping and who goes where on the board.  It’s not bad, but it’s not great. 3.5/5

 

Execution– The execution is fine, but not great.  The player boards are nice and well constructed.  The main board is well laid out.  The box comes with nice sections to divide the different types of tiles.  However, the box doesn’t really help you separate the different types of tiles that need to be separated since they are randomly drawn.  Maybe I think different then the creator, but, I ended up using Ziploc bags to keep that stuff separated.  Also, the tiles are small and somewhat hard to read.  And the iconography is hard to keep track of too.  Making this game a bit larger would have helped make this game that much better. 3.5/5

 

Summary– I liked this game.  It was fun and made me think in a bunch of different ways.  I played this game a few times with people ranging from 10 to 50 years old, so, the game is easy to play for a variety of ages.  It scales well for different amounts of players.  The major flaws come from a lacking theme, instructions needing a bit of work, and the some problems with execution.  None of those are exceptionally bad, but they are not good either.  But if you can look past those problems, then this will be a fun mix of randomness and strategy. 78%

 

Product- BareBones Fantasy

Producer- DwD Studios

Price- $10 Here as PDF

TL;DR- Rules lite, press your luck fun. 93%

 

Mechanics– BareBones Fantasy is a d100 extremely rules light RPG.  Let’s give this system a full run down.

 

Character Creation– Each player has four stats: strength, dexterity, wisdom, and logic that range from 35 to 100.  Players also choose a primary and a secondary class that ranges from clerics, fighters, scouts, wizards, thief or others.  Each class has an associated stat that is equal to the base stat divided by two.  You add extra to your primary class and a little less to your secondary classes as this represents some additional training of your character.  In addition, each player adds extra to one class that is chosen as their first rank or level.  Even if a player doesn’t choose fighter, scout, or thief, you calculate the scores for those classes as they serve as the default for several skills like attacking, perception, or stealth, respectively.  Spell casters also get to choose spells.  The system also has some built in role-playing mechanics with descriptors that provide opportunities for role-playing with experience benefits and moral code to help a player consider how their character would react in each different situation.

 

Dice Mechanics and Skills- This games dice mechanics is a mixture of push your luck and running a race by yourself.  Each turn a player gets two free actions: a move and an action.  The action ranges from looking for traps to attacking.  To do any action, a player tries to roll under either the class skill or ability stat with a d100.  While a character may get some penalties from attacking some enemies, the roll is largely dependent on the characters stats hence running a race against yourself.  To move further than their normal movement, the character tried to roll under their dexterity score.  To attack with a sword, a player rolls under their warrior-melee score.  To defend against this attack, a character or monster would roll under their strength or dexterity score.  The push your luck aspect comes from how many actions you want to perform each turn.  After the first free action each turn, a character may perform as many actions as they want, but each action adds a -20% modifier to the characters score.  Thus if a character had a warrior score of 70%, for first attack in the round, the player would need under a 70% to hit, the second, 50%, third, 30%, and fourth, 10%.  This presents and interesting press your luck aspect of this RPG.  Also, a factor to keep in mind, dodging is an action you talk off turn, so, if you want to dodge after that third attack from above, you would have a -60% to your skill since it would be your fourth action that turn!  Does your character think they can kill that dragon this turn with that fourth attack, or, should that character just save up some actions to dodge?  I love how this makes players think and choose!  Additional, some other aspects cause penalties like cover or disadvantage conditions that halves the score you must roll under.

 

Damage and Armor- The system only uses D10’s.  Weapon damage is all d10 based.  Short bow?  2d10 +1.  Longbow?  2d10 +3.   The interesting aspect of this game is all weapons are useable by all classes, but if your strength is too low, you lose one of the d10’s with that weapon.  For a longbow, if your strength is less than a 65, the longbow only does d10+3.   On the other side of damage, armor doesn’t add to your defense value, it subtracts from damage.  Also, since the system is largely classless, every character can wear all the armor types.  An elf wizard can wear full plate armor, however, if a character does not have a high enough strength score, then that character can’t move as far and can’t cast spells.  Man do I love more choice and freedom!

 

Spells-It wouldn’t be fantasy without spells.  Clerics, wizards, and enchanters all get access to spells.  A character gets to cast as many spells as they choose following the rules for attacks with increasing penalties for each spell cast after the first.  Each rank in the spell casting class provides gives increasing penalties to defend against the spell.

 

My thoughts- I really like this system.  It reminds me of old school DnD and Numenera.  It’s more rules heavy then Numenera but extremely rules light.  It takes 10 minutes to build a character even for four completely new players who have never even heard of the system before.  The push your luck aspect of the game is something new in an RPG.  I really enjoy the breath of fresh air that brings even at low levels.  It’s not perfect as the class that does negotiations isn’t a base classes so technically no one can do diplomacy until they have at least one rank in that class.  But the system is easy to play and easy to DM, perfect for a rules light RPG. 4.5/5

 

Theme- Its fantasy.  The base book is pretty easy to read, and has a bit of story and world.  I wouldn’t call it an epic setup for a world as its less than 10 pages, but I would put it above the Pathfinder base book.  It gives you ideas how to play and set up your worlds.  It does describe its own world, but that is a few pages. It’s an interesting world that gets fully fleshed out in the setting book for the system. 4.5/5

 

Execution-Let’s be honest, I bought this RPG for one reason-Its shaped like a comic book graphic novel.  There, I said it.  If you picked up the Rat Queens graphic novel and this book, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference.  This system was designed to be rules light and weight light.  Each book for this system is a quick, easy read that fits in standard comic book bag.  I LOVE this.  The outside of the book give this system an attraction that your standard Paizo/WotC books don’t have any more.  Paizo/DnD hardcovers are not bad, but, they are something that every system copies.  DwD Studios went a completely different direction and that really drew me in.  Inside the book is well written, easy to skim, and well designed.  If you get the PDF’s you get AWESOME character generation pages.  You honestly DON’T need the book to make a standard character with the quick rules summaries you get.  For a group starting out with one copy of the book, that’s wonderful and will encourage the group to play a lot and get more books. 5/5

 

Summary-If you want a really simple, rules light RPG that comes out of left field, you can’t go wrong with this one.  As a GM, I loved running this.  This system has few if any fiddly bits for an old school RPG.  My players loved the quick nature of this game as well as pushing their luck to the very limit.  In one game, I had a wizard try to cast a spell when she could only succeed on 9 or less.  That is pure fun.  The whole system’s cheap, and I met with the people who created the game.  They are great, local guys who are making an excellent product.  If you are looking for a quick game this weekend and want a new product to fill a void, give this a whirl.  I’ve liked what I’ve seen and I can’t wait to see what’s next. 93%