Product– The Hidden Isle

System- The Hidden Isle

Producer– Causa Creations

Price– On kickstarter now!  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/causacreations/the-hidden-isle  

TL; DR– Renaissance painting mixed with Vampire the Masquerade and Euchre!  93%

Basics–  CONSULT THE CARDS!  The Hidden Isle is a very rules light RPG where the heroes are agents of Dioscoria, a city, and are being sent on quests based on a seer’s visions.  The cards rule the day as they are both the dice and the random draw that helps develop the story the players are working through.  Let’s look at the basics.

Base mechanics- The Hidden Isle is very much a narrative game and the base mechanic builds on this.  Each character gets dealt two tarot cards at the start of the game.  When a character attempts an action, the character is deal more tarot cards based on the action and their Stats and the GM is dealt cards based on the difficulty.  The GM and the character then select a card and the higher card in the suite of the action determines who wins.  Simple and quick! 

Stats-  Each of the four major tarot suites is trump for each action a player wants to do.  Swords is for fighting and study, wands is for reckless action and magic, cups for stealth and healing, and pentacles for finesse and observation.  If you play a low value card in the right suit and the GM throws a high value card off suit, you win!  Each character has a level in each of these stats and this determines how many cards they are delt when a character does anything.  In addition, other characters can throw cards into the pool when you do an action.  These cards can change suit so you can be in the correct suit for the action or adding three to the value of a card the player played.  In addition, as you do things and get hurt, you take penalties to your stats and draw fewer cards when you do anything.

Ideals and Burdens and Vices and Virtues-  This is a VERY narrative game.  One way this is represented is ideals and burdens.  If you act up to an ideal, you draw fewer cards but gain a bonus to your card value.  If you give in to a burden, you gain additional cards.  In both cases you gain experience, which you will then use to build up additional abilities or increase stats later. Vices and Virtues also follow these rules but you do not gain experience.

Magic-Magic functions just like any other skill.  A player has ranks in a magical ability and then draws cards equal to the ranks in that ability.  How big and awesome the spell means more cards for the GM to draw to determine if the spell succeeds.

Abilities and classes-This is a very rules and crunch light system, but there are still special abilities each character gets based on their chosen class.  Each character gets two abilities at the start.  These range from simple spells like Whisper, which lets you whisper into a creature’s mind directly, to other spells that just straight up kill a few creatures and possibly cause you to get take damage after.

Adventures-  Adventures follow a pretty simple yet expandable outline.  Characters have downtime where their vices give them 1 harm, friendships change, and the characters can do different actions around Dioscoria.  Then the seer receives a vision as tarot cards are drawn.  Next the players have their adventure.  And finally the adventure wraps up.

Ok, thats the basics, let’s review!

Mechanics or Crunch– This is a fun game, but it is extremely rules light.  This is a game for people who don’t need the crunch.  There is fun to be had here, but if you just want to roll a twenty sided die and smash an orc, this might not be for you.  If you want to weave a tale with your friends as the fates help you see threat, then this is the game for you.  There is some crunch, but even the base random mechanic is VERY story based as you literally draw fate cards and see what happens.  The characters have mechanics, but this is not a character toy based system.  Your abilities are cool, but not the standard DnD “gain a feat every three levels” or “spell every level” idea that some players may want.  It’s what can your mind do.  Not bad, but something you MUST keep in mind if you play this.  4.5/5

Theme or Fluff–  This is a Renaissance painting come to life.  The story is defending the mystical land of Dioscoria and the authors say it’s in the Renaissance.  Maybe it’s because I played too much Hades, but the art makes me think of Greece.  Then again all the Grecian art I can think of is Renaissance, so it tracks!  While the mechanics might drive a few away, the mechanics flow beautifully into the theme of the game.  It’s tarot and story, telling a tale.  The art in the book is good and even the just placeholder art in the free to play/pay what you want version is well done and tells the tale of a renaissance Mission Impossible group saving the day from visions seen in the cards.  5/5

Execution–  This will be amazing, but a few fixes are needed.  The pay what you want game has a solo game, all kinds of story toys, base mechanics, and even an adventure you can try out with your gaming group.  It’s layed out well and reads well.  The art and placeholder art is fantastic.  What isn’t fantastic is NO HYPERLINKS!  Fix that and this whole thing is easily a five out of five.  4.5/5

Summary– I like this RPG, but can’t recommend this universally.  If your group wants to try what other styles of RPGs are out there and see what kind of fun they can make up together, then this is an amazing product for them.  I also have a few friends who just want dungeon crawls and stabby stabby the goblins.  They don’t like narrative things, so for those groups I would not think this is the game they want.  If you are ok with more wishy washy rules and letting the GM have strong influence on determination of how things go and how hard they are, then you will be ok here.  If you need straight cut rules on what is and is not acceptable, then this isn’t your game.  Honestly, I love this one.  I like a bit more crunch in my RPGs, but a bit of the Vampire the Masquerade side of gaming is fun.  I also live in Michigan and my wife collects tarot cards, so Euchre is a mainstay and tarot is a fun addition to the RPG space.  My one nitpick is the lack of hyperlinks in the PDF, but this is based on a pay what you want copy that even the authors are putting out for a two bucks suggestion.  And it’s a steal for that!  I strongly suggest you check this out if more narrative RPGs are up your alley!  97%