1/6/2024 0 Comments Struggle session hbomberguy![]() It’s effective and doesn’t overstay its welcome. There’s a brief intro to the generic assumed setting being defended towns surrounded by ruins of past great civilizations and goblins and Things That Go Bump in the night. This is the first chapter and it’s your general introduction to RPGs and whatever, but it’s done in a pretty good way so I want to mention that and give it props.Īlso it’s dedicated to the author’s mother who has passed away and, hey, if you’re gonna dedicate a book, even one about pretending to be elves with scurvy, that’s a pretty good thing to dedicate to where I come from. Torchbearer! The Light Of Civilization Flickers I hope someone writes something before I finish posting this cause I don't want to double-post. The Light Of Civilization Flickers posted by Xiahou Dun Original SA post (Although in my experience it’s much faster in play.)Īnyway, welcome to my dungeon full of spiders! And also cholera. It’s just really, really dense and takes a while to click. It took me like 3 tries to get the system when I first read it and I read Noam Chomsky professionally. I’m gonna be going through it section by section as presented but I’ll jump around a bit to help make things clear. Like, it’s not badly written it’s just a lot. Just a heads up : I’m gonna try to be as clear as I can in this review, but this game is crunchy (drink!) as hell and super dense. And the book mentions that Riddling doesn’t get penalties for being in the dark. All conflicts are basically resolved the same or at least in parallel, whether they’re fighting or debating or fleeing or riddling. The system is quite abstract (drink!), with alternating between different phases that I’ll outline as we get to them (adventure, camp, town, winter, etc.), but basically everything is a die-pool of d6s where 4+ is a success and everything else isn’t, modified by some situational stuff and you need to get a certain number of successes. You’re basically making life hell for your players, but in a very structured way that is designed to give tense conflict and not a TPK. You remember how D&D 4e encounter design actually did, you know, math so you could kind of be a dick DM and really go after your players but be sure that the math worked out and they’d be okay in the end so it was cool? Or like the first time you played a *World game and got the GM rules that you really were a fan of the players but also the system told you to stir shit up and cause drama? It’s a very similar feeling. It’s gonna be a hard scrabble for the PCs, but when they get through it and they win, it feels amazing. And it has a lot of mechanics to back that up. It really wants you to be grimey and gross (no not like in a weird piss-wizard way the good part of “grim dark”). Fucking love the stuff! But this ain’t that game. I really love making my players feel like being big damn heroes. My players asked me if everything was okay at home.Īnd I’m not a gross groggy GM. The first game I ran, about halfway through, I informed the party that they were Hungry and Thirsty, their torch had run out and they needed to light a new one, and that the elf was Sick. It has combat sure, but it might as well also be an RPG for playing through the plot of The Hatchet. You will spend a lot of time thinking about the logistics. You have to not go hungry because, hey, being hungry gives you stat penalties. You will track every minute bit of inventory on an abstract (drink!) little paper doll on your character sheet. You will track individual torches and how long they last. It is entirely unapologetic in being Fantasy Fukken Vietnam. My go to elevator pitch for this game is if The Things They Carried had goblins. It’s like conceptual peanut butter : crunchy abstract. It’s working off of the Burning Wheel engine, like Mouse Guard, but is a bit more crunchy. Torchbearer is an RPG by Thor Ovalsrud that is basically a love letter to old school dungeon crawling, but is also coming from a more narrative style. (Note bene : I’m unemployed and have like super mega-death depression so updates will be at an unknown frequency.) O fuck it let’s just get this puppy rolling. Fantasy Fukken Vietnam posted by Xiahou Dun Original SA post
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