Quickie review by yours truly

[Eamon Voss]

Last night we tried out TROS.  Eric left his character sheet at work and so we had to do his character again.  I like how fast character creation is, and yet it still allows for a decent amount of customization.  Mike's girlfriend got him tickets to an Oriole's game so he cancelled at the last moment.  So that left just Eric and I.  We thought about inviting more people, but figured that it was better to try this new game with fewer people.

Eric couldn’t decide on a minor flaw, so I let him take ‘poor’.  This mean all he could afford was an old horse, non-plate armor, a few arms, and a single servant.  

Eric played a knight-errant who went to his first tournament.  He entered the pas de arms (melee) competition, and matched off against a guy armed with an arming sword and shield.  Eric brought in his handy poleax.  They fought.  It took about 5-10 minutes explaining how things should go.  Early on Eric got hit once, but the blow bounced off his chain mail shirt.  Then the system clicked, and Eric just owned the guy.  After pummeling the guy for a bit, the marshal called the fight on the third strong blow.

This was my first fight not using the simulator.  The system becomes very different when you aren’t determining what everyone does.

Eric then took a break.  During that time I had a cut-purse… well… cut his purse and run away.  Eric gave chase and tracked the guy off the tourney fields and into the nearby woods.  There the guy called for his accomplice, a big nasty guy armed with staff.  Eric didn’t back down from the peasant fighter, and the peasant fighter was willing to fight a lone Knight on foot.

Eric’s combat pool was 10 with armor (chain shirt, coif, and leather) and the staff fighter had 12 and just leather in a few spots.  Eric also had a toughness of 6, which saw him in good stead.

The bad guy took and offensive stance and Eric took a neutral stance.  They clashed, Eric parried the bash, but the bad guy got a vertical strike on Eric, a level 1 injury to the shoulder.  Thanks to Eric’s toughness and willpower, it didn’t bug him.  Eric jumped away on the second clash of blows.

Now things started again.  Eric said he jumped back to try and earn the initiative.  Now both fighters took aggressive stances.  Both threw down red dice.  Eric won the initiative and the bad guy tried to steal initiative and failed.  Eric pumped all 10 dice to the vertical shot, +2 for the aggressive stance, and –1 for length difference.  The result was quick, messy, and obviously lethal.

So far the combat system is loads of fun.  The basic mechanic is simple, almost like some trick-based card game, where you are allocating dice instead of cards.  The complexity comes with maneuvers, injury, weapon types, armor and other factors.  The maneuvers are easily explained to even people without any martial arts or fencing experience.  So even a person who knows little about combat can pull off the fancy moves if his warrior has the skills to do the trick.

The skill system was straightforward and utilitarian, much as expected.  The spiritual attributes we forgot about in our test.

Thoughts
I should have printed out the damage tables, and I wish they were described with something more descriptive than roman numerals.  

Toughness is the uber-attribute.  I limited my players to a 6.  Both have maxed it that high.  I think toughness should be defined as a gift or flaw instead of an attribute, since it is so useful to have. 5 = minor gift and 6 = major gift.

Besides the damage table issues and the amazing effectiveness of toughness in ignoring injury, I like the game.  I like it a lot.

[Valamir]

Couldn't say for sure but you might have made a slight mistake.

You only declare stance at the beginning of a combat, not before each round.  You only declare red or white dice at the beginning of a combat not before each round.  Each exchange the person with the initiative is the person who won the previous exchange (or tried to steal it).  The bonus for the stance occurs only for the very first exchange of the first round.

Only if there is a break in the action (such as with a Full Evasion) do you go back to declareing stances and dropping dice.

You might have been doing it that way, but the fight with the peasant sounded like maybe you were doing this every round.

[Eamon Voss]

Couldn't say for sure but you might have made a slight mistake.

You only declare stance at the beginning of a combat, not before each round.  You only declare red or white dice at the beginning of a combat not before each round.  Each exchange the person with the initiative is the person who won the previous exchange (or tried to steal it).  The bonus for the stance occurs only for the very first exchange of the first round.

Only if there is a break in the action (such as with a Full Evasion) do you go back to declareing stances and dropping dice.

You might have been doing it that way, but the fight with the peasant sounded like maybe you were doing this every round.

We were doing it as you say.  I was not explicit enough.  When Eric 'jumped clear', he did a successful Full Evasion.  Hence, we started with stances again.  Thanks for insisting on the clarification!

[Valamir]

Cool, just wanted to make sure it being the first time with actual dice and all.

Sounds like your player picked up the basic moves pretty quick.  It took me several fights to learn the joys of Full Evasion.  When he starts pulling nasty misdirection combos out at you then you'll know you're in trouble :-)

[Brian Leybourne]

Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun. Definately stress the SA's as your campaign takes off though, you'll find they're really the f\defining characteristic of the game.

I should have printed out the damage tables, and I wish they were described with something more descriptive than roman numerals.

You wish what was described descriptively? If you mean the locations, that comes after you roll the D6.. the Roman numeral merely determines what angle you're swinging at or approx. where you're thrusting.

Printing out the hit tables is an excellent idea, also if you have a laptop you can keep nearby as you play, try out the Damage Tables Reference Program on the webpage. You can bring up any damage table with a click of your mouse on the TROSman figure.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

I think he means that the location was "downward diagonal slash/bash" instead of "Zone IV." Me too.

Jake

[Brian Leybourne]

I think he means that the location was "downward diagonal slash/bash" instead of "Zone IV." Me too.

Jake

Hell, that's the way we play it anyway. If a player of mine said he was "attacking zone 4 with 5 dice" I would just tell him he missed. On the other hand "With a wild scream of rage I bring my arm up and over in a classic vertical roundhouse and bring my sword down diagonally at his left side, with 5 dice" gets the big thumbs up.

If, as Seneschal, you encourage your players by getting descriptive like that, they'll come to the party.

Just my 2c.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

Amen to that. Only around here, we run it with the German names for the cuts... ;-D

Jake

[Eamon Voss]

I think he means that the location was "downward diagonal slash/bash" instead of "Zone IV." Me too.

Exactly as Jake says.  We played again last night.  The damage charts were not an issue, the use of roman numerals instead of 'Left shoulder area' to identify an area was.

Also, no one likes the character sheet much.  Landscape is hated amongst our group.  Hopefully I'll be able to convince one of my players to design a sheet more to our liking.

But these are all minor complaints.  This game is a huge success in our group!  Thanks Driftwood!

[Lance D. Allen]

One thing I will say.. Is that an attack to Zone IV isn't ALWAYS a downward diagonal cut/bash. It could also be a sideways cut/bash to the head or neck.

Generally that's what I do...

"I'm throwing 8 dice into it, and I'm gonna try and cut his bloody head off!" Right. 8 dice, zone IV.

[Eamon Voss]

One thing I will say.. Is that an attack to Zone IV isn't ALWAYS a downward diagonal cut/bash. It could also be a sideways cut/bash to the head or neck.

Generally that's what I do...

"I'm throwing 8 dice into it, and I'm gonna try and cut his bloody head off!" Right. 8 dice, zone IV.

Why do we have to go with zone IV instead of 'Diagonal strike'?  Why not go with the more verbose explanation?

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I still like what my apartment does. we all have been to arma at one point or another and we use the phrase "zornhau" for zone 4, it sounds more funthis way. We also some times name our counters when we know them.... its fun.

[Lance D. Allen]

Why do we have to go with zone IV instead of 'Diagonal strike'?  Why not go with the more verbose explanation?

Because it's NOT always a diagonal strike. As I said, it can easily be a horizontal strike, or even a vertical strike for the shoulder. It's location, rather than direction. It could be called Shoulder/neck/head, left and right side just as well. But a rose by any other name...

Call it what you want, so says I.

[Eamon Voss]

Because it's NOT always a diagonal strike. As I said, it can easily be a horizontal strike, or even a vertical strike for the shoulder. It's location, rather than direction. It could be called Shoulder/neck/head, left and right side just as well. But a rose by any other name...

Call it what you want, so says I.

Ah... I see your point.  I failed my MA check I suppose in reading your post.  ;)

Anyway, we'll probably come up with something we like and use that.  As house rules go, renaming something like this is nothing.

Speaking of which, my wife plans to use the TROS rules for her Ars Magica game!  Both for melee and certamen!  Hooray!  She did a Godlike conversion a while back, but after trying the game out she wants melee to have that TROS fun element added to it.