[LBI] Legends of Blood and Iron - Constructive Comments Requested.

[Badelaire]

Hello all.

I'm a (very) new member to The Forge, although I have looked over various threads and topics from time to time over the last few years.  I will admit that I have not followed through the development of many of the systems discussed here, but the wealth of creativity I've seen here is very encouraging.

With that in mind, I've finally decided to offer up my own humble work for review by the members of The Forge.  I've been working on this off and on for a few years now, and I've run a couple of playtesting sessions (which have worked well so far).  My friends and fellow gamers seem relatively happy with the product as it is, and now it's time to pass it along to those who will have a more objective viewpoint.

My RPG is a very loose, laid-back "Sword and Sorcery" adventure game I've titled Legends of Blood and Iron.  The goal of this game is to provide a system that is relatively light on rules (and very quick to pick up) but with a good deal of genre flavor and an end goal of fun.  The game isn't really supposed to be a "gimmick" or "satire" game, but it should be played with a wink and a grin and should not be taken too awfully seriously (especially the "Introduction to the Genre" - I'm sure there are those who'll disagree with it...but please save the genre discussions for later).  This is the sort of game you should be able to sit down to after a hard day's work at the office, with beer in one hand and dice in the other, surrounded with like-minded friends who just want a few hours of light, fun, adventurous entertainment.

I have no intent to "publish" this game beyond a few .pdf files on my website, so in the end, I'll just be happy if my friends and I enjoy the game and are entertained.  But I would like to get feedback of any kind from a larger community, since I am fairly proud of my work and I'd like to see it developed to its full potential.

So, here it is.  This is the link to the "home page", and from there you'll find three links - one to the Core Rules, one for the PC Character sheet, and one for the Quick-Start rules. 

http://people.bu.edu/jbuchr/lbi/lbi.html

I apologize in advance for the lack of real artwork - I've got a couple of gifted friends I'm going to work with in order to get some flavor art developed.  You'll also note that there aren't rules for Sorcery - a problem in a "Sword and Sorcery" RPG, but I am working on those at the moment.  I've got some ideas that I'll share if there's any interest here.  A bestiary is also in the works, with about 15 creatures statted up so far - I'll post a copy of that when it's more substantial.

And I also apologize in advance for any spelling and gramatical errors you might encounter.  I've edited it a few times but, of course, there are always errors that go overlooked until it gets handed to someone new for the first time.  Please be kind if you find them, but feel free to point them out via PM and I'll fix them ASAP.

What would I like from The Forge?

- How quickly do you feel the rules can be picked up?  Do they make sense as written, or are you confused by them?  I especially want to know if people feel they can grasp the concepts like the Fortune and Legend dice and the way the Action Dice work during combat.

- What's your feeling on character creation and development?  I envision this as a very episodic game, the sort of game you play perhaps once a month to burn off steam and have a few laughs.  Therefore characters start the game pretty buff - I liken a new PC to perhaps a 9th level D&D character - good at what they do, but maybe a little limited in scope.  New characters can also be drawn up and thrown in with more seasoned characters without suffering from lack of play-time.  Games would be run in such a way that an indeterminate amount of time and distance can lay between adventures, so a character would determine wealth (and buy up gear) anew each adventure.

- How do you feel it reflects the genre?  And I'm not talking about just the "canon" works, but the lighter (and lamer) stuff as well.  Games should be able to span the genre from the original works of Howard and Lieber to the later follow-ups like Gardner Fox and his Kothar stories or the multi-authored Richard Blade series, right into near-satire movie madness like Beastmaster II and Barbarian Queen. 

Anyhow, I leave my baby in your hands.  Please be kind and don't hand it back in (too many) pieces.  All constructive comments will be appreciated, and thank you for your time.

[David Berg]

- How quickly do you feel the rules can be picked up?  Do they make sense as written, or are you confused by them?  I especially want to know if people feel they can grasp the concepts like the Fortune and Legend dice and the way the Action Dice work during combat.

I just finished reading the quick-start rules, and skimming the core rules.  My impressions:
- The layout, organization, and writing make it easy to understand.
- The rules themselves are a bit more complex and multi-step than I would have assumed given your stated intent of "light on rules and easy to pick up".  There's a fair amount of adding and subtracting and comparing.
- Fortune dice make sense to me; the name says it all.  It reminds me of Luck scores in other games, which serve to emphasize and/or account for the difference between PC and "normal folks".
- The use of Legend dice seems less intuitive to me.  Am I missing some rules which regulate their use?  My first impression is that they just add to certain kinds of rolls whenever you want them to, so whenever you think you might need them, you might as well use them.  If so, that seems like a fairly mundane part of a PC's abilities, and not very "legendary".

- How do you feel it reflects the genre?  And I'm not talking about just the "canon" works, but the lighter (and lamer) stuff as well. 

I like the style of your writing.  The captions are colorfully worded and effective.

It does seem to me, however, that your description of the genre and your emphasis on larger-than-life heroism make two of your four character classes (tradesman and scholar) incongruous.

A typo: "What are the major tenants of the sword & sorcery genre?" should read "What are the major tenets of the sword & sorcery genre?".

[Badelaire]

Thanks very much for your input.  I'll respond below point for point.

- The rules themselves are a bit more complex and multi-step than I would have assumed given your stated intent of "light on rules and easy to pick up".  There's a fair amount of adding and subtracting and comparing.

That's a fair comment.  I suppose when I think "light" I'm thinking light compared to GURPS, Palladium, D20, Chivalry & Sorcery...older games filled with charts and tables and dozens of specific-case rules and modifiers.  The Dice+Value vs. Dice+Value is, as you say, multi-step, but they are pretty small steps.  And at least half of all the rolls the PC is going to make are going to be just "Roll, get above XX to succeed".  As for combat it's a litte more involved, since you divide up your Action dice and figure in damage and armor values, but even people who hadn't see the game an hour before were slicing and dicing away just fine after their first or second opponent.  Also, the rules are (at least I feel) simple enough that the GM can do all the figuring, freeing the players from having to worry about it.  The player need only give the result of their roll and what their damage value is for that particular weapon.

Either way, so far in playtest it has appeared simple enough that people who hadn't been exposed to it before can get into it quickly enough.  I could always make it less granular, but right now it sits at a level of detail I'm comfortable with.

- Fortune dice make sense to me; the name says it all.  It reminds me of Luck scores in other games, which serve to emphasize and/or account for the difference between PC and "normal folks".

Yup.  Fortune lets any PC achieve a potentially limitless result on any roll they make, and it makes a big difference.  Not only does it make PCs essentially one skill-step better than a comparable opponent, it allows for those "Wow!" results - the knife thrown across the room that goes right through the guard's eye, the stealth roll that lets the PC ghost right through the meditation chamber without being noticed by a dozen acolytes...fun stuff like that.

- The use of Legend dice seems less intuitive to me.  Am I missing some rules which regulate their use?  My first impression is that they just add to certain kinds of rolls whenever you want them to, so whenever you think you might need them, you might as well use them.  If so, that seems like a fairly mundane part of a PC's abilities, and not very "legendary".

I will admit, half the reason they're called "Legend Dice" is that it just jives well with the name of the game.

In the system, Legend Dice have four effects.  During character creation, they serve as "freebie" points that you can sprinkle here and there to fill in any gaps you see in your character's abilities.  During play, you can spend a die, roll it, and multiply it with the Fortune roll.  This can pretty easily double the results of your character's action, especially since the Fortune roll has no upper limit.  In our last playtest, one character made a vital kill with a silver sling-bullet because they made a terrible roll with their skill dice, but got a total of 16 on their Fortune (two 6's and a 4), and spent a Legend die to blow that out to a 48 (she rolled a 3).  That one Legend die result probably made the difference between someone living and dying.

Their second in-game use is to grant more Action Dice - you can spend one, roll it, and gain 1-6 more dice for that combat round.  Since your average die pool for combat-character types is going to be 8-12 dice, that's pretty good.  Finally (and this isn't in the QS rules, sorry) you gain Legend Dice at the end of each session as your "experience".  A good yardstick for this would be a single die for a completed session, two dice if it was a really exciting, balls-to-the-wall adventure (essentially everyone really got into it and put some effort behind having fun), and an extra die for those PCs who really pulled off some exceptional actions during the game - so between one and three Legend Dice a session, depending on how things go.  Players can then save them to use during gameplay, or store them up in order to raise skills / stats / whathaveyou. 

If you still think that's rather mundane for something called "Legend Dice", fair enough.  I'm more than willing to entertain ways in which their use (primarily during gameplay) can be made more impressive.

It does seem to me, however, that your description of the genre and your emphasis on larger-than-life heroism make two of your four character classes (tradesman and scholar) incongruous.

After reading this last night, I've been pondering the fate of those two archetypes.  Scholar, I think, must stay - he's the only archetype (as I see things right now) that can become a Sorcerer (at least one of any real power).  There can also be room for your academic adventurer - think a slightly more stuffy Indiana Jones, or Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1.  The Scholar might want to avoid fighting, but the character creation system is forgiving enough to let you make a sword-swinging, armor-wearing, sneakinng-climbing-singing Scholar character.  My first playtest session, one of the three characters was a Scholar, and he was the only one to win an added Legend Die after the game, because of his clever and careful use of his Action dice to win a rough fight outnumbered.

On the other hand, the fate of the Tradesman is less certain.  I invision them as characters who have (or who had) other professions, but through luck and circumstance have become embroiled in some adventure.  Tradesmen are where you'd find Jasmina the Larcenous Dancing Girl, or Zaphir the Oily Merchant-Spy, or Daenar the Forest Mystic.  But, in the end, I can see that it would be the lame duck archetype - picked only because someone's character concept didn't quite fit into one of the other three. 

I could, without too much difficulty, just boil things down to Warrior, Rogue, and Scholar.  Take the four skill categories and meld them into three categories.  Players pick their Primary skill set, which gets 20 dice, and the other two sets get 10 apiece.  It would make the archetypes stand out a little more, but you could still spend a few Legend dice here and there if you wanted to beef up a few skills.  This, I think, would trim a little bit of the fat off the system.

A typo: "What are the major tenants of the sword & sorcery genre?" should read "What are the major tenets of the sword & sorcery genre?".

Gah - how embarassing.  Thanks for pointing it out though - I'm fixing it as this posts.  I'm sure, sadly, that it won't be the last.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to give LBI a look-over.  Your comments have given me plenty to think about - it's alway good to have another mind chew things over.