Bylina & Bogatyr by Jared Sorensen gets itself a Runner-Up, even if it is, as accused by someone close to the Great Man, merely the result of a high-yield Google search.

As noted by a few people already, this one illustrates a surprising use of the terms, excluding "Soviet" better than anything I could imagine, and also demonstrating that obviously, centuries of Russian folklore clearly prefigured post-millenial RPG design in some sort of precognitive way. "Write an RPG involving dragons and mud, without any hint of guns or Soviet-ness." Again, clearly the foundation for the answer was carefully constructed by many a babushka over many, many years, ultimately to reach its fruition in a variety of internet images and text pieces, awaiting the right Google search to be carried out by J. A. Sorensen, Esq.

In the game, though, the excellent concept of mud, combining myth, theme, and system, is weakest in the latter. It just doesn't do enough to merit a central role, and furthermore, healing damage is kind of boring no matter how effective it might be. Mud doesn't kick off anything else interesting.

I'm having a little trouble with how the dice are rolled. If it's always three, well and good, but there's a section of text which refers to rolling one or two, and it confused me terribly. For example, rolling one die gives you a 50% chance of success! I tried to look at it as if adding dice above three means you get to choose which three, but that still didn't help the problem with the text. So I reluctantly realized that although I understood the "roll a multiple of three," I didn't understand just how dice are wrangled relative to scores and values in the game. Damn - can't play.

Another problem, and this one is (ouch!) in the reward system: the Legend Point part of Gifts is redundant, even boring. I suggest that this mechanic be used to spark scenarios instead, Kicker-style.

I really wanted to see a Ronny for this one, based on the concept alone, but the system issues flattened me. I do want to play it, but as it stands, there's just a wee too much rewriting necessary.

Best,
Ron

Oh yeah!

It so happens that during the November submittal period, I ran my own searches on the various combinations of terms, and I am mightily grieved that no one saw fit to write a "soviet gun" game based on this. Jared, talk about your missed opp!

Best,
Ron

Ron.

You're not allowed to post anymore.

Sincerely,

The Internet