Okay, so the book is out. Now's the part where Brian and I hold our breath and say "Whaddyathink?"

So, what do you think?

Jake

Hef are nasty. Even more nasty then before. Great-Ape HEF? Yeah, a product of a twisted mind.


Yours.

:-)

Actualy, so far it looks great.

THIS THING IS A STINKING PIECE OF......!!!


No actually this is really great I like it alot!!!!!!

Good work and Kudos to everyone who made this!!!

Thanks,
SMB

It is definitely a slick product. I think the layout is nice, the art is very good, as well as the creature entries. The creature hit tables are especially useful. My only gripe is the text in some areas seems fuzzier if you know what I mean. But that is just a small complaint. Overall an A product.

The text in the tables is a hair fuzzier because of download size--those tables are all images, not text proper. If it's a serious problem I can supply larger files at a later date. The current ones do print fine, however.

The print version is crisp as can be, the file weighing in at 345MB!

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: The text in the tables is a hair fuzzier because of download size--those tables are all images, not text proper. If it's a serious problem I can supply larger files at a later date. The current ones do print fine, however.

The print version is crisp as can be, the file weighing in at 345MB!

Jake

While I haven't seen the product at all, I must ask you Jake -- why did you choose to make images out of the tables? What application has been used for the page layout? :) Just a question...

Lebo77 wrote: Hef are nasty. Even more nasty then before. Great-Ape HEF? Yeah, a product of a twisted mind.

First impression, having the option for a 'no-art' pdf would have been welcome, as it would have cut the file size, download time, and printing cost without detracting from the overall impact.

Too many 'story-fluff' page fillers. Agan, they added download time and ink expediture, and added nothing.

As to the meat of the supplement, it is a decent 'monster manual'. However, TRoS' greatest weakness is that the combat system focuses on a man-to-man 'duel', and OBAM had, of 143-odd pages, only pages 26-30 on human versus non-humaniod combat. Monster descriptions are fantastically plentiful elsewhere in the RPG business. What is needed, especially for TRoS, is rules expanding the combat system from the man-to-man duel orientation into a system suitable for a fantasy campaign. As it is, using the srock TRoS/OBAM rules, there is no real difference between fighting a human(iod) and a non-humaniod creature. Thankfully, the TRoS system is well-suited for user expansion and improvement, but in the end, this costs Driftwood. In my case, as a GM with six players, the requirement to expand/modify means that my handouts to the players eliminates any need for themy to buy any Driftwood products. Thus, seven users, and only one book and one pdf sold.

Hummm... Elephant hef... Oh the evil...

Actually, tang, there's another 20 pages devoted to man vs. beast in the form of the appendix. And why would you want more rules? Yikes.

Jake

The appendix apears to be tables for damage to non-humaniod creatures, and target lcations. The latter are especially nice, I might add, with large quad, small quad, serpent-type, and avian. Very well done. The generic damage table and poison tables are very good too. Its not the quality of work I'm questioning.

My problem is this: I'm using the TroS melee system in a Fading Suns campaign, where melee takes place more often than a tech-based game might suggest. This is to prepare my players for our return to fantasy.

What I have learned so far, is that the basic rules do not protray human versus non-humaniod, natural-weapon-using creatures very well at all. This was why I was waiting for OBAM before switching back to fantasy. Yet OBAM has a very generic rules set for natural weapons users, and only a few manuevers suited to natural creatures. If you run a campaign where combat is always weapon-using humaniods against weapon-using humaniods, or natural creatures, TRoS/OBaM works. If you have intelligent natural-weapon-using creatures, the system is seriously lacking. And since I'll be running in a different system than the TRoS game world, it is a serious issue.

I'm faced with either modifying the system to put the same 'feel' of combat into man-versus-creature that TRoS has put into man-versus-man combat (which will mean that few, if any follow-on supps Driftwood puts out will be applicable to my campaign), or dumping TRoS and resuming my search for a realistic, playable, and enjoyable melee/primitive missile combat system.

Its not an easy decision.

Well first off we all know that TROS is an easily modified system to use. second, i think the rules are fine, i dont see why they would be all that different in the first place. they could have alot of wacky, wierd stuff for fighting animals but it isnt like we need any more complicated rules. i think they made it like it is for simplicity and so that people already farmiliar with the system can pick it up and use it.

i suppose youll either have to use your imagination or just make the alterations you want if its going to work. in any case,, jake, i think you did a superb job.

Just got the PDF last night... Hardcopy will come someday...

Very Early impressions: I liked it. I liked the animal maneuvers, and although I haven't had a chance to look over the damage tables, they seem reasonable, although the organization seems a little haphazard (harder to look effects up.)

Good, Bad, and Ugly:

Good: The monsters descriptions are very cool, and seem maximally useful. The selection is quite good. Plot hooks and ideas galore, which is exactly what a monster book should be. The animal manuevers and stats are quite good. The damage tables are workmanlike and good.

This is everything that I expected from a TRoS monster book, plus a little more. The poison rules, for instance, are unexpected and sweet.

The Bad: This is longer than "the good" section, because I feel more need to explain myself, not because I dislike it.

The monsters are huge, which is fine, but it would have been nice to see more things statted under 7 in some attributes. These things screamed "Call of Cthulu style TPK" at me, which is not so great for most games.

The generic people stats are very... generic, and honestly a bit disappointing -- they seem to mostly be a bunch of 4s and some social comments. While this is fine for a generic template, it is less useful to me than more unique stats would have been. My games don't usually need 50,000 average beggars, but it does need one interesting one.

I wish that there had been some more discussion of the tactics playing one larger, high-toughness, creature against a number of smaller opponents, just as there was a discussion of pack tactics. The strategies are very different, and not immediately obvious.

The organization of the book was strange. I can forsee problems finding things during play, especially if they are in different sections. While I can appreciate the groupings, alphabetical listings (probably seperating the magical from the mundane) would have been more useful, to my eye. (Is a succubus a fey or a otherworldy thing or a..?)

The ugly:
The damage tables. Ugh. I know that the print form will be clearer, and I hope.
Great-ape Hef...
Although what I really want to see is a great troll-beast riding into battle on a horse-hef mount.

Good show, guys. I'm looking forward to the hardcopy.

yrs--
--Ben

The animals on the damage tables are just too cute! How can I hurt that little puppy dog? oooh...

yrs--
--Ben

I think I may try to re-do the PDF with clearer damage tables. As I said earlier, they print out just fine, and I wanted to keep the dl size manageble. The beauty about a PDF is that I can re-post it (or sections of it) with no problems.

The print version is over 300dpi and is exceptionally clear.

Jake

Darth Tang wrote: If you have intelligent natural-weapon-using creatures, the system is seriously lacking.

Not meaning to put anyone on the defensive-I'm not saying OBAM is bad, merely that I had hoped for something else. The quality of existing material is, as I noted, very good.

And an example: in my campaign the PCs have earned the emnity of (among others) a rathi, or blood-clan, of a creature that is essentially a very intelligfent displacer beast of AD&D 1E: a mountain lion sized feline, very intelliigent, with two prehensile tentacle-like limbs growing from behind its shoulders. The PCs suffer from their attacks on regular occasions. The creature attaks with the backs of its 'tentacles', which have bony barbs, plus bite & claw.

They are highly intelligent, so your (very reasonable) animal combat rules do not apply (although your small quad hit chart is good-but couldn't you find a better picture? My wife already named the dog Barney.). Most of the animal maneuvers will not apply, nor will the regular TRoS maneuvers.

I did not expect rules for every creature, of course, but at least some guidelines would be nice. Instead, I've got to design it from the ground up. Which brings up the question of why I'm giving you guys $15 when I have to build up the combat system myself.

I won't say I regret buying OBaM-there's some very useful rules and data, but I will say that I wasted lot of ink. I would hav been glad to have gotten a no-art, no-story version and cut the page count by about 50 unneeded pages.

The appendix combat tables printed nice and clear. But I'm going to try to find good line drawings to replace the quad target charts. The dog is too cute and the horse looks like it should be on somebody's fridge with a happy face and a star in the corner.

The horse is kinda cute, isn't it. Not everything you swing at is evil... *g*

I'm glad you like what's in there. Remember also that the game you've assembled isn't TROS--it's your own thing. OBAM was built for TROS, and TROS style play. Therefore it's unlikely that we're going to see the kinds of critters that you need. You could have submitted it and gotten a free copy of the book, though.

As for printing it out...only print what you need! You've got a print copy coming, don't you?

Jake

Darth, I really don't understand what you're looking for. What more could you possibly want other than a damage table and vital statistics?

If its intelligent...play it intellegently. Make intellegent choices about when to divide its dice pool against multiple opponents and when not to. How many dice to attack with and how many dice to hold for defense.

You don't need a list of special "tentacled panther-thing" moves. Use the basic moves already in TROS. Who cares that a "bind and strike" is a move you do with a sword and an off hand weapon. The effect is to bleed dice out your opponent's CP. Sounds like a perfect way to model using the tentacles to distract the opponent while the rathi attempte to set up a bite to the jugular. You don't need a pole-axe to try the Hook maneuver. If the rathi can trip you with the tentacles use the Hook rules. Alls they do is call for a Knockdown roll that gets harder to pass the more successful the attempt is.

Are they able to engage multiple opponents easily, meaning that the normal rules for splitting a die pool doesn't apply. Fine. Give them a sepeate CP for each attack and treat them like seperate opponents with a single body for damage.

What precisely were you hoping to find that you didn't? I'm having trouble imagining anything that would take more than 5 seconds to figure out how to do just using the regular TROS rules.

I just wanted to chime in and say that although I obviously didn't say it implicitly enough, I was trying to suggest in OBAM exactly what Ralph says above - all (well, most) of the maneuvers in the main book should be available to animals and men and whatever else - the cost/effect is what's most important, the description is up to the individual circumstance (tentacles tripping a foe instead of a poleaxe et al).

I should have said it more clearly in OBAM I guess, but I guess I just assumed that it was all a bit obvious - that's how we have played TROS right from the start. The maneuvers I added were those that I felt were not already depicted, as they are mostly the ones that animals and probably not men/intelligent beasts would use - pack swarming and take downs and suchlike.

As for the cute dog and horse... well, you should have seen the very pathetic sketches of horses and dogs I submitted in the manuscript. Just be glad Jake used what he did instead of what *I* drew... :-)

Brian.

I say 'yeee ha!' You guys have hit one out of the park.

The players thought they could threaten me with pitchforks and torches, I showed them most unpleaseantly, what pitchforks and torches are _really_ for. he he he....

Between the dragon that they have been hearing about for a couple of years finally making an appearance, and a Gorem they had a nasty shock with 2 separate unpleasant ends. Lets just say that the warlords are _happy_ to sacrifice some tribute in various forms to keep D'r-uden comfortable.

Well, damn. Nice work Brian. I 've just finished leafing through OBaM for the first time and I'm impressed. It is, apparently, what I was hoping it would be. I'll get back with a more detailed thank you once I've had time to read through it more carefully.

Can't wait for the print copy to wing its way to me!

Sneaky Git

Jake Norwood wrote: The beauty about a PDF is that I can re-post it (or sections of it) with no problems.

Jake Norwood wrote: The horse is kinda cute, isn't it. Not everything you swing at is evil... *g*

I'm glad you like what's in there. Remember also that the game you've assembled isn't TROS--it's your own thing. OBAM was built for TROS, and TROS style play. Therefore it's unlikely that we're going to see the kinds of critters that you need. You could have submitted it and gotten a free copy of the book, though.

As for printing it out...only print what you need! You've got a print copy coming, don't you?

Jake

Darth, I really don't understand what you're looking for. What more could you possibly want other than a damage table and vital statistics?

If its intelligent...play it intellegently. Make intellegent choices about when to divide its dice pool against multiple opponents and when not to. How many dice to attack with and how many dice to hold for defense.

You don't need a list of special "tentacled panther-thing" moves. Use the basic moves already in TROS. Who cares that a "bind and strike" is a move you do with a sword and an off hand weapon.

Sure, that works. And so a fantasy creature plays out exactly as if playing a humaniod using artifical weapons. D20 uses that 'one combat fits all' system, too. If you're going to bother with the rules of TRoS-style combat, shouldn't there be a greater feel to fighting a creature? Otherwise, why leave 'roll to hit' 'roll for damage'? I did not expect a rules set/ maneuver for every sort of creature, but given the massive space devoted to short stories, certainly there was space for a few maneuvers and combat rules to serve as a guideline.

Valamir check out pages 20-36 and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Id have to agree with Darth. How about a stomp from an elephant, or giant, or the swish of a dragons tail, a swarm of angry kiiler bees or rats. What about rules for large animals maneuvering, can an elephant really outmaneuver two men by simply rolling a terrain check.
And I'd go a little further with regard to the rules.
If a person on a horse gets a height bonus against an opponent on foot does a giant or a Gorem get such a bonus becuase they are tall, or is it figured in their CP already in which ase they have a lower CP fighting a mounted opponent(now that they are the same height?). Does a Destrier's bite really have a DR of 14?
I was really looking forward to seeing some pack animal rules and was very dissapointed. the idea of challenging a group of 4 animals with a hungry/angry pack of whatever by putting 4 animals agains each and running a potential 16!!! individual combats per round...
I've got a few more but I'm betting no one is really listening anymore..

Can 1 point margin from a kicking Destrier really kill a Dragon???

Sorry, it's not that I hate the book at all but I thought I'd get down o the nitty gritty.. Especially considering the build up( maybe that just something I've percevied) which gave me the impression all will be reveiled in OBAM...For me it wasn't.

aaron

Arron put it very well.

TRoS is, as the combats are named, a system of man-to-man duels. OBaM spent the nearly the same word count of Jousting, perhaps the lamest aspect of fantasty combat imaginable (and yet anoher man-to-man duel), as it did for creatures using natural weapons. And it put more word count into flat fan fiction than it did on combat addendum. Look at the damage tables: cut, pierce, blunt. What about Rip? Not a slice (cut) from an edged weapon, but a row of claws or teeth plowing furrows through flesh. Strangle? Swarm? How about Bite? Teeth closing in from both sides? How is a dragon's maw anything like a sword's edge?

Frankly, I thought OBaM was going to take a narrow-vision combat system and make it viable. Obviously, like the spell system, that is going to be left up to the GMs.

You know, here's a thought.
OBAM was a work largely put together by a dedicated fan (who from what I've heard and what I've seen of his other work did a pretty bang up job).

Now OBAM is primarily being distributed in PDF. The print run is a small mostly for cons hardcopy...not a "carved in stone nothing we can do about it now because we've got 3000 copies sitting a warehouse", print run.

I haven't seen the book yet (looking to get my hardcopy direct at GenCon which I'm leaving for momentarily) but these things you mention sound like they wound indeed be pretty cool. It would be pretty sweet to have some customized monster on monster action. Of course the problem is that TROS combat has a good bit of research behind it, and there isn't a whole lot of research on Dragon bites, but perhaps a perusal of Shark attack websites would give some good ideas.

Point being, work something up. Create a new section to OBAM. Once formatted like the rest its a trivial matter to add it to the PDF and make that section available for current owners via Clinton's Bookshelf.

I personally don't really have much desire to turn TROS into a monster bashing game. Even when I played D&D my favorite monsters were humanoid Orcs and such and pretty much found most "monster collections" to not hold much interest for me. For that reason I really love the fact that TROS is man on man; because I really don't much care about man on neo-otyugh (and to be fair the book *is* called "Of Beasts and MEN" after all) so I have no problem with shoe horning man on man concepts into whatever rare monster encounter I might have.

But, it sounds like something that's pretty important to you. It definitely would be cool and something I'd love to see (if only to admire it from afar). So lay claim and work it up.

We've got a pair of huge threads where fans are detailing Taverun...another one planned for Xanarium. We've got scads of fan created downloads. We've got fans working on the Lure of Gold. We've got OBAM. Lay claim to your own little piece of TROS and write up a full bore set of monster stuff.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Great idea Val!

Let me know when you've got it ready.

Hmm. I do see your point(s), but I guess what we have here is a difference of focus. I'm not saying that one party is "more" or "less" right than the other, just that they're looking for different things.

For me (I'm not going to put words in Jake's mouth, but I'm quite confident he feels much the same as I do), TROS is a game about human interaction. It's a game about motivations and actions, and begs the question "What's worth dying for?". The most important factors are a persons drives, passions, destiny, et al. How and when do these mostly come up? Through roleplay and interaction, mostly between characters and NPC's or other characters. This is what TROS is really about, for me anyway.

Do beasties and mythical creatures fit into this? Of course they do, because we're not talking about Earth but instead a fantasy world (gritty fantasy, not D&Desk with hundreds of sentient races that really make no sense) that features them. So, there's definately a place for monsters and things that go bump in the night, because by confronting those fears men can develop and grow (and have something to boast about in the pub). But they're not the main focus of the game as I see it.

Thus, unlike in a game like D&D, fighting a dragon should be an extremely rare and wonderous thing. A once-in-a-campaign kind of thing. And it should be epic. This being the case, do we really need/want to spend several pages in a book having an entire new chart of damage tables because a dragon claw slash would be slightly different from a sword slash? Nope. It's not going to come up often enough to waste time on.

I mean, just how often are you planning to have your characters be swarmed by rats, anyway? So often that you want hard-and-fast rules for it? Stomps or blows from large giants? For me, these are all things that shouldn't come up often enough to have spent valuable time in a book covering, when you might only need the rule once or twice ever while playing TROS (and generally very easy to come up with as you need them - I say a blow from a giant gets distributed randomly like falling damage; a rat swarm leaves level 1-2 piercing wounds in 2d6 random locations, etc). And where do you draw the line anyway? Should I have covered how the damage from flesh eating grubs is computed? How about being crushed by a sentient creeping vine? How about multiple bee stings? Etc.

Now, as I said, I'm not saying that all of this is the only, or even the right way to play TROS. But it is the way I play TROS, and I wrote OBAM, which is why OBAM has the focus it does. :-) I'm really sorry that the book disapoints you. Different focus, as I said. Some folk are complaining that D20 modern doesn't accurately depict gunshot wound trauma, while others are just happy to know how many D8's to roll for pistol damage, for example.

As for Ralph's suggestion, I think it's not a bad one for those who like to play higher fantasy with lots of creatures running around and lots of dragons and manticores to battle on a weekly basis. Hell, I would even be interested to read what someone came up with, even though I don't play TROS that way. I *would* be against putting it in OBAM (my baby and all, although it wouldn't be my decision to make) but it could certainly be something to go up on the webpage as a set of extra combat rules and suggestions.

(Not trying to sound defensive, but probably failing.)

Brian.

I get your point Brian. You shouldnt feel the need to get defensive. I was just surprised at just how rules light the book is and how the rules included covered some areas in detail, like the jousting, but other areas seemed to be lacking significantly, like the mounted combat rules and animal combat rules down to things that seem a little silly.
I'm not trying to run a "kill a dragon every week" type of game, just something nitty gritty. That is what attracted me to TROS in the first place. I was just hopping not to have to do a hole lot of "interpreting" of the rules again. I guess that is what it comes down to me when looking at sourcebook which includes rules. I like to think that the item I hand over my cash for has had a whole heap of folks poking holes in the rules( ie lots of play testing) and is about the best anyone can come up within the framework given. The rules in this book don't look play tested much at all.
Its a nice looking book and the tables in the back probably make it worth the money for me.

I bought both the PDF and the hardcopy and I am more than happy to support an independant roleplaying product.

I guess that is what it comes down to me when looking at sourcebook which includes rules.

Arron again said it well.

However, I wish your attitude had been clear while OBAM was being hyped, not after I bought it.

And in 250 hours of table-time, my fantasy game had exactly one dragon encounter. Nor is there an AD&D type swarm of sentinent creatures. But we do have the felines mentioned, and another race which does not use natural weaponry. I was hoping for some support, and did not receive any.

To me, TroS is a very unfinished product, with a generic world, a weak magic system, and a PC creation system that is good but needs work. The combat system was its strongest point (and the only part I use), but was still limited in application as noted. I expected a 140 page supplement, the first of its kind, to fill in the gaps, broaden the game's scope, and smooth out the rough spots. Instead, rules-lite.

And from your posts, I'm not likely going to like future Driftwood releases, assuming there are any more, as the direction TRoS is taking is far too narrow for my needs. But, at least you're not promising what you do not intend to deliver. I've enjoyed my time in this forum, and may check in now & again.

Darth Tang wrote: And from your posts, I'm not likely going to like future Driftwood releases

Darth Tang wrote:
And an example: in my campaign the PCs have earned the emnity of (among others) a rathi, or blood-clan, of a creature that is essentially a very intelligfent displacer beast of AD&D 1E: a mountain lion sized feline, very intelliigent, with two prehensile tentacle-like limbs growing from behind its shoulders. The PCs suffer from their attacks on regular occasions. The creature attaks with the backs of its 'tentacles', which have bony barbs, plus bite & claw.

A few things:

1) If there's something combat-related you want to see add it to a TFOB thread. We start work on that shortly.

2) Things like giant-stomps, etc. Make a list of what you want and we'll add it to the PDF version, after some review and thought. Any revised PDFs will be free for those that have paid in advance. This was always our intention.

3) OBAM is an official TROS book, not just a "fan book." If there are mistakes--and I'm sure there are--then I am equally responsible as line editor. At the same time, this is a small-press one-man show, and everyone is going to have to deal with that fact. You don't like it, buy WoTC.

4) Would everyone please re-read the Seneschal chapter of the TROS core rulebook. Thank you.

Jake

Just bought OBAM today. I have mostly skimmed it trough and it looks nice book. Though some artwork is very amateurish and reminds me more about 80s RPG books. That's not a big deal and I can understand little amateurish look.

The Riddle of Steel is great game and I hope you get out TFOB little faster than OBAM :). I prefer to give my money for this kind of games than WoTCs. Keep up good work guys! :)

Help!

Cannot order OBAM in Germany! Schluchtz!
Tried about 5 online shops, but no one has it or knows when it will arrive.

Directly from the webpage? That's how I got mine. If I just had time to read it through this weekend.. the book's been lying around for a couple of weeks now :/

TFOB is in the works, and we hope to release 2 TROS books this year (this year meaning by next GenCon, not in 2003).

Thnaks for your kind words though, glad you liked the book.

Stahlmeister, you can order it online from the TROS webpage, or ask your FLGS to get it in.

Brian.

Stahlmeister, you can buy Of Beast and Men from the very reliable U.K. online RPG store http://www.leisuregames.com, I have ordered many a thing from them and it all arrives shortly, even though I live in the cold wastes of Norway.

Brian, congratulations on the release of Of Beast and Men, I hope you aren't too let down by comments made here. I do understand the comments though, as I occassionally throw the The Riddle of Steel rulebook to the wall in anger because it is so very difficult to navigate this book, and there are so many minor omissions that make it hard to play the game without stopping the session and discuss how we are going to implement this or that rule.
Not that it matters much, as Jake mentioned, this is a one-man thing (or two), and from that point of view you have done a fantastic job.

I want you to know, in light of certain comments, that I am especially pleased with the attention given to jousting, as my campaign has *no* monsters or magic, but is filled with knights and damsels, the A Game of Thrones way.

I'm looking forward to The Flower of Battle.

One important question though: Will people like me, who do not own a PDF version but the real thing, be able to download corrected PDF pages/printouts of the tables?

Finally found a seller in Germany who has OBAM. Great!!!
Now I have to wait a few days.

Tywin,

It we make any changes to tables etc then yes, that would be reasonable I suppose (but untimately up to Jake). But really the only changes between 1st and 2nd printing were a few spelling slipups etc.

Brian.