Tenkar's Tavern: Dragon Age RPG

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Dragon Age RPG - The Boxed Set...

was at my doorstep when I arrived home yesterday. I promptly opened it and was suitably... unimpressed. The last boxed set RPG I had ordered was the latest incarnation of Warhammer. Steep price but a plethora of goodies to fondle and oodle. Not so much with Dragon Age.

Lets see. We have a Player's Guide, a Game Master's Guide (both perfect bound soft covers), a fold out map, and three lonely 6-sided dice (2 blue, 1 green). The box feels... light. Eh, maybe because I received the PDFs earlier due to preordering my anticipated excitement is lacking. The books look nice, the artwork is professional and appropriate, they just don't feel like they were worth 30 bucks for 2 64 page softcover books, a map and three dice I could have grabbed from any family game.

Maybe I'm harder to please in my old age, but this was anticlimactic.

The computer / Xbox 360 game rocks tho ;)

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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Dragon Age RPG - The Boxed Set...

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