What is Five Ancient Kingdoms? Apparently it's NOT an RPG but a Fantasy Adventure Game. Semantics aside, if you like OSR gaming (and are a bit of a completist) this is probably something you should take a look at.
It comes in with 3 booklets, a short adventure and a set of 4d6. These aren't your usual d6, as where one would normally expect to find a "1" you find a "zero" instead. I need to look deeper to find out how that effects the usual number spread.
So, you get your six "OSR" stats, which are generated using 4d6, drop the lowest and re-roll Zeros. You get the usual 4 core classes (even if they are renamed) and a butt-load of subclasses.
You also get "advantages", which is almost like a prior profession / skill acquisition. You get one randomly determined at 1st level.
Hit Points are randomly determined each session. That's damn interesting.
Alright, enough random observations from the first booklet - time to read this a bit more in depth.
Available in print only I believe, but a PDF version would look nice on my iPad ;)
HP being randomly determined sort of harkens back to Carcosa, though that was per encounter.
ReplyDelete"Renamed?" What are they calling the four classes?
ReplyDeleteHero, Magician, Saint and Thief
DeleteThe game is an interesting read. I've got to go over it again to make sure I've grasped all the nuances, though. In addition to re-rolling Hero Points (hit points) the monsters' hits equal their hit dice (a three hit dice monster can take three hits before it dies). This means most weapons inflict only one point of damage when the PC hits the monster. In addition to the 4 main classes, there are 8 subclasses (2 for each main class) and demi-humans are covered in Book 3 for those who want them in their game. The default setting is a fantasy middle-east.
ReplyDeleteFantasy Middle East sounds interesting.
DeleteTwo of the PDFs are now available on RPGNow and DriveThru for $4.99 each.
ReplyDelete