Currently, the RPG I have played the most is d20. I say d20 because I've been using a mashup of OGL Steampunk, Pathfinder, and Dungeons and Dragons 3.X, as well as a couple things from d20 Modern. I tend to take the same approach to d20 that I do with my Old School RPGs, a few drops of everything makes the soup better. That is, I just take my favorite materials from everything I own and use it all together.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Thursday, August 3, 2017
RPG A Day Catch-up
I forgot about this and am trying to catch-up now.
Day 1: What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?
I currently wish I was playing my custom blend of OSR goodness (ACKS + LotFP + TBH + Basic Fantasy). Technically all of the components are published, even though I do combine them into a Frankenstein mishmash. I like the domain system from ACKS, the specialist from LotFP, the simplicity of TBH, and some of the refinements from Basic Fantasy.
Day 2: What is an RPG you would like to see published?
I would like to see an RPG that took more inspiration from Invader Zim, Jules Verne, and Re-Animator. Wait... that's what I'm working on... Slightly less self-promotion wise, I would like a non-Savage Worlds Low Life RPG, maybe Basic Roleplaying, B/X retroclone, or some other system.
Day 3: How do you find out about new RPGs?
I trawl the Twitters, Google+, occasionally RPG.net, Tenkar's Tavern, and lots of other sites. Most of the time I just look at my favorite designers' posts on G+ though. However, I typically look for gems that have already been published instead of new games, although I do back a Kickstarter now and then. Reddit is also a great source, especially r/RPG and r/RPGdesign. I found out about The Happiest Apocalypse on Earth, a Kickstarter project for a PbtA RPG, via r/RPG.
Day 1: What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?
I currently wish I was playing my custom blend of OSR goodness (ACKS + LotFP + TBH + Basic Fantasy). Technically all of the components are published, even though I do combine them into a Frankenstein mishmash. I like the domain system from ACKS, the specialist from LotFP, the simplicity of TBH, and some of the refinements from Basic Fantasy.
Day 2: What is an RPG you would like to see published?
I would like to see an RPG that took more inspiration from Invader Zim, Jules Verne, and Re-Animator. Wait... that's what I'm working on... Slightly less self-promotion wise, I would like a non-Savage Worlds Low Life RPG, maybe Basic Roleplaying, B/X retroclone, or some other system.
Day 3: How do you find out about new RPGs?
I trawl the Twitters, Google+, occasionally RPG.net, Tenkar's Tavern, and lots of other sites. Most of the time I just look at my favorite designers' posts on G+ though. However, I typically look for gems that have already been published instead of new games, although I do back a Kickstarter now and then. Reddit is also a great source, especially r/RPG and r/RPGdesign. I found out about The Happiest Apocalypse on Earth, a Kickstarter project for a PbtA RPG, via r/RPG.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Review of Rebirth
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of the PDF in order to make this review but I was in no way involved in the creation, and didn't fund the Kickstarter.
Background: Rebirth is set in a land where there was an oppressive theocracy where the High Prophet of Aluss would force the people to live in poverty. However, seven warlocks summoned a demon and utilized this power to bring the dead back to life. This gruesome act drove the gods from Kreyo. I do have one comment about this part: "there was seven who came together, their names lost to time" versus "each nation named for the necromancer who forged it from the ashes." If the necromancers' names were lost, how were the nations named after them?
The Nations:
Sar'gon: Lawful nation full of bureaucracy and controlled by enforcers
Nahrun: 'Haven for knowledge' found in the mountains
Narcon: Reminiscent of steampunk, focuses on science and technology
Reuce: This nation reminds me of Re-Animator, and the RPG supplements, The Chaos Gods Come to Meatlandia and Necropunk. It seems to have a heavy focus on mutilating experimentation.
And remember, that was one of the lawful nations.
Kreuul: Gladiatorial meritocracy where you earn your status in the arena
Daerrus: Nation based heavily around slavery
Fae'ell: This is the most interesting of the nations to me. Fae'ell sacrificed a priest and serves as a god for his nation in a theocracy.
All in all, the nations are kind of a grab bag. Some of them are heavily thematic and I really enjoyed the description, like Reuce and Fae'ell, but others seem sort of like filler, like Sar'gon and Daerrus. You may feel differently though.
Rules: Rebirth uses a percentile based system, similar to Basic Roleplaying and its derivatives. It also incorporates critical success when a 01 is rolled, which is quite more rare when compared to natural 20s, and seems to be more powerful, and critical failures on a 100, which is the opposite. To determine initiative, you roll a d10 instead of a d100 and add your intuition attribute. It is interesting to me that they start talking about combat rules before introducing the attributes, and could be off putting. Action in combat is measured in events, which are similar to both a move and standard action in DnD 3.5e, but you get three of them. Using more of your moves affects your defense score, which does make sense. Base movement is 20 feet and fro some reason free strikes, which are similar to attacks of opportunity, are detailed in the movement section. There are three saves, that do differ from the norm: forceful, intuitive, and enduring. To determine a save and attacks, there are fairly long formulas. For example, here is the formula for an attack check: [50 + (2 • character level) + (misc. bonuses) + (attribute affiliated with weapon used for attack)] – (the defensive
score of the target). And remember, this is all before a lot of the core mechanics are explained, as in I hadn't read that this was a level based system. Besides it being fairly math heavy, combat seems fairly standard.
Attributes: The nine attributes are separated into three 'trees': body, mind, and spirit, something I play with doing in some of my games. The three Body attributes are: Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. The three Mind attributes are Will, Wit, and Wisdom. The three Spirit attributes are Charisma, Attunement, and Tenacity. The most interesting of these are the two nonstandard Spirit attributes, Charisma and Tenacity, as the Body attributes are the regular ol' physical attributes from D&D and Will, Wit, and Wisdom aren't very ingenuous either. In order to generate attributes, you select a primary, secondary, and tertiary tree. This determines how many d4s to roll to determine an attribute and what bonus you get on relevant skill checks.
Skills: Skills too are divided into Body, Mind, and Spirit. While each of the skills does have a little bit of nice fluff, there aren't really any truly unique skills to be found. To determine a skill check's goal, you do the following: [(total skill ranks) + (affiliated skill attribute) + (misc. modifier) + (character level)] – (any given negatives). Again, a tad math heavy, but it is just addition/subtraction this time. Again, the level system still hasn't been fully described, although it is stated that you can't have more ranks in a skill than 10+your level. It seems like this would make leveling a large power upgrade, as your level is involved twice in skill rolls.
Reborn: This is, IMO, the most interesting part of the book and where the flavor shines through. It contains interesting classes and finally details how you level up! There is a 20 level max. Every nation has two base classes that every character begins as. I do have one comment, and that is the distinction between base and advanced class is not as clear as I would like it to be, and you have to read the text to find out.
Sar'gon: Politician and Enforcer
Nahrun: Bard and Archivist
Narcon: Botanist and Tinkerer (Note that it calls the Tinkerer the Tinker once)
Reuce: Medic and Abomination (This section is definitely amazing! I love the Abomination class in particular)
Fae'ell: Fanatic and Paladin (The chaotic nations are in a different order than the introductions for them...)
Kre'ull: Gladiator and Scavenger
Daerrus: Merchant and Slaver
General Gifts: These are abilities that can be chosen regardless of your class, quite similar to feats from Pathfinder/3.5e. None of them seem really unique though, which is quite a loss in my opinion, due to the quite flavorful setting.
Weapons/Armor: There isn't a massive table of different weapons, but there are tables of weapons based on if they are piercing, slashing, or blunt and what size they are. With the armor, they also just have large tables of what the different statistics are based on what they are made of and their size. Although this isn't as bad as some games, I do find that it is a tad excessive.
Legendary Artifacts: Here's another section where the flavorful setting really signs through, like the sword of Gaustul, where a priest of Fae'ell believes himself to be capable of challenging his god and the sword channels that priest's soul.
Items: This item goes over all sorts of equipment that you might have in this setting, from smithing tools to grenades. Nothing really shines through here.
Divine Creatures: This section shows the spirits who are remnants from before the necromancers drove the gods away. Every one is unique and has a great description. This section ends the book on a decent note as well.
TL;DR: I would have to rate this a 3.5 stars out of 5 unfortunately. Although the setting is amazing, the system itself reads to me like an unholy combination of the d20 system and Basic Roleplaying. However, I would love to rip out my favorite parts of the setting, especially the nations and divine creatures, into a more rules light system, like Savage Worlds. So, if you want a great setting, this is amazing, but I think the creators should have gone with using a system under the OGL, like Fate.
Here's the Twitter and Facebook accounts for the game:
https://twitter.com/RoleplayRe
https://www.facebook.com/RPGRe
Background: Rebirth is set in a land where there was an oppressive theocracy where the High Prophet of Aluss would force the people to live in poverty. However, seven warlocks summoned a demon and utilized this power to bring the dead back to life. This gruesome act drove the gods from Kreyo. I do have one comment about this part: "there was seven who came together, their names lost to time" versus "each nation named for the necromancer who forged it from the ashes." If the necromancers' names were lost, how were the nations named after them?
The Nations:
Sar'gon: Lawful nation full of bureaucracy and controlled by enforcers
Nahrun: 'Haven for knowledge' found in the mountains
Narcon: Reminiscent of steampunk, focuses on science and technology
Reuce: This nation reminds me of Re-Animator, and the RPG supplements, The Chaos Gods Come to Meatlandia and Necropunk. It seems to have a heavy focus on mutilating experimentation.
And remember, that was one of the lawful nations.
Kreuul: Gladiatorial meritocracy where you earn your status in the arena
Daerrus: Nation based heavily around slavery
Fae'ell: This is the most interesting of the nations to me. Fae'ell sacrificed a priest and serves as a god for his nation in a theocracy.
All in all, the nations are kind of a grab bag. Some of them are heavily thematic and I really enjoyed the description, like Reuce and Fae'ell, but others seem sort of like filler, like Sar'gon and Daerrus. You may feel differently though.
Rules: Rebirth uses a percentile based system, similar to Basic Roleplaying and its derivatives. It also incorporates critical success when a 01 is rolled, which is quite more rare when compared to natural 20s, and seems to be more powerful, and critical failures on a 100, which is the opposite. To determine initiative, you roll a d10 instead of a d100 and add your intuition attribute. It is interesting to me that they start talking about combat rules before introducing the attributes, and could be off putting. Action in combat is measured in events, which are similar to both a move and standard action in DnD 3.5e, but you get three of them. Using more of your moves affects your defense score, which does make sense. Base movement is 20 feet and fro some reason free strikes, which are similar to attacks of opportunity, are detailed in the movement section. There are three saves, that do differ from the norm: forceful, intuitive, and enduring. To determine a save and attacks, there are fairly long formulas. For example, here is the formula for an attack check: [50 + (2 • character level) + (misc. bonuses) + (attribute affiliated with weapon used for attack)] – (the defensive
score of the target). And remember, this is all before a lot of the core mechanics are explained, as in I hadn't read that this was a level based system. Besides it being fairly math heavy, combat seems fairly standard.
Attributes: The nine attributes are separated into three 'trees': body, mind, and spirit, something I play with doing in some of my games. The three Body attributes are: Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. The three Mind attributes are Will, Wit, and Wisdom. The three Spirit attributes are Charisma, Attunement, and Tenacity. The most interesting of these are the two nonstandard Spirit attributes, Charisma and Tenacity, as the Body attributes are the regular ol' physical attributes from D&D and Will, Wit, and Wisdom aren't very ingenuous either. In order to generate attributes, you select a primary, secondary, and tertiary tree. This determines how many d4s to roll to determine an attribute and what bonus you get on relevant skill checks.
Skills: Skills too are divided into Body, Mind, and Spirit. While each of the skills does have a little bit of nice fluff, there aren't really any truly unique skills to be found. To determine a skill check's goal, you do the following: [(total skill ranks) + (affiliated skill attribute) + (misc. modifier) + (character level)] – (any given negatives). Again, a tad math heavy, but it is just addition/subtraction this time. Again, the level system still hasn't been fully described, although it is stated that you can't have more ranks in a skill than 10+your level. It seems like this would make leveling a large power upgrade, as your level is involved twice in skill rolls.
Reborn: This is, IMO, the most interesting part of the book and where the flavor shines through. It contains interesting classes and finally details how you level up! There is a 20 level max. Every nation has two base classes that every character begins as. I do have one comment, and that is the distinction between base and advanced class is not as clear as I would like it to be, and you have to read the text to find out.
Sar'gon: Politician and Enforcer
Nahrun: Bard and Archivist
Narcon: Botanist and Tinkerer (Note that it calls the Tinkerer the Tinker once)
Reuce: Medic and Abomination (This section is definitely amazing! I love the Abomination class in particular)
Fae'ell: Fanatic and Paladin (The chaotic nations are in a different order than the introductions for them...)
Kre'ull: Gladiator and Scavenger
Daerrus: Merchant and Slaver
General Gifts: These are abilities that can be chosen regardless of your class, quite similar to feats from Pathfinder/3.5e. None of them seem really unique though, which is quite a loss in my opinion, due to the quite flavorful setting.
Weapons/Armor: There isn't a massive table of different weapons, but there are tables of weapons based on if they are piercing, slashing, or blunt and what size they are. With the armor, they also just have large tables of what the different statistics are based on what they are made of and their size. Although this isn't as bad as some games, I do find that it is a tad excessive.
Legendary Artifacts: Here's another section where the flavorful setting really signs through, like the sword of Gaustul, where a priest of Fae'ell believes himself to be capable of challenging his god and the sword channels that priest's soul.
Items: This item goes over all sorts of equipment that you might have in this setting, from smithing tools to grenades. Nothing really shines through here.
Divine Creatures: This section shows the spirits who are remnants from before the necromancers drove the gods away. Every one is unique and has a great description. This section ends the book on a decent note as well.
TL;DR: I would have to rate this a 3.5 stars out of 5 unfortunately. Although the setting is amazing, the system itself reads to me like an unholy combination of the d20 system and Basic Roleplaying. However, I would love to rip out my favorite parts of the setting, especially the nations and divine creatures, into a more rules light system, like Savage Worlds. So, if you want a great setting, this is amazing, but I think the creators should have gone with using a system under the OGL, like Fate.
Here's the Twitter and Facebook accounts for the game:
https://twitter.com/RoleplayRe
https://www.facebook.com/RPGRe
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
[My Thoughts On] RPG Settings
Required Disclaimer for Critics: This is supposed to be taken with a grain of salt as it is just my opinion on how settings can be differentiated, and uses a 1-10 scale for convenience. You may feel that one setting or book is completely different from my interpretation, etc. etc.
In my opinion, settings are distinguished by three factors or scales: time period, prevalence of unobtanium, and general feeling. The time period is quite obvious, being whether it is set in the Dark Ages, modernity, or the the distant future. The prevalence of unobtanium is slightly more complex. Unobtanium is not necessarily metal no. X that doesn't exist in the real world, it is anything that you can not find or possess, such as magic, advanced technology, portals, or anything of the sort. Because of this, a heavy sci-fi campaign with F.T.L. travel has a high level of unobtanium, but so does a high fantasy setting with mighty spell wielding arch mages. In contrast, a sword and sorcery campaign, where there are few instances of wizards and mystical elements, or a campaign set in the modern world, would have a low level of unobtanium. The feeling is whether it is supposed to be a horror or creepy campaign or a light-hearted and funny campaign. I'll rate a few books for example of how I think this works. For time period, 5 is the default, for unobtanium, 1 is the default, and for feeling, 5 is the default.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Time Period: 5 (Normal)
Unobtanium: 10 (Very High)
Feeling: 8 (Quite Humorous)
Conan:
Time Period: 2 (Far Past)
Unobtanium: 3 (Some Magic)
Feeling: 3 (Fairly Gritty/Dangerous)
The Call of Cthulhu:
Time Period: 4 (Recent Past)
Unobtanium: 2 (Very Concentrated Eldritch Power)
Feeling: 1 (Horrific and Existential)
In my opinion, settings are distinguished by three factors or scales: time period, prevalence of unobtanium, and general feeling. The time period is quite obvious, being whether it is set in the Dark Ages, modernity, or the the distant future. The prevalence of unobtanium is slightly more complex. Unobtanium is not necessarily metal no. X that doesn't exist in the real world, it is anything that you can not find or possess, such as magic, advanced technology, portals, or anything of the sort. Because of this, a heavy sci-fi campaign with F.T.L. travel has a high level of unobtanium, but so does a high fantasy setting with mighty spell wielding arch mages. In contrast, a sword and sorcery campaign, where there are few instances of wizards and mystical elements, or a campaign set in the modern world, would have a low level of unobtanium. The feeling is whether it is supposed to be a horror or creepy campaign or a light-hearted and funny campaign. I'll rate a few books for example of how I think this works. For time period, 5 is the default, for unobtanium, 1 is the default, and for feeling, 5 is the default.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Time Period: 5 (Normal)
Unobtanium: 10 (Very High)
Feeling: 8 (Quite Humorous)
Conan:
Time Period: 2 (Far Past)
Unobtanium: 3 (Some Magic)
Feeling: 3 (Fairly Gritty/Dangerous)
The Call of Cthulhu:
Time Period: 4 (Recent Past)
Unobtanium: 2 (Very Concentrated Eldritch Power)
Feeling: 1 (Horrific and Existential)
Monday, July 24, 2017
Blog Update
I've renamed the blog from Ragtag Grognard Reviews to Ragtag Grognard PRESENTS, and will be posting more free OSR/Pathfinder stuff here, as well as more varied things than reviewed. I am still polishing up a few things about a review and that will be up tomorrow.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Delay in Posting
I've not posted a review in quite a while as I've been very busy with Pagans of the Desolate Wastes. But I do have a copy of The Pod-Caverns of the Sinister Shroom coming, so I'll review that when it arrives. Happy gaming!
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
Blood Dark Thirst Review
Blood Dark Thirst is currently a playtest being run by one of my favorite authors, Venger As'Nas Satanis of Kort'thalis Publishing. So as I have not done a review in quite a bit of time due to some internet issues, here's a review!
Disclaimer: Blood Dark Thirst appears to be Venger's take on Vampire: the Requiem and the recent 5th edition play test debacle. As I've never played Vampire or even read it beyond skimming it, this review will be without knowing any of the background or inspiration... oh well! I also, unfortunately, have not been able to play it and this is just a review based on reading it.
Setting: The players are from a later generation of vampires, descended from the original corpses with demons trapped inside made by European sorcerers. The art of creating new vampires has been forgotten and now that task is left to the vampires themselves. The players themselves have only been vampires for a maximum of 100 years.
System: Blood Dark Thirst uses a d10 dice pool to resolve all of its conflicts. It has a built in cap at 10d10, which I definitely appreciate as I won't have to deal with munchkin players bringing buckets of dice. You add your ability and skill to determine how many dice to roll and then count successes above a difficulty given by the GM, normally 7. Giving a baseline for a difficulty is also fairly helpful forme the indecisive GM. Also, there are quasi-exploding dice (10: 2 successes and 1: -1 success) and something called bloodlust dice that are not explained in this section.
Combat: In BDT, attacking your enemy and tearing them to shreds can actually be disadvantageous to a hungry vampire, as it would be better to keep them intact and drain them dry. That this is one of the key points of the combat system is quite interesting to me. Having as many pints of blood as ranks in Health is a neat abstraction that helps with the focus on saving every last drop and makes it easy to GM. In this section, it also talks about the fact that vampires are nearly immune to blunt/bludgeoning weapons except for massive impacts (cars, trains, etc.).
Abilities: The three abilities in BDT are pretty generic: Physical, Mental, and Social. They are divided into primary (3 dice), secondary (2 dice), and tertiary (1 die). If you are forced to act during the day, you reduce those numbers by one day, fairly significantly making tasks harder. Besides the limitation on acting during the day, this section is fairly generic.
Skills: This section either allows you to randomly generate skills or to pick them. The method of random generation allows older vampires to gain more traditional skills and younger vampires to get technology and medicine. However, I am not sure how this limitation is supposed to work when you are picking your skills instead.
Types of Vampires: There are six types of vampires: Arcana, Outsider, Genteel, Romantic, Transient, and Vile. Each comes with a neat description that is fairly flavorful.
Name/Background/Predilection: Another neat part are three tables that allow you to generate random things about your vampire to begin playing very quickly.
Blood: In BDT, when vampires run out of blood, they fall into a coma, not waking until they gain blood. New vampires can store up to 10 pints of blood and older vampires can store more. Also in the blood section are six uses for blood, ranging from creating a vampire to waking up at dusk. The variety of options make blood very useful.
Blood Potency: This separates vampires into power levels, based on their rank in Blood Potency. As your rank in Blood Potency increases, you become increasingly scrupulous in what blood you can drink but also gain new powers and immunities. For example, a rank 3 vampire can only drink blood from vampires and mortal virgins and is not effected by faith or religious symbols, among other things. That higher rank vampires can not use more 'base' types of blood is really flavorful, especially because it describes this inability as those types of blood being unable to sustain you.
Types of Blood: This section goes more in depth on drinking blood, including prepackaged blood. If 'sub-par' blood is drunk, the vampire can not drink more than three pints per night or vomit and lose a point of Willpower.
Bloodlust Dice: In this section, those mysterious bloodlust dice from the section on the core mechanic are explained! If a vampire is running low on blood, they roll bloodlust dice. If a 1 is rolled, the vampire flies into a destructive rage! If a 10 is rolled, the action must become darker in order to gain 2 successes. This really helps to establish vampires as creatures barely held back from draining their targets when they are thirst. In addition to rolling 1s on bloodlust dice, vampires can also become frenzied when smelling or tasting blood.
Health, Willpower, and Humanity: These are three statistics that help in various situations. Health is effectively just hit points with a death spiral effect stapled on. Willpower is more interesting, being the vampire's mental fortitude. It is spendable and indeed it is spent quite a lot, such as overcoming 1s on bloodlust dice and other vampires' control attempts. Humanity is the most interesting in my opinion. A table is provided that details your morals and appearance based on your Humanity score. Appearances range from 'your worst nightmare' to 'human with inner glow'. The fact that how human you are allows you to hide your vampire nature and that how human you are can shift based on your actions can lend some depth to the game.
Supernatural Powers: Thirty supernatural powers for any vampire are detailed in this section, ranging from being able to start fires at will to remember moments from your victim's life. Once again, you can either roll or choose. The supernatural powers are not given specific mechanical impacts, although there is a variant rule where a roll based solely on your blood determines how well your power works.
Blood Bonds: With blood bonds, if you drink too often from another vampire, you will become bound to him, becoming hisslave servant subject. There is not too much mechanically in this section. You can also give regular ol' mortals a taste of immortality by feeding them vampiric blood.
Weaknesses and Falsehoods: To help the players and GMs understand BDT vampires more, information on what they are weak to (decapitation, sunlight, etc.) and are not (crossing water, garlic, etc.). Although not necessary, this section, in my opinion, does adds a few useful details.
Playtest Survey Answers
As previously mentioned, I could not actually play it, but I will still try to answer these as honestly as possible.
Disclaimer: Blood Dark Thirst appears to be Venger's take on Vampire: the Requiem and the recent 5th edition play test debacle. As I've never played Vampire or even read it beyond skimming it, this review will be without knowing any of the background or inspiration... oh well! I also, unfortunately, have not been able to play it and this is just a review based on reading it.
Setting: The players are from a later generation of vampires, descended from the original corpses with demons trapped inside made by European sorcerers. The art of creating new vampires has been forgotten and now that task is left to the vampires themselves. The players themselves have only been vampires for a maximum of 100 years.
System: Blood Dark Thirst uses a d10 dice pool to resolve all of its conflicts. It has a built in cap at 10d10, which I definitely appreciate as I won't have to deal with munchkin players bringing buckets of dice. You add your ability and skill to determine how many dice to roll and then count successes above a difficulty given by the GM, normally 7. Giving a baseline for a difficulty is also fairly helpful for
Combat: In BDT, attacking your enemy and tearing them to shreds can actually be disadvantageous to a hungry vampire, as it would be better to keep them intact and drain them dry. That this is one of the key points of the combat system is quite interesting to me. Having as many pints of blood as ranks in Health is a neat abstraction that helps with the focus on saving every last drop and makes it easy to GM. In this section, it also talks about the fact that vampires are nearly immune to blunt/bludgeoning weapons except for massive impacts (cars, trains, etc.).
Abilities: The three abilities in BDT are pretty generic: Physical, Mental, and Social. They are divided into primary (3 dice), secondary (2 dice), and tertiary (1 die). If you are forced to act during the day, you reduce those numbers by one day, fairly significantly making tasks harder. Besides the limitation on acting during the day, this section is fairly generic.
Skills: This section either allows you to randomly generate skills or to pick them. The method of random generation allows older vampires to gain more traditional skills and younger vampires to get technology and medicine. However, I am not sure how this limitation is supposed to work when you are picking your skills instead.
Types of Vampires: There are six types of vampires: Arcana, Outsider, Genteel, Romantic, Transient, and Vile. Each comes with a neat description that is fairly flavorful.
Name/Background/Predilection: Another neat part are three tables that allow you to generate random things about your vampire to begin playing very quickly.
Blood: In BDT, when vampires run out of blood, they fall into a coma, not waking until they gain blood. New vampires can store up to 10 pints of blood and older vampires can store more. Also in the blood section are six uses for blood, ranging from creating a vampire to waking up at dusk. The variety of options make blood very useful.
Blood Potency: This separates vampires into power levels, based on their rank in Blood Potency. As your rank in Blood Potency increases, you become increasingly scrupulous in what blood you can drink but also gain new powers and immunities. For example, a rank 3 vampire can only drink blood from vampires and mortal virgins and is not effected by faith or religious symbols, among other things. That higher rank vampires can not use more 'base' types of blood is really flavorful, especially because it describes this inability as those types of blood being unable to sustain you.
Types of Blood: This section goes more in depth on drinking blood, including prepackaged blood. If 'sub-par' blood is drunk, the vampire can not drink more than three pints per night or vomit and lose a point of Willpower.
Bloodlust Dice: In this section, those mysterious bloodlust dice from the section on the core mechanic are explained! If a vampire is running low on blood, they roll bloodlust dice. If a 1 is rolled, the vampire flies into a destructive rage! If a 10 is rolled, the action must become darker in order to gain 2 successes. This really helps to establish vampires as creatures barely held back from draining their targets when they are thirst. In addition to rolling 1s on bloodlust dice, vampires can also become frenzied when smelling or tasting blood.
Health, Willpower, and Humanity: These are three statistics that help in various situations. Health is effectively just hit points with a death spiral effect stapled on. Willpower is more interesting, being the vampire's mental fortitude. It is spendable and indeed it is spent quite a lot, such as overcoming 1s on bloodlust dice and other vampires' control attempts. Humanity is the most interesting in my opinion. A table is provided that details your morals and appearance based on your Humanity score. Appearances range from 'your worst nightmare' to 'human with inner glow'. The fact that how human you are allows you to hide your vampire nature and that how human you are can shift based on your actions can lend some depth to the game.
Supernatural Powers: Thirty supernatural powers for any vampire are detailed in this section, ranging from being able to start fires at will to remember moments from your victim's life. Once again, you can either roll or choose. The supernatural powers are not given specific mechanical impacts, although there is a variant rule where a roll based solely on your blood determines how well your power works.
Blood Bonds: With blood bonds, if you drink too often from another vampire, you will become bound to him, becoming his
Weaknesses and Falsehoods: To help the players and GMs understand BDT vampires more, information on what they are weak to (decapitation, sunlight, etc.) and are not (crossing water, garlic, etc.). Although not necessary, this section, in my opinion, does adds a few useful details.
Playtest Survey Answers
As previously mentioned, I could not actually play it, but I will still try to answer these as honestly as possible.
- What do you think of the name, Blood Dark Thirst? It does seem to set the tone but could seem a little bit discordant to an outsider.
- What did you enjoy most about the game in general? I really enjoyed the style of writing and how lots of the document seemed to drip with flavor.
- What was your favorite rule? I really like the bloodlust dice and how they help add to the vampires' bestial nature.
- What did you enjoy least about the game in general? I did not like how it's just a playtest document! Jokes aside, I would like some example characters.
- What was your least favorite rule? I did not like how Health was effectively just hit points, although using them as the number of pints of blood for mortals was interesting.
- What rule do you feel is missing?
- Did you choose characteristics or randomly roll? N/A - Didn't get to play :(
- How easy was the game to play (for players) or run (for GMs)? I couldn't play, but feel that it would be quite easy to play and run due to the simple rules, as long as you didn't manage to forget something important.
- What kind or type of game would you like to see supported in the final version of the rules? Perhaps it would be good to see more information about sneaking around and differentiating weapons for more of a realistic feel in my game about demonic vampires.
- 1. Anything you’d like to share about your experience in order to make the game better? I honestly think the playtest is quite amazing and really look forward to seeing it grow.
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