Opinions on Symbaroum?

[TheAlkaizer]

The tone and atmosphere presented in the game suggest to me that it would be a perfect opportunity to make a hexcrawl*/endurance game, where survival, exhaustion, and morale could be used as ways to influence how ready the PCs are to fight the next abomination from the depths or negotiate between barbarian cities or save the goblins from the local petty tyrant or whatnot.

That's also the fantasy that the game evoked for me. I'm happy that there's rules in the Game Master's Guide, but I'll surely tweak things and borrow from other systems.

Oh, hey, I forgot those were coming (I guess already have come now). Clearly I stopped following the release schedule before this release.

Understandable! It's also a headscratcher for me as to why they didn't. The Core Rulebook heavily focuses on combat in its rules, and I'd even add that the fantasy evoked by the setting is one where you'd want to avoid most fights. For me, it's the same as when products like Pathfinder 2E come out without a starter edition for almost a full year.

I can't reflect too much on your other criticism, I'll need to play it. But that part (exploration rules) revealed true after a quick glimpse in my books. There was absolutely a lack.

 

[Marc_C]

That's also the fantasy that the game evoked for me. I'm happy that there's rules in the Game Master's Guide, but I'll surely tweak things and borrow from other systems.


Understandable! It's also a headscratcher for me as to why they didn't. The Core Rulebook heavily focuses on combat in its rules, and I'd even add that the fantasy evoked by the setting is one where you'd want to avoid most fights. For me, it's the same as when products like Pathfinder 2E come out without a starter edition for almost a full year.

I can't reflect too much on your other criticism, I'll need to play it. But that part (exploration rules) revealed true after a quick glimpse in my books. There was absolutely a lack.

I think that is why the brand new starter set includes explorations rules with an hex map of Davokar. Full on hexcrawl.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I guess I disagree. The tone and atmosphere presented in the game suggest to me that it would be a perfect opportunity to make a hexcrawl*/endurance game, where survival, exhaustion, and morale could be used as ways to influence how ready the PCs are to fight the next abomination from the depths or negotiate between barbarian cities or save the goblins from the local petty tyrant or whatnot. And that was the long and short of my point -- the game can be anything the designers want it to be, but I saw a tonal mismatch between what I felt the setting and artwork suggested would be the central gameplay loops and upon what was primarily focused (obviously moreso when looking core-only).
*which we know Free League can and has the interest in doing.

I hear you, but I feel like the system is too streamlined to really make that sort of thing work. It takes long enough to get through daily encounters during a Davokar expedition using the random tables for coming across friendlies, enemies, nasty terrain and ruins, and then additional rolls and resolution for what those ruins are like, who's already in them, how long you want to search them. To layer on more and more survival subsystems....I don't know.

That said I could imagine a different kind of game that's all about some doomed excursion, where it's accepted that no one is going to survive. That's definitely a thing that could happen in Symbaroum, but I feel like its going for a slightly different tone and approach--like a half-step between 5e and OSR.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I hear you, but I feel like the system is too streamlined to really make that sort of thing work. It takes long enough to get through daily encounters during a Davokar expedition using the random tables for coming across friendlies, enemies, nasty terrain and ruins, and then additional rolls and resolution for what those ruins are like, who's already in them, how long you want to search them. To layer on more and more survival subsystems....I don't know.

The way I intend to run it is to have fewer encounters. I'm more interested in navigating the forest, managing rations, finding landmarks, findings spots to camp and have the occasional encounter loom over the party. I might be wrong, but the exploration rules seemed heavy on the chances of encounter to my taste.

I have very little experience with Hexcrawls and exploration heavy game. But I've been looking at Forbidden Lands and The One Ring 1E as inspiration. I'll find something light that'll work.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

The way I intend to run it is to have fewer encounters. I'm more interested in navigating the forest, managing rations, finding landmarks, findings spots to camp and have the occasional encounter loom over the party. I might be wrong, but the exploration rules seemed heavy on the chances of encounter to my taste.

I have very little experience with Hexcrawls and exploration heavy game. But I've been looking at Forbidden Lands and The One Ring 1E as inspiration. I'll find something light that'll work.

You're absolutely right--if you use the expedition-related tables encounters are very common. Which is interesting, because it's a real shift from a more standard, LotR-ish journey. For a while there I thought the tables just weren't properly playtested, but one of their campaign books, Mother of Darkness (which also has the expedition rules that are in the GM's Guide) includes a detailed, day-by-day account of someone's month-long expedition, and it's PACKED with encounters. It also kills off the entire expedition, including the journal's author.

So my sense is that Davokar is supposed to be absolutely horrible, and not just a relatively rough place to travel through en route to the real adventure. Davokar really is the adventure, and then when you make it somewhere and have to deal with even more threats, and also wonder how you'll get home, the difficulty really starts to mount.

This isn't to say that you should stick to the suggested rate of encounters. Just that the way the designers have it, Davokar is an absolute nightmare, and it seems like any expedition that lasts more than a week is incredibly dangerous and narratively time-consuming.

 

[Marc_C]

I'm running my first game tonight with an Ambrian weapon master*, a barbarian witch and a barbarian monster hunter. We are doing the first mission in the starter set: Where Darkness Dwells. Very curious to see how it goes.

(I allowed players to use the Advanced Player's Guide)

 

[schneeland]

Would be interested in your practical experience with stuff from the APG. When I read it in depth a few month back, it left me with the impression that I should rewrite the system before I run Symbaroum (I have a tentative plan to run the Throne of Thorns campaign for a few friends once the last part is out).

 

[Marc_C]

Would be interested in your practical experience with stuff from the APG. When I read it in depth a few month back, it left me with the impression that I should rewrite the system before I run Symbaroum (I have a tentative plan to run the Throne of Thorns campaign for a few friends once the last part is out).

I'll try to do a write up. No promise. I'm not a fan of modifying a system before any actual play and game input by players. Past experience has shown me that some things I was not sure off actually worked at the table.

One thing I want to put a cap on, if players agree, is to prevent raising the same skill two or three times in a row. I would like the progression of characters to be lateral rather than vertical to prevent a race to optimizing the few good abilities each character has despite actual role-play experience. That decision can wait after we have played.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I hear you, but I feel like the system is too streamlined to really make that sort of thing work. It takes long enough to get through daily encounters during a Davokar expedition using the random tables for coming across friendlies, enemies, nasty terrain and ruins, and then additional rolls and resolution for what those ruins are like, who's already in them, how long you want to search them. To layer on more and more survival subsystems....I don't know.

Well, yes, that is one of my critiques. The system we got is too streamlined to make that kind of thing work, yet that seems more like what the tone imparted to the system by the art, the setting, and game world set up all suggest than the character-build and combat-centric game system with which we ended up. That's why I keep saying that it is a tonal mismatch rather than an actually bad system. I see some general faults in the rules, but overall I think they are fine rules, just not for playing the game that the non-rules part of the book makes me think the game is.

Would be interested in your practical experience with stuff from the APG. When I read it in depth a few month back, it left me with the impression that I should rewrite the system before I run Symbaroum (I have a tentative plan to run the Throne of Thorns campaign for a few friends once the last part is out).

Agreed. I got a little gaming with the system after it came out, but mostly before. There are a few Talents in the APG that certainly look game-changing (the ones that double a warrior's HP or a mage's corruption thresholds, for example), but I'm not sure how that plays out when the dice hit the table.

 

[schneeland]

One thing I want to put a cap on, if players agree, it to prevent raising the same skill two or three times in a row. I would like the progression of characters to be lateral rather than vertical to prevent a race to optimizing the few good abilities each character has despite actual role-play experience. That decision can wait after we have played.

My biggest concern was caused by the third tier of many abilities, so this might work well enough. I'll give it a second thought before I my game.