Dragonbane general thread

[Aldarc]

This thread is selling me on Dragonbane.

Love the flat power curve. Love the danger. Love the Resurrection cost.

Me too…

Off to Free League’s site…

I'm glad to hear that. I've been recommending the game on ENWorld for about a year or so. I backed the Kickstarter for the box set but only got around to playing my first game early last year, as my partner and I were busy planning our move to Germany around that time. Incidentally, when I described the game to my German partner as something of a "beer and pretzels game," my partner then asked me, "So it's a German game?" Not quite, but I could see how my wording would have led them to that conclusion.

That said, I was intrigued by the quick start rules, and Free League makes killer box sets. I was especially glad in this case that it didn't use Free League's usual Year Zero Engine, as I'm not a big fan of some major design decisions in Forbidden Lands. Not only I was impressed by the value of the box set, I was honestly surprised by how much I ended up enjoying the game for many of the same reasons listed.

Much like @overgeeked says, even if I would choose to do some things a bit differently,* Dragonbane hits a lot of the right notes for when I want a more OSR-esque system without being old school D&D. Characters are little sturdier while also having a flatter power curve. Roll under makes things quick and easy. Combat is quick, tactical, and potentially deadly. There is stacking advantage and/or disadvantage. Thematic magic traditions. Conditions and pushing mechanics. Classless while still having class-like starting packages.

Now I'm not a single game for all my needs sort of TTRPG hobbyist. I enjoy a wide variety of different styles of games and play styles (e.g., Stonetop, Fabula Ultima, Fate, Worlds Without Number, Fantasy AGE, Numenera, etc.), while also wanting to get around to different ones that I have not played too much or ever at all (e.g., Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, L5R, RuneQuest, etc.). Nevertheless, Dragonbane successfully scratches one of the many gaming itches that I have.

* I will probably wait for the Expert and Magic books before making too many adjustments.

 

[Wolfpack48]

I’d prefer a resistance table for opposed rolls, like older Call of Cthulhu and BRP games. Failing that a blackjack style opposed roll system.

Opposed rolls are on p. 33 of the rules. The only thing I would possibly change is the player with the higher skill or higher roll wins when both succeed in an opposed roll contest. This would better reflect characters with higher skills having an advantage over those with lower skills. I don't think there's really a need for the resistance table if there's an opposed roll system.

The only thing I think is properly missing from a perfect-in-one game is even loose monster creation guidelines and something like a clocks system for more involved tasks. Though you could probably do that with a single roll and boons/banes for help and circumstances. It just takes a stretch or a shift.

I don't think we're going to get an "official" monster creation system unless the system in Dragonzine #2 is adopted. My sense is that they'll leave this to 3rd parties.

 

[dbm]

@Aldarc - I am, by default, a person who loves genre-flexible systems. Savage Worlds is my favourite these days, as it brings a pulp feel to games I run and that is great for 90% of my needs. But I do like gritty fantasy. Savage Worlds can do that, but a tailored system which hits my key wants is also great (and different, of course, which can also be a virtue).

I looked at Dragonbane when it came out, and read the quick start. It didn’t grab me on paper, I must be honest. But hearing about how it actually plays at the table has changed my mind. So it will be getting a whirl from me.

 

[Aldarc]

I looked at Dragonbane when it came out, and read the quick start. It didn’t grab me on paper, I must be honest. But hearing about how it actually plays at the table has changed my mind. So it will be getting a whirl from me.

I believe that the Kickstarter was around late Q3 or early Q4 2022, which feels like a completely different time and place. I'm going through the Kickstarter and Quick Start Rules now just to figure out what on earth grabbed enough to drop 37€ on this product. (In retrospect, 37€ for this incredible box set feels like getting away with murder!) I'm not sure why. It may have honestly been the art and the magic schools, as the themes (animism, elementalism, and mentalism) fit with a number of past and present homebrew projects.

 

[overgeeked]

Opposed rolls are on p. 33 of the rules. The only thing I would possibly change is the player with the higher skill or higher roll wins when both succeed in an opposed roll contest. This would better reflect characters with higher skills having an advantage over those with lower skills. I don't think there's really a need for the resistance table if there's an opposed roll system.

Yeah, I know it’s there. I’m not a fan of lowest-roll wins. It gives the character with the worst skill an advantage. Hence preferring the resistance table. The blackjack style I mentioned is whoever rolls highest without going over their own skill wins. So there we are saying the same thing in different ways.

 

[Retreater]

I posted this in my Dragonbane Post-Mortem thread, but thought it might be handy to have here...

"The main theme I appreciate the most after spending years of wrecking my brain with over-thinking is the shear randomization of choices. It really takes so much of the weight off a DM. More than any game in recent memory, it felt like a long-long friend sitting next to me and helping me run a game. It doesn't have the pushy, heavily codified rules of something like Pathfinder 2. It doesn't have the "you're the DM - figure it out" mentality of 5e.

The first aspect of this is in character creation. While your players can completely customize every aspect of their character, there are charts to make creation quick and easy. You can roll on charts to decide your class, species, stats, equipment, name, appearance, roleplaying quirks, etc. You don't have to labor over "what the party needs" or "what's the best weapon" or "which feat do I take?"

In the monsters, you're presented with a chart you can roll on for your actions. Every one of them is flavorful, from a troll vomiting on a character to a giant picking up a hero and tossing him across the battlefield. Combats are fast, but you don't have to worry about enemies never getting to use cool abilities (because they're all cool abilities) or getting locked into repetitive actions (if you roll the same action twice in a row, you have to select another one).

Want to give interesting tactical options and encourage interaction with the environment? There are cards of terrain features that you can roll randomly to be used by characters and enemies. For example, during a battle in the woods the party was attacked by harpies and few of the heroes could reach them. But the cards showed that a boulder was there, and the rogue got to leap off it and stab a harpy through the chest. The knight was able to launch a hornet's nest at one of them and get it stuck on her head.

Add these to random encounter charts, mishaps for getting lost in the wilderness, critical fumble and success charts.

We praise the elegance and simplicity of Advantage/Disadvantage in D&D 5e. It's also used here. But it's stackable. You can have multiple Advantages that can give more flexibility and require teamwork. In desperation, the knight was trying to climb a slippery cliff in plate armor, so he had double disadvantage. The rest of the party is scrambling to toss him a rope to negate a disadvantage. He is considering leaving his armor in the pit. The monsters are closing in.

Dragonbane is not only a great game, it's the best game I've played in a decade. That boxed set has months of play in it and the full rules. It's a tremendous value that anyone who likes fantasy RPGs should consider."

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, I know it’s there. I’m not a fan of lowest-roll wins. It gives the character with the worst skill an advantage. Hence preferring the resistance table. The blackjack style I mentioned is whoever rolls highest without going over their own skill wins. So there we are saying the same thing in different ways.

I'm not following as I am only seeing half of this conversation, but I'm not sure if I understand how having the lowest roll gives the character with the worst skill an advantage in a roll under skill system.

I posted this in my Dragonbane Post-Mortem thread, but thought it might be handy to have here...

You should have also prefaced this with "A wise man once said in another thread..."

 

[overgeeked]

I'm not following as I am only seeing half of this conversation, but I'm not sure if I understand how having the lowest roll gives the character with the worst skill an advantage in a roll under skill system.

Say we are in an opposed roll situation. Your skill is 5, mine is 15.

In RAW, if you succeed, your result is going to (by definition) cover only 1/3 of my success range. I am 3x as likely to succeed, but 2/3 of that will (by definition) be higher than you are capable of rolling while still succeeding. This makes it more likely that, if we will both succeed, you will win despite having less skill.

It should be the other way around. The person who is more skilled should be more likely to succeed overall, even in the contest. One way to do that is blackjack style where the higher roll without going over wins.

In blackjack, if you succeed, your successful roll (1-5) is going to cap out at 1/3 of my success range. I am 3x as likely to succeed, but 2/3 of that will (by definition) be higher than you are capable of rolling while still succeeding. This makes it more likely that, if we both succeed, I will win because I have the higher skill.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Yeah, I know it’s there. I’m not a fan of lowest-roll wins. It gives the character with the worst skill an advantage. Hence preferring the resistance table. The blackjack style I mentioned is whoever rolls highest without going over their own skill wins. So there we are saying the same thing in different ways.

I was just on a Discord debate about this, and it can be argued a couple of ways, let's use skill 7 vs 17 as an example. And to be clear, opposed rolls are rare in the first place in Dragonbane, typically for resistance to poison (CON vs POT) or something.

Low roll wins: 17 is going to succeed more often than 7 in any case, so the 17 already has an advantage in successes, and most rolls will be 17 success, 7 failure. If 7 succeeds (1-7), they are making an exceptionally good (lucky?) move that sets the bar for the higher skilled player to meet, so the higher skilled player must roll better than usual. This for cases where the 7 player has any chance at all of beating a 17. The advantage is already factored into the chances that the 17 will succeed more often than the 7.

High roll wins: If the 17 person succeeds in a roll, and they roll 8-17, the 7 has zero chance to win, and they might as well not bother rolling. While this reflects the 17 advantage in successes, it also is a double whammy in that the 7 has a very rare chance of success in the first place (1-7) and then zero chance of beating the 17 if they roll 8-17.

It sorta comes down if you want to give the little guy a chance for a lucky shot, or whether you want to set the bar high for them to even have a chance.

By the way, a 1 would always win over a non-1 roll, and a 20 would always lose over a non-20 roll. Again, this is all pretty theoretical and opposed rolls don't get used that often in the first place. Probably the only time would be for Spot Hidden rolls for guards actively trying to find a Sneaking player, which is a rare situation as well.

 

[overgeeked]

It sorta comes down if you want to give the little guy a chance for a lucky shot, or whether you want to set the bar high for them to even have a chance.

In blackjack the little guy still gets a chance at a lucky shot, the more skilled character could roll lower.

By the way, a 1 would always win over a non-1 roll, and a 20 would always lose over a non-20 roll. Again, this is all pretty theoretical and opposed rolls don't get used that often in the first place.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a preference on an edge case for something that doesn’t come up that often. That’s how deep I had to go to find something I was kinda meh on with Dragonbane. Otherwise the game just sings.

But, as I said, I’d prefer the old resistance table but failing that blackjack works for me. RAW just makes my eye twitch.