Dragonbane Announces Two New Books

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Free League Publishing is expanding its Dragonbane line with two new books. Free League announced it will be running a BackerKit crowdfunding campaign for Arkand–City of Waves and Flames and Book of Magic, two new expansions for Dragonbane. Arkand - City of Waves and Flames is a campaign setting book set in a rich bustling city with a power struggle in the city's underworld. Book of Magic adds five new schools of magic to the game, including harmonism, demonology, necromancy, witchcraft and illusionism.

The crowdfunding campaign will go live on June 3rd. Full descriptions of both books can be found below:



Arkand–City of Waves and Flames Key Features
  • A rich, bustling setting: Over a dozen adventure sites spread across five districts, along with a number of campaign seeds, and even more adventure sites available to be unlocked as stretch goals in this Kickstarter.
  • Danger and intrigue: The player characters will experience a fierce power struggle in the city’s underworld, take on the role of demon hunters, and uncover secrets about Arkand’s storied past that could change the city forever.
  • Award-winning creativity: Arkand–City of Waves and Flames is written by Johan Sjöberg and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans and David Brasgalla. If unlocked as a stretch goal, this book will also include a large separate432 x 558mm full-color map drawn by Francesca Baerald

Book of Magic Key Features
  • More magic: TheBook of Magic adds at least five new schools of magic to your Dragonbane game, including harmonism, demonology, necromancy, witchcraft, and illusionism–with more possible to unlock as stretch goals–as well as new spells for the existing schools of general magic, animism, elementalism, and mentalism.
  • More spells: All featured schools of magic come with a wide range of spells, which now come in five ranks. Each school is also described with information about their practitioners, station and reputation in the world, and what kind of spiritus familarius their members typically summon.
  • More award-winning creativity: TheBook of Magic is written by Mattias Johnsson Haake and Mattias Lilja (creators of Symbaroum) with Tomas Härenstam (Dragonbane Core Set) as co-writer and editor, and illustrated by Johan Egerkrans and David Brasgalla.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer

Same here. I love roll-low d100 games: BRP, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer RPGs, etc, but for some reason I always had a hard time with d20 roll-low games (Pendragon, Dragonbane, Black Hack, etc).

But I think my aversion is more on rolling just 1 die instead of 2+ dice. I'm ok with GURPS' 3d6 roll-low system, for example. Funny how the mind works.
A d20 is a percentile dice divided by 5. 12 or less is 60%. Just do the math in your head before you roll, and all will be fine. ;) :D
 

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This system looks very deadly? Does this affect the type of adventures to be had?
My group played multiple published scenarios (all from the KS), and they were brutal as brutal can be. Multiple TPKs.

The GM even confided—after deciding that, nope, Dragonbane irritated him too much to continue—that the “basilisk adventure” was essentially impossible. As published, defeating the monster involved, like, tap dancing under a full moon while gargling holy water and reciting filthy limericks backwards. (Even scraping off the hyperbole, we got slaughtered and couldn’t figure out what to do.)

I had a blast with the game, though!
 

I am convinced it’s because we’re primed to think high numbers are better. Not just in RPGs, but in almost everything (except for bills, taxes, and golf).
I don't know. "We're number 1" seems to be a popular refrain. So is "low price guarantee."

I don't like Roll Under because it is just more complicated than "higher is better." Suppose you have a crummy attribute of 3. Jane NPC has an epic score of 18. Any success you might roll against Jane will look impressive because it's so low - but does she need to roll lower than you to beat you? Does your 2 result beat her 17? Yes, there are answers, but no, they're not as intuitive to me as "roll higher."

Glad to see more Dragonbane, and I'm really hoping for a duel between the Dragonbane duck and the Daggerheart frog.
 


My group played multiple published scenarios (all from the KS), and they were brutal as brutal can be. Multiple TPKs.

The GM even confided—after deciding that, nope, Dragonbane irritated him too much to continue—that the “basilisk adventure” was essentially impossible. As published, defeating the monster involved, like, tap dancing under a full moon while gargling holy water and reciting filthy limericks backwards. (Even scraping off the hyperbole, we got slaughtered and couldn’t figure out what to do.)

I had a blast with the game, though!
Thanks. Sounds like Dragonbane isn't for my group.
 

It’s not quite the same math unless you make heavy use of bonuses and penalties for the roll-under system. Because in D&D, the GM can set the DC low, no matter how bad your skill level is.
Rolling your flat skill in a down under system is a "challenging" test, not a normal one ;) Give some bonuses/maluses to se DC, it's not difficult to do.
 

Well, we Swedes grew up with a BRP game (Drakar och Demoner, now known as Dragonbane) being as dominant in Sweden as D&D in the States, so for many of us, roll high for conflict resolution is not the preferred, or even intuitive, way of doing it. :D

We learned differently, I guess! :)
 

Thanks. Sounds like Dragonbane isn't for my group.
It depends on how your group plays. I've not had TPK with Dragonbane. My players are methodical and prudent. They don't attack needlessly. With Dragonbane adventures, combat is not always the solution for the resolution of the mission.

The Sinking Tower is a FREE Quickstart Guide. It has everything you need to play. Give it a try.

 
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I don't like Roll Under because it is just more complicated than "higher is better." Suppose you have a crummy attribute of 3. Jane NPC has an epic score of 18. Any success you might roll against Jane will look impressive because it's so low - but does she need to roll lower than you to beat you? Does your 2 result beat her 17? Yes, there are answers, but no, they're not as intuitive to me as "roll higher."
Rolling low as possible makes sense since a 1 is a critical success. 20 is a critical failure. You want to be number 1, not finish in 20th place. Very intuitive to me.
 


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