Abney Park's RPG: Anyone else excited?

[Aberzanzorax]

I love steampunk, but have little exposure to it (as my groups don't love it, sadly...so what I do is exploration on my own).


I was recently exposed to Abney Park's music, and have been observing the banner ads (even clicked on it!)...and I have to say that I'm excited.


But I'm also ill informed. I'm starting this thread to get others' opinions on the RPG, or news, or any kind of information on the product or group.


So...whaddya know?

Because K.M. was right...there needs to be a link.
Airship Pirates

 

[MortonStromgal]

Supposedly its the same mechanics as Victoriana.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

As both a steampunk fan and an Abney Park fan, I am interested in seeing this. Sadly, I know very little at this point.

 

[bankjobsearch28]

The Abney Park RPG

Yeah, I suppose its more awesome than average, but the chronicle of the black sword now needs moar Moorcock.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Airship Pirates

Man, d00ds need to link.

I heard about it via ads here on ENWorld, and it does seem interesting. I'm not exactly a big Abney Park fan, but I AM a sucker for steampunkery.

Clearly, someone needs to buy that thing right the heck now and tell us all about it. I nominate.....the OP!

 

[Relique du Madde]

Actually they had 50? copies at Gen Con... but little has been said anywhere about the game by anyone who purchased it there.

I did hear that their will be no PDFs until all the preorders at Abney Park's website are shipped, but I have not heard any mention when it will ship (but I'm sure the easy answer is "before dragoncon").

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Airship Pirates

Man, d00ds need to link.

I heard about it via ads here on ENWorld, and it does seem interesting. I'm not exactly a big Abney Park fan, but I AM a sucker for steampunkery.

Clearly, someone needs to buy that thing right the heck now and tell us all about it. I nominate.....the OP!

You're right, I shoulda linked.

I plan on buying it, but I've learned not to preorder unless I really trust the source. I guess it's already in print now, though, so I can do just that!

 

[Wicht]

I ran this game for Cubicle 7 at Gencon.

The system is the same as for Victoriana, the Heresy engine. It is a d6 dice pool mechanic where 1 and 6s are successes and 6s explode. There is also a black dice subsystem where you roll alternate dice to subtract from successes. Black dice are used to indicate levels of difficulty in the task.

The mechanics are easy to learn and fairly freeform. Combat is potentially swingy and can be quickly lethal, with fate points being useable to swing it in the PCs favor. The system can be easily altered however, to make the PCs more durable. My main learning curve in running it was learning how many antagonist I could throw at the PCs at one time without wiping the floor with them.

The world itself is fairly interesting and, imo, the best part of the game, provided you are not too concerned about the little details. It plays best, again imo, as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek game, full of humor, action and air-ship swashbuckling and larceny. The idea is that Abney Park, with a time machine, brought about a worldwide era of peace and that the world was thus unprepared to deal with a really nefarious anti-progress environmentalist tyrant. He flooded the lands with man eating monsters and herded people into oppressive change-cage cities with neo-victorian rules. Those who sought to escape either went into hiding or took to the air in balloon lifted cities.

A Word of caution: some of the images in the book (one in particular) are not family-friendly. So don't buy it as a present for a kid without looking it over first. Otherwise, its a decent enough game and worth giving a shot.

I also ran The One Ring at Gencon for Cubicle 7 and I would highly, highly recommend that game to anyone of any age.

 

[Relique du Madde]

You're right, I shoulda linked.

I plan on buying it, but I've learned not to preorder unless I really trust the source.

I'm pretty sure that Cubical 9 or Abney Park's website count as a trustworthy source.

Back Story.

Man.. that's cringe worthy.. especially with Abney Park being a Mary Sue subtrope. If they were just time travelers who are adventuring in the neo-victorian steampunk era then things would be alright, but making themselves be "failed messiahs" just irks me.

At least the "big evil" seems interesting ("Let's nuke civilization to the stone age... so nature can thrive"), that assuming you didn't mean anti-progress anti-environmentalist which would be a very post apocalyptic sort of villain ("I'll nuke civilization into the stone age.... and make sure no one can survive anywhere").

 

[Wicht]

In fairness, the band mainly enters into the book as backstory to the setting. The game is really about the world they have wrought (and now sing about). Also, there is a second time machine out there somewhere and part of the game, if you want to use it, as about the consequences of mucking about with the timestream.