Artesia from players

[Fishbone]

I've read several reviews of this product, and they've all been solid endorsements or fanboyish raves. I've yet to see the product get slagged, which is always a good sign, and I'm so intrigued by its system that I'm just this close to buying it. Add in the fact that I found a place where I can score it for under 20 dollars and it should be all good, right?
Well, a few things in the reviews are really making me hold off.
15 stats, 3 figured, along with quirky forms of advantages and disadvantages and rolling to determine character events. This seems too wonky, too involved. A magic system that while flexible seems too complicated and intelligent for its own good. A bizarre way to award XP that just seems like its begging to be abused to all hell and back. Could anybody with play experience with this game enlighten me and tell me if the money should be out of my pocket or if I should avoid it?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I just picked it up at GenCon and haven't had a chance to play it yet. But your initial assessment seems pretty accurate. I think it would be playable, and enjoyable, but I think its the kind of game where you really need all the players to play ball and have gentlemen's agreements not to try and break the system. The Bindings system is intriguing, but I think the DM would have to exercise discretion in using them, because it could easily get out of hand if every little interaction resulted in or was modified by them.

Mayhap if there were interest, I could start a short PbP game here and we could all see how it worked out.

I would think that if you were the type to mine other games for ideas even if you didn't play them, that its well worth $20. If it's a take it or leave it situation, maybe not. But it is georgeous, and the setting material alone could be worth getting just to use as a stage for a d20 game.

 

[Turjan]

The only Actual Play thread I know of is this one.

 

[Fishbone]

The first post of the actual play thread at www.rpg.net is confirming all of my worst fears. I'm not afraid of a complex game, in fact my two favorites are HERO and Hackmaster which nobody would say are rules light or beginner friendly. But 6 hours just on character creation? Sweet fancy Moses!

 

[Turjan]

The first post of the actual play thread at www.rpg.net is confirming all of my worst fears. I'm not afraid of a complex game, in fact my two favorites are HERO and Hackmaster which nobody would say are rules light or beginner friendly. But 6 hours just on character creation? Sweet fancy Moses!

To be fair, with a completely new group of D&D players, it took me also 4 hours to make their characters. The point is that they want to know what they are doing. That's why I now prefer pre-generated characters for beginners .

In the case of Artesia, character generation will also deliver lots of plot hooks. And, in a way, it even delivers a grasp of the setting.

 

[Quickleaf]

A few points I've learned from one game of Artesia.

Plan on the first session being character generation. However, chargen in Artesia serves two other purposes - an understanding of the Known World setting, and a brief grasp of the rules. On top of this, characters will have very well fleshed out backgrounds with plenty of story hooks. Of course, figuring out what these different sorts of people are doing together is a challenge as always.

I love the Arcana experience system, but really don't like the complex combat system, which slows things down as much as (or possibly slightly more than) d20.