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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khur" data-source="post: 2206880" data-attributes="member: 5583">Blue Rose Review 04.28.05AlignmentThis review is of the print edition of Blue Rose. I received this book as a review copy.Initiative RoundBased on the d20 system, Blue Rose is actually a maturing and streamlining of that structure into what the marketing people at <a href="http://www.greenronin.com" target="_blank">Green Ronin</a> call the True20™ system. The perfectbound book’s 224 pages are packed with a d20 game like you’ve seen before but perhaps not in this way. No surprise is that the game was developed under the guidance of Steve Kenson, having been written by him, Jeremy Crawford, Dawn Elliot, and John Snead. retails for $29.95.  That price is reasonable, given what we’ll see as the true value in this tome. Fitting the subject matter (romantic fantasy), the art is soft and delivered by skilled draftpersons such as Stephanie Pui-Min Law and Jennifer Meyer. Of particular note is the work of Elaine “Lilith” Bettocci. Disappointing, however, was that this flagship product for a truly innovative game wasn’t given better physical quality. It’s a paperback and monochrome. Though the art and design are good, none of it speaks of the love that was shown Mutants & Masterminds.Reference to Mutants & Masterminds is important. Blue Rose owes much of its existence to the originality of Mutants & Masterminds. It evolves beyond its notable ancestor, however, to realm all its own.The milieu of the game is novel in many ways. Aldea, the game’s world, has a complete and suitably mythic origin, with metaphysical reasons for everything from the physical world to evil to love between members of the same sex. Aldea itself is less complete, with only a region of the world being presented in Blue Rose. The world is home to peoples of varying ethics, but the primary focus of the game is the land of Aldis.To say that Aldis has an egalitarian society would be like saying Monte Cook is moderately successful in the game industry. Things wished for, debated over, and accepted only marginally even in the free society of the United States are norms in Aldis, from truly merit-based achievement to interpersonal ethics to homosexuality. Aldis is utopian in its social aspects, even including intelligent animals as citizens. (The ethics of eating and domesticating lesser animals aren’t dealt with, and neither are particularly tense racial politics.) Only its enemies cast a shadow on this society in which everyone seems to get along just fine.As one might expect, the main bad guys are geographically isolated from Aldis—one by mountains and another by a vast swamp. Kern, one of those enemies, is ruled by a lich, while Jarzon is an oppressive theocracy. Both adversaries are predictable but effective foils to Blue Rose’s themes of the high value of individual life and the importance of self-determination.Aldis must also endure threats from within. Avaricious bandits and pirates, crooked nobles and merchants, wicked sorcerers and cultists, and dangerous relics and places all threaten the land’s harmony. It’s hard to see why a society such as Aldis’s would produce many criminals, except that banditry and corrupting sources of power are often easier than legitimate work or study. Besides, games need reasons for characters to clash as much as they need characters.Characters and their creation are strong points of the Blue Rose rules. A streamlined approach is combined with a wide range of customizability, making for a system that could easily replace core d20 techniques.To start, ability scores in Blue Rose are what other d20 games would call ability modifiers. Each character has a number of points to assign to ability scores, which can range from –5 to +5 for 1st-level characters. Negative ability scores can be taken to grant a character more points to allocate to other scores. The scores are also modified by a character’s background.Backgrounds are essentially species and/or cultures. Humans choose a culture, while nonhumans are presented as having homogenous cultures or a society integrated with humanity. A human might be Aldin or one of the Roamers (much like the Roma of Earth). Nonhumans include the elflike vata, the goblinoidlike or orclike night people, the androgynous sea folk, and sentient animals called rhydan. These backgrounds provide benefits ranging from ability score modifiers to darkvision to favored skills and feats. These latter two features are important because they allow characters with the appropriate background to take a skill or feat normally outside those allowed by their role.Roles are classes. Blue Rose only has three roles—warrior (fighter), expert (rogue or skill-user), and adept (spellcaster). As with a class, a role is a package of general attributes limited by the role’s strengths and weaknesses. A warrior character, for instance, can only choose general and martial feats and is more limited than an expert in the number of skills he may know when beginning play. Each role also comes with a number of sample paths that show how a role might be shaped into a traditional fantasy roleplaying character. Besides the use of mutliclassing, tailoring a character to a specific concept is easy since players can choose a characters favored skills and pick a new feat at each level (four at 1st level).Feats in Blue Rose play the part of class features, from rage to spellcasting, and normal feats, such as Power Attack and Deflect Arrows. This piece of game design, and the plethora of character concepts it allows, is so elegant that it even eliminates the need for prestige classes while still leaving space for them. Most of the feats are familiar to the D&D crowd, but the arcane feats are a new concept, even though many resemble D&D spells.Magical ability is acquired through judicious attainment of arcane feats and the skills those feats allow a character to access. A healer could be built by focusing on Healing Talent and Psychic Talent, along with Arcane Training focused on skills relevant to the healer. However, a necromancer might begin with similar feats and skills but take other attributes such as the Flesh Shaping skill and Imbue Unliving feat. But dabbling in such perverse arcana carries a price—corruption.Corruption is the inevitable slide into darkness caused by giving in to evil and selfishness. A translation of Taint from Wizards or the Coast’s Unearthed Arcana, corruption is cleverly used in Blue Rose to make the misuse of arcane talents costly. Summoning fiends, reading minds without permission, and using magic to kill in unnecessarily brutal ways are all among varied paths of corruption. Corrupt places and items can lead to a character’s fall into Shadow as well. Other <a href="http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2142254" target="_blank">reviews</a> have stated that corruption makes the system viable as a Star Wars system, and that’s true. Unfortunately, the corruption mechanics maintain one of the taint system’s worst flaws. Gaining corruption immediately lowers a character’s Constitution and Wisdom scores, meaning the “Dark Side” has no soft allure that lures a character in and kills her softly with a quick route to power. No, corruption will be something every player will seek to avoid at all costs because the price is too high.No doubt, corruption could have been engineered to be a snare with more effectiveness, but Blue Rose wasn’t created to be Star Wars. So, maybe corruption as presented is for the best. It leaves the focus is on the heroic and romantic and not the draw of subtle wickedness.Speaking of such dichotomies leads other cool aspects of Blue Rose—a character’s alignment, calling, and nature. A creature’s alignment can be Light (good), Twilight (neutral), and Shadow (evil). All characters also have a calling, which is an overarching purpose to the character’s life, such as toppling the lofty or exploring everywhere possible. Supplementing the calling is a character’s nature. Nature has two parts, one of which is Light and the other Shadow. One’s Light nature might be generosity, while the Shadow nature might be envy. These parts play into each other, but they also make way for another of Blue Rose’s mechanics.That mechanic is Conviction. Working as do Hero Points in Mutants & Masterminds, Conviction is a pool of points that may be spent to alter outcomes in the game. Much like White Wolf’s willpower system in the World Of Darkness rules, a character can regain Conviction points by acting according to one of his natures in order to answer his calling. Light-aligned creatures try to pursue their Light natures, while the Shadow-aligned lean toward their Shadow natures. (Corrupt Shadow-aligned creatures can’t regain Conviction by acting according to their Light natures.) See how this all works together?Synergy is the word with Blue Rose’s rules. It uses simplified d20 mechanics to keep the focus on the story and roleplaying. To this end, Blue Rose includes a version of the Mutants & Masterminds damage save system. It also has rules for reputation and uses a wealth statistic, both somewhat like d20 Modern’s mechanics.Also like d20 Modern, Blue Rose contains a chapter devoted to the art of Game Mastering. (The GM is called a Narrator.) Blue Rose diverges from d20 Modern in that its GMing techniques focus on the emotional and interactive sides of roleplaying rather than cinematic action. Interpersonal dynamics and intrigue are more of Blue Rose’s focus.That doesn’t mean this standalone game doesn’t include rules for derring-do or worthy adversaries. It has both. In addition, the book is topped off with a beginning adventure and conversion notes for other d20 material.Critical HitBlue Rose is an out-and-out critical hit insofar as its mechanics go. It’s also a critical hit in its openness about social issues and focus on roleplaying.One aspect that really stands above the other great parts of this game is the arcana system and its Shadow facet, sorcery. Magic is at once familiar and unique in Blue Rose. Arcana require training and dedication (feats and skills) and some have an element of chance in that a die roll determines the magic’s efficacy. Some arcana are fatiguing, made more so by the rapid use of tiring effects. But judicious use of magical skill means a character can more easily accomplish tasks as a magician than the typical D&D wizard can, particularly at low levels. Lack of wisdom in the use of arcana can lead to a worse fate than not having a critical effect when it’s needed. Misuse of magic, called sorcery, corrupts. All these elements serve to make Blue Rose’s magic system an exciting part of the game and a winner for integration into other OGL works.Another intriguing part of the game is the frankness with which societal customs are dealt. While the inclusion of “taboos” such as homosexuality and transvestitism may be beyond the tastes of some, opening the doors to such themes is at least as good as the inclusion of interracial tension, religious corruption, and brooding paranoia in Eberron. Blue Rose, with its romantic overtones, is also a good segue into more open, adult roleplaying as might be offered by the addition of Book of Erotic Fantasy or Naughty & Dice (though this is not an endorsement of either volume). Critical FumbleIn a game this carefully constructed, the little things stand out. While hardly critical, Blue Rose has a few fumbles.The skill system is rigid and limiting compared to the rest of the options available in character creation. Slotting the traditional d20 skill point mechanics in may work, but is likely to throw off game balance when players no longer have to select the Skill Training feat. How skill points would work with arcana skills is an added question.The wealth system also seems incongruous with the world. It’s designed to handle a financial system that would require more bookkeeping than it’s worth in a game, such as our modern world of credit, investment, and debt. Lack of any concrete way to give wealth as a reward is another problem.Similarly, Blue Rose does not have an explicit method of rewarding characters with experience, despite level-based character development. Related to this is the absence of any guidance in creating encounters suitable for characters of a certain level. Emotional and romantic roleplaying doesn’t mean such rules are unnecessary. Further, an inexperienced Narrator needs such direction. Coup de GraceGreen Ronin has done it again—Blue Rose is a winner and especially so for those among us gamers who want the focus on story, character development, and romance (in a literary and literal sense). Its mechanics underpin these concepts in nearly every way possible, without leaving out the “adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful” (1) aspects of romance. The romantic-fantasy genre has never been treated so carefully in the roleplaying industry, and that fact alone would be enough to ensure Blue Rose’s originality. Only the inclusion of traditional fantasy species, though under different names, really stands opposed to this point. Blue Rose shows the flexibility of d20 without sacrificing playability—would be game designers could learn a thing or three from this book. If only as much concern was given to Blue Rose’s physical quality, which, while not bad, certainly doesn’t match the book’s content. Many gamers would surely have paid more for this book if its appearance matched that of Mutants & Masterminds, albeit in its own romantic-fantasy sort of way. As it is, Blue Rose could be seen as a bit pricey for its production values (compare to Mutants & Masterminds at $32.95). Then again, the content is worthwhile just for the read, especially from a game writer’s standpoint. Actually using the system just adds value. Taken as a whole, Blue Rose lives up to its name. Like an actual blue rose (2), this roleplaying game is a unique creation specifically engineered from another form with the intent to enhance novelty and overall enjoyment.(1) A quote from the romance entry in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. (2) Blue roses are normally white roses with a blue solution introduced through the plant’s water uptake. Thanks to biotech, however, now we may be able to get an <a href="http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=faq&id=bluerose&stylesheet=divisionFaq" target="_blank">actual breed of blue roses</a>.Final Grade: 4.65 (rounded up to 5 for playability, innovation, and integration) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />This review originally appeared at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">d20 Magazine Rack</a>. Shameless Consumer Facilitation<a href="http://bluerose.greenronin.com" target="_blank">Blue Rose</a> has its own website. It is available at the <a href="http://enworld.rpgshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=36523&" target="_blank">ENWorld Store</a> (print) and <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4239&src=EnWorld" target="_blank">RPGNow</a> (PDF).</blockquote>

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