Does Anyone Care? (Cosmere RPG)

[Parmandur]

OK, we have retail release details in terms of timing and MSRP, including fir the $25 Starter Set with box art by Wayne Reynolds coming to stores October 29th:

"Brotherwise Games will launch the Cosmere Roleplaying Game: Stormlight series with a boxed set, three books, and accessories, all releasing on October 29."

'The opening wave of Stormlight titles includes the Stormlight Starter Set, a boxed set that comes with a condensed 60-page version of the rulebook, a 48-page adventure designed for starting characters, battle maps and tokens needed for the adventure, a half-dozen pre-generated characters, and a set of six RPG dice plus one plot die. MSRP is $24.99."

"The full game rules are split between the Stormlight Handbook, a 392-page hardcover book that describes character creation and rules for playing the game and the Stormlight World Guide, a 280-page book describing the history and culture of the world of Roshar, the setting for Stormlight, as well as the broader Cosmere setting. The books will be sold separately with an MSRP of $59.99 each."

Brotherwise Launching 'Stormlight'

For 'Cosmere Roleplaying Game'

icv2.com

 

[TwoSix]

An evolution of the 5e engine with a different magic system; AND a setting gazetteer of Roshar and the greater Cosmere?

<sadly opens wallet>

 

[Parmandur]

An evolution of the 5e engine with a different magic system; AND a setting gazetteer of Roshar and the greater Cosmere?

<sadly opens wallet>

If it makes you feel better, it does a really fantastic job at both?

Gameplay wise, it manages to capture a very 5E feel and dynamic while solving martial/caster imbalance and multiclassing through a unified progression scheme and making everything Skills. Like, it is wild thwt it succeeds in making a system where a civilian with no combat skills who has maxed out social stuff can contribute as much to the game as a Storming Windrunner: actual rules for "social combat" and Skill Challenges.

As a Roshar worldbook: top notch, the art is beautiful and it explains a lot the novels haven't quite made clear. All canon, but not anything Sanderspn says will spoil future books, just stuff characters in the world would know that haven't come up yet.

Just based on the PDFs, huge recommendation.

 

[Parmandur]

In case anyone is interested in the ruleset but not sure about the Stormlight Setting, which is incredibly specific...this is being designed as a Setting and genre be ding game overall, first with the forthcoming Mistborn version of the game followed by several more Sanderson inspired products based on other worlds...but they are also developing a generic version of the rules for open gaming, Plotweaver. They released the image above for it in the Chasmfiend Magazine issue #2 they dropped for GenCon, and have a website up now woth some preliminary information:

"Plotweaver™ is a new RPG system and setting from Brotherwise Games, the team that brought you the record-breaking Cosmere RPG. Plotweaver invites players to explore a universe where every story is true. Characters might focus on the tale of a single world, or travel the threads of reality to explore an endless tapestry of sci-fi, fantasy, and more."

"Want to playtest Plotweaver, learn about our program to support indie publishers, or be the first to know when our Kickstarter campaign goes live? Join our mailing list for free resources and breaking news."

...

"The Plotweaver Roleplaying Game is an original game system created by Brotherwise Games. While Plotweaver was originally designed to support the Cosmere RPG, its depth and flexibility make it an excellent for a wide range of settings."

• Familiar, but upgraded: If you’ve ever rolled a d20, you already know how to play Plotweaver. But Plotweaver takes d20-based play to the next level with a wide range of enhancements.
• The plot die: A simple but powerful tool for adding excitement to key rolls, the plot die can add a narrative Opportunity or Complication to any scene.
• Paths, not classes: Instead of rigid classes, Plotweaver characters can be completely customized via talent trees that allow you to build exactly the character concept you have in mind.
• Progression-based: Plotweaver is ideal for stories where characters grow from ordinary people to remarkable heroes. Your character’s power grows in meaningful ways from level 1 to 20 and beyond.
• Skill-based magic: When you want to use extraordinary abilities, you’re not limited to narrow “spell slots.” Magic, psionics, and superpowers take a more narrative approach that rewards creativity and improvisation.
• Worlds collide: From swords and sorcery to blasters and spacecraft, this system was built to support storytelling that spans genres.
• Open source: We want you to create the future of Plotweaver! Our open game license is designed to build a community of indie publishers.

"We’re currently gathering a world-class team of creatives to build the future of this system. Our next step will be to recruit playtesters, then creators, then players and GMs! If you’re interested in becoming a part of the Plotweaver community, sign up for updates."

Plotweaver Roleplaying Game

www.plotweaverrpg.com

 

[Cergorach]

People dismissing Cosmere as "IP fans just bought it with no intention of ever playing it!" let me ask you the question: How many books or pdfs do you have of RPGs you've never played? What about once a decade or two ago? Us pnp RPG folks are historically famous for this!

Let me start by pointing out that my only connection with BS is through his writing of the last couple of Wheel of Time books co-written with RJ. The folks at Crafty Games (the folks behind Spycraft) did a Mistborn RPG at the time, which I was interested in (because I really liked Spycraft, which I never played). I vaguely remember that I tried reading the first novel in the Mistborn series and it just didn't jive with me, something similarly happened when I tried to read the first book of the Horus Heresy (but loved Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts and Eisenhorn series). So I have not any of the Cosmere universe books and have zero connection to that world.
I followed all the hype around the KS, which was interesting. It looked all high quality production work, didn't know how good an RPG it would be. Then I forgot all about it and recently the books showed up in my Foundry VTT module feed, color me interested (mechanically). But there was zero discussion about it in the usual place, so no place to get a good review for the mechanics. What I did see was BS fans being fans, their idol can't do no wrong or jealous people being jealous.
That said, beyond playing in the specific Cosmere worlds, what makes this 'better'/different from D&D or Pathfinder for generic RPGs? What makes it different that hasn't been done before?
As the intention is to have an OGL version of their underlying (Plotweaver) system made available eventually, I'm interested in people creating more generic options/monsters for that system.

Why wouldn't I play a Cosmere RPG? Because both I and the rest of the gaming group aren't fans of the Cosmere universe, heck, I suspect that no one has ever read any of these books. It's not that we don't like it, we don't know it exists. Looking from outside in, it isn't doing anything more for me then Forgotten Realms, that which we currently play D&D in. For our main fantasy RPG needs I would even be more tempted towards PF2e, and for smaller excursions to more niche products like Spire/Heart, The Dark Eye, WFRP4e, Mothership, Blades in the Dark, Dragonbane (Trudvang Chronicles), Forbidden Lands, Shadowrun, Ars Magica, or Vampire (World of Darkness).

There also was a Game of Thrones RPG (might have been more then one), an Expanse RPG, a Witcher RPG, etc. They are great stories, but I never felt the need to play in any of them...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

People dismissing Cosmere as "IP fans just bought it with no intention of ever playing it!" let me ask you the question: How many books or pdfs do you have of RPGs you've never played? What about once a decade or two ago? Us pnp RPG folks are historically famous for this!

I think the issue with this sort of thing is usually at the other end, as it were.

Like, there are an awful lot of IP-merchandise-type TTRPGs which, with no insult to the designers (and I will avoid naming many specific ones to avoid starting fights), were not ever really, really designed to be played, like a major focus. Like the primary reason the TTRPG exists, essentially as a coffee table book for nerds, a piece of conceptual art as it were. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I do think it means that settings and concepts that aren't really very "gameable" get made into TTRPGs more than should, and even where the concepts are "gameable" fairly often the TTRPGs don't really do a good job of making them into a playable game (in some cases the rules are nearly junk, looking at you Dark Souls TTRPG), particularly not a long-term one (and they're often designed as if they were long-term). Also common is that, if they hadn't been limited by the merchandised IP, they could have some small but significant tweaks to the situation/setting/tech/magic and come out with something that was much more suited to being a TTRPG rather than just a coffee table book. There are also ones that are "needlessly compatible" with whatever RPG is big at the time (5E right now usually), just to eke out more sales even though that rules-set may not match with the concept well at all, and few people are going to play it anyway!

Is it a "problem" that these exist?

I don't think it's a big problem, but I do think it sometimes means that instead getting a really good, really considered "off-brand" RPG that essentially covers that ground in an evocative way, the IP-merchandise RPG with messy, incoherent, or generic rules, because it has the "official" IP, sort of dominates that space. Which is a net negative.

All that said, none of those critiques seem to strongly apply to the Cosmere RPG, from what I've seen! It looks like a pretty good original system (influenced by 5E but definitely not 5E, and not "needlessly compatible"), and might even be worth using for some people as like a more non-D&D-fantasy-friendly 5E alternative (because 5E does not love any fantasy that isn't solidly D&D-coded).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the issue with this sort of thing is usually at the other end, as it were.

Like, there are an awful lot of IP-merchandise-type TTRPGs which, with no insult to the designers (and I will avoid naming many specific ones to avoid starting fights), were not ever really, really designed to be played, like a major focus. Like the primary reason the TTRPG exists, essentially as a coffee table book for nerds, a piece of conceptual art as it were. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I do think it means that settings and concepts that aren't really very "gameable" get made into TTRPGs more than should, and even where the concepts are "gameable" fairly often the TTRPGs don't really do a good job of making them into a playable game (in some cases the rules are nearly junk, looking at you Dark Souls TTRPG), particularly not a long-term one (and they're often designed as if they were long-term). Also common is that, if they hadn't been limited by the merchandised IP, they could have some small but significant tweaks to the situation/setting/tech/magic and come out with something that was much more suited to being a TTRPG rather than just a coffee table book. There are also ones that are "needlessly compatible" with whatever RPG is big at the time (5E right now usually), just to eke out more sales even though that rules-set may not match with the concept well at all, and few people are going to play it anyway!

Is it a "problem" that these exist?

I don't think it's a big problem, but I do think it sometimes means that instead getting a really good, really considered "off-brand" RPG that essentially covers that ground in an evocative way, the IP-merchandise RPG with messy, incoherent, or generic rules, because it has the "official" IP, sort of dominates that space. Which is a net negative.

All that said, none of those critiques seem to strongly apply to the Cosmere RPG, from what I've seen! It looks like a pretty good original system (influenced by 5E but definitely not 5E, and not "needlessly compatible"), and might even be worth using for some people as like a more non-D&D-fantasy-friendly 5E alternative (because 5E does not love any fantasy that isn't solidly D&D-coded).

I don't know. People seem to like the Lord of the Rings RPG for 5e. What IP-based "bad" RPGs are you thinking of?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't know. People seem to like the Lord of the Rings RPG for 5e. What IP-based "bad" RPGs are you thinking of?

I literally said I wasn't going to there re: naming names - did you miss that or are you being tricksy lol? I did mention Dark Souls already so that's one. I mention it particularly because it was so astonishingly full of issues that it actually didn't get 5/5 from everyone (and generally the harder it was looked at, the lower the grade).

LotR is an interesting case, for whatever reason, perhaps because nerds are so obsessed with LotR, and have high standards about it, specifically, I feel like it's done a lot better with licenced RPGs than most. I don't know much about the 5E version of the most recent, might be great!

But my experience is that 5E versions of things (including most official 5E books) are almost universally showered with praise, even when they're not very impressive, so it's very hard to assess from reactions. It's like something being for 5E automatically gets it given at least 2 letter grades up from what an "independent assessor" (lol) might give it. You can even see this in the text of the reviews sometimes - like a book will get called "hard to recommend to most players" and bone-deep issues pointed out, and then get like 4.5/5 as the grade lol.

(This phenomenon is not specific to 5E, note, it's just 5E is the current recipient of it. You also get it with some videogames franchises - less so now than say, 10+ years ago, you'll read the text of the view of a game for a popular franchise, and it'll sound like a real 7/10 on a good day game, but it'll have like 8.5 or even 9 as the review.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

I literally said I wasn't going to there re: naming names - did you miss that or are you being tricksy lol? I did mention Dark Souls already so that's one. I mention it particularly because it was so astonishingly full of issues that it actually didn't get 5/5 from everyone (and generally the harder it was looked at, the lower the grade).

LotR is an interesting case, for whatever reason, perhaps because nerds are so obsessed with LotR, and have high standards about it, specifically, I feel like it's done a lot better with licenced RPGs than most. I don't know much about the 5E version of the most recent, might be great!

But my experience is that 5E versions of things (including most official 5E books) are almost universally showered with praise, even when they're not very impressive, so it's very hard to assess from reactions. It's like something being for 5E automatically gets it given at least 2 letter grades up from what an "independent assessor" (lol) might give it. You can even see this in the text of the reviews sometimes - like a book will get called "hard to recommend to most players" and bone-deep issues pointed out, and then get like 4.5/5 as the grade lol.

(This phenomenon is not specific to 5E, note, it's just 5E is the current recipient of it. You also get it with some videogames franchises - less so now than say, 10+ years ago, you'll read the text of the view of a game for a popular franchise, and it'll sound like a real 7/10 on a good day game, but it'll have like 8.5 or even 9 as the review.)

I did miss that you weren't naming names, sorry.

 

[Parmandur]

The idea that people bought into this game with no intention to play itnis weird...the Cosmere fan space is full of people actively playing or planning to play the game. Just as a licensed game, this is starting to build steam.

As the variety of games using the system increases, between Mistborn and the other Cosmere properties (they seriously have like 5 or 6 different RPGs just with Sanderson's material in the pipeline, and rhe Kickstarter already for the R&D for the next 5 years) and more importantly the "generic" version and the open SRD. How they navigate open gaming could have a huge impact on pick-up: if they go full CC, we might be off to the races with third party potential, because these rules are rock solid.