Dragon Age RPG - How is It?

[Sadrik]

Metrics are more needed in the "chump to god" advancement model of games. In "dude to bad" ass models it is not as necessary. Is dragon age the former or the latter?

 

[Budalic]

Having read both books and playing the CRPG I'd have to say the monsters are spot on. What people are missing is that the game is set up just like the CRPG in that characters from 1-5 could face any of those monsters in their adventure. I agree some balance would be nice, such as suggested number of each for a given encounter situation, but their inclusion in the 1-5 book is suppose to fill that purpose. Just as in the CRPG the game really stresses tactics versus just running in half cocked and expecting to overwhelm whatever you see there.

The CRPG features level scaling - i.e. the mages tower monsters have stats for levels 5-15. If you go there at level 7, the monsters will be level 7. If you go there at level 13, monsters will be level 13. That's why, say, archers start to use Scattershot later in the game.

 

[Jhaelen]

Heh. Some will argue (and who knows, they might even be right) that such 'helpful' systems can act as a disincentive for GMs eyeballing system elements, such as monsters or other opposition, resulting in poorer GMs.

Nonsense.
While I don't think, that lacking guidelines will keep beginners from picking up a game or giving it a test run, it's quite risky. It basically becomes a matter of chance if the first game(s) will turn out well or not. If players get a bad first impression, they'll simply stop playing it.

And I firmly believe that any RPG that is worthy of such a designation is so open-ended a game as to render such 'guidelines' all but useless. At best.

Okay, guidelines are at best worthless, got it.

Except: I guess not. I mean really? How can guidelines ever be bad?! As long as everyone realizes it's guidelines and not gospel, there's no way the absence of guidelines can be worse than not having any guidelines.