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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Donovan Morningfire" data-source="post: 5330675" data-attributes="member: 39532">I got a chance to play through the introductory adventure a few months back.  Overall, the game has a "rules-simple old school" feel to it.Character creation is random, but unless your dice really hate you, you won't be too horribly off (just watch out for the folks that get really lucky rolls).  Probably wouldn't be too hard to just utilize the old 3.X point-buy system (purchase your raw 8 to 18 scale numbers, then convert them to the DA value).I thought having the various races as "backgrounds" was a neat option rather than as a separate racial package the way D&D does it.Combat moves pretty quickly, although the stunt point system can take a bit of getting used to and could slow combat down.  One house rule I think I've seen brought up on the Green Ronin forums was to restrict NPC stunt point usage to major opponents to help speed it up.As for the setting, I'm an big fan of the computer game (by all means, when you get the chance, pick it up, even if you don't bother with any of the DLC), and am quite fond of it's gritty approach to the world.  There are magical wonders in the world, but it's not a happy sparkling place either; the phrase "Grey and Black Morality" sums it up pretty well; the closest thing to heroes in the setting, the Grey Wardens, are willing to do some pretty nasty things in the name of stopping the Darkspawn.  Elves are pretty much the 2nd class citizens of the land (considering how badly they got bent over the barrel by various Human groups, namely the Tevinter Empire and the Chantry), and it's a nice change from "elves are always wise and powerful beings."  The land in the default setting (Fereldan) is still recovering from a major war of independence from a foreign power, and there's a great and powerful evil force that is threatening to destroy the world (very similar to Chaos from Warhammer Fantasy).  But then I've always liked settings that differentiated themselves from the "default fantasy setting" that Tolkien did so well, so the various shake-ups to those standards that Dragon Age has suits me just fine.Sadly, the output of new material has been pretty limited as is often a concern with licensed properties, although as has been noted, playtest material for the 2nd box set has been made available, so there's added material there.  Dunno how much, as I've just downloaded it today.If you've got the time to do so (or have a job that isn't so demanding you can't listen to music while you work), check out the Pantsless Gamers, who recorded their play-through of the introductory adventure (whose name escapes me), and can be found at the following link (just scroll down to the bottom of the page).<a href="http://greywardens.com/2010/03/new-dragon-age-podcast-episode-4/" target="_blank">New Dragon Age Podcast Episode #4 | Greywardens.com - Dragon Age: Origins Blog - News, Infos, Screenshots, Downloads, Walkthrough</a></blockquote>

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