FANTASY AGE Can Now Be YOURS!

Green Ronin's Fantasy AGE roleplaying game is alive! You can now pick up the PDF version of the 144-page full-colour book, or you can pre-order the hardback. Written by Chris Pramas, Fantasy AGE is, of course, the system powering Wil Wheaton's Titansgrave show. The game uses Green Ronin's AGE (Adventure Game Engine), which is also found in their Dragon Age and upcoming Blue Rose RPGs.

"The Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook is your entry point to tabletop roleplaying. Now you can be the hero in your own sword and sorcery adventures! This is the game played on Wil Wheaton’s new tabletop RPG show, Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana. The Adventure Game Engine (AGE) rules are easy to learn, and feature an innovative stunt system that keeps the action tense and exciting. This Basic Rulebook includes full 20 level advancement for all three classes, a new magic system, advice for players and GMs, and an introductory adventure so you can get started right away. You can use Fantasy AGE to run adventures in the campaign setting of your choice or a world of your own creation. A new AGE is upon us!"

The PDF is $15.99, or $5 if you pre-order the hardcover as well.

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In other Green Ronin news, the Blue Rose RPG Kickstarter ends in 4 days. It funded early in the campaign, and is now blasting through stretch goals, the latest of which is a GM screen featuring the art of Stephanie Pui-mun Law. Blue Rose is billed as an inclusive game of romantic fantasy.

 

[twincast]

GR seems to be basing it all on the $50 international flat rate envelope.

A year ago the 3rd Dragon Age box cost USD 20 to (handle and) ship to Europe, and lots of places (e.g. Hero Forge) use a standard rate of USD 15, but now Green Ronin wants to practically bleed me dry paying almost twice the cost of the Fantasy Age hardcover in extravagant shipping (and handling). I think I do remember them giving some fancy-schmancy legalese reason for no longer offering cheaper options about half a year ago or so, but all things considered, I have a hard time not calling that argument bovine manure.

And that would be outrageous enough even without the ECB continously pissing on my importing since then, so the PDF must needs suffice.

Anyway, this quasi-2E is indeed the expected significant improvement over AGE's first edition, but I'm not entirely happy with the specializations and expected the "new magic system" to be more open as well. (And thank goodness there are ways to get rid of that nauseating amount of die-rolling at character creation.) Still, it's a fine entry-level product (including the general statements on all things RPG), and the introductory adventure seems fun.

That said, I'm happy for GR that they seem to be doing well, but I'd much rather finally see (or at least hear again of) some progress on Dragon's Hoard (SIFRP) than pretty much anything else they're doing...

 

[Nebulous]

armor is Damage Reduction, i REALLY like that. But i'm disappointed to hear about all the typo errors. Especially in the print book if it's already heading to printer. I might wait a couple months.

 

[Gradine]

It's got some neat things going for it. Armor as DR is nothing new but I like it here. Tying higher level character growth to broader versatility as opposed to simply more power is not a terrible decision by itself, and in fact works well for many games. But here it makes the dearth of available choices all the more glaring. And like the video game that started all of this, some builds have their choices essentially made for them (I'm looking at you, archer rogue). Without additional sourcebooks or a substantial homebrew community I can't really see how this game is sustainable at high levels without members of the same classes feeling a bit samey.

All that said, I think it's a pretty solid introductory RPG. Classes are basic and iconic, accuracy is pretty neatly bounded with fairly simple math, and rolling for racial bonuses and background details can help a new player flesh out a character, especially if they're having trouble coming up with a good character idea. I like that there are rules for choosing those options yourself, an obvious nod to veteran players, but I'm not sure why a veteran player would choose this system unless they had completely given up on all things D&D.

This is probably the game I'll use to teach my daughter about RPGs until she's old enough to handle 5e.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I'm not sure why a veteran player would choose this system unless they had completely given up on all things D&D. .

The very openness of it. I am running my wife through a fantasy JRPG feeling game. With a homemade class, something really simple and easy to do the way the game is set up - it's almost free form to me. D&D 5th just didn't do that for me - My other games are Pathfinder and Hero, so this is a great rules lightish system for use to do in a hurry. I read the rules one day, and we had the first session the next.

 

[Gradine]

The very openness of it. I am running my wife through a fantasy JRPG feeling game. With a homemade class, something really simple and easy to do the way the game is set up - it's almost free form to me. D&D 5th just didn't do that for me - My other games are Pathfinder and Hero, so this is a great rules lightish system for use to do in a hurry. I read the rules one day, and we had the first session the next.

Yeah, I can definitely see that. I just wish it had more variety baked into the system.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Yeah, I can definitely see that. I just wish it had more variety baked into the system.

I can agree there. I have the Midgard setting for Pathfinder, which has AGE material in it, and the first Dragon Age set. So those give some extra spells and stuff that were easy to convert and use - so that helped.

I do enjoy this as much for potential as the game as it is now - a couple of setting books / AGE games come out, and we should have a nice variety of extra stuff.