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Free League announces Dragonbane, the translation of Swedish RPG classic Drakar och Demoner
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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8722459" data-attributes="member: 907"><p>Looking at the Kickstarter page for Ruin Masters, it seems to have very little to do with classic Drakar och Demoner. Looking at the game's history, we have:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1982: First edition, blue box. Pretty straight translation of Basic Roleplaying + Magic World from Worlds of Wonder.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1984: Second edition, first one with Elric/Stormbringer on the cover. Rewritten from the ground up, but still mostly the same actual system.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1985: Edition 2.1. Almost exactly the same as 2, but with errata applied and one skill (gambling) added. Different intro adventure included.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Also 1985, the rules expansion Drakar och Demoner Expert which greatly altered the game. The skill list was vastly increased, and instead of just choosing 5 proficient and 3 expert skills you got to buy skills with a big pool of experience points, with different skills costing different amounts per point. The combat system was expanded with hit locations, and the magic system was greatly expanded with magic schools as explained in an earlier post. You also had rules for Heroes, advanced-level characters who had Hero Points you could either use to auto-succeed on a roll (with the cost dependent on your skill), buy Hero Abilities, or increase your stats. Another big difference was that task resolution was now handled with a d20 instead of d100. For most purposes, this became the default rules, with only a few things later released for the basic rules.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">In 1987, the rule expansion Drakar och Demoner Samuraj was released, because it was the late 80s and Japan was awesome. This was basically the Expert rules but adapted to a fantasy Japan setting with different magic rules. Other than that it was mostly the same, with a big rules quirk. Like Expert, you bought skills on a 1-20ish scale, but then you converted that value to a percentile by multiplying it with 4-7 depending on the stat the skill was based on.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1987: Edition 3. Again, mostly the same as 2, but with some rules rewritten for clarity. I think the only rule change was that the Size attribute was rolled on 2D6+6 for humans instead of 3D6. But the book was given a general facelift.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1991: Edition 4. This was a major change. The character creation system was completely revamped, and turned into a mostly character point-based system á la GURPS, but with some random aspects. For example, for special abilities, social status, starting money, and handedness you'd spend points, and then roll on a table and add the points spent. You also bought attributes with points and then modified them for your race, instead of rolling based on race. Professions got a slightly bigger role, both because each profession got a special ability, and because professions affected skill costs. Skills were divided into three groups: basic skills (which were cheap and everyone had a basic chance of 1-5 in, depending on stat), secondary skills (everything else, expensive, no basic chance), and professional skills (selected from a list based on your profession, otherwise secondary skills that became cheaper and got a basic chance). Other than character creation, the actual rules were fairly similar to the Expert rules.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There were some production issues with the 1991 edition. For one thing, the rules for drugs, herbs and poisons hadn't been included – the game had three different skills for dealing with them, but they forgot to include the actual rules. The rules were added in a magazine article, and it turned out that they were exactly the same as from Samuraj, except renamed. This was a little bit of an issue, because that meant that they worked on the old "economy" in-game, while the 1991 version greatly increased both the amount of money you started with and the money things would cost. So if a consumable would cost, say, 100 silver in the old rules, that was a significant chunk of money. But in the new rules, it was no big deal.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Another interesting bug was that the GMing chapter was basically lifted straight out of another game they had published in 1989 – to the point where they even referenced some game-specific things like Metropolice (instead of town guards).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Not really a production issue, but the supplements for the 1991 version greatly amped up the Kewlness Quotient in the game. Since this was the early 90s, a series of splatbooks was released, each of which upped the power level of the game. 80s Drakar och Demoner had been fairly down-to-earth, but 90s Drakar och Demoner was getting more and more AWSUM!. This would come to a head in 1994.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1994: Edition 5. Again, a major change. Previous editions had defaulted to some sort of implied standard fantasy setting, much like D&D does for the most part. There was also a published setting, Ereb Altor, but the setting material was at least partially kept apart from the rules material (though they weren't kept strictly apart). This was now relegated to history, and for the first time Drakar och Demoner was directly connected to a setting. And what a setting: the city of Chronopia. The game nearly exclusively focused on the gigantic city of Chronopia, and had a rather extensive setting chapter in the core book. The city clearly took a lot of inspiration from Games Workshop, but there are also traces of places like Sigil in there. Character creation was similar to '91, except with different races and professions. Oh, and instead of professions getting a list of skills from which they should choose 12 to be profession skills, they just got a more or less fixed list of 10 (although in some cases there were alternatives, e.g. IIRC a Traveler could choose Survival or Seamanship). Other than that, the actual rules were more or less the same as 1991.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">First printing was in softback, with low-quality binding. Later printings were in hardback.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Supplemental material was also directly written to fit in Chronopia. Material kept being published until 1998. At some point, it was revealed that Chronopia was on the same planet as the previous setting, but much later and on the other side of the world. In 1999, Äventyrsspel/Target Games went bankrupt and was reconstructed into the company that would eventually become Paradox Interactive, and the rights to Drakar och Demoner was placed in a separate company.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2000: Edition 6, the first released by Riotminds. Again, the game was strongly connected to a specific setting, this time the nordic-flavored Trudvang. The rules were quite different from what had been seen before, adding class/level elements and deprecating skills. This was, to say the least, controversial, and some of the changes were walked back in rule expansions that were later incorporated in the 2003 7th edition. After that they did another version just called Drakar och Demoner Trudvang in 2006, and a 30th anniversary edition in 2012.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2016: Edition 10? This version was kickstarted as a retro edition (without Trudvang), but with some changes from the 1987 version. I haven't played or read it, but my understanding is that it hasn't been very popular. Also, a friend of mine supported the kickstarter at one of those levels where you get a special thanks in the credits... and then they misspelled his name. So there's that.</li> </ul></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8722459, member: 907"] Looking at the Kickstarter page for Ruin Masters, it seems to have very little to do with classic Drakar och Demoner. Looking at the game's history, we have: [LIST] [*]1982: First edition, blue box. Pretty straight translation of Basic Roleplaying + Magic World from Worlds of Wonder. [*]1984: Second edition, first one with Elric/Stormbringer on the cover. Rewritten from the ground up, but still mostly the same actual system. [*]1985: Edition 2.1. Almost exactly the same as 2, but with errata applied and one skill (gambling) added. Different intro adventure included. [LIST] [*]Also 1985, the rules expansion Drakar och Demoner Expert which greatly altered the game. The skill list was vastly increased, and instead of just choosing 5 proficient and 3 expert skills you got to buy skills with a big pool of experience points, with different skills costing different amounts per point. The combat system was expanded with hit locations, and the magic system was greatly expanded with magic schools as explained in an earlier post. You also had rules for Heroes, advanced-level characters who had Hero Points you could either use to auto-succeed on a roll (with the cost dependent on your skill), buy Hero Abilities, or increase your stats. Another big difference was that task resolution was now handled with a d20 instead of d100. For most purposes, this became the default rules, with only a few things later released for the basic rules. [*]In 1987, the rule expansion Drakar och Demoner Samuraj was released, because it was the late 80s and Japan was awesome. This was basically the Expert rules but adapted to a fantasy Japan setting with different magic rules. Other than that it was mostly the same, with a big rules quirk. Like Expert, you bought skills on a 1-20ish scale, but then you converted that value to a percentile by multiplying it with 4-7 depending on the stat the skill was based on. [/LIST] [*]1987: Edition 3. Again, mostly the same as 2, but with some rules rewritten for clarity. I think the only rule change was that the Size attribute was rolled on 2D6+6 for humans instead of 3D6. But the book was given a general facelift. [*]1991: Edition 4. This was a major change. The character creation system was completely revamped, and turned into a mostly character point-based system á la GURPS, but with some random aspects. For example, for special abilities, social status, starting money, and handedness you'd spend points, and then roll on a table and add the points spent. You also bought attributes with points and then modified them for your race, instead of rolling based on race. Professions got a slightly bigger role, both because each profession got a special ability, and because professions affected skill costs. Skills were divided into three groups: basic skills (which were cheap and everyone had a basic chance of 1-5 in, depending on stat), secondary skills (everything else, expensive, no basic chance), and professional skills (selected from a list based on your profession, otherwise secondary skills that became cheaper and got a basic chance). Other than character creation, the actual rules were fairly similar to the Expert rules. [LIST] [*]There were some production issues with the 1991 edition. For one thing, the rules for drugs, herbs and poisons hadn't been included – the game had three different skills for dealing with them, but they forgot to include the actual rules. The rules were added in a magazine article, and it turned out that they were exactly the same as from Samuraj, except renamed. This was a little bit of an issue, because that meant that they worked on the old "economy" in-game, while the 1991 version greatly increased both the amount of money you started with and the money things would cost. So if a consumable would cost, say, 100 silver in the old rules, that was a significant chunk of money. But in the new rules, it was no big deal. [*]Another interesting bug was that the GMing chapter was basically lifted straight out of another game they had published in 1989 – to the point where they even referenced some game-specific things like Metropolice (instead of town guards). [*]Not really a production issue, but the supplements for the 1991 version greatly amped up the Kewlness Quotient in the game. Since this was the early 90s, a series of splatbooks was released, each of which upped the power level of the game. 80s Drakar och Demoner had been fairly down-to-earth, but 90s Drakar och Demoner was getting more and more AWSUM!. This would come to a head in 1994. [/LIST] [*]1994: Edition 5. Again, a major change. Previous editions had defaulted to some sort of implied standard fantasy setting, much like D&D does for the most part. There was also a published setting, Ereb Altor, but the setting material was at least partially kept apart from the rules material (though they weren't kept strictly apart). This was now relegated to history, and for the first time Drakar och Demoner was directly connected to a setting. And what a setting: the city of Chronopia. The game nearly exclusively focused on the gigantic city of Chronopia, and had a rather extensive setting chapter in the core book. The city clearly took a lot of inspiration from Games Workshop, but there are also traces of places like Sigil in there. Character creation was similar to '91, except with different races and professions. Oh, and instead of professions getting a list of skills from which they should choose 12 to be profession skills, they just got a more or less fixed list of 10 (although in some cases there were alternatives, e.g. IIRC a Traveler could choose Survival or Seamanship). Other than that, the actual rules were more or less the same as 1991. [LIST] [*]First printing was in softback, with low-quality binding. Later printings were in hardback. [*]Supplemental material was also directly written to fit in Chronopia. Material kept being published until 1998. At some point, it was revealed that Chronopia was on the same planet as the previous setting, but much later and on the other side of the world. In 1999, Äventyrsspel/Target Games went bankrupt and was reconstructed into the company that would eventually become Paradox Interactive, and the rights to Drakar och Demoner was placed in a separate company. [/LIST] [*]2000: Edition 6, the first released by Riotminds. Again, the game was strongly connected to a specific setting, this time the nordic-flavored Trudvang. The rules were quite different from what had been seen before, adding class/level elements and deprecating skills. This was, to say the least, controversial, and some of the changes were walked back in rule expansions that were later incorporated in the 2003 7th edition. After that they did another version just called Drakar och Demoner Trudvang in 2006, and a 30th anniversary edition in 2012. [*]2016: Edition 10? This version was kickstarted as a retro edition (without Trudvang), but with some changes from the 1987 version. I haven't played or read it, but my understanding is that it hasn't been very popular. Also, a friend of mine supported the kickstarter at one of those levels where you get a special thanks in the credits... and then they misspelled his name. So there's that. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]
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Free League announces Dragonbane, the translation of Swedish RPG classic Drakar och Demoner
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