Green Ronin's Dragon Age

[Monkey Boy]

Dragon Age thoughts after a session

Plus

Combat is fast and fun. I like that you come up with your stunt after you've rolled the dice. In D&D for example you pick your power and roll to hit. I think stunting after the roll speeds things up nicely.

Writing adventures for this is about as easy as it gets because the system is about as bare bones as it gets. As a rules light system it relies on DM fiat which suits me fine because I am an ace DM

Balanced encounters don't factor into things. I find escaping balance liberating. There are no challenge ratings or XP parcels. Write an adventure and see if the players survive the experience.

It's in Ferelden, a game worlds rich enough to see me through two and a half play throughs of the CRPG. Ferelden feels very European like the WFRP old world which I very much enjoy.

Neutral

Random character generation keeps things fast. Players get virtually no choices at all and are at the whim of the die. This led to a players elf having low stats across the board and yet this didn't make him less effective during the game. I like random starts as it levels the playing field for less 'engaged' players. I game with friends and their partners. Normally the girls couldn't give a damn about building characters and learning the system and so don't seem to contribute much to combats. Random character gen gives them characters that are just as good right out the gate and helps them feel more awesome from the get go. Game mastery or munchkining in the game is impossible considering the lack of choices.

The skill system seems to get the job done but some skills are noticeably more useful than others. I felt bad when one of the players starting skills turned out to be drive cart. I let them re-roll.

Minus

I am not happy with bandaging in combat while claws and swords are flying. Maybe if you and the injured were not engaged in combat that turn you could heal away, otherwise I have my doubts. What could I offer as a sweetener to the mage/healer to give up what to me seems an unrealistic power? Maybe the heal spell could be beefed up and changed from touch to ranged like its CRPG counterpart?

Not enough monster stats though inventing your own isn't too big a concern.

Closing thoughts

It is a bare bones system with little setting information and a lot of newbie friendly advice. Experienced DM's should realize that the DM guide wont be all that useful to them. I recommend finding the collated codex entries which are floating around on the net as a PDF. They will give you all the setting info you need. The Green Ronin boards are also very helpful.

I recommend the game and am planning a short campaign (6 sessions).

 

[Monkey Boy]

I've heard mention of "stunts." How do those work (in very vague terms)? How simple is the system?

And what's the overal feel of the game? How dark, how gritty, how high fantasy? What pieces of fantasy literature (if any) would you compare it to, in terms of overall mood?

Stunts are very simple, monsters have their own unique stunts (powers) they can activate with stunt points. The fact that you pick stunts after you have rolled to hit is elegant. Typical stunts could be lightning attack (have another attack) or mighty blow (do an extra 1d6 damage).

I'm running it low fantasy at the moment with mainly human opponents. Fantastic monsters are light on the ground and magic isn't all over the place. It would compare the feel to GRR Martins Game of Thrones in that there are a lot of plotting and power struggles amongst the nobles of Ferelden. I am sure that is what they were shooting for when they wrote the CRPG and it has influenced the mini campaign I am running.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Balanced encounters don't factor into things. I find escaping balance liberating. There are no challenge ratings or XP parcels. Write an adventure and see if the players survive the experience.

Are there no guidelines at all for this? I don't mind the game not being as tightly balanced as D&D, but surely, if the game's truly "newbie DM-friendly," it must offer some sort of advice, no matter how vague, as to how to challenge the characters without overwhelming them, right?

 

[Monkey Boy]

Are there no guidelines at all for this? I don't mind the game not being as tightly balanced as D&D, but surely, if the game's truly "newbie DM-friendly," it must offer some sort of advice, no matter how vague, as to how to challenge the characters without overwhelming them, right?

You could use the starting adventure in the GM book as a guide with regards to what sort of opponents are appropriate for starting characters. The GM book goes through how to write an adventure, cater to different player types and come up with campaigns but it doesn't tell you how to design a balanced combat encounter.

Interestingly the starter adventure has a sidebar that deals with what to do if characters die and how to handle things if they are all defeated in a combat, in this instance they provide a capture scenario. So balanced combats and the expectation of character victory doesn't seem to figure prominently in the system as outlined in the starter adventure.

The monsters in the book are all low powered as its intention is to cover content applicable for levels 1-5. From the looks of the monsters stats they are shooting for about one critter per player though this isn't stated in the book.

I'd add that I think Red Box was the ultimate in newby friendly games. I ran B3 Palace of the Silver Princess for some friends last year. They all died fighting 2 skeletons in the first room of the palace. They rolled up some new characters and in 5 minutes they were back exploring the palace. It was heaps of fun but whose to say that the two skeleton encounter was balanced? I don't think newby friendly needs to have inherent balance in the system.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'd add that I think Red Box was the ultimate in newby friendly games. I ran B3 Palace of the Silver Princess for some friends last year. They all died fighting 2 skeletons in the first room of the palace. They rolled up some new characters and in 5 minutes they were back exploring the palace. It was heaps of fun but whose to say that the two skeleton encounter was balanced? I don't think newby friendly needs to have inherent balance in the system.

But did they beat the skeletons up at a later point, or did the always fail at that encounter?

If you were creating your own adventure, it would be quite possible to build encounters the party just cannot beat, no matter how often they roll up new characters.

And what kind of impression will newbies get from a game where you roll up new characters all the time? A lot of us didn't mind, but - is this really a cool, interesting feature of pen & paper / tabletop RPGs that you can roll up your character easily and that it doesn't really matter who you're playing? Does this really create a difference to CRPGs and MMORPGs?

 

[Filcher]

Balanced encounters don't factor into things. I find escaping balance liberating. There are no challenge ratings or XP parcels. Write an adventure and see if the players survive the experience.

To be clear: After one week's session of balance-free encounters, do you try to bring in new players the following week to replace the ones that didn't survive the experience?

 

[Monkey Boy]

OK time to try and clear things up. I raised redbox as an example of a newby friendly system that does not concern itself with explaining to DM's how to balance encounters. I did this as Ari indicated he thought balance advice should be in a newby friendly game. I raised redbox to support my theory that a game can be newby friendly and not include advice on DMing. I don't think there has been a better introductory system than redbox to be honest.

Redbox's high mortality rate is not my point. Incidently Dragon Age characters can take a pounding before dying, especially warrior types who should take about 4 or 5 solid blows before falling. In the Dragon Age game I ran, the first with the system I threw 2 rage skeletons and finally an elite shade at the 3 starting characters and they handled those combats fine.

 

[Monkey Boy]

To be clear: After one week's session of balance-free encounters, do you try to bring in new players the following week to replace the ones that didn't survive the experience?

Yeah, I figure the cops will catch up with me one of these days.

 

[dm4hire]

DA, both versions, seems to be pretty good at keeping the game loose while level dependent encounters don't seem to be as much of a focus. Proper use of tactics will see you through completely in just about any encounter you enter. I think to account for this GR will probably include different versions of the monsters in each book, plus the proper level dependent stuff as applicable. So everything in the current game should work for encounter purposes for any level 1-5 as long as the GM puts some thought into it and the party uses the proper tactics instead of just rushing into the fray.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

Still, I'm relatively optimistic: Green Ronin rarely disappoints me, and I'm still drooling over the amazingness that is the Song of Ice and Fire game (Heck, I wished they used those rules for DA).

...

I just like Steve Kenson's development work more...

Not a friend of randomness in character creation (look, I'm good with a bow...) and play (woohoo, I ruled a stunt, let's now see what I tried to do at the beginning...).