Grimm

[jdrakeh]

I just picked this up last night and am fairly impressed. While the decision to only print the first third of the book in full color is a bit odd, overall the book looks very good and the system (albeit a big departure from the 'light' version of d20 used in the original) seems both extremely simple and intuitive. Has anybody else seen this yet? If so, what are/were your first impressions? I plan to sit down and give it a browsing this Saturday, time permitting. So far, it looks very good.

 

[Crothian]

I picked it up a few weeks ago. I like it a lot but it's not going to get played anytime soon.

 

[Celebrim]

There was a time I was hugely excited about this release.

Then I waited. And waited. And waited.

And now I just can't get interested.

Besides which, the one thing that always troubled me about the original D20 release was that it seemed like the designer didn't like faerie tales and seemed to think that the setting only worked if it was a bizarro world version of faerie. I like faerie tales and the more they talked about things and the more they pushed that as the central fascination of a faerie tale game, the less interested I was with anything but the mechanics. Then they went and threw out the mechanics.

So, it seems like the new mechanics are really light-weight (per the description I've gotten). What is your impression?

 

[Aus_Snow]

While the decision to only print the first third of the book in full color is a bit odd, (. . .)

That is enough to 'unsell' me straight away, unfortunately. It's a 'strategy' (or whatever) that particularly irritates me. I prefer one or the other, thank you. And colour if it can be done - even at higher cost, which it obviously would be.

Glad to hear the game's good though. How are the rules? I mean, in a teensy bit more detail.

 

[Crothian]

The new mechanics are much easier and better then the d20 ones.

 

[jdrakeh]

The new mechanics are much easier and better then the d20 ones.

I don't know if they're much easier -- but they do seem much more robust insofar as giving you character options appropriate to the setting.

 

[Crothian]

PCs just roll a d6. And if you help out another PC then they get to roll 2 d6's (theirs and the friend helping them). I think it would be easier to teach this system to someone then the d20 system.

 

[jdrakeh]

PCs just roll a d6. And if you help out another PC then they get to roll 2 d6's (theirs and the friend helping them). I think it would be easier to teach this system to someone then the d20 system.

Well, the thing is, you didn't really need to use the whole d20 system with the original Grimm, as it was roughly 99% self-contained. The way the book was written, you could get by with just the. . .

Roll a d20.
Add any relevant modifiers.
Compare the result to a target number.

. . . from the SRD. Combat, etc, was just handled like any other task. In short, if you were dragging all of the stuff from D&D into Grimm, that wasn't really a fault of Grimm. I ran it for three months using only the little FFG book.

 

[Crothian]

I, too, had a d20 Grimm Campaign when it came out that lasted half a year. That version of the game is not that complex but the simple system of the new game seems even easier to me.