Tell me about Blue Rose
- Thread starter Narfellus
- Start date
Henry
Autoexreginated
First things first:
http://bluerose.greenronin.com/
Second, Blue Rose is a d20/OGL game that uses a heavily modified version of the d20 rules to come up with a game that is flexible, but fits the genre of Fantasy that has been made popular by authors like Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, et. al.
THIS LINK explains what Blue Rose means by "romantic fantasy."
http://bluerose.greenronin.com/
Second, Blue Rose is a d20/OGL game that uses a heavily modified version of the d20 rules to come up with a game that is flexible, but fits the genre of Fantasy that has been made popular by authors like Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, et. al.
THIS LINK explains what Blue Rose means by "romantic fantasy."
Last edited:
Crothian
First Post
There seem to be two aspects to Blue Rose. The first is the rules which is d20 lite with only 3 classes, less skills, simplified combat, and most class abilities turned into feats. The second part and the part that some people do not like is the setting is Romantic Fantasy. That means that the setting is more about role playing emotions then standard games. It does have a good country and a evil country, and people don't seem to like that either. THe alignment system is a different aswell. The races are all different except the human, with intelligent animal like races as being options.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Narfellus said:
The 'What is Romantic Fantasy' article on the Blue Rose website sums up the genre fairly well.
For a start as far as reading in the genre, I'd suggest:
By The Sword by Mecedes Lackey
The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff
Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy, Book 1) by Robin Hobb
Any of deLint's Newford books or stories
The Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly
The Novice (Black Magician Trilogy) by Trudi Canavan
Crothian
First Post
It doesn't hit you over the head with the Romantic Fantasy. IT doesn't force you to involve love in your games or any of the other stuff. I bet you could run this almost as is, but not tell anyone you were running Romantic Fantasy and it would be fine. Though becasue of this stigma Romantic Fantasy has with it, if you mention it in the same game it wouldn't work.
The_Warlock
Explorer
As everyone has said, its a modified D20 system. It's quick, you really only need 20 siders to play it, and the classes provide a highly customizable method of character creation and development.
Oh, and if people would point or punch if they saw the cover - don't worry, it's a available in PDF. Print it out, remove the romantic fantasy setting section and put it in a blank binder - you'll be fine.
As for not being compatible with core D&D - that's true as far as you couldv't easily mix the class and arcane skill systems with a standard D&D run easily. But it has a good conversion appendix so that you could convert just about any rule, beasty or item into it as you see fit.
Since it's arcana (magic system) is based off of Green Ronin's Psychic's handbook, the resource provides additional arcane skills to draw from, and the similarities in toughness system to Mutants & Masterminds make it a very flexible variant system.
That system in fact is really so streamlined and capable that one could easily use it in many genres, its cleaned up arcana system and duality based alignment system is perfect for Star Wars and similar morality play sort of genres.
If you want to get down to basic numbers, reduce your die rolling, still have vast customization of your character's abilities while still playing D20 and allowing all that D&D stuff to be useful with a new system with limited conversion issues, you might want to check it out.
Oh, and if people would point or punch if they saw the cover - don't worry, it's a available in PDF. Print it out, remove the romantic fantasy setting section and put it in a blank binder - you'll be fine.
As for not being compatible with core D&D - that's true as far as you couldv't easily mix the class and arcane skill systems with a standard D&D run easily. But it has a good conversion appendix so that you could convert just about any rule, beasty or item into it as you see fit.
Since it's arcana (magic system) is based off of Green Ronin's Psychic's handbook, the resource provides additional arcane skills to draw from, and the similarities in toughness system to Mutants & Masterminds make it a very flexible variant system.
That system in fact is really so streamlined and capable that one could easily use it in many genres, its cleaned up arcana system and duality based alignment system is perfect for Star Wars and similar morality play sort of genres.
If you want to get down to basic numbers, reduce your die rolling, still have vast customization of your character's abilities while still playing D20 and allowing all that D&D stuff to be useful with a new system with limited conversion issues, you might want to check it out.
Narfellus
First Post
Hmm. Sounds sort of interesting, even if just from a rules point of view. I've read very few of the books mentioned above, so i suppose the genre is not one that particularly hooks me (did love Earthsea though). Now, as for the magic system being based on the Psychic Handbook, that does sound good. PH is a fantastic book.
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