Dragon Age RPG
Dragon Age RPG mini review
The other day I pent 4 or so hours playing through the introductory Dragon Age adventure The Dalish Curse. This gave me my first taste of the new Dragon Age RPG ruleset in play and over all my impressions were positive.
The stunt system was a fun way to make combat more dynamic, with out bogging down the rules. I’ll be especially interested in how they add new stunts as the box sets are released. I noticed even in our one session that people gravitated to the same stunts. Unfortunately the other day my dice weren’t in the mood to pair up, which made each time they did that much more exciting.
Otherwise the system was easy to pick up and didn’t seem overly intrusive in play. There was some discussion around the table on the Dragon Die and it’s place as the decider of success levels. Personally that didn’t bother me too much. If you succeed at a task, you succeed. The number of successes you have only matters occasionally. Using them in extended tests did seem a little cumbersome to me however. But as with all these things I’d just adjust how I used them so it didn’t get in the way.
I was playing a Dalish ranger type so didn’t have much to do with the magic system. there was quite a lot of discussion after the game on whether mages are ineffective. Reading through the rules I’m not sure it’s such a problem. The ability for people to turn aside a spell seems like a good one, especially going forward. Perhaps it could have been streamlined so that you have a Magic defence score rather than needing to do a roll every time to see if it gets through. But I’m sure that is the type of thing groups will house rule if they feel strongly about it.
I’d be a little reluctant to kick off any sort of campaign (even if I had the time) until I had a firm idea of when box set 2 will be out. I have a feeling that many of the gripes I’ve read in forums about the lack of setting info will be addressed in the up coming box sets. There are two releases already announced, the Blood in Fereldan adventure pack and the Dragon Age Game Master’s Kit. No release dates for these yet however.
All in all I liked the system and think it works well and has room to grow with the additions. If you have been looking for a light weight fantasy system then this might just be it. I’m planning on running an adventure at KapCon this month, so look out for the actual play report of that.
Ashelle Litwyn – Sophie’s character backgrounds
Following on from Nick’s post the other day about an old PC of his, I thought I’d do the same. This is a PC I’ve just rolled up for (possibly) a one off game of the new Green Ronin Dragon Age RPG (first impressions here), but for some reason I’ve got a really good sense of who she is, maybe due to her being from a world I’m already familar with.
Ashelle Litwyn was born as just another of the Dalish Elves. Both her parents were well liked and active members of the Clan and she wanted fo nothing.
As she grew she was expected to take a more active role within the Clan and it was noticed by most that she had quite an abtitude with the bow. It is this that lead to her nickname, Ash. She was never seen with out her ash wood bow. She started ranging far and wide as the aravel made their stately way across Ferelden learning more and more as she went.
However it was her first meeting with humans that really started her down the path she is on now. Unlike many of her kind this meeting was not particularly traumatic and it didn’t end in the death of all her family. Rather, Ash stumbled across a human child lost in the forest and returned her to her farmholder parents. In gratitude the family invited the young Elf in for dinner and told her stories of their familes.
Since that day Ash has been fascinated with Humans, Human culture and Human history. Her parents dispair that it will inevitably end in her death and the rest of her Clan think her slightly mad to be interested in the race that almost caused ther distruction.
She is slightly short for an elf, but with her peoples natural grace. She is naturally inqusitive but it is her naivity that really amazes people. Despite having encountered the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity she still sees them as facinating creatures and wishes to know all she can about them.
Dragon Age the RPG – first impressions
Just before Christmas Green Ronin announced that they were starting to take pre-orders for their new licenced RPG, Dragon Age. As an extra insentive they offerd a free PDF version for ever hard copy ordered. Being a bit of a Green Ronin fan, and also having just spent the majority of my free time playing the Xbox version of the game, I decided to take advantage of this offer (which if any one is interested is still avalible).