aniki
User since | Last active | Started 53 topics | Posted 2600 times
we have Expedition 33 now (which is a better game [than Metaphor Re:Fantazio])
I dunno—I spent nearly 150 hours with Metaphor and loved it enough that I'm still thinking about going back to it, but I have rage-quit tedious platforming(!) sections of E33 more than once. I want so badly to love it—and I do, in many ways—but fucking hell, it so often doesn't make that easy.
It's really the tone and the world that does it, which has always surprised me; I tend not to be into proscribed settings for RPG systems, but the clear vision for what this world is (and how it differs from traditional fantasy settings) really makes it stand out.
Mechanically, as I understand it there are a lot of cues taken from other systems, but they're combined in a way that's unusual. (I haven't got a deep enough history with games to recognise all the originators.)
It takes a lot of cues from story-focused games with its narrative abilities, session-end XP questions and results table. It uses the oft-forgotten d12 as its primary die. Character levelling is horizontal rather than vertical, with PCs getting a broader set of skills rather than becoming more powerful. Money is abstracted into "pouches" with usage dice (also used for consumables), which makes bookkeeping much easier.
It's not going to be for everyone—I doubt my Dragonbane group would all get along with it—but for six bucks it's a steal.
The Land of Eem Core Rulebook is just $6 on DriveThru today. This has quickly become one of my favourite RPGs (and the kid's).
The kid decided he wanted to try GMing for me in Land of Eem yesterday, so I got to play in a game for the first time in months (maybe a year?).
He did really well, though early on I feel like he was caught out by some of my solutions to things. His characters were great, though; he got really physical acting them out and they all had a ton of personality.
I clearly didn't give him enough credit for his improvisation, though.
The session started with my character (a little bat-guy wizard) walking through a town, hearing a commotion and seeing a couple of thieves absconding with treasure bags. I did a chase through the town, discovered the thieves' hidden lair (with a combination lock entry and rooftop sentry), and smashed the door down. Inside I found a vault, a bunch of thugs and a few holding cells, with captured town guards being interrogated, then did a prison break and fought the gang's leader while the prisoners made their escape.
He'd come to the table with "you see two thieves running through the town with treasure". THAT'S ALL.
It took me years to build that kind of confidence with improv up at the table, and this kid knocked it out of the park on his first go.
I, too, received my Rapscallion stuff yesterday, so I'm hoping to scrape it for ship-to-ship combat ideas I can use in my next Dragonbane campaign. (I also need to figure out where it can go on my shelves.)
At a company meetup next month, the CEO is going to be running a D&D 5e session for a few of us, so I've been brushing off and tuning up my ACAB Oath of Redemption Paladin for that. Quite excited to finally get him to the table.
When Dragonbane wraps up there's talk of one or more other games happening before I pick up the next one, so I might be playing some ancient, obtuse system favoured by whoever takes the reins.
The two Land of Eem games have been going ahead with varying levels of cat-herding (the 9-year-olds are definitely worse for shenanigans and inter-party conflict, but they're easier to schedule).
Unfortunately Dragonbane has stalled due to player (un)availability, which is pretty disappointing as we're maybe three or four sessions from the finale at most.