Apathy Blogs

I’ve had Dragon Age RPG Set 1 for over a year, but only just ran my second game. The first was maybe six months ago with some friends while I was visiting home. Both nights I ran the same adventure, Death in Freeport from Green Ronin. I converted the adventure from 3.5 with little difficulty. The four most important NPCs I wrote out on a Quick Reference Sheet and the rest of the unnamed foes fit on a Combat Card Sheet. I’ll provide my conversion notes at the end for anyone who is curious.

The first thing we noticed is that 1st level characters kind of suck. Most notably, you almost certainly do not have a focus in your primary attack. Our poor Mage (a Steppes Shaman from Kobold Quarterly 19 or the forthcoming Midgard Campaign Setting) didn’t get a bonus to his magic attribute from his background. He also rolled mediocre stats. He had five +2s, but no +3. Everyone else had a single +3 which was swapped into a primary stat and increased to +4 by their background. The rest of the party included a Free Tribes Centaur Warrior (same article), a Mountain Dwarf Warrior (Dragonhack) and a Sea Elf Rogue (Kobold Quarterly 13 — Pro-tip: Kobold Quarterly is a great resource for AGE players.)

There are definitely quite a few rules we got wrong. We played that if you stunted during initiative you went first. If several people stunted they were sorted by their dragon die. I probably shouldn’t do that next time. I do want something to happen when you stunt during initiative however. Perhaps getting to skirmish with the stunt points would be better. I know officially stunts are only for combat, but the idea of stunting skills is just so much more fun. I really need to make a list of skill stunts.

I definitely liked the flexibility of the rules. On the other hand I could use a bit more guidance on a few specifics. There was a fight that involved crossbowmen on rooftops. How difficult should climbing be? (I used TN 13.) Should movement be reduced when climbing? (We cut it in half.) How difficult is it to jump a 6 foot gap? (I used TN 13.) How about a 12 foot gap? (I used TN 19.)When the rogue skirmished her foe off the side of the building, how much should damage should a 24 foot drop be? (We used 1d6 penetrating and dropped the target prone.) Certainly we managed to keep the game going, but a couple pages of typical tests would have been nice.

Combat flowed very well. Since there are no attacks of opportunity or other penalties for disengaging a foe during combat, the rogue and the centaur would quite often trade opponents. Knocking people off docks or rooftops was a very fun use of the skirmish stunt. I also allowed my players to draw a card from my Pathfinder Critical Hit Deck for 6 stunt points. They are a bit overpowered, but at 6 stunt points, why not? My second group seemed to fare a little better than I remember the first group doing. Luck certainly is a big factor at first level. Only the mage dropped to dying during the final fight. Luckily our dwarf had a healing potion. Even at first level the characters have a hefty amount of hit points and can take a beating.

The entire adventure took us about six hours to complete, including character creation. It probably could have been around an hour shorter had I been more prepared; I wasted quite a lot of time looking for miniatures or battle maps. They only got around 1000 xp for the night, so they didn’t even reach the coveted level 2. They really wanted to be able to choose a focus. This game was just a one-shot since our normal game was missing players, but I’ll keep the sheets on hand for the next time we want a quick game. I guess I’d better get to work on converting more adventures.

The game left me wanting just a little bit more. I believe much of this will be assisted by Dragon Age RPG Set 2. For an extended campaign I want expanded stunt options. I want skill stunts. I want more monsters and foes. I want more guides for how many magic items to reward the characters with. I want a quick guide to standard attribute uses. Luckily, the game is very easy to expand yourself. It certainly has quite a lot of potential.

Apathy Rating: 4/5.

Death in Freeport Conversion Notes

Press Gang
Health 18
Speed 12
Defense 12
Armor 3
Communication 2
Constitution 2 – Drinking
Cunning 1
Dexterity 3 – Brawl, Stealth
Magic 1
Perception 2
Strength 2 – Belaying Pins, Climb
Willpower 1
Brawl +5 Damage: 1d3+2
Belaying Pins +4 1d6+2

Orc Pirates
Health 22
Speed 12
Defense 11
Armor 3
Communication 0
Constitution 2
Cunning 1
Dexterity 1 – Brawl, Bow
Magic 1
Perception 2 – Smell
Strength 3 – Axe, Intimidate
Willpower 2
Axe +5 Damage: 2d6+3
Short Bow +3 1d6+3

Captain Scarbelly
Health 30
Speed 12
Defense 11
Armor 3
Communication 0
Constitution 2
Cunning 1
Dexterity 1
Magic 0
Perception -1
Strength 4 – Axe, Jump
Willpower -1
Axe +6 Damage: 2d6+4

Aggro
Health 26
Speed 12
Defense 12
Armor 3
Communication -1
Constitution 2
Cunning -1
Dexterity 2
Magic 0
Perception 2
Strength 3 – Scimitar
Willpower -1
Scimitar +5 Damage: 1d6+5

Belko
Class Mage
Health 22
Speed 12
Defense 13
Armor 0
Communication 2
Constitution 0
Cunning 0 – Arcane Lore
Dexterity 3 – Staves
Magic 3 – Primal
Perception 0
Strength 1 – Spear
Willpower 2 – Morale
Spells Flame Blast, Rock Armor, Shock, Stonefist

Rittoro
Class Warrior
Health 32
Speed 12
Defense 10/12
Armor 3
Communication 2 – Gambling
Constitution 1 – Stamina
Cunning 0
Dexterity 0
Magic 0
Perception 0
Strength 3 – Axe, Intimidate
Willpower 0 – Morale
Axe +5 Damage: 3d6+3

Yellow Shields
Health 17
Speed 12
Defense 11/13
Armor 3
Communication 0
Constitution 1
Cunning -1
Dexterity 1 – Crossbow
Magic 1
Perception 1
Strength 2 – Sword
Willpower -1
Short Sword +4 Damage: 1d6+4
Crossbow +3 Damage: 2d6+2

Serpent People
Health 18
Speed 12
Defense 11/13
Armor 2
Communication -1
Constitution 2
Cunning -2
Dexterity 1
Magic 0
Perception -1
Strength 2 – Spear
Willpower -2
Spear +4 Damage: 1d6+5

Attendants
Health 18
Speed 6
Defense 10
Armor 7
Communication 1
Constitution 1
Cunning 1
Dexterity 0
Magic 2
Perception 2
Strength 1 – Mace
Willpower 2
Mace +3 Damage: 1d6+3
Crossbow +2 Damage: 2d6+3

Milos
Class Cleric
Health 35
Magic Points 20
Speed 12
Defense 12
Armor 3
Communication 2 – Deception, Disguise
Constitution 1
Cunning 1 – Religious Lore
Dexterity 1 – Initiative
Magic 3 – Entropy
Perception 2 – Smelling
Strength 1 – Spear
Willpower 3 – Self-Discipline
Spear +3 Damage: 1d6+4
Spells Daze, Drain Life, Heal, Spell Shield, Weakness

When I was fairly young my older sister’s friend told me about Dungeons and Dragons. I don’t really remember much of what she told me, only that by the end of that summer I wanted to play. I had some experience delving into dungeons as my favorite computer game was Hack, a rogue-like game that later evolved into Nethack. It was a very old school RPG, where magic items were identified through trial and error, or the lucky use of an identify scroll. When you died you got your name on a high score list and started all over again from level 1. Monsters get harder and harder the deeper you go. The dungeon was randomly generated each time, so no two games were a like. Ok, I need to stop talking about how awesome Nethack is so I can move on to the actual point of this article.

My birthday is in the fall and I asked for Dungeons and Dragons for my birthday. I didn’t get it. My mother wasn’t certain about it, so she bought me the Middle-Earth Role-Playing Game (MERP) instead. She’d read The Hobbit, so she figured it couldn’t be too bad. It was based on Role-master, which is not a beginner’s game. It was a great read and had fantastic art though. I don’t think I ever played a real game of it though, although I know I made some characters.

Shortly thereafter I convinced her to let me get actual Dungeons and Dragons. I think I started with the AD&D Player’s Guide (First edition, but we didn’t call it that since the second edition was a long way off). I shortly thereafter had the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set (Red Box), the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide and In Search of Adventure (A collection of adventure modules B1-9). I only had myself and my cousin to play with, but that was enough to keep us going for a couple years. We didn’t have anyone older to play with or teach us the rules. We just read the books and muddled our way through.

So now I have a niece and nephew. They aren’t quite as old as I was when I started, but they are the age many of my friends started gaming. Their father is also a gamer, but he’s concerned about introducing true violence to his children this early. I can’t blame him, D&D is about murdering people and taking their stuff. Still, sometime soon I’d like to get them an introductory RPG product.

Wizards of the Coast has recently released A 4th Edition Starter Kit (in a red box). From what I hear it isn’t really a complete game. It doesn’t have a standard character creation rules book, it has a choose your own adventure thing that walks them through character creation. That’s neat to include, but a little red player’s guide would have been handy. I’m not convinced this is a good stand-alone starting set. It’s designed to get you to buy other books, not to be a complete package for more than 1 level of adventuring.

I am really curious about Green Ronin’s Dragon Age RPG. It looks like a better boxed set, with a complete game that is fairly rules light compared to 4th Edition D&D. If they were about 5 years older I’d be tempted to get it for them, except the dark in “Dark Fantasy” is probably not age appropriate. I would have to read through the book myself before getting it for them.

My love of Doctor Who makes me want to check out Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. It has an advantage in that the Doctor never carries a weapon, and always tries to resolve things peacefully. Monsters may exist, but talking to them is usually an option. How many times has the Doctor tried reasoning with the Daleks? Of course, the price point is such that I can’t just casually get it for them on a whim. Still, it might be a strong possibility for a Christmas gift.

I also keep thinking that Traveller RPG could work with some guidance. Sure, there is the possibility for fighting space pirates. On the other hand, my brother-in-law will likely be running a game for them. You can easily run a more Star Trek The Next Generation style game that focuses more on peaceful exploration of the galaxy. Not quite the out of the box experience, but still quite possible.

So it should be noted that other than Traveller, I don’t own any of the above products myself. I’d certainly like to try them out sometime. Does anyone else have a suggestion for a less violent starting RPG? I really want something that is self-contained in no more than two or three books. It’s kind of too bad Bunnies and Burrows is out of print. Maybe I’ll just get them Squirrel Attack! instead.