Dragonbane

[GothmogIV]

Brothers, I bear tidings from Sweden. The Free League game Dragonbane is based on an iteration of Rune Quest from way back when. Long have I wished for Chaosium to re-create a fantasy game like Magic World, but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards. This is a fantastic use of the BRP engine, with a few modern updates (pushing rolls, advantage and disadvantage, etc.) I think Rune Quest is a beautiful game with an incredibly well-supported world, but it's just not my jam. If you are of a mind, check it out! (And: I play tons of Cthulhu, so I am very happy to support Chaosium Games. You all are the best!) 

[Jakob]

I love Dragonbane as well ... have played only one one-shot, but that went beautifully. Funnily enough, it feels a lot like a cleaned-up, slightly modernized version of the first edition of Das schwarze Auge, which was (is, in it's fifth edition) the most succesful German rpg. I think it was also influenced by RQ, though it felt more like a mix of RQ and D&D.

[Jason D]

I quite like it as well, and the folks at Fria Ligan and Fredrik Malmberg are good friends of Chaosium. 

I've ran the quickstart and one game from the campaign in the box set, and quite enjoyed it. Can't wait to run it again. 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Jason D

[Ravenheart87]

I love it and can't wait to give it a go. It has a simple core system and covers a lot in a single rulebook. I am torn on some of their "frialiganisms" though - especially the monster mechanics and some of the heroic abilities.

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, Ravenheart87 said:

I love it and can't wait to give it a go. It has a simple core system and covers a lot in a single rulebook. I am torn on some of their "frialiganisms" though - especially the monster mechanics and some of the heroic abilities.

As for myself, I didn't like their implementation of opposed skills, where ties are broken using a "lower roll wins" rule, and the fact that, by default, you have to forfeit your attack to defend yourself in melee.

On both subjects, I can't help but think Pendragon offers a better solution.

[Ravenheart87]

9 minutes ago, Mugen said:

As for myself, I didn't like their implementation of opposed skills, where ties are broken using a "lower roll wins" rule, and the fact that, by default, you have to forfeit your attack to defend yourself in melee.

Opposed rolls are meant to be used only rarely as I understand. I would have went with a blackjack tiebreaker too. I might actually do so.

The action economy is probably the way it is so you can have heroic abilities that override your limitations (there are HAs that allow you to parry and dodge more at the cost of WP). I have no issue with that. I'm more grumpy about things that I would normally just ask a skill check for, but here require a Heroic Ability - like disguise and crafting. It feels like some skills got neutered of their expected functions to justify the presence of some HAs.

[Mugen]

6 hours ago, Ravenheart87 said:

I have no issue with that. I'm more grumpy about things that I would normally just ask a skill check for, but here require a Heroic Ability - like disguise and crafting. It feels like some skills got neutered of their expected functions to justify the presence of some HAs.

To be able to defend yourself without sacrificing your ability to fight back is one of the things that I consider as a base use of any combat skill. 🙂

To me, having to learn an Heroic Ability for that is not different than your example for Disguise.

I also don't really understand what's the meaning of an attack roll with no opposition or influence on the attack roll from his stats in general (which is also true for BRP games). Is the opponent standing still and waiting ? If not, why isn't it harder to hit a quick character than a clumsy one ?

[Jakob]

I‘m actually very happy with that action economy, because it achieves a few things that other games sometimes try to do with extra rules. Basically, in 1-1 combat, having the initiative and being on the attack means that you have the forward momentum; as long as you succeed with your attacks, you practically force your opponent to stay defensive. However, your opponent always has the option to suck it up and instead use their action for a counterattack, hopefully gaining the forward momentum by suceeding and forcing you into the defender‘s position; and also, as soon as you miss an attack, your opponent has their opening. I think it‘s pretty cool making defending a meaningful decision in that it actually puts you on the defense. It can also make armor pretty important, because if you‘re heavily armed, sucking up that one hit to get one in on your opponent becomes a much more viable option. It also means that you don‘t have to come up with extra rules for fighting offensively or defensively; both are options that arise organically from the system.

What I feel is a bit lacking is the magic. There‘s a lot of spells that are basically just upgrades of lower-level skills; I‘m just not that big a fan of learning „some kind of magical fire attack“ three times just to get more damage or the option to affect multiple targets; I would prefer a more flexible system that allows you to tweak and upgrade spells. And honestly, if you‘re going the „Heal I, Heal II, Heal III“ route, you could just as well just number the spells like that to make it transparent; if two spells are essentially the same, they should be called the same.

However, the latter is just a reading impression – as it has more to do with character progression, in the one-shot I have GMed yet, this naturally hasn‘t come up as a problem. I guess more spells for variety and maybe the option to „upgrade“ your spells more easily to the next more powerful variant would solve it.

[Mugen]

8 hours ago, Jakob said:

I‘m actually very happy with that action economy, because it achieves a few things that other games sometimes try to do with extra rules. Basically, in 1-1 combat, having the initiative and being on the attack means that you have the forward momentum; as long as you succeed with your attacks, you practically force your opponent to stay defensive. However, your opponent always has the option to suck it up and instead use their action for a counterattack, hopefully gaining the forward momentum by suceeding and forcing you into the defender‘s position; and also, as soon as you miss an attack, your opponent has their opening. I think it‘s pretty cool making defending a meaningful decision in that it actually puts you on the defense. It can also make armor pretty important, because if you‘re heavily armed, sucking up that one hit to get one in on your opponent becomes a much more viable option. It also means that you don‘t have to come up with extra rules for fighting offensively or defensively; both are options that arise organically from the system.

That would be true if you were guaranteed to gain something when you defend yourself.

But it's not the case : if you fail your defense roll, you've just done nothing in the round, while your opponent has a step towards victory.

And even if you succeed, you've just nullified the turn.

Of course, if you score a counter-attack, you're a clear winner. But it's a rare case, and you can't count on it when you chose to defend

Defending yourself instead of attacking is a losing strategy.

 

[Jakob]

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

That would be true if you were guaranteed to gain something when you defend yourself.

But it's not the case : if you fail your defense roll, you've just done nothing in the round, while your opponent has a step towards victory.

And even if you succeed, you've just nullified the turn.

Of course, if you score a counter-attack, you're a clear winner. But it's a rare case, and you can't count on it when you chose to defend

Defending yourself instead of attacking is a losing strategy.

 

To be honest, I don't get it. Isn't that the case in any RPG where you roll to defend (or attack)? If you take that option and failed your roll, you gain nothing. So you could just as well say that attacking is a losing strategy because you gain nothing if you fail your roll.

In the end, I don't see that much of a difference to any RPG with an action economy where defending is a meaningful choice in terms of how much you can do in a round - in RuneQuest 2/7, you lose Strike Ranks parrying, in Mythras, you lose an action point. When you're out of strike ranks/action points for that round, are you just standing still doing nothing when someone attacks you? Of course not. The attack roll assumes that the other side is trying to not get hit - otherwise, there would be no roll necessary.

Maybe it makes more sense if you consider a Dragonbane round half a "standard" round, where both sides get the "usual" two main actions but can choose to convert their attack into a defense or their defense into an attack at any time? The result would basically be the same, just with less rules overhead.

[smiorgan]

On 11/23/2023 at 4:00 PM, Jason D said:

I quite like it at well, and the folks at Fria Ligan and Fredrik Malmberg are good friends of Chaosium. 

I've ran the quickstart and one game from the campaign in the box set, and quite enjoyed it. Can't wait to run it again. 

 

I find that Dragonbane hits the "Stormbringer-sweet spot" in the complexity-simplicity continuum.

I'd love Chaosium to publish something like that for BRP but with more sword and sorcery vibes (Howard/ Leiber/ Moorcock). Call it not-Stormbringer / not-Magic World. 

I look forward to Lords of the Middle Sea to be like that, but I think there is room for a fantasy cousin.

Edited November 25, 2023 by smiorgan

[rsanford]

53 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

I'd love Chaosium to publish something like that for BRP but with more sword and sorcery vibes (Howard/ Leiber/ Moorcock). Call it not-Stormbringer / not-Magic World. 

Man, I do too. I have no clue if it would sell, but I, and most of my friends, would buy it.

[Jakob]

3 hours ago, smiorgan said:

I find that Dragonbane hits the "Stormbringer-sweet spot" in the complexity-simplicity continuum.

I'd love Chaosium to publish something like that for BRP but with more sword and sorcery vibes (Howard/ Leiber/ Moorcock). Call it not-Stormbringer / not-Magic World. 

I look forward to Lords of the Middle Sea to be like that, but I think there is room for a fantasy cousin.

Reading Rivers of London, I felt like its take on BRP would make for a really good introductory game - skills are simplified, SIZ has been omitted (which is an attribute that always seems to confuse people, including me), and a lot of the little bits that usually come with BRP are turned into options that players can/have to choose for their characters (like Damage Bonus). I haven't tried the system yet, but the crunch parts of RoL really read like a very solid BRP light with some modern bits attached - which is exactly how Dragonbane feels, though it goes in a different direction.

I know that it has been stated a dozen times that Chaosium has made the experience that "generic fantasy RPG's don't sell; we need a great and original setting attached to our RPGs", and I absolutely believe them. But I also think that, based on it being an interesting new take on BRP, a RoL-based generic fantasy RPG might attract a lot of interest. Or otherwise, a cool new introductory level fantasy RPG based on RoL with an original setting attached (maybe something more city-based, with a more early modern flair?). I know that Chaosium doesn't want to give Magic World or something similar another try, and I get why - but there are other options to try things a little more streamlined and modernised with BRP, as RoL proves.

Apart from that, I'm really looking forward to Lords of the Middle-Sea to scratch my Stormbringer low-crunch BRP nostalgia itch!

Edited November 25, 2023 by Jakob

[Mugen]

9 hours ago, Jakob said:

To be honest, I don't get it. Isn't that the case in any RPG where you roll to defend (or attack)? If you take that option and failed your roll, you gain nothing. So you could just as well say that attacking is a losing strategy because you gain nothing if you fail your roll.

 

No, because when you attack, you roll to reach your goal, which is to reduce your opponent's hit points to 0.

When you roll for defense, you do it with the hope nothing happens in the round and no-one gains anything. Like if the current round never occured in first place.

If you never win initiative and always defend, or even if your opponent just wins initiative more often than you, a defensive strategy will lead you to defeat.

It's also very uncommon in games to completely have to forfeit your actions of a turn in order to defend yourself. You may have an option for "full defense", but it's usually an option for better defense, not the default defense.

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Mugen

[Jakob]

41 minutes ago, Mugen said:

 

No, because when you attack, you roll to reach your goal, which is to reduce your opponent's hit points to 0.

When you roll for defense, you do it with the hope nothing happens in the round and no-one gains anything. Like if the current round never occured in first place.

If you never win initiative and always defend, or even if your opponent just wins initiative more often than you, a defensive strategy will lead you to defeat.

It's also very uncommon in games to completely have to forfeit your actions of a turn in order to defend yourself. You may have an option for "full defense", but it's usually an option for better defense, not the default defense.

 

Well, your main goal might very well be "not get killed" rather than "kill the other guy".

And fighting defensively only means defending when your opponent actually lands a hit - when s/he misses, you get your opportunity to attack (and if they attacked first and missed, they can't defend!). So really, I don't get it and I haven't experienced in the one-shot I've run, where characters tended to act defensively due to generally low Hit Points. They still managed to win to fights.

Also, there's usually a lot of context in combat besides to opponents just taking their turn attacking and defending.

 

EDIT: Actually, I guess I'll just have to accept that I don't get the problem - when you're talking past one another because the other person seems to claim something that fundamentally doesn't make sense to you, it's usually because somewhere down the line, there is a difference in core assumptions that you're not aware of. So I guess we'd have to dive deep into a discussion about assumptions about how combat works in RPGs, about the readiness to employ seemingly or objectively sub-optimal strategies and all that kind of things. without that, I'm at a loss.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Jakob

[DreadDomain]

Dragonbane is definitely a game I want to love. The box set is sturdy, the books have a nice finish, the art is good and the rules seem to hold together well in a nice, simple fashion while being succintly written in an easy to understand format.

But I have not tried it yet. While it feels like a great ruleset for casual gaming (low effort, low prep before you start), there is nothing in the rules that makes me scream "I want to play this NOW!" Looking at my shelves, the rules are somewhat in the same category of:

Symbaroum - Dragonbane seems like it holds together better than Symbaroum but the latter has a much depeer, intriguing setting. But Symbaroum is not necessarily for casual gaming.

Forbidden Land - I feel both games serve the same purpose (and I have the same "why should I play this game" with FL). Based on my read, I feel Dragonbane is better than FL. Between the two, I would choose DB

Pendragon - Like Symbaroum, it offers a totally different gaming experience with no magic, only humans, only knights for KAP. I prefer KAP's design but again, not as much for generic fantasy casual gaming.

The Dark Eye - ok, this one might feel weird because TDE that goes as deep as Glorantha and the rules can be as detailled and rich as RQ or GURPS... but it doesn't have to be. I read DB and I cannot stop thinking the TDE can easily offer the same kind of generic fantasy casual gaming but with the benefit of offering so much more (both in rules and setting) if wanted. And magiv in TDE is a lot more interesting than the generic magic in DB.

Apologies for the long winded answer but this thread is useful to me because it made me verbalise with I always pass on DB since I got it (I clearly wrote all of this more for myself than anyone else). While I don't really see why I would choose FL over DB or why I would choose DB over TDE, I came to realize why I would play DB aside from a solid, low effort entry point ruleset: the book of adventures.

The mini campaign in the book of adventures looks fun and (potentially?) low prep. Maybe this is what I should do. Read it, prep it, and GM it. 

[Jakob]

1 hour ago, DreadDomain said:

The Dark Eye - ok, this one might feel weird because TDE that goes as deep as Glorantha and the rules can be as detailled and rich as RQ or GURPS... but it doesn't have to be. I read DB and I cannot stop thinking the TDE can easily offer the same kind of generic fantasy casual gaming but with the benefit of offering so much more (both in rules and setting) if wanted. And magiv in TDE is a lot more interesting than the generic magic in DB.

The first edition and the early adventures for The Dark Eye really felt a lot like Dragonbane - back then, it was Elves and Dwarves and Goblins and whatever weird idea the author of the adventure you were currently playing happened to come up with; there was a lot of silliness and obviously, no one cared too much about the world as anything more than an extremely vague backdrop for fantasy adventures.

With the second edition (beginning in 1988), they started thinking about how to make the continent of Aventurien a more consistent setting; they also started to publish a monthly in-world newspaper ourlining poltical events in Aventurien, which was the igniting spark of the living history of the setting - for a long time, every real-world year, the history of Aventurien advanced two years (later they started to advance its history only one year every real-world year, because obviously, none of the players could keep up). You would get adventures that tied into that history, so if you wanted to play in canonical Aventurien, you had to think about which adventures came before or after others. That's also when a lot of these scenarios became very railroady, to make sure that the characters wouldn't mess with the highly detailed history.

In the mid-nineties, halfway through the third edition, they started their big campaign about the return of the most powerful dark sorcerer of all, and from then on, they really went a little bit overboard both with the detailed setting as well as with how much they kept changing the setting. Back then, we we're playing TDE once or twice a week, and still we just couldn't keep up with the official events.

After that, there came the fourth edition, which kind of settled on a new status quo for the setting, but now the REALLY went overboard both with the rules (more than 1000 pages - I played a knight, and fighthing from horseback was four tightly packed pages of rules that interacted with all kinds of other rules - frankly, it was a nightmare. I prepared myself days for a big battle where I finally wanted my character to fight from horseback RAW, and everyone was just groaning when we went through with it, including me ...) AND with the setting description - there were 16 setting supplements, most of which came in at about 200 pages, so there was about 3000 pages of setting description (and these were pure setting descriptions, with no adventures and often preciously little material that was actually useful for adventures - though some of them were brillant explorations of historically inspired fantasy cultures, including their food, their clothes, their languages, their religion and the exact population of most of the villages).

At that point, TDE had very much become about the excessively detailed description of a setting that STILL kept changing all the time (so if you really wanted to get what was going on, you'd also have to keep up with current adventures AND, at times, search out older material), which finally made me give up on the gaming world I had invested most of my passion in for 15 years. It was simply overwhelming.

I think the current fifth edition dialed all of this excesses back to a certain degree, and maybe the "old" TDE, that was very much about going on adventures in a relatively down-to-earth fantasy world that still had room for occassional craziness and silliness shines through again ... for me, it's all weighed down by decades of heavily detailed Aventurian history. I don't want to belittle the achievement of the 3rd and 4th edition: The overall consistency and quality of the setting material was really impressive. It was just too much to be of any use.

On a sidenote: Uhrwerk Verlag, the German publisher of Dragonbane, has just announced that they are going to publish a licensed regional sourcebook that will allow you to play in the world of TDE with the rules of Dragonbane. So I guess I'm not the only one who sees a connection there ...

[Mugen]

When I read about TDE and DB/DoD, I can't help but feel sorry we didn't have a similar game in France. There was an attempt with l'Ultime Épreuve, but it was not a very interesting game, and quite amateurish.

We even had TWO competing French editions of TDE in the 80s at the same time, with two different translatios. One by Gallimard, for traditional book shops, and one by Schmidt, for toys and games shops. Gallimard had a huge success with Chose Your Own Adventure books like Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf, and they thought a Roleplaying Game would be a good addition to their line. They also translated Pendragon's first edition. I wished they tried to do their own game instead.

But I feel like people thought that D&D was the real thing, and other games were less worthy of interest.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Mugen

[Jason D]

On 11/25/2023 at 6:51 PM, smiorgan said:

I'd love Chaosium to publish something like that for BRP but with more sword and sorcery vibes (Howard/ Leiber/ Moorcock). Call it not-Stormbringer / not-Magic World.

As would I! 

 

[DreadDomain]

On 11/26/2023 at 3:39 PM, Jakob said:

The first edition and the early adventures for The Dark Eye really felt a lot like Dragonbane - back then, it was Elves and Dwarves and Goblins and whatever weird idea the author of the adventure you were currently playing happened to come up with; there was a lot of silliness and obviously, no one cared too much about the world as anything more than an extremely vague backdrop for fantasy adventures.

Yes, Dragonbane does channel the vibe of older games but with better production and tighter rules. Believe it or not, I believe the Aventuria card game played in story mode channels the same kind of vibe (and reuse some of DSA 1 scenarios).

On 11/26/2023 at 3:39 PM, Jakob said:

I think the current fifth edition dialed all of this excesses back to a certain degree, and maybe the "old" TDE, that was very much about going on adventures in a relatively down-to-earth fantasy world that still had room for occassional craziness and silliness shines through again ... for me, it's all weighed down by decades of heavily detailed Aventurian history. I don't want to belittle the achievement of the 3rd and 4th edition: The overall consistency and quality of the setting material was really impressive. It was just too much to be of any use.

Having no German language skills at all, I did not experience the evolution between DSA 1 and DSA 5 so I only remember the simpler, casual gaming of DSA 1, which I connect to Dragonbane's style. DSA 5 for me is just a much better game than DSA 1, with a deep setting and rich history with plenty of character development opportunities. Where it becomes relevant to Dragonbane is that the Heldenwerk adventures fill a similar space. Perhaps they could be used as scenarios for Dragonbane. But maybe not, they are generally less hexcrawl/combat and more social/investigation/combat.

On 11/26/2023 at 3:39 PM, Jakob said:

On a sidenote: Uhrwerk Verlag, the German publisher of Dragonbane, has just announced that they are going to publish a licensed regional sourcebook that will allow you to play in the world of TDE with the rules of Dragonbane. So I guess I'm not the only one who sees a connection there ...

Intriguing! But my lack of German skill won't help me here.

[DreadDomain]

On 11/26/2023 at 7:25 PM, Mugen said:

When I read about TDE and DB/DoD, I can't help but feel sorry we didn't have a similar game in France. There was an attempt with l'Ultime Épreuve, but it was not a very interesting game, and quite amateurish.

We even had TWO competing French editions of TDE in the 80s at the same time, with two different translatios. One by Gallimard, for traditional book shops, and one by Schmidt, for toys and games shops. Gallimard had a huge success with Chose Your Own Adventure books like Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf, and they thought a Roleplaying Game would be a good addition to their line. They also translated Pendragon's first edition. I wished they tried to do their own game instead.

But I feel like people thought that D&D was the real thing, and other games were less worthy of interest.

Rêve de Dragon could be that French game?

[Ravenheart87]

The vibe is really strong with Dragonbane too, that's sure.

[Mugen]

3 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Rêve de Dragon could be that French game?

No, due to its very complex rules system.

[DreadDomain]

5 hours ago, Mugen said:

No, due to its very complex rules system.

Ok. Aside from too many attributes, I didn't feel the game was very complex (but more complex than Dragonbane for sure).

[Kloster]

38 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Ok. Aside from too many attributes, I didn't feel the game was very complex (but more complex than Dragonbane for sure).

Even not counting magic, 'Rève de dragon' was far more complex than 'L'oeil noir' (Das schwarze Auge auf deutsch). Mugen is right, the only french game that could have competed was 'L'ultime épreuve', but it was not good, filled with bugs, and not very interesting. Even DSA v1.0, level and class based (which L'ultime épreuve wasn't), was better done.