42 replies to this topic

[jameson (ST)]

Set 2 pre-order & PDF

[Ouroboros]

Has anybody actually played with this game at all?  

I recently got the PDF version of the products (much cheaper) and the system seems like it could be fun to play, though I can also see and agree with all of Dave's negatives on the sets.  The set 1 GMs book is a joke for anybody who's ever GMed before.  Haven't looked into the 2nd set GM book yet.  The Player's books seem pretty good content vs size though.  The artwork is generally good, the layout clean, and its full color, so that's pretty to look at.  GR announced that they were mashing sets 3 & 4 into a single product which is nearing completion.  It'll cover lvls 11-20 and has an open Beta sometime this year IIRC.  I'm not sure how much of the timeline of these products has been stretched by Bioware (getting a licensed product approved can take time) or Green Ronin (small company with limited resources) but set one was copywritten in 2009 and set 2 in 2011.

So, does anybody have any actual play experience with this game/system?  I'm curious because GR also announced plans to decouple the system from the license and release it with a game setting of their own creation for release in 2013.

[jameson (ST)]

I got to give this system a try last weekend.  My friend is a big fan of the video games so it was an easy sell to try out the system using the Quickstart guide.  She ran us through the adventure and her husband and I took on the roles of a Human Circle Mage and a Surface Dwarf Warrior respectively.  The quickstart played out pretty well, taking us about 4 hours from start to finish, largely because of a rather inconveniently skewed combat where we had some seriously bad rolling and couldn't overcome the monster armor rating easily until our dice "warmed up" some.  

The A.G.E. system (Adventure Gaming Engine) that is at the core of Dragon Age relies on rolls of 3D6 with 1 die being marked out as a "Dragon Die" (just roll 2 of one color and a third with a different color).  Tests are done by rolling the three dice, adding them together and adding your attribute score and a further bonus from an applicable focus (skill).  If you meet or beat the Target Number you succeed with the degree of success being determined by the result of the dragon die (for non combat and extended rolls).  During combat when you make an attack roll, if any two dice come up as doubles you get Stunt Points equal to the value of the Dragon Die.  In theory you have a potential stunt about once in every six rolls, though some of those (like 1's) will probably miss.  If you do hit you can use your Stunt Points to buy effects from the Stunt selection which includes extra damage, piercing modifiers, extra attacks and the like.  It's a fun system and a standout of the playtest was my Dwarf getting an exceptionally good stunt roll and using his stunt points to knock a monster backwards into a gorge and then follow up with an immediate second attack on another target.  (A lowlight was when a monster in the same fight scored two crippling blows on my character via stunts, both of which really did cripple my PC for a few rounds.)

The game is definitely geared toward a grimmer, more deadly feel than high fantasy, and our PCs came within a few hit points each of death more than once, but that only encouraged better teamwork, and smarter play.  A larger group might also have had an easier time of things, as two PCs seemed a little under-powered during the first encounter. We've decided we're going to give the game another shot as an alt campaign for when the current M&M run game goes into its next break to allow GM re-charge.  With luck we'll get to play through a few level gains and really see how the system plays out over a mini campaign.

Edit: feel free to ask questions, if you are interested, I'll answer them as best I can from what I know of the game thus far

[AceWildcard]

This sucks big time. I think the company may have dropped the ball in my view. Personally I like having the core rulebook detail everything. Having four instead is a bit rediculaus in my book. They should have waited in my view. Better to at least get everything out at the same time instead of looking like some greedy pig. If they sent out playtest stuff for free to just give a taste that's one thing, but this is a bit sad.

[jameson (ST)]

Three sets not four ( though I think that 4 was the original plan).  I'm not sure how much of that was influenced by Bioware or not, licences are often influenced by the licencing company as much as the licencee.  

Not that I'm apologizing for GR here, I do think that the first two sets are priced a bit high.  Thankfully the PDF pricing is a little more reasonable.

[jameson (ST)]

Set 3 open playtest
http://greenronin.co...-3-playtest.php

[jameson (ST)]

Continued play through Dragon Age has been had.  We ran another session of 8 or so encounters featuring a mix of RP, combat, and non-combat challenges this weekend.  I'm enjoying the system quite a bit, though I find that the level progression feels odd to me after having played point-buy systems for many years.  We're a little bit more than halfway to level 3 now, and after numerous combats I am liking the stunt system that is used quite a bit.  

The odds for a stunt to occur on any given attack are right around 35-40% of the time, by pure math you can generate a potential stunt 44% of the time, but depending on the defense of the enemy and your attack bonus some stunts may never land.  It's dynamic, and a couple of good stunts can turn combat in your favor, or against it swiftly, but always with a change for it to turn around with your next attack and chance for a stunt.  At higher levels and greater skill with combat it is possible to add significant effects with stunts, and depending on your class and combat preference this can easily add damage enough to make for a considerable critical hit at times.  

The flip side is that combat is potentially lethal.  A party NPC was almost killed during one encounter after a series of spectacularly good rolls by the GM.  Combat rallied quickly however with PC stunts quickly dispatching half the enemies and reviving the fallen NPC with a huge healing buff.  The nice thing is that healing comes easy, and a five minute rest and a little work with some gauze can get a goodly boost to your health after combat, you don't have the old issue of having to heal up and rest for a day after every encounter.  

The RP side is also good, with a nice mix of freeform and structured rolling to get what you want done, done.  The pre-built senarios offered with the sets and the first module book have been nicely balanced for flavor.  I don't know a lot about the Dragon Age setting, having never played the computer games, but there is a lot of ambiguity between good and evil, and the shades of grey allow for a lot of fun RP.  When the party needs the surly dwarf (that's me) to be the face of the group and rally the townsfolk because they are prejudiced against elves things get hilarious pretty quick.

[SalmonMax]

Dragon Age's setting is a really good one, in my opinion. It has the bad luck of being a bit overshadowed by it's sci-fi cousin, Mass Effect...especially now. That said, for fantasy settings it's very good. I find it has a lot of nuance to it without succumbing to mind-withering complexity. A good thing that a lot of genre writers would do well to emulate.

[jameson (ST)]

I dunno, it's pretty mind withering from my seat.  The complexity of the elf-human relations, the levels of detail on the dwarf caste system, the way that the Circle/Chantry controls all magic, all make for a complex world to navigate within a TT RPG.  I'm sure the way its downloaded to you as you play through the videogame helps, but neither myself, nor the other player my game have played the VG, though the ST has and gets us up to speed when we ask, but sometimes we don't know to ask and do stupid things as a result.  

Still it does play as an interesting world, and I enjoy the extent that Mages are balanced well in terms of power and in terms of play.  The fade can really make for a bad day based on the rules for the advanced spells from set 2 (though we are a long way from having to deal with such.

[AceWildcard]

_{I personaly like the Dragon Age Video games. To be honest I haven't played the rpg system for pen and paper. Even so if you guys want to do a game I am all interested. Just you guys have to help me out a bit since I don't have any of the subject material for the pen and paper ahead of time. I been interested in doing an good fantasy based game for a long time. The ones I have play have not done alot of character development in my view. Or I have not had the time to do so with fellow rpiers at the t.t. games I play.}

[jameson (ST)]

Like I said, I haven't played the VGs at all, and only a half dozen sittings with the TT game.  I wouldn't mind playing in another, but there's no way I could run it.

[jameson (ST)]

And it started out like such a nice festival ...

After defeating a Dark Spawn abomination in our last session we traveled to the South West, near the Wilds, to get our much deserved party on at a celebration for a border fort being rebuilt in stone.  Festivities were cut short when a group of tainted Chasind Wilders attacked.  They were infected with a poison/taint called the Amber Rage which reminded me of That Yellow Bastard from Sin City; they had yellow skin and blood, stunk to high heaven, and were about as sane as sack fully of crazy.

We defeated the attacking group easily enough (though I don't believe this was intended as a difficult combat).  In the aftermath however we found that the knife wounds and bites of the infected Wilders had infected many of the townsfolk, and one of the party members, with the Amber Rage.  A local witch was able to create a stop-gap remedy that would prolong the eventual death of the infected by a few days but only a rare ingredient, Shadow Moss, could cure the blight disease.  Thus our trek into the Chasind Wilds began.

While I am still impressed with the combat stunt system this session allowed us some opportunities to try some of the exploration and social stunts.  The system works the same, but the mechanics of these stunts are obviously a little more varied to try and cover a wider range of potential situations.  I found some of the options a little lackluster in some situations, but the idea is a good one and more options might help to flesh out stunts overall for more situational uses.  While bargaining for some services for instance an option to gain a bonus on a further test, or some other applicable bonus stunt would be nice.

[jameson (ST)]

Short legs make for a long walk ...

So after many sessions where a certain mabari dog was seen in and around the locality of our various adventures, and often in the company of the person or persons at the center or origin of the troubles we had dealt with, we finally got a lead on where he was currently and decided to track him down.  After stomping through the swamps of the Korkari wilds we located the mutt associating with a Chasind tribal leader.  We followed them to a cave and, due to a bad stealth roll (or maybe it was a good perception roll) our attempted ambush because a skirmish between the warrior and the Mage who was using dark magic to shapeshift into the mabari to get around.  The warrior was felled quickly, having been separated from his master, and thanks to a couple of massive damage rolls on the part of my mighty dwarf warrior.  

And then things went bad.

The Mage summoned up a pair of wraiths, immune to physical damage and mightily quick, who started to slice and dice our tiny party.  Aside: we were joined by a friendly Chasind tracker and a Avar who we saved from some darkspawn.  The mage slapped the dwarf with Weaken, which reduced his Strength and Dexterity by one each and further reduced his speed by 5.  Dwarves aren't really known for being quick, and with heavy mail I was already saddled with a single digit speed.  The Weaken curse dropped my speed to only 2 yards per move, I was lucky that I was only 3 yards out from melee with the caster as a move followed by a charge still got me into his face with an axe full of pain, but he had more in store than just that.  

Combat went from bad to worse as we found that the wraiths were not only immune to our weapons unless we generated at least a 3 point stunt, but that they also inflicted penetrating damage ignoring even the best armor in our group.  Hit points plummeted like a Hurlok tossed into a gorge, and the group's mage found himself spending nearly his every action to drop healing and rejuvenation spells on the various party members, draining his mana available for offense against the wraiths.

The mage and the dwarf faced off, with axe blows landing for heavy damage that was either healed away with potions, or more often by the use of the drain life spell.  Thankfully the stout dwarf did not succumb to the attempted Walking Bomb spell.  The mage meanwhile used the speed that he had over the dwarf to flee deeper into the cave, which saved him from a few rounds worth of smiting while the angry dwarf trudged after him (thankfully weaken ended shortly after).  It was a hard fought victory in the end, with 3 of the four heroes in single digit hit points and very little mana left on the mage.  The dark mage was slain however and as we investigated the cave we learned that it was an opening to the Deep Roads.  The cave would need to be sealed.  While investigating we met a Grey Warden, our second meeting with this man, and he invited us to meet him at Denerim, and possibly an invitation to join the Wardens ourselves.