Finally -- A fantasy RPG for the millennial/nu-metal/NWOD/00's generation.

It's so fucking good. Had two PCs die off in the first chapter. Very refreshing. And it hasn't got that bad taste of old-school where the rules were disjointed causing it but where the rules actually cultivate it via mechanics and narrative.

You start at level 0 for chrissakes! And it's about group levelling this time around which, for me, is quite novel.

Plug in 'n' out universe too. Immediately went custom, of course.

Grabbed this from Orc's Nest a couple weeks ago and got a game in today. Great store, by the way. Cramped as-all-fuck but it and Orbital Comics are right smashing places to grab your nerd swag.

It's properly dark too. A nice mix of horror and post-2000 fantasy with a focus on the brutal starkness and unyielding doom. It'll never trump my all-time love of neo-gothic but it's a solid effort all around.

Nice to see random roll tables in here too plastered everywhere as I've recently started running combat via random rolls which has made it even more fun for me since I don't know what an NPC/monster will do and it keeps me on my toes as GM.

What I really thought was cool was the path system. It's not stupid restrictive and it allows for properly unique builds. Start with generic base, then a focused role and then a niche on top of that.

Forbidden Magic is nasty. That exploding bowels spells sounds awful (players aren't even near there yet but I know they will be!). Corruption and Insanity for all!

Book reads nicely too. If you're fast reader/learner like me, you'll clock it pretty quick  It's a nice medium-system game. Narrative focus but with meat on the mechanical bones so to speak -- which is also legit a thing because you can play androids/cyborgs in this. Gotta love steampunkery!

Grab a hardcopy if you can. Worth it.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Finally -- A fantasy RPG for the millennial/nu-metal/NWOD/00's generation.

SotDL is more influenced by WFRP (the game to which it is a more or less explicit love letter) than by Diablo or Slipknot. Though to be fair, they're all there.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727It's so fucking good. Had two PCs die off in the first chapter. Very refreshing. And it hasn't got that bad taste of old-school where the rules were disjointed causing it but where the rules actually cultivate it via mechanics and narrative.

Care to elaborate? I ask because some of your compliments to SotDL belong in an OSR checklist.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727You start at level 0 for chrissakes! And it's about group levelling this time around which, for me, is quite novel.

AD&D 1e module N1 Treasure Hunt did this decades ago. More recently, DCC (re)popularized the concept.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Plug in 'n' out universe too. Immediately went custom, of course.

Do tell me about your setting! I am ever tempted to take a familiar setting and plug in SotDL. Can you imagine running this bad boy in Forgotten Realms? Dragonlance? Blue Fucking Rose?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Grabbed this from Orc's Nest a couple weeks ago and got a game in today. Great store, by the way. Cramped as-all-fuck but it and Orbital Comics are right smashing places to grab your nerd swag.

Fuckin' A. I've been to London three times but I visited Orcs' Nest and Forbidden Planet each time. Where is Orbital Comics?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727It's properly dark too. A nice mix of horror and post-2000 fantasy with a focus on the brutal starkness and unyielding doom. It'll never trump my all-time love of neo-gothic but it's a solid effort all around.

"Post-2000"? Moorcock much?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Nice to see random roll tables in here too plastered everywhere as I've recently started running combat via random rolls which has made it even more fun for me since I don't know what an NPC/monster will do and it keeps me on my toes as GM.

As the kids say these days, I can't even. :rolleyes:

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727What I really thought was cool was the path system. It's not stupid restrictive and it allows for properly unique builds. Start with generic base, then a focused role and then a niche on top of that.

Yeah, it's nice; it does allow for customization without too much crunch, though it lacks the picaresque grit of its main inspiration, WFRP.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Forbidden Magic is nasty. That exploding bowels spells sounds awful (players aren't even near there yet but I know they will be!). Corruption and Insanity for all!

Man, you should really check out DCC.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Book reads nicely too. If you're fast reader/learner like me, you'll clock it pretty quick  It's a nice medium-system game. Narrative focus but with meat on the mechanical bones so to speak -- which is also legit a thing because you can play androids/cyborgs in this. Gotta love steampunkery!

Clockworks are awesome, though I missed out on the cyborgs as character options. Where are they?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937727Grab a hardcopy if you can. Worth it.

Got it in PDF. I have a long backlog of stuff to run but SotDL is there. I'm actually kind of sorry I missed out on the KS. It's a good game, though the GMing advice is decidedly 1990s/2000s and seems to owe a lot to Robin Laws.

And I'd say it's certainly a credit to the game that, that despite clear philosophical differences in our approaches we both like it.

How much narrative nonsense does it have?

Quote from: Spinachcat;937940How much narrative nonsense does it have?

As far as the voice of the author, the words he uses, etc, nearly 100%.  It's pure Robin Laws "we're all telling a story, creating a piece of literary art" etc, complete with advice on breaking things into scenes, constructing Plot structure, yadda yadda *vomit*.  Make sure you have enough hard liquor to numb the pain but not enough to kill yourself when you're reading the GM Advice.  On average I think the word story appears 17 times per page.

As far as mechanics go, not much.  Fairly traditional. Even the GM Advice isn't "Say Yes or Roll the Dice", it's "Say Yes, Say No, or Roll the Dice".  There's Fortune Points, but no world editing.  There's Character Bonds, but they are an optional rule and are very minor bonuses or penalties, no narrative character arc hooey.

It's like The Forge rewrote WFRP without changing any of the mechanics.  Annoying as fuck but very playable.

The system is more like Dragon Age or 5e or something than WFRP.  Level based with powers gained at certain levels.
Novice Clas...err Path gives you widgets at 1,2,5,8.
Expert Path gives you widgets at 3,6,9
Master Path gives you widgets at 7 and 10 (or you could pick a second Expert Path).
Race gives you your Level 4 widget.

And, as of the optional rules supplement, the katana is now available as an uber-weapon if a few of your stats are even slightly above average.

Quote from: The Butcher;937878

SotDL is more influenced by WFRP (the game to which it is a more or less explicit love letter) than by Diablo or Slipknot. Though to be fair, they're all there.



Care to elaborate? I ask because some of your compliments to SotDL belong in an OSR checklist.



AD&D 1e module N1 Treasure Hunt did this decades ago. More recently, DCC (re)popularized the concept.



Do tell me about your setting! I am ever tempted to take a familiar setting and plug in SotDL. Can you imagine running this bad boy in Forgotten Realms? Dragonlance? Blue Fucking Rose?



Fuckin' A. I've been to London three times but I visited Orcs' Nest and Forbidden Planet each time. Where is Orbital Comics?



"Post-2000"? Moorcock much?



As the kids say these days, I can't even. :rolleyes:



Yeah, it's nice; it does allow for customization without too much crunch, though it lacks the picaresque grit of its main inspiration, WFRP.



Man, you should really check out DCC.



Clockworks are awesome, though I missed out on the cyborgs as character options. Where are they?



Got it in PDF. I have a long backlog of stuff to run but SotDL is there. I'm actually kind of sorry I missed out on the KS. It's a good game, though the GMing advice is decidedly 1990s/2000s and seems to owe a lot to Robin Laws.

And I'd say it's certainly a credit to the game that, that despite clear philosophical differences in our approaches we both like it.

'Love the pic -- hah hah!

And no, it's DEFO a love letter to WHRP because the man on the front cover himself keeps doing an-ode-to in the foreword.

Hah hah, Slipknot -- funniesz. Couldn't stand them when I was literally right at the age where they would have been THE band to get angsty to but I was a Flaw kid. I remember playing Diablo II in uni late into the night with an old friend of mine over a godamm Tunngle connection (funny, he was the one who introduced me to Mass Effect). Whoops, waffling...

I like it because the levels feel like "chapters" rather than just "I can swing a sword precisely to a 35' degree angle then swipe back while wushu backflipping". Like, each level is a chapter in the story of the group and what it's gone through and where it's going. Late gameplay seems like it will be really, you know, "we're getting too old for this shit", which is something that happens naturally in NWOD or EOTE (so long as your GM is coming from a character-driven style) but doesn't really happen in Pathfinder (in my admittedly little experience) or WHRP (in my much more sizable, having-to-rebalance-the-fuck-out-of-that experience).

See, I still don't *quite* get the OSR stuff. I get it but I don't *get* it, if that makes any sense? From what I can tell (and from what one of my players tells me about his old-school D&D games with another group), there's more a "get in the dungeon, kill shit, get burned, avoid traps, get out" and it's very much like a roguelike-focus almost rather than more personal stories (but then, again, I NWOD everything like a motherfucker so that's my bias right there, I'm sure). Like the first time killing a humanoid enemy is a dirty, bloody, really messy affair and then the character just collapses down out of breath, maybe vomits from the shock type stories.

Orbital Comics is just down the block from Orc's Nest. If you go from Leicester Square tube station, if you take a left past the patisserie place and steakhouse and walk up the road until you've got that citi-wanker pub on the corner, take a right at that pub it's on that street. If you're coming from Covent Garden, go left and left out of the station and all the way past the boutiques  down to the plaza where you've got Five Guys on your left, the go directly right and bam there it is. It's bright yellow store with merch in the front. It's a pretty big store inside -- last time I went (same time I went to Orc's Nest, actually), they had an indie comic art exhibition on at the back with the artist and a few of his friends hanging out there, said hi to them chill dudes.

Moorcock is the dude who did Thieves World, right? The guy the GameGeeks guy was on about with the Theives World rpg review?

When I think post-2000, I go straight to computer games like Dragon Age and Morrowind stuff. Pre-2000 is Baldur's Gate and Ultima and the like. Again, computer games.

Dude, random rolls are awesome! Now when my players bitch and whine and moan, I tell em' "did you want the screenshot?" (because I screenshot rolls just-in-case because there's always one...). Total lifesaver -- I don't need to worry about bias or anything.

WHRP is completely fucked at the core. The system completely falls apart past combat and the prescribed gameplay. I did a Only War campaign a few years back and had to modify the shit out of it to allow decent freeform char crea and to make it so combat wasn't simply "I HAVE TEH STORM BOLTER!" I like gritty combat but not stupid shit like take total 10 crit damage and die (when that really should have been a random roll table). This was for an Armoured regiment that were Seek and Destroy and Poorly Provisioned so yeah, even worse. Ah, let me not rant.

What's DCC. Also, what's Blue Rose?

See, they seem to controversial: Clockworks, that is. I like them, too. Awesome art of them in the book. And because you've got the Aritificer Path and the crafting master paths, you could quite conceivably graft mechanical limbs onto PCs (they really need to make rules for it) along with being a mobile KOTOR repair kit for Clockworks. I mean, you can create battle mechs in this game, it's so ridiculous (those things should be Size 3, though, based on description, and the fact that Orcs are Size 2). It actually makes sense too, given the setup of the game.

Didn't even know there was Kickstarter. I'm the kinda guy who picks something up and can tell if it's something I'm gonna enjoy or not, generally.

One thing I will most likely be changing is the lifestyle sub-system. I'll probably double or triple the cost. A sword or chainmail shouldn't cost more than it takes to support your lifestyle monthly. That's just stupid.

EDIT: Setting! Pretty much nothing at the moment. Why? Because fuck making a setting for a game I've only done 1 session for at the moment. What they have done though is escaped from a war chattel pit because some assholes they don't know about don't like each other and they caught up on the road individually. Over the last few weeks. I'm going to have them go to the mall too. Shopping!

I feel so old...

...or maybe someone from a different hobby.

'NWOD' is a verb now?

Quote from: The Butcher;937878SotDL is more influenced by WFRP (the game to which it is a more or less explicit love letter)

Quote from: CRKrueger;937958It's like The Forge rewrote WFRP without changing any of the mechanics.

So, if SotDL is (in some sense) derived from WFRP, have either of you seen Zweihänder?  If so, can you give a general comparison between the two?

I backed the Zweihänder kickstarter and have read through the rules, which do a great job of capturing the WFRP flavor, but the mechanics look a bit too much in the vein of WFRP/FFG 40k-style exception-based design for my taste.  While I absolutely don't regret backing it, I think I'm more likely to cherry-pick a few things (such as the travel rules and Peril mechanics) and import them into Mythras, rather than running Zweihänder itself.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995Moorcock is the dude who did Thieves World, right?

No, that was Robert "Aahz & Skeeve" Asprin.
Moorcock is the author of the Eternal Hero novels (Elric of Melnibonée, Corum, Runestaff saga) and the inspiration of the D&D alignment system (chaos vs. law).

QuoteWhat's DCC. Also, what's Blue Rose?

DCC
Blue Rose

Quote from: HappyDaze;937960And, as of the optional rules supplement, the katana is now available as an uber-weapon if a few of your stats are even slightly above average.

Trad system with narrative GMing advice, and katanas are OP? OK, that is the most 90s game ever.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995Hah hah, Slipknot -- funniesz. Couldn't stand them when I was literally right at the age where they would have been THE band to get angsty to

So there's hope for you yet...

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995but I was a Flaw kid.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995I like it because the levels feel like "chapters" rather than just "I can swing a sword precisely to a 35' degree angle then swipe back while wushu backflipping". Like, each level is a chapter in the story of the group and what it's gone through and where it's going.

What, in your assessment, makes levels feel like "chapters" in a story, that's absent from nWoD ou EotE?

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995See, I still don't *quite* get the OSR stuff. I get it but I don't *get* it, if that makes any sense? From what I can tell (and from what one of my players tells me about his old-school D&D games with another group), there's more a "get in the dungeon, kill shit, get burned, avoid traps, get out" and it's very much like a roguelike-focus almost rather than more personal stories (but then, again, I NWOD everything like a motherfucker so that's my bias right there, I'm sure). Like the first time killing a humanoid enemy is a dirty, bloody, really messy affair and then the character just collapses down out of breath, maybe vomits from the shock type stories.

For the time being, suffice to say yeah, there's quite a bit more to it than that. If you're curious, look into Matt Finch's Old School Primer and Philotomy's Musings for an introduction. You may find the missing pieces of the puzzle there.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995Moorcock is the dude who did Thieves World, right? The guy the GameGeeks guy was on about with the Theives World rpg review?

Michael Moore invented Elric, the original Emo Albino Prettyboy With A Demonic Magic Sword. Go read Stormbringer, it's a novella (so, not too big) and it's genre-defining stuff. Definitely worth your time.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995When I think post-2000, I go straight to computer games like Dragon Age and Morrowind stuff. Pre-2000 is Baldur's Gate and Ultima and the like. Again, computer games.

Just me showing my age. The 2000s were a lost decade in PC gaming for me.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995Dude, random rolls are awesome! Now when my players bitch and whine and moan, I tell em' "did you want the screenshot?" (because I screenshot rolls just-in-case because there's always one...). Total lifesaver -- I don't need to worry about bias or anything.

You photograph your dice rolls. And you even call it a "screenshot." Eh.

Again showing my age, but to some of us geezers this would sound like a group with trust issues.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995WHRP is completely fucked at the core. The system completely falls apart past combat and the prescribed gameplay. I did a Only War campaign a few years back and had to modify the shit out of it to allow decent freeform char crea and to make it so combat wasn't simply "I HAVE TEH STORM BOLTER!" I like gritty combat but not stupid shit like take total 10 crit damage and die (when that really should have been a random roll table). This was for an Armoured regiment that were Seek and Destroy and Poorly Provisioned so yeah, even worse. Ah, let me not rant.

Not familiar with the FFG games (only played Rogue Trader, and then only once). I'm a WFRP1 and WFRP2 fan — games where you rolled for your starting Career and you might get Mercenary or Thief, but you might also get Grave Robber, Charcoal Burner or the ever-popular Rat Catcher — and still thank your lucky stars for it. You could eventually advance into the really kick-ass careers but it took time and luck.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995What's DCC. Also, what's Blue Rose?

Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is Basic D&D on crack. Blue Rose is the Romantic Fantasy Safe Space RPG. Click on the links Dirk posted.

Quote from: PrometheanVigil;937995One thing I will most likely be changing is the lifestyle sub-system. I'll probably double or triple the cost. A sword or chainmail shouldn't cost more than it takes to support your lifestyle monthly. That's just stupid.

To the best of my knowledge, this is historically accurate.

Quote from: nDervish;937999So, if SotDL is (in some sense) derived from WFRP, have either of you seen Zweihänder?  If so, can you give a general comparison between the two?

I don't own Zweihänder but my impression fom the previews was a lot like yours — a more exception-based, FFG-ish evolution of WFRP2.

Crunch-wise, SotDL is not at all like WFRP or ZW. It mostly resembles D&D5, with some D&D4isms (lots of powers involving movement). Core rulebook races include humans, dwarves, changelings, orcs, goblins and clockwork (as in, clockwork automatons imbued with human souls). Lots of great random tables; dwarves get to roll on a Hatred Table for a favored enemy, and clockworks roll for their body shape ranging from tiny clankers to giant frickin' robot.

Characters start at zero level and upon advancement (which is entirely up to the GM) they enter a tiered progression system of Novice, Expert and Master Paths, but it's less WFRP's zany Protagonist/Duelist/Assassin/Witch Hunter and more Warrior/Berserker/Death Dealer or Magician/Warlock/Necromancer (D&D4 had a similar idea).

SotDL also has explicit mechanics for apocalyptic crap happening as the campaign progresses and the immanence of the eponymous Demon Lord draws closer, which is a ton of fun.

Fluff-wise, not a lot in common. There's Renaissance-era and quasi-steampunk tech, and there's an Empire that's less Renaissance Germany and more "decadent sorcerous cunts who created orcs as shock troops" and the world's going to end because the Demon Lord is coming but that's the gist of it.

Quote from: nDervish;937999So, if SotDL is (in some sense) derived from WFRP, have either of you seen Zweihänder?  If so, can you give a general comparison between the two?

Zweihander is WFRP as seen through the lens of New School mechanical balance.
SotDL is WotC 4e/5e as seen through the lens of WFRP.

Quote from: The Butcher;938057I don't own Zweihänder but my impression fom the previews was a lot like yours — a more exception-based, FFG-ish evolution of WFRP2.

Crunch-wise, SotDL is not at all like WFRP or ZW. It mostly resembles D&D5, with some D&D4isms (lots of powers involving movement). Core rulebook races include humans, dwarves, changelings, orcs, goblins and clockwork (as in, clockwork automatons imbued with human souls). Lots of great random tables; dwarves get to roll on a Hatred Table for a favored enemy, and clockworks roll for their body shape ranging from tiny clankers to giant frickin' robot.

Characters start at zero level and upon advancement (which is entirely up to the GM) they enter a tiered progression system of Novice, Expert and Master Paths, but it's less WFRP's zany Protagonist/Duelist/Assassin/Witch Hunter and more Warrior/Berserker/Death Dealer or Magician/Warlock/Necromancer (D&D4 had a similar idea).

SotDL also has explicit mechanics for apocalyptic crap happening as the campaign progresses and the immanence of the eponymous Demon Lord draws closer, which is a ton of fun.

Fluff-wise, not a lot in common. There's Renaissance-era and quasi-steampunk tech, and there's an Empire that's less Renaissance Germany and more "decadent sorcerous cunts who created orcs as shock troops" and the world's going to end because the Demon Lord is coming but that's the gist of it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;938062Zweihander is WFRP as seen through the lens of New School mechanical balance.
SotDL is WotC 4e/5e as seen through the lens of WFRP.

Thanks!  Sounds like it might be worth picking up to raid for tables and ideas, but probably not something I'd ever actually run.

Quote from: The Butcher;938057X

Yep. I couldn't get System of a Down but I'd listen to 40 Below Summer. I didn't really like Avenged Sevenfold but I'd listen to Theory of a Deadman. And I didn't really get Korn but hell if I didn't listen to Motograter. I admit all this freely and the music plays in the background during sessions at the club (among other genres, of course) or during this one SofDL sesh because we all grew up with it and still argue whether our particular favs are *really* "nu-metal" (because we all know deep down they were, hah hah!).

Then again, I was kid growing up among adults who thought Ace of Base was, like, the coolest shit ever so hey, 90's kid problems I guess.

(Hah. no wonder I've got this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE_eWPhFEIM and Winona on repeat right now)

In any case...

Roleplay defines the difference at each level, not stats. There's not really much difference between our two Warriors, two Rogues and two Magicians really right now, you know stats-wise. Roleplay-wise, very difference approaches. Obligations in EOTE is meant to provide roleplay and narrative reason to go do stuff but anytime I haven't GM'd, the other GM fucked up (plus, character advancement is the usual individual-based approach). NWOD *forces* it by having it so that being badass does not make you *badass* in the game world because you can't do shit (like actually influence politics and stuff) and now that we're on Mage, a few of my players are nervous since they're not sure how to navigate the "aspirational" side of life (as in ambition, cutting deals, making friends in high places, building things, business, shit that I and fair few of the others at the club do naturally). The holistic approach to levelling means that SOTDL means that those level up points are those moments of calm where PCs can reflect and we see the true nature of the characters (at least I hope it does later on). Hope that makes some kinda sense.

That second link reads like a roguelike where the goblins actually have, like, a town down there and people are sleeping and eating and washing and stuff.

I'll grab a softcopy some point soon to take a look.

I described it as "So Demon Lord is where you take the worst aspects of Dragon Age, the brutal dark stuff, then make that the norm". Yep, worked out that way.

I've had all sorts of players in all my groups I've GM'd so it's more protecting my rep than anything else. Very important when you've got astute players (or powergamers -- can be one and the same!) but also when I'm GM'ing for my club where people are paying each time so kills bullshit before it becomes a thing (and we're in London/Britain where people don't tell you straight how they feel, they'd rather gossip or be underhanded).

Yeah, I remember Scum from Dark Heresy. Godammit, that system...

I'll check those links and let you know on your reply if I'm horrified.

I know plate armor cost a fortune in real-life but more than a noble's MONTHLY lifestyle? Nahhhh....

Okay, let's get one thing straight right now:

Ace of Base sucks.