Anybody play this: http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=2179
I was wondering, since it was published by TSR, if WotC picked up the ownership of it or not.
Also, are there any campaign supplements anywhere? I picked up a used copy that seems complete for $16 the other day and i'm itching to play! Reading through the rules it seems they've done a lot of the things i've tried to do with my homebrew.
Yup. Mostly the Marvel Superheroes version, but I have scratch notes on using a tarot deck to replace the Fate Deck the DL game comes with.
WotC absolutely owns the rights to it, but has shown no interest in doing anything with it. You can find the various books released for it on Amazon and eBay for close to their original retail price. The rules in the base set are a bit thin; to get a well-rounded set of rules you really need all the "Heroes of..." supplements.
awesome! thanks.
The system does a lot of things i've been trying to do in my homebrew, so when i started reading it i felt immediately at home with it. Too bad WotC is just sitting on the rules. There isn't an OGL or SRD license for it is there?
I'm almost contemplating borrowing/plagiarizing some mechanics from it, but without license to do so...
Quote from: Amalgam;658166Too bad WotC is just sitting on the rules. There isn't an OGL or SRD license for it is there?
Not that I've ever heard of. The system was not very popular in either incarnation; the fan sites for both SAGA lines are basically ghost towns now. That said I suspect no one would care what you stole as long as you avoided any specifically trademarked terms.
Quote from: daniel_ream;658207Not that I've ever heard of. The system was not very popular in either incarnation; the fan sites for both SAGA lines are basically ghost towns now. That said I suspect no one would care what you stole as long as you avoided any specifically trademarked terms.
Especially in the case of Marvel, I think the problem is less "popularity" and more "it relies on a set of unique cards, which are increasingly more difficult to find"...people have tried to hodge podge it with dice or playing cards, but nothing's gotten the feel quite right.
In any event, to the OP: I quite liked Fifth Age, but I don't give one lick about Dragonlance.
Marvel SAGA is my favorite supers game of all time, and my second favorite system of all time (behind Savage Worlds).
I'm rather a fan of both. A major issue with the game systems were reliance on propriety cards, that basically meant that you had a losable/not replaceable component.
It has kept the game from continuing to have a small but rabid following.
Plans on in the works though...
Yeah, i was thinking of some generic cards done in the same fashion, or replacing cards with colored dice. Instead of having a hand of cards, you'd have a pool of random dice as hitpoints/actions.
It was actually a fairly good system as I recall. Unfortunately it was pretty much doomed to obscurity right from the start.
RPGPundit
To start with, being shackled with Dragonlance at the absolute low-point of its popularity.
Quote from: RPGPundit;659006To start with, being shackled with Dragonlance at the absolute low-point of its popularity.
That was the only point at which I liked the setting at all...because all of the "More Important Than You" heroes were out of the way.
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;659029That was the only point at which I liked the setting at all...because all of the "More Important Than You" heroes were out of the way.
Me too, and dragons not being big flying horses...
But /world shaping powers./
Quote from: Silverlion;659064Me too, and dragons not being big flying horses...
But /world shaping powers./
Oh yeah...dragons are TERRIFYING in that game.
I don't know, it seemed to get rid of some of the metaplot heaviness you're talking about, but it also got rid of some of those few things that were really worthwhile about the setting.
But of course, I never much cared for Dragonlance at all, aside from Taladas, which was awesome (but basically a totally different setting anyways).
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;659403I don't know, it seemed to get rid of some of the metaplot heaviness you're talking about, but it also got rid of some of those few things that were really worthwhile about the setting.
But of course, I never much cared for Dragonlance at all, aside from Taladas, which was awesome (but basically a totally different setting anyways).
RPGPundit
That was my deal, I think. I never cared about Dragonlance, so people telling me how they ruined Krynn left me with a big "So What?"
I enjoyed the *system* a great deal, and the setting was what it was. I used it because, at the time, I never got around to converting another setting to it.
(And the images on the cards were so meaningless to me, since I wasn't a fan of Dragonlance, that they could have been generic fantasy art, for my purposes.)
Well, I've been bequeathed a 5th age SAGA product, but with no conversion notes on the base system it all reads like Greek to me (and my Greek is so terribly rusty... I'm still working on pronouncing the influx of new yogurt brands).
Any good websites with system basics up online? Too much is lynchpinned to a singular base product with proprietary resolution tool. Proprietary dice and card decks for running RPGs is an idea that needs to die in a fire already...
So, what's the skinny on mechanics so I can at least read this stuff and fudge it with a deck of cards. Lord knows I have more than enough tarot, regular playing cards, CCGs, etc. to substitute just about everything they could throw at me.
There are eight stats. Those stats correspond to 8 of the 9 suits of cards. The ninth suit is dragons and is meant to be "bad things happening."
Ordinarily you add stat+card to get a result to beat the difficulty, from your hand of cards (determined in char gen in this version it is essentially level--and it goes up as you complete quests.)
However, when a card played matches the attribute suit being played, it "trumps" or you flip the next card over, and repeat this action so long as the cards continue to match the same suit. Essentially exploding dice mechanic but using cards.
If a dragon card is played and the action fails it is a critical failure, otherwise it is a success as normal.
Dooms in the superhero game worked better, going to the GM to play them back against the players.
I believe there is 1 of each card suit from 1-9. except dragons which has a 10. However I'd have to drag out the rule book and at the moment I don't even have my glasses on. (My vision just went down hill last year, so I'm not always used to having them on for being around the house.)
Magic is complex and uses the system slightly differently, involving spell points. You play cards to maneuver ranges, to strike, defend, and perform all actions. Including leading people, casting spells, intimidating people. and so on.
Thanks for answering!
So wait, that's 82 cards total? Nine suits, eight being stat suits, of 9 each. One 'bad trump' suit of 10 cards. (9x8)+(10x1)=82.
But every player needs their own deck? The GM plays a stat from his hand face down and the players make their best suit guess, otherwise play any high value card. If the GM stat suit and player stat suit matches the cards explode for added result value?
And then magic...
This sounds way more involved than I was expecting. It's a bit more like Guardians of Order or Suzerain adding additional meaning to suits and specific numbers and counteracting each other. Why must a randomizer start off so complex?!
Quote from: Opaopajr;659526Thanks for answering!
So wait, that's 82 cards total? Nine suits, eight being stat suits, of 9 each. One 'bad trump' suit of 10 cards. (9x8)+(10x1)=82.
But every player needs their own deck? The GM plays a stat from his hand face down and the players make their best suit guess, otherwise play any high value card. If the GM stat suit and player stat suit matches the cards explode for added result value?
And then magic...
Nah, there is one deck used by the entire group and the
GM doesn't play cards at all*. Its a player driven system. They play against a set difficulty (usually opposing foes stat, in combat.) Plus a single "Narrator" Card played from the top of the deck.
Reclamation is a complex card system that uses multiple decks of standard cards.
Dragonlance isn't that hard at all compared to it.
Each player has a hand of cards usually around 1-5, but can go up to 10 cards depending on their "level" all drawn from the shuffled deck.
*Narrator Card being the exception. In the Marvel version the GM plays dooms earned, I like that as an alternate rule for Dragonlance as well as it gives the GM more options to make things hard/not hard.
I always thought that the DL version of SAGA was pretty neat. Not quite D&D, but an interesting variant. I particularly liked the use of "quests" for XP instead of counting kills and coins.
There's a yahoo group for SAGA at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SAGA_System/
Not much activity there in a long time, but some stuff in the archives.