And the second part of that review is already out: geez, that guy must have spent an all-nighter reading myb ook!

RPGPundit

He talked a bit about how magic in Dark Albion is different than in other D&D type settings.  How does this pan out in the rules section and in play?  As it's setting neutral with some rules in the back, what is there to support the people at the table from falling into old habits when it comes to D&D Magic?  Something like DCC or WHFRP?

Doesn't the 'd&d' escalation of hit points go against the gritty feel of Albion?

Quote from: NathanIW;841375He talked a bit about how magic in Dark Albion is different than in other D&D type settings.  How does this pan out in the rules section and in play?  As it's setting neutral with some rules in the back, what is there to support the people at the table from falling into old habits when it comes to D&D Magic?  Something like DCC or WHFRP?

Well, there's three big ways in which magic is different: first, the magic chapter outlines how one should alter/restrict the spell lists.  There will be less explosive-style combat spells, as well as certain other types of spells that are some of the more power-house spells of a magic-user, without completely depleting the magic-user's usefulness.
On the cleric side of things, there's no 'raise dead'.

Second, magic items are rarer than in many settings (certainly rarer than what new-school D&D would be used to, but also rarer than more magic-rich old-school settings).  It's practically impossible for modern wizards to make magic items other than scrolls or potions.  Magic weapons and armor are either incredibly valuable family heirlooms or only ever likely to be found in unexplored tombs/cairns/barrows from prehistory.  The default magic sword is a "Sword +0", which means that it can harm creatures immune to non-magical attacks but offers no other bonuses.

Finally, there's the demonology rules.  They're inspired by real medieval demonology (the Goetia, etc.), and can allow magic-users to access a lot of power, if they can obtain the right seal and name, and dare to do a battle of wills with a demon.   Since these are new rules, they can pretty easily be added to whatever OSR rule-set you're applying.

Quote from: Scutter;841379Doesn't the 'd&d' escalation of hit points go against the gritty feel of Albion?

That's not my experience.  Particularly given that magical healing is not as common (though not exactly uncommon for a party of adventurers).  That said, in the Appendix P rules characters would tend to have slightly less hit points than a typical OSR character, unless "hit points" is what they specifically choose to aim for in terms of level perks.

RPGPundit

The magic stuff sounds great.  I was trying to figure out good demonology rules, so I think Dark Albion is going on my list of things to get.  The setting just sounds awesome for some WHFRP type play.

Quote from: NathanIW;841399The magic stuff sounds great.  I was trying to figure out good demonology rules, so I think Dark Albion is going on my list of things to get.  The setting just sounds awesome for some WHFRP type play.

It's ultimately a bit less WFRP than I had originally envisioned it to be; it has a lot less of the 'black humor' and social commentary that WFRP sometimes has, it's also got almost none of the 'heavy metal' style that WFRP also sometimes has.  In another sense, it's also a bit closer to 'realistic' grittiness, and it has a lot more potential for intrigue-based play.

So it's kind of somewhere in between Game of Thrones and WFRP.

My copy just arrived, looks an absolutely beautiful book.

Quote from: RPGPundit;841575It's ultimately a bit less WFRP than I had originally envisioned it to be; it has a lot less of the 'black humor' and social commentary that WFRP sometimes has, it's also got almost none of the 'heavy metal' style that WFRP also sometimes has.  In another sense, it's also a bit closer to 'realistic' grittiness, and it has a lot more potential for intrigue-based play.

So it's kind of somewhere in between Game of Thrones and WFRP.

I've had a case of Game of Thrones exhaustion since about half way through reading A Dance with Dragons.  How do you think the setting would hold up if it was set in (the equivalent of) 1488 with the war for the throne being decided?  What do you see as the greatest potential for such a game?  How much of the setting material would be left underutilized?

Quote from: NathanIW;841619I've had a case of Game of Thrones exhaustion since about half way through reading A Dance with Dragons.  How do you think the setting would hold up if it was set in (the equivalent of) 1488 with the war for the throne being decided?  What do you see as the greatest potential for such a game?  How much of the setting material would be left underutilized?

Well here's the thing: you can definitely do that, and if you're setting it just a short while after 1485, there's still a lot of the material that will be pretty usable to you. What it does is that the Chronology chapter will turn into a more standard "timeline up to the startpoint of the campaign" rather than "timeline of how events historically went in the period the campaign is intended to run".
It also means that a lot of the NPCs in the NPC section are dead, but not all of them obviously.

However, if the thing you don't like is the "Game of Thrones"-like part of the War of the Roses, and not the period itself, I think there are easier ways to get around this.  For Dark Albion to feel a lot like Game of Thrones, the PCs have to interact with the nobility.  If they don't, if your group is a lower class group, maybe based in one specific region of Albion, it will feel like dark gritty fantasy but not all that much like Game of Thrones.

While it's certainly not how things went for MY campaign, I could definitely see a GM run a game of Albion where he gets through the whole campaign with the big events of the Rose War just happening in the background, and his PCs not really directly involved in any of the major intrigues or battles of it.

Quote from: jadrax;841608My copy just arrived, looks an absolutely beautiful book.

I'll never get tired of hearing this!

I've long been a lurker on the RPGsite but I felt I had to register just to state how much I enjoy Dark Albion.

I received my hard cover standard design copy of Dark Albion last week and i've been reading it in spare moments ever since. Being a fan of WFRP and Game of Thrones, this was a no brainer for me. The layout is superb and makes the book easy to read and attractive to boot.

The setting plus appendices make for a compelling game that makes me want to run this. I've been thinking about a similar 'dark' alternative British Isles setting for running Beyond the Wall, except set during the 13th century. This isn't quite that but it's damn good and the Wars of the Roses backdrop means i'm quite happy playing in this alternative 15th century rather than the 13th.

If I have any constructive criticism it's that I would personally like to have seen a bit more material on what it means to worship Chaos. As a long time GM of WFRP, I would have loved to have seen more on what it means to receive 'gifts' from Demons. Also, a nice random Chaos Mutation table would have been nice - maybe in an appendix. I'm not using any of the WFRP mutation tables as I want to stay OSR - there's a pretty good magical mutation table in Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque which I plan to use.

I own a lot of OSR games, including S&W, LotFP, DCC etc. Beyond The Wall and other adventures immediately sprung out to me as the perfect game to use in Dark Albion - the rules already accommodate the low magic suggested in Dark Albion plus fate points ala WFRP. Looking forward to having the young un's leaving the village to face warring and politicking nobles and Chaos Cults. In Wales!

Quote from: Simon F;841911I've long been a lurker on the RPGsite but I felt I had to register just to state how much I enjoy Dark Albion.

I received my hard cover standard design copy of Dark Albion last week and i've been reading it in spare moments ever since. Being a fan of WFRP and Game of Thrones, this was a no brainer for me. The layout is superb and makes the book easy to read and attractive to boot.

The setting plus appendices make for a compelling game that makes me want to run this. I've been thinking about a similar 'dark' alternative British Isles setting for running Beyond the Wall, except set during the 13th century. This isn't quite that but it's damn good and the Wars of the Roses backdrop means i'm quite happy playing in this alternative 15th century rather than the 13th.

If I have any constructive criticism it's that I would personally like to have seen a bit more material on what it means to worship Chaos. As a long time GM of WFRP, I would have loved to have seen more on what it means to receive 'gifts' from Demons. Also, a nice random Chaos Mutation table would have been nice - maybe in an appendix. I'm not using any of the WFRP mutation tables as I want to stay OSR - there's a pretty good magical mutation table in Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque which I plan to use.

I own a lot of OSR games, including S&W, LotFP, DCC etc. Beyond The Wall and other adventures immediately sprung out to me as the perfect game to use in Dark Albion - the rules already accommodate the low magic suggested in Dark Albion plus fate points ala WFRP. Looking forward to having the young un's leaving the village to face warring and politicking nobles and Chaos Cults. In Wales!

Thank you, and welcome to theRPGsite!

As for Chaos worship, the thing about it is that it is extremely varied.  Law is One, Chaos is Legion.  So I don't think there's a lot of uniform things you can say about it.  There are heretical subversive cults that appear to worship the Unconquered Sun (like the Cathari), there are secret 'satanic'-style sects, lone would-be witches venerating some dark thing in the woods, there was Bishop Peacock's sect that looked like a regular church congregation on the outside but they were preparing to open a gate to hell in the old Arcadian catacombs, there are of course the Frogmen and their Frog-Gods.

I did write a little about the kind of gifts Demons can offer: the permanent use of any of that demon's special powers, magic items, access to spell knowledge for magic-users, etc.  But again, I didn't want to get too specific here so as not to be restrictive.

I did come very close to doing a random mutation table and then ended up forgetting about it as we were trying to get the project done. It will almost certainly be the subject of a future blog post of mine and maybe a free download on DOM's website or something (or something for him to add to one of the future Dark Albion books he plans to write).

Thanks again!

Stop by #rpgnet (not affiliated with Big Purple) chat for a Q&A with Pundit about Dark Albion on Friday 7/17 at 8:00 p.m. CDT!

Chatroom shortcut: http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat

So the chat went very well, I thought!  Log is forthcoming.