Split off from the thread on games we've played, this is a thread for people to talk about Ysgarth.

Quote from: Elliot WilenSplit off from the thread on games we've played, this is a thread for people to talk about Ysgarth.

Why? I mean really a game with woodcut art (which I liked) that had an interesting magic system and a lot of "barely not D&D" design.
It wasn't horrible or anything, just not noteworthy really.

Ysgarth was my first exposure to a non-AD&D game, and as such struck me as really odd.  It had all these skills, and no classes, and other weird stuff...

Dave was running a game on the UT campus.  I kept up with the revisions since.  At least, the playtest versions.  I kept trying to catch the next official release, but kept missing them.  It looks like 7th edition finally came out, so I may try to snag a copy, although it's a bit pricier than I was hoping.  Of course, I don't know what the production value of it is, so it could be worthwhile.

Has he continued with his plan to simplify it?  I like what I've seen of Oroborus, and my understanding was that Ysgarth was going to remain somewhat more complex than that, but simpler than it used to be.

Never heard of it.

Sadly, I'm in the "heard of it, know about it" camp -- I'd love to say that I'd played it, but insofar as fantasy games go, I'm not sure that I've ever seen one with so many editions and so little market exposure. It's almost as if the publishers don't want consumers to know about it

Hmm. . . maybe I should see about doing a review or two.

Quote from: SilverlionWhy?

Honestly, because there'd been a few comments on it over in that other thread and I thought I'd respond in a new one instead of possibly sidetracking that one.

My experience with Ysgarth is pretty limited. The one time I played was at Origins around 82-86, or maybe Atlanticon around the same period. Dave Nalle was there with what appeared to be a few of his "crew", and I'm not sure they even ran the game during the event that I had signed up for. (One guy kept whistling the march of the toreadors from Carmen, in between chatting.) I did get a look at the current version, which was a series of maybe 5-7 little brown booklets. Somehow either in play, reading, or discussion, something I liked about the game must have been conveyed, because I later ran into them and bought the new edition. Well, not exactly--they gave me the first book, "RoleCraft" IIRC, and told me the others would be mailed to me when they were ready. Unfortunately they never showed up. (Some internet searching makes me thing that this was the 1985 edition and the other books never made it into print before a new edition was made.)

What I remember of the rules explains what I liked about them so much. There was skill-based character creation/development (though probably more skills than I personally prefer), point-based character creation, detailed hit locations and armor-absorbs type combat. I especially recall that it had a detailed breakdown of injury effects similar to what later appeared in Harnmaster. However, if I recall correctly it still allowed characters to gain HP over through experience, so essentially your individual hit locations would become more damage-resistant, which I thought was weird.

Since the magic system was in a book I never got, that hampered my attempts to use the game. I was planning on using it as a campaign engine for a while, until RQ3 came out. Not sure if I still have the book or not.

Ysgarth was an incredibly detailed game with a very interesting magic system that allowed you to design your own spells.  Over time, Dave has simplified the system, but I keep just catching the playtest versions.  I'd like to see his final implementations, so I may have to buy the latest release.  He has used a lot of concepts and mechanics in Ysgarth that I really liked.

There is a rough and mostly unformatted version of the latest playtest version available before the 7th edition online here.  I don't think it's really complete, but it gives some idea of what the game is like (I guess, not having seen the actual release edition yet.) The Ysgarth page also has links to more information on the actual setting, a free-form magic system, etc.

Dave also has a game called Oroborus, which is a more generic system.  I think it's similar to Ysgarth, but with even less complexity.  I like what I've seen of it, and wouldn't mind giving it a try. It's actually a free, complete set of rules available here.

Heh.  All this has re-kindled my interest again.  I need to pick up Ysgarth and read through Oroborus again...

Don't know much about the game, (although I have Ourobouros).  But I do know that Dave Nalle is a wonderful font artist and art historian.

Quote from: Elliot WilenHonestly, because there'd been a few comments on it over in that other thread and I thought I'd respond in a new one instead of possibly sidetracking that one.

Very cool then, I was just wondering because its not something that really caught on or really innovated (mind you, I had been exposed to many many skill based games by the time I found Ysgarth so it wasn't 'new' to me)

The edition I had I believe had an orange cover (3rd? 5th?) Can't recall.

Yeah, I don't recall if I'd seen RQ2 at the time, though I probably had, and of course I'd seen Traveller (Oh, and TFT.) . The edition I had was a letter-sized paperback with a green cover depicting a jester or something like that...ah, here, I found an image:click here.) In any case relative to RQ2 I think Ysgarth had (as I mentioned) a more detailed approach to handling wounds similar to Harnmaster in that it distinguished blunt, edged, and point effects, and had a finer gradation of damage effect to a hit location than RQ's. The method of determining if an attack hit, though, was completely different from RQ IIRC.

I guess it's a bit of an academic question whether the game innovated or not--it had stuff that was new for me.

Edit: I found an eBay listing for an earlier edition: link