RPGPundit Reviews: In Harm's Way: Dragons!

This is a review of the book In Harm's Way: Dragons!, an RPG by Clash Bowley published by Flying Mice Games. I should note in the interest of fairness that my own RPG, Forward... to Adventure! is published by Flying Mice Games as well, so y'all keep that in mind while considering the fairness of this review, which I still feel is fair and honest.

So, getting to the point: Did you think In Harm's Way, the original RPG of Napoleonic Naval Adventure was really cool but just couldn't bring yourself to play a purely historical game with no fantasy? If so, then "IHW: Dragons!" might be the game for you.  Dragons is essentially the same rules system, in essentially the same setting, but with Dragons thrown in for good measure.  The question is: do dragons, as has been previously established with ninjas, automatically make anything better just by dropping them into the mix?

First, like all the other Flying Mice games I've reviewed, this is a print book with a full-colour cover and B&W interior, lots of very cool pictures inside (that I always say look photoshop-esque, but Clash tells me they're actually made in a different way); and the layout is good.

In IHW: Dragons!, the players would be playing a Napoleonic airforce (and by Napoleonic, I really mean anything in that general era, not the specific Napoleonic Wars alone) that pilot dragons. You can play wingmen and airmen on a very large dragon, an officer who pilots an "officer's dragon", troupe play allows you to play the various service roles and non-pilot characters, and you can even play the dragons themselves (the dragons in this setting being just as smart as humans, though not more smart).

There are three things that Clash Bowley does particular well as a game designer: the first is hard sci-fi which is not relevant to this discussion.  The second is historical gaming, which is what all of his "In Harm's Way" series had been until now. The third, alternate history, is what he's shown himself to be really great at with his Cold Space series of AH games.  Now, he's bringing Alt-History to the IHW series, by imagining a world in the Napoleonic era, which is essentially identical to our own except that Dragons are real.  Apparently, humanity didn't get around to either wiping them out OR domesticating them until the 17th century, nor did they really affect our history in any significant way up to that point.  Right away, that's something I find fairly unrealistic about this particular Alternate History, but ok, I get it. This isn't Cold Space here, this isn't an attempt to create a plausible Alt-history, this is just a cheap excuse to play In Harm's Way with a Dragon Air Force! Fine.

Anyways, this wouldn't be so bad if the game in turn didn't suffer from a case of selective seriousness.  Clash doesn't seem to care that it makes no sense that Dragons would have gone about gallavanting across Europe from the stone age until the 17th century without getting themselves driven to extinction, without making any significant impact on human history (aside from the Native American Dragons being real too and being worshiped as gods by the natives; Though that apparently didn't manage to change any detail about the conquest of the Americas either), and without becoming pets until the 17th century. I would have been willing to let all that go if it wasn't that in turn, Clash gets ultra-specific about details of how Dragons are cared for and bred and how Dragon psychology works, and how they interact with humans and their morality etc etc.
Shit; sometimes I hate being an historian.  This whole moral conundrum of mine could have easily been averted had Clash simply omitted the "not domesticated till the 1650s" line, and I could have easily imagined dragonriders being used by human (especially Europeans!) since the dawn of antiquity. Why, Clash, why??

Ok, anyways, the System: the system is essentially the same game system used in all the IHW books, basically all of which I've reviewed before, so I don't feel too inclined to go into a lot of detail about it (if you want to know the details, go look up my review of In Harm's Way, the original). The basics is that you've got a point-buy system for the attributes (divided between your strength, co-ordination, agility, endurance and charisma on the one side, and your Intelligence, luck and social status on the other; with only the latter of the two sets requiring a table to divvy up; its needlessly complicated in my opinion, but it works out fine in practice with the exception that there's no way you can create a character of high social status who's also smart AND lucky, at best you can do two out of three); followed by a set of background skills which are assigned based on your national origin (in Dragons!, you can be British, American, or French), followed by some more skills that are determined by the career you chose, with more skills being doled out if you let your character age more (so, Traveller-style, basically).

In various areas the IHW system is over-complicated, just as it always has been. Skills, for example. When you're making your character, you are given skills as "acting +1, acting +2, acting +4" etc. But to take that +1, or +2 and make a skill check with it you do the following: Start off with 45% if you have +1, then add an extra 5% for every additional bonus point, so +2 is 50%, +4 is 60%. Then if the base attribute that governs the skill is above 7, you get an extra 5% for every 2 points above 7 that it is.
Mental loop-de-loops, anyone? Its definitely not "roll a d20, add bonus, beat DC", but I mean shit, its not even "roll percentile on a percentile-based skill"! Why isn't it??

That's the bad part, the good part of the system is that it seems to work ok, if you don't mind doing a lot of calculating of the sort shown above. The basic system itself is no less sound than any percentile-based system would be, only it takes a lot more rigmarole to get there.

There are lots of additional rules that get added-on to the base mechanics; like how you can trade percentage points from his initiative, to his to-hit and damage rolls in combat (sacrificing chances in initiative in order to improve odds to hit or quantity of damage), or how characters with weapon mastery get extra attacks, or how Dragon characters have "Edge" which gives them bonuses to certain skill checks, and there are also lots of particular rules for era-period combat effects, like rules on Napoleonic firearms, and "grenadoes".

There are also some things that have become hallmarks of the IHW series: NPC rules that are short and sweet and have some random tables to flesh them out, and rules for Troupe play, letting each player take on a variety of characters that fulfill different tasks in the highly-regimented Napoleonic military world. This makes it possible to focus on different types of characters at different times without any of the Players having to be bored or out of the game for prolonged periods.  Also, IHW wouldn't be complete without "Notice": Notice is basically what you're playing for, it reflects your opportunity to go up in the ranks of the Dragoneers to higher and better commands. Well, you play for notice, and for the loot from enemy ships; but the higher your rank, the higher your share of the loot!

Extensive details are given for weapons and sundry items.

But now we get to the part everyone wants to know more about: the dragons!  IHW dragons vary in size from the same size as a Pony to the same size as a very large Whale (though "size" here is deceptive, since we're talking mass, and in fact the "large whale" dragon would be much larger than a whale). This is a question of breed, not age as such.  Each breed has its own particular role, not unlike breeds of dogs or horses.
In IHW: Dragons you can create your Dragon through a series of random charts, which is very much to my liking, though you can also go through the process basically picking out your choices; you can essentially "design" a dragon of your choosing by picking rather then rolling the initial size, and then going from there.

Aside from size, Dragons vary in terms of their special abilities.  Some can swim well, others have night vision, some have chameleon skin, others can hover, some can detect motion.  Most of these will reflect themselves in the "Edge" traits that I had mentioned earlier, which provide bonuses to Dragon skill-checks.  Less than 10% of dragons have a breath weapon attack, and these will vary in size and power, and the number of times a day they can be used (breaths include fire, water, wind, and acid).  However, any player can choose for his dragon to start with a "petty breath weapon" attack instead of rolling for his special ability randomly.  The "petty breath" is a lower-damage lower-uses-per-day version of the Breath weapon special ability, which is apparently what all dragons used to be able to do before the human breeding programs led to some dragons being hyper-specialized in breath weapons while most others could no longer do breath attacks at all.

All dragons can fly, though some will do so far better than others; and flight attributes involve factors of acceleration, ceiling, maximum speed, base maneuvering, and base range (how long a dragon can go without tiring).  The rules here are similar to those in the IHW series games dealing with WWI and WWII flying aces.

Dragons have a variety of different kinds of armor (plates, scales or feathers), and a variety of natural melee attacks (claw, horns, tail, or teeth).

But that's not all! You also roll to determine what kind of a diet your particular dragon enjoys, the dragon's base aggression, its senses, and its appearance details like basic colour pattern and dragon ornaments.

Dragons also have skills, and learn them in a very similar way to how humans do; you start your dragon off as a hatchling with certain "egg skills", then add more skills based on its training as it develops in age until it reaches adult stage.

Now, if you're in too much a hurry to design your own dragon, Mr. Bowley has been kind enough to provide some sample breeds, 22 pages of breeds, to be exact, divided into typical English, typical American and typical French breeds; complete with creative names like "blue fisher", "Sylvania Swift" and "Flambeau Vert".

Those of you who have the IHW: Aces in Spades (WWI flying ace) version of the IHW rules will already be familiar with the air-to-air combat rules in Dragons!  You will also remember that the aforementioned book had lists in its combat rules of the different possible aerial maneuvers, complete with little diagrams of a Sopwith Camel doing the maneuver.  Well, here in Dragons! you have the same thing, complete with little diagrams of Dragons making the maneuvers! This is for some reason extremely amusing to me.
The basics of the combat system are very good, with the dragons maneuvering by making checks with modifiers based on the difficulty, until the pilot can get close enough to throw a Grenadoe or fire a musket, or the dragon to use its breath weapons, or they clash in melee combat!

Obviously, you have different rules for Dragons that you wouldn't have with a Sopwith Camel; stuff like how a dragon can become tired and strained; but these basically take the place of how an airplane can become damaged or run out fuel.
Its also important to note that while the smallest dragons only seat one or two men, the largest would have a standard crew of 50 and could theoretically carry up to 150 in an emergency! This means your largest dragon fights will be more similar to ship-to-ship combat than to airplane battles. This is as cool as it sounds.

The author provides lots of information on the kinds of possible missions you can have, and missions that move you away from the standard dragon-borne combats. Detailed character sheets are also provided, as well as sheets with little squares detailing the different maneuvers, which I assume is there to be photocopied and made into cut-outs to keep track of combat with.

So what's hip about IHW:Dragons? The game is totally compatible with the rest of the IHW series, particularly the original IHW, which is set in the same time period. You can definitely get more out of your Dragons! game if you also have the main IHW rules, though it isn't strictly required.  At the same time, the amount of world detail (aside from the question of dragons) is very sparse in this book, so if someone isn't very familiar with the time period of the setting, you may need to catch up on some reading elsewhere to make up for that. There isn't so much as a breakdown on the countries or a timeline of major events in this book, unfortunately.

The bad of this game is basically in terms of setting plausibility.  Bowley doesn't specify how (if at all) the presence of Dragons in the world has made the world deviate from our own history; and seems to imply that it really hasn't at all.  But what's worse, he gives very little detail as to how the presence of dragons; intelligent dragons, would affect human society; you learn a lot about how Dragons are used in the military, but virtually nothing about society at large. Fortunately, this is the kind of thing that only keeps people like me up at night; I've grown to accept that, and recognize that its my beef and not something that is a deal-breaker in general.

There's nothing really bad about this game.  In some areas, the system is a little convoluted, while in others (the aerial combat, for example) its smooth and beautiful. On the whole it works out to be mediocre, but this is rather unfair as the character-building rules, the troupe rules, the dragon generation rules and the aerial combat rules are all well above the norm in quality. On the whole, its the bread-and-butter of attributes, skills, and the combat system which are only "par", and you kind of have to see them as a vehicle for getting to the cooler bits, which are those other mechanics I spoke of. Still, I think a system-minded gamer could probably tinker with those base elements to make something that works a little smoother.

On the whole, if you liked In Harm's Way, and you like the idea of playing an 18th century officer and gentlemen who flies on a pet dragon to fight the dastardly French (or British, or Americans), then you'll be quite pleased with this product.

RPGPundit

Thank you for a most excellent review, Pundit! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

-clash