I first heard of this game some time last year online. It was touted as both the most authentic combat engine in an RPG that was playable, and as one of those games where emotional/spiritual stuff 'mattered'.  Natually, when I saw it on the shelf I decided to give it a glance.

First let me say this. RoS does have 'spiritual attributes' that purportedly can make you fight better about stuff you care deeply about.  In fact this appears to be true. Had I picked up this game as a teenager I might have thought it was awesome, an expression of my deeply held belief that I could accomplish anything if only I cared enough about it. Now that I'm an adult I'm a bit more cynical.  Personally, I find this sort of Pap to be almost childish and immature.    So I'm inclined to dislike it, but I won't hold it too hard against the game itself.

The book itself is a solid feeling glossy hardback with a sort of conan-esqe figure on the front. I'm going to state right here that there is plenty of middling quality artwork in this book, typified by 'big hands syndrome'.  

After a big ToC, we start off with some short fiction sequences and an introduction to 'gaming' and 'this game'. Right off I learn one thing that is 'important'... this is a Dice Pool game. Ah, says I, d10 dice pools. Haven't seen that before...what else? Ah, variable target numbers, stacking dice AND success counting.   When all is said and done it is seems like a very complex resolution mechanic.  My neck starts to itch, my eyeballs twitch....  Without reading another line I can tell you that this game is not, by ANY stretch of the imagination 'rule's light'.

Given we then learn you have ten 'fixed' attributes and five 'variable' attributes, I can see i'm proven right. Ok, I should explain. You have five physical and five mental attributes then you have five MORE spiritual attributes that you pick from a list. Your choices, we will learn, are very important.

Finally we move on to actually making a character. I'm a bit torn, really. There is this tendancy for games to lead off with a chapter explaining the basic mechanics of the game at the outset, then delving into them in depth later on.  I can't say if it's good or bad, it can go either way. I figure this is more of the 'good way' to do it.

First you pick a concept for your character. This is an annoying bit of fluff I see too much of. Especially when it takes two pages to explain.  Between this concept page, and the two sets of fiction we've been handed by this point the idea of the Riddle of Steel as an ingame concept has been hammered home nicely. Too bad that's all they do, hammer home the concept. Irritating.

Races, a mix of humanocentric and traditional fantasy. You have dwarves and sidhe, with a more mythic tradition than normal dwarves and elves.  Really there are only three choices, play human, play some variation of fey (including dwarves) or play a halfbreed.  

Then follows explanations of social classes, attributes and I turn the page and stumble upon what I've actually been looking for since I started the chapter: how to actually create the character. I'll clue you in... its a priority system. that's right, a relic of bygone days when FASA was a game company, and battletech wasn't a videogame.  The more I see, the more I think I've stumbled upon the weird bastard child of Shadowrun and Vampire:Dark Ages...

Its about here that I finally learn something new and cool. Skills and proficencies. Skills come in packages, the rating of the skill is your target number on the dice, meaning that LOWER skill numbers are good. Proficencies are your sweet combat maneuvers... and your spell casting with a completly unecessary name change.   Having done a sample character I'll tell you that you WILL be lacking in something.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.  For completeness you have 'gifts and flaws', your alotment comes from teh priority chart like everything else.  The chapter ends with a couple of charts for height and weight and a sample of creation. Poof.

More sample fiction and we learn all about our skill packages. The most skilled guy in the world will only have two packages to start with, each package has nine or so skills. Some better than others (based on relative ease as defined by the designer)... there are no combat or magical skills exactly.  Though 'doubling up' on a skill is unusual, it is possible and the rule for resolving this is reasonably clear and easy to find.  Each skill gets a description of what it does and how it's used, some DO have use in combat or magic, though they aren't central to it. Things like Reading Body Language.

By now it becomes clear that most everything in this game revolves around altering your dice pool. Things add or take away dice willy nilly.  That isn't uncommon, how prevalent it is, however IS.

After skills we have gifts and flaws. I'll say right now that I'm not a fan of this particular implementation. Call it the priority system, call it the fact that the flaws seem a bit more crippling than the gifts seem 'enabling'... call it just instinct.   It's not horribly  broken, it just rubs me the wrong way.  

Proficencies: this really is the heart of the combat system so I'll have to linger here a bit. Now, I never quite worked out all of the details, but I'll try to explain.  There is no list of these things, a weakness of design, but they are all covered in detail. They are things like 'sword and shield, Pugilsim, greatsword, case of rapiers' and the like. It feels pretty exhaustive, and once you've read how they are applied it would be fairly difficult to think of a 'style' of fighting that isn't covered. These are pretty loose, actually. If you use a single sword you could use your sword and shield, your cut and thrust or possibly your rapier 'proficency' to determine how good you are. You have a pool of points from character generation to spread out between your various profiencies, and each prof. gives you a list of techniques you can perform.  You may also buy ranged combat profiencies, though these are much less detailed.  

From there we have a fairly exhausting explanation of the various combat maneuvers (stop thrust, riposte), none of which makes a lick of sense as we haven't read the combat chapter yet.  A great deal of the artwork here comes from, I'll guess, the ARMA, which comes from historical documents. It's a nice touch, actually.

Now, it might seem a bit jarring to go from that to the 'Spiritual attributes' but really this is one big expansion chapter for character creation. The previous chapter gave you the numbers, this one gives you the meat.

One thing that troubled me previously was determining 'how many' spiritual points you get. Mind you they aren't on the priority chart.  No, each person gets the same total at creation and it's not much, nor is it repeated anywhere I could find. It's buried in a long paragraph.  You get so few points that I'm at a loss how they could seriously affect combat at all. However, what I learn reading the SA part of the current portion of the book is this: Spiritual attributes are the key mechanic for long term play. They go up, they go down, you swap them out to represent changing goals... and most important of all: they are your expirence points

Gah.  They are fairly powerful to be honest, being applicable to any action that you CAN apply them to. You can stack a pretty big, semipermanent bonus onto your various dice pools, and with a little work its not hard to figure out how to use them all the time. Now, that might be against the spirit of the game, but that would mean its a weakness of design. Personally, I don't see that it IS against the spirit. This game is about driven people doing exteme things in the threws of their obsessive passions. And getting more obscessive as they go along. Literally, you are given a bunch of Spiritual Attribute points, almost as many as you start the game with... EVERY SESSION. Of course, you SPEND your SA's to improve. Decisions decisions.  One nice thing I saw here was a Karma rule. When your character dies your next character gets bonus priorities depending upon how many SA's he spent improving himself. Good idea if this game is as lethal as I've heard it is.

At last we come to combat. This is a long chapter and a bit confusing to just read through.  First things first: You are supposed to declair a stance (agressive or defensive) by means of a dice (red or white)... i don't like this unnessary dice step, though it would be a useful mechanic for Player vs. Player. In fact a great deal of this system seems designed for PvP or other one on one combats.  I mean, it's not, like, exclusive or anything, but the rules don't seem to be so adaptable to larger fights, much less mass warfare.  There are a few oddities as well, like the fact that you have a stance that only exists until you act (why bother then), the afforementioned aggressor/defender complete with dice of a different color, and so forth, dice pools that refresh at odd intervals, a D6 for hit locations when everything else is D10... the list of unique rules goes on.

After the massive physics test of the combat chapter the chapter on miscellanious rules (jumping falling and whatnot) is the literary equivilent of a breath mint, freshening you up for the next course. Only trouble I see is that it is so short, and wedged between combat and sorcery that you might have a hard time finding it in actual play!

Which means we're up to Sorcery now. What can I say here... first of all sorcerers have five ADDITIONAL derived stats AND two additional Pools (above and beyond combat and missile pools).  Then they have various levels of of the Nine Vagarieties, which are actually triparte... if you think I'm clouding the issue you haven't read the book.  The vagarieties are roughly your 'schools' or 'techniques' that fuel your spells. It seems that magic is meant to be freeform AND formal, but I suspect it's mostly the latter in actual play, as there are pages of 'spells' already worked up and occasionally given cool names.  Interesting aspects: Bad magic rolls can age your character several months, there is nice breif discussion of magic in melee, magic vs. magic, and the use of counterspelling.  

The magic chapter ends with a two page monograph from Ron Edwards about Obsessive behavior and your average Spell caster.  I think that officially makes this a Forge Game, for what that's worth.  The odd thing about that observation is that this game doesn't seem to be vastly different than any other RPG I've ever seen, it has it's share of clever ideas and needless cruft.

The Magic Chapter ends the main portion of the rules.  I say the main portion because a fair amount of the actual rules are in the appendix. Rules like 'how much damage', all the weapons... things like that. I should point out that the damage tables take up some six pages in case this is important to you.

The next sixty or so pages details the bog standard fantasy world of weyrth. Various national/ethnic groups are detailed, complete with minor alterations to stats.  I noticed a minor pattern, possibly a prejudice on behalf of the author in that close to half the nations are made of 'small' people, and I don't recall a single 'large' group. Either way its of no matter, this entire chapter is largely disposable, even by the author's standards. Its here to use if you want.

Well, part of it. Actually after all that racial profiling, they bother to give you your equipment, wealth, and other useful sundries.  I call it a layout gaffe.

The rest of the book is the GM's chapter, complete with sample NPC's and monsters. Interesting bits here includes a frank discussion over design decisions. For example, they discuss their 'superior' combat system, then they point out that you can't run it in the typical 'round the table in intiative order'.. instead you have to handle each player's 'bout' in turn until you reach a good breaking point to move to the next player.  Essentially admitting that it isn't very good at group on group fights. Of course, in the same section they claim their combat system rewards tactics and teamwork...

Tactics I'll give them, teamwork is impossible when each person is in their own microbubble fight.

In the end does this game do what it's purported to do?  Some of it. It IS a more complete combat system in that a swing at the head means a great deal, and is a whole 'nother animal than a thrust to the belly. On the other hand it grossly fails to account for fights that AREN"T one on one.

From an outsider perspective, if this is a typical forge game, then the 'branding' of 'forgite' is essentially meaningless to me.  I don't see any meaningful innovation, nor do I see a 'one note' railroad engine.  I figure I've given you all enough to go on to make your own decisions if this sucker is for you.  

Actually, as a long time player/GM of the game I have to disagree about one thing...

It handles group combats just fine.

 I find that a lot of people seem to have trouble with the idea of no traditional i-go u-go round by round initiative.

And that just tells me they've haven't played the game much, if at all.

I have run many combats with multiple opponents on each side, and the players had no problems coordinating things or useing teamwork.

In fact, I have never run a game with faster combat.

I really like the game, it got me back into RPGs after a 10 year hiatus, but...

I also really can't reccomend it as someones' first RPG.

 The Riddle of Steel is a small print run, first edition book, written by first time authors, and it shows.

That being said It does have some core gems like the combat system and spiritual attributes, that IMHO really shine.

It needs a good clean up for the 2nd edition, and then I feel it can be a really solid game, worthy of a larger audience.


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Thanks for what seems to be a well thought-out, comprehensive review. I once saw this one on the shelf at a bookstore out of town, and almost bought it. My instincts warned me off.
I'm glad I didn't pick it up. It could be a fine game, but it doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

I should point out that spiritual attributes are hardly new, nor is their implementation necessarily unique. The only 'unique' thing about them I see is their use as expirence points as well, and that may only be unique to me as I generally don't play games where 'I feel really strongly about this issue, so naturally I will win' is a valid point of view. I left that philosophy behind sometime around when I left adolescence.

As for your fast combats: Obviously when any fight can end with a single blow the speed with which that one blow is resolved is less important. I'll give you that it could be fast.  I'll even give you that you CAN run group on group fights with it.

I won't conceed that it does that well, which is a weakness for a game that claims great versimlitude in it's combat system.... especially given the conceits of an RPG.

The game itself tells you to run each 'bout' in turn until an arbitrarily chosen 'breaking point' in the action, meaning each fighter is isolated from each other person on his side (and vice versa). So, if  PC #2 would technically have a shot at the backside of NPC#1 during PC#1's bout, the 'seneschal'... fuck it the GM has only three real options: Fake it completely and hope taht PC#2 doesn't go down like a punk in the first second of HIS bout, immedeatly stop PC#1's bout and attempt to run PC#2's bout and hope that PC#3 doesn't have some 'teamwork' to monkey wrench things worse, or just tell PC#2 that he can't do a fucking thing.

by your statements you are either really good at option one or you have a group of players whose idea of teamwork is "You take the three on the left, I'll take the four on the right.... GO!"


I'm glad it works for you and your group.  And to ensure the propagation of a really annoying internet meme... Go Play!


EDIT::::  I had a thought about the nature of the combat system, what with it's proficencies and stances and so forth.  Now, the ARMA factor comes in that the combat is designed largely with one on one style combat, duels you know. I've already pointed out a weakness in how this gets applied to more chaotic melees, but what I failed to consider was dealing with 'unintelligent' opponents. Vicious beasts with claws that rend are NOT generally 'riposting'.  Now, obviously dice rolling conventions will remain largely the same, but should a bear be at a disadvantage because it isn't trained?  Other than giving such creatures large amounts of dice... and an entry for claws and teeth in the weapon tables, there doesn't seem to be much thought here...

But now I'm nitpicking. Hey... I got five nits today!!! What's your count?

Quote from: SpikeI won't conceed that it does that well, which is a weakness for a game that claims great versimlitude in it's combat system.... especially given the conceits of an RPG.

by your statements you are either really good at option one or you have a group of players whose idea of teamwork is "You take the three on the left, I'll take the four on the right.... GO!"

But now I'm nitpicking. Hey... I got five nits today!!! What's your count?

To add a few more nits...

Yes, it does group fights well. But this is why I said it is very much a first edition game, it certainly doesn't do a good job of explaining it well.

The combat in TROS does have a steep learning curve, and it takes about two sessions to get really the gravy train rolling.

 And yeah, I guess we're just really good at "option #1", but in actual play it's not hard at all.

The only way I can explain it, is that combat is like O.R.E. where everyone goes at the same time.

You simply keep track of who does what every round, and if PC-a polishes off thug#2 in the first round, then he can go help his buddy PC-b, who is still struggleing with thug#1 in the next round.

But really, this is one of those things that needs to be shown in actual play -

Because my expierience with the game in actual play disproves your assuptions.

Although because of the 1st edition nature of the game, I can't really fault you for having such assuptions on your first read through.


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Quote from: JaegerTo add a few more nits...


Although because of the 1st edition nature of the game, I can't really fault you for having such assuptions on your first read through.


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Yay!!! more nits...


second read through...

It could be poorly explained, but everything I read in combat seemed to be totally focused on one-on-one style combats, with every thing else being sort of off to the side. Style of presentation, descriptions of how it's being used, everything.    

Mind you, I've never said the game would ritually consume your mother either.  I try to be pretty balanced in these sorts of things.  When I review a game I hate, you'll see it pretty clearly.

Speaking of which, where is my copy of weapons of the gods?:cool:  I need to practice my invective.