Dragon Age RPG

Photo belongs to http://www.bagofgames.com/

note: as usual I don't usually do distinction between me and my character^_^. But I guess you are used to that already

On Sunday afternoon those interested in what is Dragon Age RPG could come and play the introductory adventure in a game stored named Mephit. Some players were interested and came. We were told before that Dragon Age RPG is an easy system. All the player needs for this game is a character sheet, pen and 3 six sided dice. One of the dice should be of different color - this one is called 'dragon die' and plays a certain role in some cases.

Character creation
First what a player should do is create a character. Each character has eight abilities - Communication, Constitution, Cunning, Dexterity, Magic, Perception, Strength and Willpower. Each of those abilities has a certain number. Abilities can have a focus (specialization in something). For each ability you take the dice and throw them. You then check what the final modificater is. The modificator can be negative, 0 or positive. The maximum modificater for an ability at level 1 is 4. For that you need to roll 18 - so that's quite rare! In the end you can swap two numbers to suit your needs but you can really get wierd results...like a Warrior with Magic 2^_^. The focuses are also chosen by random. (you also choose your race, age, weight, background etc.). This was surprise to me as I would expect the player to have more 'control' over what the character will be, especially when this is based on a CRPG where it is purely up to you how you distribute the points.

Each class can be easily distinguished. Mages can cast spells, rogues can backstab (otherwise they can hardly hurt anything with armor) and warriors can use heavy armor and weapons.

The actual system
The basic formula for actions is: 3d6 + ability score + focus bonus vs. target number. This is simple enough and is easily memorized. The dragon die plays a role in this as well. The dragon die is being substracted from the TN so it can help you a ton. It can also work as a randomizer in certain cases. It's actually a good thing.

The combat system
When combat begins you roll for initiative (3d6 + dexterity modifier). The attack roll is similar to the formula above. Light and ranged weapons use dexterity modifier and heavy weapons use strength modifier. Your attack roll is compared against passive defense. If you hit you roll for damage. Melee weapons add strength modifier and ranged weapons add dexterity modifier. During your turn you can do 1 major action or 2 minor actions. Major action is for example an attack or running a longer distance (twice your speed) or first aid to an injured ally. Minor actions are readying a weapon, activating an item, moving or aiming (you can aim even with melee attack, it adds +1 to your attack roll).

Inflicting damage is not as easy as it seems. I was playing rogue and soon I found out that I can most of the time hit my target but I hardly deal any damage. 1d6 + whatever modifier can get easily 'undone' by target's armor. If it is heavy mail (7) than my maximum damage is -1 + my modificator and I hardly roll 6. Backstabbing is the way to go, but rogue needs to make a move action and then roll a dexterity opposed check. If rogue succeeds he can perform backstab with a melee weapon. If he succeeds you add 1d6 to the damage. You can't successively target an enemy so you end up running all over the place trying to backstab. If you fail the dexterity check or the opponent just spots you, you are left with the only option of performing regular attack.

Playing rogue also brought up another question and that is about dual wielding. I couldn't find much about this in the rules but as this is one of the abilities you can have. D&D treats this relatively well and many other systems as well but here I could hardly think of anything. My rogue would surely want to dual wield (Short Sword + Dagger) and that could actually help with dealing more damage but how this would be treated (each weapon seperately with its own damage rolls, hmph)?

Stunts
So here is the thing that makes the system stand out with something finally. While in combat it may happen that you roll 2 same numbers. If you do you get stunt points equal to your dragon die roll result. These points then can be used to perform stunts. This can be anything from piercing armor (halfing down the armor's stat), disarming, inflicting more damage, attacking 2 enemies at once etc. That's for those who fight. There are stunts also for spellcasters that allow you to cast one more spell, reduce the spell's cost to zero, increase the power of the spell, increase damage caused by the spell etc. Stunts can be really dangerous.

After playing the introductory adventure
When we started we asked the demon about the 'Dragon Age' and what year it actually so we could place ourselves in the timeline. He was unable to answer and that is because the book simply does not say so and does not give much information about the setting whatsoeever. After few told passages by the GM I started wondering why Dragon Age should be a dark fantasy. To me it seemed rather generic fantasy setting. Dark in the sense of brutal 'British' medieval period but that's not something I would consider 'dark'.

When our party left the Arl's castle and I saw Alenka drop a gold coin this rather confused me. I tried to figure out why she did it. She could have done that to see if we are corruptible or too honorable for something. This stroke me quite hard because this was suggesting that the scenario will be more about moral problems than beating creatures. But the adventure ended up a bit different than I thought. GM told us few things and let us speak with few NPCs, then we were on our way and first encounter with enemy happened. After an hour and 40 minutes of trying NOT to die we managed to slay the darkspawns. During the combat I realized that there are things not really explained in the rules. We did not use square/hex grid to see how we can move. We were telling the GM how we move. We knew the relative speed of the enemies so I knew that I can shoot twice till they will be on me. But then as a rogue I should really know where who stands if I want to move somewhere and backstab someone. It was fine in the end but I can't imagine inexperienced GM to solve this easily, especially when there are many characters for the GM to handle. Otherwise trying to come up with a combat tactic was rather useless as the rules don't simply count with that. GM can divine rules for that.

When we were searching the wagon we discovered a strongbox with coin inside. I was wondering if a rogue has a skill like lock picking ot anyone can try to open the box. Our mage tried by force but was not successful, my dexterity roll of 4 did not help much either. So can anyone try lock picking if he was never taught how to do it? Not to mention the lack of tools. Any general rules for skills (focuses) that you don't actually have? I was quite confused as I'm rather used to heavy skill/feats systems and this seems more random and generic. Many items players would want are missing so that was quite surprising.

During our session we had a small break and in during it we had the chance to peek inside the box set contents. We were also told that there is no usable bestiary and that no rules are given for creating a creature. Nothing like challenge rating either. When going through the GM stuff I also noticed lack of setting description, timeline, items etc. There's not so much you can learn about Ferelden (geographically, historically...stories and legends etc). That's quite sad if you would like to use this setting for an RPG.

But in general the system is simple and easy to grasp. The combat can be fun and requires cooperation. The introductory adventure felt more like walking from point A to point B to see a cutscene, beat some creatures and go on. I was trying to figure out where one could role play (except asking obvious questions and introducing).

The box set
The Dragon Age RPG is being sold in three box sets. Each set is for certain level of characters. The first on being for level 1 to 5. The second one for 6-10 and the last one os for levels 11 to 20. Each box set contains Player's Guide and Game Master's Guide. In addition there's dice and some other stuff you might need (map of Thedas?^_^ at least of Ferelden). The GM's guide also includes introductory adventure.

Overal the design is ok, sometimes a bit messier but otherwise it keeps its quality. The cover though is not that good. A really bad one in my opinion. If it would keep just the 'Dragon Age Dragon' I'd be happy with that. Especially now in this 'age' where less usually means better.

Other comments?
The game system is good and is easy to grasp. This can bring many new players to the world of paper-based RPGs. As you level up things get better even for more experienced player. The setting is nice and is not that strange as some fantasy worlds can be which can help recruit more players. It is quite 'A song of fire and ice'-ish which is now quite popular and that can help as well. So I hope that Green Ronin's Dragon Age RPG will become popular. I look forward for a book with more detailed setting and bestiary or at least some better guidelines about monsters in general.

I have to thank Sparkle for organizing the open gaming and our Game Master Vojtech for letting us play the introductory adventure from the quickstart guide.