Designing the Dragon Age Tabletop RPG

[mxtbcca]

I've always thought that RPGs should have "depth of details levels" - Basic, Advanced and Expert - that refined and expanded as you got more into the game. Each of the BAE categories could have class levels from 1 to 20 or 30 or 40 ... it's just that the class' would refine out to finer specialisations and players would have to keep track of greater details.

I'm really looking forward to this release to help my kids get into role playing. The current D&D structures are just to over the top to introduce to people.

mxt

THINK
think different
Think Open Source

 

[Alex_P]

So, Dragon Age is a boxed set with relatively simple rules, based on a licensed property...

That exact combination gets brought up in every single RPGnet thread about restoring the popularity of the hobby. Lots of folks say it's a good idea, if you can work past the relatively high cost of producing a boxed set. Others are much more skeptical -- they point out the difficulty of scheduling regular RPG sessions, the amount of creative effort you have to put into the games to get fun out of them, and stiff modern competition from entertainment media that didn't even exist in the early 80s.

There are other tabletop RPGs taking a similar route, too. The new edition of WFRP is a box with special dice and power cards (it ends up costing quite a bit more than $30, of course).

I don't think any of these games are going to "break out" of the TRPG niche. They're getting a lot of positive attention within the hobby, though, which is probably more than enough to make their publishers happy.

-- Alex

 

[Alex_P]

I have to say, one reason I think the Basic/Expert/&c.-style multi-box system can't work today is that attention spans aren't the same as they were in the 1980s -- there's so much more entertainment out there now, both in the TRPG market and other media, that waiting six months for the next set is going to encourage players to look around for other games to play.

Likewise, in the Dragon Age video game, levels 1-5 are basically world introduction (and I've gotten a similar impression from the TRPG -- Grey Wardens are in boxed set #2). However fast or slow the experience track is set up to be, I really don't see most people who want to play a campaign based on the same themes and story elements as Dragon Age being too happy stretching out the introductory bits for months until the next set comes out.

-- Alex

 

[Woem]

The pdf of the first Box is out and the first reviews are in, and it's not looking too good:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=68991

 

[Alex_P]

The pdf of the first Box is out and the first reviews are in, and it's not looking too good:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=68991

I've got a pretty negative opinion of Dragon Age so far, but I think those reviews kinda suck.

Spoiler: For example...

Examples of statements I disagree with:
"The two PDFs are less than 70 pages. If you think this is small for a complete system, you are absolutely correct, it is too small. The game is greatly undeveloped." -- How about Red Box? I've seen great games, with well-developed rules and excellent GM advice, that come in far under that page count. That doesn't mean Dragon Age will automatically qualify, but it's ludicrous to talk about this as an impossibility.

"It is too faithful to a video game." -- I really don't see this. Core mechanics, from how stats are figured to how you actually activate your special attacks, are different; there's an entire section at the end of the same review that talks about all the video-game stuff that isn't in the tabletop game. How is that "too faithful"?

"... if you are looking at playing a video game like role-playing game, even more of one than Dungeons and Dragons 4e is, Dragon Age is an easy system to build a character and play." -- Does that mean Red Box is a "video game" RPG, too? The idea that just making it easy to start up a game is somehow a bad thing is just so freakin' backwards.

All told, the reviewer seems too hung up on 'This is not a 300-page tome filled with character options, subsystems, and special rules' to say much else. I guess that kind of review is useful for people who expect every "roleplaying game" to be a 300-page tome filled with characters options, subsystems, and special rules -- who may be the majority of folks shopping from RPGNow, for all I know, -- but it doesn't address whether Dragon Age is or isn't any of the things it's trying to be (such as a "gateway" game, for example).

-- Alex

 

[Your once and future Fanboy]

Actually all you need for making your own Dragon Age tabletop game is (as in most cases) D&D 3.0/3.5. the biggest problem is really to design the darkspawn rules. and there is a creature/template in one of the monster books from Dragonlance that fits really well. I dont remember the name at the moment, but i works well, you only need to create a general mold for hurlock and genlock (i.e hurlock could be ogres/ bugbears and genlock would be goblins/ orcs |+template)

took me about an hour or two to get the general rules down.