Picking up the Dresden Files, Mistborn, and A Song of Ice and Fire RPG books

[RampantDesires]

Humble RPG Book Bundle which looks like it is running for the next 13 days currently has a lot of the RPG books that I've been meaning to buy but could never really justify since I don't have a reliable gaming group :P

As of right now pricing looks like this.

Any donation:
A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying Core Rulebook
The Atomic Robo RPG
The Laundry Files Roleplaying Game

$8 or more adds:
Mistborn Adventure Game
The Dresden Files RPG: Your Story
A Song of Ice and Fire Chronicle Starter
Laundry Files: Black Bag Jobs

$15 or more adds:
Alloy of Law: Mistborn Campaign Setting & Game Setting
Terris: Wrought of Copper Player's Guide & Mistborn World Resource
A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide
The Dresden Files RPG: Our World
Laundry Files: Agent's Handbook

I've already purchased mine, but I wanted to see if any of you fine people had opinions on the systems.

Thanks!

[HairyHeretic]

Dresden Files is good. My old RPG group back in Dublin played it for a while. System isn't too hard to pick up, and I really like the setting.

Can't comment on the others.

[Blythe]

ASOIAF tabletop is a pretty good game. The most interesting part of it is the system where you roll up your own noble house of Westeros. Very very fun, would recommend. ^^

[RampantDesires]

Awesome.  Thank you gentlemen for the input.  Am trying to keep my excitement for these low as I might not actually get to play them, but reading them should be fun regardless!

[TheSithChicken]

The Laundry is fantastic. Think Call of Cthulhu investigators with a bureaucracy overseeing them and needing that t123 - Encounter With An Extradimensional Plant or Fungi on their desk by Friday at 5.

[traderx]

Interesting.  I didn't even know there was a Dresden Files RPG.

[RampantDesires]

I haven't had a chance to play, but the the rule books are well put together and I've enjoyed reading them :-)

[wander]

I own the ASOIAF rpg... It's pretty amazing, I happen to have all the supplements too. The Night's Watch is probably the best outside of the Campaign Guide, the Guide having the statlines for near all the canon Game of Thrones characters. So yes, you can have your character attempt to kill Joffrey... xD



The system works by the players needing to roll against a Difficulty Class set by the GM with their actions (for example, a routine action is a 6, harder actions could be 9, 12 or 15 to roll against). They have to equal or beat these numbers set to them.

Players main statistics are just their Skills (such as Fighting, Cunning, Persuasion, etc). Each Skill gets a number representing how good the character is in that area. This is the number of dice they need to roll to beat the GM's number. The default for Skills is generally 2 (so you roll 2 dice for actions) and depending on what your character is good at, these can change.
Combat works as your character's Defence is essentially the Difficulty an attacker must roll against and it is your ranks in certain Skills that decide what your Defence is (along with how well you attack, of course).

For example, a Noble has Marksmanship 3 and the GM decides them firing their bow at something this time around is pretty challenging and they must get over a 9. So they roll 3 dice and if they roll equal to or better than that, they succeed.

Characters can get skill specialisations in the realms of bonus dice, which essentially act as rerolls. For example, an Anointed Knight has to roll against his Animal Handling to keep steady on his horse, he has 3 in that skill, with 1B in Ride. He would roll 4 dice, though he only keeps the highest 3 for the action attempt, as one is only a bonus dice.



That's the basics of the system, though you can do a lot of fun things with it. The jousting rules are a real favourite of mine and Archery contests are simple and fun things to do also (essentially each round the characters make Marksmanship rolls against progressively higher Difficulties until only one contestant remains).

Also as mentioned above, in theory you can play as canon characters in the setting if you have the Campaign Guide. The Night's Watch is great for the ability to create your own Castle on the Wall in a similar way to creating the player's Noble House and you can play Wildlings with it too.

[TheSithChicken]

The biggest drawback to the ASOIAF rpg is that it's based off ASOIAF.  ;)

[Blythe]

The section in the ASOIAF rpg dealing with making Houses is, to me, one of the most fun things to do from that game. Then again, I'm addicted to world building. >_>

The Dresden Files rpg is good, but the biggest thing I didn't like was its system for creating magical items (it's rather limiting). I think D&D spoiled me though; I used to make enchanters who'd pretty much be a walking magical shop for the whole party. <_<

I've never gotten to play the Laundry Files, but the blurb for it looked enticing!

[TheSithChicken]

@Blythe - Check out the Dresden Files Fate Accelerated edition. It has better rules for the enchanting end of things from what I hear.

[Blythe]

There's an Accelerated edition now? Oooh, I didn't know that! I'm going to have to get that. I really love the Dresden Files books, and I like the tabletop rpg....and if the Accelerated version cleans up item creation, it'll definitely be something I love. Thanks for the recommendation!  :D

[TheSithChicken]

No guarantee it fixes things though. It's just what I hear. I haven't gotten a chance to seriously read it yet.

[Blythe]

I collect tabletop rpgs (...I probably own too many for any sane person; it's good I went electronic a while back or I'd have no floorspace. My room'd be nothing but shelves!), so it's likely I will pick it up Dresden Files Accelerated either way, so no worries!

[TheSithChicken]

I own in excess of 10 grand in tabletop rpgs...

[Blythe]

I own in excess of 10 grand in tabletop rpgs...

Ditto on that, heh.

(I blame Pathfinder for my high costs, though. Sweet merciful powers that be, Pathfinder's got a ton of books!)

[TheSithChicken]

But Pathfinder is so good too! Uggh... they kill me with the adventure paths.

[wander]

I own in excess of 10 grand in tabletop rpgs...

I own probably twice that as pdfs, let alone the dead tree editions of stuff I have. ^^

I agree with Blythe, the Noble House creation stuff was awesome. The Castle creation in Night's Watch is based off that though transplanted to The Wall. I believe Wildlings even got one to represent their Villages (though don't quote me on the Wildlings, it's been a while since I read it).

My only bugbear with the game is I've been in games where player's each make their own House and have to go PvP to see whose House comes out on top, which can get nasty and backstabby to a level that gets a bit OOC personal.
The actual function of the Noble House creation is to give the party of PCs a banner to all stand under together (the party all band together and make up their House with the GM, others are GM-made as NPC antagonists and allies) and the game as should be played is like a more historically accurate D&D, where the party adventures for goals to do with their House (and advancing it together) rather than murder-hoboing.