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[wierd]

Getting just a bit off topic.

I've been drawing up a campaign for a few years that features the prophetic return of an ancient lich who once terrorized the world by using his dark magic to deliver toys to children each year on a particular night.  Someday I'm going to run it during November and December to exemplify just how much of a grinch I really am.

I've had similar thoughts of running a short campaign about rescuing enslaved elves who are being forced to work in sweatshops manufacturing materials for a giant dwarf known as The Toymaker.

I would consider it bonus points if the toys themselves magically derive power from said elven suffering, and channel it into a capricious enchanted quality. (For good boys and girls, the toys are boons and blessings, but for bad boys and girls, they are basically chucky.  SAME EXACT ENCHANTMENT. Different outcome based on recipient alignment. Unlike a certain red-clad hick, this guy would give toys to *ALL* children each year.  But you REALLY REALLY want to be a NICE child. Really.)

[MrRoboto75]

One holiday year at the LGS I overheard a pathfinder group fighting ol Krampus.

(jury is out on wether he had those damn quad lasers...)

[highmax28]

One of my players wants to make a goblin hoarder that’s a blacksmith who just welds pots and pans to himself whenever he finds more

God help me...

[Kagus]

One of my players wants to make a goblin hoarder that’s a blacksmith who just welds pots and pans to himself whenever he finds more

God help me...

Gobbomari DnDamacy?


Anyways, there's a FATAL and Friends writeup about Numenera! It's even worse than the first Numenera review I read!

I do find it interesting when a system has aspects that a reviewer actually really likes, and I still think it sounds like an awful idea. So far there's been one such instance in Numenera, everything else is agreed upon as being horrible ("Your background gives you a mechanical advantage to doing something that is not mechanically allowed").

Almost at the end of chargen! So far we've had a few pages of "This is blatantly overpowered", "This literally does not work", or "This works, and it works by shooting yourself in the foot" as character choices, along with a couple jabs at the XP/Intrusion system.

[Mephisto]

The revised core books are supposed to fix some of the Numenera oddities. I've been looking for something to read. Maybe that should go to the top of the pile.

[MrRoboto75]

One of my players wants to make a goblin hoarder that’s a blacksmith who just welds pots and pans to himself whenever he finds more

God help me...

God has answered by gifting you the heat metal spell.

[Rolan7]

Shocking Grasp too, for low levels.

[Criptfeind]

Anyways, there's a FATAL and Friends writeup about Numenera! It's even worse than the first Numenera review I read!

I was kinda interested in this review, given that I've played Numenera a little bit, and was interested to see the perspective of someone going in determined to hate it, as opposed to me, who, since I knew I'd be playing it anyway, went in determined to try to like it a bit at least but found myself not liking a lot of it. This post is kinda turned into my review of this guys Numenera review, idk if it was worth it, but here.

Spoiler: My review of this review, which I made because I was bored, but it's not super interesting so I spoiled it to not waste anyones time in scrolling past it. (click to show/hide)

The game does suffer from the absolutely stupid as hell use of made of words. We don't need a new word for dirt just because technically speaking, the dirt isn't what we have as dirt now. Presumably we're not speaking English anyway and it's close enough.

I agree the exp system is bad, to be fair to Numenera I've literally never seen a exp system in an rpg that works, to be fair to this author, Numeneras exp system is especially bad.

On the pool system. I actually think it's fine. Your hp is also your ability to do things particularly well, you injure/exhaust yourself to do particularly well, it's fine and probably the only part of the system that's interesting. The way edges work certain characters injure themselves less/not at all for great efforts in certain areas, thus specialization more or less. It's what allows your strong character to be strong outside of the specific abilities they have and your smart character to be smart ect, and I think it's fine. The only real point towards not liking it the author brings up is that there's a lack of challenges having to do with speed and int, which is sorta true, but I'd say there's sorta a lack of challenges defined for the gm at all, it's up to them to make what the players will have to overcome, and that means it's up to them to home make a bunch of challenges for the different stats. The game doesn't have a lot of mechanical depth anyway, a list of traps and stuff would be pretty redundant given it'd mostly just be a few similar numbers and maybe an effect.

So yeah, disagree on the pool system.

On armor: "jocks" already start with some proficiency in armor. So, yeah. And in general Seems like a weird complaint that you can buy armor proficiency. Disagree that the armor proficiency is an issue.

On skills: the game is basically pointing out that it doesn't have an exhaustive skill list and you should work with your gm to come up with appropriate stuff. It's... Fine. I'd rather perhaps HAVE an exhaustive skill list, but if you don't want to do that for your game the way it's done is fine.

The game doesn't lie at all about what “I am an adjective noun who verbs.” means, it says it, and then goes on to explain it immediately. The author of this review complaining about it is completely ignoring the context of it to complain about it not having context. Pretty classic sign of a review that was written with an objective already in mind instead of actually trying to review a thing (just like the review I'm writing here!)

Backgrounds are weird and kinda pointless, I agree with the author there.

On weapons not being correctly divided, that's half true, they are divided into light medium and heavy, and ranged and not ranged (by the ranged tag) but not bashing or bladed. So, I can see that being an issue with really esoteric weapons, but generally not.

On glaves being boring: This is very true. I think probably what our author is about to realize is that most of the actual abilities you get (outside of a few from the Nanos) is that all the abilities you get are somewhat uninspiring or at least focused on problem solving in the main area of that class, for glaves that being combat, and you don't really get fluff abilities. Which, imo, is fine.

It's also worth noting that your Noun is only like, 40% of your character from a mechanical perspective anyway. The adjective and verb have a bit more fluffy abilities, sometimes.

On nanos I agree with the author that nanos power level is very inconsistent. I don't think the Usurp Cypher ability is as op as he makes it out to be, it's only a single use ability after all, basically allowing you to make permanent a single Cypher that you own as your capstone ability. Very good? Yes? Op? With the right Cypher for sure, it's probably even broken with the most powerful ones. But you still need to own it... so, yeah.

Jacks don't get much mention other then lack of unique abilitys, which is fair.

On the conclusion for the nouns: I agree wizards supremacy is sorta true. Nanos get more and more varied options then just dealing damage, but to be fair to glaves, glaves are really good at dealing damage. It's sorta the classic thing that most rpgs have, but at least it's not too bad here. Also it's important to note that Verbs also give options. Like, often very interesting ones. Which really (really really) helps Glaves in the "be interesting to play department.

On not getting exp for combat, so why is there a combat class: Because even if you don't get exp for it, combat still happens. Duh. It's the nature of an adventure that sometimes you need to kill things or deal with things that are trying to kill you. I don't think it's bad that glaves are very combat focused. They might be over focused, but having a combat specialist isn't a bad thing. (So long as your gm doesn't just totally dispense with combat)

On even the good classes being too combat focused (or crappy as the header says.) this is true. The games basically made a lite combat system and very little else. Once again Verbs help, but not enough. Outside of combat the game is very freeform. I dunno if I think it's as bad as the author thinks it is, but it can be annoying for sure.

The next two points I mostly agree with. I mean, you don't need t numenera focused abilities to deal with numenera, but it'd be nice if you got at least some. And the class aren't overall that interesting (as I mentioned before)

On adjectives: They aren't the most interesting things around (that'd be verbs) but they give a good baseline for what the character is like. The author doesn't really make the point but his complaints are focused around the inabilities they give, which would be nice if they could perhaps be picked separately. There's more interesting adjectives elsewhere as well, splat books and stuff add them and they are better there (such as races)

Next up is the reviewers take on verbs, which he describes as "These are easily the least terrible they get in the book, but most of them are still pretty bad." Verbs are easily the best part of numenera, and honestly the only thing in the game that marks it as different from the billion other rules lite rpgs out there, but it does it very very well. It's a pretty cool system. It's also very long and this isn't a review of the game but a review of the review, so I'm going to skip over this and mostly say that the reviewer seems to not like connections, which I also don't like, so fair enough. Also some issues with balance, which, also fair enough. Although I don't think it's too bad.

Also I think it's funny to note the reviewer whines about everything using init, whereas previously he was whining about everything hitting strength. Almost as if one was pseudo mana and one was pseudo health. Hummmmmm...

On equipment: Numenera doesn't have very interesting (one way or another) equipment rules and so this review doesn't have a very interesting (one way or another) equipment review section other then a very fair riff on the setting as a whole not being nearly as interesting as it's premise promises and an unfair take on armor. Wow, armor gives penalties when you're untrained. I don't understand why that's such a shocking or controversial thing to this reviewer, but it seems to be.

Onto rules: A fair criticism of the worst interpretation of a vaguely worded rule/suggestion. The reviewer misunderstands the difference between most people and trained people for the third time this review. The critique of assets and how +1 +2 and then rolling over into +0 in some cases work is a pretty minor but fair critique.

Actually good advice on how to approach the structure of retries in a narrative game from the reviewer. That said I'm not sure if you really want this game to be as narrative as the reviewer does. ymmv.

I don't really see the issue with the initatial cost rules.

Overall though, the rules tend to be a bit messy, which I totally agree with the reviewer that the intentions behind them should have been looked at a bit closer.

And that's where the review ends (for now I guess? It says to be continued, maybe I found an outdated version of it). Fair enough though because my suppers almost done cooking. In the end I think I mostly agree with the reviewer, although his propensity to nitpick leads him astray sometimes, also I like the verb system, which he seems to not even though he calls it the best part of the game, he still seems to think it's bad. Probably our biggest disagreement. Oh well.

[Mephisto]

Presumably we're not speaking English anyway and it's close enough.

They might be. Given you're playing as humans, something had to have happened to allow humans to survive through the eight prior worlds. Nothing's in the canon saying how this happens but there are many suggestions from fans - stasis pods, time travel, dimensional shenanigans, <insert technobabble cosmic reset switch here>. We know humans weren't "active" the whole time because one of the books calls out that humans weren't there for one of the "worlds."


Pathfinder session finally ended. Half-orc rogue nearly soloed two separate gelatinous oozes. Hearing the system mastery dude's rage was sweet.

[Kadzar]

The author of this review complaining about it is completely ignoring the context of it to complain about it not having context. Pretty classic sign of a review that was written with an objective already in mind instead of actually trying to review a thing (just like the review I'm writing here!)

That reminds me of an RPG.NET review a guy did of the original version of Stars Without Number where he was so focused on how it's not exactly like Traveller that he somehow completely missed the starship rules (when people pointed this out in the forum comments, he somewhat backtracked by saying there were no prebuilt starships, which people pointed out he was also wrong about).


But enough negativity. I found a review on FATAL & Friends for a game called Spellbound Kingdoms that made me really interested in it. I mean, I was already kind of interested in it every since I downloaded the free combat primer when I first came across it on DriveThruRPG. But I didn't know if the rest of the game would be as good as the combat system.

So, basically, how the combat system works, is that you fight with different fighting styles, which each require you to use certain types of weapons or weapon configurations to work, and you use different maneuvers, which you switch between by moving up or down or sideways on the style sheet, unless a maneuver you or an opponent does rebalances you, in which case you go back to a starting maneuver. Also, there are powerful abilities that you have to work your way up to to pull off. And there's even monster-specific combat styles.

But this review also explains how this is a game where characters are empowered by what they care about, to the point that you can temporarily weaken someone by killing off their spouse, though, if you don't also kill them off soon after, they may just replace their old Inspiration to be revenge against you. Also, it has proper social combat rules that involve more than just rolling persuasion/diplomacy at people; it actually sounds about as strategic as regular combat.

Also, I think in a previous review I saw of the game it said something like magic users interfere with each other, which made me think they nullify each other's power, which is actually almost exactly the opposite of what happens. It turns out that, the more magic users you have in an area, the more likely it is that, if things happen to go wrong, they will go disastrously wrong (though there seems to maybe be some ways of people who know each other to work around this). Also, combat magic works almost exactly like regular combat styles, mechanically speaking, just that it can do some things martial styles can't, and there's also non-combat magic that can do some stuff that's downright amazing.

All-in-all, it sounds like a fun system with a lot of nice character options and such, and I kind of want to get it, but I'm not sure if I'd ever get to play it, since it's hard enough to get my regular gaming group to play anything besides D&D 5e (not so much because they're unwilling to try other systems, but more that we have a lot of people who want to DM, so it's hard to fit in other things).

[Kagus]

Spoiler: Numenera review review review (click to show/hide)

It has the promise of a fantastic setting, but I feel it makes some missteps, and the rules take a fumbling stab at elegance and end up putting a hole in their own foot.

Personally, I'd see that more as "wanted to like it, but the game wouldn't allow him to" rather than "going in with the objective to hate", but I suppose that's a quibbling matter.

Funny thing about the new words though, the word for dust in the ninth world ("drit") is very close to the Norwegian/Swedish word for "shit". I can just imagine some wealthy merchant yelling at their butler "Esnafrap! Start shitting the furniture immediately! We've got guests arriving shortly, and we can't have a layer of shit covering the table and chairs!"...


As for the armor, it's one thing that heavy armor causes penalties which are lessened by having proficiency (most systems will have something of the sort, if they have armor), and it's another thing to say that one of those penalties is that wearing armor apparently stabs you every hour on the hour.

Like, I get it that it's supposed to model exhaustion caused by wearing encumbering gear, but since Might also represents hitpoints (along with everything else representing hitpoints), it also means that anyone without "practiced in armor" while wearing medium armor is in fact getting attacked by an armor-piercing light weapon every hour. Which is... Weird. Glaives can wear medium armor without dying, but heavy armor comes equipped with an armor gnome that will still nibble on your nipples every so often.

The penalty to speed rolls is already a not-insignicant malus, but the fact that you could slowly murder someone by putting them into a suit of heavy armor is... Well, actually, that sounds like an absolutely hilarious way to interrogate someone.

Maybe it represents the agonizing pain of wearing chainmail and having it pluck all your hair every time it moves? Sure, why not. (The reviewer also says that he's being a bit unfair and that it's just "bad", not "completely horrible". I'm not sure I agree)


As for free-form skills, I absolutely do not like free-form skills. The book even highlights one of the major problems a system like that can lead to, as a suggestion. It's a lot of the same issue that 13th Age has with backgrounds, but to a (mercifully) lesser degree. You're giving players the choice between "I'm Batman" and "I can fix left-handed watches on the fifth of May", and leaving it entirely to the players to not only formulate a genie's wish of a skill so that it can apply to as many things as possible, but then also argue for every usage of that appropriately-vague and vaguely-appropriate skill.

It leads to arguments and animosity, is what I'm saying. Don't do it in a serious setting (which Numenera purportedly tries to be).


The "adjective noun who verbs" thing is a matter of semantics. Yes, character creation is as "simple" as picking three words, and you're done! ...except that you won't have a clue as to what that character actually does, and it won't necessarily work unless you do go through the business of reading all the instances in each category and then checking them against one another; in which case, is it really that much simpler than another system? It claims elegance and brevity, doing away with the mess and clutter of those other character generators... And then all it does is just clump the clutter together into larger chunks. So, yes and no.


For Glaives being boring, one thing is that they're boring, the other is that they're exclusively focused on one specific way of handling one specific problem (namely: Fighting monsters when there are monsters that can be fought)... When the other classes can also be pretty good at that one way of handling that one type of problem, while also having other options available to them. It's not "Why is there a combat class if you don't get XP from combat", it's "Why is there a class that can only solve combat problems when combat problems are not the only (or biggest, or even most common, all depending) problem you'll encounter".

Sure, one could argue that with the appropriate edge and pool, anyone could solve a given out-of-combat problem... But Glaives don't really have any abilities that can be interpreted to apply to out-of-combat usage, while Nanos get a buttload of utility and Jacks can steal their share from the Nano list. The only thing that's really jumping out at me is Successive Attack, which if you can argue for it, might let you solve a problem where there are two far-away buttons that need to be pressed within a couple seconds of one another in order to progress. Or maybe you have an easy-going DM who's willing to interpret one of your many "do slightly more damage to an enemy" abilities as "lets you break a door down slightly easier". Which doesn't really make much sense for a fair few of them, but beggars can't be choosers...

And Nanos with all their "utility and other stuff" focus... Are also just fine tearing shit up in combat encounters. Which makes the Glaive's exclusive specialization mean a lot less.


Going into Verbs...

Also I think it's funny to note the reviewer whines about everything using init, whereas previously he was whining about everything hitting strength. Almost as if one was pseudo mana and one was pseudo health. Hummmmmm...

But this is the issue though, it's not pseudo-mana and pseudo-health. They're all pseudo-mana and pseudo-health. So the strongboi who specializes in strength so he can take a beating fitting for his specialization and also expend his might on doing might-based things, is going to find that most of the Verbs don't really apply to him because the majority are intelligence based for some reason. Even though there are some pretty big precedents set that would make you think that you'd use might to do might-related things, and speed to do speed-related things (whatever that's even supposed to mean)... But that's not really supported by the Verbs, which despite being applicable to every character type, are primarily focused on intellect-based casters.

Like, there are even Verbs that let you use intellect to boost or supplant might/speed entirely, but there's no "quick thinking" or "percussive engineering" to let you do intellect stuff using your speed or might. For an actually interesting mechanic that's supposed to give you lots of options, a fair few of those options are "be a mage, stat INT".

The combination of this and how most enemies (and probably a lot of random occurrences as well) do might damage all adds up to might-based characters improving and focusing on their might pool not so that they can use it to do interesting things, like the other pools can do, but to just be able to survive more hits. You're playing a sponge. Boring, not a lot of career options, just there to stand around and suck it up. That's why "all combat is focused on might, all options are focused on intellect" is a problem.

Heck, even speedy characters don't get a lot of goodies in the Verb list. Which really doesn't make sense, but then again "speed" in general is kind of an odd spot.


As for connections, the reviewer actually quite likes the idea of connections... The problem is that several of the connections offered up in the Verbs category are exclusively and painfully detrimental, which is a big problem. I also feel that having set, specific connections tied into backgrounds is a bit clunky and predictable, especially when every character gets one, but I think that throwing a random tie-in here or there can actually be quite interesting and can help parties interact with each other more often and in more interesting ways.



I think the reviewer really lays into the minutiae precisely because there are some legitimately good ideas buried in there, but to get at them you have to go through every other damn thing that's slowing the system down. Intrusions are a mechanic that could be turned around to do good things, but the way Numenera goes about it is horrid (the reviewer actually likes the "player keeps 1 XP, gives 1 XP to other player because whatever" system, while I immediately skittered away from it). I actually think stat pools can have some merit, but I also think that Numenera's handling of them is a bit clunky. ...they're also technically not the only ones (or the first ones) to have a system like that, as the eternally terrible Superbabes PP mechanic is fairly similar, while being attached to an even worse RPG!

The exasperated nitpicking comes from a position of trying to be open to a system, trying to like it... And being slapped at every turn by something or other that simply doesn't make any sense.

As an aside for the true connoisseur; 10% Chance to Stab Yourself.


EDIT: Holy heck, just got done reading the one on Powers & Perils. There's crunchy, and then there's breaking your damn teeth. This mostly seems like throwing an armful of dice at a wall and then pulling out the ol' Texas Instruments to calculate exactly how fucked you ended up being.

EDIT2:

I found a review on FATAL & Friends for a game called Spellbound Kingdoms

*Looks at front cover

Huh, whaddaya know... An RPG starring Nathan Fillion. Looks like he's misbehavin' again.

[Criptfeind]

Spoiler: Reviewception (click to show/hide)

As for the armor, it's one thing that heavy armor causes penalties which are lessened by having proficiency (most systems will have something of the sort, if they have armor), and it's another thing to say that one of those penalties is that wearing armor apparently stabs you every hour on the hour.

Like, I get it that it's supposed to model exhaustion caused by wearing encumbering gear, but since Might also represents hitpoints (along with everything else representing hitpoints), it also means that anyone without "practiced in armor" while wearing medium armor is in fact getting attacked by an armor-piercing light weapon every hour. Which is... Weird. Glaives can wear medium armor without dying, but heavy armor comes equipped with an armor gnome that will still nibble on your nipples every so often.

The penalty to speed rolls is already a not-insignicant malus, but the fact that you could slowly murder someone by putting them into a suit of heavy armor is... Well, actually, that sounds like an absolutely hilarious way to interrogate someone.

Maybe it represents the agonizing pain of wearing chainmail and having it pluck all your hair every time it moves? Sure, why not. (The reviewer also says that he's being a bit unfair and that it's just "bad", not "completely horrible". I'm not sure I agree)

This feels like just a fundamental disconnect in opinion here, like, pools represent a lot of things, stamina, health, whatever. It makes perfect sense that wearing too heavy of armor for too long will exhaust you, there's no reason to have to imagine it as doing physical damage to you "an armor gnome nibbling on you". To imagine all loss as actual damage being done makes the system seem ridiculous of course, why do your bones break when you punch? Why does your brain bleed out your ears when you think too hard? But there's no reason to imagine it that way; just like in D&D it makes way more sense to imagine hp as a pool of luck and stamina that you use to avoid serious injuries until you actually loose enough to start dying. It makes perfect sense if you imagine the pools as a reserve of stamina/effort/even luck that you exhaust and don't actual take damage until it runs out. Sure, a player can refuse to imagine it in a way that makes sense, but at a certain point I think that's on the player more then the game maker.

As for free-form skills, I absolutely do not like free-form skills. The book even highlights one of the major problems a system like that can lead to, as a suggestion. It's a lot of the same issue that 13th Age has with backgrounds, but to a (mercifully) lesser degree. You're giving players the choice between "I'm Batman" and "I can fix left-handed watches on the fifth of May", and leaving it entirely to the players to not only formulate a genie's wish of a skill so that it can apply to as many things as possible, but then also argue for every usage of that appropriately-vague and vaguely-appropriate skill.

It leads to arguments and animosity, is what I'm saying. Don't do it in a serious setting (which Numenera purportedly tries to be).

Although I agree sorta, I don't like free form skills, I don't think it's as bad as you are making it out. All it means is that you need to actually talk with your gm and come up with something acceptable to both of you. If you can't do that you shouldn't be playing in a serious setting anyway. Hell, if you can't talk to your gm, you probably shouldn't be playing with them at all.

The "adjective noun who verbs" thing is a matter of semantics. Yes, character creation is as "simple" as picking three words, and you're done! ...except that you won't have a clue as to what that character actually does, and it won't necessarily work unless you do go through the business of reading all the instances in each category and then checking them against one another; in which case, is it really that much simpler than another system? It claims elegance and brevity, doing away with the mess and clutter of those other character generators... And then all it does is just clump the clutter together into larger chunks. So, yes and no.

This is not true. I invite you to go read the pdf. The reviewer took the sentence out of context and presented it as something it's not. It says that you build a simple sentence, which is true, you do build a simple sentence, which then can tell people what they need to know about your character. It makes no claims that the building of this sentence is simple. The sentence as a whole is taken from a section of the book that immediately describes the process, presenting it as some type of claim to the game having a single sentence character building process is absurd.

For Glaives being boring, one thing is that they're boring, the other is that they're exclusively focused on one specific way of handling one specific problem (namely: Fighting monsters when there are monsters that can be fought)... When the other classes can also be pretty good at that one way of handling that one type of problem, while also having other options available to them. It's not "Why is there a combat class if you don't get XP from combat", it's "Why is there a class that can only solve combat problems when combat problems are not the only (or biggest, or even most common, all depending) problem you'll encounter".

Sure, one could argue that with the appropriate edge and pool, anyone could solve a given out-of-combat problem... But Glaives don't really have any abilities that can be interpreted to apply to out-of-combat usage, while Nanos get a buttload of utility and Jacks can steal their share from the Nano list. The only thing that's really jumping out at me is Successive Attack, which if you can argue for it, might let you solve a problem where there are two far-away buttons that need to be pressed within a couple seconds of one another in order to progress. Or maybe you have an easy-going DM who's willing to interpret one of your many "do slightly more damage to an enemy" abilities as "lets you break a door down slightly easier". Which doesn't really make much sense for a fair few of them, but beggars can't be choosers...

And Nanos with all their "utility and other stuff" focus... Are also just fine tearing shit up in combat encounters. Which makes the Glaive's exclusive specialization mean a lot less.

I totally agree that Glaves are too combat focused. But I don't think you should brush off edges and pool use too much. No one gets that many interesting abilities, not even Nanos. Most things that need to be overcome are probably going to come from edges and pools. exspecally at lower tiers. Over all, I agree that glaves need more love, but characterizing them as incapable out of combat is unfair, they have less out of combat use, but between edges, pools, adjectives, and verbs, they certainly don't have none.

But this is the issue though, it's not pseudo-mana and pseudo-health. They're all pseudo-mana and pseudo-health. So the strongboi who specializes in strength so he can take a beating fitting for his specialization and also expend his might on doing might-based things, is going to find that most of the Verbs don't really apply to him because the majority are intelligence based for some reason. Even though there are some pretty big precedents set that would make you think that you'd use might to do might-related things, and speed to do speed-related things (whatever that's even supposed to mean)... But that's not really supported by the Verbs, which despite being applicable to every character type, are primarily focused on intellect-based casters.

Like, there are even Verbs that let you use intellect to boost or supplant might/speed entirely, but there's no "quick thinking" or "percussive engineering" to let you do intellect stuff using your speed or might. For an actually interesting mechanic that's supposed to give you lots of options, a fair few of those options are "be a mage, stat INT".

The combination of this and how most enemies (and probably a lot of random occurrences as well) do might damage all adds up to might-based characters improving and focusing on their might pool not so that they can use it to do interesting things, like the other pools can do, but to just be able to survive more hits. You're playing a sponge. Boring, not a lot of career options, just there to stand around and suck it up. That's why "all combat is focused on might, all options are focused on intellect" is a problem.

Heck, even speedy characters don't get a lot of goodies in the Verb list. Which really doesn't make sense, but then again "speed" in general is kind of an odd spot.

I disagree with you here. It's important to note that everyone has an int pool, even glaves, and a lot of the verbs that use int don't cost very much int at all, from the glaves perspective, it's actually preferable to get an int verb, so long as it's not one of the expensive ones, because it gives them something to do with their int that they already have but often are not using. It's worth noting as well, you might be missing, in combat or other dangerous challenges, you're pretty likely to be taking speed pool loss instead of or in additional to strength pool, it's the primary dodging pool after all, and you can use it to attack. So saying all combat is focused on might is simply inaccurate, speed shares an equal spot to might in combat.

The exasperated nitpicking comes from a position of trying to be open to a system, trying to like it... And being slapped at every turn by something or other that simply doesn't make any sense.

Well, ymmv I guess. The way the guy takes some things out of context and assumes the worst speaks to me as someone looking for reasons to dislike something, not someone open to it but just being beaten down by its (admittedly many) flaws. But, I guess it doesn't really matter too much one way or another.

[Kagus]

Y'know, looking closer at that Spellbound Kingdoms post... It starts off really neat, with some interesting and very dramatic/cinematic mechanics, which also segues very nicely into some actual mechanical advantages for doing things your character would enjoy doing (such as having a nice drink, an extravagant meal, or a soak in a bath), and even some actual social skill usage! Some really cool ideas there, with a lot of potential. The combat isn't particularly well showcased in the review, but the general concept still looks quite interesting as a system.

...aaand then it kinda gets muddled the deeper you get into it, with some more free-form skills/backgrounds (which you can apparently alter and increase the scope of during play? I don't even know what I feel about that), a fair few "GM decides what this actually does", some of the culture rules... Eh.

Shame it's an incomplete review. I'm still interested by what I've seen, but not nearly as hyped as when I first started reading.

[Cthulhu]

I played myfarog.

Yes, for real.

It...  If it werent so overtly political, if the races werent obvious racist analogues I'd actually like the setting.   Its set in a pre-viking germanic world with the old versions of the gods, Tiwaz and Wodanaz etc. and theres some fun stuff with the tension between the old animistic ways and the new deity-worship.  The entire world outside thule has been taken over by ettins which are lovecraftian fomorians, and theres a lot of fun ideas.  I could houserule the racist stuff out, but the rules themselves are terrible, and poorly laid out.  No less than four die rolls to determine hit and damage, excessive modifiers, just a slog. 

I'm making a Dungeon Crawl Classics hexcrawl, getting back to the good shit.  Will post the map so far after work

[Kagus]

Aw shucks, ol' Varg "The Count" Vikernes? I thought he'd completely dropped off the relevance pedestal ages ago, and now only served as a distant memory for metalheads to occasionally wax reminiscent about "that lil' scamp".


...in a complete coincidence, Facebook just threw out an ad for a Norwegian restaurant called "NIKKERS". We swear it's not racist!