The Gaming Den

So, the store just got in a new book which credits RPGPundit as game designer and writer. It's an Indian myth port of D&D, a strange blend of 1e and 3e. The art varies from public domain prints to hilariously amateurish trapper-keeper output (except for the cover, which has a nice, if somewhat bland, color illo). The whole thing is quite bizarre and I can't quite process it.

I'm sure many people are breathlessly rushing to buy a rulebook written by a guy who spends all day berating people about how rules are not important in RPGs.

Review? (Drinking optional but encouraged).

Game On,
fbmf

Holy shit!
Studio 2 printed that!

They're the ones who printed "Oz: Dark and Terrible"... the interesting but unfinished RPG. >_O

I don't see Studio 2 listed anywhere on the product, just Bedrock Games.

I can try to do a review after work, but I don't know if I can do it justice.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:I can try to do a review after work, but I don't know if I can do it justice.

Hell fucking yes.

You don't need to do a good review. As long as you're negative about the game watching Pundit's inevitable spaz-out about you panning his game will be entertainment enough.

I can't promise to be negative, actually. I'm oddly ambivalent about what I've seen so far. I'll try to explain that better.

1. Pre-Intro
The credits page is oddly reassuring, in that there is an editor who is not credited with writing any part of the book, which already puts it one up on an AEG production. It also has playtester credits, although they are six names long (so, one gaming group) and include some of the people credited with their graphics work. So not great, but better than most vanity projects.


2. Introduction
The intro page describes the game as 'an old-school RPG inspired by the classic and original Role-Playing Game, and set in a world inspired by Epic Indian mythology, particularly the Mahabharata.' The author assumes you are familiar with RPGs and D&D terms, plugs his website, assures you that the game is complete in this volume (180 pages), and moves on to a listing of the content. It concludes by hoping that the game will be recognizable as Old School adventuring while at the same time being 'refreshingly exotic.'

I've not been to therpgsite, so I don't know if he's got an AD&D fetish or if he's just afraid of being sued if he names it (or both, I guess).

Then there's a special sensitivity note about how this volume makes no claims of accuracy or judgement re: modern or ancient Hinduism, nor does it advocate any caste system. This is actually pretty graceful and puts me in a fairly generous mind to interpret the work; D&D isn't exactly accurate to its western roots, so there's a lot of room for this game to adapt its material in the same vein. The caste thing feels like it has a lot of potential to be offensive, though.


3. Character Creation

Ability Scores
Ability scores are best 3 of 4d6, in order. The GM can allow players to order their scores, or allow some limited ordering, like 'one swap.' The ability scores have a unified bonus table, which I think is the one from BECMI D&D – no bend bars chances and similar here. The exception is Con, which has an associated resurrection success probability, which is such a limited circumstance that I feel it should have been listed under the rez effects instead of here.

The scores are the D&D six, presented in a weird order; not classic, revised, or alphabetical. They are also not even an attempt to describe them, just a list of things their modifier applies to. Basically, if you were not D&D-literate before you picked up this book, it does nothing to ease you in.

Castes/Races
Next up are the castes, which are described as 'an incredibly important setting concept,' which is accurate, although an inset about how fucked up they are in a modern context might have been appropriate. Your character's caste is determined randomly, 3d6, with the Vaishya (merchant) in the middle of the curve – the game fortunately recognizes chiefly the meta-castes and does not go into the more specific ones. The GM is allowed to commute a roll of untouchable to either priest or warrior due to the difficulty of having an untouchable in the party, which is not as humane as just letting people pick their caste, but sure. If everyone who rolled untouchable got reassigned priest, there'd still be fewer priests than warriors. I am a little concerned at how caste plays into class choice, because if you're at the mercy of your ability scores and your caste, things could get very deterministic.

Untouchables are +1 Con -1 Cha, serfs are +1 Con -1 Int, merchants are +1 Cha -1 Wis, warriors are +1 Str -1 Int, and priests are +1 Wis -1 Str. So they are to some extent standing in for D&D races, except that so far stat mods are all they have. I can't tell if the lack of ability score description makes these mods less offensive (because low Intelligence is not explicitly described as being stupid and might mean poor schooling or something) or more offensive (because without a specific description, the obvious conclusion is that low Intelligence is exactly what the natural English implies). I don't have enough context to judge if it's actually offensive, but it seems at least problematic – the intro disclaimer isn't enough, because not endorsing a caste system is now juxtaposed with a seeming acceptance of the associated prejudices.

There's also 'Barbarian and Non-Human Races,' which are GMs option to allow. These have the classic half-dozen-or-so racial abilities and restricted classes. Some also have maximum levels in some classes, which the GM is advised to consider disallowing for PC use (instead of the more sensible 'lifting the restriction' for PC use). Basically thoroughly AD&D.

The barbarians are a specific people (Bhil) and not a generalization for folks from outside the society, and this is actually racist, because the Bhil are an ethnic group which exists today, and they have been assigned a specific set of ability mods to set them apart from those in the caste system, which cannot be attributed to variations of societal upbringing. So yeah, fail.

The nonhumans are basically master races, with piles of benefits and only the Vanara having a downside (due to small size). So as long as the ability mods are irrelevant or beneficial (highly possible), and you're interested in a non-restricted class, being a nonhuman is a strict power-up; especially since they're not subject to the caste system.

There are d100 tables for male and female names, which also double as just a list of male and female names, which is very useful.

Classes
Yep, only priest-caste characters can take the Priest class, and only warrior-class characters can take the Virakshatriya class. I'm tempted to roll up a party's worth of characters and see how many actual choices I had when it came to the classes.

The classes all use the same XP table to level up, which is a 3e innovation. It starts at 1500 for level 2, and each following level requires twice as many as the last, until level 8, where it stops being consistent at all. My guess is that the author couldn't commit to a fully consistent progression because it wasn't AD&D enough.

Okay, I can't do any more tonight. Class details and more tomorrow.

Wait aren't untouchables a real group of people who are still subject to discrimination, and Pundits just went stated them up in a RPG with an INT penalty. Isn't that like extremely fucking offensive.

Lord Mistborn wrote:Wait aren't untouchables a real group of people who are still subject to discrimination, and Pundits just went stated them up in a RPG with an INT penalty. Isn't that like extremely fucking offensive.

Less extremely fucking offensive than it would have been if the penalty were bigger or - more importantly - he'd committed to any particular description of the stats that might be contradicted by a feather-smoothing rationalisation. I find it harder to care about a penalty that can't on its own constitute a -1 to any of your "real" stats.

Lord Mistborn wrote:Wait aren't untouchables a real group of people who are still subject to discrimination, and Pundits just went stated them up in a RPG with an INT penalty. Isn't that like extremely fucking offensive.

The game also has "Thugee" assassins, which were an invention of the British. Indiana Jones is research now.

Lord Mistborn wrote:Wait aren't untouchables a real group of people who are still subject to discrimination, and Pundits just went stated them up in a RPG with an INT penalty. Isn't that like extremely fucking offensive.

Well, they got a Cha penalty (the serfs and warriors got the Int penalties). But it's not just the Untouchables, all the castes are real groups of people, Untouchables just have the most prejudice against them. Stereotyping the kshatriya as dumb jocks and the brahmin as wise wimps is also problematic. The whole thing is just powerfully insensitive and a bad idea.

Stinktopus wrote:The game also has "Thugee" assassins, which were an invention of the British. Indiana Jones is research now.

Eh, there's been some scholarship to suggest that the Thugee cult didn't survive to the nineteenth century, but there's basically no doubt that they existed.

Stinktopus wrote:

Lord Mistborn wrote:Wait aren't untouchables a real group of people who are still subject to discrimination, and Pundits just went stated them up in a RPG with an INT penalty. Isn't that like extremely fucking offensive.

The game also has "Thugee" assassins, which were an invention of the British. Indiana Jones is research now.

Wikipedia cites sources and says you're wrong.

PBS lied to me again!

All part of the Vast Conspiracy. Carry on, citizen.

Okay, classes.

Priest
Minimum Wis 9, if Wis is below 12 your 'arcana' may fail, and if Wis is ≥15 then you get +10% xp. So, full AD&D nonsense is in effect. Priests must be of 'Holy' alignment, whatever that means, and if human must be of the priest caste.

d8 hit points/level. Huh, there's a 'combat bonus,' which is +1 to hit for each full 4 levels. It hardly seems worth remembering, but having a simple combat bonus on the player's sheet is a 3e element. Saves are much simplified, a specific number at level 1 and improving with level at a uniform rate. As far as I can tell, the only thing which distinguishes saves at all is that Wisdom mod applies to saves vs spells; high Con doesn't help against poison saves, high Dex doesn't help against anything, etc.

Priests have some sort of access to 'arcana rituals' and 'enlightenment powers,' but those aren't described here. Priests are also 'forbidden to draw blood' and can use any kind of armor, but only blunt weapons. I have no idea if that has any basis in myth or if it's just slavish AD&D cloning for its own sake.

There's also a specific subtype of priests called priest-shamans. Priest-shamans are available to barbarians and some non-humans, get less respect, but are mechanically identical or superior (they get a minor ability that priests don't) except for sharp level limits. This is just amazingly incoherent design.

Fighters
Oh, no. So, drawing from a source which has all kinds of crazy martial feats taking place, we get... a fighter. He has bonuses to hit, and later, extra attacks. He also gets class skills (I'll go into these later) which give... bonuses to hit, and extra attacks. I give up.

Virakshatriya
It's a Paladin who in addition to crazy stat requirements also had to roll warrior-caste. I mean, their code of conduct disallows a bunch of culture-specific stuff like eating spoiled food, but the only attempt to have their abilities reflect Hindu myth instead of AD&D is that the special mount they can summon is a Garuda (giant eagle).

Scout
It's a Ranger.

Siddhis
The magic-user equivalent, uses 'mantras and mudras' instead of spells, also has access to enlightenment powers like a priest.

Thief
It's a Thief. Although I should point out that instead of getting percentage skill ratings, thieves get scaling bonuses to all the classic Thief activities (scouts also had '+4 to track' and '+3 to sneak') suggesting that there's at least some kind of unified system for this sort of thing, which is a definite plus.

Thugees
Before I get into anything else, I just want to say that it really bugs me that some of these classes are listed in the singular form, and some in the plural. The editor really dropped the ball on that one.

Anyway, these guys are probably the most interesting class yet, because they have such a weird interaction with the setting. See, Thugees are sacred murderers, and so are technically of Holy alignment. I'll get into alignment later, but it's as close as the setting comes to having a 'good' alignment, which is in contrast to the AD&D assassins the class is based on. And they don't lose Holy alignment for 'any acts they perform within their duties as assassins,' except for 'the killing or direct harm of women or children.' I suspect that last clause is an author-morality-insert, because as far as I'm aware, that sort of concern would not be characteristic of the mythic culture. So this class is a real melange of different moral assumptions.

Also, to get to 14th and 16th levels, they have to kill a Thugee who is currently of that level. How did anyone get to those levels in the first place?

Yogi
Its a Monk-equivalent, with some truly ridiculous stat requirements and a bunch of bonuses for fighting with a staff. Their ability progression is extremely wacky.


Alignment
There are three alignments: Holy, Neutral, Unholy. On some level, Alignment has nothing to do with the character's beliefs – it is solely a measure of whether the gods like them, or the demons do. Now, normally this actually does have to do with the character's beliefs, since the behaviors that typically make you holy are closely related to the religion. But if Shiva had a favorite bear, that bear would be Holy as long as it didn't lose his favor by pooping on his doormat or something.

This is much more comprehensible than all the many incoherent, contradictory, and self-referential explications of classic AD&D alignments; but because it is specifically about other beings' relationships to the character, it is still dangerously squishy as a game tool. Especially since several characters must be Holy when the game begins, and several abilities are contingent on remaining so.


Skills
So, there are two kinds of skill: background skills and class skills. Background skills come in three flavors – lower caste, middle caste, and higher caste. Lower caste skills include laundry and managing corpses, middle caste skills include chariot-making and slave-trading, upper caste skills include poet-orator and spy. Having a skill is +2 to relevant checks, though you can get the same skill multiple times for an extra +1 per duplication.

Humans get between one and three skills depending on caste, and yes, the lower castes get fewer as well as worse skills. Nonhumans and barbarians get one or two skills. You get another skill every two levels.

The skill rules are very basic. Roll d20 add relevant ability mod and relevant skill mod. Simple tasks are DC 10, challenging tasks are DC 15, exceptionally difficult tasks are DC 20. Opposed tasks are opposed. There are provisions for working together and taking 10. It's not a very extensive system, and there aren't a lot of guidelines, but it seems basically functional.

Class skills are effectively class features that are grouped under skills for some reason. I seriously have no idea why it would be organized like this. You start with two, unless you're a non-human, in which case you only start with one, so I guess there was a cost to those awesome racial bonuses after all. Then you get another one every time you level up.

Class skills are either rolled up or picked at the GMs discretion. Class skills come in Basic and Advanced, and you can't get an advanced one unless you roll a basic skill you already have, even if you're using the pick system, and I have no idea how that's supposed to work. But basically, there's only a probabilistic relationship between your level and the power of the class feature you get at that level. That is terrible.

Basic priest skills include Theology, Demonology, and Speak Language. There are 'arcana rituals' as well, but they all take 10 minutes to an hour to perform. Also, the arcana ritual list is like nine spells long. Also, the power of rituals even in the same tier is crazy disparate. The Arcana of the Opened Mind takes 20 minutes to perform and lets you read minds within 20 feet for 20 minutes. The Arcana of Dominion takes 10 minutes to perform and Charm Persons anyone who comes within 50 feet of you for one hour. Yes, you can get the Arcana of Dominion at level 1.

Fighter class skills (which they share with Virakshatriya and Scouts) make me extremely sad.

Siddhi class skills are mostly a short spell list. These are actually usable in combat time. They also have an equivalent to the Arcana of Dominion, and it is also theoretically available at level 1.

Thieves and Thugees share class skills, and they are almost as sad as Fighter skills. Seriously, an advanced thief class skill is the Appraise skill, which is just a +2 to appraise-related checks.

Enlightenment Powers

What the fuck.

So, priests and siddhis roll to see if they get enlightenment powers each time they gain a level. So already we are in 1e psionics territory, except only members of certain classes can get unpredictable asymmetric power. At level 2, you can get a rank 1 power (10+%) and/or a rank 2 power (5+%). A Rank 2 power is like wild shape, or mass feeblemind, or summon three illusory beings that are real as long as they aren't disbelieved with a save. The possible power disparity here is off the charts.

More later...

Isn't it delightful to have dislikes justified?

Wow, I can't wait for nAoI, when the Tathagatha comes in and fucks up all the rules text.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Fighters
Oh, no. So, drawing from a source which has all kinds of crazy martial feats taking place, we get... a fighter. He has bonuses to hit, and later, extra attacks. He also gets class skills (I'll go into these later) which give... bonuses to hit, and extra attacks. I give up.

IIRC, every named "fighter" in the Mahabharata has a title that translates to "worth 10,000 soldiers". The protagonists and major antagonists have multiples of this title. Arjuna vs. an entire army division means an entire army division being fucked by gatling-arrows of death while Arjuna charioteers his unharmed ass to the next target. It's not even a fair match. So unless the "extra attacks" a Fighter gets in this game number into thousands, it's not a faithful adaptation.

Also, to get to 14th and 16th levels, [thugees] have to kill a Thugee who is currently of that level. How did anyone get to those levels in the first place?

Checkmate, atheists.

Perhaps there are demons which count as thuggees of whatever level.

Equipment and Money

Starting money is based on caste. Also, a character of merchant, warrior, or priest caste can get a loan from their family of up to 1000 gp/level (they expect it to be repaid with interest, with a variety of consequences that seem more entertaining than serious.)

Encumbrance is pretty simple: you can carry 20 items, with some penalties for carrying more than 10 items. Negligible items are free, bulky items count as 5. Doesn't seem to be any modifier for high or low strength, but at least it's easy.

Weapons have individual initiative bonuses, and modifiers to hit specific ACs.

Decent equipment list, including hireling rates. Also, a table for buying slaves presented with an explication of slave laws and customs. Again, I feel like something, anything, addressing possible player discomfort on the subject would be an improvement.


Game Master Procedures
Reaction rolls, morale rules, wilderness travel, experience points, and so on; all some blend of 1e and 3e. Clearly an attempt to invoke AD&D nostalgia while also having some accessible and vaguely sensible numbers.

Combat procedure, including damage, saving throws, etc. is inexplicably in the GM section. I guess it was in the AD&D DMG?


Gazetteer
I absolutely cannot be fucked to read the setting description. It does have a segment about how the default setting includes regressive gender roles for women, but 'there is nothing to prevent a GM' deciding they are less restricted. It's not great, but it's clear at this point that the author was not actually interested in challenging the setting's assumptions. Vague nods in that direction are the actual minimum, and that's what's here.

More later...