DriveThruRPG.com
Browse Categories
$ to $















Back
pixel_trans.gif
Other comments left for this publisher:
You must be logged in to rate this
pixel_trans.gif
VANGUARD RPG 'Varmisk Fallen' Core Rules
by Andrew C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/20/2020 01:43:26

The game is a hit and a miss on what it tries to do. I was excited and wanted to love this game. It simplifies things for a young audiance but also over encumbers things in the process. The simple one attribute roll versus attribute+skill what have youisgreat. But thecards??? what age group do you see this for? 10 year old? tweens? Adults? Can you see the younger kids fumbling through all the cards? Even teens, shy and unsure will fumble with them, as broken tower notes in the pre curser to the core on being patient and supportive of unsure young players. But lets make it harder forthem... I've been there as an adult myself, fumbling with cards at larps as a newb. I got use to it, it was great when I did. The card idea is advanced play, it requires organization and the abilty to refferance properly and can be a world of difference. But, they don't include them in the core as an easy refrance to make yourself. You have buy them... along with thealternate character sheet for notation instead. hmmm which brings me to... core and expanded...

On the book itself, it's a farce. It's bare bones. It's called Vanguard: Varmisk Fallen. The core gives you next to nothing on the world. the world building is barly even mentioned in the core and slightly built in the second. They don't even really talk to the fall of Varmisk in the core. they gloss over everything in both books. The core book and expanded book should be one book. It's a horrible grab for money to break it into two books. $30 for two books that should be $20 for one.

And the following supplements.... just stories. No real extra content. No building of the willow in the effect. They never even rerelease the rupanda bonus suplement... with a major character type... species, vocation, espers etc. They did nothing to truy realize this world. Hell there is an entire esper ability they lie about that is "required" to traverse warps, but the only warp mentioned in the core is fully stable and needs no such special power. they even admit it in the description.

"Unlike travelling via warp streams, the stable nature and tunnel-like configuration of the wormhole makes travel through it relatively straightforward. Confederation operating procedures, however, mean that any vessel entering the wormhole must have a warp esper aboard, but such precautions are often waived by non-Confederate captains, who are looking to trim costs by not hiring a warp esper navigator."

Maybe make the space traval a whole chapter,and detail multiple systems? They have bunchonchart.. but no details. maybe detail 3 or 4 other systems? instead of just a half page or a page on it? I appreciate a full page write up on the Varmisk system of Byos... maybe two pages...counting the pretty picture, but where is every thing else? ...what kind of hacks are these guys?

oh yeah follow us on googleplus.... wait you can't. Consumer google+ was discontinued... how do we find out... oh wait we don't. they are not producing anything of value now. checkout the website, just garbage about video games they are playing. Like Vermisk, Broken Tower has fallen...

...An amazing idea, but poorly executed.



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
VANGUARD RPG 'Varmisk Fallen' Core Rules
Click to show product description

Add to DriveThruRPG.com Order

pixel_trans.gif
Creator Reply:
Hello Andrew C. Thank you for taking the time (and cost) to purchase VANGUARD Varmisk Fallen. I thought I’d take the effort to respond to your review as you took the effort to write it, and perhaps I can clarify a number of issues you found with the books. But first if you’ll indulge me a little history. In writing Varmisk Fallen I set out to create a game for my child, and thought to share it with other parents who wanted to introduce their kids to roleplay games. At conception I had no intention of publishing, but VANGUARD quickly built up a community on Google+ and it snowballed to the point where the interest was there. I spent the next two years working on nothing else, looking after my young family and trying to keep my head above water. During that time I ran the kickstarter for VANGUARD by myself, with support from my wife, and after writing two books and doing most of the art work, layout and design all by myself I was, to put it mildly, burnt out and suffered from some mental health issues. And it was about that time that Google+ shut down and the community folded. For two years solid work, and after paying for editing, a few pieces of art, for printing and delivery worldwide, I cleared $600AUD. So I don’t know about you, but I found it pretty hard to live off $300 a year; but I didn’t set out to make a profit, I set out to publish VANGUARD for the community who had galvanised around it. But let me get to your issues: • The cards shown in the books are there for quick reference, and to copy as handouts if you’d like for ease of access during play. I took the considerable time to transfer them into a separate card file for those who wanted proper cards and not just copies from the pages of the book. At no point did I think it necessary for the players to have the cards, only as a convenience. I’m sorry you have had trouble with cards in the past, but they are not necessary to play the game. • The game was designed for ages 6-12, but it is adaptable; and the rules were built to be adaptable, with both core rules and advanced rules which could be added as desired. • Due to the nature of Kickstarter I had to create a budget and despite changing costs to shipping and printing come up with a cost for the books, one which was as cheap as possible for the benefit of my backers, because as a gamer myself, and by no means wealthy, I provided the game pretty much at cost. But all this meant that I had to stick to strict page totals. There was no room to add pages of backstory, colour and exposition – I wish there had been, I had so much waiting in the wings. So in 124 pages I had to give you the game, the ‘bare bones’ as you described it, to be able to run the rules and with enough to envisage your own adventures in the VANGUARD universe. I hope you can see that I certainly tried to pack as much background information into those 124 pages as I could, including names of NPCs, details of manufacturers in the gear section and the race descriptions. There is a lot in there, perhaps not clearly highlighted, but I assure you if I could have added more I certainly would have. And that includes the expanded rules, this came about as a late stretch goal in the kickstarter, so from the outset it wasn’t even a sure thing, and once again it was budgeted for 124 pages. And once again, pressed for space I crammed in as much background information as I could. My apologies that you found it wanting. • I am going to push back a little on your claim that the supplements are just stories with no extra content. The supplements were released as adventures for play, and while written for brevity, they include fully fleshed out NPCs, encounters, colour maps, new gear cards and detailed locations. I think the product descriptions are fairly clear as to what is included, but I shall certainly review them to make sure there is no ambiguity • The Rupanda supplement was a kickstarter early backer special. The Rupanda are amazing and I really wanted to share them with everyone, but I felt it would have been disingenuous of me to provide them as a supplement and unfair to those early backers for which the Rupanda was a show of gratitude. • I think I also have to clarify the difference between the stable wormhole and the warp streams and the use of esper navigators. There certainly wasn’t a ‘lie’ concerning the use of esper navigators in the warp streams, they are necessary to stop starships drifting out of the warp streams, that snake about chaotically, from being stranded in wild warp space. The stable wormhole however is a constant (like a straight tube) and therefore an esper navigator is not required – the Confederation is a bureaucracy and the requirement for an esper navigator in the operating procedures is just a symptom of this. I’m sorry this was confusing; warp streams were described on page 11 and give a clear indication as to why an esper navigator is required during travel through a warp stream, when conventional means of navigation do not work. The wormhole is an anomaly amongst warp streams. I hope this clarifies things. • I would have loved to have had the space for a whole chapter detailing the most commonly used warp fissures and their locations, detailed descriptions of more systems and planets, sadly, I just didn’t have the room in the 124 page limit. I did provide the Byos system as an example and the star chart for the surrounding space in the hope that GMs could use that as a launch pad to develop their own systems following the example I had given. At the time of publishing I had a number of other systems and planets highly detailed and described – but unfortunately I didn’t have the health, wealth or time to see these through to another product. • At the time of publishing googleplus was still active and was the core of the VANGUARD RPG community. I did not have any control over it shutting down operations and was sad to see it go. As for the website it is still active, but I must admit I don’t have the time to be doing even weekly updates. But I can assure you Broken Tower hasn’t fallen, but as a very small operation there isn’t a lot of time to do all the things that you clearly expect from a games company. We don’t have a publicist, we don’t have a coms person to do daily community outreach on google, facebook, twitter, instagram, deviant, tumblr, drivethru, reddit and so many more, and we have families, friends, lives and ongoing responsibilities beyond this small corner of our universe. Once again I can only apologise that you found our online presence lacking – but I assure you had you posted any questions or requested clarification of anything VANGUARD related I would have and will happily answer as I am able. If we ever do a new and improved second edition I will update the community details and take all your comments into consideration. • Broken Tower is still ongoing, and we are working on a number of new products. While I understand you found VANGUARD Varmisk Fallen lacking, I assure you that I went to great lengths to ensure it was a quality product, fit for purpose and was produced with love and pride. I still look through it with pride. There are plenty of things I would change and do differently given the time again, I’m not saying it is a perfect product or the best game in the world, but it is as perfect and of the utmost quality that was possible under the circumstances. • I liked your fallen tower pun • And I’m glad you thought VANGUARD Varmisk Fallen was an amazing idea. Thank you again for your patronage.
pixel_trans.gif
Shattered Moon
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/15/2017 17:52:28

So lets start off with this, in Shattered Moon creating a character creates a sense of investment. It's a detailed process requiring a bit more thought than just the average slap a character together and lets roll. I applaud this, one shoudl be invested from the beginning otherwise, what is the point of role-playing? I like the idea of an ever widening spiral adjusted by the tarot of fate. In a way it reminds me of Everway. there is definitely some ebb and flow in those cards as they are not balanced, this isn't a criticism by the way it's an observation. It's something I appreciate even as I grimace when I draw the "Child" giving me 4 FP to work with as a past life ... drawing cards and I highly encourage this as opposed to picking really makes you think about the character, who and what you want to be, it may not be what you originally envisioned.

If I have any criticism it is this, I'd honestly like to see this built more like another product from Broken Tower VANGUARD in so far as being more, race ... Troll - here take this card write this down, Weaver, here take this card write this down. The reason I say this is the dearth of information is vast and having those available would help in the beginning and it's nice to have a reference when needed. Last thing it is sometimes difficult to find what you are looking for when you need it but overall I am going to rate this 5 stars for originality and above average mechanics, I mean there's something here to fit every blll just about.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Shattered Moon
Click to show product description

Add to DriveThruRPG.com Order

pixel_trans.gif
Creator Reply:
Thank you for the kind and generous review. And a big thank you for the constructive criticism. As we're currently working on the 2nd Ed. of Rogue Marshal (a.k.a. Ascendancy), using the FateStorm system, your comments are of great help. We'll look into producing the sort of 'crib notes' player handouts that VANGUARD makes use of. Thank you once again. Kind regards BrokenTower
pixel_trans.gif
VANGUARD RPG 'Varmisk Fallen' Core Rules
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/13/2016 15:13:07

02/13/2016 Review of Vanguard RPG Varmisk Fallen:

Layout: The production quality of this rule book is Excellent, with creative use of colors and artwork shapes. The consistent use of the hexagon is a reminder that people paid attention to artistic layout, and it demonstrates that they actually gave a d---n about what they were doing.

Text: The writing is straightforward, which is something I like when I read a rulebook. Just enough fluff to keep me interested, but it gets to the point quickly, cleanly, and it's easy to understand the first time you read it.

Game Play: Although this game is geared for kids, seems to be aimed at young kids? It is a very specific and detailed game. This will take away from children being able to play it, though it does say to simplify things if you find them too detailed. It uses d6 dice, so having common dice is always a plus.

Story / Content: It is a fascinating take on science fiction meets woodland creature aliens, a concept that sounds stupid at first... but it sneaks up on you.

Worth the money? Just barely worth the cost, though I think a second edition is being published. I am not sure if the second edition is an update or a rewrite, be aware of that situation before you buy this edition. Otherwise: a little expensive for a first edition that may be out-of-date.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
VANGUARD RPG 'Varmisk Fallen' Core Rules
Click to show product description

Add to DriveThruRPG.com Order

pixel_trans.gif
Displaying 1 to 3 (of 3 reviews) Result Pages:  1 
pixel_trans.gif
0 items
 Hottest Titles
 Gift Certificates