Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea everyday!

Product- Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook System- Adventure Game Engine Producer- Green Ronin Publishing Price- $16 here http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153066/Fantasy-AGE-Basic-Rulebook TL; DR-A strong successor to Dragon AGE. 92%

Basics-The Dragon AGE has ended, but that doesn’t mean all the stories you wanted to tell in the AGE system have. Fantasy AGE is the basic rule book for the previous Adventure Gaming System(AGE) system that came out with Dragon Age RPG providing all the basics any generic Fantasy RPG could need. Let’s break this down piece by piece and see what I think of them individually.

Mechanics or Crunch- Game Basics- Fantasy AGE uses the same basic mechanics that Dragon AGE did; each player will roll 3d6 for an action, find the sum of the dice with some modifiers, and that will determine the outcome. Contested rolls work exactly the same with the higher sum winning the roll. This is a quick and easy way to have numeric diversity and an average in your dice rolls.

Stunts-One of the more interesting things with this system is stunts. WHen you roll your dice, two of the dice are one color and the third is a different color. If two of the dice have the same result, you get stunt points equal to the result on the differently colored die. These stunts have point values and will allow you to add extra flare and effects beyond hit a guy, cast the spell, or bluff the guard. Each type of action has it’s own stunt point chart that you can select icons to spend your points on with the more points spent, the stronger the effects. When I first read about this system, I was a bit put off, but then my math geek showed through. It’s easy to think that you won’t roll doubles often, but out of three six-sided dice, you roll doubles a little less than half of the time! Again, this is a fun addition to the standard "roll dice, hit guy, next person in initiative" we’re all used to.

Character Generation-Fantasy age characters make a few important choices and have to let some dice fall. When you make a character, you get to choose your race, background, class, and then you let the dice fall where they may! Lots of this system involves you randomly rolling for effects on your character. This results in your average character of a race having some average abilities and likely traits, but overall, I don’t like that part of character generation. While I’ve played older RPG editions, I prefer to let choice occur when you build your person. This system does downplay the negative aspects of low ability rolls, but I still prefer point buy. It’s an option, but most of the book tends to focus on rolling for your character.

Statistics:This game doesn’t have a ton of bonuses to your basic dice roll and that is great thing. Each person has a number of statistics being: accuracy ( weapon accuracy), communication (talking to people), constitution (body toughness), dexterity (agility and coordination), fighting (heavy weapon accuracy), intelligence (what you know), perception (situational awareness), strength (physical ability), willpower (mental resolve). You can generate these via point buy or just rolling 3d6 and hoping for the best, so your number will be between 3 and 18 white the modifier for your dice rolls roughly equal the modifiers most role players have from D&D. You can further focus in these abilities by getting ability focuses like Accuracy(Blades) where you add 2 to your dice results for all blades attacks. Thus, you will really only add two numbers to the three six-sided dice rolls. I do love any system that squashes power gaming at the start and builds in a mean and standard deviation for its die results!

Classes and Advancement-Much like the Dragon AGE RPG, there are only three core classes: mage, rogue, and warrior. These classes are much like you would expect. Mages cast spells, rogues are nimble and skillful, and warriors are heavy people-at-arms. Each level a character will get new options such as ability focus, talents (abilities in sequence like feat trees in DnD/Pathfinder), or class specific bonuses. The talents provide the bulk of the customization in the game. Every warrior has the same basic class abilities, but the warrior focusing on close combat and social interaction will be like that because of the talents he or she choose. You don’t get that many choices, but you do get a method to differentiate yourself from the press of other individuals out there.

Magic-Magic in this system is a point based system where players have a mana pool that is spent to cast a spell. Spells themselves come from the talents that players choose with each level of the talent providing more spells. It’s a simple system that reminds me of Final Fantasy and the Dragon Age video games. Not bad company to be in, but since you don’t get tons of different talents, you won’t have the abundance of spells you’re used to in different RPGs like Pathfinder.

Combat and Damage-Just like this games D20 cousens, combat flows in a turn based manner following every player rolling initiative. On your turn, you can do either two minor actions like moving or a minor and a major like attacking. Players and monsters have a defence rating that you attack just like any other skill in this game. If your attack roll equals the defense, you hit the enemy. Damage is done in this game based on the type of weapon you're wielding with armor reduces the damage that a character takes instead of providing a bonus to your chance to dodge the attack. This doesn't reinvent wheel, but why fix what isn't broken?

Summary-You can see the Dragon AGE in the Fantasy AGE. That’s not a bad thing as I liked the Dragon AGE RPG and the Dragon Age video games for speed and elegance of the systems. However, my major problem is that the character and players don’t have many options. Sure, it’s fun, but I’d like a bit more crunch to my characters. That said, it is a good, quick, and simple system that you can easily use in any fantasy setting. 4.5/5

Theme or Fluff- It’s always hard to judge generic RPGs for their fluff content. By their nature, there can’t be a significant amount of fluff in this book since any fantasy setting should be able to be played with in this system. But, the book does have nice art, good general fantasy additions, and all the standard fantasy pieces you will need for your toy box. Just don’t go in here expecting Tolkien as this book can’t have that level of detail and still be general enough for everybody. 4.5/5

Execution-This book reads relatively quickly and has a decent layout. I can quickly get through the book, find what I need and make a character in under 10 minutes. I’d like more pictures, and some extra tables to make scanning the book easier like in the talents section. I prefer to see something similar to how Pathfinder does summaries of feats before the full descriptions. The book even has a small bestiary with some monsters to throw at your players. It’s not large, but for the $15 I paid for the book, I’m pretty happy to see a complete system, game mastering guide, and monsters in one book. This book even comes with a small adventure, so you can jump into playing after you buy only this book. Overall, good book with a few minor problems keeping it from perfect. 4.75/5

Summary-Fantasy AGE is going to be an awesome RPG if Green Ronin can bring more out for it. Titengrave is coming out, and that will provide an awesome series of adventures and a setting for this game. That is what this book really misses-the fluff. The crunch is good. It might not be my all time favorite gaming system, but it’s well-designed, thought-out, and easy to use-all the things a quality RPG needs to be viable long term. I’d like more options, but that’s my old D&D 3.5 gamer heritage showing through. As for the book itself, it might not be my favorite layout, but it is a great way to present a games information. If you joined the Fantasy AGE for Titan Grave, you will not be disappointed! 92%

Great addition. Gives access to 6 new playable races of varying beatsmen.

TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana is a splendid setting that gets the whole Thundarr: The Barbarian vibe across in a consistent world. The setting is very cool, especially for an 80’s kid like me, and the artwork is an absolute joy.

The additional mechanics are very sparse but definitely useful for branching the AGE system into sci-fi stuff, without adding too much complexity.

The adventure is the key component of this product and it is perhaps one of the most fun-looking I’ve read up on in a while. At this point I’m already tempted to call up my gaming group to ask them if we could run this right away.

My only nitpick about it is that I wish it covered more ground in the setting. Still you could have more than enough fun romping around the regions detailed in the book so far.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this line might develop into and how they plan to expand it. Bottomline? Buy it. It might just be your new favorite science-fantasy setting.

Fantasy AGE is something I've been looking forward to since far before it was announced. When Green Ronin first revealed that they obtained the licensing rights for a Dragon Age tabletop RPG and that it would use a new system, my first thought was the inevitable release of a new edition of Blue Rose based on the underlying ruleset. After Wil Wheaton's Titansgrave show and the Blue Rose kickstarter, I just had to buy this book.

It's good. Good, but not great.

The system itself is fairly basic. Each character has nine abilities, which are added to a roll of 3d6 to determine success in most regards. You can have a variety of focuses for your abilities, which give you a small bonus to your roll in applicable tests. If you roll doubles in your 3d6 roll, you get a number of points to customize your action and perform better in combat, in a mechanic called stunting. The stunts can be used in combat, roleplaying and exploration contexts, each of which getting its own list of stunts. If you are familiar with Green Ronin's earlier game True20 or WotC's Dungeons & Dragons, there are few surprises in the general flow of mechanics.

Therefore, outside the stunt system, the system relies more on its add-ons to differentiate itself. After the abilities, each character gets three basic units of customization. The first one is the races, which give you a number of set bonuses and two more selected from a small list. The options in the book are fairly standard fantasy RPG fare, as popularized by D&D, though the bonuses granted might not always match the popular view of the individual races. The second unit of customization is the backgrounds, which give you a single focus chosen from among two different ones available to your background, but they also come with some color attached (a Sailor and a Dilettante might both get a Drinking focus, but they probably prefer different kinds of booze). The background also determines your starting funds.

The third unit is classes, of which there are three: warrior, rogue and mage. Warriors fight; rogues fight not as well as warriors, but they get more tricks in exchange; mages cast spells (some of which are used to fight with). Each class gets 20 levels of advancement, where each level gives you something specific to your class, no matter how minor, in addition to more generalized advancements. For mages, the most obvious gains are new spells, but all classes also get talents, which come in three levels, with each level progressively giving new benefits in a specialized area. Many talents are class specific, ensuring that while each class can perform in most areas, they won't surpass the class that focuses in that talent - warriors and mages might deal with traps and locks, but they won't get the Thievery talent bonuses Rogues can get.

In addition to differentiating themselves from other classes, each character can also get up to two specializations in the course of their career to differentiate themselves from others of the same class. There are four specializations for each class available, each having three levels, much like normal talents. Dragon Age players might recognize some parallels between the available specializations and the ones found in Dragon Age - mage hunter / templar, sword mage / arcane warrior, miracle worker / spirit healer, to name a few.

Mages are unique in that they get spells, which come in categories called Arcana (such as Fire Arcana, Shadow Arcana and Heroism Arcana), which are themed after a specific element and have three levels (notice a pattern yet?). The first level gives two spells, and each other level gives one more. The spells use a resource called magic points, and require a roll to cast. They also get their own stunt list, which is a nice touch. While the spells given in the book are quite specific in their effects, a permissive GM might find that the arcana also work for more narrative, freeform feats, if you are willing to assign arbitrary MP costs.

There is an old school feeling to character generation and advancement, with your abilities, background, two racial bonuses, health points, magic points and starting funds being randomly determined (though the latter three are added to a comparatively large starting point, meaning you are not entirely subject to the vagaries of the RNG). This feels like an oddity in the age of modern RPGs and their tightly calculated math. For those who prefer the modern approach, the game does offer options for a point-buy system. The weapons and armor list is also very generalized, with weapon category getting three weapons that can be used to simulate a variety of closely related examples, and armor comes in six levels. Far from a weakness, this means that you can stop worrying about finding the perfect tool and quickly get to playing, though SCA members and Riddle of Steel players might be disappointed. The rest of the equipment list feel similarly nostalgic, though the GM is encouraged to ignore the specifics to suit their games better.

So what's the problem?

The lack of options. As a generic fantasy RPG, there are some awkward design choices. The races get specific descriptions and bonuses, even if there is no setting to explain why those bonuses are chosen. There is little cross-pollination between the classes, and you cannot multiclass or play hybrids. Sword mages, for example, can wield swords more effectively than other mages, but they cannot spend their talents on improving their fighting skills further instead of more cerebral pursuits. There are only six specialization combinations for each class, and while the order you take them in does matter until later levels, the specializations themselves are quite rigid in their bonuses. While mages can get 15 to 22 spells over their career, the spells they get lack versatility and come in a narrow group of 12 focuses, especially in comparison to the powers of Green Ronin's previous releases, True20 and Mutants & Masterminds.

It is not very difficult to see the system and math underlying the options in the book, so with some trial and error, GMs can add their own contributions to their settings, but I could not find any design suggestions for creating your own races or specializations in the book, which is a glaring omission in a generic fantasy game as reliant on additions instead of subtractions as Fantasy AGE is. Hopefully this will be rectified in a future release.

Fantasy AGE has a potential to be great. It has a solid framework, and the details are passable enough as a starting point, but it simply needs more to reach its potential. There is a feeling on incompleteness to the book as it stands, and that holds me back from giving it the 5 Star review I so badly wish I could give. Even so, Green Ronin's new addition to its stable is a good game that can be played as is without much trouble and very quickly, so you could do far worse with your $16 when it comes to making tabletop RPG purchases.

Fantasy AGE is technically a generic fantasy RPG that will let you play the heroic characters in the well-known adventure fantasy style of play made popular by D&D. If you're familiar with the 3.X era of rules of D&D, some of the concepts and ideas used in Fantasy AGE will be familiar to you, as the AGE System draws much of it's inspiration from True20, which in turn was an offshoot of D20.

The book itself is beautifully illustrated, and well laid out in an easy to read fashion. As a generic fantasy ruleset, it doesn't come with a setting, so those looking for a new game with a complete world might be a bit disappointed.

That said, what IS here is a complete ruleset for running fantasy, with a few innovations that break away from the norm, while sticking to a few sacred cows that could use a bit of simplification.

Basic Mechanics

The Resolution system for the AGE system is a 3d6 + Ability roll against a set difficulty. The twist here is that one of the three dice you roll should be a different color, as it serves as the "Stunt Die" which serves several different purposes.

If a player rolls doubles, then the value of the Stunt Die determines how many Stunt Points is made available for the character for that action. The Character may then execute any number of Stunts that they can pay for with that pool of Stunt Points.

It's a neat mechanic, and the addition of Stunts certainly adds a bit of dynamism to an encounter.

Character Creation

Making a character in Fantasy Age is pretty straightforward, and might trigger some deja vu from D&D players. The first step is to determine a character's Abilities. These are:

Accuracy Communication Constitution Dexterity Fighting Intelligence Perception Strength Willpower

Unlike D&D, there's no need to derive further stats from these, as the values in your Ability are the ones you'll add to your 3d6 roll. I appreciate how this cuts out an unnecessary step and just keeps the useful bits.

Abilities can be rolled and assigned in order, rolled and assigned by preference or bought in a point-buy system.

Ability Focuses are an area of expertise within an Ability. This is the "skill" system of Fantasy Age, and each of the Abilities has at least 4 different Focuses in them. For example, Strength Focuses include Climbing, Driving, Intimidation, Jumping, Might and Smithing.

There are six races to choose from in Fantasy AGE: dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, human and orc. Each one has it's own package of Modifiers to the character, as well as a small table of randomly determined additional Benefits. It's a nice touch as it makes certain that two characters of the same race will still have something to make them different from one another.

Once you have your Abilities and Race squared away, you move on to Backgrounds. This trend of adding backgrounds with mechanical impact is a good one, and I'm glad to see it here.

Backgrounds are determined by making a couple of rolls and a lookup in a table. Backgrounds are sorted by Social Class, which ranges from Outsider to Upper Class, and each of those has a smaller list of Backgrounds to come from. Each Background bestows an Ability Focus to the Character.

Finally we get to Classes. There are only three Classes in Fantasy AGE: Warrior, Rogue and Mage. Each of these Classes has a package of traits, including recommendations for primary and secondary Abilities, starting Health and Weapon groups that the character can wield. Each Class also has a large list of powers, that expand with every additional level up to the cap of level 20.

Each level either bestows new abilities or gives opportunities to learn Talents, which are like D20 Feats, though each having a 3 tier progression from Novice, to Journeyman and Master levels.

The only derived stat I could see in the entire character creation process would be the calculation for the character's Defense value, which is done by adding up 10 + Dexterity + Shield Bonus (if applicable.)

Character Specializations

Here's the fun part. I know I said that there are only 3 classes in Fantasy AGE, but they get to add back a lot of variation by adding Character Specializations. These are micropackages that are tacked onto an existing character, bestowing benefits at certain levels. Again these benefits are ranked as Novice, Journeyman and Master and have certain requirements for a character to obtain.

Equipment

The Equipment chapter of Fantasy AGE feels surprisingly... old. There's a lot of bean counting, with perhaps only the absence of encumbrance and weight as the only improvement from the classic D20 stuff.

That said there's an audience for this kind of stuff, so if you'd like listings for mundane tools, services, goods, food and lodging, the game has those too.

Magic

The Magic system for Fantasy AGE works on the basis of 12 Magic Talents, each covering a different Arcana. Mages begin with 2 of these (each one granting 2 spells each), and they advance in rank as they level up.

Spells require Magic Points to cast, which are calculated by a simple formula: 10 + Willpower + 1d6. This value goes up every time the Mage levels up as well.

Mages learn multiple Arcana, making them surprisingly flexible.

Stunts

Perhaps the biggest mechanical highlight in Fantasy AGE would be the Stunts System. It's neat and easy to remember, and when used outside of just combat, it lends to some unpredictability that can be a lot of fun. The book also includes tables for Exploration and Roleplaying related stunts, which should help jog the imaginations of the players as they go through their adventures.

The GM section

The rest of the chapters goes into some very thorough GMing advice, and covers all the important bits from running the game, to coming up with your own setting, to a chapter on monsters and a sample adventure. It's a great template to follow and the kind of content that I'd love to see in more games of this kind.

Conclusion

The Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook is beautiful, well-laid out, accessible and sits on the lighter side of rules complexity. There's a lot to like here, much like in 13th Age, as it improves on an existing ruleset but doesn't innovate where it doesn't need to just to be different. Each innovation in this book has a purpose and it comes together perfectly.

It feels solid, and the Stunts are a nice touch. I can certainly see introducing this game to new players and getting them started with little trouble. With new Settings coming out soon, it's definitely worth your time and attention.

Fans of Wil Wheaton's "Table Top" web series will love to play out this adventure. Will you make the same decisions, or try things your own way?

Great intro into the Dragon Age RPG! Just enough to get you going and help you make your decision whether to pursue this system further.

Amazing book! This game is amazing, easy to understand and gives loads of character ideas as well as storyhooks and villains. Well worth the price.

Megalodon and the cyber-sharks are not a 1060's rock band, Megalodon is a Dr Connors/Lizard like character - disabled and bitter after an accident that crippled him, he tried to repair the injuries and became the shark-like villain who is out of control. Provided by Green Ronin free for Sharks Week (who knew?) this fun character comes with stats for the unbalanced creature and to add extra colour a hook that allows you to add cyber-sharks. Last seen in M&M2e near Freedom City this character has been brought up to date to add a few wrinkles to your campaign.

If you want to use Freeport with FATE, you should read this guide. Be aware that it tries to set the skill like we have attributes in D&D. This make it a bit awkward but it seems to work and help with people more familiar with DnD.

For the rest it takes on providing "stats" for the various NPC and denizens.

It also ends with an adventure, "Fury in Freeport" ready to be played, or to be pilfered for you own adventures.

I just finished reading this entire set, and re-reading it over again. I believe this product to be a very solid entry into the fantasy genre. The system is quick and easy, and yet allows for individual thoughts and ideas for your characters and threats (if a GM) to come through with a modicum of change. The game is very well presented and the map of Ferelden is quite good. I must admit that the setting is very good and well fleshed out, but leaving plenty of room for your own "stuff", but I will make this my own, using the system and player options, with additions that I believe will be original to what I envision. This is why a game is just that, made for you. This set gives a wonderful foundation for an infinite number of settings and ideas for gamers to walk through together. Get this now!

Danny

A+ My new favorite RPG. I loved DC Comics pre-flashpoint and I've always wanted a superhero RPG. I wish I had learned of Mutants & Masterminds sooner.

A while ago I downloaded the quick start rules for Dragon Age and filed it away. Just recently my son and I gave them a try. The rules where quick and fun. The system uses 3D6 with a different colored die called a "dragon" die. Certain rolls result in what's called stunt points that can be spent on special effects during combat. It was a fun twist of play.

I downloaded the core book when it came out not expecting much but was pleasantly surprised with the character creation and game play rules. The book also includes a detailed history and description of the world the characters adventure in. highlights include various organizations that characters can join like secret societies as well as rules to build organizations.

I've never played the video game so I'm not versed as to how closely the table top game follows it. The rules are easy to explain and I see this book as a great addition to any Fantasy genre's fan game nights.

Exceeded my wildest expectations for monster templates to throw at my players. If you are a GM and need to spice up your sessions encounters, this is the book to do it with. May be the single best 3PP book for Pathfinder for GMs.

Blue Rose is subtitled "The Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy." What's romantic fantasy, you ask, and how is it distinct enough from regular fantasy to have its own name? Well, I could easily answer that with "Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series" and be more than half right, but there are a few more specific commonalities: magic is an innate force that comes from within, tolerance and acceptance of differences are definite virtues, there's a focus on relationships and social contexts instead of tomb-delving and monster-slaying, the villains are frequently either the intolerant or simply the morally monstrous, the world is usually populated by intelligent talking (or psychic) animals and animal-people instead of the standard elves/dwarves/orcs, and community and belonging being depicted as inherently important.

All those are the kind of things I could get behind. I have read almost all of the Valdemar books, after all.

--Setting--

Okay, let me get this out of the way--Blue Rose is pretty much Valdemar as an RPG. The main country of Aldis is Valdemar, with its HeraldsSovereign's Finest traveling the country and righting wrongs, the CompanionsRhy-horses, KyreeRhy-wolves, and other intelligent animals, and the ruler chosen by divine fiat; Jarzon is Karse, including the theocracy in a harsh land that covets the neighboring country's rich lands, the priests burning people who exhibit "unnatural" powers, and the refugees who live just inside Aldis's borders but who are insular and suspicious of Aldis's tolerance for gay people or outre displays of magic; Kern is Hardorn, including the constant invasions of their neighbors, the use of mind-controlledzombified peasants as shock troops in battles, and the rule by a power-mad wizard king; and Rezea is the Shin'a'in, though admittedly here the resemblance is pretty small and mostly about how both the Shin'a'in and the Rezeans are kind of inspired by Native American plains tribes, with some additional Mongol inspiration in the Rezeans' case.

The history is one of the standard fantasy setting backgrounds. In the past was the Old Kingdom, where everyone lived in harmony, magic provided a high quality of life and easy transportation, humanity lived in harmony with the Rhydan (intelligent psychic animals), vatazin, and sea-folk, and everything was totally awesome. At least, it was until unscrupulous adepts delved too much in the mysteries of Sorcery, were corrupted by the power, and overthrew the Old Kingdom with their armies of summoned darkfiends and magically-twisted shadowspawn. These sorcerer-kings instituted a reign of terror and blood, wiping out the vatazin, persecuting the Rhydan, and wasting thousands of lives in petty wars against each other or experiments into the darker aspects of magic. This continued until the remaining rhydan hooked up with some rebels and managed to overthrow most of the sorcerer-kings (except the king of Kern) and re-established their own kingdoms, listed above. What happened to the rest of the world is unknown, and while long-distance communication still exists, long-range travel does not.

One of things I really like are the deities. It's the relatively fantasy-standard idea of elder gods who are more associated with natural processes and younger gods who are more associated with human ideals, but there are several things I really like about this particular implementation. For one thing, even their existance is in doubt. They might answer prayers, they might be behind the Golden Hart that chooses Aldis's ruler, but they might not. There's no proof either way, and that allows for a lot more plausible religious tension than, say, the Forgotten Realms.

For another, the gods actually have relationships. Some of them are married (or dating, or whatever applies to deities) to each other, which shows up all the time in real-world mythology but rarely in fantasy RPG backgrounds. The divine relationships are also where the in-universe terms for gay and straight people--caria daunen and cepia luath, respectively--come from.

(I'm not sure I'd ever use those terms in an actual game, because there's always a tension between immersion from using game-based language and sounding pretentious and silly, but I like that they're there.)

I've seen complaints that Aldis is unrealistically benign, but I think the background supports its ability to be a place people from the real world might actually want to live. For one thing, they can replicate a lot of modern technology using magic, so santitation, communication, psychological care, criminology, and other fields aren't really medieval in mindset, even if the means they use to get there are different--telepaths or telegraphs, you can still send long-distance messages. For another, the background establishes that the ruler may be divinely chosen for their benevolence and purity of heart, and the nobility is an examination-based mandarinate where part of the examination is determining that the candidate is genuinely dedicated to working for the good of Aldis at the moment of the exam (thus leaving the possibility of corruption later). Despite those, there's still veniality, there's still corruption, two rulers have had to be removed due to evil or insanity, people are still poor, etc. There are plenty of opportunities for adventure even if the setting isn't very suited for the typical D&D game of rootless murderhobos, and the assumption that the characters are going to be members of the Sovereign's Finest, with the attendant duties and perks, gives plenty of opportunity to go around righting wrongs.

It's basically fantasy Scandinavia with magic. And honestly, it's more nuanced than the Valdemar novels, so there's that.

--System--

Blue Rose's system is essentially a stripped-down version of D20, and it was actually pulled out and repackaged in a settingless version called True20 for people who liked the mechanics but didn't like or were indifferent to the setting.

Most of the system is pretty much the same as d20 with small or cosmetic tweaks. For example, ability scores are just rated by their bonus (-5 to +5) instead of the raw score, which is honestly a change that they should have done in d20 anyway. Instead of tracking individual coinage, Blue Rose abstracts it all away into a Wealth score that is rolled to acquire new equipment. There's still skill checks, being flat-footed, DCs, rolling 20-sided dice, an action economy (full-round, move, standard, free), savings throws, and most of the other familiar elements of d20. The biggest changes are in the classes, damage and healing, and in the magic system, so I'll deal with each of those in turn.

Rather than the ever-expanding plethora of d20's classes and prestige classes, Blue Rose has only three classes: Warriors, Experts, and Adepts. This is still somewhat problematic--Experts' focus as the class that uses a lot of skills isn't really a good focus in a more skill-based system like d20, and there's no mechanism for Warriors getting multiple attacks beyond feats like Whirlwind Attack--but it's much more open than d20 is. There's also options to dip, like a Warrior taking Wild Talent and being a latent psychic, or an Expert picking up a couple levels of Warrior to represent training in formal dueling.

Attacks and so on are calculated normally, but an entirely new mechanic is used for damage: the Toughness Save. Damage is always 15 plus the appropriate ability score bonus plus the weapon damage, and is opposed by a rolled Toughness Save. Failing the save by variable amounts causes different effects, up to and including jumping straight to bleeding out on the ground for failing by 15+. Lower-level injuries also stack up, so a Wounded character who is Wounded again becomes Disabled. Even the smallest injuries also cause penalties to later Toughness Saves, so everyone will run out of luck eventually.

This is great. It completely undercuts the standard farmer to ubermensch trajectory that D&D characters usually undergo, which is good, because one-man armies work against the communitarian themes of romantic fantasy. It also makes sure that the threats do not need to scale much. A knife in the dark is always dangerous and an enemy army is always a threat, even for high-level characters.

The magic system, called arcana, is entirely feat-based, and as such it is much less unwieldy, less prone to abuse, and impossible to make a CoDzilla. Learning to use one of the six types of magic takes a feat, every two new magic powers takes another feat, and every character gets the same number of feats, so while Adepts probably will be a bit more powerful than Warriors or Experts just by virtue of having supernatural powers, they're unlikely to be able to comepletely outclass them in every possible way because they'll always have weaknesses and blind spots.

Also, magic is fatigue-based instead of Vancian. This is personal preference, but I really don't like Vancian magic and would prefer basically any alternative. Adepts can cast all day long if they're lucky, but three failed Fatigue Checks will knock them out if they don't rest. There are also options to push powers to higher levels in exchange for taking more fatigue. Any power that lets the Adept Take 20 almost always adds 20 to the Fatigue Check, which will almost certainly cause them to fail.

Sorcery--Shadow-aligned arcana--is where the problems with the arcana system come out in force, though. Alignment has never made sense in D&D, and Blue Rose is no exception. Sorcery seems to be similar to the Dark Side of the Force, with a specific note that it comes from negative emotions and a Corruption mechanic in place for its use.

For example, summoning darkfiends is Sorcery, as is erasing someone's memories, or assaulting them with your mind. All makes sense, right? The problem comes in when using Flesh Shaping to alter a transgender person's sex with their permission is Sorcery even though it's entirely beneficial, and the text even calls out this very example in an earlier chapter as something for which the benefit might be worth the cost, so it's not an error (though the actual description does say that such uses may be able to avoid a Corruption check). Furthermore, magically influencing people to do things isn't Sorcery unless it's, "used to cause deliberate harm," but setting someone on fire with your brain or freezing them solid is never Sorcery even though it always causes deliberate harm. Reading someone's inner thoughts is always Sorcery even if you're doing it in a multiple murder trial to determine the accused's guilt.

The main principle seems to be that Sorcery is based on evil intent, except when it's not, which doesn't say...well, anything about anything, really. Whether something is Sorcery or not seems pretty arbitrary to me, except that greater priority is placed on the sanctity or one's mind than one's body, which would be cold comfort to people drowned by adepts using Water Shaping. At least the newly-deceased can be confident that they weren't killed by vile Sorcery.

Other than that minor quibble, I really liked Blue Rose. It's good to see a version of D&D that's both thematically and mechanically focused on social connections, promoting modern values, and finding non-violent solutions to problems when possible, and even if the system is still a bit too d20ish for my liking, it's much more palatable to me with the changes they've made. I may never run this as written, but reading it gave me a ton of ideas for other things.