Previously, I have focused on 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and on 6th Edition Call of Cthulhu, two old favorites that have been highly influential upon my own developing rules set, Sorcery & Steel. This week, I want to take a look at another game that has taught me many lessons in RPG Design, REIGN:
Right off the bat, I'm going to say that I love REIGN to bits. That might seem a bit odd since REIGN utilizes a number of New School ideas and mechanics. However, I am not against New School games that are designed well and I played in a REIGN campaign for a couple of years, followed by GMing my own REIGN campaign for a couple more years.
REIGN is a low-powered fantasy game powered by the One Roll Engine (ORE), a count success dice pool system, with applicable stat and skill determining the size of the PC's dice pool. This is not anything revolutionary.
However, what sets the One Roll Engine apart is that, rather than looking for a fixed target number, "successes" are based upon matching sets of dice. As a result, as the name suggests, you can determine success, speed and degree of success all in one roll. Furthermore, the same system can be used for static, dynamic and opposed rolls. ORE does have a learning curve but, overall, this makes the game run very quickly and smoothly.
Another thing that I really like about ORE is the stripped down skill list that still covers 95+% of what PCs might encounter during an adventure (i.e., skills are broadly applicable).
There are lots of other things that a would-be RPG designer can study in this game as well, including using a strong authorial voice throughout the work, effective flavor text, really well-balanced mechanics and character advancement, an interesting and effective approach to Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards, etc. One really does get a lot for their dinero!
Right off the bat, I'm going to say that I love REIGN to bits. That might seem a bit odd since REIGN utilizes a number of New School ideas and mechanics. However, I am not against New School games that are designed well and I played in a REIGN campaign for a couple of years, followed by GMing my own REIGN campaign for a couple more years.
REIGN is a low-powered fantasy game powered by the One Roll Engine (ORE), a count success dice pool system, with applicable stat and skill determining the size of the PC's dice pool. This is not anything revolutionary.
However, what sets the One Roll Engine apart is that, rather than looking for a fixed target number, "successes" are based upon matching sets of dice. As a result, as the name suggests, you can determine success, speed and degree of success all in one roll. Furthermore, the same system can be used for static, dynamic and opposed rolls. ORE does have a learning curve but, overall, this makes the game run very quickly and smoothly.
Another thing that I really like about ORE is the stripped down skill list that still covers 95+% of what PCs might encounter during an adventure (i.e., skills are broadly applicable).
There are lots of other things that a would-be RPG designer can study in this game as well, including using a strong authorial voice throughout the work, effective flavor text, really well-balanced mechanics and character advancement, an interesting and effective approach to Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards, etc. One really does get a lot for their dinero!
So, if you are a fan of RPG Design or simply want to check out a neat rules sets, you can do a lot worse than REIGN!
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