Blood and Doom

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Moracai

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It's an upcoming game from Dicetale Games and Modiphius, and I am certainly impressed by it!

First of all, the free preview bundle has many hundreds of pages. It is a class based system with d10 dicepools. No funny races, different human cultures only. The lore is vast, and I've only scratched the surface of it. An OGL of their own will be available upon final release. The action economy looks very nice, but the detailed movement rules are optional and can be found in GM (Doomsayer) section. Otherwise it's more of a theatre of the mind movement which many people like better.

The players make most of the rolls, freeing up some GM time. Initiative may or may not be rolled, depending on circumstances. Extra successes are converted into momentum, which can have simple or more complex effects. The name of the game comes from two mechanics. Blood and Doom. Blood is magic/power points, and Doom is rerolls/fortune points.

There's as many as 15 base abilities, which is quite a lot more than most games, but I think they pulled it off nicely. Encumbrance is handled with equipment slots. Armor and weapons are more fleshed out than in many other modern games. Weapon damage types are the usual slashing, bludgeoning and piercing plus cleaving, which I know tickles many a medieval combat aficionados fancy... Some elemental damage types automatically bypasses armor such as fire and poison (duh!).

This game managed to tick off almost all my boxes! I would have liked to see only a few combat maneuvers more and aiming at different hit locations (one could argue that is a combat maneuver.), but they might be there in the final version, who knows. I have no idea how it all will glue together, I'm not nearly there yet. It could be that the class features and such things screw something up, but I have gut feeling that it won't be the case.

And yeah, not a shill. Not affiliated with either gamehouse...
 
Yeah, I certainly don't need yet another sword & sorcery game, but I must say 550+ pages, a high-res map and even a couple MP3s for the price of $0 is unbeatable and the game looks *very* nice.
 
I will repeat my sentiment from rpg.net.

This may have more crunch than a Champions book, I mean you have 15 attributes looking at the preview.
I will just stick with Beasts & Barbarians.

I am sure it is a fabulous game, but that is just too much even for me.
 
Number of abilities really means nothing, it’s how they’re used that determines whether they are cumbersome or not. It looks here like the Stats overlap into Skills quite a bit based on their description. That allows for on the fly putting Stats and Skills together to do something.

Of course, this is the kind of system a bad GM can fuck up in spades - it’s a Mother May I rant waiting to happen.
But…that doesn’t mean it won’t work. It broadly looks like 2d20, only using a nWoD dice mechanic.

Dark, gritty S&S, sure I‘ll take a look. Too much Jay Little though and I’m out.
 
Number of abilities really means nothing, it’s how they’re used that determines whether they are cumbersome or not. It looks here like the Stats overlap into Skills quite a bit based on their description. That allows for on the fly putting Stats and Skills together to do something.
If you want to provide a full critique when you read, I am all ears.
Maybe I am wrong.....
 
I found the designer's interview. Heh! It has 33 views and has aired 2 months ago...
 
So, I started reading, and I must say that this opening paragraph is, mmmm, ambitious. Yeah, lets go with ambitious.

1679929881678.png

That wasn't exactly a criticism. It's just very enthusiastic about the whole What is an RPG topic.
 
So, I started reading, and I must say that this opening paragraph is, mmmm, ambitious. Yeah, lets go with ambitious.

View attachment 58304

That wasn't exactly a criticism. It's just very enthusiastic about the whole What is an RPG topic.
OTOH, I can use this screenshot for introducing new players...:smile:
 
I just realized what it reminds me of, it reminds of the the opening narration to the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits.
Yes, and I'm pretty sure that this was the desired effect:smile:.
 
Each character has it's own doom pool, but it isn't anything like in the abomination of a system called 2d20... :thumbsup:
Then what is it like:smile:?
I really don't want to read a 550-page behemoth just to find out...:wink:
 
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Link to drive thru, but I'm pretty sure I don't have brain space for it...

 
Then what is it like:smile:?
I really don't want to read a 550-page behemoth just to find out...:wink:
Doom Points can be spent to reroll dice and get another chance to succeed at an action should you have failed. But in certain cases a roll against a single PCs Doom, or all the PCs Doom is called for. It is called a doom roll. These are meant to be used in situations where the GM might be uncertain of the outcome himself. The designer expressed this more elegantly in that interview I linked to. Here's what the GM section reveals:

DOOM ROLLS
"As Characters continue to defy the odds and draw on Athyr’s negative energy by spending Doom Points, that twisted form of power keeps coursing through their bodies. This can come at a terrible cost, which becomes clear when you, as the Doomsayer, ask one or more Players to make a Doom Roll. There many situations in which you can ask a Doom Roll to be made (examples provided below), but in general there are two types of Doom Rolls:

1. When a Player or Players ask you something (or you want to know without them asking) about the fiction of the game and you want to let chance decide how it will turn out. In this case, one Player makes a Doom Roll at Normal Difficulty. On a success, the situation turns out in their favor. If more than one Character is involved, still only one Player makes a Doom Roll.

2. When you want to know which of the Characters are the target of a something bad about to happen. In this case, all Players whose characters are involved in the situation make a Doom Roll and the Player (or Players) who rolls the lowest number of successes is targeted. On a tie, and if you really need only one target, the Player with the lowest number of Doom Points is targeted.

It’s important to remember not to ask for Doom Rolls too often and save them for situations where it can really make a difference. When a Player makes a Doom Roll, they roll a number of Action Dice equal to their current Doom Points. In no way can Action Dice be added to this roll. Suffice to say that the more Doom Points a Player has spent, the slimmer their chances become of succeeding a Doom Roll! Use Doom Rolls to add suspense, raise the stakes, or determine whether something turns out in the Characters’ favor or not. There are countless examples that can be thought of. Here’s a few:

▪ To determine if an NPC or Monster is friendly to them or not.
▪ Whether the room in a dungeon you haven’t mapped out is a dead-end or has another passage to be explored.
▪ When a Character locked up in a prison cell wants to know if there is a loose brick so they can try to escape.
▪ Whether a certain item the Characters are looking for is in stock at a shop or not
▪ Whether a Character’s arrows are depleted if the Player forgot to keep track of them.
▪ Which of the Characters in the Party an incredibly powerful Monster might attack, given equal odds"
Edited for spoiler block goodness.
 
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These are meant to be used in situations where the GM might be uncertain of the outcome himself.

There many situations in which you can ask a Doom Roll to be made (examples provided)

It’s important to remember not to ask for Doom Rolls too often and save them for situations where it can really make a difference.

Is it just me, or do these statements seem contradictory? I think I get the idea behind what the designer is trying to do (essentially heighten tension) - so few Doom rolls, only at critical points in game.

How is the GM meant to know beforehand whether a roll will really make a difference? Some will be obvious, but other rolls only are seen to be relevant well after they have occurred.

Conversely does the DM not making a Doom roll, flag that a situation isn't actually dire? Yes I'm in a dungeon awaiting execution, but the DM hasn't asked for a Doom roll therefore I'm safe?

I haven't played in any games with similar types of mechanics, so I don't know how they feel in game and am intrigued to find out....
 
B burbles Good points. I'm not sure at the moment. I'd probably have to run a few sessions to make more sense of it. Then there's the part where doom rolls might be used if something is available in the shops or not. That's hardly a critical moment in a session to me. Unless it's weed. Then it's critical! :tongue:
 
Doom Points can be spent to reroll dice and get another chance to succeed at an action should you have failed. But in certain cases a roll against a single PCs Doom, or all the PCs Doom is called for. It is called a doom roll. These are meant to be used in situations where the GM might be uncertain of the outcome himself. The designer expressed this more elegantly in that interview I linked to. Here's what the GM section reveals:

DOOM ROLLS
"As Characters continue to defy the odds and draw on Athyr’s negative energy by spending Doom Points, that twisted form of power keeps coursing through their bodies. This can come at a terrible cost, which becomes clear when you, as the Doomsayer, ask one or more Players to make a Doom Roll. There many situations in which you can ask a Doom Roll to be made (examples provided below), but in general there are two types of Doom Rolls:

1. When a Player or Players ask you something (or you want to know without them asking) about the fiction of the game and you want to let chance decide how it will turn out. In this case, one Player makes a Doom Roll at Normal Difficulty. On a success, the situation turns out in their favor. If more than one Character is involved, still only one Player makes a Doom Roll.

2. When you want to know which of the Characters are the target of a something bad about to happen. In this case, all Players whose characters are involved in the situation make a Doom Roll and the Player (or Players) who rolls the lowest number of successes is targeted. On a tie, and if you really need only one target, the Player with the lowest number of Doom Points is targeted.

It’s important to remember not to ask for Doom Rolls too often and save them for situations where it can really make a difference. When a Player makes a Doom Roll, they roll a number of Action Dice equal to their current Doom Points. In no way can Action Dice be added to this roll. Suffice to say that the more Doom Points a Player has spent, the slimmer their chances become of succeeding a Doom Roll! Use Doom Rolls to add suspense, raise the stakes, or determine whether something turns out in the Characters’ favor or not. There are countless examples that can be thought of. Here’s a few:

▪ To determine if an NPC or Monster is friendly to them or not.
▪ Whether the room in a dungeon you haven’t mapped out is a dead-end or has another passage to be explored.
▪ When a Character locked up in a prison cell wants to know if there is a loose brick so they can try to escape.
▪ Whether a certain item the Characters are looking for is in stock at a shop or not
▪ Whether a Character’s arrows are depleted if the Player forgot to keep track of them.
▪ Which of the Characters in the Party an incredibly powerful Monster might attack, given equal odds"
Edited for spoiler block goodness.
It seems to me you could do all that just by having a luck stat.

I'm sort of reminded of the 'Test your luck' mechanic in Fighting Fantasy.
 
It seems to me you could do all that just by having a luck stat.

I'm sort of reminded of the 'Test your luck' mechanic in Fighting Fantasy.
I'm not familiar with FF luck mechanic, but it is true that Doom boils down to 'the more you reroll, the less lucky you get'.

So no rerolling if you wanna score.. :wink:
 
I’m enjoying the commentary on this abomination. Is there anything else we could add to make it even less attractive? “Sex moves”?
Those were actually a thing in Apocalypse World. You get bonuses and stuff because you know someone else's character better.
 
Holy hell.

At first glance, I see that this game isn’t a 304pg draft of the final product that might get an editing pass, XX replaced with page numbers, etc.

This game was laid out as a 304pg preview pdf. Many sections include text telling you what will be in the final product…too much text to erase and fill in. They’re gonna have to re-layout this thing for the final. Sure some pages that are all tables, the appendices, etc are good, but still, DAMN.

Edit: A lot of pages are self contained, without text that spills over. Obviously they intend to use these in the final. Smart.
 
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Looks like it boils down to a dark fantasy D&D using the WoD dice system but with 2d20 meta currency.
Yeah, kind of…

It’s definitely in the current “D&D Genre”, aka Fantasy Supers. Here’s the text for a Chakram. Not a magical weapon, a normal Chakram.

CHAKRAM
Special: Hold one half of a Chakram in each hand to make a melee attack with it, counting as two one-handed weapons with the Wieldy tag. Connect both halves and throw it to make a ranged attack. The Chakram returns to your hand after you attack whether successful or not. When you suffer a Setback, it is lost.

The meta-currency looks to be done better than 2d20, still skimming.

EDIT: Seriously into Shaw Brothers Wuxia territory, here’s a couple of Feats (Fair Use).

JUGGERNAUT
You simply can't be knocked Prone if there's ground beneath your feet, no matter how hard you've been hit or suffer any Setback, so long as you remain conscious.
CLASS TYPE: Warrior

IRON GRASP
You never lose your grip on a weapon or held item, no matter what, even when knocked unconscious or if a Setback indicates so. You also gain Edge (Edge is Advantage btw) to grapple and perform grappling moves, and the same applies to climbing attempts.
CLASS TYPE: Warrior
 
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Any good maps included in this that can perhaps be repurposed for other fantasy games?
 
It's an upcoming game from Dicetale Games and Modiphius, and I am certainly impressed by it!

First of all, the free preview bundle has many hundreds of pages. It is a class based system with d10 dicepools. No funny races, different human cultures only. The lore is vast, and I've only scratched the surface of it. An OGL of their own will be available upon final release. The action economy looks very nice, but the detailed movement rules are optional and can be found in GM (Doomsayer) section. Otherwise it's more of a theatre of the mind movement which many people like better.

The players make most of the rolls, freeing up some GM time. Initiative may or may not be rolled, depending on circumstances. Extra successes are converted into momentum, which can have simple or more complex effects. The name of the game comes from two mechanics. Blood and Doom. Blood is magic/power points, and Doom is rerolls/fortune points.

There's as many as 15 base abilities, which is quite a lot more than most games, but I think they pulled it off nicely. Encumbrance is handled with equipment slots. Armor and weapons are more fleshed out than in many other modern games. Weapon damage types are the usual slashing, bludgeoning and piercing plus cleaving, which I know tickles many a medieval combat aficionados fancy... Some elemental damage types automatically bypasses armor such as fire and poison (duh!).

This game managed to tick off almost all my boxes! I would have liked to see only a few combat maneuvers more and aiming at different hit locations (one could argue that is a combat maneuver.), but they might be there in the final version, who knows. I have no idea how it all will glue together, I'm not nearly there yet. It could be that the class features and such things screw something up, but I have gut feeling that it won't be the case.

And yeah, not a shill. Not affiliated with either gamehouse...
Thanks for the post! I'm one of the head writers of the game. You read the 1.0 version of the Primer, the 1.1 revised version will be available starting on the day of the Kickstarter launch. We, of course, had to cut back on the number of Powers, Traits, Magic (spells), Classes, Monsters, etc. that will be featured in the final versions, so I can promise that there will be more combat maneuvers and other cool stuff! The Kickstarter will also include miniatures, cards, a Gamemaster Screen, more adventures, custom dice, polyhedral dice, a slipcase, and more, let me know what you think once it's launched! ;-)
 
Yeah, I certainly don't need yet another sword & sorcery game, but I must say 550+ pages, a high-res map and even a couple MP3s for the price of $0 is unbeatable and the game looks *very* nice.
Thanks! Of course, this is 'just' a fully playable excerpt of what will be available through Kickstarter, but we really tried to get together the most complete free Primer on the market, at least that I know of. It's definitely not 'just' sword & sorcery, though: it's steeped in sword & sorcery, but internally we've always said that it's 'high adventure' - not high fantasy, but maybe infused with more mythical and fantastical elements than most sword & sorcery. In the end, we hope that we've created our own beast, but it' s up to you all to decide that! ;-)
 
I will repeat my sentiment from rpg.net.

This may have more crunch than a Champions book, I mean you have 15 attributes looking at the preview.
I will just stick with Beasts & Barbarians.

I am sure it is a fabulous game, but that is just too much even for me.
Definitely way way way way less crunch! Now, don't get me wrong: I love HERO System, it's one of my go-to systems, and I actually believe it's got less crunch than D&D or Pathfinder once you learn what its building blocks are. There's a lot less page flipping involved because everything uses the same building blocks. That being said, Blood and Doom is different from HERO System (and, thus, Champions) in almost very way, and I believe having 15 Abilities actually makes gameplay easier, more fun, and more creative, as there are no hard and fast combos and it encourages players to be more imaginative with their Skills and Abilities. Having more than a few Abilities doesn't necessarily makes for a crunchier game, but it does allow more diversity between Characters.
 
I found the designer's interview. Heh! It has 33 views and has aired 2 months ago...

Which is unfortunate, because Ferruccio had a great time during that interview and the podcast is amazing! The people running it definitely deserve more listeners. That being said, we're at over 5.000 downloads on Drivethrurpg, so I don't think the number of listeners is indicative to how well the Kickstarter is going to perform, but obviously we would love to reach those cool stretch goals and give you all as much amazing stuff as we can create!
 
Number of abilities really means nothing, it’s how they’re used that determines whether they are cumbersome or not. It looks here like the Stats overlap into Skills quite a bit based on their description. That allows for on the fly putting Stats and Skills together to do something.

Of course, this is the kind of system a bad GM can fuck up in spades - it’s a Mother May I rant waiting to happen.
But…that doesn’t mean it won’t work. It broadly looks like 2d20, only using a nWoD dice mechanic.

Dark, gritty S&S, sure I‘ll take a look. Too much Jay Little though and I’m out.
I guess bad GMs can fuck up anything, but we did include as much Doomsayer's advice as we could possibly cramp in 500 pages and there will be more in the final versions! I CAN see that Ferruccio, the creator, has never played 2d20 and he's only passingly familiar with World of Darkness. I know both systems intimately, but I mainly did fluff writing and I can safely say neither of those systems served as inspiration.
 
Hmm, 15 sounds like a lot. However, given a nice free primer bundle I'll give it a read and see what I think. :thumbsup:
So, what did you think? I hope you agree that those 15 Abilities don't make the game any more difficult to play! ;-) You might also want to know that you read the 1.0 version, the 1.1 (edited) version will be available on the 4th of April, when the Kickstarter is launched.
 
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