Ruin Masters is finally out, so what do you think?

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Korgoth

Korgoth

of Barbaria
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The Ruin Masters RPG by RiotMinds (makers of the excellent and beautiful Trudvang, Lex Occultum & Drachar och Demoner rpgs) has recently released in PDF and Physical form. I didn't see a thread on the released version so I thought I'd start one.

What do those of you who've got the PDF's or Print version of the game think of it?
  1. As I understand it, it's based on Older or a more Basic interpretation of the Rune Quest RPG engine yes?
  2. How does it's implementation of the BRP/RQ rules compare to other versions of the BRP engine? I guess as it's a "lite" version of said engine OpenQuest would be a good one to compare it too.
  3. I've read that lore wise for it's setting, all the magic users were killed off in a cataclysm of some sort, so there are no magic classes like Clerics or Wizards?
  4. Do you think the game provides enough content in it's 240 or so pages to play a long campaign using the system? or will it require house rules and or cribbing bits from other BRP games to flesh it out?
Also a new kickstarter for an additional bestiary book just started, so that will help flesh out the game even more and add more replayability.
 
Looks cool; I love that the game appears to present some sort of structured/formalized rules for hexcrawling with physical components on a table-top map - easily the most neglected side of all of fantasy roleplaying games (name one major game system that really does it well). The rest of it is described in terms that trigger my biggest gripe about most 'new' game systems: All of their new elements are essentially arbitrary re-naming and re-uniting of extremely well established rules that we've happily played for decades. What is the point of this sort of nonsense? The whole hobby is to blame, so i don't specifically point a finger at these folks. But I am dedicated to the idea that i will never again learn a new name for the ST stat or a new die rolling mechanic for figuring out its value, making an attack roll, etc. They are completely pointless and almost always result in something worse than the original games i already own. And then the new versions get marginal support so you end up moving past them in a couple of years anyway.
 
Endless Flight said:
I read the preview on DriveThruRPG and saw that characters only have one physical attribute. I pretty much stopped right there. It’s sort of a pet peeve of mine. Nice looking book though.
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Yeah I hear ya on that.

The game has 4 stats, Physique, Psyche, Intelligence and Charisma. It is pretty limited and I'm akin to not liking that either but I do want to check it out further to see how it's implemented.

I'm hoping it still is close enough to BRP to be my gateway drug into the RQ/BRP engine universe as I've still, after all the years not taken the plunge into the BRP world.
 
Moonglum said:
The rest of it is described in terms that trigger my biggest gripe about most 'new' game systems: All of their new elements are essentially arbitrary re-naming and re-uniting of extremely well established rules that we've happily played for decades.
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I agree with you wholeheartedly on this as well. D&D3E/5E works are especially rife with this. OGL be damned if it truly is to be blamed for that.
 
Gwarh said:
Yeah I hear ya on that.

The game has 4 stats, Physique, Psyche, Intelligence and Charisma. It is pretty limited and I'm akin to not liking that either but I do want to check it out further to see how it's implemented.

I'm hoping it still is close enough to BRP to be my gateway drug into the RQ/BRP engine universe as I've still, after all the years not taken the plunge into the BRP world.
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Lyonesse is what I recommend every time. You don’t really even need to read the books beforehand. My favorite d100 game by far.
 
Endless Flight said:
Yes, it’s just awesome. I didn’t really like BRP games before I picked it up.
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I love the magic systems in Lyonesse (well reading them anyway), the fairy cantraps have some of the best spell names I've ever read (aside from the ones concocted by Vance himself) and the Sandestin magic seems perfectly suited to actually roleplaying out negotiating/coercing the little imps to get them to do what you want them too. If I wasn't already running a fairytale-esque game of Magic World in the Dolmenwood setting, it would be my next campaign for sure.
 
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Nick J said:
If I wasn't already running a fairytale-esque game of Magic World in the Dolmenwood setting, it would be my next campaign for sure.
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Not to derail my own thread but… how is the "Magic World’ book? I’m aware of it but have never read through it. I suspect it or the Classic Fantasy book by the makers of Mythras will end up being my BRP gateway drug.

I never tire of the Classic D&D tropes done with different RPG engines.
 
Gwarh said:
Not to derail my own thread but… how is the "Magic World’ book? I’m aware of it but have never read through it. I suspect it or the Classic Fantasy book by the makers of Mythras will end up being my BRP gateway drug.

I never tire of the Classic D&D tropes done with different RPG engines.
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Lol, derail away. Magic World is essentially the tried and true Elric!/Stormbringer game by Chaosium, but with all of the Moorcock stripped out and a more generic roster of western European monsters plugged into its bestiary and a very high level, sorta generic (and kind of skipable) high fantasy setting called the Southern Reaches in its place.

As a lifetime D&D player it was my gateway into BRP and I think it's pretty great as a bridge from class and level fantasy games to skill-based classless. It's fairly lightweight, easy to grok and translatable for "D&D brain." That said, the layout is fugly, the art is uneven and Chaosium only produced one supplement, Advanced Sorcery, before aborting it, so don't expect a lot of supporting material.
 
Gwarh said:
The game has 4 stats, Physique, Psyche, Intelligence and Charisma. It is pretty limited and I'm akin to not liking that either but I do want to check it out further to see how it's implemented.
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TBF, GURPS only has four base stats, and that doesn't stop it from being extremely robust. I'm not terribly fussed by it personally. Divorcing STR from AGL from CON is also artificial. It's just a matter of which level of abstraction makes your brain hum in a fun way. :smile:
 
Nick J said:
Lol, derail away. Magic World is essentially the tried and true Elric!/Stormbringer game by Chaosium, but with all of the Moorcock stripped out and a more generic roster of western European monsters plugged into its bestiary and a very high level, sorta generic (and kind of skipable) high fantasy setting called the Southern Reaches in its place.

As a lifetime D&D player it was my gateway into BRP and I think it's pretty great as a bridge from class and level fantasy games to skill-based classless. It's fairly lightweight, easy to grok and translatable for "D&D brain." That said, the layout is fugly, the art is uneven and Chaosium only produced one supplement, Advanced Sorcery, before aborting it, so don't expect a lot of supporting material.
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Pretty much. It's one of the best BRP iterations I've seen. Advanced Sorcery is nice too. It's super smooth to run, can't go wrong with it. While it's kaput as an rpg line, it's BRP so you can pillage from any number of similar games with little to no effort. There are a number of typos as well, as the wrong proof was sent to the printers. Regardless, you will get years of play out of it if you so choose.
 
Spartan said:
TBF, GURPS only has four base stats, and that doesn't stop it from being extremely robust. I'm not terribly fussed by it personally. Divorcing STR from AGL from CON is also artificial. It's just a matter of which level of abstraction makes your brain hum in a fun way. :smile:
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I don’t like GURPS either for that reason...not to mention it’s called GURPS.
 
Bunch said:
You have to talk to Mankcam Mankcam about sheep relations....
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Nah not much sheep where I am here in Queensland. You would have to go further south down to Victoria, but the reputation for 'sheep relations' usually goes to those from Tasmania or New Zealand, heh heh :grin:
 
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Spartan said:
TBF, GURPS only has four base stats, and that doesn't stop it from being extremely robust. I'm not terribly fussed by it personally. Divorcing STR from AGL from CON is also artificial. It's just a matter of which level of abstraction makes your brain hum in a fun way. :smile:
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Because Dancers and Gymnasts have totally the same physique as Marathoners as well as Strongmen and Powerlifters, you can’t even tell them apart. :devil:
 
Gwarh said:
Not to derail my own thread but… how is the "Magic World’ book? I’m aware of it but have never read through it. I suspect it or the Classic Fantasy book by the makers of Mythras will end up being my BRP gateway drug.

I never tire of the Classic D&D tropes done with different RPG engines.
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Magic World (and Stormbringer/Elric before it) were my BRP flavor of choice from the early-90's until a few years ago. I was pretty confident that it would be the game that I'd play for years to come.

But then Mythras came around and shook it's money maker at me. I -liked- what I saw. I pretty much only run Mythras anymore. I do have a couple of house rules because I can't resist the urge to tweak thing. But, yeah.

Also - Lyonesse is incredible. I loved the books and think the game comes pretty damn close to the mark.
 
Mankcam said:
Nah not much sheep where I am here in Queensland. You would have to go further south down to Victoria, but the reputation for 'sheep relations' usually goes to those from Tasmania or New Zealand :grin:
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Dammit I miss remembered where you were. That'll kill an attempt a joke.
 
CRKrueger said:
Because Dancers and Gymnasts have totally the same physique as Marathoners as well as Strongmen and Powerlifters, you can’t even tell them apart. :devil:
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That can get quite fractal, as in a lot of games, powerlifters would immediately be awesome freeclimbers or swimmers. I personally like a bit more distincting, too, but have to agree that pretty much any level of abstraction requires hand-waving. Skills matter, stats don't.
 
Endless Flight said:
I don’t even like just four attributes.
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Yeah, four is silly nonsense, really.

The thing about stats is, for a lot of systems, there is no “too many stats” because how they are used is pretty painless to adjust. Also, I find the more specific the stats are, the easier it becomes to apply them logically to skills or modifiers without having to generalise or just ignore the cracks.
 
Sosthenes said:
That can get quite fractal, as in a lot of games, powerlifters would immediately be awesome freeclimbers or swimmers. I personally like a bit more distincting, too, but have to agree that pretty much any level of abstraction requires hand-waving. Skills matter, stats don't.
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Generally speaking, Skills are more important, but Stats can play a part in other mechanics besides skills.
There's handwaving sure...and then there's having one stat to explain the difference between Kristi Yamaguchi and Andre the Giant. :grin:
 
Bunch said:
Dammit I miss remembered where you were. That'll kill an attempt a joke.
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In addition to the usual dodgy 'children of convicts' trope, I usually tell Americans to basically just apply Canadian jokes for general Aussies.
Also retrap any joke usually aimed at the US Gulf States if you want to land a volley specifically here in Queensland, heh heh :grin:
 
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Mankcam said:
In addition to the usual dodgy 'children of convicts' trope, I usually tell Americans to basically just apply Canadian jokes for general Aussies.
Also retrap any joke usually aimed at the US Gulf States if you want to land a volley specifically here in Queensland, heh heh :grin:
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I should have said Australia, New Zealand what's the difference. Nothing! It's like the USA and Canada....
 
burbles said:
OK, but what four stats do you use to differentiate them?

'Sheep' is obvioiusly now one, but is it the only physical stat you need, or is it even a physical stat?
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Size. because we all know it matters but maybe not the way some think.
 
RPG PUB

SIZ. USA
INT. CAN
WIS. NZ
POW. UK
CHA. AU
DEX. Other

Add all attributes to calculate SWO Pts
:thumbsup:






(PS: Addit - not sure what I was on about, its been a long shift and the above made sense q few min ago, but upon reflection, not as much now... :grin:)
 
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I'm debating buying the Ruin Masters book in hardcover. Anyone actually play it?
 
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