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Showing posts from February, 2018

Ruma: Dawn of Empire

Ruma is a Powered by the Apocalypse game about a Roman Empire that is facing off against supernatural threats summoned by it barbarian neighbours. Players take the role of characters who are confronting those threats. The rules introduce Latin-flavoured playbooks that reflect various roles in historical Roman society and within the Legions. Irritatingly Ruma introduces some alternative names and spellings for the various countries and peoples of its world. It tries to put some fictional distance from history but not in a way that adds to the historical roots. While flawed as a narrative campaign Hunters of Alexandria did a better job of blending the historic and supernatural fantasy of its world. Apocalypse World, as a ruleset, seems appropriate to the environment, the Empire is powerful but besieged by threats that seek to overthrow it. Characters will win big eventually but the costs will be high. Ruma's fundamental problem for me is that I'm not sure why this isn

Clink

Clink ( Kickstarter campaign ) is the game of Drifters who have come together for some specific purpose. It's meant for short games that test the resolve of the characters and see whether they will remain true to their purpose and achieve their goals or give up in the face of the obstacles they face and the weight of past failures. The system is custom to the game and relatively straight-forward. It works on coin flips with heads being a "mostly succeeds" result and tails being "the situation gets worse". The characters have rules that allow them to flip another coin in the hope of getting a complete success in the form of double heads. The special rules are elegant and drive the story. The central one being the Creed of the group, the reason and motivation why the group are together. When characters act towards their Creed they gain a coin. In addition the characters have Triggers, behaviours that are deeply ingrained but unhelpful. They feel more like bad habi