This was a really well done rundown. I got a pretty decent idea of this system. Its a real talent to be able to do this kind of thing, and communicate relivent information in an understandable way, kudos!
I'm just now _looking into_ Forbidden Lands. I _hate_ D&D. I started out okay with it, then learned it and became increasingly disenchanted with it until ultimately just coming to hate it. For dozens of reasons. I really, really don't want to play that one particular game ever again if I can help it. And along with D&D, I have a strong dislike for games that tend to imitate it. PF is a no-go for me. I respect the company that makes PF, but that game isn't for me. The upcoming Not-D&D game Daggerheart seems very, very much like just D&D with the serial numbers filed off. I guess we'll see when it's released, but right now it's well within the "yuck" zone. But OSR-style games can often enough bypass that. They're just a different beast. They try different things and aren't as rigid with rules, typically don't push combat as hard. Forbidden Lands might not be a game I wind up playing... but it's certainly something I'm looking at. I like that it's more of a survival game, it's not about being a generic DC comic book hero with a medieval palette swap and none of the fun of playing a comic book superhero. Forbidden Lands (FL) has an innate focus on exploration and an indirect focus on roleplay -- because foregoing RP will probably get your character killed a lot sooner. And I also like that it's smaller scale for power -- as far as I've seen, you're never going to be superhuman. You don't get to a point where the things you were fighting at the start are a non-threat. But you establish yourself and can put up barriers to that threat (your stronghold, allies, etc) to give you breathing room. I also have this morbid curiosity in taking some of the D&D published adventures I have -- where I don't want to play the game they were made for -- and adapt them to another system. Mostly adapt the _gist_ of them. I don't want to copy the exact experience as, again, they tend to focus overly much on just fighting things to the death. Also, I like the challenge of adapting something meant for an entirely different kind of play. So, for instance, how would I adapt, let's say *Storm King's Thunder* to FL? Or *Tomb of Annihilation?* I'll have to bring the over-the-top power levels way down, but that's fine. I'll need to adapt the locations and primary characters to ones that better fit into the FL landscape and theme. Magic items need to be brought down in scope and made rarer and more dangerous. When I'm done with it, I'm not sure anyone would recognize the adventure unless I let them know what it was based on, and then they might start seeing the connections. Of couse, I'd prefer to run FL as intended first. It has a whole history and I love the more viking-esque settlements and people in place of the more English / Western Europe (but cartoonish) setting of D&D.
I definitely get it. I still play plenty of D&D, but the thing to remember is that it (as well as PF and similar) are skirmish/strategy/war games which developed a layer of narrative, roleplaying, and worldbuilding on top. This means most D&D campaigns and scenarios assume you'll fight a series of increasingly tough battles, and use force often. It doesn't need to be played that way, but it's the pattern the rules facilitate best. Look at the amount of the character sheet, class abilities, game rules, equipment, and spells that are explicitly related to combat. Something like Forbidden Lands has its roots in a different place. It's built from the ground up to be about survival, exploration, horror, mystery, and sandboxing from a loose outline. Different game, different expectations. If you play FL and you set out to have a big cinematic, tactical, complex boss battle in interesting terrain with diverse enemies where all your players have to communicate and coordinate, you're probably going to feel like it's clunky, limiting, repetitive, or difficult to manage. Similarly, if you are playing D&D and want the players to feel terrified, fragile, resource-starved, and cautious, you're going to have to think outside the box, and then often feel disappointed when they use some spell or item to diffuse the tension you were trying to create. There are dozens of amazing RPGs that facilitate different types of stories. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't branch out from D&D as much as they probably should, since it's the default entry point to the hobby and can be engaging for a long time on its own. My advice if you decide to adapt a D&D scenario to FL is: Keep the spirit of the story, the setting, the mood, and the characters intact. Don't feel obligated to port in every fight, map, item, or ability. Draw inspiration, not mechanics.
Really great video. Great DM style. I will be borrowing some ideas for my home game. Cheers for the great content. I look forward to watching the rest.
"Chump who buys all the books" oof got me there! 🤣 Bundle of Holding has Ars 5 and a TON of expansions for bundles this month (5x bundles total!) I wanted to see if it's worth picking up so thanks for the vid! :D
The French edition being comparatively more recently produced is blessed with imo better arts. It still doesn't set the tone of the game at all, but at least it's not actively trying to ruin your experience with how ugly it is.
Ah, Ars Magica. The game that sent me on my quest to make my own TTRPG that evokes many of the same feelings and has just a much flexibility (if not more) while also being way more streamlined. It has been a year since I began, and it will likely be a year hence before I am done. That being said, if anyone reads this do me a favor: reply with what emotions Ars Magica evokes(d) in you that you most enjoyed.
oh man! can you make more of these for ars magica?!! I'm about to play for the first time and this little video was so helpful fr, I'd be interested in a lil run down of the houses, more history and any other cool stuff you can make a quick vid on? great vid !
A gazillion maybe RU-vid videos to maybe comment on. But no one needs necroposts to videos from 2018. If you play role games, you've seen plenty of drama from 2023 :) I LIKE D&D, but I would love to see Hasbro fail to survive 2024 as a vender of the game. That all said, I have all the editions, and most of the D&D sort of designs. Big fan of Basic Fantasy Role-playing Game. It's about as nice as it gets for price in hardcover. If you love D&D. But here it is mid Februrary of 2024, and regardless of how much energies I have invested in D&Sish efforts, I am doing what I should have done when I discovered Forbidden Lands. I have put into storage everything (all my rpgs) with the exception of my DM tools and toys and I'm going to stick with Forbidden Lands. 2 only books. Very superior hardcovers. 2 more books if you treat yourself to Raven's Purge or Bitter Reach. 4 only books. I don't see the design doing the Hasbro give us all your money splurge of as many items as is humanly possible. And Hasbro might not be able to do that as well in the future. Why pick Forbidden Lands? Are the awards not convincing enough? It's nice to have a truly fresh start for the usual races and classes in a setting that isn't tired from being used for more than 30 years. Your players will actually need to think before they act. Because all they know from D&D won't do them much good here. The elves and dwarves are not the same. The orcs are different. No that's not a gnoll it's a wolfkin. You might actually get along with that goblin. Magic only seems similar. Nope, no save the world quests, you are just trying to get by. And the best part, your players won't need to buy a pile of books.
We've had an Ars Magica game going as our main game for over three years, playing about one session a week, taking breaks for summers and christmas. We've covered 15 in-game years so far, and we're having a blast. We're taking turns being the storyteller, so every player in our group has their own mage and laboratory. It's probably the game with the greatest longevity our group has ever played.
That's great, love to see people actually playing. Lots of games look appealing on paper then are hard to execute in practice. A.M. has stuck with our group because of how well it actually worked. I wish more people would get their feet wet with it.
Thanks a lot for this vid. There is so few material about this great game. Lot of said about this wonderful magic system I want to contribute a different aspect of Ars Magica very few people have in mind when talking about it. Ars Magica 5th Ed has one of the very best combat and wound systems I ever came across. It is fast simple and pretty elegant to cover it up. So much fun and thrill even to play a dungeon crawl with Ars Magica.
Dc.... discord? Yep, it's linked in about if you want to come say hey. Dc... some abbreviation for the game project, it's ongoing (halfway done). I'll be streaming a lot more chunks of it this week.
For anyone who wants to get into Ars Magica but can't get a group together, check out Mythic Gamemaster Emulator, it's a rulebook to allow you to play any TTRPG solo. I've been using it to get the hang of the rules before I run a group game.
I only just recently found Ars Magica, and I'm getting a group together to play it. I'm having so much fun already just through character creation and the game setup, reading the extra rulebooks that help out for the part of the world we're going to play in. We've added Hedge Magic, and one player who didn't want to deal with the whole magic system complexity is playing a Folk Witch. We're also adding in the Covenents supplement to have detailed labs, the Hibernan tribunal book since we're in ireland, and the realms of power faerie so that I have stuff to pull on for all the fey magic that'll be happening in the game. I'm so excited for the game.
