Is Salvage Union the best OSR mech game? - RPG Review

Подписаться 33 тыс.

Просмотров 35 тыс.

50% 1

Back Infaernum on Gamefound!
bit.ly/InfaernumGamefound
Get Salvage Union in PDF on DrivethruRPG (affiliate):
preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/p...
Get Salvage Union in PDF on itch.io:
leyline-press.itch.io/salvage...
Get Salvage Union in print and PDF from Leyline Press:
leyline.press/collections/sal...
Salvage Union Soundtrack:
• Salvage Union Original...
00:00 Intro
01:45 Sponsor: Infaernum on Gamefound: bit.ly/InfaernumGamefound
03:02 Salvage Union physical books
05:51 Salvage Union review
22:57 Thoughts and Conclusion
____________________________________
✅All my stuff ✅
www.thaumavore.com
🔮Dave Thaumavore’s RPG Links🔮
(purchases help the channel!)
open.substack.com/pub/thaumav...
📦My Amazon Shop📦
(purchases help the channel!)
www.amazon.com/shop/davethaum...
------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
Patreon Supporters
Regnant Thaumavorians
mawburn -- bit.ly/gaslandsdice
Doug Vieira
Mr. Universe - www.realmsoflegacy.com
Otavio Lessa - www.minds-vision.com
Mike - / charactercache
Lordship Thaumavorians
William Davis
Savant Thaumavorians
Targrus
Allen Varney
Nick Louie
Daniel Goupil
Nawid Ayobi
Ian Rugg
Keith
Nathan
Padde
Walter
Raye Leon
John Wood
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
Support the channel
Patreon: / thaumavore
Thaumavore Community
Newsletter sign-up: bit.ly/ThaumavoreNewsletter
Dave’s Publications
Fluxfall Horizon, a parallel Earths RPG bit.ly/Fluxfall
Age of Snakes, an Index Card RPG expansion bit.ly/AgeOfSnakes
The Turnip Knights, a D&D 5e and Index Card RPG one-shot bit.ly/TurnipKnights
A Book of Witches, a rules-agnostic guide to all things witches bit.ly/ABookOfWitches

Игры

Опубликовано:

4 июн 2024

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист

Посмотреть позже

Комментарии : 137

@DaveThaumavore Месяц назад

Support the channel by joining my Patreon! www.patreon.com/thaumavore Sign up for my newsletter! bit.ly/ThaumavoreNewsletter

@KarmaSpaz12 Месяц назад

Remember, if you have a giant chonky monster with lots of HP your party doesn't have to fight it continuously. Maybe the monster is rampaging through a city and topples a building between it and the players meaning they have to get back to it later.

@samurguybriyongtan146 Месяц назад

Or maybe it flies. away or flees and pops up again later? The focus of a big chunk of the campaign.

@Nitram4392 Месяц назад

Or the monster in more of an eviromental hazard you should prob. avoid.

@opscontaylor8195 Месяц назад

"I know that there are more Mech RPGs out there than just Lancer but that's just one of the highest profile ones out there..." BattleTech: "Am I nothing to you?"

@mariodosantos Месяц назад

In Dave's defence Battletech is a wargame first and an RPG second.

@opscontaylor8195 Месяц назад

@@mariodosantos True, but it does have two different RPGs tied to it (the HEAVY crunch A Time of War or the more lightweight and narrative Mechwarrior Destiny). That said, really digging the vibe on this one. Might have to see if I can get a copy.

@cybermerlyn2 Месяц назад

@@mariodosantos Great point, most of the OG rpgs were wargames before they were ttrpgs.

@Riley-uy5pe Месяц назад

a person of taste and culture

@TheOldDragoon Месяц назад

It might have been a wagame first, but we have done several long-running MechWarrior RPGs, and are currently running one, in which most of the time is out-of-cockpit doing character driven stuff. The battles are sort of punctuation marks to the roleplay.

@TableplantGames Месяц назад

I broke my rule on preordering for salvage union and I don't regret it. The presentation is excellent, the mech designs are awsome, and the customisation is simple but still feels impactful. That last part is esspecially important since being able to customise your big stompy robot to your hearts content is a big draw to mech games like Mechwarrior, Armoured Core, and Lancer, so I was happy to see that SU's mech building was simple, but still manages to prompt more than a few intresting decisions on what to bolt on, and what to leave in the 'Bay. Also, the designs remind me of HAWKEN's mechs (I miss that game 😞)

@sefatsilverlake3816 Месяц назад

Bro I loved HAWKEN too ahead of its time.

@TableplantGames Месяц назад

@@epone3488 I have played it: I was part of of a open table campaign hosted by Layline Press on their discord. I was a (slightly pyromanical) mechanic with a mech created using the rules in the book. I don't think we had all of the roles covered in all of our games but it still worked realitively well (apart from falling off a few cliffs but that was more down to poor judgement). Overall, I enjoyed myself. While I understand the issue about the flat D20 rolls, and I should really have put a caveat in my original comment that it is very rules light, I'm not entirely sure about roles being overly restrictive considering my experience with the game.

@spuckett2489 Месяц назад

@@TableplantGamesIt's likely we played together; I played "Mother" Sara Homestead. One key point to make about SU's KS campaign is that when Leyline realized an A5 book would be too thick and unwieldy, they redesigned the 300+ page core book for bigger pages and changed to, IIRC, B5 format. All of the art gets more room to breathe, the core book is still a delightfully chonky tome, etc. Leyline opted for quality over cost and that's a key point to make here.

@blainetaggart6736 Месяц назад

Thank you for sharing. You are the number one place I to go to for descriptions and reviews of RPGs! Lancer rules intimidated me and it's tactical gaming overshadows the role-playing aspects. My first RPG was Robotech from way back in the 1980's, we played "theater of the mind" style. Still,it was all about mech battles and later we moved on to games where character interaction had more value. I think Salvage Union could be the thing that could get me back into playing a mech RPG. Also, the idea of mechs in a scrappy post-apocalyptic setting has grown on me.

@spuckett2489 Месяц назад

SU is 100% TOTM, and often starts with a job offer. Sometimes it's helping out a community trying to scrape out an existence in the wastes, sometimes it's a corpo, etc. With that said, VERY few things are required content - you can make or hack just about anything once you have a feel for stuff.

@_mawburn Месяц назад

I freaking love the way this game reads and it's definitely going to make it to my real life table at some point. I'm sad you didn't mention how well it combines genres. It mixes Post Apoc + Diesel Punk + Cyberpunk themes really really well.

@Kanakadea Месяц назад

I tried really hard to like this game-as well as Lancer. But it just made me want to play Battletech instead.

@baitposter Месяц назад

As someone who's never played a mech ttrpg, what are a couple key differences between each?

@chrisessick7192 Месяц назад

@@baitposteridk about lancer, but I’ve played the battletech RPG before. It’s… a lot. At least from what I remember, it’s a very heavy, detailed ruleset more in the style of the Warhammer or call of Cthulhu. It’s also BASICALLY separate from the actual mech combat battletec rules. So basically you are playing two separate games, one in the mechs and one outside them.

@ehansultan Месяц назад

what’s your issue with lancer? I’m interested in trying it, are there any big issues?

@marcar9marcar972 Месяц назад

@@ehansultanSo two issues. It’s a game that doesn’t allow for a lot of creativity. Like all the creativity is in the rule book and character creation vs action the player can decide to spontaneously take so combat ends up like D&D where the player takes the same action each turn (like wizard casting fireball). Second issue is its communist propaganda.

@shinobiighost6946 Месяц назад

@@ehansultan Giving money to tankies is just wrong, it's insulting to them.

@juauke Месяц назад

Looks real good, I love the setting and the simplicity of the system! Another one for my wishlist!

@MrBsberzerker Месяц назад

This seems like a Into the Breach RPG. The idea of the players controlling the crawler also is interesting and I think I like it, also it makes sense as a means to get new player characters.

@csgunn007 Месяц назад

I have to remind my wife to "not be intimidated by its thickness."

@raff3486 Месяц назад

lmao

@kuraishinobi Месяц назад

😂

@kornwallsdiceandadvice3538 23 дня назад

Yea she always gets nervous when I pull out my DCC core rulebook

@kornwallsdiceandadvice3538 23 дня назад

Yea I she always gets nervous when I pull out my DCC core rulebook

@deProfundisAdAstra Месяц назад

This sounds incredible, and is precisely the kind of thing I've been looking for for a loooong time. Thanks so much for showing it off! Buying it now!

@cowking1st Месяц назад

Implus bought. Books look ascethically nice. And I've always like OSR style games like TROIKA. Finally the less laser focus on combat for a Mecha game looks neat.

@user-ty1it5gz4v Месяц назад

Tiny Mecha and Monsters is another good rules-light game, scalable from narrative TotM to tactics on a grid. Mechs and kaijus are built using basically the same rules, just with different tables. If you want to play out something like Pacific Rim, or that one episode of LD&R, without getting bogged down by rules - this one's for you.

@timothyyoung2962 Месяц назад

I love Lancer's lore and art... big fan of Kill Six Billion Demons... but I just can't get into ANY game... RPG, board games, or mini game... where I need an app to build a character/mech/whatever because it is so complicated. I just can't.

@DaveThaumavore Месяц назад

It’s a joy for some, nightmare for others.

@obamabiden Месяц назад

to be honest as someone who owns a lot of mech rpgs I'd say it's a lot simpler than the average older mech RPG, it just unlike those games recognises that it isn't really any fun to play them without substantial computer support (Obviously its much more complicated than a pared-down storygame style mech rpg like armour astir or apocalypse frame, but that's cheating slightly) it's also as a side benefit one of the most likely games for you to be able to convince people who only play 5e with DNDbeyond to give a try lol

@ChrisKChandler Месяц назад

This review was really really well done, thank you!

@himurogentoku7117 Месяц назад

Salvage Union is a lovely game!

@razorboy251 Месяц назад

Sold! Picking up the physical book + PDF right now! Might pick up adventures later through the affiliate link (curiously the adventures seem cheaper on DTRPG than on publisher's site, maybe that's just me though?).

@chromeego7903 Месяц назад

The ones on DTRPG are just the PDF the ones on the website include the physical book too.

@marcbenson1969 Месяц назад

Thank you for this video. i was unaware of this game and have now purchased it.

@AxiomsNArrows Месяц назад

Have Played, and run the Mech system as an addon to other systems. Easy to learn.

@olivergre1054 8 дней назад

Do you have some tips for beginners who want to do exactly that?

@AxiomsNArrows 7 дней назад

@@olivergre1054 Dont get caught up in how systems don't fit together, just use them for what they do well

@Wurgebloarf Месяц назад

I am sold on this, that setting is brilliant.

@Cardith 25 дней назад

Been loving this game, it’s awesome

@sergeigen1 Месяц назад

can we appreciate the layouts and nice graphic design of the book ? chefs kiss

@santiagofantoni2643 Месяц назад

No.

@PhilKingstonByron Месяц назад

Nice Review - well done.

@mateofantasma Месяц назад

This is a great review. I supported the Kickstarter for the art and layout mostly. I also find their class design very interesting . Have not played with it yet but just love to look at the book and read it for inspiration.

@Seidravn Месяц назад

Thank you for reminding me that I was planning on picking this game up. Like, tomorrow.

@Demonskunk Месяц назад

This seems like an interesting time. Might need to check it out.

@walterw9829 Месяц назад

I backed the Kickstarter and am waiting to play it with my group.

@christianschweda2530 Месяц назад

Never heard of it, sounds very interesting, will take a closer look. Thanks for sharing!

@TheBoboni Месяц назад

Immediate buy, thanks man!

@fun_kay 25 дней назад

This system seems to deal with lancers scale and reasource issues quite well

@mariodosantos Месяц назад

Great production value and art. I'm still not a 100% sold on the simple d20 mechanic. You don't add bonuses to any roll no matter how skilled you are. You only roll when there is uncertainty of outcome so its mostly an "oracle roll". I believe its a self imposed paradigm I have to get over to play this game yet its still the main reason i haven't pulled the trigger on it.

@kyang321 Месяц назад

I was also surprised that it was just a flat roll. I would assume this is where it leans on the "rulings over rules" aspect. It's up to the GM to adjust the side effects of the outcomes based on the GM's interpretation of the situation and abilities of the PC.

@himurogentoku7117 Месяц назад

@@kyang321That's a great insight! The GMs should adjust the consequences of the roll. Thank you, Kyang!

@josephkrausz9557 Месяц назад

This is the same problem with the original Quest. My suggestion would be to alter the possible outcomes, using something like position/effect from BitD or what Chris McDowall writes about in regard to difficulty in Into the Odd. Basically, the possibilities of success are judged at the outset by the GM.

@spuckett2489 Месяц назад

I mean, character skill is reflected in the abilities they get that allow them to try things, so being able to attempt it at all because you took a skill IS the bonus, in a way. Does that make sense?

@josephkrausz9557 Месяц назад

@@spuckett2489 I've never played Salvage Union, but in Quest this was indeed a problem in cases where the special skills weren't relevant. Every character was exactly the same. And in some adventures, certain character classes' skills would be entirely irrelevant, or at least the skills that were chosen by the players, so the character wouldn't really have anything special about them mechanically at all.

@nimlouth Месяц назад

This one is a certified banger, it hits absolutely everything I love. It's way too awesome!

@raff3486 Месяц назад

Great review

@Shiyaku93 26 дней назад

This looks fantastic. Definitely going on my list... along with Cy_Borg, into the Odd, Alien RPG, Mothership and CoC

@kalleendo7577 Месяц назад

Awesome!!

@Jescribano1 Месяц назад

Pretty interesting one, would love to read the manual!

@TheTwyker Месяц назад

This is straight up the best mech game for me. Lancer is too crunchy and dense and has too little RP supported by the rules and Beam Saber is on the other side of the spectrum. Salvage Union feels like a more grounded approach with quick rules but surprising depth once you get more into it.

@2isaacisaac Месяц назад

Love it!

@megasquidd Месяц назад

Great video, Dave.. the collector in me loves you, but my wallet hates you...

@feral_orc Месяц назад

Well as long as I don't have to do Lancer combat but still get customization I'll probably be happy.

@Pyromanemac 28 дней назад

These OSR games look super interesting and Id love to give some a try. But, i dont think my group would be interested in a campaign. Can these be done as a few hour one shots?

@DaveThaumavore 27 дней назад

Yeah the rules are quite simple. One shots are totally feasible.

@leylinepress Месяц назад

Thanks for the great review of Salvage Union!

@kornwallsdiceandadvice3538 23 дня назад

Wait I could reflavor this as power rangers!

@nutherefurlong Месяц назад

It's that dividing line that made me wary of Lancer. Initially I was a bit wary of this game, feeling maybe it was too light, but it does seem to have a lot more going on than I thought based on the free preview they had. Was surprised to learn it was related to Quest. Does the game offer variations on the one resolution mechanism, modifiers or altered results, or is that table true the whole time?

@spuckett2489 Месяц назад

That table is true all the time, unless you make a ruling. SU is deceptively rules-light - when I made a PDF of classes, skills, & pilot gear for Tech Levels 1&2, and Tech Level 1&2 mechs and equipment, I apologized to the players for how big both PDFs were (something like 40-50 pages EACH), but those choices expand player agency. Each mech chassis allows for a LOT of player choices about loadouts, and the loadout alters what you can do. At one point early on in the playtest, the party was getting ready to fight a bunch of mutated ants. I asked Panny if, since I had a rigging arm on my mech, I could lift an ant corpse and throw it to draw their attention and let us pass. That just happened, no roll required.

@enxman7697 Месяц назад

Does the provided soundtracks can be used in actual plays, or one risk copyrights strikes?

@DaveThaumavore Месяц назад

You’ll have to ask Greg. Maybe contact him through Bandcamp. gregillidge.bandcamp.com/

@enxman7697 Месяц назад

@@DaveThaumavore thanks!

@Delmworks Месяц назад

Mech combat without 30 pages of excess rulings? Gimme!

@claudiaborges8406 Месяц назад

Im surprised the custom dice don’t have icons for every type of result instead of numbers

@DaveThaumavore Месяц назад

Indeed! That was a missed opportunity.

@danmorgan3685 Месяц назад

This game does look interesting.

@harrigantube Месяц назад

Brilliant game, glad to see it get some love!

@8lackz Месяц назад

I am on a Mech Hack campaign while ghe game is good, the options is lacking

@blingusblongus161 27 дней назад

I want mecha hack to be better than it is, you can make cool builds but progression is lacking

@PotatoPhoenix Месяц назад

Contrarian that i am now i realy wan us an osr styl rlset to run a campaign in this setting where the players are a littl mor mundane

@Firebringer121 Месяц назад

@18:56 Oh fumble you! (This is meant to be tongue in Cheek) You know what they meant. Honestly I could see rigging up a table for things your Crawler wants or needs, and/or hack in something that can take away some of the players control if the group wants deeper interaction on that level.

@tomoyuukinue2185 Месяц назад

cool. a mech game that is not crunchy

@_mawburn Месяц назад

I wouldn't say it's crunchy, but I think it's a little more complicated than Dave made it seem.

@St_M_ Месяц назад

Thank you for referencing the OG Mech Daddy game at least in passing rather than pretending the inexplicably popular anime trash ghetto mecha "rpg" is all there is.

@popcorn6310 Месяц назад

When showing pictures of an rpg book do you have to ask for permission?

@DaveThaumavore Месяц назад

Under U.S. law, not under the Fair Use Doctrine. You’ll have to google it, though. Too much to type.

@popcorn6310 Месяц назад

@@DaveThaumavore thanks

@leylinepress Месяц назад

We at least have no issue with anyone using images from our RPG books for reviews, actual plays and any other coverage.

@bearnaff9387 Месяц назад

@@leylinepress You do have issues with "cooties by association" ethics and taking credit from people, though.

@ChrisKChandler Месяц назад

@@bearnaff9387, hahaha, this is a curious place to make your courageous stand and make unsubstantiated and subjective accusations. But hey, it's the Internet, what can we really expect when it comes to quality discourse?

@johnconstantine433 Месяц назад

In LANCER the story/adventure DO matter tho. Why you fight is more important than the fight itself in combat focused games

@loconius Месяц назад

You forgot the link to the soundtrack :-(

@DaveThaumavore Месяц назад

ru-vid.com/group/OLAK5uy_m8SIaa02-a-zELA66FuLZURP9XSzIY4Js&si=BfHjjb624Y6LExzO

@trollpatsch. Месяц назад

Maaan.... this sounds so fun that I fear I'll buy it and have it gather dust in my shelf anyway... Edit: I bought it.........

@MrVargeth 19 дней назад

Last year they had a minor scandal after they fired an editor for working for another company they don't like. iirc they even removed him from credits. The other company was Lotfp

@talon12020 Месяц назад

Maybe it's just me but this seems way more suited to be played as a CRPG than a TTRPG. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Mech Engineer on PC.

@TheBardSM Месяц назад

Other than the rulings/rules, which is not something exlusive to any system, there is nothing about this that is OSR.

@samuelbourassa5304 Месяц назад

My interest in Leyline Press and their product vanished when they fired an editor (and removed his credits) because they discovered that he had worked on Lamentations of the Flame Princess before. I never played it nor do I have interest in it, but this whole affair and their response made me run the other way.

@iank1419 Месяц назад

According to LLP, they fired the freelancer because they were “currently” working on LotFP. The owner of LotFP is a gross dude who defended a really toxic abuser when everyone else in the community realized he needed to be kicked out. Plenty of people worked on LotFP before it that stuff came out, and cut ties as a result. If I was Leyline Press, *I* sure wouldn’t want my company associated with abusers or their enablers.

@samuelbourassa5304 Месяц назад

@@iank1419 That's not what I had read/heard at the time of the controversy, but it's possible. And I know from hearsay that the owner of LotFP has a terrible reputation. But Leyline had apologized for not vetting the editor before bringing him on board, which to me reinforced the idea that the editor *had* worked with LotFP. And even if they did, I understand deciding not to work with someone anymore if they're actively working with someone that does things against your values. But I was shocked at the idea of removing credits for work that was done. But I'd be open to clarification as if they kept his work or not. If they did, he should absolutely credited.

@bobbyhazard3919 Месяц назад

@@iank1419how did they “defend” said person? They cut ties with that individual and stopped selling their work.

@iank1419 Месяц назад

I agree that generally speaking, people deserve to credited for their labor regardless of their moral character, just like they deserve to be paid. OTOH, I think it’s possible that the editor in question agreed to have their name removed from the credits. Because then the alternative is LLP specifically naming them and saying “John Doe did work on this book but we think he sucks and isn’t representative of our values”. But there are a number of details here that are not public (or at least, easy to find), so it’s hard to say for sure.

@iank1419 Месяц назад

Except after they supposedly cut ties with him, they published a book called *Zak Has Nothing To Do With This Book*, which was a thinly-veiled defense of the individual, probably ghostwritten by them. Also, that guy’s books are up for sale on DriveThru again, with LotFP listed as the publisher. So yeah, I have no interest in giving that company more of my money, or associating with people who do.

@sandman6088 Месяц назад

Nah, screw Leyline Press for not giving credit to one of their editors just because they happened to have done editing work for some risqué games. It's tough to make a living in the TTRPG industry, and it's shitty to strip away someone's credit.

@Minodrec Месяц назад

If only they didn't fire an editor purely on badly assumed politics. Virtue signaling is bad. Doing it by firing an editor for something someone else he might have worked with might have done is unforgivable.

@gadellomagnollo1810 Месяц назад

OSR has officially lost all meaning.

@grognardgaming8952 9 дней назад

It's a neat game but why are we calling everything OSR nowadays? There's nothing really OSR about it. Also, the commie slogan showing up in the book 3 times and the rules book and only module I ran having a few contradictions were kinda annoying. The biggest issue was it was hard to run combats unless you had printouts with load out for enemy mechs or you were doing a TON of page flipping

@PaganPilot Месяц назад

I am not going to support a company that tries to destroy their own contracted freelancer(editor)'s career just because he worked for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, thats some problematic toxic crap. Full stop.