Call of Cthulhu? Why don't you stop calling Cthulhu for a change, give the guy a rest, and take a look at Vaesen instead. Support Quinns Quest and get extra videos at / qquest Buy Vaesen here: freeleaguepublishing.com/game...
Hello! Free League co-founder here, designer of the Year Zero Engine and editor of Vaesen. Thanks for that interesting and entertaining review! We always strive to improve and constructive criticism is always appreciated. That said, there are some things in the review that I'd like to comment on. Firstly, what was to become the "Year Zero Engine" was written about a decade ago, and the principle of "yes but...", or "fail forward," i.e. the idea that no single failed dice roll should block progress of the story, was very much part of the game system philosophy from the very beginning. And it is the case in Vaesen as well (released in 2020) - in fact, this is discussed at some length on page 40 of the core rulebook. Yes, the official adventures do require skill rolls to unlock information in some cases, as we do want knowledge skills to matter in this game (and this is hardly unique for Vaesen). But such information, behind a "dice wall", is, while useful, never essential to proceed with the story - or if it is essential, there are always other ways to gain the same clue. This principle of adventure design, about central clues vs peripheral clues, is discussed at length on pages 176-178 in the core book. I'd be interested to know which adventure you were running where a failed dice roll to gain information completely derailed or blocked the story? Yes, Investigation and Manipulation are important skills, perhaps the most important in the game, but most if not all of the official adventures do offer other challenges as well, using Learning, Stealth, Agility or combat skills. Combat can happen against vaesen, but more often against other humans. As for the players learning about vaesen - I loved your homebrewed compendium with vaesen knowledge! In fact, we encourage players to use the art (and fact) book Vaesen (on which the RPG is based) or other books on folklore in exactly this way - the characters have the Sight and know vaesen after all, and have access to information about them. However, having the players themselves poring over text like this at the table to figure out which vaesen they are up against and how to overcome it can, while fun, be quite time consuming at the table. That's why many of the official adventures also offer a simple Learning roll to unlock the characters' own expertise (but again, failing this roll will not block progress). Yes, many details about the vaesen are left vague or not described at all in the core game book. This is intentional, as the creatures of old folklore could take many forms and can appear in different forms in different adventures. This is not like a bestiary in a traditional fantasy RPG. All that said - while we are very happy with Vaesen and many players out there are enjoying it, we do appreciate the feedback and will consider it carefully if we were to make a second edition of the game. So thank you. :)
It would be really helpful if you could make the original book ("Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore") available in an affordable English-language edition (preferably via Amazon). It is hard to justify paying as much for it as the game itself just to use it as a diegetic prop within a game.
To be completely fair i do not agree with many of Quinns criticisms here and think that leaving the game open-ended and needing GM to figure some things out and fill in some gaps is often a better approach than to provide ready-to-go solutions. I believe that makes my Vaesen different to somebody else's and gives game more mystery, while also giving the GM more work, yes, but also more space to make the story their own. First Quinn's review that i strongly disagree with.
It's so weird to think how the Gumshoe system's revelation of "if you have the appropriate investigation skill, you automatically find a clue, but you can still roll to find MORE clues" hasn't been picked up by other games.
You shouldn't need a skill at all imho. I run CoC describing the visible clues without rolling and if an players asks to search in a specific place or something like that they'll also find it without a roll given enough time. So I try to make rolls come in only if there's some danger or narrow time limit pressing the PC. Rolling for most clues in CoC & even Gumshoe to a degree make systems out of things that people can achieve naturally, which feels kind of unnecessary in the same way that rolling for every action in a dungeon crawl.
@@Burnedcoffee0 Honestly, I disagree. I've helped Mom look for random missing bits (car keys, the lid for something, whatever) and we've both looked through a place, decided "it's not here," searched the rest of the logical area (house for keys, kitchen for lids, etc), and been thoroughly convinced they weren't there. In the case of lids, we've even assumed that Dad had tossed the lid out, *searched the bin*, and then given up, moved on and only found the lid when we were cleaning up in that place we both declared it definitely could not be. If you're talking a clue to supernatural goings-on rather than something that we know definitely physically exists somewhere in an area, you can bet something that's subtle enough will get missed and a person will leave it behind with 100% confidence they had thoroughly checked the place over and found everything. Observation (or perception or whatever a system calls it) is a real life skill, and while it's partly based on the natural quality of one's senses (a blind person won't see a knife's handle sticking out of its hiding place from across the room, for an obvious example), a lot of it has to do with how you mentally process what you see.
I think it's because not a lot of people actually like it in practice. too much to talk about in youtube comments (good discussion topic) but I'd recommend taking a look at The Alexandrian's article on GUMSHOE's approach (about 11 years old at this point). there's a lot to say about it and I think there's a lot of good insight out there in old creaking forums and new modern game design interviews and articles to put perspective on how GUMSHOE's approach effects not only the way the rules of the game are implemented but also the way a story moves and the conversations at the table. IIRC Vaesen clue finding works very similar to GUMSHOE, though I didn't hear Quinn point that out in this video.
Yeah, it is so ingrained in my brain, that I never have my players leave without a vital clue. In this case, I can recommend to read p. 40 in the Vaesen core rule book. It says it right there. (Edited for the correct page number :D )
Appreciate the focus on a problem I have with a lot of RPGs: The developers give you all the fun bits (monsters, special powers, etc.) and then does absolutely nothing to help with the heavy lifting of actually using all those fun bits in practice.
I let my players always host a part of aspect of an adventure, so we all carry the burden and experience the riddle, and increase differences in approaches.
@@sefatsilverlake3816 Mothership's Wardens Operation Manual is a great resource for learning how to run a compelling sci-fi horror session and campaign, and a lot of it is transferable to most adventure/action/horror games.
It really reminds me very pleasantly of an old series about Sci-Fi, Fantasy, comics and related stuff called Prisoners of Gravity, hosted by Rick Green. It had a similar presentation, though it's gimmick was that the host had built as space ship and escaped the earth, crashed into a space station with only an AI for company, and he'd just pirate broadcast his discussions on whatever aspect of the genres (including author interviews) he felt like talking about that week. And, I mean, that show started in the late 80s, so there the period vibe was entirely natural. Somebody else, 30 years later, talking to me about nerdy stuff through a weird framing device including vhs static and the like - and doing it well - just throws me back in the best way.
@Quinns_Quest very few people have. it lasted 5 seasons here in Canada, but I don't think it ever got broadcast anywhere else, and even here, it seems to have flown under a log of people's radar. Some percentage of it is kicking around on RU-vid, because of course it is.
@@Daemonworks Whoa Prisoners of Gravity reference! That's an artifact of a very specific time and specific (though massive) place! I still remember my mind being blown when I realized that PoG was hosted by the guy who played incompetent neighbour Bill on the Red Green Show (and created that show).
@@AdamDrew Yeah, co-creator/co-writer. The Red Green persona was something Steve Smith had been doing for years, but Green was the other half of making that show, mostly behind the scenes. Honestly, everything Rick's worked on was gold, and he's one of those people who's work was the direct inspiration for folks who are a bit better known. Like few people have heard of Four on the Floor, but it was a major influence on Kids in the Hall.
There’s a perfect book to give to the players for this. It’s called Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore. It goes over every creature, but only gives them flavor text, no stats or confirmed weaknesses. The rpg itself is based on this book, which has the same illustrator.
The only problem is that the book is almost the price of Vaesen core book, and quite hard to get. Vaesen could really benefit from a starter set that would include Vaesen hand-outs with only flavour text based on that book, with some dice, castle layout map and have it for a sensible price. It would really help with the issues Quinns mentions.
@@matttheaxolotl5224I mean, you can order it directly from a swedish viking product company (?) which was the very first Google result. It's $40 plus $13 in shipping so that doesn't address the cost, but it seems easy to get. Still, some of that background lore needs to be in the book.
Robin D Laws writes in his "Adventure" chapbook that Mystery scenarios tend to sell well because of how *hard* they are to write -- the needed amount of internal consistency ups the writing effort. This assessment seems consistent with Quinn's comments on how *hard* it is to run an investigation. The nature of the mystery means the average investigation requires a lot much more preparation than the average "dungeon" scenario.
Currently running Vaesen - I've taken to giving the players a selection of Vaesen cards at the start of the session, including the right one but also a few red herrings. It's helped to allow the players to go "ooh! OOH it's that one!!!" instead of me just asking for a roll
Three Clue Rule from The Alexandrian blog (and RU-vid channel, and the So You Want to be a Game Master book) has a great structure for prepping and running investigative adventures, if anyone is interested
This is such an insightful discussion of the game. I'm absolutely loving everything you've been doing. Thanks for putting so much love and care into each of these videos.
@@massimocole9689 That was when Quinns was suddenly replaced by "Kwinnz" for several episodes with no explanation right? Never did find out what was up with that. Wikipedia has nothing.
God, I loved this more critical review (though I do think your general note dismissing the Year Zero Engine is reductive). So many games often have these mechanics that just do not vibe with what they are going for or extreme detail and focus on things that don't matter for their core fantasy. And by god, I think the average GM advice for most ttrpg books I have read is either nonexistent or just bad. Being a reviewer that actually plays these games, actually tries to play them how they tell you to play them (instead of just inserting your GMing style no matter the game), and calls out when it doesn't work is so important. We need more ttrpg discussion like this.
I agree on all parts. The Free League game system is also still good, for certain games. Like Twilight 2000 or Forbidden Lands? Heck yes. But not something like Vaesen.
@03dashk64 @03dashk64 I've run every Song of Dreams and all of Wicked Secret and honestly I have to disagree. I've always been extremely impressed with how Free League can make such a simple core system feel wildly different by just fiddling around with the system, and I've found it more than sufficient for Vaesen's horror/mystery stories. As far as published mysteries go, yes, you do run into Song of Falling Stars (the one he mentions about Manipulation), but even by just reading what that roll does as written it's easy to devise ways other skills could achieve the same effect, or potentially circumvent it entirely. My players have come at things from WILDLY different angles than the book provides and logically arrive at the correct realization. Or sometimes the correct solution for the completely wrong realization. Honestly, the only "house rule" I've implemented is using Gumshoe's "If they put in the effort to look, they find the first/important clue. Successes are for additional information."
@@03dashk64 i actually found Twilight 2000s version of the system to be extremely fun, the step up instead of dice pool just felt really good for some reason
Vaesen has a whole chapter named The Mystery that explains how to create and run a mystery. Even if you aren't creating the mystery it gives really good advice on how to run one.
The "redacted" versions of statblocks being handed out to players is absolutely genius. I'm going to use that in all of my tabletop games, not just investigation. It's a great way of players sounding really cool and smart without everyone at the table knowing that the GM literally only just told the player "what you know." Then you get the very boring "I relay that to the party."
Seconded! The other benefit is the players get to SEE the AMAZING ART in these monster books that they never read. Gonna do this in my Symbaroum campaign
I really like your fix of giving the characters a monster manual, it was sort of what I was thinking needed to happen. Investigation TTRPGs need a starting point of information about the topic they are investigating. Murder mysteries give info dumps about the murder location or victim. But people understand that a gun or knife are used in a murder, unlike which version of supernatural being is being used in this rpg. And the ability to go back and review the book is not to be disregarded, it is important when trying to gather the right information in a sea of information.
@@FFLegion it kinda does, this whole rpg is based on and set in the universe of Vaesen by Johan Egerkrans, which is a monster book presented in universe, with no mechanics, only lore.
24 дня назад
In some ways I agree, in some I disagree. Maybe it is due to me being a Swede that somewhat likes folklore but I have a basic knowledge of most of the "monsters" and most of my friends would do ok to. But there is also the fact that Nordic, and most other cultures mystical creatures I have read about, are very varied depending on which story you take it from, the time and even region within the culture. A monster manual will often set information in stone for players, whether that is intended or not. I think it is possible to write open monster manuals that points in a direction and don't prescribe things, maybe that book it is based on is like that (my partner have it by I have not read it) but I think much could be done with a simple search online or in a library. But this might be my interest in cultural gaming, for people new to Nordic folklore, that have no interest in reading up on it, there should have been done more to make it easy to get into. Obviously, since people feel that it is missing viral stuff. 😊
It’s really nice reading/watching a good quality critical review where, despite the concerns that Quinns has, i’m still encouraged to pick up the product because the reviewer has had a fair and balanced discussion on its pros and cons. Ultimately, i’m the final arbiter in what games I want to play, and it’s bloody fantastic having a show that understands that and gives me what I should know up front. Thanks Quinns. Doing great work.
Totally appreciated that little segment regarding Metamorphosis Alpha, which I remember being advertised in old Dragon magazines. There sure were a lot fewer RPGs in those days, and some were definitely derivative.
A core difference is that in City of Mist you are *also* one of the creatures and a core part of the story is your arc as a Mythic entity. Though I guess you could think of it more like a gatekeeper campaign, except without all the bureaucracy of the Gatekeepers :D More importantly, CoM actually has a partial success system and doesn't put 90% of the game on the back of one or two skills. City of Mist has issues also, but I found them easier to address. With Vaesen, my experience was pretty much like Quinn's: Lovely game concept but rules I didn't like or find fit to purpose.
Vaesen is the first RPG I bought that I plan to GM based solely on the fact that premise sounds fantastic. After going through the core book I felt a bit overwhelmed though. Having all this special GM-only information but missing lines connecting any of it. As you mention, reading these "secrets" on Vaesen and then feeling puzzled on "how the hell would I even give this very specific information to PCs without simply handing it to them in a convenient book they found back at the castle". Your idea with handing them bestiary pages is actually awesome. My plan is to have them find that convenient "Vaesen" tome in castle's library, but it will be enchanted to only show creatures that PCs have heard about, essentially making it their 19th century Pokedex. And as they figure out more details about each Vaesen or have close-encounters with them, new clues will magically appear on the pages with some words too faded to read. It's a bit convenient but will save me having to figure out why a random NPC would know that they need to hammer nails to tree roots.
Ahaha, the Pokédex is a super fun idea. You could even have it fill up with creatures that brushed past the players or blessed them without them noticing, creating more plot hooks!
@@Quinns_Quest Great idea! I have a sudden urge to give one of the PCs with a particularly nasty dark secret (that's hidden from other players) a terrible nightmare back at the castle, only for them to wake up and see the 80s cliche text appear on the page of Mare: "IT KNOWS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE" leaving other PCs puzzled on what that means. Oh joy.
It may have just been an off the cuff remark, but I would watch an entire campaign about fights in car parks in Northern England, based around Dojos, martial arts, and gangs. That genuinely sounds incredible.
I loooooooooooove Vaesen! I just wish the core book gave the GMs more tools to craft their own adventures than what's already there. I can definitely see though the problems with the system and the execution that you bring up in the video. The system is definitely showing its age and the investigation is not always detailed enough. And the core book for Vaesen specifically feels a bit bare-bones, it's there to provide rules and setting for published adventures - at least that's how it feels to me. P.S. I see that Cloud Empress just sitting there in the background, staring at me... Is it a hint that a Cloud Empress review is coming?! ;)
I also printed out a huge dossier of creatures with bits of trivia and keywords associated with them. I went a bit overboard with about a hundred or so of them. But my players loved it. We spent a good half of the investigation with them all gathered around the sheets trying to whittle down the possible culprits according to the clues provided. Free League are missing a trick by not creating something like this. It's a game in and of itself.
I'd definitely play, "Fights in the Car Park" The Roleplaying Game TM! Also, the stupid idea is a great one. Some of the best roleplaying games have got a 'players shouldn't read this bit' section of their book so the GM can surprise the players and the players will understand that their characters aren't meant to know everything.
I never got that the Society should be a Secret Society. My character went out and nailed flyers to train stations advertising our 19th century Ghostbuster’s non-profit. Trouble with Vaesen? Telegram the Society in Upsala!
This channel is one of the most precious treasures we have in the RPG community; even with games I've read/played, I always walk away from these reviews with some insight that resonates but hadn't occurred to me in those terms before
Honestly Quinns…. You don’t know me, we’ve never met, but I feel like we’re old friends. Gotta be a decade of me watching you recommend games and crack jokes. I gotta say, I Absolutely love watching Quinns Quest. This is fresh and interesting, you bring your humour to the reviews, but most importantly… your insight and critique is always spot on! Please please please keep it up! Great writing and great production and just overall great fun. I’d love to see you review one of the 2d20 systems (like Achtung Cthulhu or Fallout) if you get the chance.
I played Vaesen for a short campaign as a player and I very much agree. There's a lot of cool and inspirational content in the book, and us players loved the old castle and scenes there. But the investigations felt a little clumsy sometimes. However, our GM put in a fair amount of footwork to make sure we could use most of the skills on a regular basis and so that problem never came up with us
the crushed genital part of the injuries just had me envision this scene of two of the pc's arguing and one says something like "you make my balls ache!" to which the other snaps back with "OH YOUR BALLS ACHE DO THEY!"
"You & I are getting distracted" But, huh, what did I do? ...I maybe did start thinking about my mashup campaign of the Finnish and English versions of DnD. You don't know me Quinns!
The "dungeons" that Gavin Norman et al. Are putting out for OSE are so lovely, they've got fantastic little substories that just pull players in so effectively. The little extra touches of weirdness result in some super memorable moments, one of my players was an 18YO girl who'd never played an rpg before and decided to put her characters penis in a hole in wall that transformed another players hand into a claw. Her random roll meant that her penis doubled in size and ive never seen someone so excited. Her character brought it up TO EVERYONE SHE MET for the rest of the campaign, rpgs are really at their best when shits a little weird
I intend to run Vaesen for one of my playgroups. I was having a hard time thinking about how to get them familiar with the vaesen without just doing exposition and I LOVED the idea of blanking parts of the monster pages. Great stuff, thanks for the awesome vid as always :)
It's always seemed to me that it's a shame Dungeons & Dragons faded away in the 70s. If it had a chance to grow into a fuller experience, I reckon it could have grown into something really special.
I’ve been so excited for this upload since I found your channel two weeks ago! I literally watched all the videos in a couple hours 😂 Also, love the hat.
It's nice to see a more critical review on the channel. While I love the 20 minute hype speeches the games this far have received, I feel this reminds me of why I trust Quinn's to tell me their honest opinions.
I pretty much agree with 99% of this, and when i ran a game had a really similar ideas - I used a heavily edited version of the bestiary plus a bunch of stuff from various folklore online sources to create 'The Knowledge' a book passed down through generations of the society containing all the collected wisdom of their predecessors (complete rip off of the book the brothers use in Supernatural, basically) as a physical prop which the players loved and referred to constantly. It was 100% the source for some of the best stuff that happened in the campaign - including an extremely amusing period where they were *convinced* they knew what they were up against but in fact had accidentally flipped two pages at once and were completely wrong...
Sounds like the investigation roll needs outcomes like "You succeed, you uncover the clue and then something good happens" and "You fail at your roll, you uncover the clue but you find it out the hard way" or things like that Fellowship does.
I'm hoping that teased investigative game review is gonna be Brindlewood Bay - I find its mystery resolution mechanic fascinating on paper, but would love to know how it works in practice.
In the investigation genre of TTRPGs I’ve been absolutely loving the Carved from Brindlewood games. Highly collaborative, much less mentally demanding. I’m running two games a week right now: Brindlewood Bay, old ladies solving murders, and Public Access, a group of 20-somethings looking into a disappeared tv station in the desert of New Mexico. Highly recommend. Edit: oh god I did the annoying talk about and recommend something else. This comment was inspired by Quinn’s mention of how much effort it took to run a mystery. CfB games alleviate that a lot by placing it onto the players more equally
I'm a fan but I've seen some people online very against the way it does things, saying stuff like "if it doesn't have a pre-set solution, it's not actually a mystery" (which imo is bollocks, but I'm old enough to usually be able to avoid wasting my time arguing with people on the internet)
Thanks for this. One of my players has asked to play this game. Reading the book, I had many of the concerns you talked about in the video. I’ll definitely be preparing those “investigator note sheets” you showed. That’s a great idea!
0:22 Book slammed on table #1 2:40 Book slammed on table #2 4:22 Book slammed shut #1 4:32 Book slammed on table #3 17:52 Book slammed shut #2 19:57 Hitting the table with a book #1 19:58 Hitting the table with a book #2 19:59 Hitting the table with a book #3 21:23 Book slammed shut #3 24:53 Book slammed on table #4 Final report : 4 book slammed on table 3 book slammed shut 3 book hammered against table
I've been curious about the game and appreciate all the points you went deep on. I love the way you handled getting the players information. It seems like there is an opportunity here for a third party to create something like the Field Guide to Hot Springs Island by Swordfish Islands; a physical artifact of previously recorded lore with potentially questionable veracity. Essentially what you did, but you know, as a referee you wouldn't have to put in the work, time, and effort to make your own.
I'd redact things a lot but use scratch off tape so that if the players wanted to investigate specific things they could and then scratch off to find the answer. As they built up this knowledge their reference sheets would become more and more valuable. Even if this Vaesen wasn't a farie, next weeks might be and now you're research last game is paying off now!
I'm currently running a Coriolis campaign, the SciFi RPG from the same publisher using the same rule set. I'm also a huge Call of Cthulhu nerd - I've been a Keeper for ~30 years and have run most of the big campaigns published for the system, so I like to think I sort of know my way around an investigation. The first part of the 'big' Coriolis campaign, which I'm running now, is also an investigation, and it's gotten me convinced that Fria Ligan have no clue how to do an investigative campaign. It's seriously such a train wreck that I almost gave up on it before we started playing. I ended up rewriting it almost completely, and I only stuck with it because I think the investigation ends with the players in an interesting place, and the campaign becomes a lot more interesting from that point on. This is why I've skipped Vaesen and Blade Runner, even if I have every other MY0 game (except Walking Dead which just doesn't interest me) - both seem too dependent on investigation for me to trust Fria Ligan with it. Going by this review, it appears my intuition was right.
Hello! Sorry to hear your experience with the Coriolis campaign and its investigative elements was not great. Coriolis though is not a game primarily about investigations, and the way investigations work in Vaesen and Blade Runner is very different (also from each other). If you enjoy investigative RPGs, I do recommend that you take a look at the Blade Runner RPG Starter Set and the case file included - we'd love to see what you think. :)
@direllama I was actually very impressed with the Blade Runner starter box. The shift system is very different from most real time RPG play and is also a great answer to when you have people out for that session. The story is good and the investigation can be non-linear with different options and some good ideas about how to drive pace using a timeline of events. I almost never enjoy running published adventures but I thought it was really good and captured the Blade Runner vibes and themes without having the PCs be named characters from the book or movies but their own take on it. Its a little different than MY0 but the starter comes with enough dice because you don't roll dice as much as a typical TTRPG. Handouts are great. Seriously, while I could make a follow up, it was such a nice packeg It's now the first time I'm looking forward to a publish adventure coming out. n.b. I have read vaesen but not played it and only ran 2 sessions of Forbidden Lands. My players liked the push mechanic in both BR and FL but the death spiral potential feels more live and fitting in BR, we aren;t sure yet if we think its good for a fantasy campaign.
@@hawkthetraveler6344 Damn, you actually make it sound intriguing... I'm not sure of I could go for a complete campaign of Blade Runner, but if it's as good as you describe, a one shot with the starter set might be interesting.
@@FreeLeaguePublishing Between your reply and @hawkthetraveler6344's, I'm really tempted... for what it's worth, my players and I love almost everything else about Coriolis - we thought Ghazali was one of the best adventures we ever played, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the MotI campaign.
I've been running an ongoing Vaesen game, working my way through all the published mysteries, and it has been a BLAST. It's so much fun watching the players come up with wild theories about what the hell is going on and whodunnit, only for the actual culprits to leave them blindsided. And hooboy do the PCs sometimes have to make some really dangerous decisions simply because dealing with the vaesen can leave you in some EXTREMELY precarious legal hot water. A couple stand-out examples from my game: Accidentally shooting a child after a failed Fear check and in the end framing her father (who had just committed suicide) for it. The kid lived, because the gunman was also a doctor and treated the gunshot wound as soon as he came to his senses. Sacrificing the priest that had hired them in the first place to a vaesen to prevent a famine while also silencing the only person who could bring the law down on with the investigators and the people of the town.
Thank you, Quinn! I'm living in Uppsala for several years already not knowing there a game exists that actually based in this city! How cool that is! I already have some great ideas of how to encourage my players to actually explore the real Uppsala for finding clues in the game. So excited to play it, thank you for this review!
Alright gang im going to try and pronounce this name myself out loud and then will check how bad I did when quinns does it properly during the vid. EDIT: Ok I wasn't remotely close.
Thank you Quinns for playing all these ttrpgs so that I can find new ones to share with my friends! Were you unable to schedule a "What were you thinking?" segment this time? I can imagine time constraints may be an issue for that to be a regular feature.
Great review, but that hasn't been my experience at all. I leaned heavily into the ideas about failure, conditions, and failing forward as outlined in the core book on pages 30-41. I would set up the conditions and consequences before making the roll and let the idea of failing forward be the guide. My players regularly got into fisticuffs, and sometimes, gun and sword fights with other humans and had to do their level best not to murder people or to be able to explain away that murder when "but there was this giant monster being controlled by him, so we had to kill him, officer" just wouldn't suffice. My players also pushed rolls, a lot, which seriously improved their chances of success while also including a cost. They also leaned on each other for aid and I would have them role play what they were doing and then have THEM roll the dice (instead of just handing it over) so we would know just how the helped the situation. My players find out information about the Vaesen mostly through interactions with the locals. All the PCs are adults and sometimes they might half remember stories from their childhood that also inform them. They also are always on the hunt for books on the occult and folklore that might aid them in their research (adding dice to their pools). I am waiting for the day that they fail a roll while reading one of their books while huddling in a room after a terrifying encounter and fail the roll. They'll get the information, but I'll have one of them accidentally tip a candle onto the book and burn a number of its pages before they are able to put it out. As far as skills go, we used them all. My players often lament that they don't have any points in a particular skill they need at one time. Then again, they have a curious habit of climbing out second and third story windows, sneaking around hotels and taverns at night, eavesdropping on people, kicking down doors, pacifying angry mobs, and a host of other things that have put them in compromising positions. I'm sorry that Quinns had a hard time with the game, but it truly sang for my group. They have loved it so much that we started playing Gen Lab Alpha, the post apocalyptic mutant animal game that uses an earlier version of the Year Zero Engine. I still think this is a great review. Some of the criticism Quinns has goes against the published adventures which do require tweaking here and there. I HIGHLY recommend watching the 1shotreview channel's reviews of a number of published Vaesen adventures. His tweaks help make the adventures easier to run or get you thinking of ways to expand them to work better with your particular group even if you don't do exactly what he does: www.youtube.com/@1ShotJC
Thank you for the honest review! I love the Year Zero Engine, coincidentally I was listening to Vaesen actualplay just yesterday. It's good to know the pros and cons of the game.
So idk if it's interesting to know but vaesen started out as an art book by Johan Egerkrans and was then adapted into an rpg. I think the intention is for the players to use that book as a sort of handbook to investigate Vaesen.
Great review! As Vaesen fan and author of two published Mysteries on DriveThruRPG I want to say that your criticisms are on point. The game would be so much cooler if we got more tips about roleplaying Vaesen or the character’s knowledge about different creatures and preparations for the Mystery.
I completely agree when it comes to the year zero engine, it's really good when you're trying a bit of everything and can tackle a problem from different angles, makes sense why it wouldn't work out a as well here. Thanks for another amazing review!
I definitely agree with the point that investigative rpgs are harder to run than a sword and sorcery game. Personally I find trying to make a mystery hit that sweet spot between not being super easy and not being incredibly confusing for players is really hard.
Thank you! I got Vaesen with the best of intentions but when I read it I really felt like something was missing. I thought it was just me being dense but you’ve nailed it- there is a big chunk of important info missing
