As the guy that wrote the thing, let me just say that "This is one of the most remarkable games I've ever encountered" is a quote I'm definitely going to remember! Thanks for the review, Dave - really appreciate it, and I think you hit a lot of the stuff I love about it as well, without shying away from the potential drawbacks for some players.
Have a two "This is one of the most remarkable games i've ever encountered" then, Felix. Great game, Felix. Wildsea is one of my highest favorite in my TTRPG collections.
This looks so amazing, Felix. I'm moving in a couple of weeks to a new home. As soon as I'm ensconced in my new place, I'm ordering this game. It looks incredible. I'll also be checking out the Kickstarter. Dave, thanks for introducing it to us via your review. You make me aware of so many games I'd never otherwise encounter. 👍🏻 Video is saved to revisit, soon.
A 10/10 video about a 10/10 game. I will say: in addition to the acoustic/folk/instrumental soundtrack (Songs of the Lignin Tide), there is a second soundtrack volume, Songs of Ruined Shores by Nullcode, which has a more of a darker, electronic vibe to it - both are great though.
Wildsea's absolutely my favorite system at the moment, setting and mechanics in this book are just absolutely wonderful Edit: many of the entries in the bestiary also include what the subject tastes like
My group is about to diver back into our ongoing Wildsea campaign. Its our main detour from our long term D&D campaign wherein I am the GM. With Wildsea I get to be a player, so I am biased in that regard, but I can safely say we all absolutely love the setting. We haven't even taken our newly acquired ship out yet, but it didn't matter cause it was just such an evocative world. I can appreciate the high buy in for players used to more traditional systems and settings, but with a solid GM (which we very much have) its quite easy to find yourself swept away in the scale of everything. We play entirely theater of the mind which the system works really well for. Highly recommended. It truly gets the creative juices flowing.
Darn it man, every time you release a video I find myself with 20-30 bucks flying out of my wallet! Great stuff as always. Very interested in that follow up video (if you end up having time and energy to make it that is, no pressure).
This is very much the kind of game I would love. I'm in a belt-tightening phase right now, so picking up a copy is unlikely. But as you mentioned, I've had a really hard time over the years getting folks to buy in to more interesting games. A lot of the sorts of games I'm most interested in are stuff like this, but apparently I'm rare. Heck, I didn't think Fading Suns was all that off the beaten path, but had a devil of a time getting player buy-in.
There's a free basic rules set with all of the core mechanics and about 60% of the content from the Core Game that you can find in a number of places, if you want to just get a taste of what it's like.
When I saw the thumbnail I actually thought on Mieville's Bas lag and its incredibly original worldbuilding. Then I watch the video... And now I'm ordering the book. Even if I don't get to DM it's so interesting I want to read it
for those wondering: wildsea does have something similar to a "magic system" in Arconautics. it's described more as an alt-science rather than magic, and its got a lot of cool ideas in it
This looks incredible! Im not sure if Ill ever play an official game with the full mechanics, but there are absolutely aspects Im sure my players will love to have imported into our game.
one word.. The Wildsea.. I've play-tested many games and none come close to the sincere communicative authorship and community of The Wildsea... (slow clap into a riotous applause for Felix).
I have the very generous quickstart and surely wish for a full hard copy. First, my accolades for such a heartfelt attempt at a novel world with a concurrent and supporting rule structure, and not yet another IP skin on established game set. Huge respect to the crew that pulled this off. That said, the soft "narrative" approach on wound handling is a trend I'd rather went away. It seems to lead to either a battle of wills between DM and player, or a flattening of the threat and dynamism that the authors have otherwise gone to great length creating. A Health track, Blades stress, or a cypher style draw down on attributes is an easy hack, but why avoid such a basic need in the rules as written?
This does not strain my imagination at all. It merely adds small amount of kindling to a forest fire. Fuel for an already active mind. I especially love that the creators put narrative first, and that they didn't go for the generic fantasy tropes. Haven't played because I definitely won't have the money for this for at least a year, but I will get my hands on this some day. FINALLY!!! A system that lets me play a walking shipwreck without it being a big stupid brute!
Huh. It sounds interesting, but I don't think I could get into it, the lack of hard mechanics is just unappealing. Having death get delayed until it's cool makes me think that either someone constantly making bad choices or having bad luck in general turns into more of a "either this character is just barely lucky enough to live" or "why haven't they died yet?" It's like giving plot arm- oh that's why I don't like it. It's plot Armor written into a paragraph. I think I'll recommend this to my more free spirited friends.
I completely get if you don't like that aspect of the rules. But as someone that played 3.5 for many, MANY years back in the day, you're always free to houserule - and the mechanics lend well to it, too. MANIFEST DEATH: When a character's aspect tracks are fully marked, further damage of any kind to an aspect causes Burn. When a character's aspect tracks are fully burned, they die. Now there's a hard-coded mechanical death that runs off of two existing systems. Done! And with creator's approval too - it's not how I would play it, but everyone's table is different!
Been reading more of this book just over this last weekend and it just keeps getting better. This is one of the few RPGs I have been recommending lately just for anyone wanting to read something awesome. You hit on the worst part of the setting, is that player buy in you talked about. I don't think I could realistically bring it to a table unless all the players read the first couple chapters where they give the core meat of the lore. Explaining it would be really really hard. In most games you'd figure saying something like that would be because of the crunch, but in this game it's just the lore. But like I said, this game stands out because reading it just for the lore is definitely 100% worth it... and yet still leaves it open ended enough to build on top of it without binding your hands. It's a work of art.
@@paavohirn3728 it's a book in the style of a real life game. Usually video game based in VR or some kind of alien intrusion. Dungeon Crawler Carl is one of the few I really like. Caverns and Creatures is D&D-like (C&C get it? lol) and is great toilet humor style.
Thank you for introducing me to a title with an interesting setting and interesting system mechanisms that seems to embrace the essential elements of what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game (contra to the proto-RPG that came from miniature war gaming). Will defiantly check it out for both the interesting setting and its system mechanisms when I have a chance.
I can't really make it through this adventure. Among my friends, I'm almost exclusively the one that suggest playing new games and systems. I love new and innovative settings, but you nailed it when you said this one is way out there. I'm asking myself, "why are they sailing on the tops of trees?" I'm not asking the question in a way that makes me want to figure it out... but in a way that turns me off. I applaud designers and world builders for going for new ideas, but there has to be a touchstone to something familiar. It's almost like the movie Water World, but with funky races and overly elaborate ships. However, the themes don't really match up.
You travel on top of the trees as it’s the safest place to travel. If you are under all the dangerous creatures can easily see and reach you. If you fly above you stick out to any large flying creature and it’s probably more energy effective then flying.
@@user-mu8ok5xf8d I understand that if you accept the fantasy premise. However, from a game design and world builder stand point, I don't understand the first principals. If it connects with you, cool. For me it misses the mark really hard. I don't find many settings and ideas that miss the mark for me as bad as this one does. There seemed to be some cool aspects to it, the art being the main one. However, the idea and concept just don't kill any momentum the concept has. It's original, for sure, not fun, for me.
@@wardmatthew42 ok that’s fair, it’s entirely valid if you just don’t connect with the idea. Just wondering as I like to do world building can you explain what parts of it are putting you off as I think it would educational for me to understand. If you don’t want to that’s fine I just figure I’d ask
Interesting setting! Though then I'm gonna throw out the (cough) "game mechanics". Mechanics implies a game. They are just side garnish to what really is a story teller style of rpg. ¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯
Plants can be surprisingly fire proof, if it is humid enough in the setting it would likely be pretty hard to get them to catch fire. Also they could very easily say that when on fire for long enough the trees release water vapour from their roots to put themselves out and the vapour has a hormone in it that tells adjacent trees to do the same without releasing the hormone, they could also release a cloud of carbon dioxide from their roots to kill the fire. Cacti store carbon dioxide until night to use it in photosynthesis, as the natural water loss from photosynthesis is lower when it is cool out. Other plants will breath oxygen and release carbon dioxide at night. Plants can also use hormones when eaten to tell other plants to release a hormone to attract parasitic wasps. Considering these real life mechanisms I do not find it unreasonable to believe that these trees in the correct circumstance can release either a plume of carbon dioxide or mist to kill fires, as in real life plants have some control over their ability to expel mist and gas emissions. Also the smoke from forest fires in real life can bind atmospheric water, produce a cloud(Flammagenitus cloud) and create rain, if these trees burn slowly enough they could eventually put themselves out. While these clouds can under certain circumstances make fires worse, I think the fact that these are giant trees with magic sap and that have a canopy basically touching the clouds would allow suspension of disbelief negate that. But honestly I prefer the surge of mist or carbon dioxide answer.
