Why do other games knock themselves out with tons of extra options?
I’m probably as guilty as anyone of wanting more and more options in my fantasy roleplaying games. My first thought upon seeing a game that came out with just the four classes (Fighter, Thief, Wizard, and Cleric) was I need to add so much to this game before I’m satisfied with it. I’ve kitbashed so many new character classes, spells, weapons, and other stuff into new games just days after opening the book for the first time.
I mean, I’ve already put Dragonbane magic items here on my blog. I wasted no time coming up with homebrew items just for fun. It’s a natural extension of who I am as a Game Master. I’ve been making homebrew creations for so long; it just pours out of me.
I remember someone on the Index Card RPG forum once asked for Cat People. My brain went clicking away and I posted the Cat Folk stats as soon as I could get to a keyboard. I thought it looked balanced and functional. The fact that I didn’t even blink when I saw that post and just made the thing still kinda blows my mind.
For better or worse, keep it simple.
I’ve been in the hobby for 40+ years and I’ve seen an innumerable amount of game mechanics. Some work well, others don’t. Some games keep their classes, professions, skills, feats, and equipment lists in a complex matrix and encyclopedic tomes.
There’s a new edition of the ampersand game coming in September. I’ve heard there are something like 12 classes and 48 subclasses. I haven’t heard how many skills, feats, backgrounds, ancestries, etc. I know it’s not the standard five races we are used to. I think they’ve done away with races entirely and everyone is dependent on backgrounds for abilities. Do we really need 32 flavors of Human?
Looking at the Dragonbane core rules we have 6 Kin, 10 Professions (kinda like character classes, not really.) 30 Skills, and 44 Heroic Abilities, most of which are awarded or gained through play. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Mallard, or Wolfkin are all we can choose from in the core rules. There’s no “Gold Halfling” or “Purple Mohawk Wolfkin” to confuse new players. Character creator takes about 10-15 minutes tops.
Professions are easy to understand.
A lot of other games have character classes. Because Dragonbane is skill driven and not class driven, players get to choose 6 skills from a list granted by their profession. They then have 2-6 more skills to assign anywhere from their Age. (Older characters are more skilled; younger ones haven’t learned as much yet.) Ten of the listed skills are Weapon Skills.
I could build new professions with ease if I so desired. I think the core rules cover professions quite well with only two that I would seriously consider eliminating. There’s no crossover professions or dual professions, either.
Min-Maxing is just not a thing in Dragonbane. There’s no massive meta build that can travel around the world and attack 36 times and cast spells all in one turn. I love that it’s pretty much WYSIWYG.
Casters are pretty simple in Dragonbane, too.
Magic is present in the game, but not overwhelming. It’s also not available willy-nilly to just anyone. Mages are the Cleric, Druid, (Monk?) Psionicist, Jedi, Shaman, Sorcerer, Wizard, and Warlock of the Dragonbane world. Have I mentioned how much I love that there are no freaking Clerics in Dragonbane?
Mages get to do it all within three schools. There’s Animism which is more shamanic, druidic, and anti-demon magic. Elementalism is the more blasty Air Bending type spells, and Mentalism is a weird cross amongst Jedi, Monk, and Psionicist. You can only start with ONE school of magic. A character can only have so many spells and can learn new spells from various books, items, and teachers through gameplay.
There are only 12-16 spells per caster type and only a handful of starting spells out of those plus or minus the few Generic Spells the game provides. It’s easy picking Magic Tricks (*cough* Cantrips *cough*) and starting spells take less than a minute if you’ve made a caster before.
Spellcasting in Dragonbane gets a bad rep, but it’s not that complicated after the first time through. It still all comes back to a Skill Roll, just like Shadowdark. Don’t botch the check (Roll a Demon in Dragonbane terms,) or there will be consequences. There’s a lovely mishap table reminiscent of Dungeon Crawl Classics. Otherwise, spend the Willpower points, roll the skill check and if successful, the spell goes off and does its damage or whatever. If you burn through all of the character’s Willpower Points before a rest, the caster could tap into their Hit Points for more power if they dare.
I’ll still take Dragonbane’s magic system over a lot of other games. There aren’t that many spells to get lost or confused with. Spells stay with the character until swapped out, so no daily lists. There are no gods to appease or required subclass tables. Players get to choose for their characters. That’s it. That’s all we need to play for days and weeks without homebrew.
That’s just character creation.
We’ll talk more about the nuances of combat and the beauty of spellcasting in Dragonbane some other time. Right now Dragonbane is small and loveable. The system, originally based on the Chaosium Basic RolePlaying Game, is so easy to teach new players.
Players can generate characters completely at random or make decisions throughout. It still only takes about ten or fifteen minutes. Like some RPGs, especially Old School games, it’s only as complicated as we, as GMs, make the game. Zero homebrew makes character creation sail.
I’ve discussed Dragonbane character creation in more detail in this article. I have lots of fun making characters, both randomly and intentionally. Character advancement is something we’ll discuss a little ways down the road.
The players choose for their characters. The GM chooses for their game. We roll dice. We have fun. What more could we ask for in an RPG experience?
Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.
Jeff's Game Box 