I think as the technology develops and other similar competing products are released, we'll see this kind of genre of game become a lot more refined. I really hope it takes off. There is a big market for people who want to play but are limited by lack of friends or living too remotely.
Really excellent review. I'm on the fence. I'm old enough to remember choose your own adventures, and I don't have any RPG group prospects that aren't an actual computer RPG like BG3. I dislike (greatly) proprietary dice, but everything else is pretty appealing, even at the high starting price point. I'll keep my eye on this: the future value is in expansions - if those are affordable, then I could see this being something I enjoy.
And really, with third party content, you could do almost any kind of genre... post-apocalyptic, space opera (with the ship combat you mentioned), cyberpunk, steampunk, action horror... there could be a lot of material to attract a wide variety of players. My fiance isn't much for fantasy, but if this had a cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, or action horror theme I would pick it up for her an I to play together. Hopefully it does well. It would be really interesting to see where this could go.
Now see The Fantasy Trip (published about 1978, and republished 2018, by Steve Jackson Games), and notice the concepts they took from TFT. Also note TFT has quite a few programmed adventures, though using numbered paragraph instructions in books, rather than an app that does that.
The only thing that can stop this is the price. I’ve seen it from $170 to as much as $270. To build a customer base worth the attention of third-party creators the game needs to be more accessible pricewise. I know, there’s a lot of stuff here. Perhaps it should’ve been smaller less expensive initial offering. You know maybe 20 hours of play and have charged maybe $50 to $70. (If this was the case, I’d already own it). Then offer the other content as add-ons and expansions. That’s what I would’ve done. However, I am probably going to get a copy of this because I’ll play it for what it IS and not for the hope of what it could be. But I’m probably going to wait for a sale or a good used copy. It looks like a lot of fun.
Is there something else like this that you recommend for someone that's never played a table top before? Or is this still the best one to get used to it with program like this
This one is probably not for me. Gimmicky/crunchy dice mechanics App driven GM but you still need a rules arbiter Grid based combat 5 hour tutorial?! It might be fun to scrape the setting and adventures for use in other systems. The four stat model is pretty common.
I'm dropping hints to my wife that this would make a great Christmas present. The next step is the do a google search on her PC so she get blasted with ads. :) :)
The quality of the material is pretty high, but i think that you can probably run the same game without the digital support, especially given the current limitations.
If you didn't have the digital support you would definitely need a choose your own adventure style book and tons of enemy statblocks... Basically an rpg module, potentially plus a monsternomicon. Then you'd need someone reading and running the enemies.. The app definitely replaces the need for a DM, without it you'd still need one.
This game is nothing like gloomhaven, that was a bad take. Most figure bases made these days are circles so they can be used on square or hex grid. I just received this game and taking some time to learn it but you can tell that this is a passion project by an amateur team who wanted to make a table top rpg with a digital DM. That’s said, it does come off very “startup” as the physical components, rulebook, etc I would say are below the professional industry standard (dice and standees are shockingly good but I’m not a fan of custom dice for TTRPGs in general). That said, this game uses a classless system where your skills and talents you pick define your character with very little handholding in character creation. I think that’s why they push the pretend characters as a jumping in point to learn the mechanics. I would recommend they add some “class kits” to help new players pick starting skills that better translate more traditional classes to their game’s mechanics. Both the rulebook and character book could use a professional edit. The character book in particular should be split into two with a step by step character creation guide, recommended builds, then the skill, talent, and magic tables broken down and better explained. The tutorial and rules are really meant to be explained on the app, but there is no character creation rules on the app as of now. I hope this is changed in the future. I am familiar with a lot of game systems, but the video tutorials provided expect some base knowledge of the rules and aren’t really a good jumping in point for new players. I think a basic tutorial of stats, skills, and the core of rolling a dice for tests and what the symbols mean would help immensely. I will update this as I put more time in, but it’s obvious that the meat of this game is in the app and it’s ability to translate a DMless ttrpg experience. It’s not the components or rule book so please take my comments with a grain of salt. I am very excited to see what long dog games has managed to pull off.
It's definitely an rpg... It's similar story/choice based rpg story telling that most any video game rpgs have. It is less open than fully open, dm ran, ttrpgs are though, yeah. The emphasis definitely is character build/development, using the story as a means to that end. Or using your character to uncover and influence the story. But it's not a collaborative open story development game, like some of the RP heavy ttrpg tables are.
I thought it was an RPG being marketed as a board game.... guess what... since they called it D&D she Gloomhaven had a baby is what they are going for.
This game seems to be trying to be too many things at once. It's whole ecosystem kinda smells of "startup tech-bro." Hexes make no sense to me considering nobody uses hex bases for their fantasy minis, so someone with tons of DnD or Age of Sigmar models won't be able to use them with this game without modifications. And of course, same goes with the hex mats. They talk about accessibility but I only see ways for them to lock you into their ecosystem. For anyone wanting a solo RPG with tactical miniatures combat, just look at Five Leagues from the Borderlands or Rangers of Shadowdeep. If minis aren't your thing and you want a fully fleshed and written story that you can play through, get a gamebook like Destiny Quest. I see little value with this game. It's basically a worse Gloomhaven but with dice rolls.
hexes are way better than squares. Though sadly yeah most only have square grids. One could make a functionally-hex grid by printing a square grid with alternating rolls being half a square offset though, so that works
The idea is that they provide everything you need to get started and I think they'll sell more pieces as get out of the distribution phase, but they wanted to pack as many tokens and maps as they could within reason in the Kickstarter packages.
It's not completely open ended, but the idea is that you make decisions, and unlike the DM that puts the bandit camp whereever you go, content and routes for all of this mapped in the software. Your decisions, from the get go, matter. It literally can't BS you.
I think as the technology develops and other similar competing products are released, we'll see this kind of genre of game become a lot more refined.
I really hope it takes off. There is a big market for people who want to play but are limited by lack of friends or living too remotely.
Great game. I hope they succeed. The underdeveloped, sketchy art is really cool, like the one in Simbaroum or Coriollis.
I like the hexes! Much prefer these to squares for our RPGs!
Hexes do add a lot of tactical options.
Very few I've seen use hexes. I recall GURPS always did.
@@NefariousKoel HERO System Games and GURPS were the hex-users also to my mind.
Really excellent review. I'm on the fence. I'm old enough to remember choose your own adventures, and I don't have any RPG group prospects that aren't an actual computer RPG like BG3. I dislike (greatly) proprietary dice, but everything else is pretty appealing, even at the high starting price point. I'll keep my eye on this: the future value is in expansions - if those are affordable, then I could see this being something I enjoy.
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And really, with third party content, you could do almost any kind of genre... post-apocalyptic, space opera (with the ship combat you mentioned), cyberpunk, steampunk, action horror... there could be a lot of material to attract a wide variety of players. My fiance isn't much for fantasy, but if this had a cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic, or action horror theme I would pick it up for her an I to play together. Hopefully it does well. It would be really interesting to see where this could go.
Agreed. It could be really cool.
Now see The Fantasy Trip (published about 1978, and republished 2018, by Steve Jackson Games), and notice the concepts they took from TFT. Also note TFT has quite a few programmed adventures, though using numbered paragraph instructions in books, rather than an app that does that.
I'm still on the fence, but intrigued...
The only thing that can stop this is the price. I’ve seen it from $170 to as much as $270. To build a customer base worth the attention of third-party creators the game needs to be more accessible pricewise. I know, there’s a lot of stuff here. Perhaps it should’ve been smaller less expensive initial offering. You know maybe 20 hours of play and have charged maybe $50 to $70. (If this was the case, I’d already own it). Then offer the other content as add-ons and expansions. That’s what I would’ve done. However, I am probably going to get a copy of this because I’ll play it for what it IS and not for the hope of what it could be. But I’m probably going to wait for a sale or a good used copy. It looks like a lot of fun.
Seems pretty neat. Would be great to see this sort of thing made into a video game like Demeo.
Great review, thank you!
I think they said when the full game comes out the lormaster will read the story to you. You just read what your choices are
Is there something else like this that you recommend for someone that's never played a table top before? Or is this still the best one to get used to it with program like this
Reminds me of The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth or Descent: Legends of the Dark from the technology incorporation standpoint
This one is probably not for me.
Gimmicky/crunchy dice mechanics
App driven GM but you still need a rules arbiter
Grid based combat
5 hour tutorial?!
It might be fun to scrape the setting and adventures for use in other systems. The four stat model is pretty common.
I'm dropping hints to my wife that this would make a great Christmas present. The next step is the do a google search on her PC so she get blasted with ads. :) :)
The quality of the material is pretty high, but i think that you can probably run the same game without the digital support, especially given the current limitations.
If you didn't have the digital support you would definitely need a choose your own adventure style book and tons of enemy statblocks... Basically an rpg module, potentially plus a monsternomicon. Then you'd need someone reading and running the enemies..
The app definitely replaces the need for a DM, without it you'd still need one.
Hello dave, I have sent you an E-mail regarding my ttrpg. I would be interested to know if you would like to review it.
This game is nothing like gloomhaven, that was a bad take. Most figure bases made these days are circles so they can be used on square or hex grid. I just received this game and taking some time to learn it but you can tell that this is a passion project by an amateur team who wanted to make a table top rpg with a digital DM. That’s said, it does come off very “startup” as the physical components, rulebook, etc I would say are below the professional industry standard (dice and standees are shockingly good but I’m not a fan of custom dice for TTRPGs in general).
That said, this game uses a classless system where your skills and talents you pick define your character with very little handholding in character creation. I think that’s why they push the pretend characters as a jumping in point to learn the mechanics. I would recommend they add some “class kits” to help new players pick starting skills that better translate more traditional classes to their game’s mechanics.
Both the rulebook and character book could use a professional edit. The character book in particular should be split into two with a step by step character creation guide, recommended builds, then the skill, talent, and magic tables broken down and better explained. The tutorial and rules are really meant to be explained on the app, but there is no character creation rules on the app as of now. I hope this is changed in the future. I am familiar with a lot of game systems, but the video tutorials provided expect some base knowledge of the rules and aren’t really a good jumping in point for new players. I think a basic tutorial of stats, skills, and the core of rolling a dice for tests and what the symbols mean would help immensely.
I will update this as I put more time in, but it’s obvious that the meat of this game is in the app and it’s ability to translate a DMless ttrpg experience. It’s not the components or rule book so please take my comments with a grain of salt. I am very excited to see what long dog games has managed to pull off.
Awesome!
So, proof of concept of One D&D as well?
I think OneD&D wants to be entirely online and heavily based on microtransactions.
@@DaveThaumavore "and heavily based on microtransactions" which I hate so, so much.
This feels like a board game being marketed as an RPG….
It's definitely an rpg...
It's similar story/choice based rpg story telling that most any video game rpgs have. It is less open than fully open, dm ran, ttrpgs are though, yeah.
The emphasis definitely is character build/development, using the story as a means to that end. Or using your character to uncover and influence the story.
But it's not a collaborative open story development game, like some of the RP heavy ttrpg tables are.
I thought it was an RPG being marketed as a board game.... guess what... since they called it D&D she Gloomhaven had a baby is what they are going for.
I may try running this on my group but dm it for the baddies and npcs.
This game seems to be trying to be too many things at once. It's whole ecosystem kinda smells of "startup tech-bro." Hexes make no sense to me considering nobody uses hex bases for their fantasy minis, so someone with tons of DnD or Age of Sigmar models won't be able to use them with this game without modifications. And of course, same goes with the hex mats. They talk about accessibility but I only see ways for them to lock you into their ecosystem. For anyone wanting a solo RPG with tactical miniatures combat, just look at Five Leagues from the Borderlands or Rangers of Shadowdeep. If minis aren't your thing and you want a fully fleshed and written story that you can play through, get a gamebook like Destiny Quest. I see little value with this game. It's basically a worse Gloomhaven but with dice rolls.
hexes are way better than squares. Though sadly yeah most only have square grids.
One could make a functionally-hex grid by printing a square grid with alternating rolls being half a square offset though, so that works
Plenty of games use hexes, tactically it makes much more sense.
The idea is that they provide everything you need to get started and I think they'll sell more pieces as get out of the distribution phase, but they wanted to pack as many tokens and maps as they could within reason in the Kickstarter packages.
@@nawidayobi
Yes, they provide everything you need to play. I plan on ordering the game to try out with my gaming group when everyone can't make it
The game provides all the models, it looks like a fun little thing to play when the whole group can't make a session
Nope. This looks super boring combined with being overly-complicated in a way that gets in the way of emergent gameplay.
It's not completely open ended, but the idea is that you make decisions, and unlike the DM that puts the bandit camp whereever you go, content and routes for all of this mapped in the software. Your decisions, from the get go, matter. It literally can't BS you.
oh, like Memoir isn't? lol
First
video game