I'm sure they take a while to make both in knowing the game, and making the video, but I'd love more TTRPG video reviews from shut up & sit down, love em!
Thirded (is that a thing?), anyway, more please! I am limited when it comes to the number of boardgames I can fit in my house but not so the amount of silly worlds I can fit in my head!
Finished a Spire campaign, can confirm all of Quinns' zeal here. One of my player characters had the ability to shapeshift, not into an animal or people, but into the *idea of rebellion*. By leveraging the fact that even high-level player characters are going to eventually bite it, the game is happy to hand you the keys to extremely fun, extremely exciting moments the whole way down.
“Heart: the city beneath”also has a similar concept, where, as their last action for their character *ever* one of the classes is allowed to create a personification of a concept and use the last of their energy to kill it, thus dispelling the concept from peoples’ minds. The guys behind these rpgs are really on one and I love it.
@@2122Hellfire Yup, can confirm I’m playing a heretic and my other delver partner used his deadwalker zenith to end racism. (Killing the concept or racism)
The meanness of the mechanics and setting make it so easy to get into the self-sacrificial attitude. "You will die, make it count" is a great description of the game
I fucking love this guy. When I hear him talk about games, i allways secretly whish I could play some with him or discuss some shit. He definitly is one of a rare kind that I miss in my circle of idiots.
Loved this review. It's a pain that the process of playing a tabletop RPG campaign can take so long, because it makes so much of the coverage of it you can find be people's impression of the RPGs after reading the book and not actually playing the game.
I don't have any resources to point you towards, but I know theres a lot of single session/ couple session games out there nowadays. So much stuff online if you go looking
@@sweetshalquoir6039 This is true, but my main interest right now is in full campaign style games. And yeah even with the short ones, people still seem to just kinda read through the rules and make a preview.
@@bikzimusmaximus5250 fair enough. Looking back at your original comment that’s pretty clear, not quite sure how I took it as you specifically thinking campaign games were too long
Went and looked at this game on Amazon as I was watching this video right after it came out; the site said it was in stock, no caveats. Did some stuff and came back an hour or two later and it said “13 left! Order soon!”, so I ordered it. Just looked again and now it’s out of stock. Nicely done, SUSD!
As if I needed another reason to love SUSD, Quinns shares with such an incredibly wide audience the excellence that is N.K. Jemisin and her Broken Earth trilogy. Such a class act.
As someone whose entire adolescence was getting together with my little siblings and running Star Wars RPG and Changeling: the Lost for hours and hours every day, the Tabletop RPG content is so delightful to see from SUSD. Quinns and Tom’s musings on Thousand Year Vampire we’re some of my favorite SUSD content in years… and now, again, I find myself inspired to hop back in. Thanks, Daddy Quinns. Glad you dislike Shadowrun, too. :)
Seconded. Any cyberpunk game that has imaginary replacement swears instantly loses me, tbh. “Frag”? Are we serious? Ppl can clown on “choomba” all they want but at least my Solo still gets to call their traitorous Fixer a motherfucker without breaking lore.
I find, when DMing characters that are supposed to know the world, it's easiest to allow characters to improvise details within a framework. As they know the world. It is harder to do in such a fleshed out world, but I still find it so rewarding.
The Shadowrun comment was spot-on: I own the fifth edition rulebook and the spine of it has broken off from the sheer amount of rules I had to constantly look up during just one campaign
A big thing to deal with getting players to learn a lot of lore about the setting is either 1: See if they're interested enough to do their own reading about it 2: Give them a few important hooks and get the players to fill in the rest! Ask the players to name and describe the local mafia or the weird art tastes of the elite etc. They will care more and remember more if they helped create the world.
Oh my God! I've been absolutely obsessed with spire (and moreover it's spinoff HEART) for a good while now and it's so nice to see you guys bringing attention to one of the most underrated RPGs I've ever seen
I loved this! I have Heart, have played BitD, and am interested in Spire so this checks many boxes. I would very much be interested in more ttrpg-content from this channel!
I honestly really hope you guys do more RPG reviews. It's so helpful to have a channel you trust give their opinions on a game before you subject you and your friends to it. Knowing what to look out for and what to prepare for is SO unbelievably helpful.
I've been playing a lot of Slay the Spire recently, and while I'm convinced there's no connection between that game and Spire, I find it a happy coincidence that both games feature a massive, unsettling Spire with a horrific Heart in the center.
I love the abilities that revolve around throwing a wrench into the game master's narrative. I imagine it would be the same awesome feeling as finding a way to complete a goal in a video game that the game didn't expect you to do.
The first thing I ever did in a game of Spire was declare that our high society target was having a secret affair with the publisher of an illegal revolutionary newspaper. Never fallen for a game so fast as that moment.
Just got introduced to DND and fell in love with it. Very excited to branch out into some of the RPGs here. I owe a lot of thanks to Shut Up and Sit Down for re-igniting my joy for board games.
I rarely read fantasy, but I was talked into checking these out and man were they good! A fascinating take on magic in an incredibly well imagined world. This series deserves all the love and accolades that it gets!
That was the moment I paused the video, ordered the RPG, and when back to it. 10/01 book series, and 'The City We Became' is an urban fantasy game waiting to happen
I loved reading this book and the character classes are the most fun I've seen. However, it was *not* a good fit for an online campaign for us: everything felt so alien and weird that we'd have needed at least the familiarity of hanging out with friends around the same irl table to ground us. As a GM, it was one of the most exhausting RPG experiences I've had.
@@AVspectre You’re welcome! Your mileage may vary of course. But I’m more used to RPGs set on earth or relatively low fantasy settings, so I was definitely way, way, way out of my comfort zone here. Oddly, I think I may have had it easier with some of the more bizarre character classes with more surreal powers, but my three players picked all the more grounded ones. And the book has little info on how the day-to-day works.
@@VilleHalonen This is one of the things that scares me about running this book, they do seriously little to tell you about actually playing the game. It's hard for me to limit the scope of the story in a world this rich, you know?
@@rondomane Exactly. They kickstarted some material that apparently contains guidance on how to run the game or to create conspiracies. The project was called Sin, if you want to look it up.
What a treat. I've found, now that I have less time to prepare as a GM as life does its thing, the new OSR wave has breathed new life into my group. Stuff like Into the Odd, Mothership, great for one-shots, at the same time allowing for repeat players, and best of all, almost 0 prep.
Agreed. I am GMing more now than I ever have before, and it's because I can run a full game using one of those systems with about 15 minutes notice and some caffeine!
I loved this review, you should do more RPG reviews on this channel. It made me SO HAPPY when you got to your copy of Deadlands and it was stuffed full of notes and character sheets, just like my own copy.
Quinns, this is the best review I've seen you do on this channel in years. Thank you, thank you, for the wonderful count-down to your favorite RPG. Your love of games is evident here.
Really loved this review, thanks for creating it and loved hearing your thoughts and experiences with RPG's that you've played previously. Also loved the cosplays everyone did of their characters in the final Spire session, so cool! Will definitely check out the RPG reviews on the Shut Up & Sit Down website. 😊 Would love to see more rpg content if that's video reviews or running a campaign if you were all up for sharing that online on here or on Twitch. 😊 Thanks again for the amazing content. Really appreciate all the love that goes into them.
I can't recommend Mouse Guard enough! It's a delightful, playful, and rich game! It's also beautiful. I love it! Mouse Guard, Blades in the Dark, and Torchbearer are my favorites!
Hiya, in case you read all your comments I just wanted to say I admire your content. I stumbled upon your channel when looking for crokinole reviews. Ever since that moment I’ve checked out your reviews of games I wanted to buy and now even games I’ve never heard of. And I love all of it!
Loved seeing the end with the countdown to best memories playing and GM'ing these games. This gives me a way better idea of whether a game is good for my group or not than most reviews do. And there's always something about seeing the excitement on someone's face, rather than in written text, that helps when it comes to a game where the social elements are so important.
As someone who happily marathoned your entire game of Twilight Imperium, and am tempted to go watch it again just thinking about it, if you guys ever decide to record one of your TTRPG campaigns, you’d definitely have viewers for it
Great review. By the way, if you like: - Free League stuff (publishers of Tales from the Loop) - "What if D&D was sad?" - A setting that's full of possibilities whilst also being constrained and coherent - A comparatively simple rules system ... I highly recommend Symbaroum. It ticks all of those boxes. I've played a bunch of TTRPGs and it's easily one of my favourites.
SUSD has the best B roll in the game no contest. the gag of "cleaning up after a RPG session" by sweeping dice and beer bottles into a dust tray was hilarious.
I'm gonna chime in here too. This video review of a ttrpg game was awesome! I absolutely love your content and would be stoked to see more rpg videos from you. Definitely going to check out the review on the site in the meantime :)
If one would want an example of play of Heart, the always amazing Friends At The Table podcast ensemble have played it in their most recent season. They played in an absolutely amazing homebrewed world though.
"Welcome to Perdido Street Station." LOL. This is where a lot of OSR presentation shines in introducing crazy cities in more digestible bits. Oooor players could read more. Just saying.
@@Quinns_Quest What the Hotspring Island OSR adventure did very well. It had a player facing IN UNIVERSE field guide to the island that let the players get super into the setting without any real spoilers.
So when you said play on one floor - honestly, that kind of sounds like the intention almost and was my first intuition when hearing you explain how vast it is. A single floor is both physically and culturally contained if I'm reading this right and the others might as well be different worlds or countries. They're just somewhat close to each other compared to our own. In that sense it seems like the richness of the setting is quite malleable and can be diced up neatly - which is great. A choose your flavor of grimdark fantasy.
Haven’t watched the video but seeing a channel with as many subcribers as you having tons of tabletop rpg content is incredible. We need more people playing more games in this hobby!
I don't think I'm alone when I demand MORRRREEEEEE!!!!!! Seriously, just because we're shutting up and sitting down doesn't mean board games, card games, and roll-and-writes have to be the only games we want to see reviewed. Fantastic! Bravissimo! MORE!!!!
Your criticism resonates very much with me, it also echoes my criticism of blades in the dark. having lots of pre-generated world seems great at first but I made the discovery that it's really annoying for everyone involved who doesn't like to remember 100+ pages of lore just to play the game to it's fullest. I think it's better to communicate the principles of the world not the world itself in all it's details, so that the group can create a world that has those interesting problems and still feel it's their own.
Honnestly Quins (is it with one or two ns?), your almost manic energy when talking about this game and the world it's set in is enough to sell me on the whole concept.
Nice to see a review about RPGs. I would like some more...😆😉 (Although the British accent makes your videos difficult for me to understand....but I watch them anyway.😆😆)
Absolutely agree with the Blades in the Dark parts. One of my favorite campaigns with my favorite group of people. Always looked forward to GM'ing it no matter how unprepared I was
Just want to echo others and say, I'd love to see more RPG reviews from you guys. If you want to put them on a separate channel or something to not "dilute" the brand or whatever, so be it, but there's definitely an explosion in interesting RPGs and RPG review content on TH-cam feels like it is 10 years behind that of board games.
I was one of the kickstarter supporters for Heart. It' such a wonderful book to read and the art is fantastic, but i've found trying to persuade anyone to actually sit down and play it with me a bit challenging.
I saw a TTRPG review and was 95% committed to the game, but when Quinns mentioned The Broken Earth Trilogy as a comparison, I ran and bought a copy of Spire. Amazing series and I can't wait to sink my teeth into it.
Great review that has definitely got me excited for spire and heart. The spaceship problem has a simple solution. You do kill them all, you do let them know that if that ship blows up, they better be in suits, or running to the shuttle ASAP. Space combat becomes the single most intense thing they have ever done.
Btw, in Tales from the Loop, there is no mention of playing your favorite song to auto-pass a skill check.That might've been a houserule. As far as I can tell, it has no mechanical effect. Or I'm completely blind and jsut can't find the page where it says so. Either or.
I finally ran a Spire one-shot for my players more or less at the same time Quinn published this review, and I totally agree with him. Buy this game and most of all run it.
Some additional TTRPGs that I have enjoyed through the years but not mentioned in the video are... - Star Wars (West End Games) This had an amazing feel to it, you started as a really insignificant character that wasn't all that powerful, but you grew into something quite extraordinary. You didn't even have the option to be a fully fledged jedi at the start, you could be a "crazy old wizard" type, or someone who was just a little more attuned to the ebb and flow of things. As the campaign grew, your pile of d6 grew and grew, until you came to do a particular "one in a million" type activity and fistfuls of dice were strewn all over the place. Magical stuff. - Cyberpunk 2020 (R Tolsorian) So many different archetypes thrown together to let a group play in any which way they thought was right. Purely espionage and computer things? Cool. Rough and tumble body mods to smash your way to the top? Also cool. For my part, I think I went for a mash up of Mad Max & Jet Black for a down on his luck ex cop with a few tweaks here and there who knew there was something rotten at the core and always managed to find himself in the wrong place at the right time.
I too played Shadowrun when way too young. It was 2nd Edition and I was 12 or 13 years old. I was so new to RPGs that I bought a source book first and as I was reading it slowly realized I didn't have what I needed to play the actual game. I had to save my allowance for a couple months in order to afford the core rules. The nice thing about starting with such a complex system is they all get easier from there!
“Because we don’t get to talk about role-playing games in videos very often on the Shut Up and Sit Down TH-cam channel” My man, I hope this video is the first step for that to change! Loved your content for years, and I think going over TTRPGs videos more often would be wonderful!
A a diehard TTRPG player (with a decent collection of board games) I loved this review. I think we should get video reviews of all those RPGs that Quinns liked more than D&D.
Wonderful review. I love Spire but I found The Heart (its even darker and more visceral companion) to be easier to run and easier to convince players to try. Please continue to review the RPGs you love!!!
I'm weird and whenever they show a group shot of them playing board games my eyes dart around trying to find Chris Bratt and screaming at the top of my lungs and pointing at him until they cut away and then I go back to normal. I just like the guy's face I guess.
Ive always wanted to do rpgs but i feel like theres a massive gap to getting started so instead ive buried myself in board games. This video was exquisite, i could listen you talk for hours!
Also i didnt know theres so many rpgs out there since i just hear talk around d&d. God, now choosing which rpg to start with makes the gap even bigger haha
Those candles looked very real, but knowing your track record with tech, I bet the candles were electronic and blowing on them caused a short-circuit... Great video!
Excellent review! For an RPG with similar themes but very different mechanics and setting, I would suggest Polaris. You play as knights betrayed by your king, fighting solar demons to save the North pole from melting. The game can only end in your character dying or turning into a demon. It's one of the best games I've ever played.
Lovely video! I'd absolutely adore more RPG reviews if you guys can fit it in the schedule, as someone who'd love to play RPGs in theory but in reality doesn't often get to.
Just gotta add that I love how broken the buttons are in some video sizes there. They function, but they're also bizarrely spaced in just the right humorous way.
As someone who is currently running a campaign using Good Society (systems-light Jane Austen simulator), just scheduled a session zero for a campaign of Rebel Crown (Game of Thrones-ish setting using the Blades in the Dark system), and is prepping to run a short game of City of Mist (urban fantasy neo-noir based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system), this review has me deeply concerned I'm going to have to learn a new system.
Great review, and put into perspective by the run through your rpg experiences in the end. I was a little nostalgic when I noticed the parallels to my rpg history. You really got me interested in Spire, but I do not think it would be the right game for the rest of my group. I'll give it a read when I get the chance.
I love reviews like this. Not just because I love TTRPG's and hearing about them; but the structure feels more like watching a vlog that goes through various things Quince wants to talk about
Thank you for talking about Spire/Heart and for getting video content out for RPGs in general. I just recently pulled the trigger on Blades in the Dark, Spire *and* Heart because I love bizarre, creepy, depressing fantasy settings, especially those with relatively simple, narrative-focused rules that give more player agency and that take some weight off the GM's shoulders. I've been taking my time to digest all the setting fluff, the process of which has been a joy in and of itself, even if it is a little overwhelming at times. I'm very eager to start putting my friends through a campaign. I'm actually torn between whether I want to start them with Blades or with Spire. I'm leaning toward Blades, simply because I think my players will enjoy the "crew development" aspect and watching how their decisions change the growth of their criminal enterprise. Truth be told, though, I will probably run them through campaigns of all three and have them tell me which they ended up enjoying most. Cheers!
OMG! FINALLY! This game deserves the recognition! It's my favorite RPG of all time, by any metric! Concrats to Shut Up & Sit Down for recognising the quality and style! Awesome!
I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG TO HEAR A REVIEW ON AN RPG FROM YOU GUYS! If you need more recommendations: Kult, No way Home, Cyberpunk, Twilight 2000! So happy you guys have reviewed an rpg, you present something that is viewed as so static with something that has so much life and colour.
I'm sure they take a while to make both in knowing the game, and making the video, but I'd love more TTRPG video reviews from shut up & sit down, love em!
Second this. Really enjoyed Tom's review on Thousand Year Old Vampire.
Thirded (is that a thing?), anyway, more please! I am limited when it comes to the number of boardgames I can fit in my house but not so the amount of silly worlds I can fit in my head!
Agree!! Love this review :)
@@xonerate371 huh?
@@xonerate371 what politically correct rpgs are you thinking about?
Finished a Spire campaign, can confirm all of Quinns' zeal here. One of my player characters had the ability to shapeshift, not into an animal or people, but into the *idea of rebellion*. By leveraging the fact that even high-level player characters are going to eventually bite it, the game is happy to hand you the keys to extremely fun, extremely exciting moments the whole way down.
“Heart: the city beneath”also has a similar concept, where, as their last action for their character *ever* one of the classes is allowed to create a personification of a concept and use the last of their energy to kill it, thus dispelling the concept from peoples’ minds. The guys behind these rpgs are really on one and I love it.
@@2122Hellfire Yup, can confirm I’m playing a heretic and my other delver partner used his deadwalker zenith to end racism. (Killing the concept or racism)
The meanness of the mechanics and setting make it so easy to get into the self-sacrificial attitude. "You will die, make it count" is a great description of the game
OMG i really love you guys doing rpg reviews in video format, should do them more often
I agree immensely
Agree
Absolutely agree! More of this!
I fucking love this guy. When I hear him talk about games, i allways secretly whish I could play some with him or discuss some shit. He definitly is one of a rare kind that I miss in my circle of idiots.
Loved this review. It's a pain that the process of playing a tabletop RPG campaign can take so long, because it makes so much of the coverage of it you can find be people's impression of the RPGs after reading the book and not actually playing the game.
Definitely agree. I would love if SU&SD would do video reviews for a lot more TTRPGs, but with the time investment it feels like it'll never happen
I don't have any resources to point you towards, but I know theres a lot of single session/ couple session games out there nowadays. So much stuff online if you go looking
@@sweetshalquoir6039 I know, I just like their style.
@@sweetshalquoir6039 This is true, but my main interest right now is in full campaign style games. And yeah even with the short ones, people still seem to just kinda read through the rules and make a preview.
@@bikzimusmaximus5250 fair enough. Looking back at your original comment that’s pretty clear, not quite sure how I took it as you specifically thinking campaign games were too long
Went and looked at this game on Amazon as I was watching this video right after it came out; the site said it was in stock, no caveats. Did some stuff and came back an hour or two later and it said “13 left! Order soon!”, so I ordered it. Just looked again and now it’s out of stock.
Nicely done, SUSD!
I drew these maps and am still available for map commissions fyi... 😁🗺️
He's a great artist, would recommend
As if I needed another reason to love SUSD, Quinns shares with such an incredibly wide audience the excellence that is N.K. Jemisin and her Broken Earth trilogy. Such a class act.
As someone whose entire adolescence was getting together with my little siblings and running Star Wars RPG and Changeling: the Lost for hours and hours every day, the Tabletop RPG content is so delightful to see from SUSD. Quinns and Tom’s musings on Thousand Year Vampire we’re some of my favorite SUSD content in years… and now, again, I find myself inspired to hop back in. Thanks, Daddy Quinns. Glad you dislike Shadowrun, too. :)
Seconded. Any cyberpunk game that has imaginary replacement swears instantly loses me, tbh. “Frag”? Are we serious? Ppl can clown on “choomba” all they want but at least my Solo still gets to call their traitorous Fixer a motherfucker without breaking lore.
I find, when DMing characters that are supposed to know the world, it's easiest to allow characters to improvise details within a framework. As they know the world. It is harder to do in such a fleshed out world, but I still find it so rewarding.
The Shadowrun comment was spot-on: I own the fifth edition rulebook and the spine of it has broken off from the sheer amount of rules I had to constantly look up during just one campaign
A big thing to deal with getting players to learn a lot of lore about the setting is either
1: See if they're interested enough to do their own reading about it
2: Give them a few important hooks and get the players to fill in the rest! Ask the players to name and describe the local mafia or the weird art tastes of the elite etc. They will care more and remember more if they helped create the world.
Oh my God! I've been absolutely obsessed with spire (and moreover it's spinoff HEART) for a good while now and it's so nice to see you guys bringing attention to one of the most underrated RPGs I've ever seen
Huh, I would've thought mouseguard would be inspired by guards. The more you know.
I loved this! I have Heart, have played BitD, and am interested in Spire so this checks many boxes. I would very much be interested in more ttrpg-content from this channel!
I honestly really hope you guys do more RPG reviews. It's so helpful to have a channel you trust give their opinions on a game before you subject you and your friends to it. Knowing what to look out for and what to prepare for is SO unbelievably helpful.
I've been playing a lot of Slay the Spire recently, and while I'm convinced there's no connection between that game and Spire, I find it a happy coincidence that both games feature a massive, unsettling Spire with a horrific Heart in the center.
I've been playing a ton of STS myself and I literally thought the exact same thing. Mainlining Silent A20 right now...pain.
The outlandish character concepts also match.
I love the abilities that revolve around throwing a wrench into the game master's narrative. I imagine it would be the same awesome feeling as finding a way to complete a goal in a video game that the game didn't expect you to do.
The first thing I ever did in a game of Spire was declare that our high society target was having a secret affair with the publisher of an illegal revolutionary newspaper. Never fallen for a game so fast as that moment.
Just got introduced to DND and fell in love with it. Very excited to branch out into some of the RPGs here. I owe a lot of thanks to Shut Up and Sit Down for re-igniting my joy for board games.
You got me fully sold when you mentioned the Broken Earth trilogy. Top notch detailed and entertaining review.
I rarely read fantasy, but I was talked into checking these out and man were they good! A fascinating take on magic in an incredibly well imagined world. This series deserves all the love and accolades that it gets!
Yesss not only do we get an RPG episode but Quinns is a Torchbearer fan? Hell yes.
I appreciate the smoothly integrated book review for N.K. Jemisin. This trilogy really is terrifyingly good.
I think I'll pick those up
@@rudeboyjohn3483 Good choice!
That was the moment I paused the video, ordered the RPG, and when back to it. 10/01 book series, and 'The City We Became' is an urban fantasy game waiting to happen
Getting strong Necromunda vibes, and I like it!
I loved reading this book and the character classes are the most fun I've seen. However, it was *not* a good fit for an online campaign for us: everything felt so alien and weird that we'd have needed at least the familiarity of hanging out with friends around the same irl table to ground us. As a GM, it was one of the most exhausting RPG experiences I've had.
That’s good to know. Thanks :)
@@AVspectre You’re welcome! Your mileage may vary of course. But I’m more used to RPGs set on earth or relatively low fantasy settings, so I was definitely way, way, way out of my comfort zone here. Oddly, I think I may have had it easier with some of the more bizarre character classes with more surreal powers, but my three players picked all the more grounded ones. And the book has little info on how the day-to-day works.
@@VilleHalonen This is one of the things that scares me about running this book, they do seriously little to tell you about actually playing the game. It's hard for me to limit the scope of the story in a world this rich, you know?
@@rondomane Exactly. They kickstarted some material that apparently contains guidance on how to run the game or to create conspiracies. The project was called Sin, if you want to look it up.
@@VilleHalonen i definitely will, appreciate it
Love the game, loved this review. I would be happy to see even more RPG material here.
A SHSD rpg reveiw. What end of times have we reached.
More end of times plz
There's a global board game shortage, don't you know?
IDK but considering they've done like a half dozen already I wish it'd get on with it.
Tell us you didn’t know they had a website without telling us you didn’t know there was a website.
What a treat. I've found, now that I have less time to prepare as a GM as life does its thing, the new OSR wave has breathed new life into my group. Stuff like Into the Odd, Mothership, great for one-shots, at the same time allowing for repeat players, and best of all, almost 0 prep.
Agreed. I am GMing more now than I ever have before, and it's because I can run a full game using one of those systems with about 15 minutes notice and some caffeine!
I loved this review, you should do more RPG reviews on this channel. It made me SO HAPPY when you got to your copy of Deadlands and it was stuffed full of notes and character sheets, just like my own copy.
Quinns, this is the best review I've seen you do on this channel in years. Thank you, thank you, for the wonderful count-down to your favorite RPG. Your love of games is evident here.
Hey....I did the artwork for Spire, great team to work for.
Can confirm, they are a genius
Delightful enthusiasm, i love it. This looks SO up my alley.
Really loved this review, thanks for creating it and loved hearing your thoughts and experiences with RPG's that you've played previously.
Also loved the cosplays everyone did of their characters in the final Spire session, so cool!
Will definitely check out the RPG reviews on the Shut Up & Sit Down website. 😊
Would love to see more rpg content if that's video reviews or running a campaign if you were all up for sharing that online on here or on Twitch. 😊
Thanks again for the amazing content. Really appreciate all the love that goes into them.
I can't recommend Mouse Guard enough! It's a delightful, playful, and rich game! It's also beautiful. I love it! Mouse Guard, Blades in the Dark, and Torchbearer are my favorites!
How do you make the combat work? I tried running it twice and it fell apart both times as soon as a conflict began…
"breaking the speed limit going down memory lane". Can we all take a second to appreciate that line, because that's a bloody good line.
Hiya, in case you read all your comments I just wanted to say I admire your content. I stumbled upon your channel when looking for crokinole reviews. Ever since that moment I’ve checked out your reviews of games I wanted to buy and now even games I’ve never heard of. And I love all of it!
Loved seeing the end with the countdown to best memories playing and GM'ing these games. This gives me a way better idea of whether a game is good for my group or not than most reviews do. And there's always something about seeing the excitement on someone's face, rather than in written text, that helps when it comes to a game where the social elements are so important.
As someone who happily marathoned your entire game of Twilight Imperium, and am tempted to go watch it again just thinking about it, if you guys ever decide to record one of your TTRPG campaigns, you’d definitely have viewers for it
Great review. By the way, if you like:
- Free League stuff (publishers of Tales from the Loop)
- "What if D&D was sad?"
- A setting that's full of possibilities whilst also being constrained and coherent
- A comparatively simple rules system
... I highly recommend Symbaroum. It ticks all of those boxes. I've played a bunch of TTRPGs and it's easily one of my favourites.
Loved the walk through the campaigns. That's valuable insight.
Loved this, please do more RPGs
SUSD has the best B roll in the game no contest. the gag of "cleaning up after a RPG session" by sweeping dice and beer bottles into a dust tray was hilarious.
As a boardgamer who is RPG curious, thanks for doing those quick reviews. Now I want to try one myself!
Coming back after the review of Heart is so much fun. Still love this video!
I'm gonna chime in here too. This video review of a ttrpg game was awesome! I absolutely love your content and would be stoked to see more rpg videos from you. Definitely going to check out the review on the site in the meantime :)
If one would want an example of play of Heart, the always amazing Friends At The Table podcast ensemble have played it in their most recent season. They played in an absolutely amazing homebrewed world though.
There's some really fantastic insights here; I know, as you mention, that RPGs aren't really your "brand," but I'd love to see SU&SD review more RPGs.
"Welcome to Perdido Street Station." LOL. This is where a lot of OSR presentation shines in introducing crazy cities in more digestible bits. Oooor players could read more. Just saying.
But read what!! The Spire book is full of spoilers. You're talking about ME having to write them an essay!
@@Quinns_Quest What the Hotspring Island OSR adventure did very well. It had a player facing IN UNIVERSE field guide to the island that let the players get super into the setting without any real spoilers.
So when you said play on one floor - honestly, that kind of sounds like the intention almost and was my first intuition when hearing you explain how vast it is. A single floor is both physically and culturally contained if I'm reading this right and the others might as well be different worlds or countries. They're just somewhat close to each other compared to our own.
In that sense it seems like the richness of the setting is quite malleable and can be diced up neatly - which is great. A choose your flavor of grimdark fantasy.
More of this format please, this was great.
Genuinely a great review, your perspective on the practical reality of how it feels to play is good stuff!!
Love the RPG content from you guys! The Mothership playthrough was actually my first video from this channel. Please do more! :)
Haven’t watched the video but seeing a channel with as many subcribers as you having tons of tabletop rpg content is incredible. We need more people playing more games in this hobby!
More video RPG reviews please! This was amazing and a pleasure to watch.
SUSD has rolled a natural 20 and got the better of technology! Great review, loved the round up at the end.
more TTRPG videos please!!!
This was great. I know you have alot if RPG reviews in other formats, but I would love to see more video reviews of them!
I don't think I'm alone when I demand MORRRREEEEEE!!!!!!
Seriously, just because we're shutting up and sitting down doesn't mean board games, card games, and roll-and-writes have to be the only games we want to see reviewed. Fantastic! Bravissimo! MORE!!!!
SW: Edge of the Empire strangely missing from the list of "All of the roleplaying sets that I have ever played", ZB-33...
Your criticism resonates very much with me, it also echoes my criticism of blades in the dark. having lots of pre-generated world seems great at first but I made the discovery that it's really annoying for everyone involved who doesn't like to remember 100+ pages of lore just to play the game to it's fullest. I think it's better to communicate the principles of the world not the world itself in all it's details, so that the group can create a world that has those interesting problems and still feel it's their own.
Honnestly Quins (is it with one or two ns?), your almost manic energy when talking about this game and the world it's set in is enough to sell me on the whole concept.
A fantastic review!! I think if I were to try and run this, Id probably restrict play to a level or two so I could reign in that insane scope
Neat! I really like world-building that's pushes the envelope and takes risks, I might check this one out just to read about the world
Nice to see a review about RPGs.
I would like some more...😆😉
(Although the British accent makes your videos difficult for me to understand....but I watch them anyway.😆😆)
Absolutely agree with the Blades in the Dark parts. One of my favorite campaigns with my favorite group of people. Always looked forward to GM'ing it no matter how unprepared I was
Just want to echo others and say, I'd love to see more RPG reviews from you guys. If you want to put them on a separate channel or something to not "dilute" the brand or whatever, so be it, but there's definitely an explosion in interesting RPGs and RPG review content on TH-cam feels like it is 10 years behind that of board games.
And I loved seeing Quinn in love while making this video. Inspirational as always.
Thank you for this review. I love these RPGs and I would not have discovered them otherwise.
Even TTRPGs aren't safe from Quinn's love of gambling games and casinos
Is it a compliment to tell you that I liked this video so much I went back and immediately watched it again? Because that feels like a compliment.
I was one of the kickstarter supporters for Heart. It' such a wonderful book to read and the art is fantastic, but i've found trying to persuade anyone to actually sit down and play it with me a bit challenging.
Really enjoyed both the Spire review and the treat! Would love more video TTRPG reviews from Quinns and SUSD.
I'm glad SU&SD is willing to shut us up and sit us down for something different. I really appreciate it.
I saw a TTRPG review and was 95% committed to the game, but when Quinns mentioned The Broken Earth Trilogy as a comparison, I ran and bought a copy of Spire. Amazing series and I can't wait to sink my teeth into it.
Great review that has definitely got me excited for spire and heart.
The spaceship problem has a simple solution. You do kill them all, you do let them know that if that ship blows up, they better be in suits, or running to the shuttle ASAP.
Space combat becomes the single most intense thing they have ever done.
Btw, in Tales from the Loop, there is no mention of playing your favorite song to auto-pass a skill check.That might've been a houserule. As far as I can tell, it has no mechanical effect.
Or I'm completely blind and jsut can't find the page where it says so. Either or.
This was fantastic! Please do more! Loved every minute of it!
I finally ran a Spire one-shot for my players more or less at the same time Quinn published this review, and I totally agree with him. Buy this game and most of all run it.
Some additional TTRPGs that I have enjoyed through the years but not mentioned in the video are...
- Star Wars (West End Games) This had an amazing feel to it, you started as a really insignificant character that wasn't all that powerful, but you grew into something quite extraordinary. You didn't even have the option to be a fully fledged jedi at the start, you could be a "crazy old wizard" type, or someone who was just a little more attuned to the ebb and flow of things. As the campaign grew, your pile of d6 grew and grew, until you came to do a particular "one in a million" type activity and fistfuls of dice were strewn all over the place. Magical stuff.
- Cyberpunk 2020 (R Tolsorian) So many different archetypes thrown together to let a group play in any which way they thought was right. Purely espionage and computer things? Cool. Rough and tumble body mods to smash your way to the top? Also cool. For my part, I think I went for a mash up of Mad Max & Jet Black for a down on his luck ex cop with a few tweaks here and there who knew there was something rotten at the core and always managed to find himself in the wrong place at the right time.
I too played Shadowrun when way too young. It was 2nd Edition and I was 12 or 13 years old. I was so new to RPGs that I bought a source book first and as I was reading it slowly realized I didn't have what I needed to play the actual game. I had to save my allowance for a couple months in order to afford the core rules. The nice thing about starting with such a complex system is they all get easier from there!
This was awesome, hope you guys do more rpg reviews like this one!
“Because we don’t get to talk about role-playing games in videos very often on the Shut Up and Sit Down TH-cam channel”
My man, I hope this video is the first step for that to change! Loved your content for years, and I think going over TTRPGs videos more often would be wonderful!
A a diehard TTRPG player (with a decent collection of board games) I loved this review. I think we should get video reviews of all those RPGs that Quinns liked more than D&D.
Wonderful review. I love Spire but I found The Heart (its even darker and more visceral companion) to be easier to run and easier to convince players to try. Please continue to review the RPGs you love!!!
You're reviewing RPGs? I didn't know! Damn, this channel will take even more of my time now! :-)
I'm weird and whenever they show a group shot of them playing board games my eyes dart around trying to find Chris Bratt and screaming at the top of my lungs and pointing at him until they cut away and then I go back to normal. I just like the guy's face I guess.
Ive always wanted to do rpgs but i feel like theres a massive gap to getting started so instead ive buried myself in board games. This video was exquisite, i could listen you talk for hours!
Also i didnt know theres so many rpgs out there since i just hear talk around d&d. God, now choosing which rpg to start with makes the gap even bigger haha
Those candles looked very real, but knowing your track record with tech, I bet the candles were electronic and blowing on them caused a short-circuit...
Great video!
Excellent review! For an RPG with similar themes but very different mechanics and setting, I would suggest Polaris. You play as knights betrayed by your king, fighting solar demons to save the North pole from melting. The game can only end in your character dying or turning into a demon. It's one of the best games I've ever played.
I'll take more TTRPG reviews any day but I would love a show with Quinn just talking about his past campaigns even more!
Lovely video! I'd absolutely adore more RPG reviews if you guys can fit it in the schedule, as someone who'd love to play RPGs in theory but in reality doesn't often get to.
Just gotta add that I love how broken the buttons are in some video sizes there. They function, but they're also bizarrely spaced in just the right humorous way.
As someone who is currently running a campaign using Good Society (systems-light Jane Austen simulator), just scheduled a session zero for a campaign of Rebel Crown (Game of Thrones-ish setting using the Blades in the Dark system), and is prepping to run a short game of City of Mist (urban fantasy neo-noir based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system), this review has me deeply concerned I'm going to have to learn a new system.
Great review, and put into perspective by the run through your rpg experiences in the end. I was a little nostalgic when I noticed the parallels to my rpg history.
You really got me interested in Spire, but I do not think it would be the right game for the rest of my group. I'll give it a read when I get the chance.
I love reviews like this. Not just because I love TTRPG's and hearing about them; but the structure feels more like watching a vlog that goes through various things Quince wants to talk about
Thank you for talking about Spire/Heart and for getting video content out for RPGs in general. I just recently pulled the trigger on Blades in the Dark, Spire *and* Heart because I love bizarre, creepy, depressing fantasy settings, especially those with relatively simple, narrative-focused rules that give more player agency and that take some weight off the GM's shoulders. I've been taking my time to digest all the setting fluff, the process of which has been a joy in and of itself, even if it is a little overwhelming at times. I'm very eager to start putting my friends through a campaign. I'm actually torn between whether I want to start them with Blades or with Spire. I'm leaning toward Blades, simply because I think my players will enjoy the "crew development" aspect and watching how their decisions change the growth of their criminal enterprise. Truth be told, though, I will probably run them through campaigns of all three and have them tell me which they ended up enjoying most. Cheers!
THIS IS MY JAM!!!! I love me some RPGs. And I love comparing rules systems. You hit me in the wheelhouse, Quinns.
It says a lot about Spire that Quinns felt it totally unnecessary to talk about the ruleset.
OMG! FINALLY! This game deserves the recognition!
It's my favorite RPG of all time, by any metric! Concrats to Shut Up & Sit Down for recognising the quality and style! Awesome!
RPG reviews in video format are very much appreciated.
I HAVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG TO HEAR A REVIEW ON AN RPG FROM YOU GUYS!
If you need more recommendations: Kult, No way Home, Cyberpunk, Twilight 2000!
So happy you guys have reviewed an rpg, you present something that is viewed as so static with something that has so much life and colour.