Mork Borg: Doom Metal OSR RPG Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ส.ค. 2020
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Did you notice what is hidden on the edge of the book?
Nice review, Ben. This was a beast of a book to edit, but it's cool being one of the people that worked on it. ;) Can't wait to run the adventure some time.
I had no idea!
Wai, you worked on it? Damn, nice job Vi.
Great job out there
do you know who edited the module part of this book? And can I get their contact info?
You're the one that edited this ass-backward book?
Shame, shame lol.
It's a beautiful book and the system is excellent, but the layout is nonsense and does nothing to enhance the style. Sacrificing quick access functionality on a rules lite game was a bad call.
With that said, I'm glad it exists, and I'll tolerate whatever broken excuse for a format is necessary to play, but I know saveral people that skipped the game due to the layout of the book.
Hats off to you and yours, keep up the good work. But please, for the love of God clean up that format.
I feel it's worth adding that in the pdf version, the setting map in the lore section and the dungeon mini map in the adventure are linked so you can click part of the map to go to the related section in the book
Been waiting for this vid, love my little yellow book.
I personally love the amount of lore and world description. It gives you enough to work with and then build your own from there, or just slot it into another game entirely.
Small correction:, Mörk Borg won the silver Ennie for Best Game. Alien won gold.
True, it actually won:
Product of the Year (Gold)
Best Layout and Design (Gold)
Best Writing (Gold)
Best Game (Silver)
I think the design difference between the rules and the adventure is becasue reading the rules by yourself you can allow the design to get in the way a bit as its more of an expirience. you can take your time and enjoy what the design says as well as what the words say (if that works for you is a different story)
but the adventure at the and is something that would be referenced more during a game and having it too distracting could slow things down.
this books seems like a great addition to someones zine shelf. I hope they sell it in australia
Yeah it gave a lot of zine vibes. It seems cool to a fun little side campaign or maybe that session that part of the group would not be able to join
Just load it free
do u have this jimbob? i got the stargrave n cyberpunk books
@@fammo28 Oh wow awesome. nah! I just went through a period last year of looking into all these small RPG books for some reason haha
I had no interest in this game before, however after this review I'm putting it on a list of "things to pick with spare funds", for those impulse buying days.
Not my bag but that dungeon layout *chefs kiss*.
I feel like this game really captures what’s so evocative about Dark Souls: heavy on atmosphere, light on explicit lore, and full of over-the-top doom and gloom that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Between your and Dungeoncraft's reviews, you guys got me to buy Mörk Borg. Excellent reviews! Mörk Borg means Dark Castle in Swedish btw.
I'd say it is closer to "Dark Keep" but tomato tomato
3:05 I recognize that. That's a finishing move from Mortal Kombat Medieval. "ROYALITY!"
Thanks for the overview! I’m taking the plunge on the core book and the Feretory supplement for solo play and this was a great introduction.
Hello, a dude from sweden here, dowing what we do best: Drinking coffe and trying to convivnce the world that the swedish language is not hard, actually.
The classics, Å Ä Ö.
Å is pronounced like the O in Lord, Ä is pronounced as the A in Damn, and finaly Ö is pronounced kinda like the U in Murder.
For the O in Borg, shorten it a bit and deepen it a bit. And finaly the end G is not as hard, and pronounced more as a J.
From Sweden with Love
- Kami
P.S, Tveland, i think you just need to extend your E abit, so its more like "Tveeland", and if you wanna get realy fancy you could work on your swedish A, wich is more as the A in Lard as a standard than the american A, who sounds more like our Ä.
But honestly, your doing fine, mate. Swedish realy isnt that hard to speak(tm)
Would you say Ö is pronounced like the "e" in "bed" while rounding your lips like you're saying the "oo" in "food"? That's how I learned it for German and Turkish, at any rate.
@@timothyreal hmmm i'll have to try that when i can make strange sounds and not disturb anyone.
Oh, the U in Disturb works as well
Great review! Im getting this for sure - its even for sale at my local games store
Amazing game, amazing community on Discord and the best lore. So glad you reviewed it!
We had an interruption to a long running 5e campaign while the DM had a vacation and other players were dealing with house issues, and another player offered to run this in the interim. What a gloriously fucked up mess of fun! We all agreed to generate characters using the “schvbirther” app and play those out at the last minute, and played the adventure included in the book. Somehow we survived...... but going into a one shot like that knowing that death was almost certain, with selfish and paranoid character tendencies that tended towards nihilistic and just seeing where it went......
The uncertainty, heavy metal vibe, and not caring if you lived or died made this a blast!
This is the exact thing I was looking for my end of time dnd campain, definitely going to implement some of the stuff it has in my setting 😁
I was so enticed by what was presented in this video that I purchased Mork Borg immedietly. Now that I have it in my hands, it's even better than what a camera can capture. I've conviced my gaming group to give it a try. I'll be GMing our own campagin soon! Can't wait.
My god that's a GORGEOUS book. Will buy and run it asap.
Drips atmosphere. If this book does not inspire you and set your imagination running...
Well, I'll just leave it at that.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on "Murk" Borg.
The best looking, most thematic game book I've ever seen. Amazing looking. I ordered 2 (as well as the expansion and the vinyl album scenario/expansion.
Got one for a friend who will never be interested in it as a game, but loves metal and will think its badass as just an art, story, coffee table type book
Our DM is doing a one-shot of Mörk Borg this weekend! So hyped!!
How did it go?
Indeed, I would also like to know
Did you notice the spine of the book has fluorescent letters that glow in the dark?
OMG, that's an amazing little detail. I definitely didn't notice until you pointed that out.
Amazing review. Just bought two copies of the book! \m/
I have played Rot Black Sludge and as soon as I wrap up my D&D campaign this year, we are diving back into Mork Borg. I love the rules much more then something like Basic Fantasy which I find too limiting. I'll be taking their location names and creating a homebrew of this world.
Playing with sludge metal in the background is recommended. 🤘
"Over-the-top" unironically repeated three times in one minute to describe the book. Yeah, it lives up to its self-description as a metal album of an RPG. "Ridiculously high attention to quality."
Good review!
Played this. Would recommend.
A really cool book that I will one day pick up for my collection but I feel like it's a more eccentric less rules focused Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Cool idea but I doubt I'll ever actually play it.
Was wondering when you'd review this one. Quality work as always.
Love the design of book. Unfortunately, It's sold out everywhere apart from the Mörk Borg website, it seems. Thats were I've ordered it. Can't wait.
It's actually available on Amazon the last I checked
@@bjhale Out of stock on Amazon UK. The Mörk Borg website says that another print run will be released at the end of August.
Oh yes, finally!
I got this from pre order. Love the world building. Gonna have a campaign with some friends who are into dark souls and extreme metal.
This book is so beautiful!
I JUST discovered this at my local game store and was sold immediately based on graphic design alone. I'm a designer myself and absolutely LOVED the entire vibe and aesthetic. The different page textures, gold foil elements, and the consistency of the chaos throughout really nail the theme home. Each unique page has me flipping for more. The game design is incredible and can't wait to try it out
Wish me luck, I'm running Pirate borg this weekend!
Потрясающий дизайн.
I thought for sure you already reviewed it! Ha! I backed the 2nd Kickstarter after getting the pdf. The setting is very evocative even as you say, not well stated out and over the top! So more is coming, and there is a lot of material for free on their website!
I have been drinking and played pong with famous metal musicians, but the coolest I've done is been participating in the Mörk Borg Releaseparty, personally invited by Pelle. Starstrucked to the max!
It's a rad game made by rad people. I love them and their game so much!
I kind of wish they had a more traditionally designed version available. Sometimes with the weird fonts and the cluttered images it can be hard to read.
NEED THIS
WANT THIS
At the risk of sounding like a “hwell actually” tool, this seems to be more based on Black Metal than doom metal.
@@SoulpunkTVshow: Depends on what Black Metal you are talking about. The book is dedicated to Dead for a reason.
To me it seems more like Edgy power metal, in fact it almost doesnt seem to takenitself seriously imo
I dunno, this sounds pretty in line with Candlemass
Well there IS an official playlist on spotify made by the creators, and it's made up of mostly doom metal, but I can see where you're coming from. Both could work, though when I played it the doom metal in the background fit amazingly and gave it such a cool feel. Slow, dark, droning, massive, and heavy.
The name is the same (translated) as that of noted band Dimmu Borgir, which I think is somewhat relevant to this comment.
Nice. Just bought it.
Pronunciation guide!
Ö is a vowel pronounced kind of like "uuh", when you're hesitating, or like the "u" in "Thursday".
G as a consonant can either sound like what you would expect (like the G in "green"), or like a soft "j" sound (like the Y in "yellow"). In the case of Mörk Borg, it's the latter.
So, for all my non-Swedish speaking friends, with my above explanation in mind, try to say Mörk Borg sort of like "murk bory" (from "murky" and "bore"). It's not exact, but it will get you most of the way to sounding like a Swede, and not like the Swedish Chef.
The meaning of the title is "Dark Castle", which seems appropriate. It's metal as fuck. I'm hesitant to order it though, because as pretty as the book is to look at for the first few times, how long does it take before it outstays its welcome? And how good is a rules book that is sometimes illegible? That said the feel of the whole thing seems awesome.
When I reviewed it, I asked the authors how it was pronounced phonetically and they said "Murk Borg" - and they said it meant "Dark Fort".
@@BudsRPGreview I'm a native Swedish speaker. "Borg" has a soft "J" sound and not a hard "g" like in "cyborg". And the article for "Borg" leads to "Castle" when you change the language on Wikipedia. "Fort" is the same word (and meaning I think) in Swedish (but "Fort", "borg", "slott" and "fästning" are somewhat interchangeable in daily use, just like "stronghold", "Castle" and "fortress" are - unless you get down to the specifics). That's my take on it anyway.
@@TankTaur Im not doubting you are correct. The guys who wrote it are also native Swedish, so maybe it's a regional thing.
@@BudsRPGreview Sure thing. I personally think they forgot to point that detail out, but I could be wrong. At any rate, I've provided the general style of pronunciation for everyone 😋
@@TankTaur I've been studying Swedish (poorly) a lot more diligently since the Pandemic started, and thought it was a lovely moment in the video when he basically got "Mork" more or less, was way off on "Borg", and then took the time to tell the audience that he wasn't going to even attempt the first word.
It really points out the difficulty for an English Speaker trying to figure out Swedish pronunciation. Don't even get me started on "K"s combining with other letters to completely change another letter's sound :/
As soon as you said, I’m not even gonna try to pronounce that umlaut… I immediately imagined the Swedish Chef saying Mork Borg 😆
Still waiting for my pre order. Been loving the Free League games lately
Its made by Stockholm Cartel, free league is just the publisher
Carl-Fredrik L I’ve been loving the games published by Free League lately
Theyre very cool. Im playing a tales from the loop oneshot soon, and I really want to try this as well
4:55 Hah, I knew I've seen that picture before. It is form a 1530 fieldbook in surgery. Cool use.
This book looks amazing. Haven't played the game, but the design is OMG. :)
I'm actually writing my own osr right now and am trying to figure out if I am going in the right direction or not.
If it is a generic rpg, keep it simple. But smaller rpg's find success by focusing on a specific theme.
Looks like there might be about 20 pages of content there after you strip out the beautiful presentation.
An interesting new setting, lush production but for me way over the top design. Design should enhance information not obscure it
I agree. I find this book fascinating but nearly unreadable.
Bit late, but still nice to hear!
A lot more adventures are available
Some of the art remind me of the bible art of Dore
This got me wondering what kind of music does Good Ole Ben listen to. I chuckled imagining him blasting Electric Wizard during his sessions with 5th graders
Oh wow. So you can play as a Weedian and beat things with a femur? At least one of my groups would love this. I don't think I've ever ordered anything so quickly after seeing one of your videos on it. haha
Occult herbmaster be like; Drop out life
With bong in hand
Follow the smoke
To the riff filled land
@@ProTobigen No, no, no, like this: DDDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP *deep breath* OOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT OOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF LLLLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEEE
@@gabrielhanley2217 WIIIIIIIIITHHHH BOOOOOOOONGUH IIIIIIIN HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND
I'm really glad this thread went where it did.
@@HarmonyProcyonLotor 90% of the time when sleep is even referenced loghtly, its gonna be fun 😄 plus i just rattle off the first bit of dopesmoker whenever i get the chance lol.
Thanks for this thorough review. I've been back and forth on whether or not I want to try this and while I do love the setting and design of the book, I think the system just isn't for me after watching this (not a fan of multi-dice systems). BUT, I may still try it out. =D
I had seen this video before, but only now did I realize the title is Swedish. Mörk Borg means Dark Castle.
I took part in the first and second kickstarter and I still think it's one of the cooles books ever. ^^
Free League Publishing always makes high quality stuff. They also published the Alien RPG.
It was only a matter of time, until you review this book :-D
I have been playing a loved so far, but i have a question that maybe someone might help me with... I am travelling on the road and a Troll comes after me, i throw ranged attacks and the troll only have meele attacks, how would you resolve this? There are no hexes, grids nor movement references on the stats...
In theater of the mind RPGs, you kind of can use your own grid/map or just just calculate how many many turns the troll will need to reach your character, until you're in range, the troll will most likely try to catch up with you
@@lurst thanks! I solved by rolling the famous dc12, while I was rolling above i was able to keep the distance... but when i rolled under, we were in melee. I loved this mechanic and to this day i use it.
Ö isn't an o umlaut in Swedish, it's an entirely different letter!
But how does it play? Is it a good system? Is the dungeon any good? Because Mörk Borg looks like the kind of book that you move off the table and out of the way to make room for the kind of book you put on the table and in front of you when it’s time to play.
When you play it it all becomes clear. The dungeons ar really good. Not for campaigns perhaps but when one player is missing or when you need some fun.
It's a pretty bare bones but functional system. Doesn't feel that different from Into the Odd, Troika, or Knave to me. It's fun in oneshots, haven't tried a campaign of it, but I'd join one at the drop of a hat.
Great design, but what’s so great about the world building? I didn’t get that from the video. It seems like a quirky attack of the necromancer setting. I don’t think I would enjoy playing in a dark depressing doomed world..
Well, if you wanna do something more optimistic with this book, how about borrowing from "Brutal Legend"? It's metal to the bone, but for the sake of comedy (one spell you can do in that game drops burning zeppelins on top of your enemies -- it's a shout-out to the Hindenburg and most importantly to one of the covers of a Led Zeppelin album. The local barbarian king was also voiced by none other than Lemmy of Motorhead).
The way I see it, it's pretty good for one-shots or pretty short campaigns. OSR can be pretty deadly and this setting I guess, if played right, has a high character attrition.
3 Gold ENnies, 1 silver (Best Game)
Whoops! You're right.
Very artistic but that book would drive me insane, and not in a good way
*DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*
Cant find this book under its isbn
Cy_Borg when?
Sounds like it's more style than substance. The reviews I've seen talk more about the fonts and page layout than the game design.
Looks like a typography book
This is the RPG equivalent of a Chanel ad.
Idea of a metal themed rpg is cool but not wild about doom/ death metal. Maybe something in a speed/power/ symphonic metal category might work.
yeah, power metal, where armor-clad warriors take up swords against evil wizards and dragons... someone really should make an RPG about that...
It really isnt any more metal inspired than D&D imo, but thats cause D&D pulls a lot from stuff that influenced power metal and early heavy metal such as Elric of Melnibone.
LakeVermilionDreams I’ve observed a distinct lack of motorcycles and tanks in D&D dude. Power metal tends to be a metal sub genera that moves away from the fantasy trappings.
Greasy Smith Eh, like, give me a metal system that can run in a similar fashion to Say, The Heavy Metal Animated movie. As much cars, machine guns, aliens and space ships as swords and sorcery.
@@BobSmith-oo7ei um no thats entirely wrong, power metal is the most fantasic metal genre, Rhapsody of Fire, Manowar, even Dragonforce are power metal. Do you even listen to it? I mean fucking Rhapsody of Fire has a 5 album high fantasy story with a 3 album sequal story. Seriouslg even Wikipedia says power metal usually has fantasy lyrics. No wonder people think Morl Borg is doom metal they dont even know what the genres are. As for cars and machine guns and aliens...expidition to the barrier peaks, anything to do with Blackmoor, heck spelljamming is basically micheal moorcocks Scaling ships.
This style of design is - for me - a gorgeous but unreadable mess.
Pronounced Murk !
I thought it was more like myurk
[møːrk borj] IPA for Swedish. Ö is a bit like u in "fur", and the final g is pronounced like "ee" in English: so sort of "Murk Boree".
Not trying to be that guy, but as someone who likes both black and doom, this doesn't feel at all like it. It seems more like (pardon me the expression) Glam-black metal. Specially with the colors yellow and pink, google-image black and doom albums and tell me if you see anything like that.
As I read in other comment, even if doom and metal artists know that their music is not to be taken seriously, they take it seriously when they are on stage. You rarely see goofy lyrics or songs that try to mock themselves, they are always in character.
Also, there is very spare setting elements and on the few there are, you hardly see the many concepts and topics that are present in that music: Sorrow, anguish, rituals, spiritual travels, hellish dimensions (maybe this is the only one), church hatred, misanthropy etc.
For me this a "It's basically d&d. Oh, but don't forget it to sprinkle it with metal mockery".
It looks great and sounds cool but the idea of using it makes me want to throw it against the wall
I would disagree with you on one front: the design in the adventure at the back of the book is not „better“, it fits a different purpose, so the design responds accordingly. In the adventure module, you‘ll want to be able to see all the information at a glance, hence the clear and orderly layout. In the rules and lore parts of the book, the design serves twin purposes: First, it serves as a visual shorthand for the flavor, atmo and general tone of the game, secondly the „confusing“ layout encourages you to think deeper about the rules, because you kind of have to piece them together yourself, which helps with learning. Also it just looks really cool.
So in short, i don‘t find any part of MÖRK BORG confusing, though it‘s layout is unconventional and very creative.
@@maxducoudray well, i was mostly speaking from personal experience regarding the layout. I'm not sure if authorial intent matters in this regard, the design serves this purpose anyway, if it was intended this way or not.
Again, my opinion is of course shaped from personal experience. I'm a visual learner, so it certainly helped me. Where i would have to read plain text, however well layed out, at least two or three times to learn it, i got MÖRK BORG right away.
Sorry if i explained this badly.
The shadowrun dudes need the mork borg dudes to design the next shadowrun book so it can be like black sludge and not like shadowrun
Look at some free PDFs maybe try building a shadowrunner and feel our pain basic comprehension will take hours
If you can pronounce "Mirkwood" I think you can pronounce it :)
photoshop tour de force.
You might find it funny/interesting to know that you actually did a pretty decent job pronouncing "Mork" ... It was the "Borg" part you butchered :)
This game feels less like an RPG and more like a boardgame-in-a-book.
@@colbyboucher6391 The book's setting implies a very predictable railroady series of events.
@@nicklarocco4178 They're all random though.
Style over substance. Plus, what so doom metal about bright pink and yelow? I am not a hater but it does look too hipster-ish for my taste. Thanks for review, Ben!
I think it might be just that its Swedish and Candlemass is also swedish lol.
I think the people into sword dream made this. So yeah...
@@user-ze3tq9hf9i oh no...
Eegh not a fan of this art at all.
If you pronounce it like "Murk Bory" you'll get very close to the Swedish pronounciation
I love the idea of this book, but I found it basically unusable due to the art and layout.
"uh-BLADE-iv" not "AB-la-tiv"
I would be really annoyed if I'd bought this book and this is what I got 😂 I know that's an individual thing and that others would love it so I'm not knocking it. I think it's terrible though. It looks more like a coffee table art book. So much wasted space and such a pointless, complicated layout.
20 pages of writing spread into 100 pages.
Nah. That may run by old-school rules, but even when done tongue-in-cheek it doesn't have the spirit. Pass.
pretty but vapid
Not into this one. Way to busy and kinda ugly.
I'm all for grim dark but this is nothing but super edge lord shit.
Man, you were really out of your depth on this one