All very familiar
Resolute, Adventurer and Genius takes the core of the Warrior, Rogue and Mage system and resets it in the pulp genre. This is far from sacriledge - what makes WR&M delightful is that your character's primary attributes are constructed as of proportions of typical fantasy archetypes. There is no reason this premise could be see through the coloured glass of Sci Fi, horror or The Great Typewriter Monkey Rebellion.The title of the game denotes your three attributes: Resolute is strength, toughness and courage; Adventurer measures intuition, agility and charisma; Genius is mental acumen and creativity. Each measured between 0 and 6, although 0 in each would mean your a clumsy coward with all the intelligence of a potato. You build you character by distributing 10 points between them.
Skills give your character a role in the team (you start with 3) and a Talent gives you a certain ZING!. There's a small list of Skills - because RAG (like WR&M) isn't really about Skills. Talents are where things get interesting and it has one of those lists which cannot help but suggest cool characters to play.
Derring Do
Actions are a well known song - sing along with me (to the tune of Caribou by The Pixies):To do a thing
Roll a...Dee-Six
Add A...ttribute
Add Skill as well
If one applies
Then modify
You need to beat
Target score...
Target scoooorreeeee!
Target scoooooorrreeeeeeee!
For any sixes that are rolled, add 5 to the total and roll again. If you keep rolling D6s, keep adding 5 and rolling again. That's called exploding die. You don't actually have to make the die explode. Opposed checks are bigger-score-wins. Combat and healing is along these lines with hit points keeping track of damage.
Luck points can be spent to change the game world, avoid a take, reroll a die or add +2 before the roll is made. All good mechanic options. You regain luck by being heroic. If you're playing a party of villains, you get points for villainy. Such as kicking cats, punching old ladies or laughing maniacally on mountain tops.
VROOOOOM!
A welcome sight are some natty vehicle combat rules, which add just enough crunch to be interesting. RAG uses the chase as its vehicle combat rules, which fits snugly into the pulp theme. I heartily chuckled at the list of vehicles provided, which includes a Cargo Ship, Dirigible and U-boat! Letting my players see a U-boat in a list of vehicles will automatically generate the goal "Let's by a U-boat".Everything else
That poor fellow (or madam) perched at the end of the table often needs as much help as they can get. The GM is provided with pulp in the 1910s/20s/30s/40s, a bestiary, help giving out XP and words of wisdom. It even has a back cover for the new player to glance over.The book is beautifully presented, has a back cover and contents, its license is Creative Commons, it reads well (no glaring errors). There's even a print friendly version that is black and white. I love you chaps!
2 comments:
It sounds really cool! I'm always looking for new RPG games, and it sounds like RAG is a must-try. Thanks for the review!
As for the niggle, either JAGS, JAGS2 or YAGS provide skills and talents aplenty.
More important are settings.
Diesel Punk Raiders (Indy heads into Doc Savage territory)
or
Project Ravenwood (Abner figured out how to make all that 'old junk' work and is trying to keep the world safe from it.)
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