Pipes, Pints, and Polyhedrons

I mentioned in my post from Gary Con XI that I had picked up this new rpg, Ragnarok. I initially passed the dealer booth on Thursday, when I was taking pictures, but didn't think much of it. I only had an hour free to walk around so I didn't look into much with any great detail. On Friday, skipping my morning event, I had several hours to wander around so when I came back around to the booth, I took a closer look and the vendor attendant, Bryan I think, asked if I was familiar with the game and when I said no, he proceeded to explain every aspect. I can be a sucker for certain "unique" rpgs, and by the end I was sold on the style not only of the art and writing, but also system (plus I dig Viking based games). I've not delved into the books much since getting back on Monday, but I remember a good bit from my talk at the booth; my regret was not having time to get into the demos that were going on to learn the system better. I'll post the basics of what I recall and will have to add more as I read/learn more about the game.


FotN: Ragnarok is primarily a narrative rpg and I'm not the biggest fan of narrative games, but this one also has combat that can be based around miniatures, which I thought was pretty cool. So, getting to the meat of the system; what is what and what does what and how do things happen.

First, the system does not use dice. Like some other non-standard games that skip dice in favor of cards or similar resolution tools, this one uses what it calls Runic Game System (RGS) which means it uses a bag of Runes to help resolve actions.

Second, the runes are core to characters in that they represent a couple of different things. The number of runes in a player's bag represents the characters Essence, everything that the character is (skills, abilities, life, etc); the number of runes that a character can draw from the bag during their turn is the character's Destiny, any change that the character can have on the world around them (actions that the character can take).

Third, characters in this game have a level, but it's not levels like those found in D&D or similar other games. The levels in FotN:R are more about balancing your Essence and Destiny during creation (and later to upgrade) by buying them based on level. Starting character, known as dwellers, can purchase Essence and Destiny for 1 and 2 level points, respectively. For example, an 8th level dweller could buy an Essence of 4 (runes in bag) and a Destiny of 2 (number of runes drawn per turn) or, an Essence of 6 (runes in bag) and a Destiny of 1 (rune drawn per turn).

Fourth, the runes also have colors which represent traits of a character, they also act as methods for enhancing actions that the character takes or spells cast. The runes have three primary colors, Red (physical), Blue (mental), and Green (spiritual), plus there is a blank rune, the Void rune, that acts as an extra rune when a character is called upon to Wyrd (to call upon their Destiny by drawing runes from the bag).

Fifth, conflict resolution is simply stating character actions using verbs based on the number of dice runes drawn from the bag, then resolving reactions to those initial actions. His example was that if you drew three runes from the bag, then your character would get three actions.

1) I draw my sword, 2) I walk across the room, and 3) I stab the guard with my sword.

That's it. The stated actions occur, period. However, it is then up to the opponent, in this case the guard, to use runes to make reactions (dodging, blocking, etc). At it's most basic level, that's all it takes to play the game. Of course, he did say you can add more complexity to the game based on other game rules but he has seen entire games played with nothing more than drawn runes and stated actions. That's the beauty of the game's design, you can tailor it to whatever level of complexity you like.

Those are the fundamental core mechanics that I can remember from our main conversation, however there are a couple of other points that would also be of interest that I'll post tomorrow evening, when I get a chance to snap and post some book pics to help explain.

The current print books I bought while at GCXI:

Hmmm. Interesting idea. And I'm digging the art. Might have to try a demo of that at a con one o' these years.

Pics of interior art:
So there are a couple of other points I remember, one of which is that the characters have something of a skill/ability map that allows players many choices when deciding how to flesh out their character. The great thing about this is that two characters of the same class, can be completely different depending on how each player maps out their skills/abilities. You can see the sort of layout in the picture of the Skald above. Classes also have three underlying archetypes, each based on the three colored Runes. You can see in the example of the Skald above that there are three archetypes for Skald, the Wanderer (physical), Poet (mental), and Mystic (spiritual).

Monsters have similar ability maps. This helps the GM play the same monsters during encounters in different ways; players may have encountered a Kobold once before, but the second or third time means the Kobolds could act and attack in completely different manners.

Another aspect of the game is how the Runes interact with character's abilities and spells. In the pic below, you can see that there are three color-coded attributes for each ability or spell, corresponding to the colors of the runes. When a character attempts to use an ability, after having conducted their Wyrd, they can use any or all of their unspent runes to enhance abilities by playing matching runes. For example, lets say a Berserker is fighting three foes and wants to attempt a Disarm. If the drawing yields a Mental rune, the player can spend it towards the Multi enhancement to allow the Disarm to affect 2 more enemies. Casting the spell Drain Life means the player could utilize a Physical rune to enhance the Range of the spell. All in all, I think it's damn cool mechanical aspect of the game.

For anyone who wants a much more detailed and in-depth overview of the game, I ran across a great video on YT. It runs about 11 minutes but I found it very informative.

Necron 99 wrote: ↑March 13th, 2019, 10:25 pm First, the system does not use dice. Like some other non-standard games that skip dice in favor of cards or similar resolution tools, this one uses what it calls Runic Game System (RGS) which means it uses a bag of Runes to help resolve actions.

Second, the runes are core to characters in that they represent a couple of different things. The number of runes in a player's bag represents the characters Essence, everything that the character is (skills, abilities, life, etc); the number of runes that a character can draw from the bag during their turn is the character's Destiny, any change that the character can have on the world around them (actions that the character can take).

Do the players know the # of runes in the bag at all times, or is that completely unknown, or is it variable where the player knows the range for the possible # of runes available?

Conceptually, this sounds a little like the thinking behind the diceless system we developed for our Heaven & Earth RPG in the late 1990s (with four PCs traits of Body, Mind, Heart, Soul, each with three stats under it) which was---naturally, given the tastes of the time---a fate-driven game engine supporting a meta-plot driven campaign setting

Necron 99 wrote: ↑March 13th, 2019, 10:25 pm Fifth, conflict resolution is simply stating character actions using verbs based on the number of dice drawn from the bag, then resolving reactions to those initial actions. His example was that if you drew three runes from the bag, then your character would get three actions.

1) I draw my sword, 2) I walk across the room, and 3) I stab the guard with my sword.

That's it. The stated actions occur, period. However, it is then up to the opponent, in this case the guard, to use runes to make reactions (dodging, blocking, etc).

That's cool. I like the simplicity and the flexibility---it takes a lucky draw to string together a set of several improbable actions in a single turn.

How often do the # of runes available in the bag refresh/recharge?

Allan.

grodog wrote: ↑March 21st, 2019, 9:32 am Do the players know the # of runes in the bag at all times, or is that completely unknown, or is it variable where the player knows the range for the possible # of runes available?

Yes, that is where levels (along with Essence and Destiny) come into play. The Norn (GM) decides at which level the characters will be created and then the players decided how their Destiny and Essence will be distributed. At the time that characters are created and played, the players will know how many Runes are in their bag because that number is equal to their Destiny. Whether or not there are situations or events that change a character's Destiny, temporarily or permanently, I can't say, at least not so far as I've read in the core book. Best I can tell, players always know how many Runes are in their bag and how many they pull (based on their Essence score).

Check out the image below and you can see how Level ties into Destiny and Essence.

How often do the # of runes available in the bag refresh/recharge?

For combat, there are four phases to a round, in order they are: Wyrd, Upkeep, Actions, and Clean-Up. All runes that are not tied to a Maintain or an Open meta (specific tag for actions/spells) are put back into the bag during the Clean-Up phase to be used during the Wyrd phase at the start of the next round.

Skill actions/checks are refreshed after each attempt. When a skill check is called into question, the player draws Runes to the In-Pile (runes pulled from the bag and place in front of the player to be used for skills/actions/spells/etc.) then checks to see if the skill is successful. After the skill check is done the runes are then placed back into the bag until another skill or action requires resolving.

Conceptually, this sounds a little like the thinking behind the diceless system we developed for our Heaven & Earth RPG in the late 1990s (with four PCs traits of Body, Mind, Heart, Soul, each with three stats under it) which was---naturally, given the tastes of the time---a fate-driven game engine supporting a meta-plot driven campaign setting

Ok so curiosity took hold and I had to google this. The only thing I found was reference to a Heaven and Earth RPG, I think in it's 3rd edition, about a small town in Kansas which has some weird stuff going on and the PCs play normal folks getting caught up in it all. Is this the same game?

After spending some time reading, another interesting aspect of this game I've discovered is how it rewards players, for character death. Characters in Ragnarok aren't just down and out after dying. When a character dies, it goes through a process to determine if the spirit is taken to Valhalla or Glassisvellir. This process is done by drawing runes against those of the Norn. However, the number drawn by the player is determined by certain aspects such as whether the character died in a glorious battle, whether the body is properly buried or burned, or whether the allies of the character place valued artifacts in the grave. A few other ones are also taken into account but I'm not going to list them all.

If successful, the player gets to add one spirit to their Disir. The Disir are spirits that oversee legendary families and help guide them to greatness. Mechanically, the higher the player's Disir level, the more options a player has during creation of their next Dweller.

For example, if a player has a Disir level of 1, then during character creation the player can choose to spend points to upgrade their character to have a Fylgia, a guardian spirit. By having the Fylgia, the new character now has access to the grey, outer ring of power in their chosen archetype. This, of course, grants the character unique skills/actions/abilities. For a Disir level of 2, the player can choose to gain the Troll-Blood aspect, which grants access to the Troll-Blooded Power/Skill board. Three Disir allow the player to unlock access to other archetypes not normally available.

All in all, I find it to be a really great mechanic and solution to just rolling up a new character in most games, after the current one kicks the bucket.

I picked this up from one of the retailers at NTX for 50% off, along with some other OOP and OSR titles. Will post some more after I dig into it again!

Allan.

grodog wrote: ↑June 10th, 2019, 6:42 pm I picked this up from one of the retailers at NTX for 50% off, along with some other OOP and OSR titles. Will post some more after I dig into it again!

Allan.

Nice purchase. It's funny you mention FotN, I was just looking at my books this weekend and thinking that I need to sit down and read through them. Let me know what you think when you get the chance.

As it turns out, I didn't buy the core rulebook, but Denizens of the North. I didn't see past the 50% off sale price, apparently :/

Allan.