High Adventure and Low Comedy

Free League publishes not one, not two, but three different fantasy roleplaying games at the moment – Forbidden Lands, Symbaroum, and now Dragonbane. Each one is quite distinct from one another, not just in terms of rules but also in tone. For example, Dragonbane, the latest iteration of the venerable Swedish RPG, Drakar och Demoner, sets itself apart from the other Free League fantasy RPGs by its willingness to embrace lighter, even sillier moments, as designer Tomas Häremstam points out in his preface:

Though a toolbox for allowing you to tell fantasy stories of all kinds, Dragonbane is a game with room for laughs at the table and even a pinch of silliness at times – while at the same time offering brutal challenges for the adventurers. We call this playstyle mirth and mayhem roleplaying – great for long campaigns but also perfect for a one-shot if you just want to have some quick fun at your table for the night. 

Dragonbane is quite an interesting RPG for a number of reasons and I hope to get around to discussing it at some point, but there are several other games and gaming products ahead of it in my review queue. However, the "mirth and mayhem" tagline really caught my attention, in part because it reminds of a phrase my friends and I have used for years – high adventure and low comedy.

I can't quite recall precisely when we coined this phrase, but we did so as a way to capture what the experience of playing most RPGs was actually like at the table – not what its designers wanted to be like, which is quite a different thing. This is an important distinction. With a handful of exceptions, like Paranoia or Toon, whose stated intention is to be humorous, most roleplaying games are written and meant to be played seriously. "Serious" doesn't mean utter devoid of humor, of course, but the humor is accidental, a natural consequence of the unpredictability of playing any game, especially one where player choice and dice rolls contend with one another.

What my friends and I call "high adventure and low comedy" is thus very often (though not exclusively) the result of exactly this: dice with a mind of their own. One of my most popular posts touches on this very topic, though from a slightly different angle. However, the point remains the same, namely, that it's well nigh impossible to avoid moments of unexpected levity when so many of a character's actions are determined by the roll of dice. There's simply no way to ensure that even a high-level and competent character will always succeed at the right moment. Instead of making his save against dragon breath, he might fail and be burnt to a crisp. The reverse is also possible and the all-powerful Dark Lord might, metaphorically speaking, slip on a banana peel as he attempts to menace the heroes who've dared to confront him in his lair.

Over the years, I've experienced many examples of this. In my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign, the character Aíthfo hiZnáyu has fallen prey to bad dice rolls on several notable occasions. And while I used those unintended mishaps as an opportunity to introduce new elements to the campaign, there's no denying that they were also funny – so much so that the players continue to chuckle about them years later. House of Worms has never been a deliberately funny campaign. Tékumel, with its detailed history, ancient mysteries, and constructed languages is perhaps the very definition of serious business when it comes to RPGs and yet there's no way to prevent unexpected silliness from creeping in from time to time – nor would we want to do so!

Dice rolls that go awry aren't the only source of humor. Players are every bit as unpredictable as dice. Sometimes, a player might just be in a whimsical mood and decide that his character does something goofy. Other times, he might be bored and want to shake things up by choosing to act in a way that's, in his opinion, more entertaining. Or maybe someone misspeaks, calling a character by the wrong name or accidentally – or, worse, intentionally – making a pun that causes everyone to erupt into laughter. There are simply so many ways that a roleplaying game session can descend into unintentional humor that there's no point in worrying about it. Instead, it's best to embrace it these moments of levity and enjoy them for what they are.

I think that's why, when I came across the passage I quoted above, I was so taken by it. Over the years, I've read a lot of roleplaying games. Very few of them acknowledge that low comedy is very often the inescapable companion of high adventure. You can't really have one without the other, not without clamping down so hard on anything that deviates in even the slightest way from the Truth Path that, in the process, you've also sucked all the fun out of roleplaying. These are games, after all and they're meant to be fun. They're also exercises in human creativity and interaction, both of which often take us to unexpected places. 

Isn't that why we play these games in the first place?

REVIEW: Symbaroum Starter Set

After more than four decades of playing fantasy RPGs, I don't really need any more. From an objective point of view, I already own more than I'll likely ever be able to play. Even so, it's pretty easy to pique my interest and I'm usually willing to give a new game or setting a try, especially if it's recommended to me by someone whose opinion I respect. 

That's how I first came into contact with Free League's Symbaroum. In the Before Time, when it was still possible to get together around a table to roll some dice with people, a local friend offered to run a session of the game. Unfortunately, world events prevented our ever playing another session, but I enjoyed myself enough that I found myself looking into Symbaroum from time to time. I even grabbed a copy of the Core Rulebook, reading it with great interest.

Then, earlier this year, Free League released a boxed Starter Set  and that caught my attention. Subtitled "Treasure Hunts in Davokar," the set consists of two 64-page softcover books (one a rulebook, the other an adventure compendium), a set of polyhedral dice, two double-sided maps, and six character sheets (five of them describing pre-generated characters). The box itself is incredibly sturdy, being thick and heavy, as well as deep enough to provide space for additional books or gaming materials. Simply as an artifact, it's quite impressive – all the more so thanks to the brooding, evocative artwork of Martin Grip. 

Many fantasy settings include one or more "dark lords" who menace the world, their depredations providing a backdrop for the heroics of the player characters. Symbaroum's setting takes a slightly different approach, occurring two decades after the conclusion of a generations-long war against such a foe. Though victorious, victory came at a price for the Kingdom of Korinthia. The land was devastated by dark magic and the only promise for the future seemed to lay to the north beyond the Titan Mountains, which legend held was the original homeland of the Ambrian people. Korinthia's queen led her subjects on a mass exodus to the edge of the vast Davokar Forest, where she established a new kingdom and, she hoped, a better life.

Davokar is ancient and huge. Within its boundaries are innumerable threats, from barbarian humans to ogres and other monsters. Also found within the dark forest are many ruins associated with the mythical fallen civilization of Symbaroum. As the subtitle of the Starter Set makes clear, the baseline activity of Symbaroum is venturing into Davokar in search of treasure within the ruins of the forest. It's a good starting point for a campaign, part dungeon crawl and part hex crawl, and has a great deal of potential for development over time, thanks in no small part to the large number of factions who also have interests in the ruins of Symbaroum. 

The one immediate drawback of the Starter Set is that its 64-page rulebook does not include rules for character generation. Instead, there are the aforementioned five pre-generated characters and pointers toward the separate Symbaroum rulebook. While I can understand why this was done, I think it's a mistake, especially when you compare it to older "basic" sets, which were complete, playable – albeit limited – games. From my limited knowledge, this seems a common approach nowadays. It's a reminder, I suppose, that I am old and my tastes and preferences are out of step with the times.

That caveat aside, the rulebook is attractive and its rules clear. Characters have eight attributes whose values range from 5 to 15. Most actions are handled by rolling under the attribute on a d20, with various modifiers being applied based on the level difficulty. Characters also have a profession, of which there are four in the Starter Set (warrior, mystic, hunter, and rogue). Professions provide access to abilities, which are a bit like a bundle of skills and/or talents, like Acrobatics or Loremaster or Tactician, in addition to certain mystical traditions. Abilities have three levels – novice, adept, and master – that represent increasing degrees of knowledge/experience, though only the first two levels are detailed in the Starter Set.

Player characters can come from one of several races, though (again) only a few of them are described here, namely Ambrians (humans), goblins, and ogres. Likewise, there are only two magical traditions (theurgy and wizardry) described here, leaving the Core Rulebook to present the others. Unlike the lack of character generation rules, the more limited information on topics like races or magic did not bother me and indeed even made sense in a Starter Set. The point in such a set is simply to introduce the game and its setting to newcomers, in order to give them a taste of the full experience rather than to overwhelm them with unnecessary options. I wish a similar approach had been applied to character generation, though I can understand why it was not adopted.

It's worth mentioning that Symbaroum's rules are what I've heard called "player facing." That is, the players roll all the dice when it comes to determining what happens to their characters. In combat, for example, players roll both to attack and enemy and to defend against their attack. The Game Master's role is simply to adjudicate the results of these rolls rather than make them himself. If you're used to older RPGs, it's a bit strange and, honestly, I'm not convinced that it adds anything worthwhile, except perhaps to alleviate the GM from having to be the one whose rolls could potentially kill a player character. On that point, it's also worth mentioning that the game's death rules are rather lenient in my opinion. A character whose Toughness is reduced to zero does not immediately die (unlike NPCs or monsters) but is simply dying, leading to a series of escalating rolls to determine when – or if – the character finally shuffle's off this mortal coil. This is probably my least favorite aspect of Symbaroum, but one's mileage may vary.

The second 64-page book details the game's setting and provides two introductory adventures, along with information on expeditions into Davokar and the monsters and adversaries to be found therein. Whereas there were several aspects of the rulebook that I did not like, this book is almost universally excellent. First, we get an overview of Thistle Hold, an Ambrian settlement at the very edge of Davokar and a natural launching point for expeditions into the ancient forest. This is followed by rules and guidelines for handling things like movement, supplies, orienteering, and events within Davokar – all straightforward and useful. Symbaroum's monsters are (mostly) new spins on fantasy staples, but the spins are compelling. Elves, for example, are monsters and, therefore, not playable as characters. Long-lived, perhaps immortal, they undergo a variety of physical and mental changes as they age, effectively becoming different creatures at each stage. This is Symbaroum's general approach and it's a very good one in my opinion.

The two introductory scenarios are interesting. The first is quite simple and involves the exploration of ancient catacombs, as well as dealing with elves who take exception to the characters' presence. The second one presents a ruined tower and, more importantly, rival adventurers seeking to explore the same site. I'm a big fan of rival adventurers and am happy to see that Symbaroum includes them in one of its beginning adventures.

 All in all, the Symbaroum Starter Set did a fine job of introducing the game's rules and setting in an attractive and accessible way. My complaints about the lack of character generation rules aside, I think it nevertheless provides more than enough material with which to judge whether one would like other products for Symbaroum. For myself, I continue to find the setting fascinating and might take a look of some other of its offerings.