I own every game from Free League, they are all excellent. Most use the same core dice mechanic but with a lot of tweaks to reflect the setting. Vaesen is interesting as fighting the monster without properly investigation into its strength and weaknesses can get the party killed quickly. So they need to be down for that.
I read about that aspect and thought it sounded really cool. It makes sense that you have to learn about these creatures to defeat them—which I gather is rarely killing them, but often placating them in some way. It seems like a good way to match game mechanics and roleplaying: I’m not Scandinavian (and neither are the people I’d play it with) so we’d know next to nothing about these creatures, so the players would be investigating them at the same time as their characters.
Oh man, that looks so good! Thanks for the heads up!
Living here in the “Cold North” and growing up on these stories, just looking at some of the pictures and reading a few descriptions made me shiver a bit and get a chill. I am about to start a Call of Cthulhu session this weekend, but…now I kinda want this instead!
In dark forests, beyond the mountains, by black lakes in hidden groves. At your doorstep. In the shadows, something stirs. Strange beings. Twisted creatures, lurking at the edge of vision. Watching. Waiting. Unseen by most, but not by you. You see them for what they really are.
Might be semen.
40K is essentially like reverse romance novels targeted at men (in the grim darkness of the future, there are no feelings, only war!), so that tracks.
And that’s how I find that Space Marines are actually Fremen. Huh.
I just recently discovered Free League and have been drooling over most of their games. I initially ordered some Forbidden Lands material (waiting on the shipment), but I could see potentially owning much more from them including Vaesen, Symbaroum, MÖRK BORG, and Coriolis. I’ll be patient though and see how I enjoy Forbidden Lands first, before sampling other titles. Their printed books look very polished and well produced.
Symbaroum is very cool in a couple of ways.
1st, the system is an action tactical RPG (think D&D -you can have other stuff but tactical battles make up a lot of the rules- with a little of dark Souls in that combat is more lethal). BUT the players are the only ones rolling dice. The enemies never roll (the players roll against the enemy to avoid the attack).
2nd, they are releasing a multi volume campaign that evolves the story of the world looks amazing. Lately I’m getting into a headspace were baked in campaign stuff (like the awesome Band of Blades) make for a very attractive proposition (more specific game design around the specifity not only of the world but the campaign).
That is great to hear, sounds right up my alley!
I’ll need to look this one up. Is this related to Blades in the Dark in some form? I also recently ordered the rules volume for Blades in the Dark and quite looking forward to receiving and reading that manual.
It is a Blades in the Dark adaptation. However it goes further than BitD and other related products in how it ties the “metagame/campaign” progression. In BitD it is open ended (you keep growing in importance in the city, but in Band of Blades you are fleeing from an undead army and need to get to your hold in a set amount of missions, including a map with branching paths, resource consumption and discovery and other stuff that gives it a very clear throughline (the missions themselves are pretty open).
I have maybe half of Free League main books. Good construction, binding, and they all are laid out to reinforce the theme of the game. Coriolis must have given license holders confidence picking them to create and print Alien. I’ve never had a book so black as Coriolis. It wafted inky smells for years. I just picked up MÖRK BORG, and it surprised me by being so tiny. With a tad more reflection, that’s actually perfect for an OSR sort of game. 96 heavy (paper), metal (music subjects and style) pages. They give credit to “Typefaces: Over a hundred”.
My personal tastes interfere with appreciating the games themselves. I dislike the family of games based closely on the Year Zero Engine. I need more rules to hang my play on, mechanical crags to provide anchors for story and interpretation. The chances of success for an average roll also look low, making me think they run the games like down/mixed/up beats from PbtA without encoding that knowledge in the rules. There’s a hazy thought that Fria Ligan merged with another Swedish publisher some years back, so perhaps not all their games from the past worked this way.
Action, tactical RPG sounds great to me. I need to give Symbaroum a read. A play, ideally, but it’s hard to find more compatible people to play RPGs with. The current ones have their time already filled with what they like. It leaves only small chances to try a few of all these other interesting RPGs.
Band of Blades is basically what got me into RPGs. I played it mostly solo last year during quarantine—eventually tried it with a group who did not take to it (it’s frequently brutal; pretty sure it’s impossible to play without having several character deaths, mostly during ‘side’ missions)—and thought it was excellent. The ending is a bit of letdown, but it makes sense as the core mechanics aren’t really meant to handle combat at the scale the endgame simulates.
If you like the illustrations, I know that it’s based on an artbook that I might look into as well to better set the theme:
(probably more readily available within Scandinavia. Never mind, the link is to the Swedish publisher!)
Nice, thanks for the extra information. The brutal quality paired with character deaths is appealing to me since I prefer the earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons and the ‘Old School Revival’ where characters are not guaranteed survival and the tension remains high. I even like systems with a ‘funnel’ at the beginning such as Dungeon Crawl Classics where you run a group of fragile characters through an adventure where most die then you continue playing with the one that actually survives at the end and has stories to tell.
Recent editions of Dungeons and Dragons have a lot going for them, but they tend to make superhero-style characters that have no fear of death.
Funny we should be talking about Free League stuff right now- Forbidden Land is up on Bundle of Holding for cheap. And @Intuitionist, you missed the whole Blades in the Dark line being on there just a few weeks back. I highly recommend bookmarking that site and checking it out every week or two- there’s some crazy good deals if you don’t want physical books (like me).
Or just subscribe to their newsletter. they only send it out once a week, and you’ll always hear about the new deal.
I know, I am kicking myself! I just recently started getting back into tabletop RPGs again and saw I missed a lot of great bundles there in recent months since I wasn’t paying attention. I will keep an eye on it and I am currently eyeing the Troika bundle. I may also be getting ahead of myself as I will have a ton to read at this point, lol.
No need to kick yourself. They’ll usually bring back offers at least once, and Blades was a new one.
The core of the game is about making the best of bad situations. You frequently face enemies that are better equipped and naturally more powerful than your squad. It gets incredibly tense when your whole party is wounded and you really need to roll a 6 (4-5 are successes with a cost you probably cannot afford at late mission). There’s a well-designed campaign layer too that ramps up the tension. It’s certainly not to everyone’s taste, but I liked it a lot.
About to finish our one shot in the Aliens RPG.
Things have not gone well. Would love to discuss more with someone who has played. My DM likes to F with players so he is having a blast with this game and so have we. I think my only complaint is that the one shot feels a little railroady.
Hmm? A solo RPG? Details, please… looking at this RPG I don’t see a solo mode, is there one?