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View Full Version : Has Anyone Ever Hear of Reign RPG?



jagadaishio
2009-11-28, 01:45 PM
Who here has heard of it, who here has read it, and who here has had a chance to play in it? I just got finished reading the core rulebook, and I find it to be one of the best designed systems that I've ever seen. I liked it enough that I even put a bid in for the latest book ransom (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcdream/reign-enchiridion) that they've come out with. At any rate, share your opinions and stories on the system. I want to get a feel of how everyone else feels about it and how well it actually runs in action.

Inhuman Bot
2009-11-28, 02:59 PM
No need to bump your post after an hour or two. And no, I haven't.

hiryuu
2009-11-28, 03:07 PM
It uses ORE, so it can't be that bad. It actually looks sort of new, and it's looking for backers and investors, which is probably why no one's really heard of it.

ORE works like this:

You have a dice pool of d10s, usually equivalent to stat + skill + powers you may have.

You're looking at two things: height and width. This is, basically, high numbers and matches. The number of matches indicate how fast you got something done and the higher numbers indicate how well you did. Say you roll five dice and get 3, 4, 4, 6, and 8. In a situation where you must get something done quickly, you'd take the two 4's, but if you're not strapped for time, taking the 8 is better. In opposed rolls, whatever's better is indicative of the contest being performed. Matches are better in a race against time, but if time is no object, the better roll will win, so in, say, an arm wrestling contest, the guy who rolls two 10's will win as opposed to the guy who rolled four 2's, but in a footrace, the situation would be reversed.

There are some tweaks, like wiggle dice and hard dice, usually bought with supernatural abilities. Wiggle dice are like wild cards, you can assign any number to them after you roll, and hard dice are always a result of 10.

Reign appears to be a fantasy setting using this engine, which might be pretty cool. I may check it out.

Zeta Kai
2009-11-28, 05:12 PM
That sounds like a cool, original system with a lot of potential. What other games use the ORE system?

jagadaishio
2009-11-28, 07:08 PM
That sounds like a cool, original system with a lot of potential. What other games use the ORE system?

Godlike, Wild Talents, and Nemesis. Apparently Godlike and Wild Talents are superhero games, while Nemesis is a free pdf with rules on supernatural horror games. I've only read Reign, but if the super power rules for Godlike and Wild Talents are as well done as the magic system for Reign, they're probably really good too.

MickJay
2009-11-28, 08:15 PM
Come to Cardiff, there's a guy here who's crazy about the system and campaign possibilities... we haven't actually played it yet, though, we're still agreeing on details.

jagadaishio
2009-11-29, 12:22 AM
Come to Cardiff, there's a guy here who's crazy about the system and campaign possibilities... we haven't actually played it yet, though, we're still agreeing on details.

Of course you would have to be in Wales. I would have to hop an ocean to get there. That said, what sort of direction are you guys leaning in for the game? The more details the better.

MickJay
2009-11-29, 06:19 AM
There was a mighty empire, then it fell apart, now there are multiple small states in its place. The idea was to have a mix between Viking Norway and China, pre-unification, with tech level somewhere in between the two (no gunpowder and such). Magic exists, but it's not powerful. The players would start, most likely, as a band of robbers (or rebels) and expand the company from there. Right now we need to get together and decide on details, the way we're talking about it on a forum takes ages...

BobVosh
2009-11-29, 06:34 AM
Ore sounds neat. Has anyone played any of the ore games? If so, experiences?

The Gilded Duke
2009-11-29, 10:37 AM
I ran a Reign game for about four months. I would still be running it but the player group fell apart.

The One Roll System has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get past that...
It is the fastest system I have ever seen.

Targeted Hits
Multiple Actions
Magic
Shifting Initiative Order

All done about twice as fast or more then a nWOD turn.
It does require more work on the DM's part though which may be a downside for some people.

Besides the One Roll system the other neat thing about the game is the Company system. Basically your players can run an organization and pit it against other organizations to try and conquer and grow and expand.

You can either have them all be part of the same organization, or in charge of different organizations. My game they all controlled different organizations, with no restriction on pvp, however they ended up working together more times then not.

Now the big thing about organizations is that their rolls suck, even the Empire's rolls suck (And it has all but max stats). You can however improve those rolls with your character's actions. But this involves putting your character at risk.

Combat is incredibly deadly.
So you get the choice of playing it safe and trying to have your minions do the task, or being more effective, but risking being killed.

Being killed isn't necessarily the end of the game though (no ressurection though). You could just create a new character from your organization who comes to power after your death.

---
The Setting

The Setting I'm actually kinda mixed on. It is a strange version of standard fantasy, but it isn't strange enough for my tastes. If I were to run Reign again I would homebrew a setting for it.

However the things I like:
Horseback riding causes male infertility. Knights are either women or eunuchs.
Most people can't read. Literacy is a merit. Reading without moving your lips is a rare merit.
The empire is Matrilinial. You always know who the mother is.
One of the barbarian tribes rides mammoths.
One of the cultures worships "The Unthinking Uncaring Abyss From Which All Things Came And To Which All Things Will Inevitably Return" They actually are quite jolly people.

----
As far as awesome things that happened in my game:

The Odlob Sorcerer built a Sarumon style tower in the middle of the sweatshops he owned in the slums, before making a deal with the Truil barbarians to betray everyone.

The fires he started in the battle to destroy him ravaged the city for months.

The Truil Barbarian with every single toughness and avoiding death related merit survived what should have been a fatal blow to his head the first game. This started the rumor that he was a Sorcerer whose desire to reunite the Truil tribes was so strong that not even death could hold him back.

The Duchess, a knight who won her title through force of arms and bravery in battle, and the Raiyan the lord of an invading army both killed each other with simultaneous high damage head shots at the very top of the initiative order in the first round of combat. (The Raiyan I expected multiple pcs to face)

The banker who annexed a city just so he could induct some of its residents as guild members, to gain control of the (forgot the name) Guild of Bankers, Lawyers, and Mercenaries.

The mild mannered scholar/spymaster and vitreous fluid drinking vampire who changed the course of several wars and conducted a back and forth shadow war against Imperial intelligence without anyone discovering who they were.

----
And lastly, its done by Greg Stolze
He did a bunch of nWOD and oWOD books, as well as Unknown Armies.
The base book can be found here http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/reign-(solis-hardcover)/4574325
I think they also have a digital download available somewhere.

jagadaishio
2009-11-30, 12:34 AM
I ran a Reign game for about four months. I would still be running it but the player group fell apart.

The One Roll System has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get past that...
It is the fastest system I have ever seen.

Targeted Hits
Multiple Actions
Magic
Shifting Initiative Order

All done about twice as fast or more then a nWOD turn.
It does require more work on the DM's part though which may be a downside for some people.

Besides the One Roll system the other neat thing about the game is the Company system. Basically your players can run an organization and pit it against other organizations to try and conquer and grow and expand.

You can either have them all be part of the same organization, or in charge of different organizations. My game they all controlled different organizations, with no restriction on pvp, however they ended up working together more times then not.

Now the big thing about organizations is that their rolls suck, even the Empire's rolls suck (And it has all but max stats). You can however improve those rolls with your character's actions. But this involves putting your character at risk.

Combat is incredibly deadly.
So you get the choice of playing it safe and trying to have your minions do the task, or being more effective, but risking being killed.

Being killed isn't necessarily the end of the game though (no ressurection though). You could just create a new character from your organization who comes to power after your death.

---
The Setting

The Setting I'm actually kinda mixed on. It is a strange version of standard fantasy, but it isn't strange enough for my tastes. If I were to run Reign again I would homebrew a setting for it.

However the things I like:
Horseback riding causes male infertility. Knights are either women or eunuchs.
Most people can't read. Literacy is a merit. Reading without moving your lips is a rare merit.
The empire is Matrilinial. You always know who the mother is.
One of the barbarian tribes rides mammoths.
One of the cultures worships "The Unthinking Uncaring Abyss From Which All Things Came And To Which All Things Will Inevitably Return" They actually are quite jolly people.

----
As far as awesome things that happened in my game:

The Odlob Sorcerer built a Sarumon style tower in the middle of the sweatshops he owned in the slums, before making a deal with the Truil barbarians to betray everyone.

The fires he started in the battle to destroy him ravaged the city for months.

The Truil Barbarian with every single toughness and avoiding death related merit survived what should have been a fatal blow to his head the first game. This started the rumor that he was a Sorcerer whose desire to reunite the Truil tribes was so strong that not even death could hold him back.

The Duchess, a knight who won her title through force of arms and bravery in battle, and the Raiyan the lord of an invading army both killed each other with simultaneous high damage head shots at the very top of the initiative order in the first round of combat. (The Raiyan I expected multiple pcs to face)

The banker who annexed a city just so he could induct some of its residents as guild members, to gain control of the (forgot the name) Guild of Bankers, Lawyers, and Mercenaries.

The mild mannered scholar/spymaster and vitreous fluid drinking vampire who changed the course of several wars and conducted a back and forth shadow war against Imperial intelligence without anyone discovering who they were.

----
And lastly, its done by Greg Stolze
He did a bunch of nWOD and oWOD books, as well as Unknown Armies.
The base book can be found here http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/reign-(solis-hardcover)/4574325
I think they also have a digital download available somewhere.

That sounds remarkably fun.

potatocubed
2009-11-30, 08:05 AM
I have Reign. I've read it, but I haven't played it, so I have a question:

How does the gobble dice system work in play? Reading it, I get the feeling that it makes stealth and lying to people a matter of pure luck, even if you buy a master die in those skills. This kind of put me off, since I like playing sneaky liars.

wormwood
2009-11-30, 02:38 PM
I played a one-shot game of Godlike. It was a fun and interesting system. Unfortunately, we played with pre-made characters that were randomly chosen and I greatly disliked the power I ended up with. My character could turn objects invisible. The setting is basically WWII superheroes. Being able to see through objects was handy on rare occasions since it was very noticeable to the enemy as well. *poof* The jeep is now transparent... all the people on the other side seem to have a strong desire to perforate the guy that did that.

Combat was brutal. There wasn't a lot of balance in different builds (though that could've been mostly due to poorly constructed pre-gen characters). The extreme randomness of the dice was a bit of an issue, as you couldn't really predict what you would do well on.

There was some potential to make optimized builds that were, in fact, Godlike.