The Blue Rose RPG

[Jeivar]

I discovered Blue Rose (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/BlueRose) on tvtropes and I'm intrigued. Has anyone here tried it?

[Lord Raziere]

I have read it.

I'm gonna quickly read it again.

ok, it seems like normal fantasy but tending away from the normal accuracy about medieval attitudes and such, and more about modern morality. less about being a big adventurer who goes around untied to any one place, and more about finding a community where you fit in and caring and protecting it from things that threaten it.

what about it? other than the romantic fantasy thing, which doesn't actually seem all that different from normal fantasy, it doesn't seem all that different. :smallconfused:

[Jlerpy]

Don't forget the psychic dolphins...

[Actana]

I haven't actually used the system, and to me it seems much like "just another d20 clone", the setting holds a very fond place in my heart. It's just so optimistic, it's a breeze of fresh air. These days most games try to do the grey and grey morality, or grey and black, and Blue Rose does an explicitly black and white, or at worst white and grey morality.

If I were to run a game in the setting I'd likely use Fate (and this is my current runner for a next campaign), as I don't care about the system included in the book. However, the setting I'm very fond of. I can't comment on the quality of writing or anything and can't even claim I care about it too much. I just like the unambiguity of it.

[Jeivar]

what about it? other than the romantic fantasy thing, which doesn't actually seem all that different from normal fantasy, it doesn't seem all that different. :smallconfused:

What about it? Well, what about the system, the game mechanics? How is the game play-wise? That's the kind of stuff I want to know.

[Jlerpy]

What about it? Well, what about the system, the game mechanics? How is the game play-wise? That's the kind of stuff I want to know.

The system is an early version of True20, so it's kind of d20, but with damage saves instead of HP and a feat-based magic system.

[Lord Raziere]

What about it? Well, what about the system, the game mechanics? How is the game play-wise? That's the kind of stuff I want to know.

dunno, never played it, sorry.

[LibraryOgre]

I owned a copy years ago, but my ex got it in the divorce, so I haven't taken a second look. It seemed to be designed to emulate Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books and similar stuff... nicely optimistic, fun reads. But, like others, I can't say much about it mechanically. I got the feeling that, like a lot of other d20 derivatives (not clone; they use the OGL), it got drowned out by Pathfinder.

[Jachywalcott]

I love the setting to death. The system is okay as d20 variants go, and not too dissimilar from Mutants and Masterminds which I love to death. Old Geezer of the RPGnet forums has a bet going with me that he can make an OD&D variant for it, a bet which I'm hoping to lose.

[Axiomatic]

I've had this off-and-on ambition to run a game of Blue Rose where you play Special Circumstances, teams of Aldean operatives and their drones magic talking animals who go into backwards kingdoms and engineer regime change to make them more Aldis-friendly.

[Elderand]

Mechanicly it's an early version of true 20 which itself is a somewhat prototype for mutants and masterminds.

If you are looking at it for mechanics, pick up either true 20 or MnM.
Tone and setting wise it's a lot closer to Disney version of fairy tales than it is dnd.

[JustIgnoreMe]

I've had this off-and-on ambition to run a game of Blue Rose where you play Special Circumstances, teams of Aldean operatives and their drones magic talking animals who go into backwards kingdoms and engineer regime change to make them more Aldis-friendly.
But the drones magic talking animals would be smarter, more skilled and more dedicated than the Culture Aldean operatives!

[Jlerpy]

This late turn in the thread is very well timed, as I've only just read Consider Phlebas . :)

[Axiomatic]

But the drones magic talking animals would be smarter, more skilled and more dedicated than the Culture Aldean operatives!
Well, it's just what happens when your society is run by Minds magic deer.

[werebuffalo]

What about it? Well, what about the system, the game mechanics? How is the game play-wise? That's the kind of stuff I want to know.

I have it, and have used aspects of it. What others have said about being an early True20 variant etc. is pretty much on target. As far as setting goes, 'romantic fantasy' pretty much sums it up. Not 'romantic' in terms of soap operas and Fabio book covers. Romantic in the literary sense.

Probably the best I can say is, if you ever enjoyed the work of Mercedes Lackey, Tamora Pierce, or similar writers, you'll enjoy Blue Rose.

In fact, I've been asked to put together a homebrew adaptation of Lackey's Valdemar, and will probably use Blue Rose to do it.

[Axiomatic]

Hell, I'd say Aldis pretty much IS Valdemar, with not that much influence from Tamora Pierce at all.

[Eric Tolle]

The system is...ok. It was a prototype for the True20 system. So, there are three classes: warrior, expert, adept. The first two are combat and skill based. Adepts follow paths that hasn't a single power per level. Also, there is a corruption mechanic, where using magic to harm people inclined people toward darkness and evil.

As far as combat goes, it uses a damage save mechanic, where instead of rolling damage dice and subtracting then from hit points, a character rolls a save vs.a target of 15 plus the amount of damage. Depending on how well one rolls, there might be no effect, a stun, a light wound, or worse. To my mind, thus far better reflects the vagaries of damage than hit points.

In any case, it worked fairly well, though it was a but mechanistic and rigid for the setting.Something like Fate Cote might work better now.

[AuraTwilight]

I pretty much hate the setting, myself, for being basically 12 year old fantasy fangirl's first draft on steroids.

Mechanics-wise, it's basically True20. So...nothing special.

Great art though, and a well-written book, aside. If the fluff is your style, it's a solid addition to anyone's collection.

[Black Jester]

I played Blue Rose very briefly a few years back. The system seemed okay - I am not much of a D20 connnaisseur, but as far as I can tell, it seemed like an okay streamlined version of D20 which was quite enjoyable, but I do not remember the details.

The setting on the other hand, was not to my liking. That might very well be the influence of the gamemaster, but I doubt it - she usually sticks relatively close to canon in the games she runs. After two sessions, I (and one of my fellow players) were so annyoed that we deliberatly choose to become corrupt vessels of evil just to see the little suggar-coated utopia burn. The campaign ended before before we could do anything in that direction (deliberately, that was our 'test drive group' for trying out new games), but for what it's worth, for our test group, Blue Rose was about the least liked games we tested there (and these were the people I tried to play FATAL with, so our standards have usually lower than our curiosity).

[Elderand]

I played Blue Rose very briefly a few years back. The system seemed okay - I am not much of a D20 connnaisseur, but as far as I can tell, it seemed like an okay streamlined version of D20 which was quite enjoyable, but I do not remember the details.

The setting on the other hand, was not to my liking. That might very well be the influence of the gamemaster, but I doubt it - she usually sticks relatively close to canon in the games she runs. After two sessions, I (and one of my fellow players) were so annyoed that we deliberatly choose to become corrupt vessels of evil just to see the little suggar-coated utopia burn. The campaign ended before before we could do anything in that direction (deliberately, that was our 'test drive group' for trying out new games), but for what it's worth, for our test group, Blue Rose was about the least liked games we tested there (and these were the people I tried to play FATAL with, so our standards have usually lower than our curiosity).

If you don't enjoy the setting but would like to give the system another shot try true20.

[Jachywalcott]

I played Blue Rose very briefly a few years back. The system seemed okay - I am not much of a D20 connnaisseur, but as far as I can tell, it seemed like an okay streamlined version of D20 which was quite enjoyable, but I do not remember the details.

The setting on the other hand, was not to my liking. That might very well be the influence of the gamemaster, but I doubt it - she usually sticks relatively close to canon in the games she runs. After two sessions, I (and one of my fellow players) were so annyoed that we deliberatly choose to become corrupt vessels of evil just to see the little suggar-coated utopia burn. The campaign ended before before we could do anything in that direction (deliberately, that was our 'test drive group' for trying out new games), but for what it's worth, for our test group, Blue Rose was about the least liked games we tested there (and these were the people I tried to play FATAL with, so our standards have usually lower than our curiosity).

Sounds like she blew it. The way I've best heard it described is late TNG/Early DS9 Star Trek, with Aldis as the Federation, Jarzon as the Bajorans, Rezea as the Klingons, and Kern as the Cardassians/Dominion.

[Axiomatic]

Actually, you know what's one thing that bothers me about the setting?

There aren't nearly enough COUNTRIES in it. I mean, basically you're looking at Aldis, Jarzon and Kern. It kind of makes international intrigue kind of hard to do when you only have that to play with, and one of the three is basically Undead {{scrubbed}} and therefore not exactly into the diplomacy game.

I mean, you have Rezea, but they're not really a country so far as I can tell. I doubt they have a flag, anyway, and no flag, no country.

Why aren't there more neutral parties for the players to sway under Aldis's protective wing? I mean, ****, there simply isn't anywhere on the map for ambassadors to BE from!

[Jachywalcott]

Well, there's Lar'tya...

And I think some vague mention of kingdoms across the sea.