What can you tell me about Symbaroum?

[Yora]

I'm looking for a new game that could do something similar to The Witcher pretty well. Symbaroum looks like a game with a very similar style of fantasy and the art of course looks amazing. From what I heard, the mechanics are also rather simple and streamlined.

What can you tell me about the gamer? Either from experience or what you've heard.

[Airk]

I'm looking for a new game that could do something similar to The Witcher pretty well. Symbaroum looks like a game with a very similar style of fantasy and the art of course looks amazing. From what I heard, the mechanics are also rather simple and streamlined.

What can you tell me about the gamer? Either from experience or what you've heard.

It has very nice art.

Only the players roll dice.

It's moderately tied to it's setting. I'm not actually super familiar with The Witcher, but you'd be looking at at least some serious rejiggering to adapt it.

It comes down only a little bit lighter than D&D 5e in my not-very-informed estimation.

I backed the crowdfunding campaign for the translation, the folks working on it are very polite and enthusiastic, but I'm not convinced the game is anything super unusual. but it has gorgeous art.

Disclaimer: In spite of backing it, I haven't really psyched myself up for a thorough reading of it yet, so some of this information may be incorrect.

[lightningcat]

Until a week ago I had never heard of the game, but the Coriolis Effect podcast did a interview with the writer. It might help you some.

[Yora]

A question about actual play:

When a player makes a roll, the target number that must not be exceeded is their characters' attribute value plus the opoonents attribute modifier. How does that work out in practice?

- Tell the player "make a roll at -2"? That would be telling the players the stats of the opponent.
- Have the player roll d20 and then tell you by how much they stayed under their attribute value?
- Have the players roll d20 and tell you the number, and then look up the attribute values of the characters? That would mean the GM needs to have all the character sheets and remember all the abilities that let characters use a different attribute for a roll.

The second seems the most practical but that means doing a substraction for every roll. Wouldn't it then have been easier to give the PCs a modifier and the NPCs a fixed value?

[Grod_The_Giant]

A question about actual play:

When a player makes a roll, the target number that must not be exceeded is their characters' attribute value plus the opoonents attribute modifier. How does that work out in practice?

- Tell the player "make a roll at -2"? That would be telling the players the stats of the opponent.
- Have the player roll d20 and then tell you by how much they stayed under their attribute value?
- Have the players roll d20 and tell you the number, and then look up the attribute values of the characters? That would mean the GM needs to have all the character sheets and remember all the abilities that let characters use a different attribute for a roll.

The second seems the most practical but that means doing a substraction for every roll. Wouldn't it then have been easier to give the PCs a modifier and the NPCs a fixed value?
Roll-under systems are nice when they work, but can be clunky if modifiers are common. I use them in my homebrew system, and I'd recommend the first option-- knowing some of your opponent's stats isn't ultimately that meaningful in most games, and it's fast and simple. If it bothers you, you could have them roll, subtract their attribute, and report; if it's less than the oppoent's value, the succeed. I think the math on that works out the same, and it's roughly the same sort of operation players are generally used to.

[Magua]

Subtracting their attribute makes it the equivalent of D&D/AD&D THAC0. Roll, subtract THAC0, that's the armor class you hit.

[Dynodragon]

Played with some pre-gens, which were fighters and got the felling there’s not a lot else other than hitting things, your defence is either hard to hit or tough armour(subtract damage) not both. In fact it seems that the skill of the opponent doesn’t make any real difference to whether you get hit or not, maybe this wrong just my impressions.

Generated my first character, a wizard and got too many options so could be horribly bad, took an age to get down to the 5 choices I had. It’s possible that starting characters will have massive holes so will see how the experience works out.

My gut feeling is that’s it a 1ed clone in all but name and requires a gm to put in all the non-combat bits, there’s no skills like diplomacy or sense motive.

[Yora]

1st Edition what?

[Grod_The_Giant]

1st Edition what?
D&D, I'm guessing? Edition numbers alone usually refer to D&D.