The Riddle of Steel

[Dauntless]

No, I'm not talking about Conan :)

Has anyone had any experience with this game system? On rpg.net, it apparently has a 2,000+ post thread....a sure sign of either a controversial game, or an excellent one.

So what is The Riddle of Steel? It's a game that I've heard nothing but rave reviews about. It seems to be getting rave reviews because it is accomplishing something rarely seen in the RPG industry....both the hard core realistic rules-lawers love it, and so do the melodramatic narrative ad-lib players.

Apparently it's very hard core in terms of melee combat (it's a fantasy game) with intricate manuevers and something that's been coined as "real time" combat. Apparently that's what's satisfying the realism rules-lawyers. But then there's also something called Spirit Attributes which define the personality of the character in definite terms....and in game terms can create bonuses for the player in skills or combat.

What really intrigued me though about this system was that as one reviewer put it: "In The Riddle of Steel, these elements of design aim unerringly toward one thing: the character as a philosophical statement and the insistence that playingthe game should be about something."

Or as the designer of the game Sorcerer says:
""The Riddle of Steel isn't just a snappy title: it's the focus of this highly-enjoyable sword and sorcery game that asks, "What is worth killing for?""

I get the impression from this game that roleplaying isn't just there for a dramatic element; there's rules mechanisms in place that will actually make your character perform better instead of the GM arbitrarily giving you some bonus points for being a good roleplayer. I've long had an issue with this.Sometimes players just aren't good roleplayers....but their characters should be impassioned about something. The player knows this, but doesn't have the acting talent or the chutzpah to translate this well in a narrative dramatic sense. So TROS has actual game mechanics that helps role-playing your character's personality.

Another thing that I like is that it seems like TROS is really about a spiritual quest...that there's more to life than combat. In Conan, the answer to the riddle of steel was that flesh was stronger...and I think that's what this game's feeling is trying to evoke as well.

I have one major concern about the Hero System that bothers me. Due to its points based system....it leads to the false impression that people are creating "equal" characters. And I've discovered this fosters a mindset of powergaming. Unfortunately, the points system doesn't really tell me how "powerful" someone is. What if they sunk all their points in defense? And while I like the idea that there are points....it unfortunately becomes a hang-up as well. If you try to create a character that fits a certain conception, but it costs 20 more points than everyone else...rest assured the other players will bitch and moan. The focus becomes less on character, and more on ability....with points regarded as a measurement of ability. Now, if you're blessed with a very good roleplaying group, you don't have to worry about this, but that tends to be rare.

From the description I've read about TROS, it seems to have the realism of Hero (more so from what I understand) but with game mechanics that rewards and helps players focus on who they are rather than what they are and are able to do. I'll keep playing Hero due to its great flexibility and cross-genre capabilities, but I really would like a realistic game that focuses on character development (and has lots of bloody martial arts :))

[tkdguy]

I've never heard of it either, but let me know if you find out about it.

[MarkusDark]

A friend of mine showed me the rulebook and I looked it over a couple of times. Took a bit of "get out of the Hero mindset" to understand how the game mechanics work. If you are looking for a character life threatening game, this is it.

The combat system is, well, lethal. You can easily one-shot, one kill any character if you roll right. You have various 'pools' of dice. For instance, a 13 dice pool for Combat. Each combat round consists of one attack and one counter attack. Determining who attacks first is based upon various modifiers such as your stance, mental state, if you are being aggressive or defensive and so on. When you attack, you decide how many dice from your pool you want to use for your attack, adding various modifiers from weapons and combat abilities. For each die that succeeds in hitting, you score a point. The defender then rolls his defence dice, adding armor and manuvers to it, and for every success he makes, he reduces the damage by a point. Then it is his turn to strike back and you use whatever you have left over in your pool to defend with. Usually, if you make a four point hit or higher, your opponent will be incapacitated or instantly dead.

The pool aspect puts an end to a single person wading into a fight with multiple opponents since you would have to split your pool for defence amongst them all. And, with the possibility of dying, you will find many other ways around a problem before swinging. This system also makes archery a VERY deadly skill - if the archer can stay away from being attacked of course. A sniper archer will almost always bring down his first target if he is undetected - just as it would happen in real life.

Magic is INSANE in the game. You are given a very basic guideline on the various factors of magic (such as range, target, effects, etc.) and based upon the criteria, the spell you create will have a target number. For instance, a self healing spell would affect just you with no range, so that would be a 1 + 1 for 2. Meanwhile a normal healing spell would affect others with no range so that would be a 2 + 1 for a 3. Just like combat, magic has a pool - the first half is to see if the spell works and how well, the second is to stave off the effects of casting. A spell with a target number of 9 will age the spellcaster 9 months, minus one month for each success with the second roll. So casting magic costs you dearly. It is extremely rare but there are NO SET SPELLS! Anything you can come up with, you can cast - after figuring out the costs and daring the roll.

Finally, the Spiritual angle that was mentioned is more of various traits of your persona. What is your Code, your Faith, your Goals and so on. The more you adhere to these, the more points you are awarded and that becomes your experience to purchase more skills.

I have never played the game, but I think if you want a realistic game, this is it. I feel that combat might be a bit slow as there are literally pages of combat effect tables (reminicient of I think Runequest), so it will take some time for the uninitiated to flip through to see what happened to them.

Finally, the Riddle of Steel - the quest that many are on - is different for each individual. It is not the same answer as Conan had but is unique for each person. For some, the riddle is that steel is the strength with which to defend those that have no strength of their own. For others, it is the shortcut to power and wealth. It is a personal, internal journey and it is said that once you solve the riddle, you usually have no further need for adventuring and retire.

[Killer Shrike]

As a side note, Character Points dont equal "Power" in the HERO System per se, they are a resource indicating general capability. As you note, allocation has a major effect on "power"; thus a 150 all-offense character can be more "powerful" than a 350 point well-rounded character in terms of "kill factor", but the 350 point character should be "more useful" in more circumstances.

However, the Riddle of Steel does sound interesting. Of course, the HERO-phile in me is tempted to buy it and convert it, but I think Ill leave that to someone else -- Ive got enough on my plate ;)

[MarkusDark]

Allow me to talk a little bit more about the 'point' system in Riddle of Steel. First off, there are something like six categories that you need to choose from. Race, Magic aptitude, Skills, Profs, Wealth and Social Status (or something like that). And you are given 6 ranks - A through F. You can only apply one rank to each category. So you can have a Race of A, a Skill of B, Wealth of C and so on. Each rank gives you different 'variables' for each category - the closer to A you are, the more goodies you get. So someone with a rank of B in Skills will get something like 30 points of skills while a Skill rank of E gets only 15. Now, this also means that the person with the B rank will be lower in some other area than the other person so it sort of balances out. The important thing is to choose those that best fit your character concept.

Also, the selection of skills is rather 'limited' as they give you basically skill packages and you choose which ones you want. Such as a Soldier and a Clergy package to make a Templar. The skills in each package can be adjusted based upon your ranking in that category to some degree so you aren't completely 'cookie cutter'-ed. In fact, I feel that AD&D creates more 'cokkie cutter' characters than RoS.

There really isn't a way to convert RoS to Hero - just use Fantasy Hero. The combat abilities (sword and shield, cut and thrust, dagger, etc) have special attacks and so on that are very similiar to Martial Arts systems. A VPP for magic with the side effect of aging base upon success or failure would cover the magic system. The only thing you'd have trouble with would be the lethality of the game.

[Killer Shrike]

When I say convert, I mean "map & transform". Most "conversion" work is lining up the stats and saying this ability = that ability ;)

RoS does sound kewl though. Maybe Ill give it a closer look.


As far as lethality in the HERO System, just double all the damage for every weapon and use hit locations. In an equipment based setting it doesnt cost any more points, and everything gets really bloody really fast.

[MarkusDark]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
When I say convert, I mean "map & transform". Most "conversion" work is lining up the stats and saying this ability = that ability ;)

RoS does sound kewl though. Maybe Ill give it a closer look.


As far as lethality in the HERO System, just double all the damage for every weapon and use hit locations. In an equipment based setting it doesnt cost any more points, and everything gets really bloody really fast.

I do admit, they have a rather intricate and detailed world, but I have always enjoyed making my own instead of someone else's. I have found that RoS is very popular amongst the 'recreationists' and people who train for "real" combat - such as the SCA.

[Killer Shrike]

Im sure Ill get jumped on for this, but Ive never understood the "recreationists". Bad news fellas, not going to happen; Sorry. Another news flash: the middle ages pretty much sucked for almost all concerned; I dont get why anyone would harken back to those days -- chances were your ancestors were peasants anyway and that certainly wasnt an idealistic life. Even the nobles had it pretty crappy compared to middle class suburbia these days. You try living in a stone pile with no electricity, running water, or central air filled with lice infested unwashed people with rotten teeth, garbed mostly in rancid clothing that they'd wear practically until it rotted off or fell apart.

Granted, it could be fun to go out and beat on people with nerfed fake-weapons or whatever -- I can certainly see the attraction in that, but the ones that take it all too seriously with super expensve outfits and the like crack me up. Ever see a guy climbing out of a Chevy Nova held together with tape and bondo wearing a doublet, hose, and acoutrements that they must have paid a few grand for? I just dont get that.

As far as training for "real" combat......all I can say is "silly anachronists; who brings a sword replica to a gun fight?" :D

[Dauntless]

Quickstart Rules for TROS (http://www.theriddleofsteel.net/support/TROSQS.zip)

The system does seem intriguing...but hard to find. It seems to have a rather narrow focus, but I don't mind that since I'll mostly be playing my SH game anyway.

As for SCA type stuff, it does have a certain kind of appeal. I always wished there was a kendo school near me so I could have trained with the kendo armor and shinai. And if I had the balls, the filipino stick fighting sparring....with no padding.

I've always like dcombat systems that make combat extremely deadly...like the old-school (1980's) system Phoenix Command and Living Steel. You really just didn't want to get into combat unless you absolutely had to, or you put yourself in an extremely advantageous situation (like you in a pillbox, and the enemy out in the open). It's the same thing with computer FPS shooter games...I much prefer one-shot one kill games like Ghost Recon to mindless shoot-em up frenzies like the Unreal Tournament style games. The tension in game in which combat is decidely lethal makes for very interesting game sessions.

[MarkusDark]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Im sure Ill get jumped on for this, but Ive never understood the "recreationists". Bad news fellas, not going to happen; Sorry. Another news flash: the middle ages pretty much sucked for almost all concerned; I dont get why anyone would harken back to those days -- chances were your ancestors were peasants anyway and that certainly wasnt an idealistic life. Even the nobles had it pretty crappy compared to middle class suburbia these days. You try living in a stone pile with no electricity, running water, or central air filled with lice infested unwashed people with rotten teeth, garbed mostly in rancid clothing that they'd wear practically until it rotted off or fell apart.

Granted, it could be fun to go out and beat on people with nerfed fake-weapons or whatever -- I can certainly see the attraction in that, but the ones that take it all too seriously with super expensve outfits and the like crack me up. Ever see a guy climbing out of a Chevy Nova held together with tape and bondo wearing a doublet, hose, and acoutrements that they must have paid a few grand for? I just dont get that.

As far as training for "real" combat......all I can say is "silly anachronists; who brings a sword replica to a gun fight?" :D

Well the SCA has the motto of 'what would it be like back then if they had today's technology'. For instance, aluminums, velcro and duct tape. Now granted, guns and such are today's technology but they are avoiding that. The idea of good medicine, living conditions, etc. - you know, the way we all imagine we would like those times to be.

As for being a peasant - well since you come up with your own persona, it is up to you if you want to be a peasant or not. You will always find those that take it too seriously, including those that will let their mortgage lapse but still buy their new helm. I have never understood it myself but if that is what you feel you need to feel important and happy in life - more power to you.

For myself, I like fantasy Live Action games with foam weapons. No more gettin' double vision from a head hit (yes, that happened to me in the SCA).

[Toadmaster]

I bought TROS recently, I haven't had the chance to play it, but it looks interesting. I liked the authors inspiration for the game, he was playing D&D and realized he could survive the jump from a 100' cliff better than the hordes of monsters he was fighting, he jumped off the cliff and ran, this pretty much ruined his fun for D&D and started him on the path of designing a game. I think the referance to Phoenix command is also pretty accurate but TROS doesn't seem as complicated. Combat does look time consuming but there are many short cuts by not using some rules. The website seems fairly active and the first supplement for TROS sold out in a few days which seems to be a positive (obviously they didn't print enough but that does show some buisness sense, better to print a second batch that tie up all the companies resources with stock that didn't sell, so maybe they will be around awhile), the production quality is good. It is also differant from anything else I've played, some games seem like others, I didn't find anything that reminded me of other games. I think PC's probably tend towards short life spans but the chargen seems fairly quick but provides more individualism than simply rolling up stats or building the same character again and changing the name. The world looks interesting as well, more Conan than Greyhawk, might be worth the effort of converting to HERO if you wanted to run a sword and sorcery game.

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by Dauntless

As for SCA type stuff, it does have a certain kind of appeal. I always wished there was a kendo school near me so I could have trained with the kendo armor and shinai. And if I had the balls, the filipino stick fighting sparring....with no padding.

I participated in the SCA for a while, and I am considering getting back into once the finances settle down. It was much easier to participate when I lived with my parents and didn't have to worry about little things like putting a roof over my head. I enjoyed the combat it had a great deal of camraderie. There are people who get way to far into it, but the real accuracy mavens are the Civil War re-enactors, "You are wearing uniform from 1842, but that weave of cloth did not come into production until 1845." (I am serious, they will critique people who have the wrong buttons on their uniform). The SCA does take the view of modern sensibilities, minorities are not treated as slaves, hygeine is encouraged (most campgrounds have showers that are used). Some people do try to learn as much about history as possible, and tend to get on a high horse from time to time. I enjoyed the history some, but mainly I enjoyed the beating people up part of it. Probably will have less appeal as I get oldre and heal slower. Like in gaming there are the few that take it *way* too seriously. Its also one of the few places you can dance with a wonderful woman in a corset without having your ears bleeding from the pounding music.