Experience with Narosia
Since I couldn't find an already existant thread, I thought I'd just start my own. This afternoon, I had the pleasure of RL meeting of one of our online brethren... one Mudpyr8.. as he was running a demo of his Hero based fantasy world/system... Narosia.
It was a well run introductory adventure with pregenerated characters. An adventure of the classic, "Heroes must find out what evil has befallen the hapless village" type of story line. Well paced and clearly well rehearsed (Mudpyr8 and his cohort had obvious experience in co-GMing and working with us noob players) that it flowed quite well for a four person party, none of us having ever met before... and three of them never having played Hero.
While hats off to them for running a well done intro... I thought I'd make most of my comments on the two things I thought were great about the product they are creating... Narosia.
One: They have done an admirable job of keeping much of the mechanics "invisible." While nothing is stopping experienced Hero System goobers like me from delving deeply into the "how" of the Narosia variations... the game is very easily playable in a functional way, without understanding the system at all. They have a system of "menu options" for the players who want to select characters in that manner... but nothing stops you from building from scratch if you wish to do so... just follow campaign guidelines. The beauty of this is that any conversations or considerations of metagame concepts like "campaign guidelines" are invisible to players who just want a fire magic wielding elven warrior. They can build such from a mix of packages and templates that are practically plug 'n play. This is really cool... and something I hope can be utilized in future Hero System based games.
Two: The magic system is very slick. It is quite streamlined from the player position... allowing for various magical effects at relatively low cost in points... but the best part is that it allows for in game flexibility (improvisation) without resorting to complex VPP constructs or even klunky "variable advantage" builds. I'm sure I'm not describing it perfectly, but my base impression is that the magic system has taken all the various Advantages and Limitations that can be tacked on to powers to make them "spell like" and turned them, basically, into "Maneuvers" in a way.
It is a rather brilliant, if fragile construction. I don't think it would scale well or be adaptable at supers levels... but for the proscribed game world, and the feel of magic they wanted to create... it is really slick.
Essentially... without going into too much detail... base spells are bought at 1pt a piece... and never cost anything more. 2d6 Slap spell and 12d6 Fireball will both cost 1pt... but that is not the true cost of the spell. The true cost comes in how easy/difficult it is to cast such a spell... and how much "essence" it will cost. Since ALL spell have the standard 1/2 DCV, Gestures, Incantations, 1/2 Phase action and requires a skill roll... everybody operates on that same basis. If you have a larger blast than someone else... it doesn't cost you in actual points... instead costing you in minuses to your roll... and increase in essence as the spell becomes more difficult to cast. IT balances quite well at the proscribed point levels of the campaign (75 point charcters to start).
Best of all, you can advantage your powers on the fly. Have a simple fire beam spell, but suddenly need to hit multiple targets? Well, you can take Area Effect almost like a maneuver for that one action... but you just increased the essence cost proportionately... and DOUBLE the minuses you'd pay to pull off the magic skill roll. Essentially the same model as "You have minuses to hit more than one person with your punch... which a maneuver like sweep takes into account."
It was very effective in game... and best of all, as presented to newbie players, the mechanics of how this works is quite invisible. They can just say "Wow... ten orcs? I need a bigger blast! I need to fill the room with fire!" and the GM can say, "Ok, that is AE Cone... so it doubles (+1) the essences cost, and doubles AGAIN the minuses to pull it off... so instead of 6d6 to one target at -3 to your roll... you have 6d6 to ALL targets at -12 to your roll!"
They also have a fate/luck/chance system that is card based that encourages roll playing/story telling to allow the occasional pulling off of -12 style rolls!
Anyway... this is just a brief spouting off by me... but I encourage anyone interested in Fantasy Hero to really give Mudpyr8's project a look see. It has a lot to offer, and IMO, really has a chance of attracting the attention of players outside the normal Hero fold.
Levels of RPG Development
(With special thanks to Zornwil)
Axioms: The sacrosanct core assumptions of the game.
Mechanics: The basic functional building blocks derived from the axioms.
Game Rules: The specific and variable application of Mechanics that define the play of the game.
Play Experience: The resulting behaviors of play and shared imaginary event unique to each group.
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Originally Posted by Tywyll
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