Re: [RPG]: In a Wicked Age, reviewed by amnesiack (3/5)
Hey Lukas, great review. Your point about presentation is well-taken -- the rules are all there, it's just some fine points that are hard to reference in a snap.
One thing I noticed by reading closely is that in the dicing examples, players roll first and describe their action afterwards. This is the reverse of most RPGs where one describes action first then rolls. But the reversal works well in IaWA, because the descriptions are like bids for consequences that you put into play on top of your numbers.
Re: [RPG]: In a Wicked Age, reviewed by amnesiack (3/5)
A good review. I agree on the presentation, even though I enjoyed the style and change of pace. After a gazillion rpg manuals, it's nice to read one that treats old roleplayers as their intended audience.
Re: [RPG]: In a Wicked Age, reviewed by amnesiack (3/5)
Okay, you know, I concede that it's old, experienced roleplayers that are most likely to be playing this. And, moreso, they're the ones most likely to BUY it. But it also sounds like it's a game that's easy to pick up with rules that are relatively simple (if perhaps different in some crucial ways from any other game?) which sounds to me like it wouldn't be a bad game for someone new to the hobby... but if it's written with the assumption that only veterans will be picking it up, that makes it tricky.
Still, I've been hearing a lot about it lately, and it's very cool to see a full review. I may very well have to order a copy of this once physical copies are available. Thanks for the review!
Re: [RPG]: In a Wicked Age, reviewed by amnesiack (3/5)
I think the method of play would be easy for someone who is new to role playing to pick up if he/she had someone with a little experience playing it too. In the text, it's mostly things like not explaining what d4 or d8 means and those sorts of minor details. The rules themselves, however, are pretty easy to get a handle on, particularly if you're being taught by people who know what they're doing.
EDIT: As for how it's different from other games, the big one is that all outcomes from conflicts are negotiated, except for being able to damage another character. You don't ever have a situation where you just make a skill roll and if you win you automatically get what you were trying for, unless the other player(s) are willing to give that to you.
An example in a game I played: There was a group of plague spirits hiding in some children. One of the players started a conflict with the desired goal of her character realizing the spirits were there. She won the conflict, but the person controlling the spirits wasn't willing to have them be detected in negotiations, so she had to resort to the baseline outcome of damaging the spirits (damaging means lowering their die sizes in Forms, not necessarily causing actual physical injury). She assumed that because she won, she now knew that the spirits were there, but that wasn't the case. Because it wasn't agreed on in the negotiations, it was still under contention. She did, however, have the option of pursuing another conflict against the (now weakened) spirits to try and get what she wanted again.
Also, as Alan mentioned above, in most conflicts you will narrate what your character does after seeing what the dice say, rather than saying what your character does and then rolling the dice to see how well it works.
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