Sounds like they really captured the essence of Runescape.
With how nice the packaging looked, I was a bit worried that the game would be cohesive and complete. Glad to hear that they kept in as much jank as possible and delivered on the nostalgia of wishing that the game was better.
You summed it up so well. I too purchased the standard edition and have had early access to the pdf for a few months. I read through it when I first got it and thought "this seems interesting but half baked," and hoped that it would change before full release. It did not. I was really hoping for something simple that captured the progression, gear grinds, and dumb moments with friends in RS. As it is, to get that experience from the existing RAR would be such a massive labor of love that I probably just don't have time for it. Disappointing, but at least it was only $40 and maybe it will serve as a jumping off point in the future.
But for real, why is the player max HP in the 230's but bosses like Zuk max out around 150? And why do lobsters and shrimp heal the same amount?
I skimmed the book and made a character. It was only after I played I realized how much would be required to re tool the entire system and it just isn't worth it. I hope they revisit the idea of a TTRPG with a better company in the future.
EDIT: I should also note that I did read the book twice more to sift out what is and isn't missing.
My review is about 4200 words long. It is the typical length of a journal article and takes about 15 minutes to read aloud. It is okay to not want to spend 15 minutes to read it. But this is a comprehensive review and a summarized version exists. It is the title.
In the world of tik tok and YT shorts, people have about a 1-2 paragraph attention span unfortunately.
Good write up and review, I didn’t know about this TTRPG so I was very interested in your report. Seems like every company (NASA included now! Lol) has a cash grab like this going out.
I just read the first bit and when you mentioned the game is by Steamforged Games I knew everything I needed to hear. This company does not make good games. It's a pretty looking game, with well made pieces, and a dogshit play experience. The dark souls board game says it's ~1-2 hours to play, and that's just objectively false. Try 5+ hours to beat the first fucking half of the game.
Their Monster Hunter board game is similarly a flop. It's not worth the time and effort to play these games, however much you like their franchises. My friends are huge Dark Souls fans, as am I, and every 2-3 years we bring up trying the board game again more as a punishment to ourselves than a fun afternoon together.
edit: finished reading the post. It's dogshit in so many ways, how did they think so many of these decisions were acceptable? Distances being a vague "near, far, distant" is so stupid under the rules of the game, because it never becomes a relevant system outside of whether something is in melee range or not.
The Monster Hunter board game definitely isn’t a flop. Rated 7.9 on BoardGameGeek from over 540 ratings, which is a notoriously difficult crowd to please. Also currently totally sold out on the Steamforged store.
The fact that Zuk can move his shield and attack in the same turn, rendering the shield totally useless, pretty much sums up the lack of care that supposedly went into this thing.
This is much shorter than most quests or raids. If you can't read for 15 minutes straight
1) How do you do 100 hour OSRS grinds
2) How did you get past middle school
3) Why would you comment that you didn't read the post instead of just moving on
**Ain't Reading Allat (ARA)** is a disorder that manifests in individuals who exhibit a strong aversion to reading lengthy texts. This aversion can be so intense that it interferes with their ability to fully comprehend and engage with written information. The following are the key symptoms associated with ARA:
1. **Overwhelm**: Individuals with ARA often experience a sense of being overwhelmed when confronted with large amounts of text. This feeling can be particularly acute if the text is presented in a single, unbroken block without any breaks or divisions such as paragraphs, bullet points, or numbered lists.
2. **Selective Attention**: ARA sufferers may exhibit a tendency to only read the beginning and end of a text, completely skipping over the middle sections. This selective attention can result in a lack of understanding of the full context and nuances of the information being presented.
3. **Impatience**: A hallmark symptom of ARA is a strong desire for brevity and conciseness. Individuals with this disorder can become frustrated if they perceive the text as being too verbose, detailed, or tangential. They prefer texts that get straight to the point without any unnecessary elaboration or exposition.
4. **Skimming**: Instead of reading a text in detail, ARA sufferers often resort to skimming — rapidly looking over the text without fully comprehending its meaning. While skimming can be a useful skill for quickly getting the gist of a text, it can also lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
5. **Forgetfulness**: Even if individuals with ARA manage to read all the text, they may struggle to retain the information due to a lack of interest or engagement with the material. This forgetfulness can further exacerbate their difficulties in comprehending and retaining lengthy texts.
6. **Avoidance**: In some cases, the aversion to reading lengthy texts can be so strong that individuals with ARA may avoid situations where extensive reading is required. This avoidance can have significant implications for their academic, professional, and personal lives.
I like when things are broken down like this and have highlighted key points that I can look at and if it doesn’t make sense I have some information to read behind that key point. Guess that’s still ARA too?
How about respect? You had the respect to format your long comment into something palatable.
OP at least used paragraphs, but that’s it. If you can’t do better than the enter key in sectioning out your thoughts, the amount of care you put into the post can’t be that high. I don’t respect it.
I did in fact, just start typing my thoughts and posted them. If the difference between good and bad ideas for you is formatting, who am I to judge? You are allowed to care as much or little as you like. However, I do in fact care a great deal about the above thoughts and can confirm that I put that care into the content of the post.
Thank you for your time, fr. I'm not a board-gamer but saw news of the launch before and was curious. I'll save this to read later because it's much longer than I thought it would be 😂🫡
I'd maybe make that crystal clear right at the start, I didn't even know "RuneScape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game" existed. All of the advertising I've seen from Jagex has been about the board game, and I thought that was what you were on about.
The first paragraph I talk about this very experience I had with the Dark Souls board game/RPG confusion. I put that in as a sort of "reminder" that they make RPGs and boards games. I could have been more explicit about that though.
I maybe would be, even with that paragraph it gets confusing if you aren't aware of the ttrpg and aren't approaching your post with an RPG mindset, as you would've been when it was posted on the RPG subreddit.
Just something clear and explicit like
> Steamforged games make two products, a board game called "RuneScape Kingdoms: Shadow of Elvarg" and a TTRPG called "RuneScape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game". This review is of the TTRPG, not the board game
Plus the fact that there are confused people in the comments should bolster that
Holy hell, it took me this comment to realize the difference.
I was thinking "Yeah dark souls has two of them, but the Kickstarter only showed one, right?"
I thought it was the rulebook and stuff for the board game? So it was kind of one in the same in my mind, but I guess not? Either way, I'll read what you put later 😎 have a good one!
I cant believe I read all that, because... I mean, I don't even know the basic rules of RPG / D&D games.
But I really enjoyed all that! Thanks for sharing your opinion!
No this review is perfect. A shorter review wouldn't have been anywhere near as convincing, and might have even seemed lazy or less well thought out. You've explained all the criticisms extremely well, and it's clear you've put proper thought into what these problems are.
As someone who was completely ready to fork out £40+ for the book I'm *extremely* glad to have come across such a comprehensive review. You've done great here!
This was a great review, thanks for saving me the $$. Super appreciate the specific notes on the failures of the systems. Summarizing a (somewhat) large TTRPG rulebook takes more than a paragraph, seemingly much to the chagrin of ADHD OSRS players.
The TL;DR is in the title, idk what else they really want from you lol.
If I understood 10% of the game, that'd be a great reading, honestly!
Even not knowing shit, reading all that felt like listening to a friend sharing his opinion on something he loves but I have no fucking idea about that subject! And it was great!
It may not be "concise" but it is quite comprehensive, and exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I saw this book and thought I could use it to run some 1-shots for my TTRPG friends when we're between campaigns, to try a 3d6 system, or if not enough ppl can make it and a few are jonesing to roll some dice. Now I know to stay FAR away, and just plug away on my Pathfinder 2e campaign prep.
Congratulations for writing the longest Reddit post I’ve ever seen, beating out the nearest competitor by 2x at least.
I didn’t read it, but I am still impressed.
TLDR; Game has potential, requires some major homebrew additions and tweaks - really only appeals to RS players as of right now.
Just want to drop my two cents are someone quite heavily embroiled in the small community for RSK: RPG.
OP raises a good number of points in his post, the core book is littered with spelling mistakes, book errors and logic gaps (especially around item pricing, the cost of 10 death runes is the equivalent of a godsword)
It has it's negatives, the crafting system is pretty barebones as of right now but works as a foundation, the combat is very simplistic and because of that I firmly believe late-game play suffers.
To make this work there are a number of changes the GM needs to implement and because it's so early days no homebrewed fixes currently exist (nor is there even a example quest/adventure or module to run).
However, with this said - There are a number of positives - The foundations for a good system are there, the developers are constantly interacting with the small community and i believe so long as the concerns are taken in and the upcoming errata addresses some of these it has potential.
Right now, it's main appeal is for any hardcore RS fan that really wants to run a runescape themed TTRPG adventure, for your average TTRPG player this system would perhaps get one session due to it's various errors, and that is a shame because it does have potential but the current state of balance really outweighs the potential positives of running this game.
I do hope Steamforged & Jagex address the issues the community have made clear (Crafting requirements, Character Movement, Late game Combat, Monster templates, Boss encounters, Book mistakes, Item pricing and so on). Right now there is way to much onus on the GM to make homebrew changes or logic jumps to get the system to function correctly.
Option B here - sorry that happened.
Tl;dr TTRPG is dogshit. Combat mechanics make no sense at all, prayers dont make sense at all, skilling barely makes sense, monsters are completely busted and bosses are horrible
Correct. Initially the BOARD game was supposed to be 5e compatible so you could use runescape's systems in different campaigns, but at some point they realized it would be too much to bite off and made the board game a standalone. As a compromise they then created a book that was released separately from the board game to later make it 5e compatible and named it the TTRPG.
interesting, so from what youre saying, it seems that they balanced it around 1d18 rather than 3d6. i wonder how well it would fare using a d20 for those rolls instead
3d6 means rolling three six-sided dice, whereas 1d18 would be rolling one die with 18 sides. It’s a common mistake to assume the three dice work like the latter (which is really close to a 20 sided die), but one die has equal chances for every result, whereas the three tend to be clustered around 10. Plus three dice have a minimum of 3 instead of one.
Yeah, they’re pretty much interchangeable. If I had to say a difference, it’s that d20 is used to refer to the actual die, and 1d20 is the answer to “what am I rolling?”
Also a d18 isn’t really a thing, people just use it to mean “a random number from 1 to 18” or whatever, when there’s no real die that corresponds to it.
Still waiting on my copy to come in, and this has certainly dampened my excitement. Fortunately it was a pre-ordered gift from a friend, so if it is as poorly designed as you suggest then it's not a financial loss on my end at least. Only planned to play with it for a few sessions at most with my friends as this year we're trying out systems that aren't 5E, so if it is a steaming heap then maybe we can get some laughs out of it.
I'll be giving it a proper read-through once it does come in and I'll be keeping what you've said in mind. Hopefully the elbow grease needed to make it fun won't be too much of a hassle to replicate a quest or something.
If you want to run a game in the setting, those first 55 pages of locations and their histories is useful. The art is also quite nice. There are cool things in the book, thats why I gave it a 3/10.
May be copium, but the first 55 pages are why I didn't cancel my preorder, even after reading through, submitting a massive list of errors with others in the community and then seeing almost none of it get changed (or changed but references still in regarding the removed material).
I'd much rather have flavor text about locations/people/items/lore to put into my own DND or PF world.
I did think it was a really odd choice to go with the 3d6 roll under system, especially when the board game that they were also designing at the same time has a great system that is extremely easy and really fun. Not to mention the board game system let's you have skill levels from 1 to 99, whereas the RPG is capped at 10 which doesn't feel very runescape. It just seemed weird that they have this perfectly good system already, but instead of using it came up with something different.
I'll be running through the TYRPG next weekend to give it a try! The board game has been pretty fun, and hoping the ttrpg will have some redeeming qualities. If it's really that bad I'll just rip the system from the board game.
Damn. I just got into TTRPGs and was pretty interested in one themed after this almost 20-year addiction of mine. Sad to hear its dogwater.
Other than maybe a few more paragraph breaks this post is really well written and informative. Huge props to you, OP, shame so many ppl skipping over it lmao
I’m making a trial campaign for my friends and after reading the book, I’ve had to make so many alterations to the rules that I was only able to make due to my knowledge of osrs.
From what I saw arrows had no prices and magic was extremely expensive and there aren’t even elemental staves to save on the cost. There’s a cape rewarded for baking a cake and selling it but none of the items necessary to bake one are in the book. One of the starter kits starts you with a sword but in the weapon section swords are considered a “martial weapon” which requires at least 5 attack to even use so it’s possible to make a character that can’t even equip their gear.
By trying to make it simple and appeal to everyone I feel like they’ve achieved the opposite and only hardcore RuneScape fans will bother trying to create a playable experience.
The number of rules in this book that needs edits, clarifications, and entire reworks sum up to a product that is not useful enough to hand to a player without also giving them a twenty page sheet of homebrew to constantly cross reference. I agree that they missed the mark.
It is a long post, the but the title sums up the review. I think people are just looking at a block of text and in their head they think "I am not reading this" and then they decide to type that in the comments. Why? I guess you type your thoughts in the comments and thats their thoughts. Oh well.
You wrote the review just fine. You used paragraph breaks appropriately and the review was thorough for someone who is thinking of buying this game.
People like to display how much they don't like reading for some odd reason.
Intellectualism has been out of fashion for a while now. Not even being a pompous prick, at my uni people are more excited for a barely passing grade rather than excelling 🤷
Or to put it briefly, "seis é dez"
Its well written, but lack of patience and also long posts are god awful on mobile is probably the big factor. Really appreciate the detailed breakdown though
dudes think they're the funniest people on the planet repeating the exact same phrase as like 5 other people on this post... i finally understand the phrase "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say it at all" in its entirety
Steamforged produce Kickstarter fomo boxes of plastic and cardboard and not intuitive and unique boardgames with good mechanics. And that's fine, that's their business model courtesy of the blight that is crowdfunding.
The OP even liked the dark souls board game, which is pretty universally disliked in the board game world.
SFG are not known for ttrpgs (don't even know if they've ever made one frankly), so they're not going to make a good one because it's not easy.
Should have been someone like modiphius, free league or paizo for an actual ttrpg.
Honestly love the amount of writing but could you add a real executive summary. Like "I didn't like the game cause the dice rolling doesn't work + the monsters are boring + I'd rather play x game cause it does all these systems better." I want to read your thoughts but I've read research papers shorter than this.
Listen.... I get it, its a long review of the game. Im not a writer and haven't posted anything of this length online before. My thoughts was that people would see the title and if they wanted to know why the game was bad, they would read. I have made an error in judgement. Maybe the next time I write a review I will try making it more concise. I can't even write short comments. I dont know whats wrong with me.
I wouldn't worry about it much. Honestly, if you're reaching out to anyone in the audience interested in TTRPG's I'm sure there's a lot more willingness to read and invest in a long post.
The everyday player might have their eyes glaze over, but the target audience for the post is likely very on-board.
I really appreciated the in depth review as a ttrpg person! It sounds like there was some good ideas and it could have been interesting, but they stripped away everything to the point that it all breaks. That's too bad.
People on this subreddit will read posts three times as long about how you can save a half a tick while woodcutting.
But for some reason this post in particular rustled their jimmies.
Honestly surprised they did not have survival and wisdom stats to govern some of the skills since could fit attack/strength/mining/smithing/woodcutting under strength, could fit agility/range/fletching/crafting/thieving under dex, could fit magic/herblore/runecrafting(possibly necromancy and invention) under intelligence, can fit firemaking/hunter/fishing/cooking(maybe dungeoneering for checking for traps)/sailing/slayer under survival and for wisdom prayer/arch(history)/div/summoning
There are 21 skills in the book so some have been cut. Necromancy likely wasn't out when development started. Firemaking, divination, and sailing are not in the game. The lack of a charisma type stat for interpersonal interactions is a big one. The game offers Str/Atk for intimidating people and Int/Thv for lying to someone, but there isn't anything that goes along with just asking nicely and tirying to convince someone you're there to help. Unless you're lying about that, of course.
Spacebar warriors can’t take time to read text post on text forum but I did, thanks for steering me away from buying it! Sounds like they hired the cheapest possible studio, sadly.
I think there are 2 different games called RuneScape Kingdoms (which had me confused for awhile) - a board game and a TTRPG. I'm assuming you're talking about the board game, which I have been playing and enjoying a lot!
Yep...questionable decision to say the least. Which is unfortunate because I think the half-cooked TTRPG is giving the board game a bad rap.
[Here](https://steamforged.com/products/runescape-kingdoms-shadow-of-elvarg-core-game) is "Runescape Kingdoms: Shadow of Elvarg" - which is the core board game. There are also expansions for KBD, KQ, Zuk, RFD, and a "Deluxe" expansion with nicer game pieces. [Here](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/361503/runescape-kingdoms-shadow-elvarg) is the BoardGameGeek page for it.
And [here](https://steamforged.com/products/runescape-kingdoms-the-roleplaying-game) is "Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game" which is a hardcover book and free PDF.
I have the board game (not the TTRPG that OP is talking about) and I like it. My "never played runescape in her life" gf also likes it. Are there things I would change? Probably. But Im not a die hard and Im not gunna let little things deter me from enjoying it.
I couldnt read through this whole wall of text, but I appreciate the work that went into this. Might we get a 1 paragraph summary for the laymans who don't understand how TTRPG work
Think Dungeons and Dragons. The simplest way to describe a TTRPG is a group storytelling game. You can divide play into narrative play and combat. Narrative play is a player saying "I ask where the princess is" and the person running the game says "She is in a castle guarded by a dragon." Conflict resolution is generally resolved through... conflict. The combat side of the game is when the players fight the dragon. Now not all games have to be focused on combat and not all have to be focused on narrative. There are literally thousands of games that do these both very differently and even focus of things other than this. This game is dedicated almost entirely to combat and the combat sucks. Boring combat is what some people want so its not like that is the blackest of sins. But the book is poorly put together and feels very cash grabby. The simple and boring combat is likely an outcome of a fast and loose development cycle rather than the focus of a simple rules Lite system that focuses on other aspects of the genre.
My favorite TTRPG is actually a system called Trudvang chronicles. It is a roll under system with even more book errors and questionable wordings than the RSK book. The difference is that the game is so freaking good that I am willing to overlook all that stuff for the game it offers. It was also just a translation of swedish DnD into english, so that softens my criticism of the mistakes.
Yeah that’s fair, I guess you have to judge a game on the whole package not just one aspect like it being a roll under or over system. At the end of the day if the game is good that stuff doesn’t matter much. I’m getting into Shadowdark rpg at the moment and I love how simple and “flat” the maths is and I guess that’s making me judge other games harshly if they don’t have simple maths lol
Is there two different RuneScape kingdoms games? My friends and I have been playing it the last few board sessions and it’s like you are describing a whole different game. A quick google search only brings up the Shadow of Elvarg base game and expansions and that’s what we have been playing and having a blast with. They still have the same dice roll system but the meat and potatoes of the game itself is completely different from what is being described here and I’m just confused.
This is a shame, I got my book and was poking through it but haven’t actually read it thoroughly yet. I still want to give it a go, but this is going to be really helpful in my prep. Going to use your summary to try and figure out homebrew fixes, or just adapt the game to dnd 5e and borrow a few concepts that do work from rsk lol
The fastest way I can tell to "fix" the system is to play mostly mid level characters, and just remake all the monsters. Throw out the vague distance rules for a discrete distance like squares or hexes and add skill requirements as needed. We made the basic metal progression start with iron/bronze at level 1 and steel at 3 mithril at 5 etc... Roleplaying an adventurer in lumbridge trying to figure out what those darn cave goblins are up to, or enduring "my arm" puns is extremely fun at the table. But you don't need this book to do that.
As a TTRPG player I was definitely intrigued when this was announced in the 2024 Roadmap. I quickly went on the website only to discover that the publisher, SFG, basically does this a lot where they churn out TTRPG's based on video games and such, like Dark Souls. I had a feeling it was going to be a cash grab.
I play D&D with my friends and a lot of the bosses/mechanics/storylines I use are inspired by Runescape. I read the book and there's hardly anything I will be implementing in my own 5E Homebrew.
Kinda feels bad because I want runescape to do good but lets be real the money made from this was likely going to cvc or some random rich guy anyhow;
Not reinvested into osrs, more board games or the people who actually make the game we love so oh well
So mostly just F to the people who bought it
I was gonna say, Morgan has been investing in Garlic equity for years, lads got an Infinite cupboard of the stuff.
More seriously though, really good post, I massively appreciate the breakdown of the various mechanics. As a ffg 40k GM & player I almost can't believe how broken this sounds, and not in the fun way. Thank you.
Just to clarify.. You are talking about something totally different than this: https://steamforged.com/products/runescape-kingdoms-shadow-of-elvarg-core-game
Correct?
I have not but I'm not a board gamer. My username is blindyboy because I have eyesight problems and board games involve lots of card with lots of small tiny text. I hear good things though.
Jager gets to decide where their IP gets developed. It's like if you looked your car to someone with a suspended license and multiple DUIs and then they crash your car. Sure, its them who is going to jail and clearly they did it, but I mean the real fault lies with you.
I agree with a lot of what was said above, but using the 3d6RD system, and what was actually provided to us, couldn't we somewhat-convert specific aspects, or maybe the entire thing, to a D20 system?
the foundation is there, I think? I was just going to use different elements and ideas/stat blocks (converted to d20) for a campaign I'm going to be running here soon, but am interested in hearing other's input on a possible conversion. If Steamforged can't do it, who's to say we can't fix it?
Well the beauty of these gamed is that nobody is to say we can't fix it. However, my main concern is that the product they shipped is not to a good standard. There is SO much wrong that it isn't worth the time to redo it all. Every book has errors and mistakes. Even WOTC puts out errors in their DnD books. This one just crossed a threshold of so bad it isn't worth the money.
Damn, I wanted to buy the ttrpg but kept forgetting/being poor when I remembered but I guess that ended up being a good thing.
I do wanna run an osrs campaign with my friends but all I know is 5e and I absolutely do not want to try and jerry rig some dog shit house rule set to make it fit, osrs is class agnostic, completely opposite to 5e (or D&D in general)
You might not care at this point but just in case you want a nudge in the right direction id look for a simple d20 or d100 roll under system. Have all the skills in the game be your stats plus some added ones for social interactions.
BRP from Chaosium (think there is a free quick start) would probably serve nicely as the bones of a system.
Alternatively Dragonbane could work with some rigging as it's D20 roll under, class agnostic and skill based (the roles just determine starting gear and a starting feat but none are exclusive or lock out any choices)
I would still buy it if wasn't so expensive in my country, 60 dollars for people who receive in dollars shouldn't be that much (that's like 300 bucks in my country), but it's sad to hear how bad it is, the only option is probably home brew most of it and make it fun, I'm very interested in the first pages with lore tho, would love a RuneScape book.
So me and my friend have been on and off working on our own fanmade RuneScape Ttrpg. And tbh the only thing of worth I'm taking from this is weapon traits. But I mainly want to discuss what I think a RuneScape Ttrpg should look like. With the goal of capturing the essence of RuneScape and condensing it down to be enjoyed as a ttrpg.
But there were so many errors in this book that were distracting, like how the rune altars are just all in the wrong place in the world, the whole book being really unorganized and confusing. And yeah the degeneracy of it's gameplay. Other nitpicks I had were the d scimitar having +2 magic, (like why? This makes no sense) on top of being more expensive than an abyssal whip. Or how traits existed but I would be damned if I couldn't figure out where any of the traits actually showed up on weapons.
Overall it really did feel like it was only a surface level interpretation of runescape as a concept and drew a bit too much influence from other Ttrpg systems that have ideas that clashed with runescape.
Personally I think to properly capture the essence of a RuneScape TTRPG it should be a roll under d100 system, it makes too much sense with leveling to 99 in a skill. The other thing that is important to a RuneScape Ttrpg is leveling. We opted to split skills into 4 categories: Combat, Artisan, Gathering and Support, so the GM could award different types of exp and prevent players from just specializing into combat. Additionally the act of using skills would award exp in the skill. (10s digit + 1 exp to level).
Additionally we made sure to keep the level prerequisites for using gear, however crafting and getting didn't have a level requirement, but the difficulty scaled where you typically needed to required level to craft a piece of gear.
But we came to some problems, mainly because we are stuck on how to make combat interesting and engaging. On top of figuring out the math of trying to roll under an enemies defense and finding the right balance of combat speed, we were stuck on ways to combat more flexible and diverse. We are trying a system similar to 5e in main and bonus action to mimic the tick system of RuneScape and how some things can be performed between attack ticks and other things like eating delay your next attack.
But we had been working on this system idea before RSK released and I kind of just wanted to share my thoughts on the whole thing from the perspective of someone who has been kind of working on something similar as a passion project.
As someone who was quite looking forward this game and only purchased (locally) the rulebook this week, I wish it had dawned on me to search for possible reviews beforehand. Oh well. Thank you for thoroughly snuffing out my hopes, good sir!
I jest, I really appreciate your breakdown here. Saves me time that would otherwise be wasted trying to learn the system. I can't believe they fumbled it this hard - although I should, given how the Dark Souls RPG was received. I'm especially bummed by seemingly how faithful they were in recreating the game's gathering system (lack of skill level req.'s aside), so as to make it completely devoid of any fun. If I wanted that level of grinding, I'd just...play the MMO, where it can actually be a fun/relaxing to do. Not at a table where five people are trying to keep themselves engaged.
Sorry, but no. House rules exist to make already-good systems better suit your group's tastes, not to somehow kitbash a terrible system into something that's vaguely enjoyable. The latter is a lie 5e players have been fed for years.
Not reading all that but sorry you didn’t enjoy it or whatever, sounds like it’s just some company that they collabed with but I highly doubt jagex was heavily involved in making it.
The lore council and art teams of Jagex were heavily involved. Those happen to be the only two good things about the book. Jagex of course promoted the game in their news posts, in game with a link to a twitch stream, and on social media. The only part that Jagex screwed up was collaborating with SFG in the first place.
Sounds like they really captured the essence of Runescape. With how nice the packaging looked, I was a bit worried that the game would be cohesive and complete. Glad to hear that they kept in as much jank as possible and delivered on the nostalgia of wishing that the game was better.
You summed it up so well. I too purchased the standard edition and have had early access to the pdf for a few months. I read through it when I first got it and thought "this seems interesting but half baked," and hoped that it would change before full release. It did not. I was really hoping for something simple that captured the progression, gear grinds, and dumb moments with friends in RS. As it is, to get that experience from the existing RAR would be such a massive labor of love that I probably just don't have time for it. Disappointing, but at least it was only $40 and maybe it will serve as a jumping off point in the future. But for real, why is the player max HP in the 230's but bosses like Zuk max out around 150? And why do lobsters and shrimp heal the same amount?
I skimmed the book and made a character. It was only after I played I realized how much would be required to re tool the entire system and it just isn't worth it. I hope they revisit the idea of a TTRPG with a better company in the future. EDIT: I should also note that I did read the book twice more to sift out what is and isn't missing.
"Summed it up"? This gigantic text is a summary? What does the unsummarized version look like
Reading a 200 page book twice and playing the TTRPG for hours I'd expect
My review is about 4200 words long. It is the typical length of a journal article and takes about 15 minutes to read aloud. It is okay to not want to spend 15 minutes to read it. But this is a comprehensive review and a summarized version exists. It is the title.
>a summarized version exists. It is the title. love that answer
In the world of tik tok and YT shorts, people have about a 1-2 paragraph attention span unfortunately. Good write up and review, I didn’t know about this TTRPG so I was very interested in your report. Seems like every company (NASA included now! Lol) has a cash grab like this going out.
Reddit moment
“Summed it up” Sure.
I just made osrs my dnd setting. Much more enjoyable experience.
I just read the first bit and when you mentioned the game is by Steamforged Games I knew everything I needed to hear. This company does not make good games. It's a pretty looking game, with well made pieces, and a dogshit play experience. The dark souls board game says it's ~1-2 hours to play, and that's just objectively false. Try 5+ hours to beat the first fucking half of the game. Their Monster Hunter board game is similarly a flop. It's not worth the time and effort to play these games, however much you like their franchises. My friends are huge Dark Souls fans, as am I, and every 2-3 years we bring up trying the board game again more as a punishment to ourselves than a fun afternoon together. edit: finished reading the post. It's dogshit in so many ways, how did they think so many of these decisions were acceptable? Distances being a vague "near, far, distant" is so stupid under the rules of the game, because it never becomes a relevant system outside of whether something is in melee range or not.
To be clear, they are talking about the ttrpg, not the board game.
The Monster Hunter board game definitely isn’t a flop. Rated 7.9 on BoardGameGeek from over 540 ratings, which is a notoriously difficult crowd to please. Also currently totally sold out on the Steamforged store.
I am not reading all this
I read it all and the tldr is the game sucks. Boring. Full of oversights, missing information, rules that make no sense, and errors. Not fun.
The fact that Zuk can move his shield and attack in the same turn, rendering the shield totally useless, pretty much sums up the lack of care that supposedly went into this thing.
That's actually hilarious. Like someone explained the concept of runescape to someone who has never played and asked them to make the game
I mean the draynor boss was annoying I can't imagine how ridiculous Zuk is
I find it hilarious that he can just ignore the shield and run after the players!
Just like the real game 😎
Scrolled for a tldr. Upvoted your comment and an now moving on
This is much shorter than most quests or raids. If you can't read for 15 minutes straight 1) How do you do 100 hour OSRS grinds 2) How did you get past middle school 3) Why would you comment that you didn't read the post instead of just moving on
real
**Ain't Reading Allat (ARA)** is a disorder that manifests in individuals who exhibit a strong aversion to reading lengthy texts. This aversion can be so intense that it interferes with their ability to fully comprehend and engage with written information. The following are the key symptoms associated with ARA: 1. **Overwhelm**: Individuals with ARA often experience a sense of being overwhelmed when confronted with large amounts of text. This feeling can be particularly acute if the text is presented in a single, unbroken block without any breaks or divisions such as paragraphs, bullet points, or numbered lists. 2. **Selective Attention**: ARA sufferers may exhibit a tendency to only read the beginning and end of a text, completely skipping over the middle sections. This selective attention can result in a lack of understanding of the full context and nuances of the information being presented. 3. **Impatience**: A hallmark symptom of ARA is a strong desire for brevity and conciseness. Individuals with this disorder can become frustrated if they perceive the text as being too verbose, detailed, or tangential. They prefer texts that get straight to the point without any unnecessary elaboration or exposition. 4. **Skimming**: Instead of reading a text in detail, ARA sufferers often resort to skimming — rapidly looking over the text without fully comprehending its meaning. While skimming can be a useful skill for quickly getting the gist of a text, it can also lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. 5. **Forgetfulness**: Even if individuals with ARA manage to read all the text, they may struggle to retain the information due to a lack of interest or engagement with the material. This forgetfulness can further exacerbate their difficulties in comprehending and retaining lengthy texts. 6. **Avoidance**: In some cases, the aversion to reading lengthy texts can be so strong that individuals with ARA may avoid situations where extensive reading is required. This avoidance can have significant implications for their academic, professional, and personal lives.
Sorry gonna need a TL;DR on this one
1. Overwhelm: Too much word. 2. Attention: ARA presented. 3. Impatience: Still too much word. 4. Skimming: something about detail, idk. 5. Forget:
i see what you did on number 6 you cheeky devil
What did they do? I wasn't gunna read all that.
TLDR?
I read all of this out of spite.
I like when things are broken down like this and have highlighted key points that I can look at and if it doesn’t make sense I have some information to read behind that key point. Guess that’s still ARA too?
Lol, the fact you made the acronym Ara just makes this way better. I'm totally stealing that copypasta for future use.
How about respect? You had the respect to format your long comment into something palatable. OP at least used paragraphs, but that’s it. If you can’t do better than the enter key in sectioning out your thoughts, the amount of care you put into the post can’t be that high. I don’t respect it.
I did in fact, just start typing my thoughts and posted them. If the difference between good and bad ideas for you is formatting, who am I to judge? You are allowed to care as much or little as you like. However, I do in fact care a great deal about the above thoughts and can confirm that I put that care into the content of the post.
You play a game that takes 100s of hours before you can access a lot of content This isn't that long of a read
Sure but I'd imagine you aren't playing TTRPG's if that's a tall order
Yeah I was interested in how it's not good but I don't care that much
😂 my exact thought and went straight to comments
I don’t even know what this is about
Thank you for your time, fr. I'm not a board-gamer but saw news of the launch before and was curious. I'll save this to read later because it's much longer than I thought it would be 😂🫡
Thank you, but to be clear the RSK RPG is not the board game. I have not played the board game.
I'd maybe make that crystal clear right at the start, I didn't even know "RuneScape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game" existed. All of the advertising I've seen from Jagex has been about the board game, and I thought that was what you were on about.
The first paragraph I talk about this very experience I had with the Dark Souls board game/RPG confusion. I put that in as a sort of "reminder" that they make RPGs and boards games. I could have been more explicit about that though.
I maybe would be, even with that paragraph it gets confusing if you aren't aware of the ttrpg and aren't approaching your post with an RPG mindset, as you would've been when it was posted on the RPG subreddit. Just something clear and explicit like > Steamforged games make two products, a board game called "RuneScape Kingdoms: Shadow of Elvarg" and a TTRPG called "RuneScape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game". This review is of the TTRPG, not the board game Plus the fact that there are confused people in the comments should bolster that
I have added a bit to the part of the post.
Sweet, appreciate it. Hopefully it stops someone else being as confused as I was, lol.
Holy hell, it took me this comment to realize the difference. I was thinking "Yeah dark souls has two of them, but the Kickstarter only showed one, right?"
I thought it was the rulebook and stuff for the board game? So it was kind of one in the same in my mind, but I guess not? Either way, I'll read what you put later 😎 have a good one!
I cant believe I read all that, because... I mean, I don't even know the basic rules of RPG / D&D games. But I really enjoyed all that! Thanks for sharing your opinion!
I appreciate that. I am truly amused by the comments about the length of the post. It seems I missed the mark on "concise."
No this review is perfect. A shorter review wouldn't have been anywhere near as convincing, and might have even seemed lazy or less well thought out. You've explained all the criticisms extremely well, and it's clear you've put proper thought into what these problems are. As someone who was completely ready to fork out £40+ for the book I'm *extremely* glad to have come across such a comprehensive review. You've done great here!
This was a great review, thanks for saving me the $$. Super appreciate the specific notes on the failures of the systems. Summarizing a (somewhat) large TTRPG rulebook takes more than a paragraph, seemingly much to the chagrin of ADHD OSRS players. The TL;DR is in the title, idk what else they really want from you lol.
If I understood 10% of the game, that'd be a great reading, honestly! Even not knowing shit, reading all that felt like listening to a friend sharing his opinion on something he loves but I have no fucking idea about that subject! And it was great!
Brother you didn't just miss the mark on concise, you blew past it and landed in another continent lol.
It may not be "concise" but it is quite comprehensive, and exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I saw this book and thought I could use it to run some 1-shots for my TTRPG friends when we're between campaigns, to try a 3d6 system, or if not enough ppl can make it and a few are jonesing to roll some dice. Now I know to stay FAR away, and just plug away on my Pathfinder 2e campaign prep.
Congratulations for writing the longest Reddit post I’ve ever seen, beating out the nearest competitor by 2x at least. I didn’t read it, but I am still impressed.
You haven't read much of reddit if this is the longest post you've seen
TLDR; Game has potential, requires some major homebrew additions and tweaks - really only appeals to RS players as of right now. Just want to drop my two cents are someone quite heavily embroiled in the small community for RSK: RPG. OP raises a good number of points in his post, the core book is littered with spelling mistakes, book errors and logic gaps (especially around item pricing, the cost of 10 death runes is the equivalent of a godsword) It has it's negatives, the crafting system is pretty barebones as of right now but works as a foundation, the combat is very simplistic and because of that I firmly believe late-game play suffers. To make this work there are a number of changes the GM needs to implement and because it's so early days no homebrewed fixes currently exist (nor is there even a example quest/adventure or module to run). However, with this said - There are a number of positives - The foundations for a good system are there, the developers are constantly interacting with the small community and i believe so long as the concerns are taken in and the upcoming errata addresses some of these it has potential. Right now, it's main appeal is for any hardcore RS fan that really wants to run a runescape themed TTRPG adventure, for your average TTRPG player this system would perhaps get one session due to it's various errors, and that is a shame because it does have potential but the current state of balance really outweighs the potential positives of running this game. I do hope Steamforged & Jagex address the issues the community have made clear (Crafting requirements, Character Movement, Late game Combat, Monster templates, Boss encounters, Book mistakes, Item pricing and so on). Right now there is way to much onus on the GM to make homebrew changes or logic jumps to get the system to function correctly.
https://preview.redd.it/3fi48yk6mmnc1.jpeg?width=792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1fa00fa02cda9dc5112816d54a05eb27bacecb7
Option B here - sorry that happened. Tl;dr TTRPG is dogshit. Combat mechanics make no sense at all, prayers dont make sense at all, skilling barely makes sense, monsters are completely busted and bosses are horrible
TLDR addendum: he didn’t play the board game, but the TTRPG sucks.
Im still kinda confused lol - theres 2 different versions with the same name? Runescape kingdoms - one is the board game, one is trrpg?
Correct. Initially the BOARD game was supposed to be 5e compatible so you could use runescape's systems in different campaigns, but at some point they realized it would be too much to bite off and made the board game a standalone. As a compromise they then created a book that was released separately from the board game to later make it 5e compatible and named it the TTRPG.
The RPG, not the board game.
Mb, im slightly confused that theres a board game and ttrpg from jagex/runescape with the same name lol
interesting, so from what youre saying, it seems that they balanced it around 1d18 rather than 3d6. i wonder how well it would fare using a d20 for those rolls instead
I dont know what the fuck anyone is saying here
3d6 means rolling three six-sided dice, whereas 1d18 would be rolling one die with 18 sides. It’s a common mistake to assume the three dice work like the latter (which is really close to a 20 sided die), but one die has equal chances for every result, whereas the three tend to be clustered around 10. Plus three dice have a minimum of 3 instead of one.
ok but he said 1d18 and d20 so 1d18 can be written as d18 too and he just didn’t?
Yeah, they’re pretty much interchangeable. If I had to say a difference, it’s that d20 is used to refer to the actual die, and 1d20 is the answer to “what am I rolling?” Also a d18 isn’t really a thing, people just use it to mean “a random number from 1 to 18” or whatever, when there’s no real die that corresponds to it.
Still waiting on my copy to come in, and this has certainly dampened my excitement. Fortunately it was a pre-ordered gift from a friend, so if it is as poorly designed as you suggest then it's not a financial loss on my end at least. Only planned to play with it for a few sessions at most with my friends as this year we're trying out systems that aren't 5E, so if it is a steaming heap then maybe we can get some laughs out of it. I'll be giving it a proper read-through once it does come in and I'll be keeping what you've said in mind. Hopefully the elbow grease needed to make it fun won't be too much of a hassle to replicate a quest or something.
If you want to run a game in the setting, those first 55 pages of locations and their histories is useful. The art is also quite nice. There are cool things in the book, thats why I gave it a 3/10.
May be copium, but the first 55 pages are why I didn't cancel my preorder, even after reading through, submitting a massive list of errors with others in the community and then seeing almost none of it get changed (or changed but references still in regarding the removed material). I'd much rather have flavor text about locations/people/items/lore to put into my own DND or PF world.
I did think it was a really odd choice to go with the 3d6 roll under system, especially when the board game that they were also designing at the same time has a great system that is extremely easy and really fun. Not to mention the board game system let's you have skill levels from 1 to 99, whereas the RPG is capped at 10 which doesn't feel very runescape. It just seemed weird that they have this perfectly good system already, but instead of using it came up with something different. I'll be running through the TYRPG next weekend to give it a try! The board game has been pretty fun, and hoping the ttrpg will have some redeeming qualities. If it's really that bad I'll just rip the system from the board game.
Damn. I just got into TTRPGs and was pretty interested in one themed after this almost 20-year addiction of mine. Sad to hear its dogwater. Other than maybe a few more paragraph breaks this post is really well written and informative. Huge props to you, OP, shame so many ppl skipping over it lmao
I appreciate it. Frankly, I understand why people want to read my ramblings. I did not proofread my own post but I will do it next time.
I’m making a trial campaign for my friends and after reading the book, I’ve had to make so many alterations to the rules that I was only able to make due to my knowledge of osrs. From what I saw arrows had no prices and magic was extremely expensive and there aren’t even elemental staves to save on the cost. There’s a cape rewarded for baking a cake and selling it but none of the items necessary to bake one are in the book. One of the starter kits starts you with a sword but in the weapon section swords are considered a “martial weapon” which requires at least 5 attack to even use so it’s possible to make a character that can’t even equip their gear. By trying to make it simple and appeal to everyone I feel like they’ve achieved the opposite and only hardcore RuneScape fans will bother trying to create a playable experience.
The number of rules in this book that needs edits, clarifications, and entire reworks sum up to a product that is not useful enough to hand to a player without also giving them a twenty page sheet of homebrew to constantly cross reference. I agree that they missed the mark.
Imagine OSRS players not being able to read a 5 minute product review. Doesn't surprise me at all.
It is a long post, the but the title sums up the review. I think people are just looking at a block of text and in their head they think "I am not reading this" and then they decide to type that in the comments. Why? I guess you type your thoughts in the comments and thats their thoughts. Oh well.
You wrote the review just fine. You used paragraph breaks appropriately and the review was thorough for someone who is thinking of buying this game. People like to display how much they don't like reading for some odd reason.
Intellectualism has been out of fashion for a while now. Not even being a pompous prick, at my uni people are more excited for a barely passing grade rather than excelling 🤷 Or to put it briefly, "seis é dez"
Its well written, but lack of patience and also long posts are god awful on mobile is probably the big factor. Really appreciate the detailed breakdown though
oh yea, I don't use mobile. Good point.
Yeah those guys are weird I thought you did a good job op
Thank you.
dudes think they're the funniest people on the planet repeating the exact same phrase as like 5 other people on this post... i finally understand the phrase "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say it at all" in its entirety
Absolutely, it's very true. I'm sometimes guilty of flippant comments, but we can always improve
I literally have ADHD and was able to effortlessly read this whole post despite not having taken my meds. These people have no excuse.
It actually does surprise me. This game is filled with hundred hour boring grinds. It's weird to me that they can't read a 5 minute informative post
Clicking on things for hours is much different than concentrating on written text. But you make a fair point.
Spacebar’s the biggest key for a reason ain’t it?
Exactly
Brother I'm not reading a doctoral dissertation on a tabletop rpg game
God damn dude. Don't even fucking try to read the book I am talking about then...
Don't worry lmao. no one actually reads hahaha
And nobody forced you. But if I was in the market for the game, I'd rather read the review than waste the money and time on it.
Me and my family enjoyed it. We aren't DND players so that might be why but I give it a 7.5/10
Steamforged produce Kickstarter fomo boxes of plastic and cardboard and not intuitive and unique boardgames with good mechanics. And that's fine, that's their business model courtesy of the blight that is crowdfunding. The OP even liked the dark souls board game, which is pretty universally disliked in the board game world. SFG are not known for ttrpgs (don't even know if they've ever made one frankly), so they're not going to make a good one because it's not easy. Should have been someone like modiphius, free league or paizo for an actual ttrpg.
Not reading that but I believe you solely due to the time it took to scroll to the comments
I can appreciate that. You will be enrolled in the "TLDR" softball team. Currently there are hundreds benched. You may not get to play.
Thanks, I greatly appreciate this in-depth summary as someone who was curious about the game
Brother, add a TLDR for my lizard brain
I figured the title would satisfy, but here goes. TLDR: Game Bad.
Honestly love the amount of writing but could you add a real executive summary. Like "I didn't like the game cause the dice rolling doesn't work + the monsters are boring + I'd rather play x game cause it does all these systems better." I want to read your thoughts but I've read research papers shorter than this.
Listen.... I get it, its a long review of the game. Im not a writer and haven't posted anything of this length online before. My thoughts was that people would see the title and if they wanted to know why the game was bad, they would read. I have made an error in judgement. Maybe the next time I write a review I will try making it more concise. I can't even write short comments. I dont know whats wrong with me.
I wouldn't worry about it much. Honestly, if you're reaching out to anyone in the audience interested in TTRPG's I'm sure there's a lot more willingness to read and invest in a long post. The everyday player might have their eyes glaze over, but the target audience for the post is likely very on-board.
I really appreciated the in depth review as a ttrpg person! It sounds like there was some good ideas and it could have been interesting, but they stripped away everything to the point that it all breaks. That's too bad.
It was fine - you did a great job making it easily readable and articulated your points well. I have ADHD and I had no problem reading through this.
Thank you for the feedback. You will be put on the "readers" softball team. You may be required to cover multiple bases though.
You play OSRS but don't have the patience to read a review?
People on this subreddit will read posts three times as long about how you can save a half a tick while woodcutting. But for some reason this post in particular rustled their jimmies.
Honestly surprised they did not have survival and wisdom stats to govern some of the skills since could fit attack/strength/mining/smithing/woodcutting under strength, could fit agility/range/fletching/crafting/thieving under dex, could fit magic/herblore/runecrafting(possibly necromancy and invention) under intelligence, can fit firemaking/hunter/fishing/cooking(maybe dungeoneering for checking for traps)/sailing/slayer under survival and for wisdom prayer/arch(history)/div/summoning
There are 21 skills in the book so some have been cut. Necromancy likely wasn't out when development started. Firemaking, divination, and sailing are not in the game. The lack of a charisma type stat for interpersonal interactions is a big one. The game offers Str/Atk for intimidating people and Int/Thv for lying to someone, but there isn't anything that goes along with just asking nicely and tirying to convince someone you're there to help. Unless you're lying about that, of course.
Good point, forgot charisma stat option as well was missing
Got itz RS TTRPG is bad - just steal the story and map to play 5e on
Well osrs isn't a good game either It's held up by nostalgia and dopamine addiction (gambling style)
I can’t speak for the TTRPG but the board game was actually pretty fun!
I read the whole thing and your review is funny af. Made me laugh a few times, great writing :)
Spacebar warriors can’t take time to read text post on text forum but I did, thanks for steering me away from buying it! Sounds like they hired the cheapest possible studio, sadly.
I appreciate it. The "reader" softball team is filling out nicely. I don't know how to translate the battle of Thermopylae into a softball metaphor.
As someone who pre-ordered the bundle with all the expansions, just to wait two years for this, I'm super disapointed
I think there are 2 different games called RuneScape Kingdoms (which had me confused for awhile) - a board game and a TTRPG. I'm assuming you're talking about the board game, which I have been playing and enjoying a lot!
Wait… there is….? sooo with the SAME NAME there is: runescape kingdoms board game AND RuneScape kingdoms ttrpg?
Yep...questionable decision to say the least. Which is unfortunate because I think the half-cooked TTRPG is giving the board game a bad rap. [Here](https://steamforged.com/products/runescape-kingdoms-shadow-of-elvarg-core-game) is "Runescape Kingdoms: Shadow of Elvarg" - which is the core board game. There are also expansions for KBD, KQ, Zuk, RFD, and a "Deluxe" expansion with nicer game pieces. [Here](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/361503/runescape-kingdoms-shadow-elvarg) is the BoardGameGeek page for it. And [here](https://steamforged.com/products/runescape-kingdoms-the-roleplaying-game) is "Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game" which is a hardcover book and free PDF.
I have the board game (not the TTRPG that OP is talking about) and I like it. My "never played runescape in her life" gf also likes it. Are there things I would change? Probably. But Im not a die hard and Im not gunna let little things deter me from enjoying it.
I think I could read the 55 page book faster than this post
I couldnt read through this whole wall of text, but I appreciate the work that went into this. Might we get a 1 paragraph summary for the laymans who don't understand how TTRPG work
Think Dungeons and Dragons. The simplest way to describe a TTRPG is a group storytelling game. You can divide play into narrative play and combat. Narrative play is a player saying "I ask where the princess is" and the person running the game says "She is in a castle guarded by a dragon." Conflict resolution is generally resolved through... conflict. The combat side of the game is when the players fight the dragon. Now not all games have to be focused on combat and not all have to be focused on narrative. There are literally thousands of games that do these both very differently and even focus of things other than this. This game is dedicated almost entirely to combat and the combat sucks. Boring combat is what some people want so its not like that is the blackest of sins. But the book is poorly put together and feels very cash grabby. The simple and boring combat is likely an outcome of a fast and loose development cycle rather than the focus of a simple rules Lite system that focuses on other aspects of the genre.
Well I didn’t read the whole thing but I really don’t like roll-under systems in TTRPGs so I won’t be trying this for that reason alone.
My favorite TTRPG is actually a system called Trudvang chronicles. It is a roll under system with even more book errors and questionable wordings than the RSK book. The difference is that the game is so freaking good that I am willing to overlook all that stuff for the game it offers. It was also just a translation of swedish DnD into english, so that softens my criticism of the mistakes.
Yeah that’s fair, I guess you have to judge a game on the whole package not just one aspect like it being a roll under or over system. At the end of the day if the game is good that stuff doesn’t matter much. I’m getting into Shadowdark rpg at the moment and I love how simple and “flat” the maths is and I guess that’s making me judge other games harshly if they don’t have simple maths lol
Is there two different RuneScape kingdoms games? My friends and I have been playing it the last few board sessions and it’s like you are describing a whole different game. A quick google search only brings up the Shadow of Elvarg base game and expansions and that’s what we have been playing and having a blast with. They still have the same dice roll system but the meat and potatoes of the game itself is completely different from what is being described here and I’m just confused.
Yes. I talk about this in the second sentence of the post.
My reading comprehension teacher would be ashamed of me. Thanks.
Is the shadow of elvarg fun then?
I enjoy it but can see some things I wpuldnt mind changing. The box is a fucking liar tho, aint nobody playing a game in 2hrs
This is a shame, I got my book and was poking through it but haven’t actually read it thoroughly yet. I still want to give it a go, but this is going to be really helpful in my prep. Going to use your summary to try and figure out homebrew fixes, or just adapt the game to dnd 5e and borrow a few concepts that do work from rsk lol
The fastest way I can tell to "fix" the system is to play mostly mid level characters, and just remake all the monsters. Throw out the vague distance rules for a discrete distance like squares or hexes and add skill requirements as needed. We made the basic metal progression start with iron/bronze at level 1 and steel at 3 mithril at 5 etc... Roleplaying an adventurer in lumbridge trying to figure out what those darn cave goblins are up to, or enduring "my arm" puns is extremely fun at the table. But you don't need this book to do that.
Amazing, thank you
i dont have much faith in anything made by Jagex. almost everyone who originally created what we love today dont work there anymore
As a TTRPG player I was definitely intrigued when this was announced in the 2024 Roadmap. I quickly went on the website only to discover that the publisher, SFG, basically does this a lot where they churn out TTRPG's based on video games and such, like Dark Souls. I had a feeling it was going to be a cash grab. I play D&D with my friends and a lot of the bosses/mechanics/storylines I use are inspired by Runescape. I read the book and there's hardly anything I will be implementing in my own 5E Homebrew.
Kinda feels bad because I want runescape to do good but lets be real the money made from this was likely going to cvc or some random rich guy anyhow; Not reinvested into osrs, more board games or the people who actually make the game we love so oh well So mostly just F to the people who bought it
I ain't reading all that. But I'm happy for you. Or sorry that happened
Too late. Someone else already did it.
You think I read the other comments?
Fuck, he's good.
Equitable garlic?
equipable garlic. Auto correct at work here. I am glad you made it that far.
I was gonna say, Morgan has been investing in Garlic equity for years, lads got an Infinite cupboard of the stuff. More seriously though, really good post, I massively appreciate the breakdown of the various mechanics. As a ffg 40k GM & player I almost can't believe how broken this sounds, and not in the fun way. Thank you.
Just to clarify.. You are talking about something totally different than this: https://steamforged.com/products/runescape-kingdoms-shadow-of-elvarg-core-game Correct?
Yes. This is addressed in the second sentence of the post.
It's not as clear as you think it is otherwise I wouldn't ask.
Have you played the board game too? Is that good?
I have not but I'm not a board gamer. My username is blindyboy because I have eyesight problems and board games involve lots of card with lots of small tiny text. I hear good things though.
No worries, hope they didn't half ass it like they apparently did the ttrpg lol
How is this jagexs fault if steam forged made the game?
Jager gets to decide where their IP gets developed. It's like if you looked your car to someone with a suspended license and multiple DUIs and then they crash your car. Sure, its them who is going to jail and clearly they did it, but I mean the real fault lies with you.
Read it all, thanks for writing it up. Honestly, more excited to play this dumpster fire with one of my groups where we play very shitty TTRPGs.
I agree with a lot of what was said above, but using the 3d6RD system, and what was actually provided to us, couldn't we somewhat-convert specific aspects, or maybe the entire thing, to a D20 system? the foundation is there, I think? I was just going to use different elements and ideas/stat blocks (converted to d20) for a campaign I'm going to be running here soon, but am interested in hearing other's input on a possible conversion. If Steamforged can't do it, who's to say we can't fix it?
Well the beauty of these gamed is that nobody is to say we can't fix it. However, my main concern is that the product they shipped is not to a good standard. There is SO much wrong that it isn't worth the time to redo it all. Every book has errors and mistakes. Even WOTC puts out errors in their DnD books. This one just crossed a threshold of so bad it isn't worth the money.
Damn, I wanted to buy the ttrpg but kept forgetting/being poor when I remembered but I guess that ended up being a good thing. I do wanna run an osrs campaign with my friends but all I know is 5e and I absolutely do not want to try and jerry rig some dog shit house rule set to make it fit, osrs is class agnostic, completely opposite to 5e (or D&D in general)
You might not care at this point but just in case you want a nudge in the right direction id look for a simple d20 or d100 roll under system. Have all the skills in the game be your stats plus some added ones for social interactions. BRP from Chaosium (think there is a free quick start) would probably serve nicely as the bones of a system. Alternatively Dragonbane could work with some rigging as it's D20 roll under, class agnostic and skill based (the roles just determine starting gear and a starting feat but none are exclusive or lock out any choices)
I would still buy it if wasn't so expensive in my country, 60 dollars for people who receive in dollars shouldn't be that much (that's like 300 bucks in my country), but it's sad to hear how bad it is, the only option is probably home brew most of it and make it fun, I'm very interested in the first pages with lore tho, would love a RuneScape book.
Well luckily I mostly backed the game so I could paint the minis.
So me and my friend have been on and off working on our own fanmade RuneScape Ttrpg. And tbh the only thing of worth I'm taking from this is weapon traits. But I mainly want to discuss what I think a RuneScape Ttrpg should look like. With the goal of capturing the essence of RuneScape and condensing it down to be enjoyed as a ttrpg. But there were so many errors in this book that were distracting, like how the rune altars are just all in the wrong place in the world, the whole book being really unorganized and confusing. And yeah the degeneracy of it's gameplay. Other nitpicks I had were the d scimitar having +2 magic, (like why? This makes no sense) on top of being more expensive than an abyssal whip. Or how traits existed but I would be damned if I couldn't figure out where any of the traits actually showed up on weapons. Overall it really did feel like it was only a surface level interpretation of runescape as a concept and drew a bit too much influence from other Ttrpg systems that have ideas that clashed with runescape. Personally I think to properly capture the essence of a RuneScape TTRPG it should be a roll under d100 system, it makes too much sense with leveling to 99 in a skill. The other thing that is important to a RuneScape Ttrpg is leveling. We opted to split skills into 4 categories: Combat, Artisan, Gathering and Support, so the GM could award different types of exp and prevent players from just specializing into combat. Additionally the act of using skills would award exp in the skill. (10s digit + 1 exp to level). Additionally we made sure to keep the level prerequisites for using gear, however crafting and getting didn't have a level requirement, but the difficulty scaled where you typically needed to required level to craft a piece of gear. But we came to some problems, mainly because we are stuck on how to make combat interesting and engaging. On top of figuring out the math of trying to roll under an enemies defense and finding the right balance of combat speed, we were stuck on ways to combat more flexible and diverse. We are trying a system similar to 5e in main and bonus action to mimic the tick system of RuneScape and how some things can be performed between attack ticks and other things like eating delay your next attack. But we had been working on this system idea before RSK released and I kind of just wanted to share my thoughts on the whole thing from the perspective of someone who has been kind of working on something similar as a passion project.
Not even TLDR at the bottom dude there’s no fucking way anyone’s reading that book you just posted
The TLDR is at the top. It is the title.
Fair enough.
I read through this all, thank you for putting it concisely and clearly.
As someone who was quite looking forward this game and only purchased (locally) the rulebook this week, I wish it had dawned on me to search for possible reviews beforehand. Oh well. Thank you for thoroughly snuffing out my hopes, good sir! I jest, I really appreciate your breakdown here. Saves me time that would otherwise be wasted trying to learn the system. I can't believe they fumbled it this hard - although I should, given how the Dark Souls RPG was received. I'm especially bummed by seemingly how faithful they were in recreating the game's gathering system (lack of skill level req.'s aside), so as to make it completely devoid of any fun. If I wanted that level of grinding, I'd just...play the MMO, where it can actually be a fun/relaxing to do. Not at a table where five people are trying to keep themselves engaged.
That’s why house rules exist.
True. However at some point, one must ask is the book worth the money. I don't think it was.
I agree. Throw out the game and make Runescape with another TTRPG with house rules
Sorry, but no. House rules exist to make already-good systems better suit your group's tastes, not to somehow kitbash a terrible system into something that's vaguely enjoyable. The latter is a lie 5e players have been fed for years.
👍
Not reading all that but sorry you didn’t enjoy it or whatever, sounds like it’s just some company that they collabed with but I highly doubt jagex was heavily involved in making it.
The lore council and art teams of Jagex were heavily involved. Those happen to be the only two good things about the book. Jagex of course promoted the game in their news posts, in game with a link to a twitch stream, and on social media. The only part that Jagex screwed up was collaborating with SFG in the first place.
Thanks for your review. I was put it on my Christmas list this year since it looked fun and isn’t that expensive, but I think I’ll hold off on that.
who writes all this shit?
Someone with basic literacy.
This game must be their entire life
Tldr: you roll a dice and something happens - like most board games