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Over the last couple of years, I've heard numerous things about Free League's Dragonbane.
I've never spent much time looking into it because most of what I heard and read was that it was ok. The artwork reminded me of another Freeleage game Vaesen (which I have bought into) but Dragonbane felt too generic and well, I left it alone. Until last weekend that is!
When I attend conventions like UK Games Expo I pad my time out playing games, and so it was good to see there were other non D&D games to play, and I with my mate Greg, decided we'd attend Dragonbane.
Now, without spoiling what happened (as the adventure will be released on Free RPG day later in the year), the game session was run as a competition. 12 teams were playing the same adventure and we had 2 hours to climb the tower that appears during special events above the water, defeat the puzzles inside and find the treasure.
We got a score based on how well we did, and our team (Warriors of Gygaxia) scored a respectable 24 points.
So about Dragonbane. I enjoyed it, enjoyed it enough to buy into the system, which I believe says what I thought about it.
I played an Elf who was quick on her feet and quick to action. Our team of treasure hunters had a Mallard (duck) warrior, a Wolfkin (dog) ranger, a halfling thief and a human mage. We had to solve the puzzles ourselves and in real-time. It was very interesting and in most modern RPGs you have a skill to solve puzzles, but we spent too long in the first level, around 30 minutes of our two hours! (Though I did come up with a way to solve it without killing the party.).
We did better after that, fighting a librarian, opening curtains, and choosing the correct gem, but mostly we had fun.
The rules are very simple, to complete a task, you roll a D20 and if the result is equal to or under your skill level then you succeed. If you fail, you can 'push' the roll, which you speak to your GM about which attribute you'll effect (with a bane) allowing you to roll again. A simple health and willpower system, high fantasy monsters, a mix of magic and well, enough for a good game.
Originally called Drakar och Demoner and published in Scandinavia back in 1982, Dragonbane is an updated and re-imaged version of that Swedish original.
If this interests you, go to the Free League website and have a good read: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/dragonbane/
