A couple weeks ago on Facebook I expressed my excitement for the updated version of Adventurers! that’s currently up on Kickstarter. Adventurers! is a universal tabletop RPG system that manages to fit everything you need to play into just two pages. Oh, those pages are densely packed, but still, it’s quite the feat. The core rules are super-simple (roll 2d6 + stat + modifiers vs. 7 to succeed), but have enough crunchy and narrative bits hanging off of them that they don’t feel incomplete or overly hand-wavy.
While I’ve owned and read through the game, I’d never actually played it. This week, I decided to rectify that.
I downloaded the free Revised Rules from the Kickstarter page. Then I recruited my favorite two playtesters — my daughters, ages 14 and 11 — who are fairly well-versed in ways of RPGs. I handed them blank character sheets and started walking them through the character creation process.
“We’re playing in a generic fantasy world,” I told them as they pondered what kinds of characters to make. “Kings and queens, knights and wizards, orcs and goblins… you get the idea.”
One of the new things I really like in the Revised Edition is how the game defines “character concept” as “definition” plus “archetype” — or as I explained to my players, “adjective plus noun.” For example, I created a sample character who was a “surly guard captain.” According to the rules of the game, I’d get rewards for properly roleplaying “surly,” and get dice bonuses for anything related to being a “guard captain.”
“I’ve got my character,” said my elder daughter. “He’s Rolf Smith. His concept is ‘confused 21st-century businessman.'”
I blinked. She grinned.
“He was summoned here by accident. The wizard saw him, realized the mistake, and ran off. Oh, and he’s got a spear, but he’s not good with it.”
Well. Okay, then. Adventurers! is a universal system. I figured it should be able to handle this. And my daughter seemed fine with the idea of playing a character so far out of his element as to be largely incompetent. I decided to roll with it.
I turned to my younger daughter. “What do you have?”
“My character’s name is Meri Brine, and her concept is ‘infamous gunslinger.'”
“You mean like…”
“Yeah. With a gun. It’s on the equipment list you gave us.”
It’s a universal system, I reminded myself. This should be fine. Besides, isn’t Roland from the Dark Tower a gunslinger in a fantasy setting?
“Okay. Businessman and gunslinger it is.”
Even with such creative players, character creation took like five minutes. Maybe 10, tops, since the gunslinger also had magical force-field powers (of course).
I had been intending to just toss my two fantasy heroes into a quick combat encounter to test the game system, but with such interesting characters, I whipped up something a little more elaborate: Rolf found himself in the court of the local Duchess, who suggested the wizard Tomax might be able to help get him home. She sent her infamous deniable asset, Meri the gunslinger, to accompany him to the wizard’s tower. While traveling through a forest en route to the tower, they are attacked by a pair of giant spiders.
The combat system is little more complicated than standard task resolution, in that every attack is contested (both attacker and defender roll 2d6 plus their stats, high roll wins) and you can score bonus damage based on the difference between the two rolls. But we found it very intuitive. Everything worked the way we expected it to, and the spiders were dead in a couple of rounds.
I pointed out to Meri that the forest was usually safe because the wizard Tomax kept the monsters under control. So she might not have been shocked when they arrived at the wizard’s tower and found it apparently uninhabited. Upon entering the tower, they saw it was full of sickly yellow light. From above came the sound of muttered chanting and the smell of… automobile exhaust?
“Does he have a portal?” asked Rolf. “Maybe I can get home!”
The unlikely pair made their way to the wizard’s lab at the top of the tower. Here they saw a gaunt, robed figure muttering over a smoking cauldron the size of a hot tub. Rolf recognized him as the wizard who had summoned him. Meri recognized that this was not Tomax.
“Hey, you!” called Rolf. “You got to send me back!”
The wizard looked up and smiled grimly. “Oh good, you’re here,” he said in my best Bond villain voice. “It saves me the trouble of hunting you down to kill you. And I won’t send you back, because it will upset the balance between our worlds. You see, I have my own man in your world, and — ah, here he is now.”
An ogre slowly ascended from inside the cauldron, as if riding in an elevator. He carried a wooden crate with military markings under each arm.
“I’m pulling out my machine gun,” said my gun-slinging daughter.
“Okay, you — wait. What!? What machine gun?”
She pointed to where she’d written “machine gun” on her character sheet. “It was on the equipment list.”
Sure. Why not.
Combat ensued. Meri got a critical hit by rolling double 6’s and blasted the ogre like a background character in an 80s action movie. Rolf leapt to the edge of the cauldron. He could hear the sounds of traffic from somewhere inside its glowing interior. Turning back, he saw Meri and the wizard exchanging bullets and magical blasts.
“I suddenly realize that this is way better than my boring life back home,” said my eldest daughter. “I’m staying. And I’m going to jump at the wizard with my spear.”
Because the wizard had his back to her and was distracted, I ruled she could roll her attack with advantage. This meant she rolled three dice instead of two, and kept the highest two rolls. Her attack was a success, and she stabbed the wizard in the heart.
“We… will have our revenge,” he gurgled, then died. And since it was time for supper, we ended the game.
My biggest take-aways from this experience include:
- Adventurers! truly is a universal system; bringing a gun to a swordfight didn’t break anything.
- The game system is also as simple (yet versatile) as I’d first thought when reading through it.
- Adventurers! combat is fast.
- I need to double-check players’ gear before starting the adventure.
You can download the Revised Edition of Adventurers! on the Kickstarter page here, and check out the game’s various supplements (also two pages each) here. If you want to read an actual review of Adventurers! you may do so on The Most Unread Blog on the Internet. Ever.
NEVER, no wait… ALWAYS check the equipment list /a priori/! 🙂