I just read through Blood and Bone and thought I would give my first impressions
Pros:
- The book is small, easily read, and beautifully illustrated. The tone and graphic design are perfectly matched.
- The setting is very interesting and there are some really smart and unique mechanics such as armor and apothecary.
- The character creation mechanics are solid and varied.
- There are some nice variant mechanics that offer new ways to play the game.
Cons:
- The editing and proofreading are pretty bad. There are numerous typos, editing inconsitincies, and mismatched page numbers. Lists (like Traits) are not alphabetized.
- Character progression is pretty limited and Traits take up the bulk of character progression and makes it feel a little bland.
- The skills selection is very meager, with Strength only having one skill (and it's shared with Dexterity). The Savage Worlds-esque step dice also don't win me over.
- Alacrity is a horrible name for initiative.
- The NPC examples are not actually text but images, at a terrible quality, and it makes them unsearchable. They also have a "CMW" stat I couldn't find explained anywhere in the book.
- The game is explained as having no magic, but there is the Blooded ability which functions like a school of magic. There is no explanation of how it's different from magic.
Rating: [3 of 5 Stars!] |
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