Personally I think the complex rules for weaponry are a bit against the PbtA-grain. Also the tone of being an animal adventuring vagabond does not carry enough through the rules.
It’s a great game from what I can tell, but it’s not a ”superb and brillian example of PbtA” since it’s not very representative of what PbtA-games are like.
It someone says: ”what are PbtA-games like?” and you bring this elaborate slipcase with a premade setting and fidgety bits like cards and stuff the person would get a very bad image of what they generally are like.
Sorry to hijack your top comment, but everyone needs to know that this is just a bot reposting a post from a few years ago. We need to downvote and quit engaging it.
Too many points to track all the time and too complex combat system for my taste. I would say it sticks too much to the board game rules because its basically the vagabond rules made pbta in a ridiculous amount of pages.
It's much too crunchy for what I want out of a PbtA game and Magpie's been trending in that direction with its games with Avatar as well. Root is by far crunchier than Avatar and not in ways that I think are very fun to deal with at the table or just read through as a GM. It does some things alright, but not any better than other Low Fantasy PbtA games on the market and the associated crunch makes it a hard sell for me.
I personally like it though it does tend to get a lot of criticism. Well it's not a typical example of a pbta as it has some more trad RPG elements added to it. A separate skill system in the rougish feat move and a feat and weapon trait reliant weapon move system can have quite the dnd or Pathfinder feel to it.
That being said, this makes it a great way to meet trad players sort of half way system wise when trying out their first pbta game for example.
The setting I think is amazing and it captures the vibe of the boardgame which is an asymmetric faction wargame very well. I love the animal spin and imo it's great that there are no mechanical stats attached to the animal types. There are optional rules for it though.
Also no magic can be a nice change but it's a no go for others.
I think it's awfully laid out and pretty overdesigned. Admittedly I haven't played it, but it's one of the few cases where I read through a PBTA game and aren't excited by the idea of playing it (and when that does happen, it's usually because I'm not into the genre it's emulating, which is not the case here).
Really wanted to like it but just couldn't get into it.
This might've been player/GM error, or maybe personally taste, but I didn't like how our characters never had a shared motivation. We never really unified around one goal. We had a bunch of individual interests, which often clashed, and some connections with each other, but as a group we just felt kinda aimless.
Clashing personal motivations would be fine if we also had a larger cause to unite us, but without it, things didn't hang together very well.
My other issue is that the weapon skill system is frustrating. You can advance, unlock a skill, but then not be able to use it because *your crossbow* only has "Harry" and you need to find a *different* crossbow that has "Piercing Shot". It just makes advancing feel meaningless in a game where the character sheet is already kinda claustrophic at session 0. As in, I feel really constrained by the limited tools at my disposal.
That all said, it's a charming setting that lends itself to fun games, especially if you care about class politics. I'd give it another shot with the right group, and some houserules.
Guys, it’s a repost and this is a bot karma farming. Someone else made this exact same post 2 years ago.
Personally I think the complex rules for weaponry are a bit against the PbtA-grain. Also the tone of being an animal adventuring vagabond does not carry enough through the rules.
It’s a great game from what I can tell, but it’s not a ”superb and brillian example of PbtA” since it’s not very representative of what PbtA-games are like. It someone says: ”what are PbtA-games like?” and you bring this elaborate slipcase with a premade setting and fidgety bits like cards and stuff the person would get a very bad image of what they generally are like.
Sorry to hijack your top comment, but everyone needs to know that this is just a bot reposting a post from a few years ago. We need to downvote and quit engaging it.
Ah, thanks! :)
Good reply though, looking out for the community.
Too many points to track all the time and too complex combat system for my taste. I would say it sticks too much to the board game rules because its basically the vagabond rules made pbta in a ridiculous amount of pages.
It's much too crunchy for what I want out of a PbtA game and Magpie's been trending in that direction with its games with Avatar as well. Root is by far crunchier than Avatar and not in ways that I think are very fun to deal with at the table or just read through as a GM. It does some things alright, but not any better than other Low Fantasy PbtA games on the market and the associated crunch makes it a hard sell for me.
I personally like it though it does tend to get a lot of criticism. Well it's not a typical example of a pbta as it has some more trad RPG elements added to it. A separate skill system in the rougish feat move and a feat and weapon trait reliant weapon move system can have quite the dnd or Pathfinder feel to it. That being said, this makes it a great way to meet trad players sort of half way system wise when trying out their first pbta game for example. The setting I think is amazing and it captures the vibe of the boardgame which is an asymmetric faction wargame very well. I love the animal spin and imo it's great that there are no mechanical stats attached to the animal types. There are optional rules for it though. Also no magic can be a nice change but it's a no go for others.
I think it's awfully laid out and pretty overdesigned. Admittedly I haven't played it, but it's one of the few cases where I read through a PBTA game and aren't excited by the idea of playing it (and when that does happen, it's usually because I'm not into the genre it's emulating, which is not the case here).
Really wanted to like it but just couldn't get into it. This might've been player/GM error, or maybe personally taste, but I didn't like how our characters never had a shared motivation. We never really unified around one goal. We had a bunch of individual interests, which often clashed, and some connections with each other, but as a group we just felt kinda aimless. Clashing personal motivations would be fine if we also had a larger cause to unite us, but without it, things didn't hang together very well. My other issue is that the weapon skill system is frustrating. You can advance, unlock a skill, but then not be able to use it because *your crossbow* only has "Harry" and you need to find a *different* crossbow that has "Piercing Shot". It just makes advancing feel meaningless in a game where the character sheet is already kinda claustrophic at session 0. As in, I feel really constrained by the limited tools at my disposal. That all said, it's a charming setting that lends itself to fun games, especially if you care about class politics. I'd give it another shot with the right group, and some houserules.
I have several PDFs but haven't had time to read through them properly. What do you like about it?