AGONE is an epic fantasy roleplaying game set in the land of Harmundia – also known as the Twilight Realms. Translated from the French game of the same name, this is like a breath of fresh air to the overloaded D&D facsimile quagmire of fantasy roleplaying games. Part Exalted, Part 7th Sea, Part Call of Cthulhu – AGONE manages to be unique both in its subtle execution and its simple ability of being a complete package. This is a game that needs only the initial book to begin play, while supplements provide further meat for the GM/EG to chew over for future sessions.
Before I continue, I’d like to thank Wizard’s Attic profusely for their excellent service. If it were not for their speedy and efficient service I would have had to of waited nearly two months for this book to come into our local gaming store. (Yay, NZ shop owners who only stock D20 products that never sell…) I’d also like to thank Skywalker for putting me on to this game. All you needed to tell me was giant Manatees and I was sold! ;)
But seriously, AGONE is a brilliant game that manages to be the epic game that I feel Exalted truly wants to be. Having said that, AGONE is not without fault – but I will get to that presently…
Overview
In the beginning there were Four Muses – eternal beings that had the ability to create substance from nothing. Working together the Muses created the universe and – primarily – Harmundia. Seeking perfection they created many life-forms until they finally create a new Eternal. The Masque. And that is about where everything goes crazy.
AGONE is set several millennia later, the Muses little more than a vague memory to most, and Harmundia is split into several kingdoms. Secretly manipulating these kingdoms is The Enemy – the combined forces of the Masque and his ally The Darken. Players are Inspired, high ranking personages within the world who have been gifted with a fragment of the banished Muses. Guided by the secretive order of the Eminences Grises, the Inspired must fight a secret war against The Enemy to protect Harmundia from the Masque’s plans to rule all the universe as a puppet-master of some elaborate and grotesque eternal play.
A part of this war seems to involve the search for the lost ladies of the Seasons – creators of the Seasonling races. These races are the dwarfs, giants, medusae, sprites, minotaurs etc… all of which are playable races. (Although the three children of Autumn/Fall are not allowed due to their allegiances to The Enemy.) Another part involves the mystery surrounding the enigmatic Agone of Roundrock, a powerful figure who is somehow linked to the Eminences Grises.
This is only the beginning of the complexities of the setting. There is a lot happening in the world of Harmundia, and while the main book only offers a glance of the bigger picture, it manages to do so with a more wider scope than most epic games do.
Layout, Setting, Character and Rules
Some reviews have claimed that AGONE’s layout is somewhat haphazard, that the contents mix GM’s material amongst player material constantly. This is purposeful as AGONE has been written from the stance that only the GM will read the entire book. There is a single section – called the Book of the Inspired – that is intended for players. This is basically character creation rules and a primer of the key setting contents. The rest of the book is intended to be read by the GM who then slowly reveals the contents to the players as the game progresses.
Divided into four segments, the book slowly immerses the reader into the setting often referring to concepts before they are explained. While some may find this annoying, I later realized that this is on purpose for two reasons. First, it drives you to continue reading, to learn more about the game. Secondly, rather than split information between the setting and rules the book places all the information together in the necessary sections. Thus you’ll find all the magic material – setting and rules – in the same place. While this makes an initial reading difficult, in play this is a godsend as the GM doesn’t need to be flipping back and forth through the book to find any rules or information.
The Setting is massive. Each of the Kingdoms in Harmundia is unique and different – the scope of gaming is truly diverse. From the Buccaneer Haven with it’s swashbuckling pirate locale to the exotic Keshite Empire and its 1001 Arabian Nights mystique. Across this diverse world there is a mix of nearly every Fantasy genre – The Liturgicals remind me of Gemini’s world with it’s demons and religious fervor, while the Modehan Marches evoke images of Tolkien. I do have to make one complaint about the setting – it often refers only briefly to certain towns and cities, whetting your appetite while not providing a large amount of detail. Darkdream, the mage city built on the backs of two hundred giant Manatees is a great example of this. Barely more than three sentences are allocated to this city, yet it is meant to be quite important. Of course this is due to AGONE’s other quality – GM freedom of expression – but I’ll cover that later.
Following the setting book – which offers a broad and tantalizing view of the world – we are presented with the character creation rules. Characters in AGONE are not like most RPG characters. Meant to be of high-rank, most will hold offices of nobility or military status. They will have high scores and be fairly accomplished in their fields of expertise. AGONE is more about intrigue than mere combat, and this is made clear from the very beginning. This also means that PCs have a higher chance of succeeding at a task than is usual for a game, providing a very different style of gaming. Inspired are very similar to White Wolf’s Exalted in this respect – although they are less likely to be doing John Woo impressions…
Next is the Rules section. Being the meat and bones of the game, there is nothing particularly special about them. Kind of a cross between Silhouette, UniSystem and AEG’s dice system the rules are a simple Attribute Skill Variable Modifier 1d10 versus a Difficulty or opposed roll. This convention applies to all rolls in the system. The only true complication is the concept of open and closed rolls. Open Rolls state that whenever a “0” is rolled, the die is re-rolled until something other than a “0” is rolled. Then the player totals all the rolls up to get their score. Conversely, if the initial roll is a “1” the die is re-rolled until another number other than “1” is rolled, with each consecutive roll being subtracted from the total. Closed rolls mean that “0” and “1” do not incur a re-roll.
Magic
One thing that truly sets AGONE apart is the magic system. There are three core Magic styles introduced in the main rules – two of which are available to beginning characters. Ascendancy, The Magical Arts and Invoking. I’ll cover each of these in turn.
Ascendancy refers to the Dancers, a phenomenon brought about by the war between the Masque and the Muses. Dancers are small three inch tall humanoids that are essentially the living manifestation of magic. Capable of altering the universe with their eternal dancing, these little creatures are sought after by many mages across the length and breadth of Harmundia. Players can choose from three schools of magic if they desire to use Ascendancy. Journist, Eclipsist and Obscurantist. Each school relates to how a mage uses Dancers and in turn defines what “spells” are available. Journists are like the greenpeace activists of the magical culture – they love and care for their Dancers, and as such get a lot of the touchy-feely spells. Eclipsists are opportunists, who trade and negotiate with their Dancers, getting lots of sneaky subtle spells. Obscurantists torture and torment their Dancers, and so have access to the most aggressive magics.
Now for the twist. While Ascendancy uses a set spell list – much like D&D and Exalted – AGONE also allows for improvised magic. Using a higher difficulty, the Ascendant mage can attempt to perform any effect she desires by teaching the Dancer to perform an improvised choreography. This requires the GM to have a good understanding of the various spells and their difficulties, but this does allow for some impressive roleplaying.
The Magical Arts are only available to Inspired characters. This is magic via the use of the various arts of the Muses. Painting, Sculpture, Music and Poetry can be used to perform a series of magical effects – again taken from a spell list. Yet once again the system provides rules for improvised magic – allowing a broader range of effects than initially listed. Furthermore, Concordists – those who use the Magical Arts – can take a higher difficulty to boost their spells to higher levels of effect.
Invoking is the art of summoning Demons from the Abyss and forming a contract with them. I won’t mention more than this, as part of the fun of AGONE for players comes from discovering the costs that such actions bring. Needless to say, the contracts aren’t call “Connivances” for nothing…
The Good
There are so many things that makes AGONE such a great game. The setting is one of the most imaginative I have seen in ages. Truly epic in scope there is much happening in the shadows. While AGONE does have a “metaplot” so to speak, it is not a guiding force in the setting. Rather it involves intrigues and plots that have happened in the past. Where they go from there is left in the hands of the players and GM.
One of the little things I liked about AGONE was the GM’s place in the game. Now a lot of games like to call GMs something “hip” that sounds “cool” and groovy. Storyteller, Weaver, DungeonMaster etc… In AGONE it is Eminence Grise.
Question time: Where did this name pop up before? The Eminence Grises are a secret order within the setting that are manipulating the Inspired towards aiding in the war against The Enemy. Yes. The GM is actually a character within the game. This is a small thing, more a shift in perception than any rules based gimmick. But it’s a gimmick that I think works quite well, and offers some great future possibilities. The entire book is written as if the EG is being guided by other Eminences to find a likely group of Inspired – the PCs – and then guide them in the war against the Masque. Even the introductory adventure at the back is written as if it is a missive instructing the EG to guide his “Inspired” (players) to follow the adventure.
This also offers a great opportunity for later games when the Inspired may begin to realize that someone has been orchestrating their adventures… a nice touch.
AGONE doesn’t lord over the EG either, every aspect of the game is left free for the EG to tweak. Because the PCs are so high ranking, there are no major NPCs named. Rather, the authors provide a sample Barony where each of the Offices (Baron, Lady-in-waiting, Master-of-arms…) are able to be replaced by the PCs without harming the overall scheme or set-up of the Barony. The same is for the various named towns. As I mentioned before, while the cities aren’t heavily described, this is partially to allow each EG to tailor Harmundia to his/her personal tastes. This is one of the reasons that players shouldn’t read the main book and simply allow the EG to reveal the world to them one domain at a time. The primer provided in the Player section gives ample information to allow even the most novice player to begin playing with only a few questions to the EG.
The book is also attractively presented, with nary a poor piece of artwork. Every picture helps to capture the feel and scope of the setting. Beautiful and evocative, every page is a delight to look at.
The Bad
Of course AGONE isn’t all a field of roses. The book will take several readings to really make sense to a beginning EG. The rules do have some obtuse and, frankly, unnecessary complications that can possibly slow down play if you have a rules lawyer in your group. The translation hasn’t been perfect, and while this didn’t bother me too much there are times when it just gets silly.
The Character Sheet is comprehensive, but too squashed up. I’d liked to see a little more space for players to write their numbers on. Also, the experience system isn’t explained very well. While it states that all IP (Inspiration Points) must be spent immediately, it isn’t made very clear that these can be spent on stats and skills to partially pay off the final cost.
For example: To boost a skill may cost 30 IP. If you only have 5 IP left you can spend it to drop the cost to 25 IP for when you get the next payout of experience.
I suspect that much of this confusion and obscurity is a case of poor translation rather than poor rules design. But it is annoying.
Summary
-Phew!- Well this would have to be one of the longest reviews I’ve ever written. I’d like to say right now that I loved AGONE. While I usually prefer more free-form systems, AGONE’s setting and concept won me over so much that I intend to be playing this game for a very long time. While it isn’t glaringly innovative, it succeeds because of all the subtle innovations that sneak up and catch you by surprise. Like a dream, every detail holds some hidden wonder that makes you want to learn more, see more. It does take some work to prepare for your first game, but once all the preparation has been done the game just never stops. Another great addition is that every supplement has a scenario is both a stand-alone adventure and able to be linked into a long running campaign with the PCs squarely in the center. Quite simply astounding.
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