The Book
The book is broken up into nine chapters. The first section is a 16-page color section that is a fairly standard game fiction/world setting section. The first chapter deals with making a scion character. This process is fairly quick. You pick your concept and your sire, do some point spreading, some addition, and you’re ready to go. The skills and edges chapter is next. This section begins to introduce the mechanics and also has the character advancement rules. Since players essentially have two characters, it makes sense there are two experience tracks. Both tracks apply to the modern character as the mythic dragon character is at the height of its power. Experience earned in the modern era applies to skills and edges. Mythic experience goes toward relearning the abilities of your dragon character. Dragon character building is the next chapter. They give guidelines for quick and dirty dragons as well as more in depth tinkering. The quick and dirty dragons are more powerful for some strange reason but making the dragons can be a blast. The powers and legacies follow this chapter, detailing the rules on how to breathe fire and grow wings and what not. The game uses an abstract ‘wealth’ score to deal with items and equipment and the equipment chapter has the usual stat layout for such items. Combat is next, followed by the magic rules, and finally an appendix with the usual advice, suggestions, and example characters. The book is chock full of examples, info, and handy charts that summarize the skills and abilities at the start of each chapter. Unfortunately, the printing is thick with errata (which has been somewhat cleared up by an online PDF) and there are several important bits of information that seem to be mentioned in passing. The index in RPGs is a lost art, and Fireborn is no different. I would also like a two-page character creation summary and have apparently been spoiled by White-Wolf and Chaosium. The forums at FFG have some folks trying to put it all together, but this seems like a basic necessity these days. Even the 7th Sea Player’s Guide had such a page…even if the information on it wasn’t always accurate.
The System
Fireborn characters have four aspects that correspond to the four main elements. Each element is used as a basic dice pool for a specific type of action. Fire is active physical things like fighting and jumping. Air is active mental things like talking and searching. Water is reactive physical things like dodging and resistance. Earth is reactive mental things like noticing and willpower. Each dice pool is represented in d6s, and you can pull dice from other aspects to make your character better. Pull dice from Air to put in Fire, and your character concentrates on a physical task, but won’t be able to figure out a puzzle as easily. Skills govern how many dice you can pull for a related task. The d6s and the success system are very reminiscent of Shadowrun. It keeps things from some of the more ludicrous ‘rain of dice’ rolls from SR, but will feel familiar to those that have played Shadowrun. The game system offers strategy, which usually means crunch. It can be intimidating to teach someone but once you run a fight or two things start to get intuitive. Combat has a feeling of a fighting game like Tekken or Street Fighter. Characters string together series of moves. Each side rolls their dice, successes on each side cancel out, and the person with more success applies their net successes to the moves. The characters also learn fighting styles, which are pre-scripted move sequences that have additional benefits if they hit, much like a ten hit combo in Tekken. It’s an interesting blend of cinematic fighting and more crunchy components. Fans of Feng Shui and Shadowrun each have something to look for.
Gameplay
The modern setting comes off in a different enough way to feel different that the dozens of other ‘World o’Angst’ games in the market. Magic is on the rise like any upstart technology, there are people trying to master it. The PCs are bound together as broodmates, having been a family in the mythic era. The mythic era provides its own challenges, allowing both players and GMs a chance to ratchet up the epic level gaming. Dragon PCs are as powerful as they sound and it can be challenging to come up with opponents and situations that challenge those PCs. The game feels like driving a fast car in city streets during the modern era, but really throwing her into gear during the flashbacks. Players may also get a kick of playing two different characters as their modern character may be a saint and their dragon may be a bloodthirsty savage.
The bottom line You’ve probably noticed a lot of comparisons to Shadowrun in this review. That’s no accident. Fireborn feels like a prequel to Shadowrun in many ways, in world, system, and feel. It is a unique game that continues FFG’s interesting selection of settings. I hope FFG realizes that its RPG division has some legs and gives it the respect that it deserves. The game isn’t without flaws. The first edition is riddled with errors. Some players may be turned off by a game that isn’t able to be picked up on the first read-through. Some players may be frustrated by the divide between the dragon and the modern characters. Those people shouldn’t pick up this book. For the rest, give Fireborn a try.
