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In recent years there has been a boom in games that have all attempted to capture this high-octane style of cinema. However almost completely to a book, they have all forgone choreography for more abstract forms of mechanical solution. Even games such as Exalted have really abstracted the choreography into a manner that puts a lot of the onus on the players to know their action movies to be able to pull off equally dramatic stunts.
Consider the number of times that the forums have been filled with "please help me come up with a cool stunt" posts.
Enter the dragon - Fireborn - which aims to truly capture the wild and dramatic choreography while providing a rules set that will help guide even the most unintiated action gamer through the creation of truly exciting martial arts stunts.
The challenge facing such a goal though is whether such a mechanic can be done without causing combat to slow down to a crawl as players work through overly complex mechanics. I'll be darned if Fantasy Flight didn't manage to do it...
Visuals and Layout
Firstly, let's consider the layout and design of the book. Fireborn is certainly an attractive looking game. The Player's Guide is the first of two core books. It's cover is a bright red with the image of a Dragon's eye looking out from the cover and the logo looking sufficiently cinematic and exciting above.The back text helps to describe the general setting and manages to set out the contents of the game clearly and without too much hyperbole. It should be mentioned that while it mentions on the back some details of the setting, the book itself is fairly sparse on setting details. But more on that later.
The internal layout and design shows that FFG have been paying attention to such companies as White Wolf, Dream Pod 9 and Wizards of the Coast. The symbolic designs are appealing and the book has the kind of appearance that could almost appeal to mainstream purchasers. Yes, visually it ought to be easy to convince new gamers to check out the book.
One thing of note is that the first 16 pages are printed in colour and on glossy paper. The rest of the book goes to standard paper with grey-scale print. Considering that the change from colour to grey-scale happens in the middle of the first chapter, this is somewhat odd. It would have been better to go one way or the other. I have to admit, Fireborn in full colour would have been fantastic.
The art inside is mostly of an excellent calibre - with a few weak pieces and a couple of pieces ruined by bad contrasting making the artwork appear a little muddy. But overall, a very attractive book.
Placing of sidebars is also of note, as these are usually placed in logical sequence and rarely interfere with the main text. An index of the sidebars would have been useful however. Also most of the book places new concepts in bold when they first appear in the book. These concepts are explained in full detail at the back of the book where a glossary of game terms is found.
Setting
So let's get to the nitty gritty. What is Fireborn about?
The Player's Guide really only glosses over the setting, that magic has returned to London and with it many of the lost beings and creatures of an ancient past. What it also has done is cause the reincarnated souls of dragons to stir again, and remember their true nature. Due to the low magic, dragons have been reincarnating into humans.
Enter the players, reincarnated dragons who are slowly awakening to their powers through a series of flashbacks that remind them of this ancient long-lost mythic age.
And that's it.
The book hints at there being something more, but doesn't explain any further than that. However the impression that is given is that players aren't meant to know the setting beyond this. An interesting design choice, and I'm not too certain how many people are comfortable with this proposition. If found that in the three individual playtests I ran, nobody complained about this - so I guess most players are happy to trust in a game if they can see the big white GM's guide and have the knowledge that there is more to the setting than the player's guide provides.
Scions - the first PC
Fireborn requires the players to create not one, but two characters. While these are both the same character in essence, they are the Scion and the Dragon that the scion is a reincarnation of.
Scions are the humans whose souls are actually those of ancient dragons. Due to their draconic nature, scions have certain advantages over standard humans. They are faster, tougher and more attuned to the magical energy of the world - Karma.
Character creation is a very simple affair, in our playtesting it tended to take under thirty minutes for four players to all create their characters without having ever read the book before.
Part of this comes from the simple description of the game mechanics at the beginning of the book - about two pages detailinh the aspects, skills and general rules of the dynamic d6 system.
Characters first spend a number of creation points on their four aspects. These are the core dice pools used in the game and they represent active physical, active mental, reactive physical and reactive mental abilities. I'll go into more detail about the mechanic later in this review. Suffice to say that out of these four simple aspects, a variety of character types can be created, considering the point spend spread guarantees that a player must specialise in at least one aspect over all the others.
Backgrounds, Edges, Sires and Skills
Then players select a background - which dictates what skills they receive as well as a couple of Edges. Edges are essentially the same as the storytelling system's merits. They are mostly ranked, and provide a number of special abilities. Most Edges relate to combat, and this is primarily due to the design philosophy of the game.There are some non-combat edges, these are bought as individual edges, but each Edge has a rank score that dictates how expensive it is to purchase.
Also, players get a number of points for buying fighting styles. These are vital for the game, being a cinematic action game.
Backgrounds basically detail what kind of a person the player was before awakening to their draconic nature. There are over 20 different backgrounds provided in the player's guide ranging from Cat burglars to Students - but the FFG website does mention that later books may provide more.
Once a player has selected their background, skills and edges, they then select a Sire. This is the dragon that they most likely share philosophy with. Various legendary dragons are listed, ranging from Tiamat to Ouroboros. The Sire provides more edges, a bonus to the PC's Karma score and more fighting styles.
Once this selection has been made, the player simply calculates any derived values and spends a few bonus points on skills and selects a third Edge. Then they are ready to move on to making their dragon.
Dragons - the second PC
The dragon creation system is very similar to scion creation. The only real difference lies in an additional step at the beginning.However there are two methods to create a dragon. One is a quick and easy method that simply adds to the scion's stats. While this is the quicker of the two methods, it seems to create slightly more powerful dragons. The trade off is that there is less variety. The quick method only allows PCs to come from one of four dragon types.
The standard method is similar to the standard scion creation rules. First the player purchases Aspects. Then they receive superhuman aspects as well. These are aspect scores that represent automatic successes - I'll detail these more when I discuss the system itself.
Players then select their dragon concept - this is much like a background, except that it is a little more general. Dragons can be Explorers, Guardians, Mystics - the selection is fairly small, there being about nine concepts to choose from. These provide skills, spells, fighting styles and wealth in the form of a dragon's horde.
After selecting a concept, players select their major breed - one of four - and their minor breed, of which there are eleven choices. Because of the mix of major and minor, that makes for over fourty different combinations. These effect the appearance and powers of the dragon.
Powers and Legacies
Powers basically cover the general supernatural abilities of dragons. These include being immune to fire, shaping shadow, alternate forms, being faster than other creatures and the like. Powers, like skills and Edges, are ranked from 1-6. Naturally, the higher the rank, the more effective the power.Additionally, dragons receive one legacy, which the player is free to choose. Legacies are unique special abilities that your dragon PC is most known for. These are more powerful than standarad powers for the most part, and include such things as fire-breathing, near-immortality, plant control, storm control and so on.
While I understand the balance issue of providing only one Legacy, it did seem a bit frustrating that characters couldn't pick up more legacies later - especially if you didn't choose fire-breath from the beginning.
A Case of Experience
It is about this point that the book explains experience. The reason that it does so after the dragon creation rules is because dragon PCs are only present during flashback sequences. So we are then given an explanation of the experience rules and how they relate to flashbacks. Essentially, when players are awarded XP they receive two types - humanity points and heritage points.Humanity points are points gained during modern day scenes and may be spent on skills and Edges only. Heritage points are earned during flashback scenes, and can only be spent on giving your scion powers, spells and legacies that their dragon PC has.
Note that the dragon PC never develops. It solely exists as a flashback prop and a template for where the Scion PC is most likely going to develop to.
I found that the experience rules took a little getting used to. The section was a bit confusing to read and didn't make a lot of the mechanics particularly clear. This is partly due to the constant introduction of new terms and concepts that hadn't been discussed anywhere else in the book.(Except for the glossary.) Thankfully the GM's guide does clarify this concept more, so that any GM of the game ought to be able to help fix any confusion.
Over all, a bit clumsy in execution.
Thoughts on Character Creation
So before I move on to discuss the system itself, I just want to give my views on the character creation system.Most of the character creation rules are very straight forward. The idea to base it around selecting a number of archetypal packages with a little bit of customising at the end of each step helped in making character creation easy and flexible. It gives enough guidance to allow players to create PCs rather quickly, but isn't restrictive to the degree of creating carbon copy PCs.
Over the course of our three playtests we had a number of different characters. A librarian, a homeless bum who was actually a sensei lost in London, ex-punk rocker haunted by dreams of scales and fire... there is plenty of scope with the guidelines provided. This is a strong plus for me, I like games that help players develop their concepts without leaving them without any guidance or forcing them too much into a particular mould.
I also think this is a good point to discuss Lost Lore - the free errata book that you ought to be able to get with your purchase of the game. Most of the errata relate to character creation and essentially streamline the game and fix a couple of little details - mainly clarfying the more confusing elements of the creation system. A majority of the Lost Lore book works to clarify elements of the system that may take some people a little getting used to.
Dynamic d6
So here is where the crux of the review lies. The success of Fireborn lies in whether the system lives up to the challenge that FFG have set themselves. Is it a truly fluid, detailed cinematic system?One thing that initially struck me about the game is that it does require a certain shift in gaming perceptions. Most games tend to blend everything into one flowing whole. Scenes run into each other, and there is always talk about how systems vanish into the background.
Fireborn does not feel that this is true to the cinematic form. And they would be right. Much like a movie, a GM of Fireborn needs to plan each scene as an individual element - just as a director plans each scene of his movie. They need to decide what is likely to happen in the scene - whether it will be narrative or action oriented. Naturally a narrative scene can shift into a combat scene - but the rules change based on whether it is combat or not, and the mechanics are not intended to fade into the background unless the scene is purely narrative.
I can see this not sitting well with some roleplayers out there. But just hold on a moment.
Narrative Scenes are meant to be roleplayed. This means that there should be as few rules in action as possible. So the system reverts to the core mechanic. Essentially whenever a PC wants to do something, they roll the aspect pool that best relates to the action. Skills allow players to move a number of dice from one pool to another, up to the value of the skill. Then all that needs to be done is to roll a number of successes on a pool of d6s equal to the total adjusted aspect score. Successes are scored from 4-6.
That's it. Karma points can be spent to add extra successes, and in an opposed situation, there can be what is called a Karma bid - where each character involved secretly decides how much Karma they are adding to their successes - then all reveal at the same time with the highest score winning. (We found that having a pool of glass beads in the centre of the table worked best, each player takes a handful of beads, counts out a number of beads equal to the Karma they are spending, place their fist in the middle of the table and reveal simultaneously the total number of beads they have bid.
The fact that all rolls are selected from only four possible scores makes it easy and intuitive for a GM to handle any unexpected PC actions. Then the player simply needs to ask if a skill is relevant and can then move dice themselves. Surprisingly, I found this really took a LOT of pressure off me as the GM in actual play. All you need to ask is whether the action is active or reactive. Then ask, is it physical or mental. Voila, you know what to ask for.
All in all, the holistic design of the system is very handy. But it truly shines in combat...
Combat - Choreography-based Versus Success-based
One of the core things about action movies is that all the stunts are not only choreographed - but they always succeed. Even failures are carefully choreographed for dramatic impact. Yet in roleplaying it seems nearly impossible to truly capture this feel in a game without the use of a very creative gaming group.Most games tend to be success-based. Essentially all the choreographical elements are left to the players' imaginations, the system only needing to know if the action succeeded or not and working from there.
While this is fine for many games, it does mean that fancy actions have little effect beyond providing maybe some extra dice or a little bonus on the damage.
Furthermore, because most systems don't connect abilities - there is a certain lack of drama. Players don't tend to really capture the idea of going for broke when taking actions.
Fireborn's combat system is both a crunchy rules based system while still being oddly intuitive. Despite the rules, it still has the same fluidity of the core mechanic.
To capture the choreographic element of a cinematic combat, the system comes to the fore rather than fades into the background. It is best to imagine the rules as representing the film crew and special effects tean working to ensure that the scene turns out the way that everyone wants it to - dramatic.
Combat is performed in a series of rounds that represent an unfixed period of time. Characters string together moves into sequences to attack and dodge each other, in a manner that is reminiscent of a console fighting game. When the dice are rolled, each success moves the character along their sequence.
Each move provides bonuses, advantages or the ability to then string another move on after the previous one.
Adding to this are fighting styles, which represent special combat training. Each style has a list of preconstructed sequences that provide a payoff if the character can successfully complete the sequence.
The interesting thing to note is that despite the rules, the combat is indeed fluid, fast and intuitive. While players do need to learn the value of certain moves- the actual way that they work just... well... makes sense.
Taking a Stance
Now there are some complications to the rules as to how skills etc work. Firstly, stances. Each character in the Fireborn setting has a set number of stance changes they can make in a round.A stance change is where the character uses a skill to move dice to a single pool. So, for example, a brawler could move a number of dice from three of his pools to his active physical (Fire) pool up to his score in Melee. Humans get one change per round, scions get two, and truly powerful creatures get three stance changes per round.
This is where the holistic design of the game comes to the fore. Consider a standard human in a fight. He sees the man who killed his father standing at the end of a room filled with mooks. He changes his stance to being aggressive and single-mindedly charges through the mooks to the man he seeks revenge against.
The system means that by making that stance change the character could take from his defensive pool, leaving him open to attack from the mooks and the villain. Or he may take it from his will pool or perception pool, meaning that he is oblivious to everything except getting to the man who killed his father.
Each character gets one mental action and one physical action per round. This increases the tactical element of the game, as mental actions have a variety of benefits that can be used to a character's advantage.
However, the best way to understand the beauty of the combat system is to see it in action. So for your elucidation here is a sample of the game's combat...
Three scions (Yusuke, Jack and Kevin) have been tracking a rogue scion, Jacob. They have managed to follow him to an abandoned warehouse where the wily gun-fu fighter has been waiting to strike.
Initiative Jacob: 6 Jack: 4 Yusuke: 4 Kevin: 4
Round One Jacob gets the drop on the group, having waited for them to approach. He takes for his mental action, Interrupt. If the PCs enter the front, then he will leap out and fire at two of them.
Jack, Kevin and Yusuke enter the building. Jacob leaps from hiding, and using his Gun-Fu fighting style he performs a Wheel of Fire Sequence (L Fire Pistol (I) + R Fire Pistol (II) + Ready + L Fire Pistol (III)) meaning he would normally need a minimum of four successes to hit all three opponents. Because Jacob is a fluid fighter, he is able to ignore one ready move from a sequence, which means he only needs a minimum of three successes. He makes a stance change to his Fire score - tapping his Air and Water to add additional 4 dice to his pool of 5.
Rolling his nine dice he gets a total of 6 successes.
Jack attempts to just dodge, being at the head of the group. He needs to score six or more successes to dodge. He uses his first stance change to boost his defence, leaving his Fire score low. Despite having nine dice, he only rolls four successes. Quickly, Jack's player grabs some beads from the centre of the table, intiating a Karma bid. So does the GM. Jack puts all the Karma he can into the dodge, but the GM does as well - meaning that the final totals are 9 to 11 in Jacob's favour. Taking nine points away, that means that the first shot hits. It is enough points to drop Jack, who falls to the ground groaning in pain.
Yusuke dodges, readies herself and throws a knife at Jacob for her defensive action. (Dodge + ready + L Knife Strike). She rolls 6 successes. Grabbing beads, she bids, as does Jacob in an attempt to out do her. Jacob bids his total as does Yusuke (11 to 11) - meaning that as he moves to fire, she ducks, throwing her knife, but the bullet impacts with the dagger, causing it to hit the ground - but saving her.
Finally, moving with a fluid grace, Jacob's final shot rings out. Kevin spins on the spot and then runs up to be close enough to strike Jacob. (Spin + ready + dash + dash + L Fist Strike). Kevin scores 8 successes. The GM reaches for the Karma as does Kevin. Kevin bids 5, Jacob bids 4 - not wanting to run out of Karma just yet. The totals come to 13 versus 10, giving Kevin a net total of 3 successes. He spins out of the way of the bullet and then steadies himself and runs to the centre of the room.
Now it is Jack's turn. Lying on the ground and should be unconscious, luckily he has a flak jacket - he's only taken 5 wound dice. However his player has decided to play it safe and takes a grit mental action to gain some benefits on his next action. He only has enough Stamina to roll one die. He manages to roll a success and spends a further four Karma to garner a total of 5 successes. This means that on all his physical actions this round, he can ignore the wound penalty from the shot. He then takes for his physical action two crawls to start moving in on Jacob. He rolls his dice, no stance change - and manages to net the two successes he needed. Gritting his teeth, Jack crawls forward.
Yusuke, cursing, whips up another dagger and takes an aim mental action - Jacob chooses to not change his stance just yet. Meaning that his earth is only 2 dice versus Yusuke's 3 - she scores 2 successes, he scores none. This means that Yusuke will do more damage if she manages to hit. Changing her stance, Yusuke puts little bit of her pool back into Fire. She gathers her strength and throws - (Power + Power + R Knife Strike) - Jacob changes his stance to Water, rolls out of the way and fires. (Roll + Ready + Pistol Fire) His fluid fighter edge doesn't come into effect this time. Yusuke gains 4 successes, Jacob rolls 3 successes. Karma bidding occurs, Jacob is running low and so only bids two. Yusuke bids 4. She gets a net total of 8 successes - which means that not only does her dagger strike, but it does so with unerring accuracy.
The blade strikes into Jacob's shoulder - he cries out in pain and the shot rings off target, hitting a window.
Kevin dashes the final few feet to attack - he uses his Eastern Small Style to strike with a mouse attack. (Dash+ L Fist + R Fist)He stance changes everything into Fire to succeed. Seeing him coming, Jacob will attempt a dodge and a block with no fancy attack. (Dodge + Block) They roll. Kevin scores 9 successes, Jacob gets 6. Kevin spends one success for the dash, getting in close enough, making the totals 8 vs 6. Jacob and Kevin both reach for Karma. Jacob spends as much as he can - 5. Kevin wants to hold on to some Karma, not knowing how much Jacob may spend, so only spends 3. The final totals are 11 vs 11. Kevin strikes, but misses totally as Jacob steps back in surprise.
End of Round One.
Total playing time - ten minutes.
As you can see, the combat becomes very dramatic and exciting. The fight continued with Jack crawling closer as the other two fought with Jacob, until Jack managed to perform a grab and a head butt that knocked Jacob out.
I cannot stress enough the fluidity and pure enjoyment of the action in the game. Coming up with exciting new sequences and seeing them come off is fantastic. The Karma bidding means that spending a lot of Karma at the beginning may seem like a good idea, but often leads to trouble in the second half of a fight. Tactics are the order of the day with Fireborn - a smart GM can completely outclass players who think that just bidding everything they've got is the solution to every problem.
Spells and Karma
Finally, the book rounds off with a discussion of Karma and magic in the game. Spells are basically special effects that are usually more powerful than most standard Edges and powers - and allow for some nifty effects. The trick with spells is that they have success requirements that must be performed very precisely. If a spell needs 8 successes, you need 8 successes, no more, no less. Some Edges exist to allow spell casters to add or negate successes - depending on which Edge you take.The penalty for not meeting the success requirement accurately ranges from the spell going out of control, to the gaining of "taint" - warped Karma. But the book only hints at what Taint is... the GM's guide details how the mechanics of Taint works.
Verdict
Fireborn is an excellent game that is really deserving of a 5/5 in my opinion. However the fact that there are a few occasions where the errata are needed, and the fact that a couple of concepts are mentioned but never fully explained - namely the cinematic bonus dice - means that I ended up giving it a 4/4.It is simply the best cinematic game I have come across yet - the combat system is a pure joy to play and the inobtrusive nature of the system in narrative scenes means that this game manages to be both styles of mechanic at the same time without having a jarring shift from one to the other.
I can see that this game wont be to everyone's tastes - but I suspect that if you liked mechanics like ORE/Wild Talents, then Dynamic d6 is likely to be right up your alley. I even used it for a cyberpunk convention game, I love it that much.
The fact that combats are never a case of "I hit him. I don't hit him" but became beautifully dramatic descriptions of stunts and actions from players who had previously never done descriptive combat (one player shot the glass out of a window to dive through and shoot a Sluagh in the head as it tried to eat a compartiot) really scored points with me.
I also have to say that the whole changing your perspective on roleplaying combat and the value of crunchy rules might not sit well with some players. But if you have been looking for a game that not only allows you to make truly exciting stunts, but requires it - this is the game for you.
Should I buy this game?: If you want to play a truly cinematic game, this is the one. Nothing comes close to the sheer fun of playing this game. The book manages to explain the system well enough, but could use a little clarification. Not necessarily for everyone though.
