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The Deryni Adventure Game is a roleplaying game based off of the Deryni fantasy novels written by Katherine Kurtz. It's based on the FUDGE engine. I had never even heard of the Deryni novels before I started reading this book, but I am familiar with FUDGE (though I have never played it or run it). Having contributed to a few licensed RPGs myself, I know how important it is to appeal to both fans and non-fans of the license, and I was interested in seeing if the game stood on its own merit outside of the novels.
Physical Product
Deryni is a sturdy 256 page hardback book. The pages are on a thicker blend of ivory-colored paper than many RPGs. The book is full of black-and-white illustrations, most of which are tailored to look like medieval woodcuts. The one-column text was easily readable. Each major section starts with a large, ornate first letter, making it easier to find sections in the text. Tables, sidebars, and the like are all functional, if not very elaborate.
Beginning
The book starts with a very detailed four-page table of contents. A dedication, foreword from Katherine Kurtz, and a map of the Eleven Kingdoms drops the reader right into the main text.
Chapter One: The Eleven Kingdoms
The first chapter goes into a basic breakdown of the Deryni world. I quickly realized that this is a "low fantasy" world, very similar to our own High Middle Ages. For those not familiar with the novels, the "known world" is called the Eleven Kingdoms, which are very similar to Europe and the Middle East in the 10th to 12th centuries. Much of the focus of the game is on the kingdom of Gwynedd, the England analog in the Deryni universe. Chapter One gives a brief overview of the history of the world, the political structure and major cities of Gwynedd and its chief rival Torenth (which, from what I can tell, is Germanic or Russian), and a thumbnail sketch of the other kingdoms. The politics of the time should be familiar to even a casual history buff.
Chapter Two: Religion
The second chapter covers the Church (with a capital "C"). There's no thinly-veiled religion or rewritten pantheons here: the Deryni world's religion is Christianity, complete with God, Christ, Archangels, and the same Church structure of the time. This chapter covers the hierarchy of the Church, as well as a number of religious orders, the various episcopal jurisdictions, religious practices, and a nod to other churches and religions. Again, a lot of this will be very familiar to enthusiasts of the time period, but the concise summary is a good refresher.
Chapter Three: The Deryni
Now we get to the namesake of the game. As this is low fantasy, there are only two main races in the game: humans and Deryni. The Deryni are mystical beings, able to do magic, read minds, and create different light effects; while there are some rules for being a human with mystical abilities, most magic comes from the Deryni. Deryni can born from the union or one or two Deryni parents, but if they never manifest their abilities they're indistinguishable from humans. The Church considers Deryni to be of the Devil, although there are some Deryni noble lines (like the Haldanes of Gwynedd).
Chapter Four: Daily Life
The fourth chapter is twenty pages of material on life in a medieval setting. From the life of nobility and knighthood to the various roles of commoners, each level is covered (with a slight preference to nobility, as that's the level most covered in the novels). It also talks about the justice system, trade, horses, clothing, food, the arts, games, and various life rituals. A very useful resource for Middle Ages gaming all around.
Chapter Five: Character Concept
At first glance, I thought this was the character creation chapter, but in fact it's just what it says: twelve pages devoted just to helping a player come up with a concept! I realized that the game was written with the premise that Deryni fans new to roleplaying would be reading this, but since I am neither a Deryni fan nor new to roleplaying, I think that says something for the accessibility of the text. It also presumes that most players will want to play Deryni nobles, and gives lots of suggestions for playing the "undesirable" humans and commoners. It also covers things like background, occupations, and family (emphasizing family much more than many other RPGs).
Chapter Six: Character Generation and Development
Now we get into the mechanics of character creation (after, of course, definitions for terms like "campaign", "adventure", and "GM"). FUDGE is all about choices, and Deryni offers them up, giving GMs the option of using either the Five-Point Fudge or the Subjective Character Creation system, as well as encouraging experienced gamers to try other FUDGE character creation systems. The text, however, tends to assume that the Five-Point system is used. For those of you who are unfamiliar with FUDGE, characters basically break down into two rough parts. Attributes and skills are ranked in a seven level system, ranging from Terrible (worst) to Superb (best). Good stuff that doesn't fall into that rank system are Gifts, and bad stuff are Faults. Which character creation system you use determines how you allocate Gifts, Faults, Attributes, and Skills. Being Deryni is a Gift "package" (collection of Gifts and Faults that balances out to one Gift), as are ranks of nobility and clergy, although ranks are given level names as well, with Duke being Superb and slaves being Terrible - presumably to allow them to be rolled against even though they're purchased with Gifts and Faults. Skills are purchased from nine main groups: Daily Life, Athletic/Outdoor, Magic, Noble, Religious, Rogue, Scholar, Trade, and Weapons & Combat. There are seven Attributes: Agility, Stamina, Strength, Perception, Willpower, Wits, and sometimes Power (for magic). A character sheet ends the chapter, which is functional but a bit sparse -- putting the table of trait ranks in, for example, would have been useful.
Chapter Seven: Playing the Game
Much of classic FUDGE is here, expanded with useful examples of play. In a nutshell, you roll four six-sided dice (although rules for alternative dice are provided). Each die has two sides marked "+1", two sides marked "-1", and two blank sides for zero. You add the results together, and modify your trait up or down. If that equals or exceeds the difficulty of the task (which is also ranked from Terrible to Superb), you succeed. There are two optional systems for fatigue and effort, although as the text goes on it seems that the option is which system you use, not whether you use them at all. Combat also has two systems: the basic system in this chapter is the "narrative" combat system (which is a stripped-down version of the default FUDGE combat system) and the "advanced" system covered in Chapter Eight. Again, this is covered in detail for a novice player, so much of this material is a lot of examples and detailed explanation. The chapter is rounded out with a discussion of Fudge Points (metagame currency to modify things in a player's favor), character development, and a list of animals.
One thing I noticed was that the diversity of options seemed to be attached to a vague "do what you want" attitude toward much of the game. While liberating to an experienced gamer, the focus on the inexperienced Deryni fan-turned-gamer made this confusing. How will the novice gamer know what they want, or what options are best? Of course, I may be underestimating the ingenuity of the novice.
Chapter Eight: Advanced Rules (Optional)
Don't let the title fool you; it should more accurately be titled "Advanced Combat," since all of the rules relate to combat. This chapter puts many of the rules taken out of the narrative combat system back into the game: offensive and defensive factors, combat rounds, detailed wounds, modifiers, and scale differences. It also points the reader to Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition for even more detail. The writers don't skimp on examples and explanations here either, and experienced gamers will find even the "advanced" rules here to be less crunchy than the average RPG.
Chapter Nine: Magic
Magic is covered in detail, and it's basically just like any other skill use. Magic doesn't have pre-packaged spells akin to most fantasy heartbreakers, but rather a collection of skills associated with it to achieve certain effects. Use of magic is fatiguing, and heavily references the fatigue rules. A smattering of sidebars talk about the flavor of magic in this world, as the main text covers in detail what each of the skills can do, as well as rules for more elaborate rituals. It also goes into arcane duels, optional human users of magic, magical tools and items (and why there are no magic swords), portals, and warding. Again, the emphasis on the flexibility of the magic system sometimes comes across as vagueness, but since so much of the magic system is low-powered by the standards of most fantasy games, I think this is a mild concern for the novice.
Chapter Ten: Gamemastering
A lot of basic GM advice is in here, as well as how to run a Deryni-flavored game. It seems to be strangely focused on moving the player away from fantasy heartbreaker tropes (including an entire section on "treasure"), which would likely just be confusing to the theoretical novice gamer and Deryni fan.
Chapter Eleven: Stories
This chapter covers ideas on how the GM can write Deryni adventures, including which time period of the books to set the campaign in, various locations, and types of adventures (such as romance, intrigue, and secular and religious politics). It also covers antagonists, as well as how to use humans in your game. It also covers the options involving the canon of the books (important for most licensed RPGs), a number of adventure seeds, and two full-length adventures.
Appendices
There are nine appendices:
* Weapons and Armor in the Eleven Kingdoms (a few pages on what armor and weapons were like in that time period)
* The Camberian Council (the secret organization that polices the Deryni from the shadows)
* Price Lists for Gwynned (for flavor, unless the GM wants to use a more concrete wealth system)
* Glossary of Religious Terms Used in the Eleven Kingdoms (very handy from telling an abbey from a vestry)
* Calendar (of the various holy days, as well as some more pagan feasts)
* Timelie of the Kingdom of Gwynned (mostly of canon events from the novels)
* Index of Deryni Characters (including which trilogy each character appeared in)
* Index of Places in the Eleven Kingdoms (mostly towns and areas of importance, it seems)
* Deryni d20 (a rough guide on how to convert the game to d20 -- magic basically converts to psionics)
The Rest of the Book
The book concludes with a five page excerpt from Fief and two ads. The book has no index, but the very thorough table of contents makes up for it (as well as a lot of cross-referencing in the text itself).
Summary
Like all licensed products, there were times when I felt I was missing something (like when the writers made allusions to events in the various novels). It's a testimony to the game that those moments are far and few between. Even if you have no interest in the Deryni world, this game is excellent for a low fantasy game set in medieval Europe: just swap some names out for countries you know, and go. I fear that the flexibility of FUDGE might be too intimidating to the novice gamer it tries to target, and perhaps a few less options (and more pointing at other FUDGE resources) would have been a better choice in this case, but overall the game is jam-packed full of useful material. If you want more courtly politics and less hack-and-slash in your fantasy RPG, check this game out.
