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Second, let's talk a little bit about why you may or may not care about my opinion. I've been playing table-top RPGs since 1979. I honestly have no idea when I started sharing the GM responsibilities, but it wasn't long after I started playing. I have written material published by Paradigm Concepts and Wizards of the Coast. I served as a Dyvers Triad member during the Living Greyhawk campaign after writing regional background material for years and several regional modules. Plus all the standard local RPG scene stuff such as convention support, public event organizing, etc.
Third, let me provide some background. Paradigm Concepts previously ran a campaign through the RPGA called Living Arcanis, which was a huge success for them. So much so, that the company is credited with holding some of the largest events at Origins. That player base has been chomping at the bit, wanting the next campaign in the Arcanis setting. In my opinion, Team Paradigm pushed to start the new campaign before their fan base forgot them and moved on to other products and events. As one of those fans, I'm stoked to have them back! They are breaking away from the D20 OGL engine and moving to a custom engine. I honestly, really like their new engine. The big elephant in the room, which Team Paradigm freely discusses, is that pushing to start the next campaign as soon as they could meant that they did not get to fully play test the new engine. This is why the current product is the "Quicklaunch" product. The full character advancement covers 5 tiers of advancement. The Quicklaunch product covers only the first tier of advancement. I know how that sounds, but, at expected experience gain rates that first Tier of character advancement should take between 40 and 60 distinct play sessions.
So, is that all of the bad news? No, not really. The missing extension of the above is that since the product was first released at Origins, along with the launch of their new shared campaign, the campaign players have provided significant feedback which the company is using to update the Quicklaunch book! How is Team Paradigm handling the OBVIOUS impact to the people who purchase the product? If you purchase the book from their corporate web site, you get a PDF copy for free, and they notify you of when and where you can download free updated versions of the PDF as they are created. The company is in the process, as I type, actually, of producing traditional errata sheets for the printed versions of the product. Even beyond there, however, the company has promised to make an updated hardcopy available for prior purchasers at cost (including shipping directly from the printer). I do not know what the timeline on the availability of that product will be . . ..
The quicklaunch book is very, very light on story. To help offset this, Paradigm Concepts is giving away copies of their older product, The Codex Arcanis, which is more than 180 pages of pure setting and background for the campaign world.
Okay, with all of that negative honesty out of the way, let's talk about the book and game engine.
Because this is designed to be an introductory product which they hope everyone will choose to replace with the full product in about a year, the physical product is a full-size, glued paperback, with color only on the cover. There is quite a bit of artwork embedded through-out the document, most of which helps provide a sense of the flavor of different aspects of this very rich, politically complex environment. There is no index, because they simply couldn't add the pages to the book without blowing their budget. This is a recurring issue for Paradigm Concepts, actually.
One consistent attitude from Team Paradigm has been that choices MUST have consequences. That idea is at the core of every aspect of the game engine.
What is the base dice mechanic? Skill Rolls are 2D10 (called the Action Dice) + a die determined by the value of the Attribute controlling the Skill Roll + modifiers like your Ranks in the Skill. For the Chronicles of the Shattered Empires character build rules, the "normal" Attribute die will be a D8. The attribute die can "explode", meaning when you roll the maximum value on THAT DIE, you get to roll another and add it to the total. This puts the average Skill Roll right at 16 + Modifiers.
Since the part of the game engine that most people care about is how combat runs, I'll start by talking about the combat engine. The initiative is tracked around a 12 hour clock. You roll your initiative (taking the lowest number rolled on a set of D10s as your initiative), and then add the speed of your various actions to indicate the next point on the clock where you get to choose an action. The Shattered Empires system assigns a speed, or duration of activity, to everything you could reasonably be expected to do during combat or related situations. Unarmed attacks have a speed of 3, while the largest melee weapons, like the halberd, have a speed of 7. Tracking a single character only through several actions, could look like this:
As this single thread example hopefully suggests, the order of activity is based on what you choose to do, and only when you first begin has anything to do with how quick the character happens to be. There is no promise that everyone will get the same number of actions in turn, or that the really quick guy will get to act five times to every action of the normal people. You get to act as often as your own actions allow you to . . .. The field of battle can actually change drastically in as few as 4 clock ticks, and you have to adapt or be vanquished.
Vanquished? Yep. The damage and healing system is based on the idea that actual lethal contact is pretty rare, and that most fights end when one side is too winded, or too tired, to keep fighting. Normal combat damage does Stamina damage. 1% of the time, the attack will be a critical hit, and it will WOUND the target. That 1% of the time is when the Action Dice come up as both 10s. This is the ONLY TIME that an attack actually, truly causes true harm to your opponent.
The game has ranged weapons, including flintlocks, and spells, so combat is not just melee. There are also speeds for skill used during combat.
This is a skill based system. An AMAZINGLY over-focused character can start with as many as 5 Ranks in a single skill. By the end of Tier 5, those skills that are important to a character can be raised as many as 15 Ranks, whether the character started with 0 or 5 ranks in the skill. That early focus has diminishing returns over the full life of a character.
Character creation is wide open. You pick a race, a starting geographical region, an archetype, and a background.
The traditional Fantasy races are here, but they don't look like you expect. The elves are called Elorii, and were created from the elements, with 5 sub-species (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Life). The Dwarves are Celestial giants who were cursed by the gods for trying to rule over humanity when they were charged with protecting humanity. Gnomes are twisted, malformed cross-breeds between Dwarves and Humans. Lizardmen are playable, but are known as Ss'ressen, and they were the original footsoldiers of the master race responsible for creating the Elorii, who then took over that role. Dark-Kin are a recessive expression of people who crossbred with demons and devils hundreds of years ago. They can be born to any human, without warning, and with normal human siblings. The Val are also human crossbreeds with Outsiders, but they are crossbred form Valinor, aspects of the gods themselves. Oh, yeah. And there are humans.
The geographical regions are all inherently tied into the setting. Some of them are part of the Coryani Empire, which is the center of the setting, and is basically the Roman Empire. Some of them are within Milandir, which is basically a traditional fantasy Europe setting, with a Germanic and Polish flavor. Almeric is a new border territory, formed from Coryan and Milandir, but divided into feuding camps all claiming supremacy. Altheria, which is a land of great learning and education, is based heavily on African cultures. There are more.
There are 4 archetypes: Arcane, Divine, Expert, and Martial. Arcane is those who invoke magic (or psionics) based on knowledge and education. Divine is those who invoke magic based on ritual and repetition of proven methods. Expert is the skill specialists who do not focus on spells or combat. Martial is the grunt, the character who specializes in defeating the foe. At character creation, each provides 5 Skill Ranks and 4 Talents focused within the appropriate specialty. Expert basically chooses what to take that is not spell or weapon based. It is WAY open. The only other difference is that the archetype selection provides 5 options that may be selected during character advancement. These options are where the Archetype has potentially the biggest impact on the character. I’ll discuss that more, later.
The Quicklaunch rules provide 36 different backgrounds, including Peasant, Noble Born, Performer, Former Legionnaire, Former Soldier, Former Royal marine, Initiate of (deity), Templar, Courtesan, and Diplomat. A Martial Former Legionnaire is the stereo-typical Legionnaire. An Arcane Former Soldier is a battlefield mage. An Expert Diplomat can be built to serve as a Legionnaire while obviously being skilled outside the expected limits . . .. And this is just touching on where the character STARTS. The character advancement can continue going anywhere.
There are 15 character advancement options which apply to all characters. Add the 5 from the archetype selection, and every character has 20 advancement options. As you advance through a character Tier, you get to choose 10 character advancement options. Nobody gets to use more than half of the available options, so, once again, your choices will have consequences. The system is open enough that it is possible to add spell casting to a character that started without the ability to cast. You can add new trained skills as you advance. You can focus on skill improvements, attribute improvements, defense improvements, and/or talent improvements.
For people who want to draw parallels to D20, yes, you can say that the Archetype is like a class, but it does far, far less to define the character than a D20 class does. The closest thing I can come up with from D20 to compare Backgrounds to is the variance between specific classes within Archetypes. A D20 Fighter might be a Martial Former Soldier, while a Paladin might be a Marital (or Divine) Templar, and a Ranger might be a Martial (or Divine) Woodsman. D20 skills relate FAIRLY directly to Shattered Empire Skills, but the Skills list includes things like Melee:Balanced, Melee:Unarmed, and Ranged:Archery. When you use a weapon, your D20 attack bonus correlates to your skill bonus with the appropriate weapon type, so the skills are not a perfect match. Talents can be thought of as Feats, but you will start with far more of them. Spell casters use Talents to gain access to their spells.
Ah, yes, SPELLS! Your spell-casting character knows a limited number of spells, based on the Talents selected. Up to 5 simple spells come with basic spell access. Your specific casting Talent provides either 1 or 2 "control" spells that help define that type of caster. This Talent also provides another 5 spells. Beyond there, you can gain one additional spell per Talent spent gaining spell access. You can cast any spell you know at any time, as many times a day as you desire. If you are in combat mode, using the clock to count initiative, each spell you cast has Strain, or a recovery time before you are truly ready to cast another spell. The Strain is counted off as ticks on the clock after the clock reaches your next action opportunity. If you choose not to wait, your character takes Stamina damage based on the remaining Strain. Yep, that's right, if you want to just keep casting, you simply wear yourself out faster, but you have the choice to do so if you want. Once again, you are provided the opportunity to make choices which will have consequences.
I really like this system. I expect as time goes on, the shared campaign will show that players grow their characters in a wide variety of directions. I cannot imagine cookie-cutter characters being omni-present. I look forward to the full product release next summer. I also hope for a second version of the product in another setting a year or so after that. The engine is very easy to adapt, but the Races, Regions, Backgrounds, and gear all have to be detailed to a specific setting. I am far more enthused about this new game engine than I have been about a new game engine in the last decade.
