Review of Dragon Age: Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1

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In 2009, Bioware (and Electronic Arts) released the first of a series of computer-based role-playing games: DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS. The Dragon Age Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1 box contains the material needed to play in the setting using a custom designed role playing engine (e.g., it is not d20, although it is similar) called age -- the Adventure Game Engine).

RPG.net allows me to rate this game on the dual axis of style and substance; unfortunately, it does not allow me to rate the game separately for setting and system as the Dragon Age role-playing setting material would rate marginally higher than the system. This means the 2/2 rating listed is an average.

With that in mind, let's move into these two elements:

SETTING -- Style 3; Substance 2

SYSTEM -- Style 1; Substance 2

In the Bioware computer game, your character is initially one of many potential backgrounds; this quickly culminates in your meeting with Duncan, a Gray Warden. You are brought into the ranks of this elite order just in time to watch the Gray Wardens of the entire nation of Ferelden (your home) reduced to two members: you and the almost-former-Templar, Alistair. The Gray Wardens are a part of the central theme of the game: they are legendary, they are well known as a group, and they are framed for the death of the king (you and Alistair are then hunted by the General of Ferelden's army).

The Dragon Age Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1 makes one short mention of these important figures in a side-bar but has no rules for what they are or how they impact a character's design or capabilities. In other words: they are effectively absent. The setting material makes is clearly set prior to the events of the computer game; the Gray Wardens are a major part of this world. Where are they? Ah yes, they are to be detailed in Set 2. Strangely, the Avvar, which have almost no impact on the computer game at all (aside from some background information in the various codices) are detailed and available for play. To call this a strange decision is an understatement.

Many basic, core, aspects of the setting are left for Set 2 (many more are still missing from that set and will presumably get to see the light of day come Set 3). This choice, to break the game up into these sets as they did creates the feeling of a setting that is half-baked. Granted, it is obviously designed to hearken back to the days of the Basic Set for Dungeons and Dragons. The Basic-Expert-Companion-Master collections were designed to introduce more complex elements of the game later; they were not designed to hamstring the system early on. If you are not someone who played (or is playing) the Bioware game, this is likely not as much of an issue. As someone who enjoyed those games, having the setting material broken up as it is... well, its more than annoying, but less than a deal-breaker.

The material -- that material which is presented -- is reasonably well written. The layout and presentation of that material is, unfortunately, less well done. It is full-color and glossy; it uses these elements in a way that is actively distracting and wastes space. Far too often, for example, a large-text heading will be located at the bottom of column two on the page with one or two lines of text near the header, and the bulk of the material related to that header on another page. This makes locating relevant information is difficult at times.

The system is... lacking. The set takes characters from level 1 to level 5 (again, an odd decision to mimic the old BECM Dungeons and Dragons style). This choice means the two degrees of skill (called talents in this system) level -- novice and journeyman -- are repeated in their entirety in Set 2 so as to allow for the master level to be added. The organization of material between set 1 and set 2 is even more actively distracting in play than the page layouts. But all of this could be forgiven if the game engine felt and played like the game it is drawn from.

It does not. There are some elements of the system that appear as though the designers made the attempt; each of these attempts fail (in my opinion). The closest the game comes to the feel of the source material is the talent and spell systems. These are not successes, mind you; they are just the least of the game's many failings.

There is a lot that could have been done to capture the feel of the character generation, advancement, and play of the computer game: attributes used (those used in here are not the same as, nor feel like, the source material); attribute scale (the scale used here is not the same as, nor does it feel like, the source material); hit point and injury (the system used here does not play in any way like the source material); and so on.

That last point is a good one to illustrate the issues I have with this system. One of the major complaints in roleplaying has been the use of (and the implications of) hit points. Bioware's computer system uses hit points in the same way as they have always been used. However, in addition to hit points, potential critical hits can create injuries that have effects beyond the loss of hit points. Your character can have a crushed arm, or a cracked skull. These injuries create penalties; they are not healed when hit points are restored. Since they have to be dealt with individually, they create the potential for a character who has 100% of their allotted hit points but who may still be far from fighting shape. The pen-and-paper game ignores this completely, and leaves out one of those cool elements that would have been payed homage to the source material and would have been very easy to implement. I am not suggesting that the pen-and-paper game should have put the calculations of a computer game into its system. I think that would have been a very bad thing. What I do think is that if you are going to take a computer game that has a distinctive feel and translate that into a pen-and-paper game, you need to ensure that you are true to that distinctive feel.

I believe that you have three options when creating a pen-and-paper game that is based on a computer-based RPG. You can:

1. Present the setting material; add to this a custom-made system that is made to look and feel like the source material.
2. Present the setting material; add to this a popular system known to gamers that can be made to look at feel similar to the source material.
3. Present the setting material; add to this a custom-made system that is made without regard for the look and feel of the source material.

Obviously, my preference is for #1; Green Ronin opted for #3.

This is not a 1/1 review; I do not think I wasted my money. That said, I think Green Ronin wasted their opportunity to create something special here.