Some Thoughts on the Dragon Age RPG

On Saturday I had the chance to play the Dragon Age RPG by Green Ronin at a local convention. Initially I planned to run two sessions of Into The Odd, but we didn’t find enough players for the second game, so I decided to play some Dragon Age instead.

I’ve owned the rules pretty much since it has been released, but alas I never had the chance to give it a try. So I was pretty excited when I was given the chance to actually play it. The GM had prepared six characters: two rogues, two mages, and two warriors. I picked one of the mages, who turned out to be a human circle mage with a focus on primal magic.

Playing a mage is a lot of fun in Dragon Age, especially because there’s a chance that things can get terribly wrong. My most powerful spell had a slight chance of miscasting. During the game this spell misfired once, but luckily it just damaged my Marbari warhound instead of turning my character into an abomination.

The rules are extremely easy to understand. You roll 3d6, one of those is the dragon die, and if your roll result is equal or higher than the target number you succeed. The dragon die comes into play each time you roll doubles when making an attack roll. In that case the dragon die shows the number of stunt points you can use for that action. Stunt points allow you to move yourself or your enemy, add additional damage, ignore armor, reduce the spell cost of the spell casted, and more. Because of this, the combat rules can be kept simple, but you get additional option from time to time, which make things more dramatic and exciting.

Recently Green Ronin has released the Dragon Age RPG rulebook, which combines the rules found in all the three boxes and adds a new adventure. The PDF is available right now, the hardcover book is still in its preorder phase. I’ve put the PDF on my wishlist, and I am determined to get a copy of the hardcover book as soon as it reaches Germany. Now I just need to find a couple of people who want to play the game with me. Smiley

5 comments

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Liechtenauer

I’m happy to read that apparently you liked the game at our con. 🙂

I have to admit that I twisted the rules regarding the magic mishaps a bit. According to the book you get to roll another saving throw in the form of a Willpower (Self-Discipline) test against the spell’s target number after you failed your casting roll with one of the dice showing a 1. And if you make that second roll, your character is simply knocked prone and nothing else happens.

But second saving throws are for wussies, right? After all this is Dragon Age and not Loony Toons RPG.

Furthermore I thought for a con game it would be more fun to increase the risk on this end a bit.

    comments user
    Stargazer

    I think your house rule is pretty cool. Can you please send me a copy of your mishap table so that I can use it in my own games?

      comments user
      Liechtenauer

      Thanks! The mishap table was actually the original one from DA Boxed Set 2. It’s just well hidden in the Players Guide on page 61.

        comments user
        Stargazer

        Thanks.

comments user
Mike Hill

Great system, easy to play but the most combat-centric game since D&D 4.0. I played with the first boxed set, there wasn’t a single spell that didn’t relate to combat in some way or another. I’d be keen on the hard cover book though.