Will you Kickstart a Blade Raiders Adventure?
May 23, 2012 by brennon
It might seem like this is yet another Kickstarter campaign, but hear me out on this one. Check out some information on a potentially awesome Paper & Pen Role-Playing Game, Blade Raiders.
Blade Raiders is an alternative RPG which places you in the world of Stonemir. Here all kinds of creatures dwell under the powerful guidance of its human rules. As you can see from the cover art, this is already shaping up to be a fantastic looking game regardless of its rules. Check out another piece of art below...
In Blade Raiders all human world you take on the role of an adventurer out to prove him/herself in a world of perilous rewards. Unlike other systems there is no defined role or class but simply talents from which to draw from. These talents hone you in a particular area, but beware; if you know how to handle a sword after all, you're not going to be very good if that breaks and you need to pick up a dagger!
The game appears, according to its creator at least, to have a strong ethos of "Easy to Learn". This isn't a game for book worms but those who are maybe starting out and don't want to be daunted by two or maybe even three books! Everything you need to play will be included in the pages of the first book, apart from dice of course.
The art style, ethos and indeed background is drawing me ever closer to wanting this RPG sooner rather than later. That's of course without the interesting and deadly looking Trollug foes or the giant lizards you can ride instead of horses!
Another big draw is a focus on rewarding the players for their involvement and interaction at the table. If players Role Play well, act effectively as a team, or even just pull off a grand and spectacular moment this all goes into a pool of points that characters can use during their adventurers. An incentive for in-character table talk and strategy is always good in my books.
Check out their Kickstarter and let me know what you think folks!
Over all whole talent based system sounds interesting and it could be worth trying out as alternative for more traditional class based systems.
It has a nice art style.
I quite like that slick ‘graphic novel’ feel the artwork has, it’s different to the more classical painting style more traditional RPG systems use and gives Blade Raiders a more modern edge. What’s more this isn’t your standard Tolkienesque fantasy with orcs and elves – in fact with some of the fluff behind the magic in this game (‘runestones…created by an ancient race of beings who descended from the skies…’) it hints at introducing the idea of actual aliens to a fantasy world. Interesting stuff, lots of little twists to the genre.
Also, riding lizards just sounds incredibly cool. 🙂
The guy who is designing this and doing the art work did an excellent graphic novel, Wolves of Odin (?). Was a fantastic series. He has a pretty neat Deviant Art profile which you can see from the Kickstarter page too.
BoW Ben