Quote from: Itachi;985412Fate of the Norns has amazing aesthetic and flavorful rules but ultimately felt like a reskinned D&D 3e for us, with too much focus on tactical combats and classes and tracking lots of (very fantastic, almost supers -like) powers...

From my reading about it this morning that's what I was beginning to think.

Quote from: Itachi;985412Fate of the Norns has amazing aesthetic and flavorful rules but ultimately felt like a reskinned D&D 3e for us, with too much focus on tactical combats and classes and tracking powers etc.

Honestly, it has very little resemblence to Pendragon.

I don't think that the intention was to compare them in the sense of mechanics or theme, only that the mechanics embrace the setting.

I've run fate of the Norns quite a bit, including at gen con a couple years ago. You play heroes from Norse sagas, so it is designed to give you an epic feel - you are powerful, and fight huge things. One of the archetypes turns into a 10' vampiric wolf at will, another turns into a 20' bear. You are playing, by default, during the time of Ragnarok. Bear in mind, this is real Mythic style ragnarok - you can go and see where Jormungandr is, you can fight Surtr, etc etc. the sun has literally been eaten and the world is brown into perpetual darkness and winter.

Your character mechanics consists largely of runes - a number in your bag, and a number you can draw. Each of these is bound to an active power (I.e. In combat), a passive power (similar to a feat I would think), and a skill. They also represent your stats (red/body, blue/mind, green/spirit), as the futhark runes are split up into their three aetts.

You play with a playmat where you lay your runes - draw a number of them and lay them out, and this forms the basis of your actions choices - draw the one for power attack, you can power attack, etc. the number you can draw is your Destiny, the number you have is your Essence. Anyhow, you can also play any rune as a Meta - a modifier to another power. So if you draw your red power attack rune and your blue aggressive assault rune, you can do both powers, or you can add a blue meta effect onto power attack (in this case, hit multiple targets with the blue Multi meta), or you can play aggressive assault with the red meta effect (in this case, double the effects with the Red Amplify meta).

The runes are also your hit points, and they can move into the wound track on your playmat, and then you lose access to the active powers they are associated with. So you can lose the ability to power attack because if your wounds.

Choosing your powers for your character is as simple as laying out the runes you draw onto a modified Hnefetafl board.

It has lots and lots of Norse trappings. It doesn't resemble Pendragon at all in theme or mechanics, but definitely in the same space of setting and mechanics being close companions.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;985414From my reading about it this morning that's what I was beginning to think.

If it was a reskin, I would argue it's closer to 4e in a good number of ways, thigh I can see why you might think 3e. It's not a reskin at all, but I have myself said if folks like 4e mechanically, they'd probably like fate of the Norns.

Quote from: Raleel;985416If it was a reskin, I would argue it's closer to 4e in a good number of ways, thigh I can see why you might think 3e. It's not a reskin at all, but I have myself said if folks like 4e mechanically, they'd probably like fate of the Norns.

I misread the previous post. I would have said 4e is what I'm seeing as well.

I'm assuming there is some sort of community that you are protecting or fighting for? That is, though battle encounters seem to be the focus of the rune system, there's the bits where people strive to find something or accomplish something... and the battles are the obstacles through that?

I've also found a sample adventure online, so I'll take a look at that.

I'm intrigued because between the art, the battlements, the runes, and all the presentation makes it such a unique looking game.

And also because the people who love this game love this game. I've read reviews from people who have been playing it for years and it become their go to game. That I find compelling.

Agree that FotN resembles more 4e. And yeah, regardless of playstyle it's a really neat mesh of setting and rules. With a fantastic setting (it reminds me Dark Souls).

When I compared FotN to Pendragon it was definitely in the space of rules designed to emulate the subject, mechanically they are two very different games.

FotN adventures are at the heroic level. In the Fafnir's Treasure intro adventure, which is published with pre-gen characters and a light version of the rules, the players search for the titular treasure, that of the dragon Fafnir of Volsung saga fame, at the behest of one of the divine champions of either the Aesir or the Jotuns.

The game's classes are mythic archetypes from the sagas. Each has some unique abilities. Players choose which abilities they want for their character by binding abilities from a grid to the runes their character has. Thius two characters from the same archetype can be very different in play.

Combat does resemble superheroes. FotN characters have epic abilities! Combat is very tactically engaging, as which runes you draw each round determine which of your abilities you can employ, and you can also chain runes together to unlock additional effects. When it is not your turn in the initiative order you can still play "interrupt" abilities or abilities that you played during your turn as "contingencies". A contingency is a rune or chain of runes that hold until a particular condition is met at which time it activates and is resolved. You could play a healing ability on an ally with teh contingency of "when he is wounded", or an attack with the contingeny of "when someone comes around that corner" or an attack with contingency of "if someone attacks Bjarki they will be targeted by my attack".

The game is about a lot more than combat, but combat is one of the areas where it differs most from traditional roll the dice RPGs.

When I was first introduced to the game at Carnage I played three sessions of Fafnir's Treasure with the designer, some 16 hours of FotN and had three very different adventures. I felt engaged and immersed in the game for every minute.

If you want to play a game that feels like the myths and sagas you cannot do better than FotN. If you want a game that plays and feels like historical Vikings, or even the Vikings tv series this is not it.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;985421I'm assuming there is some sort of community that you are protecting or fighting for? That is, though battle encounters seem to be the focus of the rune system, there's the bits where people strive to find something or accomplish something... and the battles are the obstacles through that?

That is certainly one option. A lot of it, in my mind, is about making a name for yourself. Fame carries, and you may take a side in the coming battle of ragnarok. Odin is looking for allies, Surtr is looking for allies, heck everyone is. The game does a good job of not demonizing the Jotun like has been done in many other games... they are much closer to nature deities.

As Dave says, it's a very different feel of a game. I have no idea how many times I've fielded a question about it that started with "is my Ulfhednar supposed to do X damage in wolf form?" The answer is "yes, and that's rather paltry, wait until he's pulling more than a hundred". It's very Mythic Fantasy Roleplaying.

Quote from: rgrove0172;985308Looking for a fantasy game where the rules and setting are designed together for a unique experience.

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