HELVECZIA by Gabor Lux, is an OSR RPG set around the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, in a reimagined historical Switzerland.

And it has a nifty Alignment system I haven't seen repeated anywhere else.

It comes in a boxed set, and is a complete game: 204 pg. hardcover rulebook. 70 pg. softcover setting guide with key areas keyed to the hexmaps, and a 32 card playing card deck:

Character Sheet:


On to Alignment:

Your "Alignment" is actually a 0-21 Virtue scale.

At the end of every session you take stock of your PC's actions and are assigned a number of points by the GM that move you up and down the Virtue scale.

The seven Virtues and Seven Cardinal sins are used a Guidelines by the players and GM to measure the PC's actions against and assign a point value:





As you can see one's virtue score can effect your saves and attacks - but at trade offs in other areas of the game.

Clerics and students are the two "spellcasting" classes in the game. (Cleric, and Student. There are also Fighters, and Vagabonds.)

Your Virtue score not only effects what spells that a PC can cast  - but it also determines who spells can be used against, and their potential effect. 

Here is an example of the type of spells in the game, and as you can see from this and the previous examples; Setting flavor is not something to be found lacking in the Helveczia RPG:



I really like that while this game only goes to six levels - Helveczia clearly delineates exactly what those levels mean for PC's and NPC's in the context of the game world:




Even the Saving throws get the Gabor Lux treatment:




Here we can see the proof that WotC would never have anything to do with this game:



Want to play a Gypsy, Jew, or an intolerant Dutchman?

Helveczia has you covered.

There is also the whole thing the game does where you can use a deck of playing cards, or a copy of the Holy Bible during play as meta mechanics.

The only thing I've seen even remotely comparable to Helveczia in terms of setting flavor integrated into every aspect of the rules is Lion and Dragon.

Anyway, any questions and all that - I'm here all week...

*EDIT* Aaron the Pedantic did a flip thru review a while back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv6VYpXw4PU

How did you get the boxed set? Was it a kickstarter thing? Found the publisher's online sales site, but it still lists the set as coming soon!

The Temptation Save interests me as a concept. Could you post the rest of the example? Mechanizing Temptation/Corruption in a game, in a way that doesn't unduly violate player autonomy is an intriguing challenge.

Also what are the classes? This dovetails with the other thread about classes and their implied social roles, but I've found that where D&D struggles the most with historical settings is in matching it's classes up to them.

Quote from: ponta1010 on January 01, 2023, 07:10:23 PM
How did you get the boxed set? Was it a kickstarter thing? Found the publisher's online sales site, but it still lists the set as coming soon!

From here:

https://emdt.bigcartel.com/category/helveczia-rpg

But there is this:
https://emdt.bigcartel.com/product/christmas-pause

QuoteWorthy Customers and Valued Bots,

It is in good cheer that I can announce a close to a fine year, and suspend shipping for the holidays. Enjoy the festivities, kick back, read a few books on Appendix N, make that game project happen, and relax. This store will also be back in early January.

Thus declared,
The Grand Mercantilist
A.D. MMXXII

Evidently he just shut it all down for the holidays and it will be back up sometime in the new year.

Europeans...

Quote from: Jaeger on January 01, 2023, 05:27:09 PM
Want to play a Gypsy, Jew, or an intolerant Dutchman?

"Who wouldn't?"
- Dr. Peter Venkman

I saw someone mention this in a thread the other day and checked it out. Needless to say, I was instantly intrigued. I do have a few questions, though;
Being that it's set in the 17th-18th century, are there rules for firearms?
And
What does the bestiary look like? Standard fair of wood nymphs and water spirits, with a dragon or two thrown in for good measure?

Going to buy this when the option to purchase is possible. Right now on the website it's listed as coming soon, so I don't know if it's out of stock or just saying that due to the holiday shutdown. Either way, this must be mine.

It's a great product.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 01, 2023, 07:12:29 PM
The Temptation Save interests me as a concept. Could you post the rest of the example? Mechanizing Temptation/Corruption in a game, in a way that doesn't unduly violate player autonomy is an intriguing challenge.

Also what are the classes? This dovetails with the other thread about classes and their implied social roles, but I've found that where D&D struggles the most with historical settings is in matching it's classes up to them.

The Classes are the Fighter, Cleric, Student, and Vagabond.

For the Temptaion save:





If the players buy into the genre and tone of the game, I don't think "taking away their agency" will be an issue... unless you have one of those "But my PC would never do that!" types in your group.

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 02, 2023, 03:34:14 AM
"Who wouldn't?"
- Dr. Peter Venkman

Indeed!

Quote from: Tasty_Wind on January 02, 2023, 09:03:23 AM
I saw someone mention this in a thread the other day and checked it out. Needless to say, I was instantly intrigued. I do have a few questions, though;
Being that it's set in the 17th-18th century, are there rules for firearms?
And
What does the bestiary look like? Standard fair of wood nymphs and water spirits, with a dragon or two thrown in for good measure?

Yes. Firearms are in. There are even rules for resolving sieges with cannons.

The bestiary is just as flavorful as the spell lists. Yes, you will recognize some standard fare, and there is a Dragon. But, it also has stuff like the Cinderman, Mephisto Devil, Knocking man, Reaper (literal Grim Reaper), Wildermann, And a list of Human NPC's that will see a lot of use.

Nice I love the art and all the little touches I see in the screenshots you provided. It really seems that they put a lot of effort into making it, might check it out.

Quote from: Jaeger on January 02, 2023, 03:45:42 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 01, 2023, 07:12:29 PM
The Temptation Save interests me as a concept. Could you post the rest of the example? Mechanizing Temptation/Corruption in a game, in a way that doesn't unduly violate player autonomy is an intriguing challenge.

Also what are the classes? This dovetails with the other thread about classes and their implied social roles, but I've found that where D&D struggles the most with historical settings is in matching it's classes up to them.

The Classes are the Fighter, Cleric, Student, and Vagabond.

If the players buy into the genre and tone of the game, I don't think "taking away their agency" will be an issue... unless you have one of those "But my PC would never do that!" types in your group.

Thanks for posting that. Sadly, you've hit on the reason why I'd be reluctant to buy this kind of product (at least at the current price point). I have a lot of room in my heart for historical roleplaying and especially for this kind of Christian/folk horror, but I've always found it extremely difficult to find 4 to 6 other people willing to make that necessary player buy-in. I usually buy this kind of thing with the intention of cannibalizing it for other games, and the bestiary might be worth it on those grounds, but $60 + international shipping is a hefty price for something that stands a good chance of sitting on my shelf indefinitely gathering dust.

EDIT: Ironic that this came up around the same time as the James Raggi thread. It looks like Helveczia is going for a similar tone to a lot of LOTFP products, and I have a similar problem with that game. I bought Carcosa a few years ago, and I still think it's an impressive product, but I've never run it, because I know what a hard sell it'd be to the players I have available to me.

Quote from: Jaeger on January 01, 2023, 05:27:09 PM
The only thing I've seen even remotely comparable to Helveczia in terms of setting flavor integrated into every aspect of the rules is Lion and Dragon.

This is awesome! Thank you for the rundown.

Check out Aquelarre (a d100 system) if you haven't already. It shares a lot of themes and also has an alignment system with a sliding scale that has mechanical effect.

I bought this, and am wondering how the PDF delivery works. For those that purchased hard copies, did you get your PDFs automatically, or did you have to contact EDMT?

You need to email Gabor Lux at beyond.fomalhaut@gmail.com and give him the email you use on DriveThruRPG and he'll send you a coupon to get the pdf for free.

Hey, thanks for the thread! Good to see the game is appreciated.

ForgottenF: If you ordered it from my store, I should have sent you a PDF link via DriveThruRPG (I do this when processing orders, so it may take a day or two). The e-mail sometimes gets filed as junk mail, so check your mailbox. Otherwise, just contact me at beyond.fomalhaut@gmail.com and I will resend it.