I've been curious about Arrowflight since it's an allegedly "simulationist" game that a certain GNS-guru actually likes. However the reviews on rpg.net are rarely useful to me because they tend to be written with the spurious idea of "fairness" defined as "whether the game accomplishes the designer's goals", as well as consisting largely of leaden summaries of the system. I prefer opinionated reviews that actually say what the reviewer loves and hates about a game, regardless of what the designer intended, and skip the rest.

So the other day I glanced through a copy of the game I saw on the used shelf of a local store. It was cheap, only $4 but I didn't see enough there to convince me it was worth the shelf space at home. So what gives? What's there to recommend the game? A nice streamlined system? Anything innovative or interesting?

I'm one of the staff reviewers here at RPGSITE, and I'd be more than happy to give it a look-see, should a copy float my way. I'm not sure if my style of reviews are more in the direction of what you're looking for, but I've written a good number here for you to check out.

I've got a copy of it. It's pretty simple system and decent magic, but I review on RPG.net so..

Care to give any details of what its about?

RPGPundit

It looks like your basic elves/dwarves/orcs fantasy. The fundamental mechanic (based on Dan Davenport's review) is rolling d6's equal to a stat, trying to roll under a target number equal to a skill. Usually you need one success to carry out the task.

Now that I've written that out, I see it's mechanically similar to The Riddle of Steel, though the latter uses d10s. I guess the key difference here is the way critical results are handled: in Arrowflight, a majority of 1's in a roll means you can reroll all the 1's and add any successes. Matters mainly in combat, where # of successes is a major factor.

So having reread Dan's review, I think this really is just a streamlined system on a basic fantasy background. The devil would be in the details of playing the game, and since I haven't seen much buzz from people who've actually done that, I'm going to assume that the game doesn't really stand out.

Also, while searching for discussion of the game, I was reminded that the Forgian (or Ron Edwards') idea of a "game system" is to foreground the GMing advice section, which of course is backwards from my perspective of looking at the mechanics first and seeing what one can make of them. Thus in this case the game is "good simulationist design" because the GM is told to skillfully railroad the players through scenarios. Whether or not that's really a fair assessment of the game, it's neither here nor there in terms of what I look for in a game system. Probably best to save my shelf space.

From my rather poor memory:

Arrowflight is based appearently on a comic book I've never heard of--created I think by the author, its set around a fantasy setting where all the races are basically related but one (All are descended IIRC from humans--even elves, mating with gods and such)--the non-human race is the classic faery/pixie/sprite winged things which are descended from the gods but also insects (don't ask me, the gods are might odd in most myths, so..)
The basic setting is a early Rennaissance/gunpowder age one, where musketeers  exist, but its not very Dumas/swashbuckling inherently.

Its a basic fantasy setting with orcs, elves, dwarves, and similar kindreds living in society--most interconnected a bit better than your average D&D clone. but not a lot in the core book. The system uses point buy and is skill based with example "templates" for careers, and a magic system that has common magics that easily useable by anyone with simple skills (IIRC), to higher magics that are more difficult and require more study at Universities/following it as a career--magic is also based on templates like a "Blast" attack which you then buy/trade in various modifiers for to make it represent fireball, or damaging whirlwinds or whatever--each spell "template" is meant to be personalized in this way so no two mages will have exactly the same spells.

The game touches on the various races interaction, and the political situation. It's really odd, because when everyone started talking about Artesia I immediatly thought of Arrowflight--but after seeing Artesia I realize Arrowflight is its more traditional, lesser cousin from goblin parentage. Not as pretty, interesting, or complete in design--not BAD mind you, but nothing really all that different from many things I've seen before.

Quote from: SilverlionI've got a copy of it. It's pretty simple system and decent magic, but I review on RPG.net so..

They don't have you on some sort of exclusivity contract, do they? Hook us up with a few reviews!

I picked it up a few years back, haven't had a chance to play it, but it seemed pretty slick to me.  The setting is generic enough to be forgettable. I'll have to dig out my book and give it another read through in the next week and post a review here, I suppose...

Quote from: SpikeI picked it up a few years back, haven't had a chance to play it, but it seemed pretty slick to me.  The setting is generic enough to be forgettable. I'll have to dig out my book and give it another read through in the next week and post a review here, I suppose...

So long as it features masochistic pikas of DOOM!!!!



-clash

Quote from: Elliot WilenIt was cheap, only $4

For four bucks, you might as well just pick it up and take a look at it yourself.

Dude, I'm a state employee - I have to carefully budget my acquisitions.