I have some of the stuff from the first edition and "Expert" edition, plus the book of monsters. I'm just going through it and reminiscing. I was expecting more cringe (as in when you revisit certain things you dug as a kid) but I think this actually makes more sense than most RPGs.

The first rules are very Runequest-ish (they had a deal with Chaosium, even including ducks) but with a bit more standard fantasy/Norse bent, and a bit of Stormbringer (demons) thrown in. The Expert rules definitely makes it its own thing though, and the rules generally are very intuitive. The basic rules uses % rolls where everything is rounded to the nearest 5% but in Expert they just convert this to 1-20, without ever seeming anything like your usual D20 type of rules. Anyway here are some highlights:

In a normal 1-20 roll, you re-roll results of 1 or 20, after an initial 1 another success and you have a "perfect throw". In battles this means that you bypass armor and give max damage. A 20 and then a miss on a re-roll means a fumble. Notice the simplicity and that higher skill gives a very natural way of getting lower chance of fumble and higher chance of perfect rolls.   

The schools of magic: Animism, Elemental Magic, Illusionism, Mentalism, Necromancy, Symbolism. These are developed as independent skills, and are filled with evocative illustrations (great for the time). Necromancy (the opposite of Animism) gives pretty detailed descriptions on how to animate corpses.


The races: there is a tendency to group races into categories that sound good in Scandinavian languages, but a bit hard to translate accurately "alvefolk" (literally Elf People, but perhaps Fay Folk is better), "stenfolk" (let's say "Stone Folk" includes dwarves and mountain giants), "sortfolk" (literally "black people"  but "Dark Folk" or "People of Darkness" is probably better, referring to their fondness of dark places. These include orcs, trolls, "vetter" [wights, but more like goblins])

Fay Folk are rather complex; these are races associated with nature (presumably created by some sort of earth goddess) include elves, nymphs, mermaids etc. True elves are also in several tribes: wood elves (your most common type), silver elves (winged, living on an island floating in the sky), cave elves, gray elves (living at sea), and frost elves. 

You get two sorts of advancement: experience points and hero points. Hero points definitely reward playing good characters (points are given for killing vampires, and dragons etc), and some of the points are refreshingly old-fashioned (like "rescuing a princess"). Experience points are used to buy more skills, whereas hero points can get you automatic success for a roll when spent (or alternatively full damage) or you can spend them on some special abilities. Hero points also instantly boost your charisma.

Dragons are also described in some detail in the monster book, referred to in the hero rules above. They get more and more powerful with age; young dragons seem to be a manageable foe, but ancient dragons are weapons of mass destruction. You definitely need some special tricks to fight one of those, as I can quite see how it's doable. Again some of the illustrations are refreshingly non-PC, including some damsels in distress (some heroic women too though). I think this changed in the editions from the 90s.

Free Leagues Drakar och Demoner / DragonBane is the modernized version of this game, but uses D20 roll under instead of Percentiles.

There is a link to a free quickstart version if you wish to check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 19, 2022, 06:48:17 AM
Free Leagues Drakar och Demoner / DragonBane is the modernized version of this game, but uses D20 roll under instead of Percentiles.

There is a link to a free quickstart version if you wish to check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

Interesting!
And, as mentioned D20 was also used in the Expert rules from the mid-80s. It does move away from Runequest in some ways but closer in others: it also included hit locations. Do you know if this is included in Dragonbane?

....and they STILL have ducks as player characters 

I wonder if the wolfmen and catmen of my old Monster book is to expand on this a bit. You get a bit of that fairytale humanoid animals feel.

Greetings!

Very interesting, Trond!

I love ancient and medieval history, and folklore and mythology as well. I have always loved Norse mythology and the history and lore of Scandinavia. I have quite a few books in my collection that deal with all kinds of different historical topics. It is great to see a company developing and promoting a game that attempts to include more historical and mythological elements into the system. I am not surprised though that an older game system embraces lots of non-woke art and game elements. That's GOOD! I think there are many elements in older game systems and supplements that can be inspiring and very cool, either in playing that game itself, or bringing such elements into another game system of preference.

I think that more traditionally-minded game systems embracing a Norse and Scandinavian theme would of course be very much non-woke, and have a stronger mythological feel to them. More involvement of faeries and elemental races, supernatural creatures, and of course dragons! There's always a good number of animal races and monster races as well. Lots of war and slaughter. *Laughing*

The primordial, dark-ages feel of a bronze-ages and early iron ages Scandinavian campaign has lots of evocative and inspiring potential that I think is fantastic!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 19, 2022, 06:48:17 AM
Free Leagues Drakar och Demoner / DragonBane is the modernized version of this game, but uses D20 roll under instead of Percentiles.

There is a link to a free quickstart version if you wish to check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

I went and had a look at the quickstart rules. Mostly really like them, but a couple of rules jumped out at me.

One is that it says that reactions (including parry/dodge), use up your character's action for the turn. I'm already not wild about systems that only let you parry once per turn, but this means that if you parry you cannot attack, and vice versa. Seems like it could easily lead to players getting stuck in a death spiral where as soon as the fight turns against them, they're forced to use up every round taking reactions, and can never go back on the initiative.

The other is that monsters do not roll for attacks; they automatically succeed. This compounds the other rule, since it forces any targeted player to take the dodge reaction and give up their action for that round. It also seems like a big issue in a game where (based on the samples in the quickstart) most monsters attack more than once per round, and do an average of at least 2d6 damage (often with a status effect) with their attacks. For reference, the Knight character in the Pregens has 16 HP.

Those two rules together seem to be game-breaking to me, but has anyone tried playing the quickstart, or seen something in it that I didn't?

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 20, 2022, 08:12:27 AM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 19, 2022, 06:48:17 AM
Free Leagues Drakar och Demoner / DragonBane is the modernized version of this game, but uses D20 roll under instead of Percentiles.

There is a link to a free quickstart version if you wish to check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

I went and had a look at the quickstart rules. Mostly really like them, but a couple of rules jumped out at me.

One is that it says that reactions (including parry/dodge), use up your character's action for the turn. I'm already not wild about systems that only let you parry once per turn, but this means that if you parry you cannot attack, and vice versa. Seems like it could easily lead to players getting stuck in a death spiral where as soon as the fight turns against them, they're forced to use up every round taking reactions, and can never go back on the initiative.

The other is that monsters do not roll for attacks; they automatically succeed. This compounds the other rule, since it forces any targeted player to take the dodge reaction and give up their action for that round. It also seems like a big issue in a game where (based on the samples in the quickstart) most monsters attack more than once per round, and do an average of at least 2d6 damage (often with a status effect) with their attacks. For reference, the Knight character in the Pregens has 16 HP.

Those two rules together seem to be game-breaking to me, but has anyone tried playing the quickstart, or seen something in it that I didn't?

Good points. In the new Dragonbane they seem to put a lot of emphasis on fast running rules, perhaps to their detriment? For the record, neither of those are in the old "Expert" rules that I'm flipping through now.

Quote from: SHARK on October 20, 2022, 06:47:50 AM
Greetings!

Very interesting, Trond!

I love ancient and medieval history, and folklore and mythology as well. I have always loved Norse mythology and the history and lore of Scandinavia....

The old rules certainly do try to take a Scandinavian spin in many parts of the monster book. Huldra and vetter being a couple of examples, also pretty extensive info on trolls. You also have som Southern European monsters though, like things from Greek mythology. I imagine you can distribute them in a vaguely north-south range in a European inspired campaign world.

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 20, 2022, 08:12:27 AM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 19, 2022, 06:48:17 AM
Free Leagues Drakar och Demoner / DragonBane is the modernized version of this game, but uses D20 roll under instead of Percentiles.

There is a link to a free quickstart version if you wish to check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

I went and had a look at the quickstart rules. Mostly really like them, but a couple of rules jumped out at me.

One is that it says that reactions (including parry/dodge), use up your character's action for the turn. I'm already not wild about systems that only let you parry once per turn, but this means that if you parry you cannot attack, and vice versa. Seems like it could easily lead to players getting stuck in a death spiral where as soon as the fight turns against them, they're forced to use up every round taking reactions, and can never go back on the initiative.

The other is that monsters do not roll for attacks; they automatically succeed. This compounds the other rule, since it forces any targeted player to take the dodge reaction and give up their action for that round. It also seems like a big issue in a game where (based on the samples in the quickstart) most monsters attack more than once per round, and do an average of at least 2d6 damage (often with a status effect) with their attacks. For reference, the Knight character in the Pregens has 16 HP.

Those two rules together seem to be game-breaking to me, but has anyone tried playing the quickstart, or seen something in it that I didn't?

The game is suppose to be a bit more on the deadly side.  The designers are calling it a "mirth and mayhem" style offering brutal challenges with a pinch of silliness. They claim it's fine for longer campaigns but great for short one-offs.

The reaction spiral you mention is a hazard, but the game seems to reward action over reaction.  I think it also promotes a lot more teamwork vs foes than 1-on-1 battles and PCs picking and choosing their fights more carefully.  You can try to play the "waiting" game and switch initiative order to your benefit, but that's not always viable.

The Knight does only have 16HP, but he also has Armor 6.  He's going to reduce all incoming damage by 6 so that 2d6 damage isn't hurting him roughly 45% of the time.

Quote from: rgalex on October 20, 2022, 10:25:34 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on October 20, 2022, 08:12:27 AM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on October 19, 2022, 06:48:17 AM
Free Leagues Drakar och Demoner / DragonBane is the modernized version of this game, but uses D20 roll under instead of Percentiles.

There is a link to a free quickstart version if you wish to check it out:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/drakar-och-demoner-dragonbane

I went and had a look at the quickstart rules. Mostly really like them, but a couple of rules jumped out at me.

One is that it says that reactions (including parry/dodge), use up your character's action for the turn. I'm already not wild about systems that only let you parry once per turn, but this means that if you parry you cannot attack, and vice versa. Seems like it could easily lead to players getting stuck in a death spiral where as soon as the fight turns against them, they're forced to use up every round taking reactions, and can never go back on the initiative.

The other is that monsters do not roll for attacks; they automatically succeed. This compounds the other rule, since it forces any targeted player to take the dodge reaction and give up their action for that round. It also seems like a big issue in a game where (based on the samples in the quickstart) most monsters attack more than once per round, and do an average of at least 2d6 damage (often with a status effect) with their attacks. For reference, the Knight character in the Pregens has 16 HP.

Those two rules together seem to be game-breaking to me, but has anyone tried playing the quickstart, or seen something in it that I didn't?

The game is suppose to be a bit more on the deadly side.  The designers are calling it a "mirth and mayhem" style offering brutal challenges with a pinch of silliness. They claim it's fine for longer campaigns but great for short one-offs.

The reaction spiral you mention is a hazard, but the game seems to reward action over reaction.  I think it also promotes a lot more teamwork vs foes than 1-on-1 battles and PCs picking and choosing their fights more carefully.  You can try to play the "waiting" game and switch initiative order to your benefit, but that's not always viable.

The Knight does only have 16HP, but he also has Armor 6.  He's going to reduce all incoming damage by 6 so that 2d6 damage isn't hurting him roughly 45% of the time.

The game does use a 5e-esque death save mechanic, which along with the Rally system, I would guess wouldn't actually lead to it being all that deadly. What I would expect from reading it is a "whack-a-mole" game flow, with PCs frequently dropping unconscious and popping back up again.

You're right that I wasn't accounting for armor soak. It's possible that what they have in mind is a game that emphasizes "battlefield roles", where you really need to have your armored fighters soaking up the unavoidable damage to keep the squishier classes safe. If so, that's not really my bag. I prefer all the classes in a game to be a bit more self-sufficient in a fight.

They do separate "Monsters" from other NPCs, so presumably those are intended to be boss-fight level encounters, but quite a few of the monster attacks given in the sample adventure either bypass armor soak or affect multiple PCs. It just seems to me like a DM would have to intentionally play the monsters inefficiently in order to avoid running roughshod over the party.

Well it does say that GMs can pick from, or roll on, the chart of monster attacks available to it.  Along with the rule that monsters aren't allowed to do the same attack twice in a row makes it seem like it would be hard to play the monster in a perfectly efficient way.  Best the GM could do would be to choose the targets and attacks used but even then they can't just spam their hardest hitting move over and over.

I do plan to run this as a fill in game the next time we have someone that can't make our normal session.  I'll report back whenever that manages to happen.

The Symbolism magic is interesting, but I'm not sure how well it plays out, since we never tried it. People who see the symbols are affected in various ways depending on the spell, like they are forced to stop (maybe you can "seal" a narrow passage this way) or they are struck by forgetfulness etc.

Yeah Drakar och Deomer is a pretty good game and is really just a Swedish version of Runequest with some changes as was common in Sweden at the time. You'll find a few others out there. Some from the same publisher I believe.

It used to be fairly popular and in the scandinavian contries. One of my customers over there said that it was a-lot better known than most other RPGs. It has gone through several iterations over the decades as someone up above noted..

Sounds pretty cool.