I just recently placed an order for REIGN Enchiridion on a whim. It seems to have a strong following and is made mention of fairly often by those within the online gaming community. Additionally its author appears to be highly regarded by those within the realm of our hobby. As I await its arrival, I hope to hear thoughts and impressions of the title by those who have partaken of its offerings.

Reign is a good RPG IMO. It seems to support slightly exotic yet gritty fantasy settings. I particularly liked the mechanics for organisations and that a PC's ability in "social conflict" is done via the ability to act on an organisational more than talking with melee combat mechanics.

The companies also help create a common bond amongst PCs and also provides a good impetus for player driven sessions, making it great for sandbox play.

The biggest hurdle I have found with it is that its "rulesy". Not mechanically heavy, but it requires a good knowledge of the mechanics and terminology to play it, and many players aren't prepared to get that much up to speed.

Make sure you grab all the free supplements on the Reign website.

The only thing I prefer over the full version of Reign over the Enchiridion edition (other than the name ) was the focus on preset Esoteric Disciplines and Magic. making your own looks easy enought but I actually find the art of it to be a little tough.

I second the comment that the full rules give you a much better sense of how to tie the rules to your specific setting.  The Enchiridion is really for use as a player's reference book that won't break the bank.

I do love the One Roll engine, but it's a bit opaque when it comes to figuring out odds and difficulties.  It takes some practice.

And Greg Stolze is one of the unsung greats of this industry.  He produces incredibly imaginative work and he understands the source fiction like a writer rather than like a gamer, which is too rare.  And a nicer and more laid-back game designer I doubt you'll ever meet.  He's kind of the anti-Skarka.

As someone who doesn't like Reign, I can say two good things about Reign Enchiridion. First, it's cheap, second, it doesn't include the (in my opinion awful) setting.

Are your problems with Reign the setting or the mechanics?

Quote from: daniel_ream;539180Are your problems with Reign the setting or the mechanics?

Both, but not to the same degree. While I absolutely loathe the setting, I could play in a game using the Reign system. The system is not my favorite, but it's not that bad.

Is there anything good about Reign? Yes, the random chargen, it's awesome.

For me, Reign hit the same "important characters in an odd, but logical, fantasy world" concept that I wanted from Exalted, and it manages it well within the bounds of it's own rule system.

That Stolze is one of the best writers and designers in the industry today, who both knows his way around a table and knows exactly what to take from both gaming theories and actual play to make a better game, not a perfect-according-to-the-theories game, certainly helps.

Frankly, I'm amazed he hasn't left RPG's behind to make some real money.

Ah, Reign.

I like ORE. In fact, I think ORE is the best dice-pool system ever. I think most, if not all, of the mechanical problems of the nWoD would go away in a puff of smoke if the game was converted to ORE (I've considered adopting the mechanic myself, but God only knows how I'd go about assigning Expert and Master dice to every beastie out there).

The system uses a d10 dice pool, only success is gauged by obtaining a group of dice with bthe same result (a Set). For instance, if you roll 7d10 and it comes up as 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, you have two Sets of matching dice, described as 3x5 and 2x8. The number of matching dice with a given value is called Width, and determines how fast you perform your action; the value on the dice is called Height and gives you degree of success.

No dice pool can ever exceed 10 dice. Excess dice are ignored. Superior degrees with power or skill are expressed using Expert dice (which are automatic 10s) and Master dice (which the player can set to any desired value). If you're under penalty, though, they're the first to go. So if you have 4d Strength and 7d+1md Brawl, you roll 9 dice and set a 10th dice to whatever value you want; but if you're under a -3 penalty, you roll 9 (=4+7+1-3) common dice and that's it.

I don't have the Enchiridion; what I have is the original hardcover, complete with crazy setting and other goodies.

Problem with Reign was that the original game was too tied to its setting, which was, as mentioned above, batshit crazy (too crazy even for me; if Pundit feels Tékumel and Glorantha are "too weird to live", he's going to fucking shit bricks if he ever cracks this book open) . The Enchiridion was an attempt to "generalize" Reign into a DIY system for fantasy, but I suspect it was too little, too late. Also it's one tough niche to crack, with the myriad options at one's disposal.

Which is a pity, too. Like others mentioned above, Greg is a great guy, a clever game designer, and a very talented, criminally underrated writer. The setting was weird sometimes, but chock full of very inspiring ideas. The One-Roll Character tables were awesome! You roll 10d10 and voilà, instant lifepath character generation (and the resulting characters were really cool, too). The magic schools, most of which required Attunement -- a crazy rite that might or might not turn your wizard into an actual, physical, frankly inhuman monster -- to access the most powerful spells. Very cool stuff.

I suspect Reign still has a small but very loyal following. I wouldn't mind using the system, it does gritty fantasy very well, but generally speaking BRP (Runequest) has long since displaced Reign as my go-to game for lethal, limb-hacking fantasy.

I tried to persuade Bland Joe Dwarf to run his Song of Ice and Fire game with Reign, to no avail (he's using ye olde d20 GoO Game of Thrones RPG), but it's all good.

I was given this as a gift.  I can't say I like the game system very much, but it has some nice random background events tables that I've used often when making D&D characters.  I don't know if that by itself would be enough to make it worth buying, though.

RPGPundit

The problem with the Reign setting is that all of Milonda's "Prime Real Estate" is under water.

Quote from: CRKrueger;540020The problem with the Reign setting is that all of Milonda's "Prime Real Estate" is under water.

FWIW Reign has several settings now. There is a post apocalyptic one and a more traditonal fantasy one too.

Quote from: CRKrueger;540020The problem with the Reign setting is that all of Milonda's "Prime Real Estate" is under water.

Just one more reason to add a Magic School that breathes underwater. Would fit the Confederacy, if you ask me.

Aye, because if your continent is really a woman, there's no better place to live then the holiest of holies.

In all seriousness, my problem with Reign has nothing to do with the setting, it has to do with having only two capped dice axes to resolve all actions (height and width).  I've seen some houserules that attempt to fix that, but combat just ends up not ringing true to me.  I've got to somehow shoehorn what happened into the limitations of the mechanic, so it ends up working against my immersion, which is a shame, because I would have really like to run Mordheim's 40k Reign hack.

Quote from: CRKrueger;540292In all seriousness, my problem with Reign has nothing to do with the setting, it has to do with having only two capped dice axes to resolve all actions (height and width).  I've seen some houserules that attempt to fix that, but combat just ends up not ringing true to me.  I've got to somehow shoehorn what happened into the limitations of the mechanic, so it ends up working against my immersion, which is a shame, because I would have really like to run Mordheim's 40k Reign hack.

How do you feel the 10-dice cap subtracts from immersion, especially in combat?

Quote from: The Butcher;540297How do you feel the 10-dice cap subtracts from immersion, especially in combat?

It's just that there's not really enough mechanical room to deal with different types of modifiers due to weapon difference, magic, situational factors, combat styles, etc...  as a result, playing a fighter isn't as fun as some other systems, at least that was my take on it.

Maybe with experience I could find ways to bolt on other stuff, but when you're fighting the core mechanic right from the get go, it might be best to move on.