It's time once again for Spike's quick and dirty review.

Arrowflight, on request.

The first and most important thing to realize about Arrowflight is that you are buying into a setting almost as much, if not more than you are a system.  Arrowflight in not generic fantasy, the authors have a very specific world in mind, with very specific ideas.  In fact, the setting appears to date back to 1980, and, according to the long, somewhat humble (shocking!!!) author's introduction, has seen several iterations prior to beginning life as its own RPG.  Normally, I tend to gloss over setting stuff, but in this case that would do diservice to the review, though I won't claim its necessarily to the advantage of the book.

Some early oddities: the company is local to me, adding yet another RPG company to my list of neighbors.  WTF? Is it the water? Never mind that, the credit's page includes playtester credits, for six nations, making this the most international small press game I've ever seen.  With that out of the way, lets move to the actual book.

In case you missed the fact that this is as much a setting book as a rule book, the first 26 pages is an overview of the setting itself.  Semi-generic late mideval fantasy more or less. Optimistic comes to mind. It is a detailed and developed setting, mind you. The Corvel people have been locked in an ideological war with the Kilmoor people for a long time, the Gods fight Chaos, magic is a part of life.  Minor hitch: Horses aren't native to the large 'home land' of the game but are instead imported from a smaller island nation. Hmm... I thought horses were native to large grassland supporting lands and imported TO islands. Also, this series of wars between the Corvel's and the Kilmoors.... it seems to take place over a largish body of water. I'm not talking the English channel here, I'm talking OFF THE MAP. Oddly, no real mention of the other continental nations that share borders with Corvel. Bah.

And the naming conventions!!! How do you take a game world seriously when major characters have names like Thorne Greystone???!!! Ah well.

Anyway, it's not all bad, really it's not. Apparently all the major races are evolutionarily connected, which is a nice touch when handled right. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the detailed setting. Corvel: There is a provicial House thing that reminds me of a less rigorous 'Game of Thrones' appendix. Not a bad thing to be compared to, even if slightly unfavorable. Politics in Corvel are a little simple, even friendly. Like I said, the setting is a bit optimistic. Kilmoor is the enemy here, no real information exists, but Kilmoorian agents can infiltrate the self described 'all-but-incorruptible' Royal Guard to assasinate the King. Flashback to 1980's style cold war thoughts about the USSR here...

After that we're on to making a character. We're not done with setting, not by a long shot here, but I follow the book.  After a note to pick your race (detailed later) you divide up some points into 8 attributes, nice and generic except for Mana&Spirit. Attributes cap out at six (actually, racial maximums vary, but for humans it's six across the board).  For the most part, you will be dealing with small numbers here, the game is played with a single D6.  As the author put it 60% common sense, 30% speed of play 10% Cinematic flavor, we'll be testing that later. I can see speed of play already here.

On top of the 8 attributes, you have destiny (one point, use like action points to reroll), wounds, initative (averaged from two attributes) and Save (also averaged) which is used to resist damage.  Ah, I've seen this before...

Now, after attributes, you are directed to the lifepath system, only first we stop and look at the races. Minor layout gaffe. As noted earlier your races give you the attribute maximums, they also each give a 'special ability' which is typically a single point in a skill... seems trivial, but given the low numbers in the game is not. Only orcs (and by Orcs, I mean, fully accepted members of society, despite their literal boar's head, not quite Tolkien Orcs...) seem to get anything 'special'... in that they get a single bonus to their save checks instead.

Races are divided between large and small, and the small races are small indeed my fine feathered freinds. Gnomes and brownies and faeries of all sorts abound here, most of them under the 2 foot tall mark.  Of course, they are treated as only two 'races' by the rules, that being winged midgets with magic, and non-winged not quite midgets who apparently shoot people (with guns! WooT!!!).  

Following our long detailed descriptions of each race, accompanied by minimalist rules, we move on to occupations. I haven't read that you are restricted from picking just one, so you may go to town here. Really. There are only about a dozen or so of these occupations, with the inevitably flawed comment about 'future releases'. This isn't a critical failure, btw, as the occupations are merely lists of skills your character CAN start with, not does. Once again you have points to destribute.  There is a 'lifepath', which is not tied to these occupations; having more in common with R. Talsorian's lifepath than Traveller's.  The lifepath is short, sweet, and adds a little depth and more than a few skills to your character's history. However, it is 'Choose or Roll', so its not totally random.  

When we get to the skills portion, we learn a terrible terrible thing. This game uses Dice pools! Oh no, the dreaded Dice pool of doom!!! I thought they told me it was just ONE!!! Sigh.
Okay, the basic mechanic is simple enough: Roll dice equal to stat. Roll low, looking to get equal to or under skill. Presto.  The roll under skill is simple enough, if slightly unintuitive. There are a few permutations. Manipulation of the 'roll' tends to affect the pool primarily, though the sample in the book applies a drunkeness penalty to both pool and target number... which makes the roll under make sense ironically enough.  

One thing that took several read throughs to grasp was this: you can't buy up a skill more than three points (making max skills 3, and for harder skills (that cost more)... one point. Very limited, until you realize that is ON TOP of what you get from the lifepath. It is not evident from the writing.

The skills themselves are mostly generalized and fairly simple. However, there are 'combat styles' of a sort. Things like 'Melee weapons' and 'soldier' and 'Cavalier'... no, it doesn't make much sense yet. It will, eventually. There are unarmed styles which, while not well explained either, at least fit a framework of 'martial arts' naturally. Most of these are 'costlier' to raise, limiting your starting skill accordingly.

On to combat: After learning that combat rounds represent roughly ten seconds... y'know, I'm starting not to care how long any game designer says their rounds are... the numbers seem pretty meaningless after x number of iterations... we learn that we have to backtrack a bit to find out what our 'number of actions per round' are. This is at the start of character creation (based on initiative, one to three attacks for the record). Init is dice pooled, and your target number is derived from your skills. Natural speed needs to be backed by actual combat skills. Still, all those little rule permutations from character creation should be here in the combat chapter instead or as well as earlier. They are meaningless before that. I should point out that it is impossible for a human to have three attacks based on stat maximums. In case you think it matters.

Attacks may be parried for free, dodged (arrows perhaps?) at the cost of an action. You compare number of successes on the dice for your respective skills. If the attacker wins, his number of successes are multiplied by his weapons damage rating and then add strength and so on. It reads badly in the book, especially when you get into how the defender checks his armor and 'pain threshold', but since the bulk of the rules are on a single page 'cheatsheet' in the back it can't be so bad.  In fact, it isn't really, it just is poorly edited.

I'm gonna skip every permutation. The only chart in the chapter is a size comparison chart that is strictly speaking unnessesary. Each step of size difference is a +/- 1. Poof.  All in all it IS simple and easy to understand. It probably DOES play fast, once you get used to rolling a small handful of dice and looking for low numbers. Since the same concept is used over and over again, the learning curve is dead easy.  Its just the presence of oddities scattered about that make it seem hard. You know, things like needing a 'soldier' skill of at least 1 to wear chain or heavier armor.  Or the somewhat bizzare example of the hero punching a magistrate in the gut. Bizzare because the hero is wearing leather armor gloves (av 2) and the magistrate is wearing a chain shirt (av 7)... so the hero hurts his hand.  I'm not sure about you, but gloves thick enough to mitagate a weapon impact should be able to ignore the impact of fist to flexible chain armor at a minimum. Whatever, I get the idea... punching hard stuff can hurt.

After combat it's back to setting stuff. Starting the setting stuff here is, logically enough, a discussion of soldiery, including 'The Code'... which thankfully can be used or ignored by players according to whim.  Another mention of women in combat, egalitarian FTW, for a half page and then, finally a discussion of those 'combat skills' from earlier.  Each level of skill in a 'combat skill' unlocks special techniques, nothing too fancy really, and colorful. the only difference between the unarmed and the armed styles from a 'rules' pespective is that the armed styles have a small list of weapons that can be used with them.  For example, my favorite 'style': soldier "covers 1 and 2 handed weapons, knives, shields, pole weapons and thrown weapons". Oh... and they aren't as Kewl as the kung fu stuff.

Then we finally get into magic. First we learn you need to have natural and theoretical science skills of at least 2, then, in sidebar, we learn that everyone can save/resist magic with their will attribute. On the other hand, we also learn that fully armed and armored combat mages and chaplains are totally in character, which is fun and cool in it's own way.  I LIKE the chaplains, I like the picture of them, the idea of them. Hey, I just like smiting people with the might of a God behind my two handed sword, okay? Is there something wrong with that.... heathen?

Now, toss out those minimum skill requirements, my lads and ladies. You can toss of 'folk magic and common prayers' even if you don't have the right stuff to be a Mage or Priest.  Huzzah.

Oh, wait, back to being a 7eet spell dude... silly aside, I know. Hey, I go where the book leads. Okay, so i skipped magic items. Oh, and I'll skip how Mana & Spirit attributes affect your afterlife (there are rules for this sort of thing, you know...). Okay, magic is somewhat personal, that is to say no two characters are going to be tossing off the same fireballs. Hold up, pard, I never said it was freeform, put down them pitchforks, and listen up.  What you've got is a decent, if not exhaustive, list of more generic spells, complete with modifiers. You learn a specific 'modified' version of the generic spell.  There are seperate lists for prayers, and another for faerie magics.  Spells and prayers are bought with skill points, meaning that it's not too likely that anyone will have a great number of spells, and those that have 'a few' are likely to be not too useful outside of combat.  

The Rellian church (sort of pantheonic with a huge variety of saints) gets a chapter here, after magic. It's sort of nice to have a full chapter, so that 'faithfull' characters actually have something to work with. You have sins and holy days, a real treasure trove of data... if you intend to use it.  

Then you have another smallish chapter on 'economy', lists of items broken down by who makes/sells them and flowing naturally into weapons.  Each weapon gets a sort of 'mini table' rather than putting the data into a single 'master table', which spreads this info out into three or four pages.  It's probably the most arcane part of the book, given the nonstandard notations and unique layout, but that isn't to say it's actually confusing.  I should point out that black powder weapons exist here. They've been in the entire book, but I haven't mentioned them until now.  I gather that this can be a make it/break it factor in fantasy settings for some folks. Me? I loves me some musket action.  I mean, above a certain level of 'development' a setting just doesn't feel complete if ya can't break out a pistol of some sort and unload a cloud of smoke and lead at some fool.  Of course, it can be a bit anticlimactic in games like D&D, where inevitably whatever you shot ignores you...

Bah, armor, rather sensibly, is in a single chart. Dragon skin is the best, and by that I mean, its the BEST. Heavier than plate, lighter than nekkid skin... of course, you have to kill a dragon for it. One thing I missed earlier, but the designer cunningly reminded me here, is that the lighter armor wins initiative ties. Smart rule, or at least clever.

The equipment chapter ends with a bunch of starting 'packages' with items and cost prefigured for you. This sort of thing can drastically improve 'start up times' in games everywhere. I wholeheartedly agree with it, indeed I do.

The beastiary starts with smart evil dudes to kill and do the killing with. Goblins, at least in this game, are big nasty fuckers with 'head catchers'... polearms designed to remove heads.  This sort of 'non-standard' fantasy race thing goes on. This is definitely not some D&D ripoff, certainly not here.  The earth god is raped by the mountian god and produces trolls and ogres, giants are sterile after she sends them sheep to mate with in revenge... Um... Gorgons are super-trolls who have a taste for brains... yeah, all mighty nasty.

Then you have your 'magic critters' which range from the bog standard 'unicorns of magical goodness' to your not so run-of-the-mill arboreal shambler (looks like a tyranid crossed with a tree sloth). Some are straight mythological standards, other are D&D style goofy (winding sheet? Cavernmouth? yeah...) with a couple of standouts unique to the setting.

The next part of the chapter is normal critters, mostly just statbars under a name. Nice to know lions exist in a world populated by Winding Sheets.

But we aren't done! No, we have to deal with the Undead, the werebeasts and more Undead first!  Like the first part of the bestiary, each entry is a fully detailed description of each critters place in the mythic history and ecology of the world. Vampires aren't just insanely powerful dead guys, they are actually cursed by the Goddess Dalah, complete with WHY.  Nice touches like that really bring home that you are buying into the setting.

And finally Dragons... so awesome that they get their own minichapter, longer than the others. There are LOTS of dragons, running from your flightless two legged lizards to minature gods.  With all the Dragon Love shown here I'm surprised that I didn't see them on the cover of the book! This is your game for dragonslaying... though I suspect you'll lose a lot of characters if you go that route.

The GM's chapter is short. I like that they didn't rename the job. Interesting tidbits: be 'Fair' and 'Immersive', not 'Tough' or 'Easy'. Also:you are the only one who gets to cheat (lovely advice, I like).

Then there is a section of GM rules. Minutae actually. How to distance run, what does fire do to the characters, stuff like that. We've all seen it before, sometimes in the GM section,  like here, sometimes not.  We have a very very sort section of magic items (seven), magic mishap and blackpowder mishap tables, and oddly, a summary table for character creation (races specifically) that could have been better served earlier in the book.  

On to the sample adventure! I don't review these, sorry folks.

Two maps (one city, one 'nation') of low to middling quality and a character sheet later, we're out of book and out of this review. Take your stinkin' index and shove it, we don't need it!

All in all? Not bad. Nothing to spectacular, but I'd run it or play it... if someone wanted it.  I'd say the designer, aside from a few minor layout issues, pretty much accomplished his stated goals. He delivered his setting to us complete with reasonably fast and simple system that contained just enough cinematic flair to keep it 'fun'.

Personally? I'd strip the setting down a bit further or I'd expand it out from being 'just Corvel'. Stripped down further you could almost call it a 'generic alternative' to the other generic fantasy games, and it would shine in that department, adding to it you could possibly wow people with a more realized setting. I suspect the later might have strained the author a bit (given those names....ugh), but as I feel the weakest parts of the setting were where he got into the finer details, a broader scope might have actually strengthened his overall work.  

There is plenty of artwork, ranging in quality. Much of it is evocative and well chosen, with only a few odd peices that make you wonder.  There is not a single defining style however, though at least one artist probably could be considered for the job if another edition is printed.  

As always, I've given you the tools, now you make the decision.  

That doesn't sound too bad, really.

Its not.

 A bit of an amaturish production in a few ways, but the setting is playable and the system is fully functional.  Once I get a regular group together I may pull it out for a one-shot to see if the actual play lives up to expectations, I'm rather curious about how it'll work on the table compared to how it looks.

One thing I should note: I bought this alongside a bunch of other 'alternative fantasy' games a few years ago, including deathstalkers and Crimson Empire... of all that I got, this one is the only one I could say I was honestly not disappointed with.

I find it works quite well. Penalties are all applied to target numbers. In fact, I'm running it again.

And the limit isn't 3 points; it's 1 skill may be bought to 4 above lifepath, 2 more to 3 above lifepath, 4 more to 2 above lifepath, and the rest to 1 above lifepath. And you may choose to start older, which increases the maximum ranks above lifepath gained levels. 30 increases it to 1@LP+5, 2@LP+4, 4#LP+3, rest up to LP+2...

The combat skills only grant special abilities to level 6, levels 7+ add no benefit other than high target numbers.

a high target number is really useful, too... if your TN is 6+, you still don't count 6's, but the TN-5 is extra successes you get if you roll even 1. (Coupled with the "More than half the dice are 6's= fumble", this means high target numbers are succeed by lots or fumble.)

Critical success is 3 or more 1's... and all 1's rolled then get picked up and rerolled. It's possible to Crit success a crit success.. and it's usually awesome in combat when that happens. (6 successes can kill just about anything with a decent weapon, and even with most, it's gonna make it through even a dragon's hide...)

The layout isn't great, due to a few things being in odd places, but it is quite usable. Be warned, however... it wasn't designed for major length campaigns. A 9 month campaign saw the Wizard routinely slinging difficulty 8 spells (which can be devastating. A massive wall of fire sweeps down the field, 10' tall, 20' wide, 40 yards long, doing enough damage to mortally wound humans and elves, and outright kill smaller beings.) The Fencers were routinely killing using rapiers against plate armored foes. The pistolier was doing trickshots for insta-kill.

Toning down from the 10XP/session implied in the adventures is vital if you want to run a long term game.

As an aside: I hate to go back and re-read a review I've written. Makes me want to quit the reviewing business all together. Too bad the money is too good to pass up.

Arrowflight is a great game! As with all RPG systems a few tweaks here and there to make the rules fit your style will be needed. The open ended spell system is wonderful! The only thing to make it better would have been to give the players a bigger list of spells from the git go.

The world is a political type of world. I like this. The game setting starts off with the current king just having been assisinated and all the provinces od Corvel, the main continent, trying to get there respected family into the Kings place.  

As all new RPG games, you get a piece of the world and its left up to the GM to create the rest. The Deep7 forums and Arrowflight Yahoo group have more information about the world.  They now have several supplements available on RPGNow as well to flesh the world out even more. My website at //www.Nitehood.net has lots as well.

Someone posted that its not meant to be a long term cmpaign rule system. I would agree. I have had a major campaign going it it for a couple years and the players get very powerful, quickly. He was also right in that you need to scale down the XP given out.

This all may be a mute point soon. The 2nd edition is at the editors and hopefully will be out this fall (2010). They have changed the rules to the XPG system that Deep7 uses with Red Dwarf and Mean Streets.

Again, a great game! You can read our adventures at Nitehood.net

~Nitehood

I've gotten 2E. It's much higher level an overview on the world, and isn't near as charming, plus it's swtiched from (Stat)D6 each vs (Skill)- Target, count successes, to Stat+skill or less on 2d6, find difference.

While it includes a dice pool option (a nod to 1E players), Todd left out the needed formulae for save dice and save target, and initiative dice and initiative target, should one wish to use it, and the default breakdown of the "default 7" TN for generic effects. In other words, he broke his promise to support 1E dice pool mode in 2E. When pointed out that this would take no more than 5 lines of text on the page it's mentioned on, he blustered.

It's also not got the Corvel details, having only the world level details, making it much less immediately playable.

In short, 1E was very playable, very charming, and a good start point. 2E is tailored for fans of the setting, not of the system, but isn't a good introductory ruleset at all.

Arrowflight 2e is a better system than the dice pool of the first edition.  
The rules cut back on the setting of Corvel, but put it all back in in their 'Northern Empires' supplement.

Northern Empires has Corvel, and its neighboring countries. A very nice supplement indeed. It has the 7 Northern countries. CORVEL - the original setting.  RA'ALTHUUK - a nation of barbarian hordes & dark magic, AKRINDOR -a vast territory of nomadic tribes, BACHRA - a jewel of the east & a culture of innovation, TOLAK - warrior society under siege in the frozen north, HARKILON - mysterious kingdom of partial lycanthropes, KHARHOUN - ancient kingdom in transition & naval juggernaut.

They also just release 'Mystic East'. Mystic East is all about the D'JUNN EMPIRE. It has more fighting skills and martial arts, plus more..

These along with the original expansion of Island Nations, (Seris - loyal ally of Corvel, Kilmoor - devout martial empire,The Kainal Islands - lone republic & vast economic power) gives you a huge chunk of the world to adventure in.

My grouped gamed 2 years in this setting and with first ed rules. They had a blast! (you can read and see some of their adventures at Nitehood.net)

We are strongly considering going back to this setting and continue the adventures with the 2e rules.  My players keep asking me to run it again.

~Nitehood