[Free RPG Day 2024] Arzium Quickstart Guide

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Arzium Quickstart Guide is the introduction to the Arzium Roleplaying Game. It is not, though, an introduction to the World of Arzium. That would be the series of board games designed by Ryan Laudkat and published by Red Raven games, including Above and Below, Near and Far, and others. It presents a fantasy world filled with mysteries, magic, and forgotten technology, above and below ground. The Arzium Quickstart Guide is a slim affair, providing a very basic overview of the setting, an explanation of the mechanics, a short adventure, and four pre-generated Player Characters. Arzium is described as a world of strange mechanics and strange magics, some of it scavenged from fallen civilisations, some of its developed by the newly arisen city-states, industrialised with devices powered by bottled demons and rare crystals. The world is also a diverse one, being home to Humans, Hogfolk, Fishfolk, Lizardfolk, Birdforl, and other species, including Robots! Not every region is a hive of magical and industrial development. Out in the Surstrayne Forest stands the village of Above, and underneath it is the village of Below, established to easily mine and harvest the resources to be found in the nearby surrounding underworld. It is here that, ‘Empty Cave Town’, the adventure in the Arzium Quickstart Guide is set.

Mechanically, the Arzium Quickstart Guide and thus the Arzium Roleplaying Game, is a dice and resource management game. A Player Character has six attributes—Strength, Reflexes, Knowledge, Cunning, Perception, and Craft. Each ranges in value between zero and ten, and presents a pool of points that a player can spend to modify dice rolls. A standard difficulty is seven, whilst a hard one is ten. The maximum that a player can spend on a challenge is five. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a ten-sided die and attempts to equal or exceed the difficulty. Results less than the difficulty have a failure forward outcome in that the story continues despite the negative outcome. The latter might be an actual failure, but it can also be that the action succeeds and the Player Character or an item of equipment suffers damage, or even that the whole situation changes. In addition, if a six is rolled on the die, then a complication is automatically added to the situation. Resting for at least half a day will restore a Player Character’s spent attribute points.

In combat, the Player Characters typically act first and then the enemy. When a Player Character acts, he moves first and then takes an action. All attacks succeed in hitting and inflict damage as per the die type for the weapon or type of attack. The damage inflicted can be increased by spending points from the associated attribute. Armour reduces the amount of damage suffered. Attacks, abilities, and spells can also temporarily affect Power, a measure of NPC and monster ability to inflict more damage. Each monster and NPC gains one Power at the start of each turn, but because the Player Characters act first, they directly affect the monster and NPC capacity to inflict more damage. The rules also allow for gambits, inventive actions which can change the environment or affect monsters and NPCs, but without inflicting damage.

Casting spells requires the expenditure of Attribute points, but not a dice roll. However, a dice roll is required to take account of magic being whimsical and occasionally dangerous. When a spell is cast, the Game Master rolls a ten-sided die and if a one or two is rolled, she also rolls on the ‘Whimsical Magic’ table. This might result in the caster smelling like rotting garbage for a day or temporarily grants a nearby object life as it grows limbs and runs around in a chaotic manner.

Other rules for the Arzium Quickstart Guide and the Arzium Roleplaying Game can be found on the character sheet. For example, it uses an inventory system of boxes for gear and offers Memory Knots as a means to maximise a die roll. This requires the player to explain why a particular memory will help his character in the current situation. The Arzium Quickstart Guide includes four pre-generated Player Characters. They include an Ancient Robot Soldier, a Toadfolk Cook with a grasping tongue, a Human Machinist equipped with a firework rocket and a piercing rifle, and a Human Mystic.

The scenario in the Arzium Quickstart Guide is ‘Empty Cave Town’. The citizens of Above have established a second settlement in the underworld called Below next a lake of crystal-eyed fish and emerald waterfalls. Unfortunately, all townsfolk of Below have disappeared and the town is inexplicably empty. A note left by the Mayor of Below points to the nearby Chamber of Screaming Walls. There are a couple of encounters on the way there, but once at the Chamber of Screaming Walls, the Player Characters find the missing townsfolk, held silent. The Player Characters will need to fight their captor to save them.

‘Empty Cave Town’ is short. Playable in an hour—or two at the most. Yet, the whole of the Arzium Quickstart Guide is short. Consequently, it feels underwritten and slightly underexplained, particularly when it comes to NPCs and combat, but the mechanics are simple enough that they can be understood. The scenario though is underwhelming and does not give the players and characters much to do beyond face a series of combat challenges. It would have been nice if the suggested connections between the Player Characters and the town of Below—that one of them wants to be mayor, one of them has bought the town’s tavern and does not want to lose any customers, that one of them is owed money by one of the missing townsfolk, and more, could not have been made more of and written into the scenario instead of leaving the Game Master to do it.

Physically, the Arzium Quickstart Guide is decently put together. The cartography and artwork are good, and it is all clean and tidy. Yet as nice as it looks, the Arzium Quickstart Guide does not successfully bring the world of Arzium to life and make it a setting that you want to visit in play. There is not enough of the setting and the scenario is cursory and short and not enough to really sell the reader on the Arzium Quickstart Guide. At first sight, the Arzium Quickstart Guide appeared to be one of the most interesting things about Free RPG Day. Instead, it is the most disappointing.