Tales of Argosa is published by Pickpocket Press, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. An updating of the earlier Low Fantasy Gaming—effectively a second edition—Tales of Argosa is an Old School Renaissance retroclone that draws from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but shifts mechanically back to some older editions of the venerable roleplaying game whilst maintaining some modern mechanics. In addition, there are some quite startling changes that make the tone and play of the game a whole lot grimmer than the average retroclone. What this means is that there is a lot that is going to be familiar about Tales of Argosa—attributes, Races, Classes, monsters, types of combat, monsters, and treasures. However, there is a lot in Tales of Argosa that is going to be different and unfamiliar. Much of it is good, but some of it is not so much bad, as irksome—and even then, not for everyone.
So, what are the changes in Tales of Argosa? They start with a level cap—Player Characters can only achieve Ninth Level before they retire. Hit Points are low and remain low in comparison to other Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games, even at Ninth Level. The Saving Throw is replaced by a Luck roll every time the Player Character would be damaged by an effect or the environment, but Luck diminishes each time it is tested. Encounters are designed to be unbalanced and dangerous, forcing the Player Characters when to fight and when to run. Healing takes minutes, not seconds, so it always takes place at the end of combat, by which time, a Player Character could be dead… Magic is dark and dangerous and if it goes wrong can cause madness and mutations, unleash monsters from the Veil, and worse! On the other hand, at each Third Level, a player can design an ability unique to his character (or pick one of the options in the book), so there is scope for customisation. Exploits—Minor, Major, and Rescue—that work alongside damage inflicted enable heroic action upon the part of the Player Characters. There are Exploits too for combat, plus effects for ‘Nat 19’ and Critical rolls, which when combined with Fumble ripostes, Morale checks, and Trauma rolls, give a Player Character more choices and lend themselves to exciting and action-packed battles! Some damage dice can explode depending upon the weapon type and situation. These are not the only changes in Tales of Argosa, or indeed, the only features. They do, however, impart much of the tone of the roleplaying game.
A Player Character has a Race, Class, seven Attributes, and a Background. The five Races are Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Half Skorn. Called halfmen or beastmen, Skorn are heavy set, pink skinned proto-humans, whilst Half Skorn are strong and hard-to-kill and inclined to war and conquest, but suffer from poor memory and analytical ability. The Classes are the Artificer, Bard,
Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Cultist, and Magic User. The Cultist is the equivalent of the Cleric, with five suggestions given in terms of gods worshipped and the benefits and strictures of doing so, whilst the Artificer can be an expert alchemist, forge master, gear priest, or black powder savant. He gains access to alchemy and mechanica, inventions that he can use once per day per Level. The inventions include a Black Powder Weapon, Chaintooth Weapon, Breathing Mask, Corroding Spray, Ironward, Thunder Gauntlet, Truth Serum, X-ray Goggles, and more. He can also jury rig a device or concoct a mixture a number of times equal to his Intelligence modifier per day to bypass a current obstacle, disarm a trap, or assist the party in some other way. The seven attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Willpower, Perception, and Charisma. Initiative is derived from Dexterity and Intelligence, whilst Perception is also used to determine ranged attack bonuses. A Background provides an attribute bonus, a skill, and an item. For example, the Rat Catcher Background improves a Player Character Dexterity by one and gives him a wedge of cheese, whilst a Hangman gains a bonus to his Willpower, the Leadership skill, and thirty feet of rope.
Notably, at Third, Sixth, and Ninth Level, a Player Character can have a ‘Unique Feature’, the equivalent of a Feat. These can be created by the player, but Tales of Argosa offers a set of off-the-shelf options. Many of these are ‘Cross Class’ Unique Features, enabling a Player Character of one Class to take an ability of another, such as ‘Alchemy & Mechanica (Cross Class)’, which grants a Player Character one invention from the Artificer’s list and limited use of it. Many also have multiple tiers, meaning that they can be selected three times. For example, with ‘Pilfer Pouch’, a Player Character has wandering hands and is always picking up things and putting them in his pouch. At Tier 1, the player rolls percentile dice to randomly draw an interesting—and hopefully useful item—such as a Skorn tooth or a jar of bees—from the pouch; at Tier 2, the player can reroll; and at Tier 3, the player can make a Luck check to pick an item from the table.
To create a character, a player rolls for his Race and Background. He then rolls three six-sided dice for his attributes, one of which must be fifteen or higher, and another thirteen or higher. He can raise stats to these values if necessary. He selects a Class and takes (or rolls) its options at First Level, and also rolls for a Party Bond, which explains why the Player Characters are together. Everything is either set or derived, notably Hit Points are equal to a Player Character’s Constitution, plus a modifier determined by Class. For example, the Barbarian’s Hit Points are equal to his Constitution plus twice his Level, whilst the Magic-User’s is only equal to his Constitution plus Level. Equipment is a mixture of Battle Gear Slots and Pack Gear, but each Class offers some equipment, including arms and armour, as well as some coins.
Donoso
Class: Magic-User
Level: 1 Age: 30
Background: Prisoner
Strength 14 (+1) Dexterity 07 (-1) Constitution 07 (-1)
Intelligence 16 (+2) Willpower 16 (+2) Perception 16 (+2)
Charisma 14 (+1) Luck 11
Armour Class: 10
Initiative: 12 (+0)
Attack Bonus: +1 Ranged Bonus: +2
Rerolls: 2
Hit Points: 8
Death Save: 12
Abilities: Spellcraft, Sense Magic
Spells Known: Hex of Volcanic Steel (Heat Metal), Whispers of the Watchers (Locate Object)
Skills: Animal Lore, Arcane Lore, Apothecary, Deception, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand
Battle Gear: spellbook, longsword (1d8), leather armour (+1 AC)
Pack Gear: torch, bedroll, rations (5 days), manacles, and tinderbox
Coins: 10 sp
Of the Classes, the Artificer is the outlier. It adds technology such as the Black Powder Weapon and Chaintooth Weapon—the latter effectively a chainsword—that the Game Master may not want in her campaign and do not necessarily fit the swords & sorcery genre. The option is given to make the Class more like the Alchemist, with Poison replacing both weapons, but why not do it the other way round? Make the Alchemist Class the default as it does more readily fit the genre and the Artificer the option?
Mechanically, Tales of Argosa uses a number of different systems. The first is Luck. A Luck roll is a roll against, rolling under the value, typically to resist serious adverse effects such as spells, traps, special enemy attacks, or major environmental hazards, or to perform a Major Exploit, Rescue, or Party Retreat, which rely on the Luck resource to pull off. Depending upon the nature of the situation, a Luck roll can be modified by an attribute. However, each time a Player Character succeeds on a Luck roll, his Luck attribute is reduced by one to a minimum of five.
As with the Luck roll, skill checks and attribute checks are rolled under an attribute. A skill increases the attribute value by one for the skill check. A Player Character has a number of Rerolls, determined by Level, which can be used on Attribute checks, Luck checks, Death saves, and so on. Humans have one more Reroll than other Races. It is possible to roll a Great Success or a Terrible Failure on an Attribute or Skill check. A roll that is equal to half or less of the Attribute or Skill is a Great Success, whereas, a roll equal to or greater than one-and-a-half times the Attribute or Skill is a Terrible Fail. Thus, for example, for Donoso’s Dexterity of seven, a Great Success would be three or less, but a Terrible Failure, eleven or more, whereas for Intelligence, a Great Success would be eight or less, a Terrible Failure, twenty only. Modifiers to skill checks and attribute checks, can be a few points either way, but instead of major modifiers, Advantage and Disadvantage is used instead. There are other difficulty mechanics present in Tales of Argosa which seem to apply to Montage rules, but these are not readily explained.
Combat in Tales of Argosa uses group initiative, rolled against one Player Character’s Initiative. If successful, the Player Characters attack before the enemy and on a Great Success, before any boss or heavy monsters or other enemy. The players take it in turns to roll it, so that it is not always the player with the character with highest initiative always rolling. On a round, a Player Character can act and move once. Most fights are not to the death, but rather to the point when one side’s morale breaks. Typically, an action is an attack, casting a spell, dodging, and so on. Where an Attribute or Skill check requires a low roll on a twenty-sided die, combat requires a high roll to equal or better an Armour Class. A natural twenty inflicts maximum damage plus half the attacker’s Level—rounding up, rather than rounding down as in most situations. A Fumble results on a roll of one, potentially opening the fumbler up to a free attack.
Most weapons have properties that can also be triggered on a roll of a ‘Nat 19’, that is, a natural roll of nineteen. For example, a light mace or hammer inflicts 1d10 damage on a ‘Nat 19’, instead of the standard 1d6. The result of a ‘Nat 19’ gives a player two choices, one is a roll on the ‘Blunt Trauma’ table, the other is pushing a defender back a short distance or knocking him prone. To this, a player can also add an Exploit, which can be Major or Minor. Both require a player to hit and inflict damage, but a Minor Exploit might be to knock an opponent off his feet, drive him backwards, throw him through a window, throw dirt in his eyes, and so on. A Major Exploit might be to shatter a foe’s weapon, grab an enemy in each hand and crack their skulls together to stun them both, cut off a dragon’s wing, or decapitate the head of an orc. A Major Exploit does not increase damage to a single target, but might affect multiple targets, and nor can a Major Exploit kill or incapacitate a target, unless they are particularly weak. Similar rules work for Rescue Exploits, but Exploits in general, bring a narrative element into play as well as the standard rules. Other situations covered under combat include chases—complete with a table of chase events, as well as different fighting styles, knockouts, flanking, and aerial and underwater combat.
Damage, from any source, is deducted from a Player Character’s Hit Points. A combatant who is reduced to half his Hit Points is regarded as Wounded. This does not affect the Player Character, but it does certain monsters. For example, the Banshee’s ‘Death Wail’ recharges when it is Wounded. When a Player Character’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, he is dead or dying, but he and his fellow adventurers only find out which after the battle. At this point, a Death Save is made. If failed, the Player Character is dead, if successful, he is merely dying. At this point, healing can be rendered from any source and the player must still roll on the ‘Injuries & Setbacks’ table to determine the effects of being brought to near death. This can be as simple as a sprained ankle that limits his movement and mobility temporarily or it could be a broken or even a lost leg! Non-magical healing requires Willpower checks for a Short Rest, typically only one Hit Point is recovered following a night’s sleep, and a Long Rest takes a week!
Sorcery requires an Intelligence (Arcane Lore) check to cast, followed by a ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check. If the Intelligence (Arcane Lore) check results in a ‘Great Success’ result, the spell is extra potent, gaining an extra effect as detailed in the spell. For example, A Wisp Unseen, which grants invisibility, lets the caster make a second person invisible too. However, on a ‘Terrible Failure’, both the spell and the ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check fails. A Magic-User cannot cast the same spell more times than his Intelligence modifier per day. A Magic-User casting a spell is not the only situation in which a ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check is required. It is also made when a Cultist invokes a Blessing without Favour from his god, gained from adhering to his deity’s strictures. A Cultist either has Favour or he does not and he can gain it multiple times per day, but the more times he uses it, the harder it becomes to gain. Whilst a ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check may be required due to some magical aspect of a scenario or situation, the other reason why it might be required for a Player Character other than a Magic-User or Cultist is when a magic item is used.
A ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check requires a simple die roll. Initially an eight-sided die, but then a ten-sided and a twelve-sided die as the Magic-User or Cultist goes up in Level. Using a magic item necessitates the rolling of a twenty-sided die. Whatever the die type, on a roll of one, the ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ effect is triggered and a roll on the ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ table is required, or the ‘Divine Rebuke’ table if a Cultist. The result might be “Fell Fingers – Your fingers turn into tentacles, serpents, leeches or something similarly creepy for 1d6 minutes. You cannot cast spells during this time. You count as Two Weapon Fighting and cause 2d6 acid or poison-based damage on a hit.” or “Plague of Flies – Lingering in the open attracts an abundance of flies, gnats, mosquitoes, locusts, etc, to your person. Atonement ends the rebuke.” There is a table of Atonements for the Cultist. However, if the ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check succeeds, its threshold rises by one until either it is triggered or a new adventure begins and it can be reset.
Tales of Argosa lists some fifty spells, from A Wisp Unseen, Abjure the Unnatural, and Arcane Aegis to Whispers of the Watchers, Wings of the Raven King, and Witchblade. Most of them are familiar, but are renamed. For example, Dark Slumber is Sleep and Riddle of Bones is Speak with Undead. This both adds flavour, but it also confuses somewhat.
Beyond adventuring, the Player Characters are given numerous options for their downtime. Of course, this includes advancement, but it also covers buying or constructing buildings, black market trading, carousing, gambling, training pets—including monstrous pets, brewing potions, recovery—from addiction, madness, and injuries, conducting research, inscribing scrolls, and rumour mongering. For the Game Master, there is guidance on running wilderness and dungeon adventures, supported by encounter tables for both, hireling creation tables, running mass battles, and handling madness. This is typically suffered after encountering monstrosities, aberrations, and demons, or reading forbidden lore and requires a Luck (Willpower) check to resist. Symptoms manifest in acute episodes once per symptom per adventure and cannot be cured by magic, only through recovery during downtime.
Tales of Argosa includes an extensive bestiary of monsters with guidance on customisation and set of templates that will turn a monster into a boss, demon, heavy, lycanthrope, and more. Again, most of the entries will be familiar from other Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games, but many also have scope for customisation. Rounding out the roleplaying game are sample traps and an extensive list of magic items. There is also a set of Oracle Tools, intended for use as ‘quintessential improv enablers’ and which make use of The Bones or Deck of Signs. They work well, but they feel out of place in a retroclone, more so because they require a completely separate set of dice to the standard polyhedral dice or cards. Obviously, they are also available online, but that adds complexity when Tales of Argosa is played at the table. There are rules too for solo play and a dungeon generator to work with normal and solo play.
Physically, Tales of Argosa is cleanly, but occasionally, tightly laid out. In general, it is well written and apart from the occasional piece that feels out of place, the artwork—all black and white—is excellent, a mix of classic Dungeons & Dragons combined with swords & sorcery.
Tales of Argosa is an attempt to create a grimmer and more perilous version of Dungeons & Dragons-style play, and in this, it succeeds. This is primarily through the lower number of Hit Points, the lack of immediacy of healing in combat, reliance on a diminishing luck resource rather than standard Saving Throws, and spellcasting being ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’. Yet this comes with a complexity that echoes Advanced Dungeons & Dragons more than it does any other edition. None of the roleplaying game’s various subsystems is necessarily complex in themselves, but the roll low for Attribute, Luck, and Skill checks versus the roll high for combat versus the roll low for ‘Dark & Dangerous Magic’ check is outmoded, counterintuitive, and adds unnecessary complexity. Similarly, the roll of a natural twenty versus a ‘Nat 19’ is counterintuitive and in the case of the latter adds further complexity, as well as forcing the question, “Which is the better result?” Or rather, which has the more interesting result? Invariably, it is the ‘Nat 19’ result because the player gets to roll on the various trauma, or critical hit, tables. The inclusion of Exploits add an extra narrative effect as well, and then the Oracle Tools seem to have been dropped into the roleplaying game from an entirely different game and age. And yet…
Not every player or Game Master is going to have an issue with differing subsystems in Tales of Argosa, and to be fair, they all add flavour and detail to play as well as enforcing the fact that adventuring is dangerous and for the foolish. Tales of Argosa: Sword & Sorcery Adventure is undoubtedly an entertaining roleplaying game, but Game Master and player alike are going to have to adjust to its complexities to get to the entertaining part of play.
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