Buried within the mostly forgotten Magnamund Companion gaming supplement, there's a quirky little roleplaying game called Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl. Since acquiring a copy of the Magnamund Companion, I've been crafting a tavern-in-a-box and painting miniatures so I could play the game both solo and with friends. I've played a few games now, and this is my review of it.
Back in 1984, Joe Dever published Fire on the water, the sequel to his Flight from the dark game book, and the second book in the Lone Wolf series. Joe Dever was, more or less, my introduction to roleplaying. Dever's Lone Wolf series of books are roleplaying books, with a character sheet and special abilities and a variable plot, like the Fighting Fantasy series. You played as Lone Wolf, a highly disciplined monk and the last of your order. In Fire on the water, Lone Wolf visits a town called Ragadorn and ends up sharing a tavern there with a group of unsavoury characters. It's a relatively major waypoint in the book's progression, and while it's not as exciting as many of the chases and fights you find elsewhere in the books, it's memorable because the style of puzzle it presents is unlike other common challenges. Some of the characters in Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl resemble those in the book, and certainly if you've ever played through Fire on the water you'll be familiar with Ragadorn. However, you don't have to be familiar with any of this to play and to enjoy Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl. I bring it up because Joe Dever, it seems, was adept at innovative game design.
For many people today, the term "roleplaying" is either a video game genre or a tabletop game of D&D. But to dedicated tabletop gamers, "roleplay" is less a genre than it is a method of play. The line between literature and roleplaying blur when you pick up a Lone Wolf book. Similarly, the line between wargame and roleplay are blurred in Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl.
Pre-generated characters
In Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl, up to 10 players take 1 or more character sheets and the corresponding player token. At the start of the game, each player character gets 1 Special Item, which usually improves speed, combat, or provides a magical spell. In addition to Special Items, there are standard Items (like buckets and chairs and bottles and food) as well as Loot (like gold and healing herbs) placed randomly throughout the tavern, which you can pick up and use during your turn. It surprised me how much variety the Special Items, Items, and Loot introduced into the game.
You might think 10 pre-generated characters sheets would start to feel repetitive after a few games, but I've played a dozen times and no character has ever felt like the same character twice. This isn't a wargame, even though its turn structure is strict, so a player's choices have a real influence on how the character plays despite the character's attributes. In one game, a character can be the most powerful character on the board, and in the next game that same character might be the slowest, weakest, and the first to die, and in neither case is it purely down to numbers on the character sheet.
Rules
The game progresses in quarters.
During the Movement quarter, during which characters move around the tavern. When miniatures are in base-to-base contact, they can Talk or Fight. When 2 miniatures are Talking, they can't Fight, but they can forge an alliance, which means that they can help each other with their objectives. This can have a huge influence on the game, because no character shares an identical objective. Each character has a unique win condition, so the same character that's been marked for death by one player is an invaluable resource that must be protected to another. And these states are dynamic as people find or trade items, collaborate, reveal secrets, or just get lucky.
During the Missile quarter, characters can throw things at each other. It's ranged combat, and it's the safest, but usually weakest, way to fight. The ranged combat system is simple. You count the squares between the thrower and the target, and you roll a d10 to determine success. Damage is provided in the item's stat line. The Ranger has a bow, and several other characters have Daggers that can be thrown, but anyone can pick up a bottle or a chair or a bucket and lob it at somebody else.
During the Combat quarter, a character can initiate a melee attack against an adjacent character. This game uses melee system from the Lone Wolf books, and it's extremely dangerous. The resulting damage depends not only on your roll result, but also the Combat skill of each character fighting. Should you attack a character that's more skilled at Combat than you, and you roll poorly, you could end up taking more damage than your target. Then again, you might roll well and deal lots of damage. In addition to Combat ratings and dice rolls, some Special Items grant a bonus to Attacks and others to Defence, so a character might havea weak Combat rating when attacking but a remarkably improved Combat rating when defending. Combat is quick because even though only one player rolls dice, both characters stand to take damage, so it's simultaneously one of the most exciting moments of the game and also the most terrifying.
The 4th quarter is the Gaming quarter. This takes place at the tavern's gaming table, which is run by the Landlord. It's a simple gambling game in which you're meant to predict the roll of the Croupier's d10. If you guess the exact number, you earn quadruple your bet. If you guess 1 over or 1 under the number, you earn twice your bet. Otherwise, you lose your bet. It's gambling, so it's totally unpredictable and unreliable, but it's a tool the Landlord has to earn money, and winning money at the table is arguably 1 character's primary objective.
How is this roleplay?
If your only definition of roleplay is sitting around a table chatting with friends about how to navigate the cursed dungeon leading to the dragon's lair, then Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl would probably look like just the combat part of your usual game. However, you might be surprised at how much roleplay Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl fits into a combat round. Unlike your typical RPG combat or traditional wargame, you probably won't attack anyone on the first round. You must consider your character's goal, and plan a strategy for achieving it, and forge alliances and strike bargains with other characters in hopes that they'll help you. You probably won't have 10 minutes of conversation between characters the way you might in a D&D game, but you also won't just be standing around hitting each other in the face, either. Admittedly, some encounters necessarily end with combat, but there are smart ways to make that happen and there are foolish ways. This game is all about finding the smartest way of achieving your objective, and having a ton of fun while doing it.
A great game
Before he died, Joe Dever released most of his work as free downloads on the Internet. You can download the entire Lone Wolf series, and you should, but more to the point you can find the Magnamund Companion at projectaon.org. Download the book, spend a little time crafting a tavern, paint some miniatures, and try the game out for yourself. The whole experience has kept me busy for several months, and I think it'll keep me entertained for years to come. Ragadorn Ale-House Brawl is a fascinating example of excellent asymmetrical game design, an amazing blend of roleplay and wargaming, and a dangerous gateway into the endless world of Magnamund!