Digging into Dragon Age RPG

If you hadn’t heard about the Dragon Age RPG before, the last few weeks on Twitter probably made you aware of it. Many players and DMs, wanting a switch from D&D4e on either a permanent or  short term basis, have been giving it a try. And chances are that if you’ve been seeing the conversations about Dragon Age, you’ve probably been hearing generally good things about it. This won’t be an article which bucks that trend.

So, why should I write about how I’m getting into Dragon Age? Because I think I’ve got a bit of a different perspective on it than many of my fellow tabletop gamers. You see, I didn’t come to Dragon Age as a natural alternative to D&D or other fantasy RPGs. Instead, I came to the Dragon Age RPG as a fan of the Dragon Age video game first.

I am a total Bioware fanboy. I make no secret of it. Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and everything else. Including Dragon Age. I bought, pre-ordered months in advance no less, the Collector’s Edition of Dragon Age: Origins. When I went to Penny Arcade Expo in 2009, the very first thing I lined up to see and play was Dragon Age. I even got a picture of myself with the Grey Warden sword and shield with the iconic Dragon Age logo. I walked around all that day at PAX with the blood from my Joining ritual on my forehead. I’ve still got inflatable DA weapons from PAX09 and PAX10 around.

So when the tabletop version of Dragon Age was announced, I was both excited and concerned. Licensed properties are really hit or miss when it comes to RPGs. Things like Dresden Files and The Laundry are good adaptations. Marvel Super Heroes and Serenity are, by and large, not. But I picked Dragon Age up anyway, not long after it was released. I read through it, thought that it was solid, but limited in scope, and then kind of left it on my shelf. Although at various times I’ve tried to get my local group or groups to play it, but they (and quite frankly I as well) were more interested in D&D4e.

That changed recently. Over the holidays, my local gaming group blew up. Nothing dramatic, but it just became clear that we were having problems getting people to game. So 3 of us just started hanging out to do board games (Ravenloft, Arkham Horror, Space Hulk: Death Angel). But we wanted to get back to doing RPGs. I first suggested that we go back to D&D4e since that’s what we’d been playing before we quit. This was quickly shot down and we were left to figure out what we should do instead, since all 3 of us had different ideas.

Eventually we settled on Dragon Age. More to say, I really pushed Dragon Age as my second choice since my first had gotten unceremoniously shot down. Last Sunday, we got together for our first session, only the 3 of us. We’d do chargen and see how much actual gaming we could get done afterwords.

Making characters was pretty simple and surprisingly quick. Roll 3d6, compare it to a chart, and you get your ability score. Now, I am famously not a fan of randomness in chargen except for trivial aspects (like gold, or variance of starting height or so on). And I’m still not a fan of it here either. That said, Dragon Age does random rolling better than any version of D&D has done, namely because even a really bad roll leaves you only a little below average instead of near-crippled. I rolled up a City Elf Warrior and the other player did a Freeman Rogue. We both ended up with builds that were decidedly Ranger-y. Both strong ranged skills, good stealth, and solid melee. We had rolled up our characters, filled in sheets, and were ready to go in less than an hour. Probably closer to just 45 minutes.

Our GM had a scenario for our characters to begin with, namely that we were both associated with the Chantry and Circle of Mages, not necessarily as Templars, but something in the same general field. My character had gotten involved with the Chantry and Circle because his sister had Mage talents. The other player’s family had all been burned as Apostates and his character had joined up to prevent something else like that happening to anybody else.

Our first task would be to escort an old Mage named Cain from the Circle Tower down to Redcliffe. The Mage would be looking out for kids and young people who had magical talent while, unbeknownst to him, we PCs would be hunting for signs of Apostates and Abominations. The first part of the trip was uneventful, but eventually we ran into some bandits in a hunting blind waiting in ambush. We spotted them before they spotted us, I snuck around and proceeded to ambush the would-be ambushers.

Our first taste of combat was very fast and very deadly. It didn’t seem like it at first. My character shot an arrow at one of the (two) bandits and barely scratched him. Even a max damage hit wouldn’t have been super dangerous. Then stunting came in.

One of the unique things about Dragon Age and what makes it so potentially dangerous are Stunts. All rolls, including attacks, are done by rolling 3d6. One of those d6’s is the Dragon Die and it generally determines how well you succeed at something if your roll is high enough to succeed in the first place. In combat, if you roll doubles on the dice, you receive a number of stunt points equal to whatever you’ve rolled on your Dragon Die and that’s where it becomes dangerous. Low cost stunts may just let you maneuver around your enemies or knock them prone, but higher cost stunts may allow you to do extra damage or do extra attacks.

So when I rolled doubles on my bastard sword attack and a 6 on the Dragon Die, it got very ugly. I spent 3 points to make a second attack and 2 more to do extra damage. Suddenly the bandit found that, instead of 1 dangerous attack, he was facing 1 ~very~ dangerous attack to start and then a further attack on top of it. Needless to say, the bandit was all but cut in half and the other one quickly surrendered. Total combat time, including our fumbling around for rules and stunts? About 20 minutes.

We intimidated, interrogated,  and robbed the remaining bandit, but left him alive at the insistence of the NPC Cain, and continued down to Redcliffe. While there, Cain went to the town hall and we PCs went poking around. I went to the Chantry board and found a couple of interesting bits, while the other PC did some shopping. We met with another NPC regarding one of the Chantry board quests (to bring down a bandit ringleader and recover an heirloom box) and called it a day.

It was a good session, a nice introduction to the mechanics, and some fun actions and interactions. I found myself really getting into the game in a way that I hadn’t done in 4e for a while because I felt like ~I~ knew about as much about the world as my character did. I think my enjoyment of the video game had a really beneficial impact on my enjoyment of the tabletop game. I was already invested in the setting and the world before I’d even created my character and I think that makes a big difference.

Is Dragon Age the zomg best game evar? Is it objectively better than D&D4e? The answer to both questions is “no”, but Dragon Age is solid, simple, easy to pick up, and I’m looking forward to playing it again soon. It’s a setting which has a lot of depth while still having a lot of room for players to explore and make their own mark. For me, it’s an excellent change of pace. Playing Dragon Age lets me break out of my D&D mold for a while, but also lets me enjoy D&D that much more when I get to play it too. You appreciate the strengths of a game system more when you’re not just playing that one game.