"A Quest for Honor", RPG on new "The Green Knight" movie

[Deleted]

www.superherohype.com/geek-culture/483710-a24-releases-a-quest-for-honor-the-green-knight-inspired-fantasy-rpg

And, of course:

shop.a24films.com/products/the-green-knight-a-fantasy-roleplaying-game


Looks quite... "Mentzer-y", I'd say.


The movie itself is probably going to be buried both by the pandemic, and by the politicization of its content.
Looking at studio, cast, crew, and especially at director/writer David Lowery, however, I smell a possible future cult classic.




I sure hope this one doesn't get postponed into oblivion, but perhaps sees a swift release via VOD/streaming.
Even before the age of Corona, it was really difficult to get me to a movie theater. For this one, I would have visited one, I think.

- R

[Finarvyn]

Totally off my radar. First I've heard of either the movie or the RPG.

[tdenmark]

Cool. I'd seen the trailer a while back, had no idea there was an associated RPG. I like the packaging.

[Aralaen]

“Looks” interesting too bad there is not a lot of detail about the game. Looks pretty basic though.

[Deleted]

Yeah, to buy it now is probably a leap of faith. Not sure I'm going to make that one until I know more, as well. I guess it will be the usual "movie-as-adventure" thing, though; could be nice for a one-shot, or to bring in some newbies.

[jdn2006]

A game I'll look at when it's much cheaper or in PDF or someone else buys it. Glimpses of the game from the website images shows d20 for dice, simple pre-gens, what might be a story telling emphasis with "Honorable" actions stressed.

[strangebrew]

As of a few days ago the game pre-order was sold out on their website. I was thinking about buying it just out of appreciation for the excellent commercial for the RPG:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1By2mfv52I

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2020 4:55:31 GMT -6 jdn2006 said:

A game I'll look at when it's much cheaper or in PDF or someone else buys it. Glimpses of the game from the website images shows d20 for dice, simple pre-gens, what might be a story telling emphasis with "Honorable" actions stressed.

I kinda dig that. It's a variation on the basic D&D theme, kind of akin to Spahn's Heroes Journey rpg. More emphasis on narrative and heroics and less on sword n sorcery tropes. 

[Deleted]

Jul 25, 2020 8:15:48 GMT -6 strangebrew said:

As of a few days ago the game pre-order was sold out on their website. I was thinking about buying it just out of appreciation for the excellent commercial for the RPG:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1By2mfv52I

Awww, too bad. I had not bought the game yet, as I dreaded the high shipping costs to Germany. That said, if it gets a second printing, I guess I'll be in - not for the game's worth itself, but because this is going to be ideal for a one-shot later on, especially if the movie is as good as I anticipate.

Not meant as a cheap plug, and I won't post the link here, but - you guys might remember that, back in the day, I wrote a Blackmoor d20 variation of the Arthurian legend of the Green Knight for the Zeitgeist Games MMRPG. So, not only have I spent some good time on the different older movies and books, but this is also as near and dear to my heart as it could possibly be. When I first stumbled over the new movie's trailer, I was so charmed that I watched it three times in a row.

[DungeonDevil]

Looks pretty weedy, even for a probable Mentzerclone.

[hamurai]

Jul 26, 2020 23:13:08 GMT -6 @rafael said:

Awww, too bad. I had not bought the game yet, as I dreaded the high shipping costs to Germany. That said, if it gets a second printing, I guess I'll be in - not for the game's worth itself, but because this is going to be ideal for a one-shot later on...

Same here. Let's hope there's a 2nd printing. Maybe then we'll even get it at some specialist store in Germany.

[Deleted]

It appears the booklet is available again, and I put my money where my mouth is - and bought it! If I ever run another convention game again, I will run this one.

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2020 12:17:10 GMT -6 DungeonDevil said:

Looks pretty weedy, even for a probable Mentzerclone.

Seems, well, perhaps not "weedy", but for sure this shouldn't be a boxed set. I hope they add a free digital copy, or something of the kind. Perhaps a discount on the movie ticket? - You know, that stuff. As it is, in a year, the first pirated digital copies are going to hit the shelves, and from then on, the "lightness" of this profuct will be universally criticized. - Myself, I see this as a collector's item. 50 bucks spent on something completely idle, in the year of the closed pubs.

[Aralaen]

I wish there was more preview detail, kind of hard to commit with out knowing more. A rules light Arthurian rpg is attractive though.

[hamurai]

So, since it was available again I ordered it. I just love those boxed sets.

I'm rather unsure about how I like it at the moment because after the first read-through of the very short rules section I have no clear idea how combat is resolved unless it's simply done as a very abstract "roll once to slay your enemy"-thing. It's not that I dislike abstractness here, but the rules could be clearer on that account.

If it's as I read it, the real difficulty in resolving encounters (non-combat ones, too) is how to do it quickly before accumulating too much dishonour, which is the only way to lose the game. That also means that in combat it's irrelevant if you combat the King of Dragons or a senile bandit, if you're trying to resolve the encounter with violence.

I can see this combat and the dishonour system working for some kind of adventures (race against time) or for more railroaded adventures, but in a sandbox setting you'll have make house rules. Also, the rules system pushes you to honourable (as in "chivalric knights" and "paladins") characters and I'm not sure how many folks want to play that way. Of course in actual play it may be interesting to have a conflicting party member along, but as that would mean more dishonour it may also mean a quick end to the adventure.

[Deleted]

Mine arrived today; still got to open it.

[hamurai]

Nice, let's discuss and see what you think about it.

[Deleted]

Hehe, that's the idea. Might take me a bit, though. Doing some forum work this weekend, already, might take until next week until I can sit down and look into it. Will supply some photos for the others, though.

[hamurai]

I've read through the rules again and "solo played" the first chapter with a single sorcerer character. It's strange to play a sorcerer without any spells as we're used to - every class gets 1 special ability, which can be a spell for the sorcerer, or the ability to sense magic and the supernatural, stuff like that.

I like that the adventure allows really many different approaches, from combat to diplomacy, and it's very clearly stated for newby DMs what the characters may try and what they'd have to roll. Also, what actions count as honourable or dishonourable.

My "playthrough":
[Dishonor starts at 10] My sorcerer comes across an overturned wagon, a fight scene, bandits have attacked peasants. I try to look for ambushers and botch my first roll [Dishonor +1; Dishonor 11], don't see the bandits waiting. The bandits approach him [encounter start, +1 Dishonor; Dishonor 12] to demand a toll, my character demands to be left to his quest and that the bandits leave the woods (skill check: Authority, I need a 12, equal to my Dishonor - natural 20, +ability bonus, +skill bonus;; aced it!)[succeeded at honourable action, -1 Dishonor; Dishonor 11] The bandit leader agrees and he and the bandits leave the woods. Encounter solved in 1 roll, in 1 turn, without combat. Very honourable, in game terms. [Dishonor goes down further]

That's a very board-game-like approach in solo play, of course, focus on the game mechanics. I do like that it encourages roleplaying, but the fact that every turn in an encounter punishes the players with 1 point of dishonour means that players may want to solve the encounters as quickly as possible, cutting the talking and getting down to the point. The DM will have to be careful how to measure time and turns - talking in-character here shouldn't be punished by moving forward the turn counter, but should be part of the turn, leading up to the skill check.

Immersion is broken a little by the "Judgment" phase after the encounter when the DM tells the players how their dishonour bar is adjusted according to their actions in the scene. But it can help players to get a feel for what's expected of them in game terms, to stay honourable.

The fact that combat cannot (per the rules in this starter set) result in death seems odd to me. In theory, you can fight as long as you roll well, because bad rolls advance the dishonor bar, meaning you might end up with 5 bad rolls (dishonour +5) in 5 turns (dishonour +5) and be done.

To make this thing into a true rpg which allows to play any kind of mission/adventure, you'd *have* to make house rules.

[hamurai]

And, as an addition: The character sheets include the question "Why did you strike down the Green knight?", so it's clear that they're intended for that one special scenario, I guess.

Maybe you'd need knowledge of the movie to be able to make true sense of this, for me it's a nice and weird opener to know my character did such a thing, which I had not expected, but I don't know what the Green Knight in this story is either, so my answering "Because he threatened my family" may or may not make sense in the overall story (I haven't read the adventure to the end).

[Deleted]

Having a first glance at the box:

While I appreciate the general style, and, of course, the story, this one lacks depth. The Honor system reminds me a lot of d20's Taint system, as presented in the involuntary classic, "Heroes of Horror". But beyond that, the box is so light on content that I have trouble writing a serious review, given that this so clearly is a non-serious product. No crime, no shame in that, but - change the format, make this a freebie for the first, whatever, thousand kids that go see the movie in theaters. For them, it will be the world. But for us veterans, this one holds no surprises.

Now, if you want to treat this like it's actually meant to be played, then the first glaring weakness is that the box doesn't really contain all too much useful material:

A 32-page booklet that includes the mini-system, and the mini-adventure -and an awful lot of blank space.

A green dice, shiny.

Four coloured character sheets.

A small overworld poster map, but - no key to that map.


The writing on the system and on the adventure is actually quite good - which begs the question why people decided to keep things so short. If this had included a real setting description, or, for that matter, a deeper look into the world of the movie - which could have been done with only a few pages more, or with redistributing the space inside those meager 32 pages - this could have become something way more worthwhile. Like, D&D fans usually don't need much to create a lot of content based on only meager directional and stylistic descriptions. But they need SOMETHING.

My impression is that this one is a good-hearted movie tie-in, perhaps made as a friendly joke, and perhaps of interest for "that guy who wants to get friends to try D&D if they enjoyed the movie". (And I'm talking about myself here. ) But I doubt that, as a product and by itself, this will gain any traction - unless the movie is a huge success. As it is, a sweet collector's item, and possibly a nice lightweight intro for RPG newbies, sure - but if you're looking for something to run, you might do better spending the same money on "Pendragon", or the like.