Blue Rose: the Kickstarting

Blue Rose is now a-Kickstarter-ing. As promised, they've dropped the (justly praised) True20 mechanics for their new AGE rule set. I can certainly understand how that makes sense from a business standpoint, and while AGE isn't the rules I'd go to for this project, I can also see how this will nicely expand what they've built for their Dragon Age pen-and-paper RPG.

There's a bit of blah-blah about how brave and edgy the game was. Of course, I don't read Green Ronin's hate-mail, but I was pretty active on Big Purple in those days. Mostly what I remember were complaints about how the humans of Aldis were slaves to some bizarre magical deer who picked their rulers. Even worse, in the eyes of many, was the fact that this magical deer supposedly rooted out treachery and corruption. In the “perfect” kingdom of Aldis, what was there for heroes to do?

I was generally of the opinion that these complaints were a bit overblown, since the setting seemed a perfectly playable version of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar with the serial numbers filed off. Still, it looks like they've tackled that issue with their “framework” stretch goals. Even if they don't get published, they should give DMs ideas on what sorts of things you can do with the setting.

And I suspect at least a few of the stretch-goals will be hit, considering they're more than halfway to their original goal now, on the first day of the Kickstarter. Here's hoping we get a fun game that takes a slightly different perspective on the whole High Fantasy genre. I'm not sure I want them to bother selling it to the uninitiated or not, but I certainly don't want them to sell out the genre they're aiming to emulate. There's a lot more to “Romantic Fantasy” than just talking animals and gay characters.