We ran our first Zweihander Reforged session last night, and though it is very early days for rules engagement, I’m pretty sure that I am going to like it. Here are my early thoughts as placeholders for when actual play firms up my views.
- The game chassis is my sweet spot of light/medium crunch and skill based, without a huge shopping list of over specific expertise areas.
- Core mechanics are familiar percentage based with simple blackjack for opposed tests. Warhammer success levels are good fun for a more detailed game, but I don’t really need them. Some very simple aiding and hindering mechanics plus result flipping gives you an agile and intuitive set of principles to play with.
- The three tiers of development are very straightforwardly set out as three careers, with complete flexibility in the way you progress.
- Characters start part way through their Basic Tier, with all their chosen career’s +10% skills already acquired. Along with the more generous base attribute starting percentages, your characters feel much more capable from the get go, and I sense that the level is a good place for the sort of games that I like to run.
- Ancestry as talents provide an impactful way of flavouring other peoples and cultures without over emphasising mechanical differences.
- Most of the later medieval vibe is captured in the professions and trappings. It would be very easy to set the game in other fantasy periods by reskinning the descriptions of the professions, possibly with some renamed talents, and adding a few classic trappings.
- There are a number of small mini games that I have yet to evaluate, but I like the way the game recognises some extra game play for core endeavours that crop up in sessions, such as journeys, chases and social intrigues.
I’ve worked quite hard to give my players a well detailed and sumptuous feel to the play setting. Some of the simpler and ‘basic’ elements of Foundry VTT enable that in a seamless way. The journal feature provides contextual background information to players without the necessity of filling play time with exposition. It’s just there as you need it. New information that comes through play can be added, or revealed as the game progresses.
The Foundry Zweihänder module is written for the earlier revised edition of the game. However, the flexibility of its design allowed me to add in the new skill list, talents, spells, and updated trappings to give a near perfect Reforged edition system. The module is attractive, presents characters well, and forms an excellent base for game mechanics in scene resolution.
On the technical side, I host my Foundry instance on Sqyre. The service has been excellent, and I’m very glad to have found them so early in their own development. They have matured very quickly, and I will be staying with them. I also marvel at how good the Livekit module is, delivering high quality webcams into the session. I wouldn’t be without it. My Linux desktop runs a decent enough OBS session, allowing me to stream the game to YouTube, which ran without a hitch. My Internet connection may be wet string by modern standards, but it holds enough bandwidth to make my sessions fly by, with thanks to the technical wizardry above.
Most importantly, we had some good laughs.
More thoughts to come as we play some more.