The DEATHBRINGER RPG Kickstarter, err, Backerkit is up and running

 

Can't rally argue with that art ...

Sure, I'll hype it because it looks interesting, I've been hearing about it for years, and I like what I see of the guy running it. It feels a little like Spaceballs - it's Deathbringer: The Crowdfunding!

I like a lot of what Professor DM puts out there. He's a YouTube guy but don't hold that against him. He's of a similar vintage as some of us who have been doing this for a while and he's not just there to hype the latest thing for D&D - he may be big on hyping his own thing now, and he's definitely a D&D type game guy, but he's not a big WOTC guy, and he also doesn't push everything OSR as the one true way. 

I know guys who used to draw stuff like this in high school

I was already interested in this one but I will say that playing Dungeon Crawl Classics for a while now has me even more interested. Taking the old school basics and customizing them in some significant ways is far more interesting to me (and rewarding to play) than just re-editing the same damn rules we were all playing 40+ years ago. I have that already - do something new with it! I think we have a great example here.

His whole approach is less rule-mongering and more doing things in the game. I appreciate that. There is a lot of stuff that has built up over the years in D&D type games  - and others too - that is mostly there because it's been there in prior editions and more rules and clutter are hung off of these parts with every update. One great example of clearing a section is the combat zone/"Ultimate Dungeon Terrain" thing he uses:

He typically shows this on a lazy susan in the middle of a table so it can be rotated by players as needed. Notice the change here from modern D&D - we're not counting squares. It's a simple question of "how close are they?" with three possible answers. Now this is not the first game to use abstract distances, range bands, etc. but it's presented here as a concrete physical representation that facilitates play in a big way. To me that's useful. For some games I like counting my squares or hexes and drawing my maps but sometimes this approach would save a lot of time. Mutants & Masterminds, to get away from the dungeon for a minute, uses a similar concept when it comes to ranges and I could definitely see using a diagram or layout like this the next time I run that game. Would I use it for a 4th Edition D&D game? No. Traveller? Maybe. Champions? Not sure. It's a useful concept that's easily ported to other games.

Some other points I liked:

• You get three "death dice" to use during a session to add to rolls. They're d6's, they refresh every session and there's no carrying them over. This is clearly very bennie-like ala Savage Worlds but I like bennies so  I like this.
• Initiative: Straight from the KS page - whoever started the fight goes first, then their side; players declare actions clockwise, then everyone rolls at once. Simultaneous fights resolve as chaotic mass rolls. We've been playing around with ideas on initiative here so I like seeing a set of rules - especially a D&D type game - that doesn't get hung up on individual initiative. It's become a very "set" element in games these days and I'm convinced there is a lot of room to experiment. 
• Death: it can happen a lot in a combat-heavy D&D type game so why not do something fun with it? Here he spells out 3 stages:
• First time dying gets you a scar and something called a Prestige Talent which buffs your character
• Second time means you're "maimed" and get another talent
• Third time, well, you're about to be dead but you get one final action that's an automatic crit success. 
  
  Awesome! I like these a lot!

So I see a lot to like here with multiple concepts that distinguish it from Yet Another B/X Game. I also see a few things some people may not like:

• It's a class and level, armor class and hit point system, d20 based. It's fine by me but I know that's not attractive to some. I see that it goes to level 20 and my feeling is that 10 would probably be enough but the ridiculous over-the-top vibe here probably demands 20 levels.
• The contributing writers for the adventures at least are all YouTubers. Some of them have a track record of published material but some of them ... I don't know.
• The rewards are ... also ridiculously over the top. Shirts, jackets, posters, dice (multiple sets), pins of the class archetypes (?) ... yeah that's a red flag for "Crowdfunding Success" as it's a bunch of crap no one actually needs to play the game but pads out the KS $$$ figures. I get it, I won't begrudge someone making money but these are the kinds of items that tend to get delayed or screwed up in some way that tarnishes the whole effort and to have that many of them ... it's not great. 

Finally there's the timeline: They state Spring 2027 to deliver final PDFs and Summer 2027 to ship the printed material. Well, I'd love that to pan out - but I wouldn't count on it. PDM has been running Deathbringer for people for years but now they're going to be putting it out for playtesting to backers and I suppose we will see how that goes. 

Now I don't want to seem all down on this - one of the things I do like about it that I haven't mentioned is that there is a definite point of view here. From the tone - which you can detect from the art alone I would say - to the philosophy of make it faster and make it more exciting and action-oriented - I like it when a game designer has a well-defined concept of what they want a game to do. I am excited to see this coming out and I will probably back it at some level and I will try running it for my crew with whatever version of the rules I can get ahold of. It looks like a lot of fun and I hope the whole thing goes well and in a year I can say "wow what a great effort  and a great game.