Symbaroum
Okay, so I stumbled into this one while scouring the interwebs for cool stuff, as we all are oft want to do. The art style drew my eye at first, very dark, very moody, and yet beautiful in a tantalizing way. But I'm not an artist, I'm a gamer, so I did what I always do:Find the Character Sheet
8 stats, an area for traits and abilities, damage tracking and something called corruption. Yep, liking what I see. No skills though, which I find interesting, but more on that later. From the look and the layout it appears to be rules lite to medium, which is my wheelhouse, so I'll give it a spin.
Luckily by the time I found Symbaroum it had already successfully crowdfunded (and I missed it, sad face) the English printing of this most excellent Swedish game. So that means I could jump right in. Picked up the PDF, and then decided to order the offset printing (which I should be getting soon, I hear it's beautiful).
Now I can't wait to see my book, but if it scans well (and from pictures I've seen it does) it will be amazing, as the PDF is awesome. And a native English speaker, I can say that the translation, while quirky at times, is well done, and I haven't noticed anything way off base in my perusal of the PDF. What I love about this book is all the setting information at the front, telling me a story and setting the mood before we even get to character creation and the rules. And man is the story a beast. Fallen empires, refugees from the south, barbarian tribes, amnesiac ogres, and on and on. All set in the backdrop of a larger, darker, less welcoming (if you can imagine) forest than Mirkwood. Davokar, I just love the sound of it.
When it comes to the language and the tone, and I'm not a linguist here so maybe I'm missing something, Symbaroum is very welcoming while at the same time mysterious. The feel of names, of people, of places, is organic, real in a way that some other fantasy games I have bought into (and love without a doubt) are not. Perhaps the names have meaning in Sweden, and I am missing something, but I don't really care, it works (though I'm sure I'm not pronouncing some of the names correctly in my head). Tonally, Symbaroum evokes more mystery and fear of corruption for me than The One Ring does, though I love ToR immensely, I guess I know a little too much about Middle Earth, whereas when it comes to Davokar, I am ignorant, and while not blissful, it is delightful.
I realize that I am being vague about the setting, and while part of that is I don't want to step on any toes, a larger part is that I simply don't know how to convey the feelings I am having as I read it. Grim, gritty, dark, it is all of these, but there is also a sense of wonder, of exploration, and of yearning that I can't seem to tack down. It's in the language, and the art, and it speaks.
So, if you want to get a better handle on the setting, you need to pick this thing up and not read it, but experience it, for yourself.
But what about the system you say? Is it any good?
I believe it is.
System is always the difficult part I find when having discussions with other gamers, and people have their likes and their like nots. For my part, I am digging the system of Symbaroum. It is simple, light (to medium once you start racking up abilities), and familiar. Does it use a d20? Yes. Is it a d20 game?
Absolutely not!
I feel more Fate Accelerated Edition in Symbaroum than D&D or Mathfinder (kidding, but not kidding). You have 8 attributes that you use to do everything. And what's really interesting?
They never increase.
The stats you have at the beginning of a campaign are the ones you have at the end, unless there are some major magics or horrible catastrophes happening (of which, to be clear, there are no in book examples) to change them. So how does your character develop then. Through their abilities, all of which have three levels, from Novice on up. Classes? Nope (I mean they're in the book, but they are more like guidelines than actual classes, you'll see). Levels? Nope. Earn some experience, and increase your abilities, or learn some new ones. Or, use your experience in a pinch to survive (something that I won't go into more detail on, but I really love).
So, to do something you have to role under your stat. This I am beginning to like more and more. It is elegant, to not have to have lists of endless modifiers memorized or written down, just roll under. That isn't to say there isn't the occasional modifier in the game, but again, it is pretty simple, add it to the stat, and then roll under.
Symbaroum also goes down an interesting road by making the players do all the rolls. You are attacking? Roll. You are being attacked? Roll to defend. And this is accomplished with a very intuitive swap of an attribute to a modifier that I won't summarize here, but cause if I did, you could basically play the game without ever looking at the rules.
What really makes your character, aside from your attributes, is your abilities. Each ability (and some traits which you get from race selection) is tiered, granting increasing, and sometimes different, effects with each level of mastery. Even mystical powers are structured this way, although spellcasters have to beware corruption more than most. When, as some other reviewers have pointed out, most of the abilites are oriented towards physical conflict (read simply, combat), I don't look at this as a failing. Do I need a system to convince someone to surrender, or to charm a wandering merchant to give me a better price? No, that is what roleplaying is for. But that is a topic for another time, suffice it to say that while some find Symbaroum lacking in the arena of "social conflict" I would say that if you are roleplaying, this is not an issue.
All in all, I can't wait to dive into Symbaroum, and plan to run a couple sessions (if I can get players) at my next local RPG day. Should you give it a look? Yes, I think you should. That is all for now.
As I see other reviewers reference this, I will say that I was not provided a copy of Symbaroum in any way for this review. I bought it of my own free will, and review it of the same.
Happy Gaming!
