Dragonbane (Drakar och Demoner) Review
The rain is oppressive and hasn’t stopped for a week. Moggee struggles down the path, the faint orange glow being the only guide she needs. She is close now; she can feel it. Riches, adventure, and maybe salvation…
The church stands dark against the glow coming from the earth. As she approaches, Moggee can see its ruined state. Holes in the roof, half a section caved in, and unturned graves. Still, part of it looks sound enough to shelter her from the rain that has cursed her since she left Outskirt.
Dragonbane (also known by its Swedish name Drakar och Demoner) is a fantasy roleplaying game by the excellent Swedish RPG shop, Free League. Inspired by earlier editions of Drakar och Demoner, you can easily feel the love and care that Free League put into Dragonbane.
Dragonbane was successfully kickstarted last year and included a solo scenario and rules inside its core box set. I was unable to resist such an attractive deal and backed it. It arrived about a month ago and I’ve been busy making characters and launching into a solo campaign.
All in all, it’s a fantastic fantasy RPG with well-thought-out solo rules and an evocative setting worth checking out, but how does it compare against the numerous other fantasy RPGs out there?
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| Seriously the box set is amazing! |
What do you need to play?
This is an easy one. The only thing you need to play is the box set! Now, I’d suggest getting the physical set, as it is very well done. Beautiful art covers two books, one player-focused and one GM-focused. It also comes with character sheets, blank and filled-in, cardboard standees with stands, cards, awesome green dice, the solo supplement, a map, and a small gridded battle map. It's all packed in there somehow.
It’s such a nice setup and it has everything you need to get started except for a pencil. The PDFs are nice also and they come with all the above just in digital form.
That being said, this is not a game you could bring with you on an airplane, you'd probably struggle with the two books, maps, and supplements that are needed to reference when you play. I guess you could play it digitally on the go, but it is definitely a more complex game than something like Stoneburner or Ironsworn.
If I had to pick I'd recommend playing Dragonbane physically with everything laid out on a table, if you can manage that.
Design and Feel
Illustrated by Johan Egerkrans, Dragonbane is an incredibly well-done book and exactly what you’d expect from the folks over at Free League. Every card and page is well-designed and evocative. It’s hard to fault anything design or art-wise in this game.
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| Love the art! Credit: Free Leauge Publishing |
Character Creation
Creating a character in Dragonbane is more or less similar to other fantasy-style RPGs. The world of Dragonbane has a few of the standard groups of people (called kin), such as humans, orcs, and elves. It also has duck kin (called Mallards) and wolfkin, for something a bit different.
Next, you pick a class, which again has many of the standard fantasy classes. That gives you the items you’ll be starting with. You then roll for attributes and for your personality. Nothing unusual here, but the main call out is the simplicity of the character creation, which can cut both ways.
It’s easy and painless to get a character up and running in as little as 15 minutes. But with that, you’ll have far fewer options than Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. To some people, that is a benefit, and to others a bane. It just depends on your play style.
I created Moggee, a Mallard Hunter who was good at shooting her bow and could befriend an animal to delve alongside her.
How it Plays
The coffin lid shifts and a bony hand emerges. Then another, and another. The lid is picked up and cast to the side and two dusty skeletons emerge, wearing rusty armor and wielding rusty weapons. Moggee readies herself for combat.
Dragonbane uses a roll-under system with a d20. So each of your skills will be given a score such as 4 or 14. When it comes time to make a check, you’ll roll a d20 and if you get that number or under, you succeed. It’s that simple. No adding modifiers or any mental math, you know if you pass or fail right away.
There are also rules for pushing your roll and for boons and banes (advantage and disadvantage). These add a bit more complexity to normal rolls. Combat also generally follows these rules and is smooth.
Now the solo rules are very well done. Written by Shawn Tomkin of Ironsworn and Starforged fame, the solo rules are separate from the rules in the main two books. It provides rules and tips for playing Dragonbane solo, but what I really like is the solo adventure that is provided.
The solo supplement is called Alone in Deepfall Breach and it revolves around taking a character through five missions. The missions are only half defined, leaving enough for you to fill in more in your solo experience.
It is also separate from the story of the main game, so you could take a character through Deepfall Breach and then do the main story with friends. It’s a pretty interesting way to present solo rules, and I’d encourage more designers to look at it for inspiration.
How it Ends
Trudging down the stairs leads Moggee into a shaft, thick with mist. Moggee carefully descends and feels the floor has turned into a soft spongy material. Not wanting to look down, but having to, Moggee sees what she fears. Fresh corpses line the floor. Where are they from? What kin? How did they get here? Moggee tries not to think about it but continues downward.
Dragonbane doesn’t end, not really. Deepfall Breach has five missions but each mission could easily last you hours. Once those are finished, Dragonbane has a ton of additional content or you could go and explore the world of the Vale as long as you’d like to.
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| Credit Free League Publishing |
Should You Buy this Game, and Who is it for?
Dragonbane looks great, reads great, and has good solo rules, but is it worth a purchase over the huge number of fantasy RPGs out there? Maybe and maybe not, that depends on what you are looking for. It is a smooth experience with well-thought-out rules.
One positive is the physical box is amazing and incredibly done with everything you’d need to play. If you like playing solo games physically, and not just digitally, it may be a great buy for you.
The solo rules are also a highlight if you are looking to play a solo campaign (and you probably are if you are reading this blog).
Beyond that, I feel Dragonbane may get lost amongst the sea of good, but not excellent, fantasy games out there. I can’t fault it for anything, but lots of it also doesn’t stand out as excellent.
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