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Sunday, February 1, 2015

Mini Review - Far Away Land ("Adventure Time" Styled Fantasy heartbreaker)


Sometimes when you check out the most recent free releases on RPGNow, you start a journey that leads you to an awesome not free release. Such is my story when it comes to Far Away Land.

You see, when I stubbled across Far Away Land RPG Adventures: Journey Into the White I was intrigued by the cover
art. It seemed old school D&Dish with quirky as hell art. As it was PWYW, I was able to peek for free. And peek i did. And it was good. Short, but good. It also seemed to be sandboxie, which I like.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I almost bought the core book in print with PDF for $25, but then I saw the Tome of Awesome, which is core plus 3 expansions, was $35. Damn it! Yes, I'm in.

So, what is the system like? It reminds me a bit of a hybrid of Old School D&D, Tunnels & Trolls, Adventure Time and a bit of crazy. It is a D6 system where you roll a pool of dice and just keep the highest roll. Fairly simple. Pools are based on one of three Stats - BRT (Strength / Con), DEX (er, dex) and WIT (Int / Wis / Cha rolled into one) and Boons (think skills like melee for combat, arcane for spell casting, subterfuge for picking locks and dealing with traps - you get the idea) and Flaws (narrowly defined disadvantages.) Armor absorbed damage (much like T&T), there are hit points, levels and spell levels (the spell list certainly hues close to D&D.)


The art is simply amazing to my eyes. You'll either love it or hate it. I love it. It captures the quirkiness of the system and the setting (from the little I've read of the setting.) I've only read the actual core rules thus far - there is so much more to dig through.

The PDF looks nice on my tablet, but I'l be waiting for my print copy before digging to0 deep. Still, really enjoying whatI've read so far.

There are 4 mini adventures available for Far Away Land priced at PWYW as well as a print and play Pawn Pack. This may be one of the rare times I'll use minis while running a game via Roll20.

I'll do a follow up review once I read thru the setting material.

11 comments:

  1. I looked into this before it came out. One thing that intrigued me about this game was that there was an NPC race inspired by the movie "Zardoz"-- which goes to show how gonzo it can get.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zardoz!

      ...whoa. Awesome. They have my attention.

      Delete
  2. Looking forward to your review, this looks like loads of fun!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zardoz...hell yeah! Can we get Vartox in there as well?

    Looks like more fun than D&D by a boot and a half.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd never heard of Vartox, had to look him up, D.C. sure has had some wild and crazy characters! : )

      Delete
    2. They were a lot of fun before they started taking super heroes seriously.

      Delete
  4. Erik maybe this could be our next game after Blood Island? I'd like to try it at least...

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you follow the first link, you can read a conversation between the publisher and a buyer with a defective product.

    The good news is, The publisher seems to be Old School (like L.L. Bean) and dead set on making things right for the guy.

    Seems like another reason to give them money.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I watched their web series. Totally fun! Halberd in action, Yes!

    ReplyDelete

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