Warpland

I admit that I didn’t back the Kickstarter on this one. I wish I had. I’ve heard good things about it so I grabbed up a copy. I’m going to do this little in parts, the Rules and then setting.

First up, let’s talk about the rules. It’s got a nice little set of lite 2d6 rules based on a roll under your attribute mechanic. There are “skills” but they really aren’t skills. They are more like classes. From what I can gather from the brief rules, characters ability scores get better but when it comes to skills, it’s either you have it or don’t. Not really a scale. Damage is determined by margin of success modified by the weapon or hazard. All of this outlined in only a few pages in the book.

Since it’s a 2d6 based system, my first thought was to think about Barbaric! While Barbaric! is a rules light game, it is crunchier than the Warpland rules. But there’s some mechanics that be lifted from the Warpland rules and added to a Barbaric! game. Similar to my post on Barbaric! for Lemuria, the classes as skills concept could be modified and act as a replacement for the standard Barbaric! skills. Warpland also has a simpler but just about as deadly crit system based on the damage type. Easy to port over. There aren’t a lot of spells but once again with a little tweaking (adding a TN) then those to are easily converted. But because of the difference in mechanics, especially the way damage works and how much characters can take, it’d be more challenging to try to convert any monsters.

Yes, I know what some of you are thinking. Why not just play Warpland the way it is? Well, you can and you can have a good time doing it. But this leads me into the second part of this rant. The setting.

This is where Warpland really shines for me. The setting is a dark weird fantasy/post apocalyptic grim place. You’ve standard fantasy type stuff like magic and you’ve got forbidden technology that could get you burned at the stake.

What I really like about it is that it’s inspirational. There’s a simple map plus a few pages for each location. Most of those pages are used for random tables. It doesn’t lead you around and tell you what’s what but instead inspires both the players and the GM to make that specific game interesting. This takes up the bulk of the book and is pretty much system neutral. So like I was ranting about previously you could easily use it for Barbaric! or even whatever d20 based retroclone that you like such as OSE, Swords & Wizardry, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Hyperborea, or even with a polish Dungeon Crawl Classics. Personally, I’m looking at Hypreborea but more on that later.

Did I mention inspirational? Yeah, I did. I rarely comment on a game’s artwork but Warpland is really inspirational with a variety of really cool art.