The Swedish/Scandinavian tabletop RPG favourite has finally been translated into English, allowing for more players worldwide to enjoy this experience. The original title of this game is Drakar och Demoner, which was the first and biggest TTRPG in Scandinavia, released back in 1982. Award-winning TTRPG games like Tales From the Loop, Symbaroum, Forbidden Lands and MÖRK BORG all originated from Drakar och Demoner. Now, to celebrate its 40th anniversary, they have translated the game to its English name, Dragonbane.
To preface, this is my first entry into Free League Publishing TTRPGs. However, this was not my first TTRPG experience. I have done multiple one-shots using mostly the Dungeons & Dragons 5E rules and scripts, among others. I will say the artwork and world-building were really exciting to read through and visualize it on paper. The Mallard kin/race was what really drew me to the game—I mean, who does not want to play an armoured Donald Duck-looking character?!
The artwork was illustrated by acclaimed artist Johan Egerkrans (Vaeson — Nordic Horror Roleplaying). The game design was birthed by the same team that did Mutant: Year Zero, Forbidden Lands and the Blade Runner RPG. The whole project began on Kickstarter and their goals were immediately funded in four minutes when the campaign started.
The cards included were a nice touch: Initiative Cards, Treasure Cards, Improvised Weapon Cards and Adventure Cards. It also had some character and enemy pieces to place on the included boards. These added a lot of value for me because I knew this was a way to streamline processes and add a lot of visuals for everyone. Of course, the Gamemaster (GM) could always use the cards more supplementary than as a necessity. As someone newer in the TTRPG world, I thought the physical cards were helpful for me (who was the GM for the first time during my adventures with Dragonbane).
The GM’s screen was also immaculately drawn and matched the green of the dice as well—the whole set screamed a lot of shimmering emerald colours. The map was probably my favourite touch to the game, displaying The Misty Vale in all its glory. It was a detailed visual to show my players where each adventure could take us, and show them how expansive this world was.
“Dragonbane is a lot different from the traditional TTRPGs out there, in that this one had a solo adventure included.”
In terms of mechanics and gameplay, the creators called this style of TTRPG a “mirth and mayhem roleplaying” game that offers players “fast and furious” gameplay, with little prep time and adventures that are quick to complete. It was also said to be versatile enough for long campaigns or one-shots for a quick night of fun.
Unfortunately, I found this to be the opposite case—but this may have been from overthinking as well. While I had a lot more experience with D&D 5E, Dragonbane was a whole new beast. My major gripe with the game was that I expected it to be easy to pick up and play with my cousins—based on the claims from the creators. Unpopular opinion: I found it was quite a lot to initially digest.
I found it may have been a hindrance that I learned the D&D way of rules, especially the way dice-rolling works. In D&D, rolling a 20 is really good and rolling a one is dangerous. In Dragonbane, it was the opposite. So, rolling at or below a character’s skills was good versus rolling over the skill level. They called rolling a one a dragon and a 20 a demon.
I got used to it because it made sense that you cannot perform over your character’s skill roll to perform things, but any number below that level is doable. I think this version of rolls is a lot more intuitive for those who have never played a TTRPG before. Otherwise, it could take getting used to.
“While I had a lot more experience with D&D 5E, Dragonbane was a whole new beast.”
Dragonbane is a lot different from the traditional TTRPGs out there in that this one had a solo adventure included. This was perfect for me to test out when my party was not available. The overall experience with the solo adventure called “Deepfall Breach” was definitely a lot easier to play, in my opinion—mainly because I was not sharing the rulebooks and such with others.
The solo adventure really taught me to use my imagination to its fullest because there was no storyteller at all. It was more of an off-the-cuff kind of imagining and thinking about what made sense. I will say my first mission in the Breach was rough, as three Goblins managed to one-shot kill me. But it also gave me liberty to respawn on my own terms and conditions.
As an overall take on the experience, I felt a little overwhelmed being the GM for the first time with the combat system and dice-rolling changes. So, I cannot fault the game for that. The storytelling was straightforward, but I thought the technical differences threw me off my game when trying to tell the stories of the adventures in Dragonbane. The combat system was a little different than I was used to, but I progressively understood it. While I do think it has a simple system in theory, I found it was a bit of a learning curve for beginners.
I would have loved it if there were at least two Rulebooks as well—one for the players and one for the GM (I am not a great memorizer). Or maybe the others will need to take pictures of pages they need to keep referring to. There is also an alternative to scanning pages and/or printing out pages ahead. But again, all this prep goes against the concept of having quick setup and gameplay methods. There were also little tip boxes throughout the adventures book to help the GM. I found this super helpful as it offered some additional direction.
For around $45, the game offers a lot more content than its price, though. While it may have taken a while to learn the system and intricacies of the game, Dragonbane created a lot of memories and anguish that made the whole experience enjoyable. Do not get me wrong, this may have been a challenge for me and my fellow adventurers to learn since we are fairly new, but we still appreciated the versatility of what was offered.
But I think I could feel the nostalgia for those more experienced in RPGs of this style and more like them. If you liked the other Free League Publishing games, this one should be just as enjoyable. My group and I will continue to finish out the Riddermound adventure and potentially dig into some of the other ones as well. We were thinking that each of us would take turns as GMs, running different adventures for us all, allowing us all to be adventurers.
