Our group did a number of Zoom games during the lockdowns over the last year. One of the games was an RPG campaign DMed by me using Handiwork Games Beowulf game. We had a lot of fun with this very well put together and thematic RPG. It is based on early medieval epics such as the Anglo Saxon Beowulf, although there’s room for Danish, Slavic and Celtic heroes and even Irish Saints.
Beowulf is by Handiwork Games and is best described as a DnD 5e hack. They took the core 5e mechanism, hacked out a few bits and added different stuff. Gone are magic using PCs, DnD alignments, and character classes. Every PC is a hero, essentially a beefed up fighter and the only magic is run by the DM or NPCs. They have really bought into the early medieval theme and the world created holds up very well.Beowulf was designed to be run in tandem play, one DM and one Heroic PC with a number of NPC followers representing the heroes’ followers. However, we’ve run it using a party of up to four PCs and it’s worked very well. I just scaled back the follower NPCs and scaled up the bad guys as required
Sounds like not a bad way to pass a lock down.
ReplyDeleteIt worked very well over Zoom.
DeleteHi Peter,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to hear that you have been playing this! Are you still going?
A friend and I recently started to play. I am GMing and he is the hero. We are currently near the end of the free opening adventure. I would be very interested to hear what you did to pull together a campaign. It seems tricky to me as the rules are very focused on getting one monster then on to the next etc.
Thanks,
Ed
Hi Ed. We’ve completed three modules to date with more planned this fall. The full rule book has details on advancing the Hero, ship and followers. I didn’t track XP but have been going with the two full adventures to go up a level. So far m6 group of four heroes have bought into the world, the adventures and their characters. They’ve also started to make s9me permanent connections to some of the NPCs in the adventures.
DeleteSo far I don’t have a world map and only a vague idea where the various locales exist in relation to each other. The three to date have been fairly remote so that’s not a problem. In fact one is structured so that the Hero doesn’t know where they are or how to get back there!
Hi Peter,
DeleteThanks for the reply and the thoughts! I guess as we are enjoying the game it is time to purchase the full rules and some other adventures! I will admit I am new to GMing, I am hoping that I can weave some continuity into the different adventures to give a feeling of the world existing outside of the Hero's wack-a-monster life cycle. I have probably been spoiled by the recent glut of very well produced/GM'd RPGs that appear online etc. But I must admit, it is really nice to have a RPG setting that is not crazy high fantasy!
Best,
Ed
There seem to be too many settings that pack way too much into one package. Every adventure seems to come with X new character classes, Y new skills and Z new monsters. This one focus on a few things and gets them right. Generally the Beowulf adventures feature a Monster, but also on sorting out tithe resident NPCs post monster.
DeletePeter
Sounds like good dark age fun!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Exactly! Cheers Iain.
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