Strange Materials
Approximate time to read: 1 minutes. Material (Core, p130) happens to be one of those elements in the Core Rulebook that probably dropped off every table’s […]
Rules
Q & A: Whips and Chains
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. What follows is a couple of recently asked questions about Symbaroum’s tangled mechanics, where I’ve come back with a solid […]
Assistance & Failure
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. A question was posed on Reddit about tests: In a Vigilant test for searching tracks or Cunning to remember something, […]
Accurate Is My Dump Stat
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. It seems to be a clarion call for the existing Symbaroum players to call out this much-maligned Attribute. You have […]
Embracing Symbaroum
Approximate time to read: 7 minutes. In gaming, as with so many other hobbies and pastimes, there are different views and perspectives of what works, what […]
Calculating Defense
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. It’s one of those challenges. While all the books come with the details of your antagonists laid out, you still […]
Deep Connections
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. Those more used to games that service party building through mechanical reward or for which association comes through engineering selection, […]
Herbal Cures
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. Alchemists and masters of herbal arts prepare cures to many and varied recipes, none ever alike. All come in the […]
Words of Power
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. Information can be everything and nothing, depending on how you look at it. Perhaps, in some unintentional way, the use […]
Davokar in minimald6
Approximate time to read: 1 minutes. I find that tinkering with ideas can be a wellspring for creative thought, so I read the short text of […]
Trust in a Promised Land
Approximate time to read: 6 minutes. Introductory adventure The Promised Land, from the Core Book, offers an interesting opportunity to deal with the themes and environment […]
Experience Points
Approximate time to read: 6 minutes. You won’t get your players to spend their experience on anything during a session if it isn’t burning a hole […]
More Monstrous Boons
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. When the Monster Codex arrives in the middle of next year, Symbaroum will have more than enough beasts and monsters […]
The Taint of Corruption – part 4
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. The Advanced Player’s Guide introduces further Mystical Traditions to lend further depth and variety to the study of the arcane […]
The Taint of Corruption – part 3
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. The treatise on matters of corruption and the debilitating burden of the magic arts continues, with an account of Independent […]
The Taint of Corruption – part 2
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. Continuing the treatise upon the manifestations and management of corrupting energies by the Traditions of Ambria and beyond – see […]
Symbaroum on the Cards
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. I’ve touched on the business of the Zero Level character before and the pleasures to be had in the process […]
The Taint of Corruption – part 1
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. The stain of Corruption is a reality for any practitioner of the mystic arts, or for those braving artefacts or […]
Arms of Quality
Approximate time to read: 6 minutes. Mechanics don’t necessarily need to make perfect sense, but when they don’t a game can often descend into a much […]
The Lies That Bind
Approximate time to read: 7 minutes. The PCs come to a settlement where many of the population have gathered in the centre to listen to the […]
Arrows and Quivers
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. The business of arrows and quivers in Symbaroum doesn’t seem ready to slink into the background. In a Reddit discussion […]
L is for Long Doors
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. The rules aren’t the same wherever you go; the world just doesn’t work that way and will throw you a […]
I is for Identity Magic
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. The act of stealing the identity of another can only come from violence. The assumption of the physical appearance of […]
G is for Gaoian Mysticism
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. Witches of the barbarian tribes embrace the traditions of the Old Gods, discounted or blasted as heretical by the church of […]
D is for Despair and Dismay
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of […]
B is for Boons and Burdens
Approximate time to read: 6 minutes. The nicest thing about Boons and Burdens, introduced in the Advanced Player’s Guide, has to be that they have a […]
No Unpleasant Surprises
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. Newcomers to any game have a lot of questions to ask and I hope those who already play those games can […]
What’s a Scene?
Approximate time to read: 2 minutes. The basis of an adventure in Symbaroum, a Scene stands as a means to determine the ‘value’ of an adventure […]
Quick Arrow Reclamation
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. The Symbaroum Advanced Player’s Guide (APG) includes a whole selection of optional mechanics in the Alternative Rules section. Some will work for […]
Casting Checks
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. Someone put forward the following question on Reddit around the use of Mystical Powers in Symbaroum. Hey guys. Quick question […]
Who You Know
Approximate time to read: 6 minutes. While the Contacts Trait appears in the Symbaroum Core Book as a Trait, generally associated with the player’s choice of […]
Favor and Disfavor
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. Symbaroum has a simple system for handling the challenges presented to characters. When challenged directly, players roll against one of […]
Just the Battle, Not the War
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. Even the richest crop feeds on decay For the last two nights, I ran a bit of an improvised game […]
The Ordo Septimus
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. While just a region of a wider world, the aberrant nature of Davokar makes Ambria all the more dangerous place […]
Heirlooms and Legacies
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. The Player’s Handbook offers the option to enhance your starting equipment with an Heirloom. Essentially, you can choose a weapon […]
X is for Xavagunda
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. Grumpa, a lost and bewildered ogre, was adopted by a traveling theater company, which had her do the heavy work […]
U is for Undead
Approximate time to read: 6 minutes. Death is not an option. Or, at least, sometimes you don’t want it to be something thrust upon a player […]
R is for Rogues and Ruffians
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. The imperative of Queen Korinthia and her government to assign every colonist to specific areas and even specific roles has fostered […]
A is for Attributes
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. The eight individual Attributes make up the core of Symbaroum’s mechanics. When you challenge yourself or face a challenge you complete a […]
Dice Clocks
Approximate time to read: 7 minutes. When you have a team of people working together to achieve a specific objective, it can come down to the […]
One-Shot Symbaroum
Approximate time to read: 3 minutes. One-shot quick-start games matter a lot. If you can sit down and run something with only 15 minutes of warm-up […]
Flanking Focus
Approximate time to read: 4 minutes. Symbaroum benefits from a loose mechanical framework that means you get just enough structure to run the game without the […]
Rough Travel in Symbaroum
Approximate time to read: 5 minutes. It’s dangerous to go alone… Take this bit of advice and work with it. The lands of Ambria might seem […]
Ansel Redefined
Approximate time to read: 2 minutes. Google+ user Sushi Bacon highlighted concerns about the Defense score for pre-generated character Ansel, the Theurg of the Church of […]
The Practice of Alchemy
Approximate time to read: 2 minutes. Alchemy – the practice of the preparation of elixirs – does not conform to or depend upon the strictures and […]
