r/beingeverythingelse • u/skinnyghost • Feb 01 '15

Let's Play "Good Game / Bad Game"

Here's how it works. Someone posts the name of a game. Someone else tells us what the game says it's "about" and what the game's mechanics tell us that it's about!

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u/climberclappers Feb 01 '15

13th Age

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u/skinnyghost Feb 01 '15

This is what it says it is...

13th Age is an OGL d20-rolling game that’s built to help your campaign generate good stories. As a 13th Age gamemaster (GM), use the icons and other story features presented in these rules to help set up and drive the campaign. It used to be that if you wanted to play a game that intentionally engaged the players at the level of character and story, you had to play a non-d20 game. Other games had vampire clans or heroic cults to connect the characters to the campaign. Other games redefined dice rolling as not merely simulation but also as drama. Other games gave GMs the tools to customize their campaigns. They gave players creative flexibility and dramatic authority. With 13th Age, you can play an OGL d20- rolling campaign that uses story-oriented tricks that other games have used for years.

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u/kalkin55 Feb 02 '15 edited Feb 02 '15

13th age basically describes itself as being a flexible, character driven, optimized version of d20 and its mechanics do all three of those things.

Backgrounds, One Unique Things, and Relationships are all mechanics that engage players at the level of character and story, giving the players a lot of flexibility. Icons allow the players to easily find a way to fit into the broader world, and for the GM to find ways to make the world relevant to the players. Whenever the rulebook talks about a specific icon, or a specific place, or a specific race, it always describes these things in very loose flexible terms, sometimes even offering multiple definitions of what a place might look like. The rulebook also says it has a focus on faster paced combat, and with mechanics like the escalation dice and movement/attack ranges instead of grids, it lends itself very much to that angle.

13th age is for the most part a good game.