Dare you wake the dragon? Fantasy Dice is a roleplaying system to make gaming fun without dumbing it down. Fast paced, highly tactical and low effort for use with your own games. Create NPCs with a single stat. Roll dice, but skip the math. Everything is fast and simple, but there is plenty of depth and tactical choice. There are social conflict rules. Advise for how to run your games and much, much more.
Crimson Exodus is a complete roleplaying game using the Fantasy Dice system with a sword and sorcery feel to it and gives you a big sandbox with everything you need to play. Don your chain hauberk, pick up your sword and shield and join the fray – make it a big shield if you’re going troll hunting.
If this place has been quiet it is only because everyone has been too busy creating lots of new stuff, so be prepared for interesting times ahead.
We are very pleased to announce that Chronicle City, founded by industry veteran Angus Abranson, will carry Radical Approach books. What this means is a much bigger distribution and getting the books into your local gaming stores.
Angus Abranson has a lot of experience and with several great roleplaying lines already signed up it looks set to achieve its tagline as “The New Capital of Gaming”. Geek Native takes a look inside Chronicle City in an interview with Angus Abranson, and a promising new free quarterly e-magazine called The Gazebo has also just launched with an interview on page 37.
I’m calling upon all players, readers and gamers with opinions to tell me how you want triggers to work in your game.
I’m conducting a poll on the Radical Approach forum. Join in and take part, or leave a comment here.
 The Crimson Exodus adventure Four Orcs and a Dwarf got some great playtesting this weekend for the four day roleplaying convention at Indiecon in Dorset (UK). A really friendly and fun convention supporting indie games. The perfect place to try new ideas and learn from other creative minds.
The Four Orcs and a Dwarf adventure for Crimson Exodus prepared for the first session of the con.
For more pictures, or to share your own impressions of the con or the game visit the forum.
 Radical Approach now has a forum over at UK Role Players. Just a friendly corner of the web where you can discuss Crimon Exodus, Trauma, Fantasy Dice and anything roleplaying related.
A one page primer is now available for download for the Fantasy Dice roleplaying system used in Crimson Exodus and soon to be published as a stand alone system.
This is in no way a complete representation or summary, but intended to explain – briefly – the most fundamental concepts that everything builds on.
It does showcase some of the new features that will be presented in the updated version of Fantasy Dice. In this particular case special roll results of exceptional failure when rolling all ones, and exceptional success when rolling three or more twelves.
A couple of posts back I mentioned the new Fantasy Dice book that will present the system used in Crimson Exodus without the setting.
However, in this post I want to talk briefly about the Crimson Exodus setting. Crimson Exodus does cater for a wide range of fantasy gaming styles depending on where in the world you set your campaign. It leaves room for you to add your own ideas and make your own interpretations. You might play barbarian raiders plundering the Empire and hunting trolls, pirates terrorising the Rocky Seas, intrepid explorers scavenging the dangerous ruins of the Serpent Empire, orcs invading the Heartlands, or you might play the game of thrones as nobility of the Bardur Kingdoms.
However, it is not a generic fantasy setting. In the west you have a crumbling Empire from where heartless elven lords have ruled men for a millennia. The dwarves of the Fell Mountains are not only mean with the axe, but masters of sorcery and the guardians of ancient lore. Orcs are not evil minions, but savage, tribal creatures – brutal, but capable of compassion. There are arcane forces that can be controlled through sorcery, witchcraft and the black arts, but magic is feared, poorly understood, requires effort or sacrifice, and is for the most part quite subtle.
Fantasy Dice does all this very well, but it can work as well for a historical medieval setting as for a fantasy setting. The Fantasy Dice book can also be used as a player guide as it does not have any of the setting material that a game master might not want the players to know about.
If you wish to learn more about the Crimson Exodus setting you can check out:
This book is crammed full of stuff. It has all you could need in the core, and then some. And even with all of the wonderful ideas, it is still written as to not be overly done. A GM has lots of room to play with the setting and system.
Crimson Exodus has a review up on RPGNet by Steven Lindsey. This is the second review of Crimson Exodus after David Vershaw’s review on RPGNow, and Steven has written a comprehensive review that touches on each chapter of the book.
I want to quote the description of the core mechanic in his words.
The basic mechanic for Crimson Exodus is Attribute # of Skill Die type of dice vs. a Target Number. For example if you have a Spirit of 3 and a Witchcraft of d10 a basic Witchcraft roll for you would be 3d10 vs. a TN that the GM comes up. The TN can range from an easy difficulty of 2 to an insane difficulty of 12. A player rolls his dice and the highest number is his roll. What adds a lot of tactical style to this mechanic is that players are allowed to scale their dice pools up or down. If the witch in the example needs to try to hit a TN of 12, 3d10 would make the feat impossible, but the player can scale the dice up to d12 by losing a die. Thus the 3d10 becomes 2d12 making the action plausible. It works the other way also, if it seems the action is more simple, say a TN of 4, the player can take the 3d10, and make them 4d8 or even 5d6 to have a better chance of succeeding. However, the higher above the TN you roll the better success you get, and the lower you roll in a failure the worse the outcome. This system of dice tradeoffs and levels is what truly makes the system shine; the rest of the game works in tandem with this system to create layers of outcomes including a social conflict system that uses the DICE system to affect an NPCs attitude and responses. So far I really like the system in this game. It allows a lot of player control, and it promotes a lot of tactical thinking while keeping the complexity of the game down.
The summary of the review is as follows.
I really like Crimson Exodus. The races are all interesting and add a lot to the creation of characters. I do find the setting to be a bit basic, but sometimes that is exactly what I am looking for so I can mold it to my ideals. The system is what truly makes the game shine. I like the simple DICE mechanic alongside the Trigger system that is like a less complex aspects system of FATE. I would be extremely interested in seeing sourcebooks for this game that expand on the setting.
Crimson Exodus is available as PDF, softcover and hardcover at RPGNow.
The Fantasy Dice roleplaying game system used by Crimson Exodus is being edited for release as a stand-alone game system. Fantasy Dice is quite unlike any other system I have come across, and by releasing it as a separate book I hope it will encourage people to try it for their favourite setting. Also, if you have written your own setting or adventure, and you are looking for a game engine then Fantasy Dice might be for you.
As part of the new Fantasy Dice book I wanted to see if I could improve on the character sheets. They will remain largely the same, but have been expanded to take advantage of the full size of the page without the Crimson Exodus banner at the top. This has resulted in much needed space for enemies and allies, characteristics, aspirations and skills. There is still a bit of space above experience points, and I would love to hear any suggestions for how you would like the character sheet to look.
 Since dawn of time
the Mahada have hunted.
Beast and orc alike.
Now they clash with men
as the last of their kind
flee north to the Heartlands.
Presenting the Panthermen.
A new Fantasy Dice race
for Crimson Exodus
the roleplaying game, or
use in your own setting.
Mahada is available now from RPGNow and DriveThruRPG in full colour both as electronic PDF and dead tree saddle stitch binding. The PDF version also contains a white background version for those who prefer that and for easy printing.
The wonderful cover is by the talented Marie Tary.
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