Review: Tales of Argosa

“I bought it so I could look at it and imagine what it would be like to have friends to play with.” – Wizard Deadloss

In a nutshell: D&D-adjacent swords and sorcery RPG from Pickpocket Press, which describes it as an "emergent play adventure game". 265 page PDF, $25 or so here at time of writing; hard and soft covers also available.

The introduction says "Adventures are short, sharp, and focused on dangerous wilds, treacherous cities, fierce battles, ruinous magic, fabulous treasures, & cosmic weird."

Intentionality

For a while now, I've been craving some Old School fantasy, likely to replace the 40-year-old OD&D game which recently petered out. I'm pretty much reconciled to that new game being solo; of my four current players, one will only play SF, and two won't have anything to do with class-and-level games, while attempts to set up or join another regular group have failed. Maybe some sort of open-table game night would work?

Meanwhile, earlier this year, I dabbled in SWADE plus the Fantasy Companion, and (off-camera) Shadowdark plus Solodark, and read/watched videos about Nimble, but none of those felt quite right.

Then I learned about Tales of Argosa from the Books, Bricks & Boards YouTube Channel, and the first couple of videos about it piqued my interest enough to download the assorted free samples from DriveThruRPG; the playtest rules, assorted pregen PCs, a couple of adventures, GM screen and character sheets. The freebies were enough to persuade me to buy the actual rules, at least as a PDF, and here we are.

What's Familiar?

The core game is a d20 variant with a collection of good ideas, some new, some pilfered from the many other D&D-a-likes that have cropped up over the decades.

• Mostly random character generation, mostly familiar characteristics, races, and classes, random backgrounds, standard gear allocation by character class.
• Mostly familiar gear, encumbrance using slots rather than actual weight, abstracted lifestyle expenses. Weapons made of special metals bypass resistances of certain monsters. Black powder weapons tucked away at the back as part of the naval combat rules.
• Mostly familiar checks for attributes, attacks, etc. Advantage and disadvantage on rolls. Fumbles and critical successes. Opposed checks.
• Mostly familiar d20 combat, with group initiative, morale checks, conditions, and healing. Slightly unusual, but less so these days: Range bands, "exploits" like cracking skulls together or throwing enemies off cliffs, "rescues" (once per adventure, negate an adverse event for another character).
• Mostly familiar spell lists, except the names are different. Fortunately, the "traditional" name is listed in the description, so you know that "Gaze of Beguilement" is actually "Charm Person", for example. You begin with a small number of spells and must research others between adventures to learn them.
• Extensive tables of random encounters and events, split by terrain type.
• Setting-specific deities and religions.
• Recruiting hirelings, with tables for their names, personalities, traits, gear, catchphrases, advancement and what they do for payback if mistreated.
• Mass battle and naval combat rules.
• Mostly familiar monsters and treasure, with guidelines for creating your own; statblocks and descriptions are pleasingly short. Some nice unique magic items.
• Evocative, and sometimes whimsical, black and white art sprinkled liberally throughout.

What's Different?

So, another day, another D&D variant. This is an OSR style low-fantasy game rather than 5E's Magical Muppet Show, but that niche is getting quite crowded. What makes this one special?

• Low magic. Even the biggest city only has a few spellcasters. Magic is dark and dangerous; roll a die after each casting to avoid backlash, the chance of backlash goes up each time you cast during an adventure. If you offend your god, there is a table of rites of atonement to roll on.
• No spell slots or spell levels, though you will know very few spells and can only cast each one a few times per adventure - limits are based on your character level and attribute modifiers. Ritual magic for imposing long term effects.
• Low power levels. 9th level cap (with explanations of how each class retires after 9th), PCs start with about 10 hit points and will struggle to get over 40 even at 9th level. "Unique Features" (Feat equivalents) every three levels regardless of class, including abilities from other classes; option to design your own feats.
• Eight (arguably nine) stats rather than six. No dump stats, because attribute/skill checks are d20 roll-under.
• Optional, random bonds between party members such as "prison cellmates".
• As well as the natural 20 critical hit, natural 19s to hit do cool stuff, and damage dice explode (once only).
• No saving rolls; instead you get a Luck attribute which gradually degrades during the course of an adventure. This gives players another resource to manage, builds tension as the game progresses, and incentivises the party to press on rather than rest (since luck recharges very slowly).
• Long rests are a week long.
• Options for advancement by XP, sessions, and downtime periods.
• Lots of rules built into the core game which you usually have to buy a supplement for; montages (much like SWADE Quick Encounters), downtime, escaping from encounters gone bad, chases, fast travel back to town for West Marches games, what the monsters are doing when you meet them, diseases, parasites, a table for why your new PC joins the party in media res after your old one dies, instant rival adventurers, solo rules, random dungeon generator (with extensive section on traps).
• Variant rules allowing you to dial a few things up or down; character customisation, combat deadliness, number of players, level cap. Also conversion rules for monsters, spells and treasure from other d20 material.
• The game text is under a Creative Commons Licence. That's becoming more common, but still rare enough to mention.

What I Think

This game is well suited to low-magic grimdark swords and sorcery, just how I like it. I expect to play it at some point, probably solo, but I'll drop the Artificer class and the demihuman races, as I prefer humanocentric games with no chainswords or black powder weapons. None of the changes to the core D&D rules is too significant on its own, at least not for an old grognard like myself, but the synergy between them makes this a really appealing set of rules, with GM tools ripe for plagiarising in other campaigns (and even genres).

One thing I don't like is the need to buy separate custom dice and a custom card deck to use the group or solo oracles. A link is provided to an online implementation of both, and there are short rules for replacing the dice with more normal ones, but "substitute your favourite open question oracle" is a bit of a cop-out, I feel.

That said, I find myself fighting the urge to play Tales of Argosa right away, which is usually a good sign. So let's try an experimental solo session and see what happens.