Mazes RPG | Review and Page-Through

Jeff shares his thoughts about the minimalist old school renaissance influenced fantasy RPG Mazes, written by Chris O'Neill, from 9th Level Games. The roleplaying game, built on the Polymorph system, consists of four digest sized books which total nearly 200 pages. Mazes is available right now and carries an MSRP of $34.99.
Is this new school, OSR inspired RPG designed for 2020 to feel like it was created in 1979 so you can party like it's 1999? Or would you have a better time endlessly wandering through a labyrinth as opposed to diving into Mazes? You'll find out!
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The fine folks at 9th Level Games were kind enough to send this review copy but neither Jeff nor anyone else affiliated with The Gaming Gang has received any other sort of compensation for this review.
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0:00 Intro
2:18 Discussing the Polymorph system overall and diving into the Sword booklet
18:01 A look at the Sorcery booklet
20:02 Peeking at the Maze booklet
26:25 Finishing up with the Monster booklet
30:24 Final thoughts and review score
#RPGs #9thLevelGames #MazesRPG

[@euansmith3699]

I like your ideas for OSR style magic items; it would force the creation of interesting, and characterful items that require thought to use effectively.

[@Thegaminggang]

That's kind of an old school thing we used to see way back in the day as opposed to just the +1 Axes and Rings of Invisibility. :) ~ Jeff

[@Goshin65]

Remember that most S&S stories were in "low magic worlds"... the heroes might have or encounter sorcery/magic, but it typically wasn't a major part of life-in-general, and magic items as such were uncommon (and often cursed!)

[@The_Ickey_Shuffle]

I think this maybe something I can get others to play with me. Hmmm I'm close to ordering this Friday. Thanks for the review!

[@Thegaminggang]

Any time!

[@johnharrison2086]

Good review. Some good ideas here and some bad ones as well. Certainly worth a look.

[@agrayday7816]

Thanks Jeff this is a great set of books!~

[@Thegaminggang]

Even though I wouldn't run Mazes as written, I think it's a fun system! ~ Jeff

[@UnPlayableGames]

Thanks for the review, it was very interesting! :D I just have a question: why do you say there is no character advancement? Every session you get to change the PC's Edges, then every 3rd session you acquire a new (and exclusive) Edge. Isn't this advancement? Just to understand where you come from with that comment, and to better wrap my head around the game, and see if it could be good for me :)

[@Thegaminggang]

The designer even points out that this isn't a game where you're going to see a lot of character advancement; drawing inspiration from fiction like Conan, Fafrd and the Grey Mouser, Cugel, etc. Those characters don't radically change from story to story and the characters in Mazes won't either regardless of the Edges. ~ Jeff

[@andreojuegosyestrategia1266]

Thank you for doing reviews of this types of games. I just got the Excellents. Am I getting something wrong with the Polygon System? The role that use d4 seems to never fail a roll when doing a check on books: it success on 2 and 3, but also on 1 and in a 4 since it’s exploding. Please let me know what I’m missing since I think is a defect on the design. Thank you

[@Thegaminggang]

You'll want to bring that up to the fine folks at 9th Level Games for an answer to that.

[@andreojuegosyestrategia1266]

@@Thegaminggang I thought you had played it, that’s why I asked to see if you found that or else

[@Thegaminggang]

We did play through but i don't recall that issue. I no longer own the game otherwise I'd have taken a peek. ~ Jeff

[@ZebraCatfish73]

@@Thegaminggang you gave the game 9 out of 10 and you got rid of the game. That’s interesting. 🤔

[@DinobotTM2]

I don't know if this is still open, since it has been such a long time. But here is the deal: the 1 is only a success in some tests, those fiting you class, not all. So, if you are a Wizard, it would be a success on tests related to magic or mystical knowledge, but not every Books test. And the dice only explodes on effects, not on tests. So, it can explode on damage, or healing, but it does not explode when you are testing the skill itself.

[@sethpeterson8261]

Watched the entire thing and didn't see anything at all related to handling combat other than basically "roll blades" and "how damage works"? Does it really not discuss it at all or did I miss it?

[@Thegaminggang]

It doesn't really dive into combat much. It's a super light system.

[@jameskyle7943]

9th Level Games are nice people- my books got lost by USPS and they cheerfully sent me another set. Unfortunately I can't really recommend these books. The core dice/class mechanic is interesting but the books are in desperate need of editorial review- I've never seen so many blatant typos , repeated words, and awkward phrasing in a game book before. It pushes a very specific episodic style of play which might be fun once in a while, but removed a lot of the elements my players actually enjoy, like actual unique treasure items instead of an abstract number. Also , they spend a little too much ink explaining how different this game is, etc, which would have been better spent actually clearly explaining the rule set. There is actually a paragraph at the end of Maze declaring that the book you just read probably did not actually explain how to play the game.....really?

[@Drew1749]

Seems pricey for what you get. Old School Essentials seems to be the better product.

[@Thegaminggang]

Old School Essentials is a complete clone of B/X without bringing anything new to the game table other than modern editing and formatting. I do like OSE but it's not much of an argument comparing a product, which does nothing original for Mentzer's rule set first released in 1983, to something which is trying to create a fresh take on OSR-styled roleplaying. To each their own though. ~ Jeff

[@wimplesaur]

OSE is a great product if you want a nice, tidied up version of B/X which was my very first RPG. However, there’s a reason I left that game behind over 40 years ago. There were better games around even then.