Our Brilliant Ruin: a remarkable game of class hostilities and horror - RPG Review

[@DaveThaumavore]

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[@--enyo--]

Thanks for this. Another one I’d been really interested in. I’ll try get that core PDF. Would you consider reviewing ‘Good Society’ by Storybrewers? It’s a very unique system, the focus being on social interaction and creating a narrative together. They have another game ‘Castle in the Air’ with more or less the same system coming out this year. Both are designed to simulate the experience of a group making a novel-like story together. In the former Jane Austen, in the latter Gilded Age coming of age stories like Little Women or Anne of Green Gables.

[@grumpyinbrooklyn6347]

I love all your reviews, but there's something "next level" about this one! Outstanding!

[@RoyBlumenthal]

Excellent review! Fair, balanced, erudite, enlightening, entertaining. I'm off to find that PDF. Thanks.

[@jackleg2007]

The Key and Glove reminds me of concierges in the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel.

[@--enyo--]

I’d seen this game around and thought it looked like a cool indie game, but this review really impressed me! Definitely going to go get the core PDF.

[@alexpartenopei1021]

The Good Society meets Vaesen, cool.

[@--enyo--]

I hope one day we get a ‘Good Society’ review.

[@wylde_hunter]

Game aside - the book quality & presentation is gorgeous.

[@whitleypedia]

This feels very Darkest Dungeon. "Ruin has come to our family..."

[@razorboy251]

Great review and it's very reasonable priced (the low price of zero for PDF is *chef's kiss*). I do have a couple of questions that your review didn't quite clarify. 1. Going off your review I'm getting very strong Vaesen vibes (quasi-19th century aesthetic, industrialization, rigid social structures, a home base, monsters among humans, etc.). I already have a lot of Vaesen products, so what does this RPG do differently from Vaesen? 2. I'm still not entirely clear on what it is that the player characters actually do. In Vaesen the PCs are basically monster hunters/supernatural investigators. In The Spire, they are rebels against a brutal and corrupt colonialist aristocracy. But what is the "default state" for PCs in Our Brilliant Ruin? When you mentioned class conflict and rigidly stratified society, I thought maybe the PCs are supposed to be rebels and saboteurs against the ruling classes, but that doesn't seem to be the case either. And if they are supposed to be monster hunter and adventurers, well it seems like a lot of the stats focus a lot more on the social side of things. So if you were to pitch the game to your players, how would you describe what they'd be typically doing in this game? Thanks again and keep up the amazing work you do on your channel!

[@elSidUA]

The adventure in the book could be summarized as "a young ambitious aristocrat and her entourage move into an old manor and establish themselves in a region by navigating local intrigue and managing the estate." So, you could say that suggested mode for the game is "a XIX-style period drama in a dying world with paranormal activity and techo-fantasy". But the lore and factions presented allow for many other scenarios. The players could be a band of monster hunters, an archeological expedition, traveling thespians, rebels against society or a party of battle maids seeking to avenge their dead master. The mechanics are pretty simplistic and wide, so it really depends on what the GM can come up with. But the aristocratic period drama definitely looks like the "default state".

[@עומרשרייבר-ל4ר]

This sounds pretty intreasting, and even better that the pdf is free.

[@Ifryt_]

Thanks for presenting this game. I haven't heard about it earlier. Looks like an interesting setting and ok mechanics.

[@GrizleMah0gany]

awesome review!

[@jaykaye594]

The colour scheme kind of reminds me of The Hidden Isle RPG. Cool.

[@santiagocampillo-lundbeck1338]

It is a beautiful book. But I am not so sure if creative world-building actually translates into a gripping play experience. The game mechanics look like you would have to spend a lot of time getting used to the dice rolls. And how would you even play something simple as a fight in an engaging manner but without too much hassle? But the home base mechanics sound really interesting. And the shemes add a really interesting parallel timeline to the normal actions of the player - that could be fun and lead to a different kind of play.

[@amelialonelyfart8848]

I saw a meme awhile back about buying a 300 page rulebook with beautiful art and detailed lore but then the actual mechanics are only like 2 pages that almost exclusively boils down to 'roll 2 d6's and rely on your GM to say what happens' and it's so real.

[@dansvensson5292]

Getting used to the dice rolls? What do you mean?

[@drillerdev4624]

@@amelialonelyfart8848 and maybe the time is right to start seeing more system agnostic ambientations as settings to use your mechanics of choice A while back I played Paranoia where the GM used a FATE subset for the rules, and it was perfectly fine

[@amelialonelyfart8848]

@@drillerdev4624 I think I get what you mean, yeah. I know a few people who love the Forgotten Realms, Ebberon or other D&D settings but don't like the current state of D&D, so they use Pathfinder or another medieval fantasy game ruleset instead. It takes some fiddling but it's perfectly fine. Annoyingly, a lot of companies have been making their mechanics more and more tied to the setting so it's getting harder to do that kind of stuff.

[@drillerdev4624]

@@amelialonelyfart8848 they can push toward their product, but they can't force what happens at the table ;)

[@woozlekhan]

Would have liked to hear more about the mechanics than the fluff though the product quality critique was appreciated

[@Oðrun]

So, Unhallowed Metropolis without all of the pesky gas mask chic, unchecked reanimated dead, and inevitable corruption of soul and body?

[@wusashicat1]

I like the setting but the mechanics are doing nothing for me. Unless i missed something successes are measured by rolling dice and getting more 6's than 1's, so what's the point of rolling more dice? rolling 2D6 has the same adds as rolling 10D6 if all you're looking for are 6's over 1's. Additionally their response to this criticism being, 'failure is fun if you're exoerienced enough,' rubs me the wrong way. Failing forward CAN be fun but what about the world and story are reinforced by having such swingy dice rolls? Free League does a great job of making their punishing dice rolls match the themes of the world, here i just don't see it.

[@jesselarson1281]

I was about to say the same thing. I looked at the PDF. Here's the die roll summary: Die roll of 6 = brill Die roll of 2, 3, 4, or 5 = no effect Die roll of 1 = gloom More glooms than brills = catastrophe Three brills = triumph Example: Your character wants to climb a crumbling staircase in a neglected part of the estate, and she has an Obsession + Physicality dice pool of 5. You roll 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 - success! Your character heaves herself unimpeded to the top of the stairs

[@jesselarson1281]

So, having an equal number of 6s and 1s means you succeed (or even "triumph," if you have 3+ 6s, and fewer 1s). So success is slightly weighted toward the player in that sense. However, having more dice only seems to increase the chance of a triumph, and does not increase the likelihood of success. Using a passion is the only thing that increases the likelihood of success. Higher stats only affect the likelihood of having a major success, not the likelihood of succeeding! If that's correct, this is nonsensical.

[@dansvensson5292]

Success is gained by having equal or more brills than glooms.

[@wylde_hunter]

6s & 1s - Not an intuitive system but it works well in the ALIEN RPG.

[@MrCQrity]

@@wylde_hunterfrom what Ingot out of the presentation Alien is very different from this. They have in common that they use d6. That’s about it.

[@Alpha-cy8sv]

While the setting is intriguing and the production values top notch, I'm not convinced, at all, with the system. Getting higher attributes & skills simply won't benefit you at all. At the end of the day you either invest passion dice, use your assets to guarantee a success in the roll or you get a slightly above 50% chance of success. If I ever run this setting it will be by tweaking it with the Vaesen rules. In other words, using 5 & 6 as success and requesting success thresholds to be met. I'll consider keepign 1s as failures, as is thematically fitting, but I know that my players might be against this, due to very bad experiences with Vampire: The masquerade.

[@soumyajyotimukherjee4752]

Cars and trains can be made of entirely wood. Metal is overrated in terms of tech. Only the engines might be a problem

[@drillerdev4624]

And the wheels? Wooden wheels might be fine por a carriage, but I'm not sure they'll be enough for a train

[@AnonAdderlan]

And the electrical wires.

[@Indureign]

The world building and art are phenomenal, i like the class structure but the mechanical side of things are found wanting. I think that if i buy this book then i would probably use it as a setting book but utilize CoC 7E as the rules system. 🤔