Engine: Custom variable die roll over
Marketplace: DriveThruRPG
I was recently sent a copy of Along the Leyline with the most Gen-X review request I'd ever seen. 'Here's a role playing game I made, I like your reviews. Have a copy, review it if you like.' It made my withered 80s kid heart grow two sizes.
And so I was quite happy to sit down and peruse Along the Leyline and I have to say, I am glad that I have this game in my collection. Of all the games I've picked up in the last year, it is in the running for my favorite alongside Death in Space and for very different reasons.
While Death in Space is a beautifully designed book with a simple and elegant rule system and incredible production values, Along the Leyline is what what "roll your own" looks like! It is built with such incredible love and enthusiasm that it is impossible not to be charmed by it, even if it is full of simple hand drawn sketches, doesn't use any fancy layout or information design, and has rules that feel a little kludgy. Those just make the effort put into creating this from an army of one feel all the better.
And, it is designed to fill a niche I feel is undeserved by both the OSR gaming community and the storygaming community: along the lay line is a "Slay the monsters and save the day" game. It is perfect for the kind of Trad play that Tracy Hickman helped bring about in the '80s, where the player characters aren't just desperate scoundrels, but are heroes facing off against some great creeping evil those minions lurk in the dungeon just outside of town or the cold mountain pass that the local community relies on for food.
It is also huge. It has a Player's Tome nearly the size of the old AD&D PHB and a Referee's Toolkit that weighs in at over 220 pages.
The setting is lighthearted high Fantasy with a few odd magic items (the wet blanket is one of my favourites,) ridiculous monsters (were-chickens and piranha squirrels) are mixed in with more standard FRPG fate like orcs (which are pig-faced but playable and free willed,) goblins (which are irredeemable thugs), manticores, elementals, etc.
The System
The rules of the game are fairly simple. The referee sets a challenge rating and your PC rolls a die based on one of about 14 skills. Someone who is totally unskilled at a task rolls a d4, while a true master of a skill rolls a d12. Certain circumstances may grant advantage or disadvantage, causing the character to roll twice and take the greater or lesser die roll respectively. The game offers uniquely exceptional advice as to handling advantage and disadvantage.
Often the number by which the target number is exceeded is important. For example, combat is handled by one character making a roll with a combat skill, and another opposing it with the defensive skill. If the attacker gains a net success, the damage they deal is the amount by which they beat the Defender's die.
When dice are tied, or a player rolls exactly on a target number you enter a "time slows" sequence: the opposing players or the player and GM roll off on a d20 with the higher role winning. In these cases, the winner gains a critical success of some sort, which may give them an extra action in combat, cause an attack to do more damage or ignore armor, or create a far more potent magical effect than expected. If a player making an opposed roll fails in the d20 roll off, it creates some kind of setback like lost equipment.
The magic system seems to draw a great deal of its inspiration from the early Elder Scrolls games. There are five separate magical skills covering holy white magic, magic that brings about curses and decay, magic that affects plants and animals, magic that manipulates the primordial elements, and Magic that creates illusions and enchants objects.
While the game has a number of fixed spells for each skill, it also has magical elements of character can learn. These are a combination of target/area of effect and a magical outcome. Thus, a character with the Holy magic skill who has learned the art of healing, can simulate a D&D style cure light wounds with a healing spell mixed with a touch shape. Or they could create a ray or cone of healing if they know something about making rays or cones.
While about a quarter of the manual is dedicated to handling the magic system, it never feels overwhelming, there aren't a lot of effects, and the game encourages the GM to be flexible in their interpretation to allow clever players to create spontaneous magical effects.
Skills and saving throws advance anytime a character rolls the maximum on a die. When they have gained three advances on a skill, its die improves, and the character games and experience point that will eventually lead to them gaining a level.
The game is nearly classless: player characters select a class, but this only allows them to select from a list of feats that slightly modify how the character plays. As they level up, they select additional feats from their class list or transition to another class to start taking feats from that list. Thus, a character's abilities are essentially a la carte. Hit points and most skills are determined by race or backstory events.
What I Loved
Easy Language
Along the Leyline is written with plain everyday language that is easy to follow. It doesn't use excessive jargon nor introduce an excessive number of in-game terms. It was an absolute pleasure to read.
Devastation Dice!
I have a strong feeling that the author is a regular reader, because there's a mechanic I have only ever seen posted here on my blog. The game uses something akin to Dungeon World's fronts to measure events going on in the campaign.
Things like the next step in the campaign's main villain's plot or an impending possible disaster are assigned a die value based on the time frame before the problem will come to a head. In dungeons this is used to measure when the player characters will come across a random encounter, terrible trap, or some negative event, such as the death of a hostage they were trying to rescue.
At regular intervals based on the scale of the threat, the GM will roll the assigned die. On a one or a two the type of the die "drops" becoming the next smallest to die on the standard D&D set. When you roll a one or two on a d4, the bad thing happens, the villain reaches the next stage of the scene, the village meets with disaster, etc.
I proposed a system like this in my article entitled Campaign Fronts + Depletion Dice = Devastation Dice a couple of years ago.
Built-in Timer Mechanics
Along the Leyline has built-in timer mechanics. It uses the devastation dice to create a sense of threat in the dungeon, and move the campaign along.
It also uses a similar countdown die to keep combat moving. Player characters are made aware of the fact that there is only so long they can allow a battle to drag out before it turns into something far worse.
Simple Mechanics
What I've described above includes roughly 75% of the games mechanics. The game is simple and straightforward.
Depleting Saving Throws
The saving throws in Along the Leyline feel precarious in a way that I have enjoyed in other games like Troika and Low Fantasy Gaming. When a character fails a saving throw with a one or two, they're saving throw die also decreases in size.
When a character fails a saving throw on a d4, there is a negative effect such as illness or additional damage associated with the failed saving throw. This means over time pressure is going to build up as your character's luck begins to run out.
Life-path system
One of the ways that Along the Leyline really taps into the Trad gaming model aside from using devastation dice to keep a plot moving, and solid advice on developing villains and their conspiracies, is in character generation.
While there is a highly randomized version of character generation as an alternate system, by default characters and Along the Leyline are rolled up using a life path system. This one feels like it has drawn a lot of inspiration from Cyberpunk 2020 or perhaps Traveller.
By the Time characters have been generated, they have the names of several allies and enemies, things they might feel guilty for or crimes they may have committed, as well as a sense of the character's core values and where they find meaning. In some cases those past experiences will come with advantages on certain rolls. The characters' skills are mostly determined by events in their background rather than their class or race.
This sets every player character up to be unique, interesting, and intrinsically motivated. Characters are a little tougher than a standard issue OSR character, but combat stands to be lethal enough in Along the Leyline that they never feel like they have anything like plot armor.
Home-Made Feel
I really appreciate the homemade feel of this game. It's not slick, it's not perfectly designed. In places they're editing mistakes and especially a lot of mistakes when it comes to homophones. The artwork is simple and hand drawn from somebody who isn't an artist but clearly likes to draw.I personally wish we had more games like this out there.
Reading it brought me back to trying to build my own playing game for the first time when I was 13, and hammering away at it in Corel Write every time I had some free time.
Neat Ways to Make Gods Relevant
It is very easy to forget the gods in Dungeons & Dragons. They don't necessarily have to be relevant to the campaign unless there is a cleric present. Along the Leyline has several clever ways of making the gods relevant to play. A character who is religious whether or not they are of a religious character class can attempt to pray for Divine healing once per day.
Characters who lead prayer or spend time in religious observation can provide temporary bonuses to their allies not through Divine intervention, but rather through simple leadership and companionship.
The alignment of the God will have a big part to play in what kinds of prayers and activities will give a character a boost.
Initiative
Initiative is simple but fun: someone rolls a d20. On odd the GM goes first, on even, the PCs go first. If a 1 is rolled the GM's rolls have advantage for the first round. On a d20 the PCs get advantage on their rolls for the first round. It's simple and clever.Time Slows
I like the "time slows" mechanic. The one where if a player rolls exactly on a target number or two opposing players roll the same number they then roll off on a d20 with the stakes being critical success or critical failure for both sides.
This can create those great cinematic moments like balancing some delicate or precious object on your fingertips and trying not to drop it, or just missing a jump and finding yourself hanging off the edge of a building. They add an extra bit of tension and excitement to every roll.
Rules in RT
Because the rules are relatively simple, the vast majority of rules for things like combat, saving throws, initiative, injury and recovery are included in both the Referee's Toolkit and the Player's Tome.These rules only take up a few pages, and in some cases the version in the Referee's Toolkit add more details and clarifications. But it means that the referee doesn't have to go looking for other books. And it takes a relatively small portion of both manuals. The Player's Tome has more detailed magical rules and character generation sections that take up the vast bulk of it's volume. And likewise the RT has guidelines on designing campaigns and running adventures that take up the bulk of its volume. I find it is a very helpful and convenient design choice.
Organic Character Growth
I'm a big fan of the organic character growth that this system creates. The more you use a skill, the more likely it is that the skill will improve. A character levels up when they have honed enough of their skills that they are substantially more able than they were before. It is something I tried to accomplish in Deathtrap Lite, but is done with far more elegance in Along the Leyline.
Neat Spell System... Reminds me of Oblivion
I was immediately inspired by the magic system. As I said above, it reminded me particularly of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: I character could learn a handful of simple spells with time, training, and expending some of the benefits they gain from their occasional level up. However, real mastery comes when you learn the different parts of a spell and then figure out how to put them together for yourself to make new magical effects.
It's very hard to walk a line when trying to create a free-form magical system. If you give too few details magic will feel useless. If you give too many options it becomes overwhelming for the players. I find that Along the Leyline walks on the cautious side, giving us enough to simulate most low-level Dungeons and Dragons spells spontaneously, and giving the GM lots of exemplars to work with when designing new magical components or new spells.
Solid Advice on Keeping Combat Fun
The other thing that I really found remarkable about Along the Leyline is how much good GMing advice was in there. For example, it has guidelines on planning combat encounters that set up not only timers but an environment for the battle and opportunities for player characters who want to buckle a few swashes rather than just swing swords to hit or miss things.
Good everyday advice like how-tos regarding telegraphing traps, and managing pacing shows that the creator of Along the Leyline has spent a lot of time absorbing a best GMing practices and distills some of the best bits and pieces of common everyday advice to make the game run faster and smoother in one place. Simple things, like trying to use addition rather than subtraction when trying to come up with a game mechanic on the fly, for the psychological impact of rolling in the open and making players aware of countdowns.
Big Bonuses for Moving Cautiously
Along the Leyline because of its heavy use of timers can be a tense game. If you have designed an adventure using the recommendations in the Referee's Toolkit, player characters are going to have to make a decision about how quickly they are going to move towards their goal.
As a way to offer players hard decisions, the game includes a lot of benefits for moving cautiously through the dungeon. If a party is moving slowly they automatically detect the presence of traps, they are less likely to have random encounters, and their characters are less likely to suffer mental strain.
But given that the game can have some fairly vicious consequences for being stranded alone in the dark, as well as a ticking clock constantly over the player characters' heads, moving cautiously often feels like a devil's bargain. Which is an artful piece of the game's design.
"Secrets" Metacurrency
I'm not generally fond of metacurrencies, especially ones that allow the player to step outside of the bounded agency of their character. However, I appreciated the cleverness of the "Secrets" metacurrency that appears during character generation in Along the Leyline.
A secret is a piece of lore, some inconvenient truth, or some juicy blackmail material. During character generation, there's a high chance that characters, especially characters who move in richer circles will learn something that they shouldn't have and made enemies. In return for this they gain a secret, something they know that most people don't.
When a mystery presents itself where a piece of information could be vital, a player may cash in their secret to reveal that their character knows something more, at which point the GM will tell the player what extra juicy piece of information they have that most people don't. Secrets are a rare and valuable reward. It will be very hard to acquire except through carousing and during character generation, and a character possessing more than one or two secrets is going to be very rare.
Alignment
Player Characters don't have alignments in Along the Leyline, but NPCs do. Characters are assigned one alignment from law, good, chaos, or evil and that determines how that NPC will react to certain behaviours, what their relationships with the gods are,and what magic they might know.
Shops
As a way to add some Verisimilitude to trade, towns in Along the Leyline are given a level to represent their economic development. There are different versions of shops such as apothecaries, bakeries, smithies, and general stores with a sample list of goods and prices for each level.
Growth Points
So Many Conditions
At the beginning of the Referee's Toolkit there's a table listing every condition that can affect a player character. Things like frightened, grappled, pinned, sick, and the like have their own glossary of formalized terms with formalized mechanics. This was actually something I found very useful in Dungeons & Dragons 3.Xe, because there was a menu of them that you could refer to to figure out what a monster power would do or how a certain situation might impede a player character.
However, Along the Leyline has a lot of them. Keeping track of them all in your head is going to be impossible. They are going to occasionally require reference to the Referee's Toolkit. At least they're conveniently placed right at the beginning of the manual to make it easy to find them.
Information Flow
The information flow of Along the Leyline leave something to be desired. I found myself with a list of mechanics and terms that are mentioned but undefined early in the book, so that I could go back and reread something when the idea was clearly explained later on.
This is, of course, a sin that early Dungeons & Dragons committed quite a bit. That is why Gary Gygax was overly fond of placing a quod vide "[q.v.]" notes in places throughout his manuals.
I think one of the greatest things that can be done to hone this book would be to read it through and make a similar list and then rearrange it so that the rules are presented in an order that makes sure that players have to flip around less when doing their first reading of the rules.
Almost Classless
Along the Leyline is inches away from being a classless game. Character classes are essentially a list of special abilities a character can purchase periodically as they advance. Your class is the initial list you can choose from, that gives you some starting equipment.
I might have tossed class entirely, and instead the classes should have just been sorted by related skill, or perhaps give you prerequisite based on a skill, then take it without the need for class to even come into the game system. I feel that would have helped cement Along the Leyline's unique identity.
Definition and Consistency of Terms
While Along the Leyline doesn't use a lot of jargon and in-game turns, aside from perhaps one or two too many status effects, one thing I feel can definitely benefit the game with some attention is to making sure terms are used consistently.
For example, the term "time slows" has a specific meaning related to dice rolls that are tied or exactly meet a target number. And yet, the phrase "time slows" is used casually elsewhere in the book when not referring to that mechanic.
A bit of a going over to make sure that terms are used consistently would be of great benefit
Especially re: Grid
Along the Leyline is most definitely intended to play Theatre of the Mind. It doesn't give much preamble before discussing optional rules for tactical movement on a grid, and fails to define any of its terms in a meaningful way. This is particularly confusing because it uses it doesn't use the scale of miniature that his customary for either modern or old D&D at 1 m per square.
Personally, I think the game works best as a Theater of the Mind game, and would be better off without mentioning tactical movement on a grid. But if a tactical grid is something you want to leave as an option, int is important to make sure that the discussion comes with clearly defined terms and giving some examples.
Infravision and other Artifacts.
There are a few artifacts leftover when this project was clearly meant to be closer to an OSR clone. For example there are references to infravision and dark vision even though players have no such an ability. They were not edited out as passes were made.
Proofread of Page Refs.
The other complaint that I have and feel needs some attention is the page references. It's very clear that this game has the Creator worked on Along the Leyline, in multiple passes with lots of things being added in and shuffled about overtime. Because of it page references are often inaccurate, sometimes by a fair margin.
Conclusions
Not every role-playing game needs to be slick and covered in spit and polish. In Along the Leyline's case, its simple, but well thought out and eager approach gives it charm. The simple art of pig-faced orcs and the honest typos made me smile.
Games like this are not always going to be the first thing I reach for, but spending time with them is comfort food for my gamer soul.
Along the Leyline gives you rich, nuanced characters who are up against an evil force on the rise; their quest for gold and glory is a gateway to becoming heroes of the realm. If you are looking for a heroic, High Fantasy fantasy gaming experience and you don't want to play something using a D&D engine, I would consider it a fine alternative.
If you like collecting punk-ass indie games, like playing familiar games with new rules, or want a solid template to inspire your own indie project, it is well worth checking out.
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