Ok so I’m reading The Delvers Guide to Beast World! Finally.
This book is very pretty, the page layouts are good. I have never seen a game more in line with The Adventure Zone inspired ethos of actual play podcast and this is sort of a problem.
I want to emphasize it’s at least the good parts of TAZ, but still. This is a world but it’s obstensively one where most people are basically nice, where dungeon delving is attempting non-colonialist for belabored reasons, and in general is supposed to be low conflict.
The idea is you are a Delver, someone who does D&D shit, and you go into Dungeons, which are manifestations of a mysterious phenomena that happened after the end of a war furries had with humans who escaped a parallel world that is obviously earth but the book insists is not earth.
Dungeons just happen sometimes and there’s a bunch of folks who get in wagons and fight dungeon shit. Reiterating dungeons creatures are not sentient just manifestations of a supernatural force. You may remember this is literally how dungeons work in the 13th Age.
I could also get into how if there are goblins that talk and shit in the dungeon this still doesn’t really solve the problem of going into someone’s house and taking their shit being kinda fucked if you think about it, and not engaging with that problem might even be worse, but that’s a different issue.
This premise does present some issues for me: how many delvers exist in the setting? And how many dungeons? I try not to think about this kinda thing because It’s an RPG, I should really just relax. But moreso: the central premise of the game has no narrative hook! You do the thing in the game because the game is doing the thing.
This is kind of the manifestation of the median 5e play mode: you make a cool OC who you do cute low stakes aesthetic things with until you enter a space where you do D&D stuff and these two elements are in tension.
The book layout is weird too. It keeps dropping comparisons and refrences to different fantasy countries but since it wants you to know how the premise of the game works, it doesn’t explain what these places are. That’s for later. There is no two page overview of the world at the front that gives you some idea of the different nations you just…find out you’re vibing and dungeon diving.
It also has this issue that it wants to be low conflict, but it also means that the crime rate is low, nobody is starving, and stuff isn’t that bad raising questions like why you would go into the murder hole. And even bigger questions like if there is barely any crime where do playable thieves come from.
The good news is skimming through the later parts of the book they seem to forget parts of their premise and have stuff that seems more gameable. But it’s still definitely a very well meaning book that actively wants to reduce the possibilities for having a dramatic story kind of accident.
Alternatively, something the book does sort of allude to but doesn’t go far enough so far, is the idea of this essentially being a shonen manga, with a lot of the conflict being clashes of personalities between delvers as a bigger mystery deepens in a fashion not dissimilar to like, Yugioh or other tournament stories. Or the dungeons having an agenda beyond just being a murder hole.
There’s interesting stuff but it’s kinda messy. Will maybe report back when I know what any of the fantasy countries actually are maybe.
