I bought this because you told me to buy it. You did me wrong, Beakley.

Like you, I’m a sucker for the Dark Nordic art direction. The presentation is top-notch. It’s in the same quality ballpark as Mouse Guard.

I like the rules that connect directly to building your character. Blending the Abilities and Powers together using the same design principles (Novice/Adept/Master) reminds me of Heroquest somehow and that’s not too bad a thing. Well, I like the broad principles. It doesn’t really seem like there’s too much depth in the different choices, but D&D 5e isn’t necessarily that deep on the character building front.

Once I got to the actual rules underlying the game itself, I kept wondering why I wouldn’t just play 5e. Symbaroum’s combat and adventuring rules aren’t complex by any stretch, but they aren’t simple either. They’re a dilution of D&D that doesn’t go far enough. It’s timid or perhaps perfunctory.

The XP rules are very broad. You”re right, Paul, when you say that players get 1xp every time they face a challenge. Pass or fail, you get 1xp. If you don’t roll any dice, you can still get 1xp. Could it be shortened to “Say ‘Yes’, or Award XP”? 😉

But it’s very pretty!