Combat in Reign and Wild Talents needs one trick, which is splitting a battle into several smaller fights, which each PC involved having an opponent (or group of Unworthy opponents, or perhaps several PCs against a single tough opponent). Doing that, everything goes quite smoothly. There’s less rolling but more dice sorting than most other games, but it’s all clear enough and doesn’t for me bog down at all. Indeed, the flow adds to the narrative with a little bit of tactical play, and that combination is just what I want.

There are enough nifty bits which hang off the central mechanic. But it does need the trick.

I’ve run quite a bit of Reign in my time, both the original setting and my own one, Ninth Legion. It lifted me out of a rut where I was bored with fantasy, and my campaign of “kingdom building” which kicked off with the PCs taking over a duchy almost by accident is one of the most successful campaigns I’ve run. I’m looking forward to getting back to it with 2nd edition.

Even though the first ever convention game I ran was Reign, and that was…troubled.