Dragon Warriors

One of the reasons I loved about Palladium Fantasy rpg was how it was more detailed in many aspects. Each profession had their own style, the thief was not exactly a wimp but more of an urban warrior rather than a total wimp, more of a mugger and city bully boy than say a rural ranger type.


Off the top of my head, they also had detailed shield rules and horsemanship rules. I think its great that you got damage bonuses whilst mounted and also had options like shield bashing. The dragwars shield rules was, quite simple. I'm sure simple is good but it seemed limited.


Are there other systems that implemented rules that might be worth studying? I wouldn't say we'd rush to incorporate such features, but it would be good to see their strengths. In Palladium they also had some alignment rules and some warrior code for knights which I thought was nice, especially to younger players with less exposure to medieval history and movies.

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You know, I like the rules for creating ideals, bonds and flaws in 5e D&D...

Interesting question... There are two sides to this, I think - I find that rule systems inform a particular style of play, so any rule that engenders an enjoyable style of play is going to be liked, but just answering that aspect of the question will end up in this thread becoming a discussion around what style of play people like. As this is a Dragon Warriors forum, I see another side to the question - whether there are any rules\mechanics implemented in other systems that could be ported to Dragon Warriors to reinforce a low-fantasy pseudo Dark Age style of gaming that makes DW unique.

There are loads of great rules in other games, but when I play Dragon Warriors I don't want to romp around Faerun or Barsaive as an untouchable hero with nothing to fear from the repercussions of my actions from the common folk. I want the social constraints to impose themselves on even a high-ranked character - a sorcerer of any rank has to hide himself away far from the peasant mob to perform his blasphemous experiments, the high-rank knight still unquestioningly follows the orders of the low-ranked baron, and the high-ranked mystic must still be careful using his gifts in public in case they are perceived as witchcraft rather than a blessing from God.

Pendragon has mechanics to enforce knightly virtues and the romantic Arthurian style, but whilst there are some great rules that would port nicely into DW (a lot of estate management stuff and, not surprisingly, stuff for adding depth to DW knights, for example), a lot of it would only work for Pendragon. Similarly, the Conan RPG is probably the best comprehensive handbook for barbarians out there, but only a small sliver of that content is suitable for porting into Dragon Warriors

There are, however, some game concepts (rather than rules...) from other games that I think would work in Dragon Warriors:

• I like that Dark Heresy has the concept of professions, that branch as the character increases in level (similar to the way a Sorcerer branches into demonology in DW)
• I like how the Lone Wolf d20 game made no bones about the professions being equivalent in power - Kai Lords and Shianti Wizards clearly had superior abilities on paper, but ALL of the professions had a unique role-playing niche in the game and reasons to play them other than how many abilities they had.
• I like how in Earthdawn, magic items grow in power as you learn about them and invest your personal power into them (Vallandar's swords in King Under the Forest are a little like this).
• I like how the Basic RolePlaying skills system means it can take a LONG time to get good at anything.
• The feats system of D&D is an interesting approach to Skills of the Mighty (some feats could even be ported across as skills of the mighty for some DW professions).
• And so on...

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Some systems I didn't like include WFRP. How come combat is so one sided? They say, roll under WS, assuming that the enemy is 'ducking and weaving'. How is it so unrepresentive of the other guys skill in arms? Dragwars does it simply. Palladium Fantasy does it a little bit better.

I do feel the armour bypass rules is not that representative though. I remember someone commenting how Maces should be d8,4 rather than swords. Or maybe the rules can be revised, maces d8,3 and swords d6,4.

I do like WFRP for the initiative rules though. The idea that someone with a spear gets a higher initiative, sort of turns combat into micromanagement. I'm sure Dragwars could do it better if Dave Morris had the luxury of writing A4 leaf books instead of .. A6...


A better skill system would be nice. Palladium fantasy did it nicely, though sometimes you wonder how to interpret a percentage with no guidelines on modifiers and what you can accomplish with a successful roll.

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I find Palladium Fantasy to be a good fall back rules wise in many cases as long as you are talking about the 1st edition and the the one where they tried to make it part of Rifts.

Some rules I like from around the gaming universe,

Warhammer FRP 1st Ed - Winning/Losing. If you did more damage then your opponents in a given round of combat your side got a 10% bonus to attack rolls to represent that you had the advantage.
Alternity - All skills had three scores Ordinary/Good/Amazing Success. You could easily see what you needed and all weapons also had three damages that corresponded to your skill roll with the weapon.
Warhammer FRP 2nd Ed - the rule where if you rolled multiple 9s you incurred something bad that happened when you case a spell. Odds are the spell went off because you beat the target number but the power you channeled also did something unintended from curdling milk to opening a gateway to the realm of chaos and you getting sucked in.
L5R - Raises. The ability to increase the difficulty to preform more complex actions like called shots, disarms, great poems, etc
Heavy Gear - Weapons are a multiplier to the margin of success on the attack rolling. Meaning a skilled enough guy with a knife is still a threat no mater what you are wearing.

Oh yeah, not the comic book Palladium megaverse.... Yeah, the original 1st revised edition.....

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I like this, too, and nearly included it in my list. However, I have played WFRP 2nd Ed (and Dark Heresy, which uses a similar mechanic for Psykers) and did find that whilst it created that much-needed tension when using magic (it shouldn't be a science, after all), it did slow down the game with additional rolls and too many of the results were the same - to the point that it became a bit of a joke that the wizard had just made a bad smell or a ghostly noise again.

Plus the players knew the effect was triggered by the wizard's spell, so knew to disregard the strange things happening around them. If it was to be implemented in DW, I would disconnect cause and effect from the players and have longer-term (but still minor) effects plague the sorcerer.

But, yes, I very much like the idea of there being a risk to sorcery!

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
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The two rules that sold me on Dragon Warriors back in the 80s were the Attack/Defence mechanic, particularly when dealing with multiple opponents, and PC HP progression. I was a teenager at the time and regularly GMing for a bunch of friends using AD&D. The simplicity of the rules really appealed too. For me at the time it was a very attractive approach to get back to the story and away from the min-maxing.
What persuaded me to leave DW (but not Legend) were the differing game mechanics for different situations (combat, evasion & magic, stealth etc.) I moved my group over to Savage Worlds because they use one universal game mechanic; if you roll a 4, you succeed. The better you are at a given skill, the bigger the die you roll and there are difficulty modifiers, but that's essentially it: roll a 4. Childishly simple (which was very important at the time), but with layers of complexity underneath. It's served us well. Plus I like the whole classless thing.

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I actually find that really interesting, especially as you mentioned that being childishly simple was a benefit of Savage Lands' mechanics. I'm probably going waaaay off-topic, but I would have thought that classes make for a more accessible character - your players only have to decide on the FRPG trope they want to play and all the skills for that come pre-packaged into a convenient profession. Whilst classless systems provide unparalleled flexibility to customise your character, I've found it comes at the expense of simplicity and accessibility (although have never played Savage Lands, so it might have a mechanism for addressing this).

If you'd be up for sharing how your group (presumably kids?) fared with creating, and then identifying with, their character, I'd appreciate the insight (I've never played with kids and always assumed classes are more accessible to novice RPG-ers than classless systems).

It's purely for my own academic interest, so I'm bracing myself to be smited (smoted? Ensmitemated?) by a moderator for hijacking this thread...

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!