The Root board game is being turned into an RPG, but it’s not like D&D

Dungeons & Dragons is all the rage right now and is experiencing a surge in popularity brought about by the 5. Even former video game developers are getting involved, building “5e compatible” campaigns, and raising millions on Kickstarter. But while the d20-based system that powers D&D can be a big deal in mainstream circles – that includes even the National soccer league – It’s not the best choice for every scenario.

Independently produced role-playing games are also thriving, offering designers many opportunities to reuse their own mechanical systems for new creations. That helped one editor, Magpie Games, do something unusual. It turns the popular board game Root: A game by Woodland Might and Right into an RPG, appropriately named Root: The RPG, and it’s not based on the 5th edition rules that underpin D&D. Instead, it’s powered by the apocalypse.

Image: Kyle Ferrin / Magpie Games

The original root Board game released in 2018 is a strange one. It is an asymmetrical war game in which cuddly creatures fight for control of a fantastic woodland. But while the work of artist Kyle Ferrin makes the complex war game seem like something out of Target’s toy walkway, the game itself has more in common with much more exhilarating war games. In fact, its mechanics are loosely based on the counterinsurgency games (COIN) developed by former Central Intelligence Agency instructor Volko Ruhnke.

There are four main factions in root – the Eyrie Dynasties, the Woodland Alliance, the Marquise de Cat, and the Vagabond – and they all work very differently. The Woodland Alliance is essentially a nationalist group of revolutionaries fighting against an occupying power, the Marquise de Cat, who came from outside the forest to impose their own rules on their indigenous people. The Eyrie Dynasty, on the other hand, is a monarchical regime that seeks to return to past glory. In the meantime, the vagabond is literally just that one powerful raccoon who walks around and adventures in the background and is fully capable of getting his lot on with any of the other factions or none of the other factions on the board.

Written like this, the parallels to the real wars in Afghanistan, Colombia and Cuba are easy to see – all settings for other niche COIN games. but root has gained widespread recognition by deliberately ditching the serial numbers found on historical international conflicts.

According to Ferrin, this was a very deliberate decision.

Image: Magpie Games

“We were always very careful in the beginning not to make any cultural or racial equivalents,” Ferrin told Polygon. “So it’s not, ‘Oh, the birds are England.’ Nothing like that. […] The example I always use when we talk [with fans at conventions] is the Woodland Alliance. Playing as Woodland Alliance can make you feel like Robin Hood, but for everyone else playing against them, it should feel like al Qaeda. It should feel like the worst to deal with. “

As a result of this very conscious effort to avoid parallels to our real world, root is almost completely devoid of background stories. The game itself contains almost no “fluff” or lavish narrative content to build up its conflict. It’s a game with no story.

When first met Mark Diaz Truman, co-founder of Magpie Games root, he was blown away. As a fan of existing COIN games like A distant plane, he was very familiar with the mechanics. Above all, however, it was popular with Vagabunden, the loner figure moving in the background and something completely new in the COIN genre.

“I was running around doing quests and all,” Truman said, “and I had one of those moments where I just thought, ‘This would be a really cool RPG. […] There’s a whole world here, and the fabulous part of it doesn’t make it so gritty and gritty! ‘ Because we’re not big fans of endless, gloomy, gloomy darkness. “

The rules behind D&D would have been a good choice given their popularity. The problem is that the framework underlying the original role-playing game is deterministic. Each roll of the die determines whether or not players are successful in their attempts to influence the world. Does your vagabond hit the Eyrie bird with the sword? Throw a D20 to find out. Then tick yes or no.

What Magpie Games needed instead was a system that would allow players to roll the dice to add depth and color to the world itself, build on the innocuous backdrop of the original board game, and put their own story on top of it. This is the game, and that’s why Magpie chose Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA), a design framework developed by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker.

“The reason you roll the dice in Powered by the Apocalypse is not to decide whether you will succeed or fail,” said Truman, “but to determine the dynamics of the narrative uncertainty.”

In Root: The RPG, Players play their characters from a so-called playbook. It’s not a pre-generated character in the traditional sense, but rather a character type. A short brochure-style document contains some key statistics, including charm, cunning, finesse, luck, and power. But a playbook mostly describes the nature of a character’s personality, what drives and motivates them, and the connections they have with the world around them. It also describes their “moves” that players will use to influence the game world around them. Truman Calls moves the basic building block of the entire game.

“There is a move […] that’ll say something like, ‘If you’re trying to outsmart an NPC,’ ”Truman said, giving an example from the Vagabond playbook. “And the operations of this move are all inscribed in the move. […] When the train starts – when you roll the dice – it leads us in different directions. It’s not just about success or failure. It could succeed, but at a cost, or fail, but with this opportunity. Or it could be a mistake, in which case the GM just says what happens. “

Instead of appearing in a dungeon and dealing with the monsters in it by whatever means necessary, players play in root will essentially lay down the dungeon and its residents while they play the game. By engaging with a particular quest, which is only roughly outlined by the gamemaster, the characters’ actions – the results of their dice rolls – are what actually create the story and give the factions of the world their true motivations. And just like the original source material, all character templates – all playbooks – have different powers.

Ultimately, it is the PbtA system that makes it possible Root: The RPG to be as asymmetrical as the wargame it is based on.

Image: Magpie Games

“It’s not about whether you have skill points or whether you have plus five or plus three,” Truman said. “It’s about whether your character is positioned in the world as a pickpocket. If you’re a pickpocket, you roll the dice [a particular move]. If you’re not a pickpocket, try your luck. You’re taking a huge opportunity. You seduce fate.

“The whole idea of ​​Powered by the Apocalypse is not about being a series of binary interactions,” Truman continued, “but rather than a series of narrative moments that evolve into new narrative moments. For stories like root, […] Binary success or failure is not a good way of playing in my opinion. I think a great way to play is to find spaces where uncertainty creates dynamics, and those dynamics then give the adventure choices that really matter. Do we leave the responsibility to the cats or the birds? One or the other. “

An early version of the Root: The RPG is now available for free on the Magpie Games website. The final game will go on sale as a PDF on December 15th. Pre-orders of physical products, including the Core book and additional supplementary materials will also begin on December 15th. It is expected to be available in retail stores on January 26th.