As a gamer, I was unaware that S&S had a system such as TRoS (The Riddle of Steel) until a few years ago. While I never got to run that system, I admired its set up, commitment to reality in combat, and a gritty feel to the world. Blade has taken the TRoS system and eliminated the awkward bits and added player driven story elements which make for a far richer gaming experience than that of a Referee driven system.
Character generation is very similar to TRoS making the characters choose their strengths and weaknesses. To be good in one thing, the character will be deficient someplace else. This can be offset with the Karma system (a brilliant idea). The longer a character is played and the more vigorously the player drives the story, the more likely they are to further their Passions, earning more passion points, which can be spent to improve their abilities and skills which builds Karma. The next character will profit from that activity by having fewer weaknesses. This system can also be applied to the Referee so when someone else runs the game for them, they are not left far behind. A brilliant and long deserved system to encourage long suffering GMs to run dynamic games.
The Limelight combat system allows for a fluid, cinematic feel to combat. It focuses upon one character until something significant happens in that combat, someone gets wounded, loses their weapon, dies, runs, etc. It then moves to the next character in the list leaving ambiguity as to what truly happened. Which adds to the excitement of the combat as the player eagerly awaits the next time the camera is on them to finish the fight or find out if they live.
Combat resolution is fast and furious with little ambiguity of how things are done once the players and Referee are used to how things are done. It is akin to the 7th Sea and Legend of the 5 Rings roll and keep system. The manuever based system can truly bring combat alive and it is very difficult to exploit the system as there is always a counter to an attack. No one in invincible, a dagger to the chest will ruin the day of a character just as much as being cloven in two by a great sword.
Sorcery works much like it appears in the S&S novels. It is extra-ordinarily powerful but requires significant dedication to the Art to make it useful in more than a very limited scope. Sorcery can be more dangerous to the sorcerer should they be unprepared or push themselves too far risking tainting themselves with other worldly power turning the mundane world against them and causing themselves all too real harm. Magic always comes with a price.
Overall, I find Blade a welcome relief from the level based d20, overly complex games where characters can dish out and take massive amounts of punishment. Combat is deadly serious and should be very carefully considered before engaged in, as it should be. The price is very low and for the rewarding experience that it provides is cheap at 3 times the price.
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