Back in the early ‘90s I got my hands on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP). We had a shop at the local mall called Something To Do and I used to lust after all of the GURPS, D&D, Palladium, books they had in the racks. I rode my bike to the mall that day and in the used section I found WFRP, the one with the orange-haired-tattoed dwarf cleaving a goblin and the long haired warrior stabbing the one-armed mohawk guy. Upon opening the book the artwork immediately struck me. It was dark and gritty and chaotic. It seemed like someone was getting stabbed or cleaved on every page. And the careers section would let me make a character that was a smuggler or tunnel fighter or tomb robber. Needless to say I bought the book and I still have my original copy. WFRP was also my introduction to Games Workshop. And from there I became obsessed with the magazine White Dwarf and 40K Epic. Im getting off topic a bit because I loved those days. Even though I didn’t play a lot of WFRP (as my group was more D&D and later Rifts) I made tons of characters and the book influenced me in my own game sessions. I still love it to this day. What do you remember from your early days that you may not have played a lot but it left an indelible mark on your gaming experience?

 

Just recently, I played in a game of FAL where, for the first time, I was a player (with a Myscus thief, hence the pic) and not the GM. Seems strange that it has taken this long but in the past, I have always run the game. Also, this was the first time the person running the game had ever run a game for a group. They had an entire story and background and encounters and maps and were totally prepared and I had a great time. I say that even as the party sort of turned into murder hobos at one point when we killed a troglodyte toddler and enraged his parents before running into the woods like the cowards we were. Three hours flew by and I loved playing and I am looking forward to the next session.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the experience of playing/running games as we get closer to the release of the 2nd Edition and people start their own adventures. One thing I try to do as a player/GM, whether it was in this recent game or any game where I’m not GM, is look at what the GM is doing effectively. Everything I have learned about running a game I have borrowed from others, either in person or watching or reading. All of that gets filtered through me to be something new-ish. The things I like and find enjoyable get added to a session. Things that almost work might get modified. I don’t keep everything of course but there are always nuggets and this session was no different. It’s all learning and growing and that's something I love about running, playing, and making games. Can’t wait for the next session.

 

Another change in the 2nd Edition that I wanted to highlight again are the rules for PC advancement. These rules have been revised in the 2nd Edition to be more straightforward and streamlined. PCs can gain Experience Points (or XP, in the parlance of our times) based on gameplay, stellar role-play, making others laugh, and achieving goals, among other things.  

XP gained automatically progresses PCs to the next level (this is an update and operates on a scale of advancement as opposed to the previous do-what-you-want approach), but there are also ways to spend XP to increase Stats, improve Boons, and other options. 

To be honest, I was never totally satisfied with the explanations and mechanics of this in the 1st Edition. Far Away Land is not the only game to use a dual-XP system (automatic gains and purchased gains), but there are a lot of different ways to do it, and if the explanation isn’t clear, it can be confusing to GMs and players alike. With the 2nd Edition, the language around the FAL system for XP has been revised and, I think, much improved, making it clearer and easier to understand. 

The Kickstarter for the 2nd Edition will launch in just over a week. Sign up to be notified here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scg/far-away-land-2nd-edition

 

With the announcement of the prelaunch campaign (sign up here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scg/far-away-land-2nd-edition) and the release of some book details, I thought it would be helpful to interested parties to begin talking about all the rewards the project will offer. The primary rewards are the books themselves.

For the Far Away Land 2nd Edition, we have three core books. The Core Rules is 234 pages and contains all of the basic rules needed to play Far Away Land. This means character creation, combat, expansion and optional rules, generators, etc. Bestiary I is the second of the core books and contains 350 creature entries along with creature building rules, encounter tables, and the constructonomincon. This book comes in at 246 pages. The third of the core books is the Book of Lore which has maps of FAL’s five continents, maps of each sphere, histories of the spheres and Far Away Land, a dense history of the universe, and a plethora of stories featuring various locations and characters in Far Away Land. This book comes in at around 280 pages. All three of these books will be released in hardback and pdf format via the Kickstarter as well as a public release after the Kickstarter rewards have been fulfilled. In addition to these books, The Enchiridion of Awesome will be a Kickstarter only reward and features the Core Rules and Bestiary I under a single special-edition cover. This book will be available in hardback and pdf and comes in at 470 pages. All of the books are 8.5x11 inches and full color. In an upcoming post I'll talk about additional Kickstarter rewards that will be made available to backers. 

We’ve featured a lot of posts about character creation using specific examples. But for some of our more recent followers, I thought it would be good to take a step back and look at the process as a whole. Character creation in Far Away Land is meant to be quick and easy to learn. The game uses a tri-stat (Brute, Dexterity, and Wits - which is effectively a combined Charisma/Wisdom stat) classless system with a focus on Boons (skills) defining a character’s area of expertise. Players can select any combination of 3 Boons when designing and playing their character to create a PC that is truly unique to them.

The big addition in this version of FAL is a list of 36 playable Heritages (species), taking a bunch of playable PC templates from all of the original books and bringing them together in a single list. A Heritage incorporates all of the elements of that particular species and culture. Things such as names, language, natural abilities, base stats, etc., are provided and allow for the creation of wholly unique characters. Just one more way to make character creation quick and easy.

 

 

I don’t know how many times I watched “The Dark Crystal” as a kid, but it was a lot. I hadn’t seen it in years until recently when I was at a local bar with friends and the movie was playing on one of the TVs. I was instantly absorbed in the movie and in my memories. What I remember most are the Skeksis because they truly frightened me as a kid: their cruelty to the Gelflings, their use of the black beetle-like Garthim, their political machinations and lust for power, their voices and appearance. 

It so happens the scene playing at the bar was the duel between the Chamberlain and the Garthim Master to determine the next emperor. After the Chamberlain loses the duel, the other Skeksis fall on him, disrobe him, and cast him out. Let me be clear: I hated the Chamberlain. He was just as vile as all the others and he was whiny. But suddenly I felt pity for him. I still wanted the good guys to win, and these days I’m a little worn out on stories that ask us to sympathize with cruel or deranged villains, but as a kid, the idea that villains could be sympathetic was new to me. In movies like “Krull” or “The Neverending Story” the bad guys were evil and irredeemable or just monolithic forces at work. I thought that all bad guys were all like that. The recognition that they had their own complex relations opened my mind to new possibilities about motivation. In a lot of ways, that has filtered into Far Away Land where even the most terrible actors and locations of the world have a depth that allows for this kind of storytelling.

 

Just as with animals, the 2nd Edition contains a section on common (and uncommon) plants found in the world. These are separate from plant entries in the Bestiary. Mostly because Bestiary plants have actions and agency and some present real danger to players, whereas plants on this list are more likely to be of the variety useful to PCs - as food, as ingredients, or as reagents. Much the same way that the animal list will add depth to whatever environment players are in, these plants provide opportunity to add layers and interactions…if the PCs remember to look around them and have the skill to recognize what they see.

 

In the 2nd Edition Core Rules, there is a section devoted to common animals found in the world. These are separate from entries listed in the bestiary because they didn’t really feel like things that should be given the same space as say a Ten Times Ten Man or Varro. For example, I didn’t feel like a squarl (FAL’s analog to our squirrels) needed a massive entry along with stats and loot drops. These aren’t those kinds of creatures. However, I think a short list of animals provides an additional layer to the world and gives some insight as to what non-monstrous stuff looks like. Players familiar with FAL won’t find any new animals here as the entries are pulled from 1st edition. The losk is still depressed.

 

It’s finally here! Starting today, you can sign up for the Far Away Land 10th Anniversary Kickstarter pre-launch. If you are interested in being notified when the project launches on August 6th 2024, you can sign up here. 

If you’re familiar with Far Away Land from the original rules or the different expansion books (all of which met their individual Kickstarter goals), you know that we are verified Gold sellers on DriveThru RPG and have a 5-star rating. If you’re not familiar, then all you need to know is that we deliver what we promise - not just on Kickstarter but at the table where you can be assured of an awesome time with friends. 

Far Away Land is a rules-lite, fantasy & sci-fi tabletop role-playing game that is set in a quirky, colorful, serious and sometimes absurd world that is also filled with a deep lore and dangerous threats. The gameplay is designed so that new players can jump in alongside experienced gamers and begin creating stories as they explore the world, confront monsters and villains, set and achieve goals, and (most important of all), enjoy themselves.

One post topic I wanted to revisit as we get closer to the Kickstarter launch, especially for people who may have missed it the first time around is the revised action system for the Second Edition. There is a fine balance between too crunchy and not crunchy enough when it comes to actions in an RPG, and I have always felt like FAL rides that fence pretty well. That said, the actions in the original FAL have long bothered me because I came to feel they lacked elegance. In the First Edition, different actions used different amounts of action points. For example, an attack might use 2 actions while sheathing a weapon might use one. Casting a spell might use three or more. This has always seemed fiddly and overly complex for a game like FAL (especially with opponents who have 8,9,10+ Actions). How many actions to get up after a fall? How many to cartwheel down these stairs? It’s tedious for the sake of tedium. Live and learn.

Granularity can add some nuance and strategy to combat (how will I spend my points?), but in the 2nd Edition, actions have been simplified. Most PCs begin with 2 actions and basic things like an attack, bluff, grapple, shove, etc. use a single action while more complex things like spells, aiming a shot, complicated tasks, etc., use two or more actions. The main goal in this revision was to simplify the action system so that players and GMs no longer needed to reference a chart. Less referencing leads to faster gameplay and FAL is meant to be fast. Strategy still exists in combat without the referencing and math required to keep track of multiple actions and costs.

 

 Announcement! The Far Away Land Kickstarter will live on Tuesday, August 6th. The campaign will run for 30 days. We are offering up a nice mix of rewards for various tastes and budgets.We will detail all of the rewards with specifics in an upcoming post. For now, just know that rewards will feature books in both physical and digital format, GM support materials, a digital set of generators, and Kickstarter Backer’s only rewards made available exclusively through the project. Can’t wait to share all of this!