I've been reading the
+Far Away Land RPG (FAL) PDFs for some time now, but I figured a formal-esque review was in order once I received my printed copy of the core rulebook. While FAL has a number of awesome books - from the Core Rulebook all the way up to the aptly-named Tome of Awesome, this review will cover only the Core Rulebook.
As described on its DriveThruRPG page, FAL is "...a rules-lite fantasy role-playing game that uses six-sided dice. It mixes fantasy, sci-fi, and apocalyptic elements to create an immersive and rich world full of history and adventure. It is easy to learn and a perfect game for new (young) gamers as well as veteran gamers. All of the Far Away Land books contain colorful artwork, humor, and rules that allow gamers and GMs to pick and choose the level of crunch they want in their game." A very apt description indeed.
First off, the book itself. Printed from Drive Thru RPG and Lightning Source, it's a great little book. The colors are bright and bleed-free, and the artwork shows up crisp and clear. It's a 5.5" by 8.5" book, with 45 individual pages between the covers. The pages themselves feel somewhat printer paper-y, but the print quality is very good. Each page has a color coded bar along the top, containing the chapter heading. The book is filled with FAL's unique and catchy artwork.
The first few chapters of the book cover an introduction, the basics of the game system, and character creation and advancement. Characters have three Stats - BRT (Brute), DEX (Dexterity), and WIT (Wits) - which range in value from 1 to 5 or so. Characters also have Boons and Flaws, essentially skills and disadvantages.
The game is a d6 dice-pool system based on Stat +/- Boon/Flaw. By that I mean that if a character is making a melee attack and has the Melee Boon, the player creates a dice pool consisting of a number of dice equal to the BRT Stat plus the value of the Melee Boon. So a character with BRT 3 and Melee +1 would have a dice pool of 4d6. If that same character had a Flaw of Phobia (Snakes) -1 and was fighting a huge snake, the player would roll a dice pool of 3d6 (BRT 3, plus Melee +1, minus Phobia (Snakes) -1). Once the dice pool is rolled, only the highest rolled result is kept; so if our fighter rolled a 4, a 3, and a 5, the result of the roll is 5. Should the roll result in multiple 6s, each additional 6 adds 1 to the total; so if our fighter had rolled a 3, a 6, and a 6, the result of the roll would be 7 (6 for the highest die, +1 for the additional 6). The roll's final result is compared against a Target Number or the result of another roll in the case of opposed rolls, with ties going to the defender.
It is an amazingly simple mechanic which allows for a great deal of customization, especially when you factor in all the Boons and Flaws; a list of each is given in the book and you can always modify existing or create new Boons and Flaws to taste.
FAL is a level based system, and advancement is handled through the distribution of experience points. In addition to leveling your character, you can also use experience points to advance Stats, Boons, Flaws, and get new Boons.
The next chapter covers magic, which is - IMHO - one of the great awesomenesses of FAL and something I think I'm going to import into my S&W games. In order to use magic, a character must have the Arcane Boon. A character can cast a total number of spells per day equal to their level plus three (so a 1st level character can cast 4 spells per day). There is no limit to the number of spells a magic-using character can know, but they must be learned from a scroll or another spellbook, must be of a level equal to or less than the characters level, and they must spend a number of days studying it equal to the spell's level. Starting characters should get somewhere between 1 and 3 spells, depending on the GM. To cast a spell, the player must make a WIT + Arcane roll, unless the spell is unopposed, and the defender must make a higher WIT + Arcane roll to avoid the effect.
Spell range is measured in feet, and duration is measured in time based on the characters level. So a 1st level character casting a spell with a duration of "minutes" can expect the spell to last for one minute. Had it a duration of "rounds", it would last for 1 round.
The book comes with a list of spells from level 1 to level 10 and encourages the players to make up new spells. If you've ever played any version of D&D or other fantasy role-playing game, you probably already know most of the spells; they're nothing to write home about. But the mechanics of the magic system, they're really cool. I want to use them in every game that I run, regardless of the system.
The next couple of chapters cover combat and gear. Combat is very simple and standard for a dice-pool system: attacker rolls Stat + Boon to attack, defender rolls Stat + Boon to defend, high roll wins with the margin of success added to weapon damage and armor class acts as damage reduction. The truly outstanding parts of the combat system, however, are actions and hit points.
So, during character creation, a character gets a number of actions (ACT) equal to DEX + 3. Each action a character can take during a round has an associated ACT cost: a move costs 2, a melee attack costs 3, a spell costs 4. A character can take as many actions as he or she has ACT to pay for. Of course, ACT is refreshed at the top of each round. So a character with ACT 5 could both move (2) and make a melee attack (3) in one round. That same character could not move (2) and cast a spell (4) in one round, as 4+2=6 exceeds their ACT of 5. I fully and absolutely dig this subsystem. As with magic, I want to import this into my S&W games.
Also during character creation, a character gets hit points (HP) equal to BRT + 10. Pretty standard stuff, however, the character is considered to only have superficial wounds until they are at 0 HP. At that point and below, they're taking serious wounds. Should the character take enough damage to drop them below their negative level equivalent, then they die. So, a 4th level character doesn't actually die until they have taken enough damage to reach -5 HP. Which means that a FAL character actually has more damage capacity than they have HP; a 2nd level character with a BRT of 2 can actually take 15 points of damage before they die.
Wounds heal at different rates depending on whether they are light wounds (the character has 1 or more HP) or heavy wounds (0 or less HP). And here's a cool thing: the Battle Scar mechanic allows the character to stave off heavy wounds by taking a battle scar. So if your character is near death and looks like he'll soon cross that threshold, he can take a permanent wound and keep going. Again, more cool mechanics I want to pull into S&W.
Next up is magic items and crafting stuff (including magic items). While the magic items all bear FAL-esque names (Stompin' Boots, for instance, or Punchin' Gloves) these two chapters are fairly standard fare. No surprises here, just good, solid, stuff.
Finally, there are chapters on creating NPCs and special abilities. The NPC chapter has some good advice on making FAL NPCs and includes sample NPC, eh, "templates". While most characters would not have any of the special abilities in the Abilities chapter, many FAL monsters do and so the author decided to put the abilities into the Core Rulebook as they are something the FAL GM needs to know.
Oh, and there's an index and really cool character sheets as well.
I'm really digging on FAL. I want to import almost all of its mechanics into my S&W games but, at that point, I really must ask myself why I'm not just playing FAL. I guess that when you get a new game and you want to turn all your other games into the new game, that's really saying something about the new game.
So yeah. Go check out FAL. Even if the FAL setting isn't your cup of tea, the rule system is so chock full of awesomeness that you'll be glad you did.
