Thursday, October 20, 2016

Würm: First Look


The Kickstarter for the English translation of the French prehistoric rpg Würm dropped yesterday. I haven't had time for more than brief flip-through but it seems pretty cool. Here are not observations:

  • The art is at times a bit on the cartoony side (it reminds me a bit of some Franco-Belgian comic art), but is "realistic" in what it depicts, not pulpy. No Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. lookalikes. Neanderthals get a lot of depiction and as protagonists, not brutish adversaries.
  • The mechanics related to hunting, tracking, and killing are as robust as combat is in most rpgs. There is a "Butchering" roll and a "Skinning" roll, apparently--and cool features like this: "If eaten raw in the moments following the death of the animal, the liver of a killed mammal grants the one eating it the Strength connected to this kind of animal until next dawn. Note that this power only applies to mammals."
  • "Magical" abilities of various sorts are discussed including Shamanism and "Sorcery" (the making of potions and ointments). There are also rules for handling relationships with spirits and curses.
  • The monster section contains the usual prehistoric beasts (no dinosaurs), but also, somewhat surprisingly, some fantasy staples like dragons, a couple of types of giants, and spirits of the elements.

All and all, it looks interesting, and I'm glad I backed the Kickstarter.



3 comments:

Uncle Sam said...

This sounds very interesting. I'm not sure I could get my group interested. But it sounds very cool.

Trey said...

Yeah, I'm not sure I can convince my group either!

Mightyeroc said...

If you ran a few sessions of this as a precursor to something in your regular game. Thats how you trick them into it.