Highly skilled martial artists roam the lands seeking to redress wrongs, help the downtrodden, and free the innocent from oppression. Heroism, action, melodrama! These are the hallmarks of the wuxia genre, and when they show up in the tabletop sphere they tend to come with a pretty big set of rules and no small amount of actual magic. In this case, though, we have a game trying to use old school renaissance-style mechanics to enable wuxia genre conventions: Wandering Blades!
A world, and a mirror of worlds. Atop four giant elephants atop a giant turtle rests Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld – where the most dangerous barbarian is an old barbarian, where fleeing your destiny is the surest way to run into it, where a million-to-one chance always works out, where a single humble hero will always win while outnumbered, and where you have to practice believing in the little lies (stories) in order to make the big ones become true (justice, mercy, etc.. It’s been the subject of Roundworld-made roleplaying games before, but sometimes stories like to repeat themselves with a new twist, and this time there’s something of a primer. This is the Discworld Quickstart Guide from Modiphius Entertainment!
A waterbender of the North who refuses to hide behind walls. A firebender who suffered a great tragedy but knows who is really to blame. A scion of great shipbuilders who would much rather create things that helped instead of harm. An outlaw earthbender who has carved a line in the stone and refuses to let any cross it to hurt those behind her. Can they save their part of the world? What stories will they tell? Let’s Meet the Party for the Avatar Legends Quickstart from Magpie Games!
Water… Earth… Fire… Air. Long ago, Avatar: The Last Airbender told the story of a nascent master of all four elements and the group of young heroes that helped him save the world. Then everything changed when the Legend of Korra brought us the tale of his successor and her many trials and tribulations. But then, as these things go, that journey ended and that world vanished from the screen. Seven years passed, with the story continuing in novels and comics, but now we’ve discovered a new window into the Avatar world. Magpie Games is telling the story this time, and the prologue is the Quickstart for their newest roleplaying game: Avatar Legends!