I typically hate most of the ‘how do you….’ chapters in most rpg’s.  I find them to be typically pointless because of the redundancy or to not really offer anything of significance to anything but the most newbish of players.

I’m not saying Reign is truly ground breaking in this respect, but it did do one thing rather well in my opinion in this chapter.  They did a good job of describing what goes into making a good character to work within a group.   They stressed that it’s better to have 4 other players looking out for the well being of your character instead of having 5 individuals only looking out for themselves.

It also goes on to talk about why it’s a good idea to have a rounded party and not a group of ultimate ass kicking machines.  There are some pretty stereotypical examples given to support it, but they fit well.   Such as a group of stealthy thieves may be fantastic at getting into the casstle – but kinda limited with what you can do from there.  Or how a group of Southsayers could predict the future with pinpoint accuracy – but would be powerless to stop it.  Rather obvious examples, but worth pointing out specially for newbs.

Another rather interesting read in this section was the reinforcement of having the GM’s campaign ideas and the players expectations on the same page.  We’ve mentioned that several times in the podcast but it was nice to see it worded rather plainly.  They don’t get into the concept of contracts or anything like that just the concept.

Again nothing here in this chapter is ground breaking or new.  But it was one of the few books I’ve read that treated the general subject of character, group and campaign expectations well.   It didn’t go over and over on how to be a good GM (that could be later in the book though) it was a nice several page bit on group cohesion concepts plain and simple.

If you would like to discuss this, please visit the forums.

Now I haven’t really even dented the surface of the game, but what I’ve read so far my expectations are being met. The ORE engine used in Reign is easily the best take on it yet. Not so much that it’s really different from Godlike or Nemesis. But they’ve done a much better job of explaining the system. The biggest problem I’ve always seen before in ORE is that it’s typically seen as most other rpg’s where you frequently call for dice rolls. The ORE doesn’t work well under those systems and it’s better suited to only make story driven rolls where there is some significance to the roll.

A Painter can paint – it’s assumed. No need to make a roll. However if the quality of the painting being offered to a king could mean the painters death then you roll. No it’s not rules light – god no. There are a lot of rules and ways to interprit situations. However the core system itself is very streamlined. Your figure out your pool (Strength + Climb for example) and make your roll. Pretty simple. The complexity comes in when you are dealing with opossed roll situations and how you interprit those rolls. Does your opponents better roll, stop you or does it mearly alter your initial intent etc…

Combat uses the same system but there is more complexity to it involving various types of attacks, defense and timing between attacks. For example a fast, but sloppy attack may be more difficult to block then a well placed, but slower attack, things like that.

The special power mechanic has a familiarity to those in Exalted or to the magic like abilities in D20′s Book of Nine Swords. You have esoteric levels of skills that go beyond what just a normal person could do.

I haven’t touched on the magis system yet either, but it seems to be a little more open ended with types of elements you can control and the level at which you can control them.

Of course one of the biggest draws of Reign is the Company aspect. In which your character is one part of a larger group that all the players can control. I haven’t started getting into this section yet either as I want to give it the attention it deserves.

As I read more I’ll post more. But so far from what I’ve read and skimmed it’s definitely a solid product. I’d certainly recommend it to anyone. But the whole POD method of getting it really is a pisser. I think if this game was more readily available in stores it’d be a much bigger hit then it is through internet word of mouth.