Getting players to try something beyond Dungeons & Dragons can be a challenge. It takes time and effort to master D&D. Some players don’t want to learn more rules to play a different game. Grimwild, from designer J.D. Maxwell with art by Per Janke, seems like it might have been initially created for gaming groups who want to move on from D&D but have a few holdouts reluctant to make the jump. It uses familiar structures like classes, fantasy adventure and recognizable monsters to ease players and GMs into a new system; one that borrows from a lot of indie and narrative sources as well. Does Grimwild slay the dragon? Let’s play to find out.
The biggest influence on GrimWild comes from Blades In The Dark. The game uses the d6 pools to determine whether or not a player gets a perfect, messy or grim result when they take action. It handles difficulty by adding in thorn dice that lower the success level by one if these d8 dice roll a seven or eight. Rather than clocks, narrative problems are represented by pools of d6 which are rolled whenever a clock might tick. Any dice that roll 1-3 exit the pool and when the pool is empty, the thing happens in the story. This could mean the monster is defeated, the wound is healed or the wizard’s magic is used up. I like how pools add a bit of dice goblin chaos back into the relatively methodical progress of the clock mechanic. The swingy nature of the d20 is often one of the most exciting things about the game. The pool mechanic adds a little bit of that feeling back in to give players those moments where a lucky roll can take out a big bad unexpectedly or keep that one darn goblin alive to annoy the party again.
The character paths follow the twelve classes included in Fifth Edition. Each one gives players some leeway in flavoring their class in a specific way. Some classes have options that are there for color while others, such as the magic options have a mechanical impact. Most of the time, the class includes a six by six chart of words where players are supposed to roll or select a few choices, mash them together and come up with functional character options. This method can be used for everything from paladin oaths to spell names.
Magic hits a sweet spot between freeform and lists of spells. Magic characters select a domain and then are given narrative benchmarks for what their powers can do. The power levels range from narrative declarations to rituals that require multiple participants and seem like a good source of climactic scenes. For example, a shadowblood sorcerer might be able to snuff out a candle or torch without a roll, strike someone blind with a spell roll, create a zone of darkness and silence with a spell roll and added thorns and blot out the sun if they can find the right artifacts and cast a ritual with a half dozen other shadowbloods. There’s some negotiation between player and GM here but the text does a good job in setting benchmarks, offering advice and including examples that frame the designer’s intent.
The GM advice is also one of the selling points of the book. Reading it reminded me of the first time I read Dungeon World and how that helped me grasp Powered by the Apocalypse games in a way I hadn’t yet. I’m more familiar with the mechanics used here, but there’s good, strong advice on how to move through a story with just the essentials and figuring things out during play. It’s not exactly the blank page that many indie RPGs suggest either. The back of the book offers several story kits that pack a lot of info for a story into an easy to read one page format. There are multiple hooks, characters, obstacles and even plot twists to choose from. Rather than a linear story the story kits provide prompts to keep things moving if your players go in an expected way. These kits are also not level dependent. If a GM wants to kick off a campaign where the players try to infiltrate a vampire lord’s ball they don’t have to worry about leveling up characters or leveling down villains.
Grimwild adopts the Kevin Crawford method of release with a mostly full free version with a paid version that includes more content. In this case that content is two more classes, more information of magic items, additional GM advice and some rules hacks to adjust the fantasy aspects to fit the players desires. The free version impressed me and I picked up the full version of the game shortly after completing this review.
Bottom line: Grimwild offers a fantasy game that bounces back and forth between player and Game Master. It pays reverence to the games in the past that inspires it but also finds a new way to move forward.
