Tabletop RPGs have hit differently in different countries.  Call of Cthulhu is the number one RPG in Japan.  I believe Fading Suns developed more of a following in Germany, or had one at one time.  Ars Magica seems to have a solid player base in Italy.  In Sweden, a game called Drakar och Demoner became a hit in the early 80s, and was many a young player’s introduction to the hobby.  Now Swedish company (collective?) Free League has updated and translated the venerable game into English under the name Dragonbane.  I grabbed the quickstart rules while out supporting local shops on Free RPG Day 2023, and finally got around to reading it.

I originally planned to pass this one by.  Fantasy isn’t my genre, generally, and I’ve already got several Fantasy games if I need one to scratch an itch.  However, when I found out that the original game was “inspired” by RuneQuest 2nd Ed, and thus has Basic Roleplaying in its DNA, well, my interest was piqued.  Reading through this booklet, I can see the appeal and am seriously tempted to grab the boxed set.  While the game uses a 20 sided die, it’s still basically the roll-under, skill based core of BRP.  The percentiles just simplified down by a factor of five.  There are other bits and bobs that make the system its own thing, but it maintains the things I particularly like about BRP.  There are no classes.  There are no levels.  Your character is what they do.  Want to be good at riding and shooting a bow?  Then ride and shoot a bow a lot and you’ll get better at them.  Want to be really good at crafting?  Craft.  Also, as with other BRP games, combat is brutal and deadly, and it’s best avoided, unless you have the upper hand.

The rules presented in this booklet are enough to run through the sample encounter and maybe do a bit more.  However, they are fairly limited and a lot is left out, including character creation.  Along with the sample scenario, there are some pregenerated characters, so you should be able to play a season with this quickstart to give you a taste.

The art is excellent, with a slightly cartoonish, but slightly grimdark vibe.  It reminds me of old Warhammer Fantasy art to a degree.  The layout is attractive.  There are some editing issues.  Sometimes it seems like a paragraph or two were copy & pasted right out of the full rulebook, as they make reference to something on another page or “in the box,” when that page and the materials from the box are not present here.

Whatever the case, this sample book has done its job.  It’s made me very interested in and much more likely to acquire the full boxed set of the game.

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