Birthright, reboot

[Hollowone PL]

I have vogue memories but if I have any, they are very sympathetic to this system I had few chances to play, in the 90s.

It was I think last one that was introduced during 2e and I think heavily underrated and most likely discontinued later on.

Any active fans or gamers of this setting still present on this group?

-h1

[Spalls Hurgenson]

Not an active fan but an admiring one from back-in-the-day.

"Birthright" was a fascinating experiment that suffered from being
released at the wrong time, and not giving players a clear idea what
it was all about. Its setting was, I think, strong enough to stand on
its own, but TSR wrapped the new bloodline mechanics - which allowed
players to control whole domains - that made players uncertain as what
sort of game it was. Was it traditional RPG? Strategy? Wargame? TSR
did a poor job of explaining it. Add into that all the other settings
and products TSR was pumping out, it's no wonder it never gained an
audience.

Still, it's setting was wonderfully epic and different enough that
playing the game was a fun experience... if you could find a group
that understood what it was all abou. My group largely ignored the
bloodline aspects of the game and just used the setting as backdrop
for traditional questing, but we still had fun. The universe itself
often felt very 'low magic' even though it was saturated with powerful
gods and monsters, which appealed to our style of play. This was in
direct contrast to settings like Spelljammer, Dark Sun or Forgotten
Realms, where magic felt common place and lacked any sense of wonder.

Sadly, "Birthright" - like too many TSR settings - didn't survive the
Wizards of the Coast take-over or the transition to 3E. There have
been some fan products that have expanded the universe, but they're
few and far between. It's barely remembered by most, and almost never
played. And between the 2nd Ed rules and its own convoluted mechanics,
I'm not surprised. Still, I fondly remember our old Birthright
campaigns.

[Hollowone PL]

> "Birthright" was a fascinating experiment that suffered from being
> released at the wrong time, and not giving players a clear idea what
> it was all about. Its setting was, I think, strong enough to stand on
> its own, but TSR wrapped the new bloodline mechanics - which allowed
> players to control whole domains - that made players uncertain as what
> sort of game it was. Was it traditional RPG? Strategy? Wargame? TSR
> did a poor job of explaining it. Add into that all the other settings
> and products TSR was pumping out, it's no wonder it never gained an
> audience.

I can agree with that. One of my friends introduced the game to us, seasoned AD&D players coming from DL, FR campaigns mostly.
We instantly got confused by some army cards and some strategic decisions we needed to make to our 1st level characters.

In our previous games we had to reach epic levels to manage stronholds and politics, now we got that instantly, while being 1-hit characters. That was indeed confusing.

> Still, it's setting was wonderfully epic and different enough that
> playing the game was a fun experience... if you could find a group
> that understood what it was all abou. My group largely ignored the
> bloodline aspects of the game and just used the setting as backdrop
> for traditional questing, but we still had fun. The universe itself
> often felt very 'low magic' even though it was saturated with powerful
> gods and monsters, which appealed to our style of play. This was in
> direct contrast to settings like Spelljammer, Dark Sun or Forgotten
> Realms, where magic felt common place and lacked any sense of wonder.

That's true. I finally started understanding Birthright when the computer game came out.
It was very simplified on the rpg-aspects, and mostly strategy but tried to blend both.
Tech was not there yet to help it succeed but this kind of combination of both strategic and role-playing aspects + a board game to back your story up was and I believe still is an interesting combo for a successful product.

> Sadly, "Birthright" - like too many TSR settings - didn't survive the
> Wizards of the Coast take-over or the transition to 3E. There have
> been some fan products that have expanded the universe, but they're
> few and far between. It's barely remembered by most, and almost never
> played. And between the 2nd Ed rules and its own convoluted mechanics,
> I'm not surprised. Still, I fondly remember our old Birthright
> campaigns.

Well after all these years people are coming back to old rules and respect them more than upgraded.
To me 2E at the time of Birthright was already infected by Skills and Powers which was much simpler and yet optional than 3e.
My reason to stay with 2e as my last version, even though I've purchased a tone of 3e books just to keep them on my shelf..

But more mature and combinational games like Birthright and Planescape deserved a cut from D&D at some point. Brave decision that was never made at TSR. They did though cut D&D with Dragonlance apparently... for no damn reason to me.

One of many ways to look at the doom of the company. Circulation of ideas became more mad than creative at a cost of commercial failure.

Thanks for your comments by the way, you've convinced me even more how the sentiment to this title should be remembered.

-h1

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 06:14:39 -0700 (PDT), Hollowone PL
<hollo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Well after all these years people are coming back to old rules and respect them more than upgraded.
>To me 2E at the time of Birthright was already infected by Skills and Powers which was much simpler and yet optional than 3e.
>My reason to stay with 2e as my last version, even though I've purchased a tone of 3e books just to keep them on my shelf..
>
>But more mature and combinational games like Birthright and Planescape deserved a cut from D&D at some point. Brave decision that was never made at TSR. They did though cut D&D with Dragonlance apparently... for no damn reason to me.
>
>One of many ways to look at the doom of the company. Circulation of ideas became more mad than creative at a cost of commercial failure.

2E gets a bad rap but I have a fondness for both the system and the
settings it inspired. Looking back, it's much easier to see how
dysfunctional TSR had become in the late 80s and 90s, but there was a
manic energy to the company that - as a younger person - I couldn't
help but respond to. It felt like 'anything goes' and that the sky was
the limit as far as D&D was concerned (and with Spelljammer, even the
sky wasn't the limit anymore! ;-) Had TSR slowed down its output -
focused on fewer product lines, put more effort into playtesting its
games - I don't think that era would be remembered as fondly.

Yes, there was a lot of crud put out by the company - will I ever
forgive them for the Magic Encyclopedia books? No, probably not ;-) -
but on the whole the good outweighed the bad. Even the flood of
third-party d20 material following 3E's release didn't match the joy I
got reading the 'official' TSR books.

Sadly, TSR could never capitalize on the excitement their products
generated, and the finances of the company went to pot. But I'm not
surprised there is a resurgence of interest in the old stuff. It was a
great era in which to be a gamer.

[Ubiquitous]

hollo...@gmail.com wrote:

> I have vogue memories but if I have any, they are very sympathetic to this
> system I had few chances to play, in the 90s.

Our DM introduced it to one of our 3.x campaigns. It was an interesting
concept for kingdom-building but I hated the mechancis because it seemed
like we were playing "Accountants & Budgets" instead of "Dungeons & Dragons".

--
Let's go Brandon!

[Ubiquitous]

spallsh...@gmail.com wrote:

>Sadly, TSR could never capitalize on the excitement their products
>generated, and the finances of the company went to pot. But I'm not
>surprised there is a resurgence of interest in the old stuff. It was a
>great era in which to be a gamer.

I think 5e's success is in part due to it remnding us of the ol' TSR days.

[Justisaur]

I ran a very short campaign of it one time. I do like bits of it, the whole highlander
aspect is cool, but in practice it made giving the PCs chances to fight others either
extremely or and extremely fast rise to power. I went the latter, not helped by the
fact the resident power-gamer was one of the players and quickly ran out of things
to do.

- Justisaur

[Raas]

Yes... the Tragic Castle with the gargoyles

[Jay Costa]

> It's barely remembered by most, and almost never played.

Fortunately, I still play it. Our campaign started in 1998 and is still going.