‘Barbaric!’ Character Generation

Introduction

Having just covered Clash of Steel, I realized that I never created a character for Barbaric!. Now in its second edition, Barbaric! shares the same Quantum Engine base system as Cepheus Atom and other games.

Making Characters

The basic steps of character generation are as follows:

1. Start with a character concept.
2. Distribute 5 points among six Skills, none higher than 3:
   • Combat: attacking and defending
   • Craft: expertise in a variety of tasks
   • Lore: knowledge about the world and magic
   • Physical: strength, agility, health
   • Social: interpersonal interaction
   • Stealth: sneaking and skulduggery
3. Choose an Archetype (pp 12-13).
4. Calculate Stamina: 14 + 3 × Physical
5. Calculate Defense: 8 + ½ Combat (rounded up)
6. Record starting Equipment: food and water for 3 days, a backpack, a waterskin, a knife, and 3d6×10 gold coins worth of items (pp 18-21).
7. If Combat is greater than 1, choose (Combat-1) Combat Moves (pp 14-15).
8. If Lore is greater than 0, choose (Lore) Spells (pp 37-39).
9. Decide on the character’s Name and Appearance.
10. Jot down notes on the character’s motivation and personality.

Rather than walk through all these steps I’m just going to show the final results.

Dara the Sailor

Milo the Pugilist

Lysandra the Priestess

Vardamis the Sorcerer

I rolled Vardamis’s spells randomly, so they follow no particular theme.

Playing The Game

The Basic Mechanic

To resolve any action with a chance of failure, a player or GM rolls 2D6 and adds a character’s skill or other modifier against a set target number. For simplicity I will refer to this as a “skill check vs. X”. For example a “Combat check vs. Defense” means throw 2d6, add the character’s Combat skill value, and compare it to the target’s Defense number.

If the total is equal to or greater than the target number, the action succeeds.

Advantage

Archetypes and other rules grant “Advantage” on skill rolls. That means the player or GM rolls 3d6, drops the lowest die, and adds the remaining dice to the skill value and/or other modifiers.

Hero Points

Players may use Hero Points to reroll any single die roll, including damage rolls, Triage, and Spellcasting Mishaps, and take the better result. They may also ask the Referee to reroll an NPC’s die roll; the second result stands.

Each player starts a game session with two personal Hero Points. The group has a pool of Hero Points equal to the number of players present. Players may spend from their personal pool or, with the other players’ permission, the group pool. All pools reset at the beginning of the next session.

Combat

At the beginning of combat, each party involved makes a Combat check. The results determine the initiative order, highest total first.

Each combatant acts in initiative order. A successful attack requires a Combat check against the target’s Defense score. If successful, the attacker rolls damage; the target subtracts their Protection, if any, from the damage and subtracts the remainder from their Stamina.

If the attacker throws a natural 12 on the dice, or exceeds the target’s Defense by 6 or more, the attacker causes maximum damage and rolls on the Critical Hit table. Entries on the table often entail some dismemberment.

Damage and Healing

If a character loses all Stamina, they are Wounded and usually out of the fight. (A character can continue to fight after being Wounded if they succeed at a Physical check, but further damage inflicts additional wounds.)

At the end of combat, all Wounded characters must roll on the Triage table, with a penalty for every Wound after the first. Results range from death to recovery after a day of rest.

Other characters recover their full Stamina after 10 minutes.

Experience

Player characters start at Rank 1 of five Ranks:

1. Experienced
2. Expert
3. Master
4. Grandmaster
5. Legend

Characters gain one Experience Point (XP) per adventure. They gain one Rank every 5 XP. At each Rank the character may increase a skill by 1 (up to 5), gain a Combat Move if their Combat is 2 or more, gain +4 Stamina, gain 2 new spells, or gain a new Archetype (one time only).

Sorcery

Any character can cast any spell they know, regardless of their Lore skill. To cast a spell, the character must spend 10 minutes preparing the spell; they can shorten that time to one combat round at a -2 penalty. The target must be within the stated range of the spell and comply with any other conditions. Finally, the player or GM must succeed at Lore check vs. 8+.

If the player or GM rolls a natural 12 on the dice, the spell succeeds automatically.

If the player or GM rolls a natural 2 on the dice, or fails the roll by 4 or more, the spell fails and a random Spellcasting Mishap occurs. Mishaps range from inconvenient to probably fatal.

… and the rest

Barbaric! is only 64 pages long (A5 sized). In addition to the above topics it contains short chapters on Exploration, Monsters, Treasure, and Factions.

Factions are a GM tool to create an active setting by representing the behind-the-scenes struggles among different groups struggling for power. One move in this game between factions could prompt an entire adventure. Conversely, the player characters’ actions could tip the scales in the struggle. They could even take over a Faction or form their own, plunging them into a brand new world of influence, skulduggery, and politics.

Evaluating The Game

Having played a one-shot of Barbaric!, I can say that the game moves fairly fast. Usually the skill governing an action is fairly obvious. Combat moves pretty quickly, especially if you’re used to initiative order. Unlike a Certain Other Game players don’t have to worry about multiple actions and reactions in their turn, movement is straightforward (especially using Theater of the Mind), and spells don’t take paragraphs to describe what they do.

For a quick evening’s fun, or as an introduction to RPGs, Barbaric! is an ideal choice.

The Barbaric! Campaign?

Can Barbaric! sustain a mini-campaign or full campaign? To quote the games Introduction:

So, pour your beer, devour your pizza, turn up the volume of your favorite heavy metal album – and prepare to become … Barbaric!

Certainly the author intended it as a “beer and pretzels” (pizza) game. Then again, the swords-and-sorcery genre originated as a set of loosely linked short stories; most S&S games play out the same way. By creating a consistent and interesting world the Referee could keep the same characters campaigning indefinitely.

The question is whether such simply defined characters would hold players' interest for five, ten, twenty, or forty sessions. Can a Referee keep their attention that long? That I don’t know. Modern players seem to prefer gaining a new ability or power every session or two. Barbaric! might be a hard sell, and maybe only the most charismatic Referee with the most compelling world could even attempt it.

Perhaps Barbaric! needs something more than its 64 half-sized pages. Other games have more ways for players to explore the world and enhance their power: alchemical and magical inventions, mass battles, seafaring, building a stronghold. Those could be grafted onto Barbaric! from other games, but players and GMs may not want to put that much effort in a “beer and pizza” game.