Disclaimer: This review is just my ramblings on TROS. I make no guarantee that anyone might find said review useful in any degree.
The Riddle of Steel is in my opinion a ground-breaking FRPG. While it is true that many aspects of it are not "never before seen" features, the blend of these aspects is unique. Rather than going chapter by chapter, I'll attempt to give an overall description with some noteworthy features detailed. I will do my best to be objective in my review, but take into account that I am likely biased.TROS is a handsomely bound book with killer cover art. Its page count is slightly less than the D&D 3E PHB, but due to the thicker paper, it is just a bit more massive. The interior art is OK, with some artwork being quite nice and evocative of the dark mood portrayed by the text, but some is average at best. The picture of the wizard in the Sorcery section is my favourite, by far.
While being perhaps most noteworthy for its combat system, it should be noted that the system emphasizes role-playing over roll-playing again and again. This attitude has been hard-wired into the mechanics of the game by making character traits and goals relevant to such actions as combat and sorcery. Characters have Drives, Passions, Philosophies etc, that are determined at character generation and throughout play. When a character is involved in actions that resonate with his ethos, he receives substantial bonus dice to use in those (usually crisis) situations. The example given is bonus dice used by a character to help him in the rescue of his lady love (a Passion).
Character generation is dead easy once you've gotten the hang of it. One simply assigns priorities to such things as race, social class, stats, proficiencies (combat skills) etc. The priorities are rated A to F, with A being the most important. That way a starting character has a focus for his early life. If one assigned priority "A" to stats, that character would be physically and mentally quite gifted. Assigning priority "F" to stats would result in a character quite the opposite. The priority system affects all other aspects of character generation in a similar fashion.
There are 15 stats, ranging (more or less) from 1 to 10, which represent pools of d10s to be used for skill rolls. A skill is not necessarily tied to any one stat or group of stats like in many RPGs. Any stat can be used to test any skill, depending on circumstances. For instance, to test one's Riding skill, you could use Reflex, Endurance, or Agility to test short distance, long distance or trick riding respectively. To test a skill, roll the appropriate stat's worth of d10s to get equal to or above a specified Target Number (TN) to succeed. Only one "success" (i.e. one d10 equal to or above the TN) is necessary to succeed in a skill, but the more successes rolled, the better. For example, if your character's Sneak TN is 6, then roll 6 or higher on one of your d10s to succeed. If the character was using his Agility (7, say) to test Sneak, he's have in effect 7 chances to roll higher than 6 or higher. Three or four successes indicate greater aplomb in the use of the skill. With "contested" rolls (let's say a guard is trying to spot the character sneaking around), the number of successes of each person involved are compared. So if said guard might roll Perception vs. a TN depending on circumstances. Penalties or bonuses might affect the number of dice available to roll for either party.
TROS's entire mechanic is based on d10 dice pools, and its centerpiece, the combat system, uses this mechanic to brilliant effect. The system is a little complicated, but the learning curve is not very steep. A few mock combats should be enough to familiarize the players and GM enough to get going. There are a plethora of offensive and defensive maneuvers available to players, and strategy, not stats are crucial to survival. There are maneuvers such as "Evasive Attack", "Bind and Strike" (using an offhand weapon/shield to neutralize an opponent's weapon/shield in the next attack), "Half-Sword", "Block Open and Strike", "Counter" and "Parry" to name a few. The two combatants declare their attacks and defenses, with both players choosing whether to be the attacker or defender. The number of successes are compared, and if the attacker has more successes than the defender, a hit has been scored in the specified target area (allowing for some deviation, determined by a d6.). All shots are in effect, "called shots"... Kinda cool. Damage is lessened or negated by the target's Toughness (a stat) and armour, and is looked up in the injury tables. They are not unlike Rolemaster's Critical Charts, but are more serious in tone and just as brutal. Don't let the injury charts intimidate you if you're Rolemasterphobic... they're really quite easy to use. Besides, they're deadly enough that one or two good hits will end the fight, just as in real life. The nice thing about TROS combat is that though the combat is deadly (as it should be), it is not random. If you make a mistake, the character will likely die. If you play your combats wisely, your character will likely survive.
The Sorcery of TROS is rather unique as well. Firstly, it is purposefully extremely powerful and unbalanced. Even a beginning mage is a force to be reckoned with. When prepared, a Sorcerer can deal out unbelievable damage, but when caught unawares, they die on a blade as easily as any man. These adepts pay a high price for their power, however. That price is aging. A spell caster can age several months with a single casting, and this aging is irreversible. It is possible to avoid aging entirely, but it is difficult. Most likely, a mage will find himself suddenly sporting a month of beard growth and ungainly long nails after a successful spell casting. A mage gains skill in any of nine "Vagaries" or specialties (sort of) of magic. Some of the Vagaries are Sculpture, Growth, Movement, Summoning, etc. There are only three levels of skill: Novice, Apprentice, and Master. Each Vagary is broken down into three effects, which are the specific applications of each Vagary. For instance, the Movement Vagary is comprised of the effects Speed, Maneuverability, and Animation. A spell can incorporate any number of Vagaries, with those incorporating a single Vagary being the fastest and the most dangerous to cast. Incorporating more than three Vagaries requires a Ritual, and can take a long time. Spells can be created on the fly, or can be "Formalized" (i.e. written down), reducing the risk to the caster. The spell effects can be extreme. A seasoned warrior is no match for a prepared sorcerer, who could cause the warrior's sword to reverse and strike its owner, or cause the warrior's bones to sprout spurs and puncture his muscles and skin, or he could use Movement to fling the warrior around like a rag doll. So the key to defeating a sorcerer by force of arms is to do it by surprise.
Included in TROS is a description of its campaign setting Weyrth. The world is described region by region in a similar style to "Kingdoms of Kalamar". Weyrth is a late medieval to early renaissance setting where magic is rare and powerful. Many of the cultures are based on real world historical cultures, with an emphasis on central European style cultures. The entries are brief, but give the reader enough colour to expand upon. However, in order to run a campaign a lot of preparatory work would be in order. In short, Weyrth appears as a well-researched homebrew world, encapsulated in 60 some pages. It captures some of the grittiness of the TROS rules, and is a fitting counterpart. Let's hope that Driftwood Publishing does well enough to put out a more complete world book. I bet it would be worth getting.
The Seneschal's (GM's) section is a nice addition including general GMing tips written in a lighthearted tone, and is an amusing read. I always knew deep down inside that the GM should never have to pay for the pizza, and now I have it in print! This section includes super-handy NPC and beast stats.
The book concludes with the Appendices consisting of the Injury Tables and weapon statistics, followed by a brief afterword by the author that I'm sure many of us Harniacs would sympathize with.
OK, so there it is... the stuff I like. There isn't much I dislike about TROS, and here are my nitpicks. First, there are still some typos in the text. If no one has come forward to find them all, I'll throw my hat into the ring if Driftwood needs a hand in that regard. Secondly, I'm not entirely satisfied with the armour reduction. Each amour type reduces each type of damage by the same amount, so that mail is just as effective against blunt attacks as it is against edge or point. Of course, a couple of house rules would fix that in a jiffy. My last nitpick is that there are a few wording ambiguities that make in unclear if the TN or the dice pool is being modified in certain circumstances. Other than that, I've got nothing bad to say about this product! I'd give it a solid 8 out of 10, if not higher.
Since this is a Hârn forum, I'd like to include a few notes on TROS's adaptability to Hârn. It seems to be a good match, really. The magic is really powerful and may have to be toned down (I don't have any ideas on how to do that yet), but the combat is perfect, as is the character generation system, with its emphasis on role-playing over stats. While I prefer HMx for Hârn, TROS will appeal to those who like simple mechanics coupled with lots of detail. TROS is as adaptable to Hârn as RuneQuest or Chivalry & Sorcery: The Rebirth, for the most part. There are no rules for clerics in a HMR sense with regards to invocations, but this may appeal to some GMs. TROS priests are more like real world clergy in most respects. Of course, there's nothing to stop priests from being mages as well. The Convocations of the Shek-Pvar could be represented by combining packets of Vagaries as follows (for example): Savorya: Conquer (mind control) Vision (clairvoyance), Imprisonment (magic only, to make artifacts) and Summoning (magic only, to make duration spells). Lyahvi: Glamour (Illusion), Summoning (magic and spirits only), Banishment (spirits), and Imprisonment (magic only). I'm not sure how to represent Odivshe, though.
So there it is. TROS is, in my opinion, a very fine product, suitable for adaptation to Hârn as well as being a satisfying gaming experience in its own right. Even though TROS is complete as a single book, there are expansion products on the way (advanced combat, sorcery, and a bestiary of sorts), which I plan on buying as soon as they come out. Great job, Jake. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!