Mistborn: The Big Book of "Rules Lite"

When I sat down to play Mistborn, I had skimmed the rules.  They seemed pretty light, with some uniqueness mixed with familiar concepts from games like FATE.  But from reading just the first few pages of this big RPG book, I had been sucked into the awesome world Brandon Sanderson has created, and was excited to explore the world he presents.  After playing, my opinions have been flipped dramatically.

The book, as I understand it, has quite a bit of "spoilers", so if you haven't read the books and plan to, I'm warning you now that I don't know enough to differentiate, so anything below this point could potentially give you more information than you should know.  I'm not sure whether to dock points off for this issue or not.  On the bonus side, it not only explains but expands on concepts introduced in the books, allowing followers of the series to explore the world in greater depth.  At the same time, new players (e.g. friends of people who've read the books) are given a huge amount of information, which is great, because it helps them dive into the world and join their friends in understanding how the world ticks. So the only downside is some spoilers... which I think is just fine for a 'series' RPG.

The system most closely resembles "Lady Blackbird" (which if you haven't played, you should!).  You use d6 dice pools, created with base stats plus any number of attributes and traits that may apply, giving you either bonus dice or taking some away.  However, the system of success is fairly unique: you try to get pairs of dice, with 6's being extra bonuses regardless of success.  Without going into further detail, the result of this is that the action resolution is very quick and easy to determine the outcome, while hiding the probabilities behind otherwise familiar d6s.  It seemed to work, at it's core.

However, the system has hard, artificial limits.  You can never have less than 2 dice, and no more than 10.  I generally don't like rules like this, because even though most systems have reasonable limits on their dice and numbers, rules that define limits are in your face about it.  Really, it bothers me because of other rules in the system - the ones that say you stack bonuses and subtract penalties.  What this means is that if I have enough bonuses to get myself to 10 dice in resources, "the empire", who is supposed to have magnitudes more resources than myself, also only has 10 dice.

Challenge ratings are from 1-5, which is not a very fine gradient for GMs to play with.  But, it's simple, which I liked, up until the point where the game introduces opposed rolls and relative outcomes.  Now the 1-5 scale changes based on who and what is participating.  Add on 6's being "nudges", which are more or less completely undefined 'extra bonuses', and the scale at which action happens is blurred to the point where our GM was having trouble interpreting the results of our die rolls.

Unlike FATE, where aspects can only be used with the FATE point economy, and unlike Lady Blackbird, where attributes are clearly and explicitly defined, Mistborn uses a much more loose mechanic called "traits and burdens".  They are more like FATE aspects in words, describing broad concepts about the characters, but act like Lady Blackbird's bonuses, where as long as you can convince the GM that a trait applies, he may reward you a bonus die.  Or not.  This, while good in theory, results in a lot of banter between players and GMs.  While not aggressive, this slows down the game considerably, since nothing is clear-cut, and everything must be discussed.

Character creation was simple and relatively quick.  Our group spent a lot of time on it, but I think that's because the general questionaire the system uses opens up for a lot of discussion on who your characters are, where they came from, and what motivates them forward.  The stats, traits, and powers were easy to come up with and understand.  Plus, the book has great examples that fit right into Sanderson's world.  I really appreciated that character's are tied into the world with a tragedy and a destiny, which sounded overkill at first, but really adds the right splash of color that this world is asking for.  And in the end, I was very happy with the outcome of my character (despite being grossly under powered compared to the rest of the party, since he had no magical abilities).

The magic in Mistborn is what it's all about.  Non-magical characters may have uses, but in reality, half the fun of this game is playing with the very well-defined abilities of Allomancy (metal magic).  Sanderson's magic is well-received as it has a set of rules that are easy to grasp yet extremely powerful and flexible.  The best part is that they are, for the most part, limited in scope.  The vast number of examples included help ground the players in the possible vs. impossible, which in my understanding also lines up perfectly with the book series.

But... for all the fun it provides, the magic doesn't translate well into an RPG.  First and foremost, magical power can be 'recharged' by eating/drinking metal, usually in the form of carried vials.  So basically "mana potions". This is a nightmare for an RPG, since the limit of magic is then tied directly to limit of economy.  This works out great for the stories of intrigue and power struggle told in the Mistborn series, but when it came to the RPG, it's almost as if the designers didn't even try to tackle the problem.  Instead, they introduce an awkward props system that is, again "in theory", a simplistic approach to items.  Instead, it only serves to confuse players as to why they can only have so much on them at any given time, and why it's auto-recharged after any given "scene".  Taken abstractly, it actually works fairly well, but feels very gamey, which distracts from the otherwise immersive world.

Which brings me to the world itself.  It's exciting, for sure.  Magic is a fantastic mystery, and the heroes are generally powerful, unique beings that are trying to stand up against oppression.  But... once I really dug into it, I couldn't help but to feel an overwhelming amount of helplessness and depression.  The Lord Ruler, oppressor of all, is an untouchable, ancient god-king.  So from the start, anyone who stands against him is screwed.  Then, the nobility of the world has everything under hand and foot.  They breed slaves and murder them for fun.  Worse yet, at any time any number of ridiculously powerful creatures could be sent to kill the players. And they would have no hope.  The world is dirty, both physically and mentally.  It's just not a nice place for anyone (except maybe the god-king?).  This is - the point - if you will.  But it's hopeless.  No matter what I do as a hero, will I ever really make a difference?  I can't help but to just want to put the book down and walk away.  It leaves me with a gross feeling, rather than any sort of experience I'm glad I had.

That all said, one of the best parts of the game is the 'group template'.  It's easy to get the players together, because you're a crew.  And a crew naturally works together towards a common goal (something you decide when creating characters).  This idea is fantastic - basically an "Ocean's 11" gang in a fantasy setting.  Add in uniquely known secrets that each player keeps to themselves, and you can't help but be pulled into the world of Mistborn, with all of the wonders it holds (You know - despite the awful, depressing setting where murder and rape are commonplace, and your god-king sends magicians to make everyone feel OK about it.  Yeah.  Except that.).

TL;DR - The game is often called "Rules Lite" because of it's easy dice and simple trait system.  But when you add a tome of supporting information for the world and it's magic, and all of a sudden you're left with a game that's not exactly easy to play, in any sense of the phrase.

No seriously, this book is huge: