tabletopgaming.co.uk 23ROOT: THE RPG
“It’s usually a bad idea to try and parallel mechanics,
because the way that a board game functions –
it’s limited, it’s constrained, it’s focused – is just
fundamentally di erent from how a roleplaying game
functions,” he explains. “But we’re certainly looking at
those elements to capture their feeling.”
He gives the example of the Arbiter, one of the possible
Vagabond classes, who can serve as an extra defender for
another faction during combat in the board game.
“ at doesn’t really transfer to a roleplaying game, ‘cause
you’re supposed to be the actor, right? is is happening
on someone else’s turn. So we’ve actually looked at giving
the Arbiter a special ability to basically say, ‘ ou shall not
pass.’ e Arbiter’s cool thing is they can hold an area – a
bridge, a door – and no-one can get through it. It gives you
that sense of, ‘Yeah, I matter to this ght! I was the one who
held them o ,’ but in a di erent mechanical way.”
Another possible character type is the Tinker. Like
the Arbiter, the class opens up a di erent approach to
encounters and situations – this time, by building and
using mechanical objects.
“Other Vagabonds might try to do that or learn to do
that over time, but the Tinker’s going to have options that
no other character has,” Truman explains.
“ is game is going to look a lot like Dungeon World,
Masks, other places we’ve worked in, where players get a
playbook or a character type that gives them unique ways
to engage with the setting. So it’s a little asymmetric.”
Playing just as important a role in the RPG as it did in
the board game is the Vagabonds’ gear and equipment,
which opened up additional actions and abilities in the
original Root as it was collected from the forest.
“Whether you have a crossbow, whether you have a
hammer, matters a lot,” Truman says. “We want that to
be true about the tabletop RPG, too; but we want it to be
true in a storytelling way, not necessarily ‘And now I do
plus-two damage against cats with my crossbow.’”
e aim is, Truman adds, to give the players the power
to make their characters – and the world – their own,
going beyond the relatively rigid gameplay of a board
game to bring Root’s setting fully alive.
“As they have adventures, the way that the mechanics
play out is that they have options for moving forward
that aren’t just ghting every group of cats they come
across but engaging in the kind of delightful trickery-
slash-persuasion-slash-sneaking around that kind of
typi es woodland scoundrel ction,” he explains.
Several of Magpie Games’ previous RPGs have been
built on Powered by the Apocalypse, the exible and
straightforward roleplaying engine used in other games
such as Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts that
de nes characters’ actions as ‘moves’ resolved by two
six-sided dice and modi ers. Truman con rms that
Root: e RPG will likely follow a similar structure.
“We’re still playing around with exactly what this
system looks like, but one of the reasons we love
that system in particular is that it’s not a hard-coded
system of, ‘Oh, you de nitely have these moves, these
playbooks, these things’ – it’s a framework for thinking
about roleplaying games,” he says. “So if you’ve tried
Dungeon World, Monster of the Week, Masks or Urban
Shadows, they’re very, very di erent games.”
Truman is con dent the solid roleplaying foundation and
eshed-out setting of Root: e RPG will satisfy roleplaying
veterans looking for a vast new world to venture into. But
just as important as proving the game could live up to the
second half of its name was ensuring those attracted by its
familiar title wouldn’t nd themselves lost in the woods.I want this to be
a game people
are playing ten years
from now – that is a
big challenge.