Crows: Fortune or Death
Meet the game
Crows is a fantasy role playing game where you and your friends (or future friends) work together to tell a story that unfolds as you play. As long as you are all having fun, you are playing "correctly". Don't overthink it.
Gameplay
You play as a bog-standard human who is desperate or adventurous enough to leave your village, travel across the land trough Miasma (sentient magical fog that slowly makes you crazy), and explore dangerous ruins, dungeons, castles, or whatever. Why are they dangerous? Because after the Necromancer War, there are a lot of creepy unnatural things lurking in the shadows! The necromancers were also really into traps and such so watch where you step.
The core gameplay is using your items/tools, your wits, and hopefully some good luck to find valuable treasure and bring it back to the village. When you do so, your village prospers. If (actually, when) you succumb to an untimely but hopefully interesting demise, you start playing as a new human. Although you may cycle through bodies, your village will continue to grow; providing access to new items and services.
You don't need to worry about complicated maths or long lists of skills as the game is easy to play. Most of the time you'll role play what you think up in the moment and if it sound like it'd work, it just works. From time to time you'll rely on your item cards that clearly explain what they do (swing a sword, attack at range, cast a spell) and how do do it; almost always it'll be roll dice, add a stat, and something happens. The stats you can add will be Agility, Strength, or Mind - that's it.
Look, it's a sword item card.
Roll two 10-sided dice and add your Strength
- Tier 1, 11 or lower: The target automatically hits you! (That's bad)
- Tier 2, 12 through 16: You do 3 + Strength damage to the target. (Good)
- Tier 3, 17 or higher: You do 6 + Strength damage to the target. (Even better)
Did I mention your not-the-special human might die? Yeah, that's because it doesn't take many hits/damage to take you down. Avoiding fights, or being creative so that you dispose of danger without a fight, is key to survival. For example you might use a chicken, rope, and donkeys to make an improvised fishing line so you can hook-and-drag a monstrosity through a sword-based mandolin. Don't believe me? Watch it happen in a video by Zee Bashew.
Interested?
Read through the Crows: Fortune or Death BackerKit campaign by MCDM for more details as they've laid out far more than I have here. I think it's pretty cool and am excited to play it.