Quinns Quest Reviews: This RPG Makes Monsters Scary Again

Call of Cthulhu? Why don't you stop calling Cthulhu for a change, give the guy a rest, and take a look at Vaesen instead.

[FreeLeaguePublishing]

Hello! Free League co-founder here, designer of the Year Zero Engine and editor of Vaesen. Thanks for that interesting and entertaining review! We always strive to improve and constructive criticism is always appreciated. That said, there are some things in the review that I'd like to comment on.

Firstly, what was to become the "Year Zero Engine" was written about a decade ago, and the principle of "yes but...", or "fail forward, " i.e. the idea that no single failed dice roll should block progress of the story, was very much part of the game system philosophy from the very beginning. And it is the case in Vaesen as well (released in 2020) - in fact, this is discussed at some length on page 40 of the core rulebook.

Yes, the official adventures do require skill rolls to unlock information in some cases,  as we do want knowledge skills to matter in this game (and this is hardly unique for Vaesen). But such information, behind a "dice wall", is, while useful, never essential to proceed with the story - or if it is essential, there are always other ways to gain the same clue. This principle of adventure design, about central clues vs peripheral clues, is discussed at length on pages 176-178 in the core book. I'd be interested to know which adventure you were running where a failed dice roll to gain information completely derailed or blocked the story?

Yes, Investigation and Manipulation are important skills, perhaps the most important in the game, but most if not all of the official adventures do offer other challenges as well, using Learning, Stealth, Agility or combat skills. Combat can happen against vaesen, but more often against other humans.

As for the players learning about vaesen - I loved your homebrewed compendium with vaesen knowledge! In fact, we encourage players to use the art (and fact) book Vaesen (on which the RPG is based) or other books on folklore in exactly this way - the characters have the Sight and know vaesen after all, and have access to information about them. However, having the players themselves poring over text like this at the table to figure out which vaesen they are up against and how to overcome it can, while fun, be quite time consuming at the table. That's why many of the official adventures also offer a simple Learning roll to unlock the characters' own expertise (but again, failing this roll will not block progress).

Yes, many details about the vaesen are left vague or not described at all in the core game book. This is intentional, as the creatures of old folklore could take many forms and can appear in different forms in different adventures. This is not like a bestiary in a traditional fantasy RPG.

All that said - while we are very happy with Vaesen and many players out there are enjoying it, we do appreciate the feedback and will consider it carefully if we were to make a second edition of the game. So thank you. :)

[astrovore]

That's a red onion, not a red flag, Quinns

[aztecjaguar]

Losing a whole mountain seems somewhat careless.

[Librivore]

Quinns getting so excited that he starts smacking us, the viewers, with his book is so funny.

[justintuesday]

Consistently love the ‘vintage’ framing device for this series. It adds so much character.

[IanWhite]

The slamming of books on the desk with dice and other things rattling is top notch youtube and keeps me coming back, honestly.

[darkmelancholy]

Appreciate the focus on a problem I have with a lot of RPGs: The developers give you all the fun bits (monsters, special powers, etc.) and then does absolutely nothing to help with the heavy lifting of actually using all those fun bits in practice.

[Ends_Of_Invention]

Love the censored handouts - I really like simple props like that that the players can use to help their roleplaying.

[MegaMuffinManX]

The bit in the intro where Quinn's places his hands over a keyboard and then proceeds to 2 finger type always makes me laugh

[two_stdev]

Robin D Laws writes in his "Adventure" chapbook that Mystery scenarios tend to sell well because of how *hard* they are to write -- the needed amount of internal consistency ups the writing effort. This assessment seems consistent with Quinn's comments on how *hard* it is to run an investigation. The nature of the mystery means the average investigation requires a lot much more preparation than the average "dungeon" scenario.

[zacharygrafman]

This is one of the most simultaneously artistic and useful RPG channels on Youtube. Incredible.

[SeanRI]

It's so weird to think how the Gumshoe system's revelation of "if you have the appropriate investigation skill, you automatically find a clue, but you can still roll to find MORE clues" hasn't been picked up by other games.

[cockbongo]

It’s really nice reading/watching a good quality critical review where, despite the concerns that Quinns has, i’m still encouraged to pick up the product because the reviewer has had a fair and balanced discussion on its pros and cons. Ultimately, i’m the final arbiter in what games I want to play, and it’s bloody fantastic having a show that understands that and gives me what I should know up front. Thanks Quinns. Doing great work.

[Hugh]

I also printed out a huge dossier of creatures with bits of trivia and keywords associated with them. I went a bit overboard with about a hundred or so of them. But my players loved it. We spent a good half of the investigation with them all gathered around the sheets trying to whittle down the possible culprits according to the clues provided. Free League are missing a trick by not creating something like this. It's a game in and of itself.

[Tablespoons]

There’s a perfect book to give to the players for this. It’s called Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore. It goes over every creature, but only gives them flavor text, no stats or confirmed weaknesses. The rpg itself is based on this book, which has the same illustrator.

[zackfg]

This is such an insightful discussion of the game. I'm absolutely loving everything you've been doing. Thanks for putting so much love and care into each of these videos.

[Skulliver-tq]

I love your content, Quinn, and "The Quinns Quest Guarantee". Many people are out here reviewing games they have only read and that seems like commenting on the taste of a recipe you have only read in a cook book.

I also love everything I have purchased and played from Free League. I'm glad that Free League has commented here to present their argument as well. I will be running Vaesen soon and read up after watching this video to see if there were any pitfalls to navigate. Page 40 of the rule book seemed to answer most of your complaints about the narrative gears grinding on failed rolls with not one, but three options "When a failed test threatens the flow of the story, there are three methods the Gamemaster can use to salvage the situation: consequences, Conditions, and requirements. " To me, after a year long campaign of Blades in the Dark, that seems very much in line with a "no, but" or fail forward mechanic. The main difference being that a GM needs to know or determine where the game ending failure points are and deploy these options there. Personally, I'd offer the players the choice of which of the options they want to take to move forward. That not only keeps things from coming to a full stop but turns failure into narrative agency in terms of how things advanced while getting more complicated.

Again, Quinn, I love what you are doing and the production value you bring and I love that Free League has answered your points with aplomb while taking onboard your notes and difficulties with the system. This discourse really helps to provide insights on how to have the best time possible with the game. Thank you both.

That said, @FreeLeaguePublishing, I would dearly love either an option for an economy version of Vaesen: Spirits and Monsters of Scandinavian Folklore, or a PDF to print for the table. It's a great tool, but if the price point is the same as your other RPGs game and scenario books, the case for it at the table weakens. Having it on DTRPG would be fantastic.

[connor]

Dave's Spokesman has been awfully quiet since 1976 Quinns footage resurfaced

[matthewroy]

I LOVE Vaesen! Such an evocative game!!! Worth mentioning, the issue of failing important rolls is addressed in the book. If PCs fail an essential role they can still be given the information but will take a condition.

[Skanah_]

I played Vaesen for a short campaign as a player and I very much agree. There's a lot of cool and inspirational content in the book, and us players loved the old castle and scenes there. But the investigations felt a little clumsy sometimes. However, our GM put in a fair amount of footwork to make sure we could use most of the skills on a regular basis and so that problem never came up with us