Greenwood Outlaws by Tytus Rduch is a role playing game supplement published by Skavenloft. The game is based on Blades in the Dark and is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
The supplement is available as a 44-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two the inside covers, one the front matter and one the Table of Contents. There is also a second version of the PDF with facing spreads and a two-page character sheet.
The first page explains that this is a minimalist Forged in the Dark game intended for one-shots and is set in a world inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. Prior knowledge of the engine might be helpful and the characters are outlaws known as Hoods.
What is the Game About? explains it takes place in Greenwood, one of the biggest provinces of the Lionscrown Kingdom. Queen Eleanor Lionscrown had to leave the kingdom, leaving it in the hands of her younger brother, Prince Rupert, who became drunk with power. The Greenwood is hard to govern and the prince sent his most ruthless lieutenant to be Sheriff there. The characters are a gang of Hoods, or outlaws, fighting the prince and Sheriff, and go on Escapades – adventures – intended to do that. What the Sheriff is like needs discussing and there are six sample Escapade goals. Escapades should start in the action and things should not go to plan, with six example plot twists given. Once an Escapade is over, how it changed things is gone through and it explains that the game is like a Saturday morning cartoon, with a grim tale of resistance.
Rules of the Game first discusses the GM and players and how they should behave. It then explains that the Action Roll determines the outcome of a risky situation, with rolls affected by different factors. The roll may be a critical success, a success, a partial success or a failure; failures result in Consequences. The things that change the roll, Threat, Effect and Advantage, are covered, followed by Consequences. These can be resisted. Harm is a lasting condition or injury dealt by a Consequence. Stress can increase, resulting in characters becoming Desperate. There are Special Actions that can be done and characters can also Take a Breather once per Escapade to recover. Threats and dangers are represented by Progress Clocks that are mostly used to track something over time.
Character Creation looks at this. First is the character’s motivation, which results in a different coloured hood. They then have an attribute array to divide amongst Might, Wits, Finesse and Charm. Points are then assigned to a list of skills; once three points are in a skill, that becomes an Expertise. There are twelve different types of animals to play, each with different advantages and disadvantages. Characters have a hood of an appropriate colour and other equipment; the amount of equipment affects the speed and how noticeable a character is.
Random Tables has lists of animals, NPCs, places, obstacles, items, food, weapons and consequences.
Greenwood Outlaws in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. The Table of Contents is hyperlinked and covers the major sections. Navigation could be better. There are a variety of black and white illustrations, up to full page in size, as well as coloured sidebars. Presentation is decent.
This is a pretty lightweight game with simple enough rules that can be easily learned. Those familiar with Blades in the Dark and similar games will find it easier, but there isn’t a whole lot of crunch in this game which is mostly the use of the Action Roll in situations that need it. The modifications possible to the rolls are also easy enough. Though the system may be suited best for short one-shots, it would not be too difficult to make a longer game, and some information is provided to help do that; the campaign could be with the same characters or a new group following on from the last Escapade. Greenwood Outlaws is a decent little game, though it may be too light for some players, and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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