After running 4 Vaesen RPG mysteries over the course of 11 sessions and 5 months, I figured it was time for me to share my thoughts and learnings about this game.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:33 What is Vaesen?
03:05 Mystery 1: The Silver of the Sea
11:59 Mystery 2: The Haunting of Hargsta Manor
14:40 Mystery 3: Dramatic Whispers
17:25 Mystery 4: Playtest
19:07 Conclusion
20:34 Likes
23:16 Dislikes
27:04 Observations
28:54 Wrap up
Links to all games mentioned in this video below.
(Disclaimer: Some of these are affiliate links and help support the channel at no extra cost to you)
- Vaesen: bit.ly/3vwDgNl
- A Wicked Secret: bit.ly/3W08pHy
#rpg #ttrpg #vaesen #homebrew #adventure #mystery #horror #freeleague #freeleaguepublishing
Your review actually made me feel MORE interested in the game. But that's just a tribute to your clarity and coverage of every important element of the game. Great review!
Thank you, that's great to hear, and very much what I was hoping for! I hope you have a great time with Vaesen.
I applaud how you tried something new, and gave it a shot. I also think it is great that you realized that a game can be good (or even great) and still not be fun for you and your players. Sometimes being an adult _is_ fun.
Thanks, Wayne! Totally agree. And I'm glad I ran it.
Just a small obs on scandinavian folklore and the churches. Churches are almost always built on pre-christian "power sites". Its often presented as a destruction and victory of what was by christianity. But in reality its more of a continium and the whole conversion and the following peasant christianity was very syncretic. Churces are drenched in lokal superstitions, a lot of them rooted in modes of thought predating christianity... Everything is very fluent and mixed
Fair point, thanks for sharing this!
I appreciate the way you've organized this as a sort of post-mortem. I've played Vaesen once and enjoyed it, but we didn't really get to dig into the castle mechanic. I have limited experience with YZE, and having your careful thoughts on this is really useful.
Thanks for the feedback! And who knows, your experience might end up being different. I have a lot of friends that greatly enjoy running and playing Vaesen.
Thanks for posting this, I thought that I was the only one. 👍
Definitely not the only one! 😅 Honestly, one of the things I love about the hobby is how broad it is these days. So many different types of games and preferences. So there's no need for us to all enjoy the same games. And figuring out those preferences is part of the fun for me.
From my take away from the rules this seems like a system that benefits from having a structured GMing set up. Things like count down dice for the crisis tracks, note cards to give players and journals for everyone. That's not my preferred method either.
I think Vaesen occupies a slightly weird space. On the one hand, adventures are fairly structured. On the other hand, the tools that it provides to help with this are fairly limited. It definitely could be more helpful.
Good assessment of your experience. I enjoyed listening to your report and thoughts on your reactions~
Great to hear, thanks for the comment!
Thanks for sharing your opinion. A video like that is way more interesting than "reviews" that are solely based on reading the book or playing a single one-shot. YZE didn't really click with me, even after trying several of them in one-shots and small campaigns. I really wanted to like them because settings and artworks are usually very nice.
Thank you! And I feel the same. Their production value is top notch. Great artwork, evocative settings, good layout, etc. Many of my RPG friends love the YZE games, and I really _want_ to like them.
I do not have the same amount of experience as you do, having played in 4 sessions and GMing 5 sessions but I appreciate your insights. I am thus far enjoying Vaesen as both a player and GM. I find the rules light aspect of the game very freeing. I started GMing by running a home brew mystery. I am currently running Dance of Dreams. Regardless of systems I find running homebrew easier than running a published adventure. I hope you find a system that fits you and your groups style. Thanks for the video.
Great to hear you're enjoying Vaesen. Totally agree about homebrew being easier to run, especially for this type of game.
I'm with you about the light hearted games! Thanks for this review, great to get insights from someone who has played the game a fair bit :)
Thank you! 😊
I'll have to pick up Vaesen to check out all those cool things. Maybe they can be lifted and dropped into something more playable for most. Honestly, seems like you need a ring binder on the table to play.
A ring binder with the most important pages might help, or even just sticky tabs in the book. Honestly, the rules really aren't that difficult. The challenge is more around the published adventures.
I'm new to Varsen, I've only run 1 scenario (the one in the rulebook), and I really like it. I think some pf the problems you had won't be problems for me, but I appreciate you pointing them out, and some of the others definitely rang true for me (eg. the information really isn't easy to find on the fly). Thanks for the review, I appreciated tour insight.
Great to hear you're enjoying it. Have fun with your next Vaesen mystery!
Excellent review, critics coming from actual gameplay experience
Thank you! Yes, while I often think I have a good sense of whether I'll like a game after reading it, I can't really know until I get it to the table.
Damn, must have been some pretty good gameplay…
Yes my experience of the Year Zero engine is meh - its very swingy in play and the consequences of that swingyness can be quite harsh and compounding. It "just" works. I find the implementation in BladeRunner and Twilight 200 to be a bit better but the "push" issue still exists which is a clear weakness in all the games.
This is the only YZE game I've run so far, although I've played in a few other one-shots. I definitely want to experience a few more for comparison. I believe in some, pushing only risks a condition, but doesn't guarantee it. Tales from the Loop seems a bit more easy going, for example. I'm optimistic about the new Coriolis game that they just kickstarted, which seems to be very exploration focused and has multiple stress tracks.
@@DigitalHobbitRPG Curiously, three of the lighter YZE games (Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood, and Vaesen, all designed by Nils Hintze) have the some of the most punishing versions of the Push mechanic. That is, a condition is automatically checked. Vaesen is a brilliant design to my eye, and I love playing and running it -- but I really dig the YZE vibes generally. There *are* a few glitches in the rules that could be cleaned up. (Less detailed / structured combat, the goofy take a condition to see if you can avoid a condition thing, and... maybe some advice on throttling the XP.)
I didn't realize that Tales from the Loop has the same harsh push mechanic. And I don't have experience running any other YZE games. There are still some games I'm curious about trying at some point (especially the upcoming Coriolis, but possibly also Alien and Bladerunner).
Very good and honest review! Thank you for your point of view and another opinion on a good RPG.
Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed it!
Appreciate this review! It's great to hear from someone who has also played the game and come up with different experiences and thoughts. I would say - however - you had me until you said that you had me nodding along with you until you said about the level of 'crunch' in the system. Gotta disagree there, the YZE is as light as it gets while making thing meaningful, all the other stuff is just fluff. I say that based not only on my experience but also feedback from players who dislike the complexity of say D&D or even Savage Worlds. Anyway thanks again! I appreciate you being open and honest on your thoughts. I have about 5 minutes left in your video as I write this - but I guess you've not played any other Year Zero Engine games?
Thanks for the comment! It's all relative. And yes, my YZE experience is limited: Vaesen is the only one I've run, but I've played a few one shots (e.g. Tales from the Loop, Coriolis, The Walking Dead). In terms of crunch, I'd rank it just below D&D 5e or Savage Worlds, and on par with 2d20 or Cortex Prime. My sweet spot these days is lower - e.g. EZD6, Warlock!, or Outgunned. I don't mind crunch when it really adds to the experience. But I was surprised how much crunch Vaesen combat involved, for example, given that combat is very much not the focus of the game (I only had 1 proper fight in 11 sessions). E.g. the initiative system felt completely unnecessary to me.
I also enjoyed the review, thanks! But in your comment you put 2D20 on the same level as Y0E, I’m a bit confused and I wonder how you came to this conclusion. 2D20 have different meta currencies- how does that put them at the same level?
@@SteveDahlskog Thanks for the comment. By "same level", I'm purely referring to the level of crunch / complexity. I feel that YZE often gets touted as very lightweight, but in my opinion its complexity is about on par with the 2d20 system and a few others. Yes, 2d20 heavily uses metacurrencies and feels quite different from YZE.
This is an excellent review. I certainly empathize with many of your points about the style of game just not being for you. I also think I tend toward a lighter more “fun” game in tone. I think Vaesen is beautiful and there’s parts of it I like a lot but… 🙂
Thanks for the feedback! Yes, games with a lighter tone are my sweet spot as well. I actually do enjoy somewhat grim settings, but my actual gameplay will almost certainly be more lighthearted and fun.
Well thought out review, really liked it. Learned a lot, a bit of how-to-play would have been nice. New subscriber here, looking forward to binge your channel.
Thanks for the feedback! You're right, in hindsight I should have covered how to play Vaesen - at least the core mechanic. I can recommend this overview that some friends made: kzhead.info/sun/e9mLhdZqbqCJiWw/bejne.htmlsi=Y5Z6ztwxdGeGvzQm
I share most of your views on the game. I love the setting and (mostly) the kind of mysteries it creates, but some of the specifics don't quite work for me. And there are some weird empty spots in the mechanics, as you noted.
Yes, I agree. And my sense is that the game is probably "good enough" for someone who's experienced in running mysteries and horror games, in spite of its rough edges. But it doesn't exactly make it easy or smooth for others, like myself.
I think the structure they provide is intended to help with that, but when there's so much to track it doesn't help enough.
Agree 100%.
References to christianity is the fist thing to go in any game I pick up; be it D&Ds paladins, clerics, angels & alignment worldview, the vaesen you mentioned here, holy water, crosses & vampires etc etc. It all goes in the trash.
It depends on the game for me, but in this case that would have been my preference, especially since many of the underlying myths date back much further.
@@DigitalHobbitRPG Part of what's going on in Vaesen is using the church as a source of conflict as well, though. They're not the "good guys," and are in fact slightly bound up with the schism in the Society!
Yeah, I've mostly come to terms with that. I just don't like that some of the actual Vaesen are tied to the church, such as the Church Grim.
Why?
@@AnonAdderlan If you're asking why I don't like that some of the Vaesen are tied to the Christian church: The conflict between the "old ways" and the "new ways" is at the heart of Vaesen. And many of the Vaesen (Giants, Trolls, Vaettir, Ghosts, etc.) date back to old Nordic folklore, long before Christianity. I feel that having Vaesen tied to relatively recent history (in the form of Christianity) weakens that focus of the struggle between the old and the new.