I tried out the Gods of Metal: Ragnarock RPG at Christmas by rolling up some characters and running a one-off for my brother and a couple of friends. The basic premise is you suffer a tedious life doing a pointless and/or boring job in the world of Mundania until you are whisked off by a metal angel to be an Avatar of the Metal Gods in the realm of Ragnarock, and have awesome adventures. What’s the realm of Ragnarock like? Thinks of some Heavy Metal album covers - yup, it looks like that.
I let the players create their own Mundanian personalities and choose their own Ragnarock Avatar names, appearance and gear. In this game your Gear is your Weapon (it can be a musical instrument), your Outfit (for avoiding getting hit and armour if you are) and your Accessory (anything you want - it represents your Speed and cash/favour points, called Exposure).
So the PCs were:
-
Ulrika Sonsondottir, podiatry assistant, who in Ragnarock manifests as Maleola, Avatar of Shrieka, Goddess of Glam Metal. Maleola sings and is the healer (Bludgard). She is a human woman with big 80s hair and chrome horns. She wields an axe and wears a chrome bodysuit with enormous studded shoulder pads.
-
John Lock, locksmith, who in Ragnarock manifests as The Pit of Darkness, Avatar of Killamity, Goddess of Death Metal. The Pit of Darkness is the band’s lead guitarist (Shredder). He has a sword which is also his guitar and wears a helmet which conceals his features in perpetual blackness.
-
Reginald Dullman, photocopier repairman, manifests as Gravel, Avatar of Diomedieus, God of Power Metal. Gravel is the roadie (Amplord) and backing vocals. He wears nothing but leather trousers, is buff and hench and has a beard made of flame. His weapon is an adjustable wrench made from a skull and spinal cord.
The system is a d4 dice pool. Each 4 is a success. Rolling nothing but 1s is a fumble.
The first thing to say about GoM:R is… it wants you to succeed at your rolls. If you don’t succeed, it wants you to get compensation. So if you don’t get any 4s, but you rolled at least one 2 or 3, then you dump a dice in the communal pool of ‘anyone can use them’ (in game terms, you put a Dedication on the Altar). Meanwhile, the GM can say you still succeeded, just not in an awesome metal way. And those communal dice? You can choose to roll them before OR after you rolled.
Got an extra success above and beyond the one you need? Chuck it on the Altar or convert it into extra damage/extra healing etc.
In many games, when you take damage, you get penalties to skills. In GoM:R? Nope. You get better at combat when you take 3, 6 and 9 hits in a fight. At 10 you are ‘dead’ - but that really means you are whisked back to Mundania. You have to be killed 4 times to be truly dead.
Rolling 1s gives you Feedback points, and when you reach 10 you’ll get spirited back to Mundania. But the GM uses up your Feedback to activate NPC special abilities in combat, so that delays the inevitable and there is a combat action to get rid of 1 feedback.
Initiative: If PCs go on the same initiative in the combat round, they can share and swap their dice results. There’s a mechanism for altering your initiative to try and get onto the same number as other PCs. In our game The Pit of Darkness had a special ability to haul a 3rd PC onto the same initiative as him and another PC.
Figuring out who was going to use what dice slowed things down a bit once they were all on the same initiative number, but the players seemed to like the mechanic. If they were higher level characters who had more special powers, they could pre-prepare an ‘Anthem’ for such situations: a cascading sequence of powers which (hopefully) synergize into something awesome. (For instance: player 1 spends a dice and gives 2 extra dice to player 2, player 2 rolls their dice and gives +1 damage for every success to player 4, player 3 spends 1 dice and turns player 4’s damage into Fire damage, then player 4 rolls to attack).
Money - for run of the mill stuff like buying a pint or paying for a room at the inn, the PCs are just assumed to have the cash they need. If you want to buy something ultra expensive or exclusive, they use their Exposure stat. (Which is part money and part “Don’t you know who I am?”).
Gear - you don’t throw away your +1 sword of lightning when you find a +2 axe of ice. Narratively you merge the two weapons together magically and rack up some points for increasing your sword’s stats or making it a sword of lightning & ice. The Amplords (roadie/techie) are best at this and give the whole party some points, not just the owner of the sword.
I enjoyed running this. It was fun, it was fast, it was silly (the PCs protected a kebab stall from poop dragons, the local equivalent of seagulls stealing your chips).
BAD STUFF
I struggled to find things in the book at times. I need to make a cheat sheet. The damn rulebook really needs an index. I only have a dead tree copy.
I think I need a visual aid for who is on what initiative. The enemy NPCs don’t have initiative as such - they just ‘activate’ a set number of times a round. A PC always goes first.
CONCLUSION
I’m not a fan of fantasy games. But I want to run this as a campaign. It has metal tropes and song titles galore, velociraptors on skateboards, an ancient dragon called K-Pop and it keeps exhorting the GM to let the PCs be awesome. What’s not to like?
