Songbirds: First Impressions

There are some books that, when you read them, change everything for you. You stare at the work, trying to make sense of the impact that it just had on you. And then you sit with it. You twist it about in your mind, trying to make sense of what just happened in your head. 2020 was a year full of these works, thanks to the discovery of Gene Wolfe. Before that point Burning Wheel had been the first game I'd ever read to have this form of an impact on me. I've since run that game principally, drinking deep from the stories that it generated for me. I am always wanting to play it.

I did not anticipate Songbirds to be just as impactful. It's taken me aback.

I still won't run it.

I'm starting to think I'm afraid. 

When you've got Carl Jung (who I am deeply impacted by, even if I've not read much of him directly), Evangelion (a show that I initially hated but has begun to call to me in the same way a creak on the stairs at midnight heralds the return of a ghost), Coraline, Samurai Champloo, and Cowboy Bebop in your Appendix N you are going for a mood. A mood I am entirely about.

I will admit without shame that I immediately stole many ideas from this game. Characters feel Stress and begin to break down, gaining Conditions, requiring you to stop and just sit, to recover, to feel. The campaign arc is tracked on a calendar and is meant to be more episodic, being about helping a specific client or unfortunate in a series of self-contained stories. Characters have four stats: Mind, Body, Soul, and Luck, which are assigned dice (d4 through d20). You always roll opposed, with the GM choosing a dice to represent difficulty (d4 through d20). Margin of failure goes into Stress. It's deceptive system. It's simple, but it's possible be put into very challenging play situations, where you need to do sit down and take a break but can't, and trying to get away from that situation may get you in worse trouble.

The book's rules feel like reading a dream: they talk about concepts that I've always wanted a game to explore: time, how stress breaks you down, the importance of relationships, and the bittersweet nature of travel. The instant I leafed through it I knew I needed to run it.

I've barely spoken a word of it to anyone. This is my first attempt to do so. I'm not even sure who I would run this with, and I've absolutely no idea why. For me, this opened something up.

And for the first time in my life I almost don't want to have those experiences with someone else.

Let's change that.

Against the Darkmaster: First Impressions

 

A Terrifying Weapon to Behold

Guys, this thing is a freaking tome. I've got a good hunch if I took this monster of a book and hit you at the base of your skull you'd be dead. Or at the very least in a coma. It's not the largest RPG I own by page count - that's either Burning Wheel or Burning Empires - but the paper is this wonderfully thick and heavy stock and it's definitely a thicker (and larger) book. The fact that this book could double as a weapon is part of the point. This game is what would happen if you put the Iliad and put it to a heavy metal soundtrack.

That's explicit.

Parts of the game actually ask you to copy and paste heavy metal lyrics in. We'll get back to that. It's glorious.

Oh Right, You Want a Definition

Against the Darkmaster is a rules-heavy combat game, inspired principally by Tolkien and heavy metal. It's a d100 system: roll d100 (usually 2d10 with one die as the 10s and the other the 1s), add your modifiers, and pray to get 100+, for standard checks. 

You probably won't.

The dice engine is deliberately evil. If you just go by it you're not going to get a straight success, not terribly often. We'll get back to that.

For combat rolls you get all your modifiers, knock off an amount equal to your enemy's defense, and compare to the proper table. Roll as high as you can, cause the higher you roll means you not only do more damage but can also roll on a critical hit table.... and those get mean. Instant death mean. Better wear armor, because if you don't you'll find yourself in a coma for weeks. One strong roll and your character may be so critically injured that there's barely anything anyone can do to save them. And that's the point. 

Drive, Passions, Advancement Lists, and Other Walls of Text

The dice engine in this game can be compared to a box of needles and knives and rusty forks, especially at lower levels. Because there's this awesome thing called Drive. Drive allows you to fudge the numbers, reduce critical hits, get rerolls, and make your stuff much more effective. Spending 10 Drive nets you a Milestone, which means you have the ability to have what's called a Revelation. Most of the time Revelations require time to process the events since the last Revelation, so usually you need some serious time off, but once you do you can increase stats, buff items, get more HP, and other little bumps. Considering that Drive should be flying off your character the issue is not in getting the Milestone, but having the time to get a Revelation (although the game does say that a dramatically appropriate moment can suffice).

How do you get Drive? You act on your Passions. Yes, folks, this game has Burning Wheel in its list of inspired games! You choose three priorities for your character. Like Burning Wheel what these three Passions could be is totally up to you, but the game has three default assumptions: Nature (behavior/demeanor), Allegiance (love/hate of another character), and Motivation (an actual concrete goal). Other classifications can and do exist, but these are the three assumed by the game. Whenever you willingly put yourself into a dangerous situation or challenge, put yourself in a bad light because of your Passions, or put the story in a new or unexpected direction because of your Passions, increase your Drive by one. 

Oh, there's an alternate rule where you can use heavy metal lyric quotes for Passions. I don't know why it's an alternate rule, because that's just too cool for words! At that point Passions become a reference to music...  and the places you could go with that is amazing.

Your Drive caps at five. The game says you can either award Drive on the spot or at the end of the session, whatever you think is more appropriate to your story.

Now, I've read more than a few RPGs that claim to have Burning Wheel as an inspiration. Some of them it's a very surface level inspiration (cough Beyond the Wall cough hack), and others actually seemed to learn something from it (Blades in the Dark is definitely in this category). Against the Darkmaster is the only game I know of that actively apes Burning Wheel's core engine: two advancement engines which are fed by an open-ended "input" system. In Burning Wheel that's your Beliefs, Instincts, and Trait, which feed into the epiphany (grey-shading) and skill advancement systems. 

For this game we've already talked about the Passion/Revelation engine, but there's also the Achievement List/XP engine, which completes the resemblance to Burning Wheel. The Achievement List is decided upon by the GM and the players, who determine which concrete actions in the world warrant XP or not. Against the Darkmaster openly wants your group to customize their own list of at least six options. The game gives two examples of such lists, with solid guidance on how to make your own. And the game expects the group as a whole to draft the list. Now, the game seems to imply that once the list is made that's it; no changing it. But there's nothing explicitly saying that you can't. And I have every intention of encouraging the list to change to reflect new situations.

Oh, and if you die a heroic death you just pass on your entire experience track to the next character. Kill your darlings, because more are coming. That might be an important rule, no?

An Open Tome of Deadliness

Now, here's where my predilections as a reviewer come the most into play. I am of the opinion that folks should not modify a game to suit their tastes when they're just starting. They need to adapt to the game and see if they can work with it, as written. The designer spent some time crafting a piece that works (in theory), and it's not up to somebody who's never even touched the darn thing to determine on a surface-level read whether or not they should change it. That doesn't mean you shouldn't eventually house-rule the game to your preferences: just take some time learning the game as it is. I currently have one house rule for Burning Wheel, with another in consideration, with seven years of gameplay under my belt. When I was playing 4e DnD I played a full three years before I started hacking it. Learn the game. Then figure out what you wanna do with it.

Against the Darkmaster takes a bit of a softer approach than I'm used to: it provides several alternate rules, with active advice on what that does to the system. Most of those alternate rules are the way the designers prefer to play the game. That leads to a more collaborative experience, with players using heavy metal lyrics as inspiration for Passions, deliberately softening the blows for deaths that are not heroic, and a couple of other rules that make your games about badassess dying deaths of badassery. 

Most of the time alternate rules seem to dilute the experience for me, but here the designers seem to legitimately think the "other" way is just as much a legit way to play their game. The rules have a polish to them that suggest play-testing, as opposed to "Hey, this might work", without much of a thought as to whether they'd actually work. That suggests to me that there's more than one way to play this game in the very heart of the design team. And that I don't mind, as it seems genuine enough.

The Bonk on the Back of the Neck

I called my brother John, who is not an RPGer, not by any stretch, but used to be in a heavy metal band, and threw the pitch for this game as I understood it his way: in order to destroy the Darkmaster you have to exist in an world of pain, suffering and death. Your characters live short, but incredibly intense, lives dying in blazes of glory that will be forever remembered. You pass on your experience track, creating stronger and stronger characters, until you're waist deep in the blood your characters have spilled, all to get to the Darkmaster. And when you win and end the series of campaigns you've been playing it's drenched in blood, with all the weight of the dead behind you.

John told me there was no more metal pitch.

When I told him Italians had made the game he laughed and said he expected nothing less from them.

I'll becoming back around when I have more play experience. We'll see how these impressions line up then!

Tempered Legacy: First Impressions

This is not a review. A review, in my opinion, requires play-time and some time to sit down and look at your experiences again and see what you thought about the thing, in hindsight. This is not that. I've not played with the book. This is what I think of the product, as I'm sitting down to take an initial look at it. I find it valuable to write First Impressions because it helps me to process what I find initially and see if it lines up later, after actual table time.

You can find the link to Tempered Legacy here!

Anyone remember Weapons of Legacy? Y'know, that 3.5 book that had a really fantastic idea about items leveling up and getting stronger and developing a personality of sorts? What if someone took that idea and scaled it down, just a bit, and then made the ideas a bit easier to implement? While implying an entire gaming system while they were at it?

This book answers all four of those questions.

Yes, this book resembles Weapons of Legacy. But, unlike that tome, this is a 62 page zine, with 10 of those pages being rules and the rest example items. Weapons have special abilities, which are hidden behind locks or conditions. Locks can be regrets, goals, or something else personal to the former wielder that prevents you from getting to the ability that wielder had added to the item in question. Undo the Lock and you get the (good) Ability! And then there are Mutations, which are essentially curses, from which you need to find relief. Each Mutation has a condition for its lifting. If you meet the condition the Mutation ends. Weapons can have almost any number of slots, while armor's slottage is a bit more restricted. I'm not sure what the logic was behind that but we'll see when it hits the table.

There's some rules on how to make sure people can spot the items more easily, as well as the value of said items. A lot of it is simple bookkeeping stuff and helps answer just a few pocket cases that may come up. I certainly won't allow anyone at my table to sell these items, but I suppose there are those who would find that acceptable at their table. I really like the table that tells you how that particular item looks unique. 10 options doesn't look like a lot, but honestly how many do you really need to communicate that the item is special?

Another cool thing about the book is it suggests using the magical items in lieu of class abilities. I could very easily see an OSR game where this is exactly what happens: just generate six ability scores, possibly some light skill tech or what-have-you, and have everyone make up an item they want to use, and then go use this book to generate the slots! The book is very open that this means DIY game design, but given how many sample items are in the book you could get away with not using your own stuff for awhile if you're not comfortable with that sorta thing. One could certainly make an incredible Zelda game with this little booklet.

Hhhhmm.....

The interesting thing to me was that, as I began to generate items using the procedures in the zine, a setting began to materialize. History, geography, stuff just started to coalesce. Before I knew it I had a setting that was the beginning of a really good dungeoncrawl. So when I contacted some folks to do a Torchbearer campaign I decided to throw this in, see what happened. I asked them for a wishlist, and began to generate a history for the items using the rules here. I've gotten the wishlist fully generated and the campaign has a lot of potential. Especially when the players began to give me backstories. This whole world just sorta popped into my head, based off of that. 

When I actually get to use the items in game I'll let you know how it goes. But so far I'm really impressed. This essentially a game and setting generator, in ten pages of rules.

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Against the Darkmaster: First Impressions

 

When I first saw this game I immediately wanted to back it. Can you blame me?? Look at that name. Do not tell me that is not an awesome name. I simply will not believe you. Or, if I am forced to believe you your taste in everything will be doubted. But, then again, I think 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is an awesome movie, in the same vein that I think the name of Against the Darkmaster is awesome. Heck, throughout the day I find myself saying the name, just because it's fun. I throw as much camp and silliness into as I can. My children have occasionally looked up at me in curiosity as I've done so, and then I realize that I'm actually talking out loud, not in my head like I thought.

OK, that's not really why I backed it. But I'd be lying if I didn't say it wasn't a plus.

I normally don't really go for combat in RPGs. Even when it's good I rarely engage in it, mostly 'cause I like to yak uncontrollably and expound and talk and if you didn't get the picture yet I'm not entirely sure how else to explain it to you???? I like talkety talk talk talky in games.

 I also happen to have a really snobby taste. I am that guy who thinks that if it isn't depressing it probably isn't very good. More than willing to cop to that.

And, honestly? Most action movies just aren't that good. Violence is always from a breakdown of communication, patience, and love. Always. It is not something to be glorified, or to be looked at as "Wow, that's AWESOME!" or anything like that. Yes, I am one of those weirdos who do not think that fantasy is a source escaping from the principles of the world, just the specific instance that's pissing you off at that moment. And, to be blunt, far too many games are way too cavalier about this. Getting hit should not be something that can be magically erased. Not only is it not realistic, but it isn't interesting. If there are no consequences then why do it? So therefore I just refuse to play anything that has the whole "Violence has no consequences" bullshit baked into it. Call me cynical or a stick in the mud but violence is not some random action, it means something, and I don't want to switch that off.  If not for the existence of John Wick I would have written off action movies as a genre.  Against the Darkmaster most definitely has consequences. Assuming you can get access to the healing, it only minorly speeds it up, and seems to operate a lot more like the modern tech we have now, where wounds can be dealt with better, but not completely solved within a few minutes. It's going to take a few days to get even a minor wound to stitch back up.

The rest of the game looks kinda like DnD, to the point to where one of my players asked me why we didn't just bother playing 5e. And on the surface level, sure? Maybe? But the vocations/classes are much more open, with the emphasis being on vocations being a starting place, not a definitive container. Combat is not really initiative based, but is phase based, which I had experimented with in 4e and found superior in just about every way imaginable. But the proof in the pudding is in its influence from Burning Wheel. Now, normally when designers tell me "Burning Wheel was an influence" I find myself rolling my eyes a bit. It's not that I don't believe them, it's whether or not they got Burning Wheel in the first place.

SNOB ALERT!!!

Let's get blunter than normal. Burning Wheel is a janky, complicated, intimidating mess of a game. Saying "Burning Wheel influenced my game" could simply mean that you read the rulebook once, liked Fate points, and decided to include them in your game. And, I mean, you wouldn't be wrong? I guess? I mean, I think that misses the entirety of the feel that Burning Wheel is going for. Burning Wheel is a game about struggle, setbacks, and triumph and how they affect a person as they slowly become a hero. They have these moments of sheer brilliance and awesomeness, but then have to go back to the grindstone, to the mundane, to the painful. The mechanics have a distinct feeling to them, so much so that I could probably identify a BWHQ game if you scrubbed the serial numbers off and renamed everything and dropped me in cold. You struggle. You persist. You may eventually triumph. And without your artha you probably won't. The game's math is set up in a very particular way, to where if you don't have a lot of artha you're going to have a very hard time. One of the reason why BWHQ games are so fun is because of their reliance upon your actions to make their terrible engine work. If you do not roleplay you will not do well. You will fail. Hard. That is not a bug, but a feature. Invest or die.

Against the Darkmaster appears to have learned that lesson from Burning Wheel. Keep in mind I've no real exposure to MERP, VsD's primary influence, but if I had to guess where this particular arc of struggle to triumph came from, mechanically, I would go with Burning Wheel. Because, from the little I've looked through the book as my players set up character, I would say this'll have a very similar feel to it. The math is intentionally stacked against the players, but playing the Passions (this game's version of Burning Wheel Beliefs) gets you Drive Points, which will allow you to come out on top in some of these situations... most of which you had to put yourself into because of the Passions you'd chosen in the first place. I mean, I could be wrong, but this appears to be an actual spiritual successor to Burning Wheel. I mean, that means someone actually learned from Burning Wheel, which would be a really cool thing to experience.

We'll see where it goes. The Session Zero will be up sooner than later!

Zeo: First Impressions

Buncha loons

Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I'm a bit late. The box got to me Monday, and I just tried it out Friday night?? Y'all have other blog posts that came out, right? I not only GM multiple games a week but I put up play reports about them. Yeah, that took some work! Shove off!

Well, don't. Please. I have things to say and all that. Y'know, stuff.

At any rate, I finally went and played the Zeo team. Sat down, did full assault boss rush mode. Yeah, that means that all the special location stuff was on and the enemies I played against were boss monsters: Lord Drakkon, Master Vile, and Cyclopsis.

I TOLD YOU I WOULD FIGHT YOU. AND YES, YOU ARE SCARY

So, besides almost dying horrifically, what did I think? Honestly, they felt like a more advance version of the core rangers. Which, don't get me wrong, is exactly how they should be! The momentum gain for these folks is just ridiculous. You could probably play a good five or six cards before the enemy ever has a chance to act, if you do it right. I mean, jeez, this team just flows.

Tanya is turning out to actually be my favorite ranger of the bunch. Yeah, that surprised me too! But hear me out. Her ability is about maximizing damage, and the rest of her deck is about hedging her bets. I have horrible dice luck in this game. Well, I have horrible dice luck in general. So Tanya just destroys that problem, because even I can roll a two hit die if you give me enough of them, and I already know the rest are going to be O's anyway, so it's not like I really lost out!

Please, for the love of God, don't tell me that her nunchucks are actually called Double Clubs in the official lore.

Please don't.

NO.

They're nunchucks. Damnit, that's what they are.

But my favorite card, so far, in the whole expansion? Intercepting Strike. It's the ultimate snappy rejoinder to all those moments when a really awfully powerful enemy card goes off, because you can take that three shield flip and just trash a card. And, if you're playing with Zeo Green, you can then take that Bull Zord and tell that card that you meant it, you demand that it frickin' die.

Yes, I did that to the Master Vile card that adds 2 damage to all his cards. That felt so good.

Rocky is fine? He's alright? If he doesn't get Let's Party, so that way you can spread the energy around post-haste, I found that he didn't perform all that well. He's good, he's just not quite my style, I suppose. Reckless Assault was a really good finisher and I found that I was using it a lot to get Let's Party out, so that way I could start another chain. If you can use Rocky correctly he'd be a serious sweeper, but he takes some work to get there. I'm not terribly impressed so far, but give it some time. I need to get used to his gimmick. He's the deepest character in this box and has the potential to completely change team compositions. But you have to use him right. I know I wasn't.

Adam may the weirdest soft character I've ever seen. He doesn't look soft, but he's the guy you want taking hits and gets stronger because of it. And c'mon, Not Done Yet! capitalizes off of this flow of taking damage to do cool stuff in a really delayed fashion. Because the payoff isn't immediate. It's whenever you can use those hit tokens to just destroy someone. And did I mention that I love the Bull Zord? It may be my favorite zord in the set. "I said DIE" may or may not have been said a lot last night, once that zord came out.

Kat's character ability is wonderful. Yes, I just kept the top card of her deck flipped up. I mean, why not? With Dancer's Grace she can swap out cards as she needs to. Extremely solid character, just all around. I don't really have much more to say about her yet. I'll get there.

Tommy is what makes this team go just absolutely nuts. Lead by Example is going to completely change the way the game works, mark my words. Yeah, it costs an energy, but so friggin' what?? You can literally be the middle point of a chain of combo cards. You pair this dude up with Jen, from the Shattered Grid expansion? You're going to have multiple people playing cards at the same time, some of which will definitely generate energy. Like, that card alone is going to change everything. The rest of Tommy's deck is pretty cool, but Lead by Example is the most important leading card to come out since Covering Fire and Team Tactics, and may actually outstrip them both. A whole new horizon just opened up in the meta. Just you wait. We're going to see some crazy stuff coming out because of this one card.

I'm not going to lie, Jason Gold (who is not actually in this box, he's Kickstarter exclusive, with a retail launch in May) about broke my brain, just clean in half. You have a true embarrassment of riches to choose from, with the following caveats: the special ability you want to play cannot be on the card being played and you lose the card you revealed, as it gets shuffled back into the deck. So you're always having to play at right angles to the situation, always having to figure out how to deliver that special ability by another route, not the one you would have normally picked. This is probably the deepest character we have to date. He's extremely powerful and effective, but you really need to put your thinking cap on to get the most out of him.

I did not finish playing against Cyclopsis, as it was late and my firstborn had a really bad dream. That'll be another post for another time. He's tough. He's scary. He's a lot of fun. But that's another post.

Why am I making this post? Why bother? Most of what I was saying was "This looks great on first viewing, but I'll definitely be writing more so wait for that!". So, yes, that's true, but  I do have a bit of a reason why I'm talking about it now. Certain games are meant to be one and dones. Burning Wheel is two books. It is probably meant to be two books. You will probably never ever see another book, and it is designed to where you don't really want more. I love Burning Wheel so much that I GM multiple games of it at a time, but I don't really want another book (there's some caveats to that, but that's for another time!) I own a lot of those types of games, where you really don't need or want an expansion or whatever. I don't want another Bleak Spirit book. I just don't. Nor do I want more Mouse Guard. Or Against The Darkmaster (yeah, I know, we'll get to that). When Oath comes out I will be shocked if they make an expansion.

But there are other games that are designed to get you on the expansion treadmill, which this game really does. Either the concept is just too large or they want a regular stream of income or whatever. Usually these treadmill games are very modular, with questionable design and whatnot. They want you to take another hit.

That's just simply not the case with Heroes of the Grid.

Every. Last. Expansion. Has been extremely good, if not amazing. This is top quality design, every time, from a game designer who is doing exactly what he loves, for an IP that he clearly thinks the world of,  from a company known for their curation of the community and their love for innovation and joy in the game design world. There's so much love and joy packed into each and every single one of these boxes that I'd feel like a cynical idiot to not point it out. I mean, sure, it's a business, they need to make money, but that's not their overriding motivation. I've gotten to playtest some stuff for this game and I'm so grateful to do it because I get to see how much love goes into this. The folks at Renegade love this game. Jonathan Ying loves this game. I mean, yes, they want your money, but I would bet they want the money so they can keep working on the game, not the other way around.

So, if you're on the fence about Zeo, asking if it's worth the money, I genuinely think it is. I don't say that because I'm a Power Rangers fan, or because of my (very limited) involvement, or whatever. I think anything made with this much love and talent deserves support. The Zeo team genuinely brings something new and exciting to the table, and I can't wait to write more about these characters and this game and in this ridiculous time we're going through stuff like this should be spread.

Far and frickin' wide.

So that's why.

I think this is worth it. It may take me some more time to tell you fully why I think so, but I genuinely do.

Risk Legacy: First Impressions

I've been wanting to play this game for years. Back in college I'd gotten it to play with my RPG group... and we played one game. That's it. One. I'm not sure why, cause the game intrigued me! Part of it may have been that this was my first explosion of interest in RPGs. I was neck deep in Burning Wheel and couldn't quite move onto anything new. Or maybe I'd had enough of moving things around on a map (*sighs* oh 4e). Maybe it didn't click with the group? I don't know. Whatever it was, it wasn't until a few months ago that I began to feel the hankering for this game again. So I went and pulled out my copy.

MY BLOODY FAMILY HAD GONE AND PLAYED A GAME WITHOUT TELLING ME.

BABY SISTER?

BROTHER?

BROTHER'S FRIEND, WHO UP UNTIL THIS POINT WAS ALRIGHT IN MY BOOK???

Thank you, Dr. Cox, for your continued brilliance.

So I apologized to my board gaming group. I had talked the game up to them and now we couldn't use the board! There was just too much stuff. One of my buddies said that he'd buy it. And that was that!

So what's the game like?

Well, they added a new victory condition: getting four red stars. This is a much easier thing to do than standard Risk, where you have to wipe everyone else out. Now, granted, you can still do that, but it's going to be easier on everyone concerned if you're going for those stars. There are now stickers that you can put on the map, which grant differing bonuses or penalties to the area. You start with two: Ammo Shortage (which makes defense rolls harder) and Stronghold (which makes defense rolls easier). There are more.

Let's get to that, shall we?

Most of the game box has a ton of compartments in it, which are all hidden, with conditions for opening them. Almost none of them make sense. At least, not immediately. I wonder what's in them. This longing for knowledge drives the game forward, creating an addictive cycle not unlike the first time I tasted mulled wine and realized that I would never have a house without it, ever again. What, you've never had mulled wine?

Dude. Drop what you're doing and go get it. NOW.

Got a cup?


Isn't it delicious????

You're welcome!

OK, so opening up the box is terrifying. "What's done can never be undone" is the first thing you see as you open the box. Oh, and then the players have to claim responsibility for screwing up that world. You then choose factions (yeah, there's factions here. They're important. And awesome), as well as their ability from two different choices... and then tear up the other one. Yeah. It's an intimidating opening. It's amazing.


Now, the thing is that the first game is pretty normal Risk, albeit faster. You could probably play in about a half hour, assuming you follow the mostly-clear rulebook. And you'll place your stickers and name something. And it feels great. And you'll do it again. Except you'll find that the game feels a bit different. Those stickers change things up. And you'll find that things are starting to feel heavier. Nastier. And you'll want to keep opening those compartments. Cause that's crack. And you'll do it again. And again. And again. And all of a sudden you'll realize that you're playing a very different game.

Yeah, that feeling starts right at session two.

So, after we're done with the full campaign I'll write up an actual review. Spoilers coming ahead!