RPG Review: Reign: Enchiridion

Games Plus was having their semi-annual auction, so I dropped off some old stuff I’ll never use again (some board games and OGL books). Two weeks later, I had 110 bucks of in-store credit! Hooray!

Most of the stuff I picked up was for modeling and storage of my 40k army, but one thing I did pick up, was Reign: Enchiridion.
I’m still having trouble pronouncing Enchiridion, which is simply Latin for a “small manual or handbook,” but make no mistake, this little $10 book packs a whole lot of information into it. I still haven’t finished reading it, but I’m working my way through it.

It’s a fantastic book, where you are playing not lowly adventurers, but dukes, princes, merchant lords and kings. However, the game, which focuses much more on story than balance, also allows you to have the King, his squire, and his court jester all in the same party.
Once I’ve read it all, I’ll give a full review, but here’s a few things that stood out to me:

1. Random character generation. You can choose either a point-buy method, or you can go all out and randomize it. Rolling up the character still allows some control, but you really don’t know what you’re going to get.

2. Jest. It’s one of the skills you can get in the game, and works ingeniously. For each point your character has in Jest, you can give the GM one line to use in the game. For example, you can give him a sheet of paper at the beginning of the session that says, “Indignant woman says, ’Well, I never!’” The GM will try to fit it into the session. They aren’t required to, but should make an effort. When that line comes up, your character responds with “nd with that attitude, you never will.” It allows you to look like you’re being incredibly clever, but you’re planning it ahead of time. For someone who sometimes has trouble thinking on his feet as a player, this seems incredibly useful.

3. Companies. A company isn’t a corporation, it’s a group of individuals united for a single purpose. The game allows you to run companies like a character. A company could be as small as an adventuring party, all the way up to a kingdom. I’ve just started this chapter, but I’m really looking forward to finding out more about how this works.

Again, I’ll keep you all updated on my progress through the book, and how it is once it’s done. But in the meantime, you should probably go buy this book. For $10, it’s already worth the price, and I’m not even done with it.