The worst offenders being two paragraphs that end mid-sentence. It is absolutely riddled with typos, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and layout issues. However, I think for me, the biggest negative of all is the incredibly poor quality control on the book. These bellyaches aside, the various 'Moves' that the PCs have, are quite neat and if you use the optional ‘Upgrade’ system, then characters have the potential to become quite varied and interesting mechanically as well as narratively. All very admirable and narrative but I still need to convert them into numbers to be able to use them which is inefficient and I wish they’d just use the numbers instead. PbtA also suffers from one of Fate’s problems in that it expects you to be able to use adjectives as scores. It feels too much like it’s trying to be different for the sake of being different and I just want to cuff it about the head and tell it to grow up. The biggest offender though, is the name of the GM, the Master of Ceremonies or MC. Moves in any other system are just the actions that your player can take on their turn but PbtA feels the need to also formalise it and give it a fancy name. We have the Playbooks with a couple of actions that your character has, called ‘Moves’.
![yojimbo pathfinder yojimbo pathfinder](https://64.media.tumblr.com/50a2acd8fe424d19d6e592ae29afee91/tumblr_inline_nljolnOt821s86sbw_640.png)
You know, like in absolutely every other RPG where ‘moods’ are a sort of intuitive given, but PbtA feels the need to formalise it, therefore making it feel much more complex than it actually is. 'Casual' is when PCs are just wandering about exploring or chatting to NPCs via the GM, 'Dicey' is when dice are rolled to determine an outcome (skill checks and such) and 'Combat' is, well, combat. This particular version of Powered by the Apocalypse does, as I said, eschew much of the pretentious nonsense that has put me off the system before now but still has some irritating ticks. It is kind of an important and noteworthy feature of the system. Outcomes are decided by how well or how poorly the players roll and whilst I really like that, and I guessed as much from the Rules chapter, it’s bafflingly not explicitly stated in the book until page 205 (of 244) where it is a throwaway line in parenthesis in the middle of the second of three adventure plot hooks! This should have been stated in bold in Chapter 1: Rules. It’s worth mentioning here that the GM (Master of Ceremonies) doesn’t roll any dice. I think folk not familiar with the concept will really struggle to understand what the hell is going on. This is not, however, a game for people new to roleplaying. I think having the rules gathered together and explained with play examples might have helped connect the dots. Some of the rules are explained in the Rules chapter at the beginning of the book, some in the Playbook and some in the Master of Ceremonies chapter toward the end but I can’t really connect the disparate elements in my head.
Yojimbo pathfinder how to#
The downside is that, having read the book from start to finish now, I’m not sure I really understand how to play the game and I don’t think that’s PbtA’s fault. It’s a simple, narrative system that collaboratively tells stories in broad strokes rather than granular, blow-by-blow detail and that’s definitely my bag. Powered by the Apocalypse is, as I suspected, quite neat. The art is gorgeous, but let’s face it, Stan Sakai’s art is the lion’s share of the reason we’re here, right? The two column layout and black text on a white background is simple and clean and the square shape is quite pleasing, aesthetically.
![yojimbo pathfinder yojimbo pathfinder](https://www.finalfantasyd20.com/wp-content/uploads/Ghost.png)
So, where to begin? Well, let’s start with the positives. I hoped that, with Usagi as its focus it might drop some of that pretentious nonsense and as a consequence be substantially more palatable, and it does to some degree, to be fair.
![yojimbo pathfinder yojimbo pathfinder](https://www.comicshop.de/images/product_images/popup_images/86357_0.jpg)
On the downside, however, they announced that it would use Powered by the Apocalypse, a game which I’ve bounced off in the past because it felt like it was trying way too hard to be cool and edgy and different for the sake of being different, which is a shame because from what I could see it seemed like quite a neat narrative system.
Yojimbo pathfinder plus#
On the plus side, Sanguine are the go-to publisher for furry RPGs and despite being quite cumbersome and horribly complex, I actually really liked the original Jadeclaw, so it seemed like a really good fit. When I first heard that Sanguine had got the rights to do a Usagi Yojimbo RPG I had mixed feelings. It’s roughly a year old and has had several updates since release.
Yojimbo pathfinder pdf#
This review is based on the PDF as it was when I downloaded it on 8th April 2021. I bought the PDF of this game shortly after its release in March 2020. USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd EditionĪ ¾ complete project abandoned to the internet