Modular: Using Norse-Themed Roleplaying Games and Supplements to Expand the World of Yggdrasill — Vidar Solaas’s Vikings RPG
Some time ago I celebrated the new Modular series of Black Gate posts by contributing my own enthusiastic review of the four English-language volumes in the current Yggdrasill roleplaying game line. I’m grateful for the many responses to that post and for the reader recommendations of other Norse-related rpg material. I would collect all roleplaying game materials, regardless of game ethos or genre, but my budget won’t allow it. So I’ve narrowed my collection to Norse and Viking-themed materials. Hey, I tell myself, I’m actually running a Viking-themed game right now, using Yggdrasill, and I can justify this expense by believing, truthfully or not, that I’ll find some practical gaming use for it.
As I collect these materials, I notice that they sort into three or four categories:
- Actual “full” roleplaying games; what I mean here is that the product comes complete with rules and setting designed to emulate, in particular, the kinds of experiences one expects from a Norse-themed roleplaying game
- Sourcebooks and campaign settings, using the real world “Viking Age” as inspiration but designed to be used with an existing “Core Rules Set” (like D20 or GURPS, Fate Core, etc.)
- Campaign settings, adventure paths, or standalone modules that detail a particular region of a fantasy world that is designed to emulate, within that secondary world, a “Viking Age” roleplaying experience
That’s right: I said three “or four” categories. The fourth category constitutes an “Appendix Y” — Appendix Yggdrasill — if you will, the reading I have been doing for most of my life that informs the kind of Viking Age adventure that I want to evoke in my roleplaying game. I might find occasion to comment on these works, as well, for they’re just as relevant as actual gaming material.
I intend to use these rough categories to frame the reviews of my developing collection. And I begin today with an item from the first category — well, I’m placing it in this category, even though Vidar Solaas’s Vikings RPG (2008) has been built using the D20 system. Attempting to use D20 to emulate a more or less “authentic” Viking Age experience has required Solaas to modify, rebuild, or “hack” the D20 rules set so drastically that Vikings RPG does indeed qualify as a game in its own right.