[REVIEW] Agon

[reverancepavane]

Title: Agon Author: John Harper Publisher: One Seven Design Studio Published: August 2006 RRP: US$20/US$10 (book/pdf)

Description:"What would the world be without the agon – the agonistics of one man against another – to show everyone the order of precedence among men, just as no two other things on earth are alike? How could any of us alive know quality if competition and personal combat did not let all the world know who embodies excellence and who merely manages mediocrity?" – Odysseus, OLYMPOS

Setting: Agon takes place in an ancient Greece that never was. Like the mythic, ancient world as described by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey, the gods are alive and very present in the lives of humans, appearing often to intercede directly in mortal affairs. The lost islands that the heroes explore are similar in some ways to those they know in their homelands of the Aegean – the people speak proper Greek, they worship the Olympian gods, and they practice the other customs of civilization. However, the islands are also magical places, filled with supernatural monsters and fantastic beasts.

When they approach an island they will usually be given three quests by a god that they must complete. Success will earn the heroes divine favour; failure will incur divine wrath. Each of these quests will usually have a number of challenges that the hero must complete in order to finish the quests. An interesting thing is that the game master is only given a limited budget to actually build these challenges. This is important because the players are really competing amongst themselves for the limited glory and fame available with each challenge, not against the game-master, who merely is providing them with the opportunity to prove their prowess.

Character Generation: A hero has a name and lineage, which may be divine. This is so important it is actually given a ranking (initially d6 or d8), and increases with the character's eventual fame. They also have a trait that marks them as a hero, such as Fleet-Footed, Monster-Slayer, or Clever-Eyed, which gives the hero a powerful bonus in certain situations.

Sixteen attributes define the hero. These are grouped into four areas of possible contest (Arete, Craft, Sports, and Battle). For example, the Battle group contains the abilities of Aim, Shield, Spear, and Shield. These start at a level of Adept (d6), although a player may increase an ability in a group to Master (d8) at the cost of reducing another ability in a group to Novice (d4). The player also has the option of increasing two of the abilities by one level, up to a maximum of Champion (d10). With experience they might even raise their ability to Legendary (d12). Thus a character has some measure of ability in any possible contest.

Finally the hero must choose a patron god, equip themselves with their preferred weapons and armour, and reveal their previous achievements (which should create a network of oaths binding the player heroes together). Oaths are important as they form a type of inter-player currency.

Mechanics: In a simple contest the heroes roll their Name and the appropriate ability against the difficulty of the challenge (which is generally a two dice roll). The highest roll wins the contest. If that is a player then they achieve the objective of the contest, and gain the glory for doing so. If that is the gamemaster, then the players have failed, and in doing so run the risk of temporarily reducing their ability and even possibly taking damage. Players that beat the gamemaster's roll, but don't make the highest roll, gain a small amount of glory for the assist. Heroes can increase the odds of their winning by working to ensure that they have some measure of advantage from previous challenges. For example the heroes could attempt to scout out the enemy's camp before sneaking in. This may grant them a bonus die to use in subsequent tests in the enemy's camp, including the one that may be the ultimate objective of the challenge.

There are also Battles. Normally used for portraying actual physical conflict, it can also be used for any form of extended challenge, and heroes always have the option of escalating a failed simple contest into a full blown challenge. In this case the heroes gain glory for the opponents that they actually defeat. Combatants can affect the battlefield by making positioning rolls (important because weapons are only usable at certain ranges). It is also interesting that a character must divide their available dice between their left hand (signifying defence), and their right hand (signifying offence). Weapons will provide the heroes with extra dice for these contests.

Not only can glory be used to increase abilities, it also serves as a measure of the heroes legendary status, which effectively doubles as the character's score in the game. This is important, because eventually the character's fate will catch up with them, and they will be forced to retire.

Thoughts: This game is really evocative in capturing the feel of the heroic struggle common to Greek myth. Whilst seemingly a very regimented game in how it handles the mechanics of quests, in actual play this is generally not the case, as players narrate what happens and seek to gain the best advantage for their heroes, both in terms of actual Advantage dice and channelling the challenge into their preferred ability, so it is their character that wins the challenge and gains the glory for doing so.

The idea that the heroes are actually competing amongst themselves for the greatest glory works very well and is very genre-appropriate. Do players cooperate, possibly giving the glory to another hero, or do they seek all the glory for themselves? The problem is that you will probably need the other heroes in order to complete the quests, and if you don't complete the quests the gods can get ever-so-slightly miffed, which tends to lead to a rather short and unhappy life.

The fact that the gamemaster has a limited budget (of Strife) to work with in designing the challenges is a very interesting aspect of the game. The gamemaster can spend Strife to buy monsters and opponents for the players to defeat, or to raise the difficulty of the various challenges that the heroes will face. This serves rather nicely to focus the game on the contest between the players, rather than the contest between the players and the gamemaster that is more common in other role-playing games.

The rules are very nicely produced, well laid out, and full of examples and random tables to make life much easier for the gamemaster. There is a lot of mechanical crunch in this game (more so than I've described above), but it is coupled with an overriding simplicity that makes it extremely playable.

To sum up:

"You're as good as dead, you sorry bastard. You may have put me out of commission, but this is the last day on earth for you. Flattened by my spear you will give glory to me and your life to Hades." – Odysseus, THE ILIAD.

Rating: Excellent.