A review of the Trespasser TTRPG
Last year I was profoundly fortunate to find an in-person group of lovely folks to play tabletop roleplaying games with. I've played with an online group since I got into the hobby ~4 years ago, but I wanted to experience in-person play. So I went to r/LFG on reddit and found a group!
We got together weekly and played a ~30 session campaign of Trespasser. I played the game, but did not run it. This review is from the perspective of a player, not the GM.
What is Trespasser?
Trespasser is a fantasy roleplaying game. It is (apparently) heavily inspired by 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons (which I've not played or read, so I can't comment meaningfully on that lineage). It is a tactical game. Much of the game will be spent with figures on a grid fighting monsters. The game's itch page purports it to have "old-school theming," which we'll return to later.
At the time of writing, the game is free and still in development. It hasn't had an update in well over a year though, so I don't know if or when it will be finished. Also, everything I experienced is subject to change with future updates.
How does it play?
Quite smoothly, I'm happy to report! The game has a lot of meat, but it's not that hard to understand. I certainly found it easier to play than 5e D&D.
We spent a huge portion of our time fighting monsters. Tactical fighting is my least favorite thing about D&D 5e, so I was concerned that I'd hate it here. I didn't! It was fun. I'd still say that combat is less interesting to me than exploration, problem-solving, and interacting with other characters. But that's just my taste.
One thing I really liked is that everyone has Effort. It's a meta-resource used to fuel all your abilities. You get higher maximum effort as you level up. You spend and regain it throughout a fight. Abilities/powers cost effort and the cost increases as you re-use abilities. You regain effort after a fight is over (but the costs of your abilities don't reset until a long rest). It's a really simple, powerful way to give everyone a limit. It's a limit that everyone uses the same way. You don't have special rules for it for different classes or anything like that.
Okay, what makes Trespasser special, or at least different?
There are some unique things to understand here. First, every character has a class. But that class is only like 30-40% of what defines that character. Beyond that are themes. Themes are sort of like sub-classes, but they're universal. As you level up, you'll take additional themes (up to 3). Each theme is a set of abilities and powers. These are entirely combat focused.
For example: there is a Brawler theme that has hand-to-hand combat powers. The Swiftness theme offers abilities that let a character dart quickly across the battlefield, attacking everyone they pass by. Flames lets you... you know. Burn stuff.
My first character started with Defense, which is all about guarding other PCs. The tank, basically. Then I added Swiftness, which was an absolute blast. I later added melee, but hardly used it at all. I mainly chose this because I didn't want any spellcasting for this character.
Themes are the secret sauce of this game. They provide so much flavor. They make your characters fun to use. Our GM let us use any themes we wanted, without restriction. I think RAW, the game limits you (at least for your first theme). But I don't think that's necessary.
Another cool thing to note is that combat and abilities make use of conditions. PCs will spend their Effort on abilities to apply conditions like Staggered, Delirious, Poisoned, or Weakened to enemies. It would take longer than I'd like to explain how this all works. Suffice it to say, it works well. It's great fun to stack conditions on top of one another on bad guys.
Wait, so what do classes do?
Each class has a unique ability. My first class was the Brigand, which is basically a Barbarian. They have a Fury ability that increases their damage output. My second character's class was the Occultist. They can cast spells. They also have a demonic servant (like a familiar) that can go out and do things, including fight in battle.
You kind of glossed over spellcasting there. What's that like?
Surprisingly, not complex! My first character (which I used for like 27 sessions) didn't have any spellcasting ability. I didn't want to touch that subsystem. Magic is often so much more complicated than the rest of the game for many TTRPGs. I was afraid that would be the case here.
After my first character died a heroic death, I made a new one. I made a spellcaster. I'm pleased to report that I needn't have been worried about complexity. In combat, spells work pretty much the same as any other ranged attack. Out of combat, you have a standard target number to roll against. If you're not under duress, it's nearly impossible to fail to cast. If the need is urgent or you're in danger, there is a penalty of -10 to your roll so you may fail.
You have degrees of success that are standard regardless of spell. Roll over a certain number, you succeed. Roll a number in the next tier, your spell increases in potency. In practice that usually means it lasts twice as long or is twice as large.
For example: we had one PC that was basically a druid. He could magically grant animals the ability to speak. A successful roll would grant the ability for 10 minutes. Next tier would double it. Third tier would double it again. Highest tier? Makes it permanent! So we had a cage of firebats on a stick that could talk. We used them as a permanent torch. They constantly asked us to let them burn things (they are "enthusiastic arsonists"). So fun!
What's it like to run the game?
You'd have to ask the GM for a good answer. I think he found it worked pretty well. The biggest challenge was the bestiary. He stopped using the monsters in the book at like level 3, for the most part. The monsters were just too easy to kill. When he did use them after that, he doubled their HP. The GM would often rely on The Monster Overhaul for foes. We especially loved fighting The Hateful Goose. HONK!
Is it old-school?
Ehhhhh.... Not really. There's definitely inspiration there. Like, the usage die is taken from The Black Hack (a game I adore). But I wouldn't call it old-school. It's pretty high-powered. Combat is expected to occur; it's not a fail state. Characters take a long time to make. It could probably be run more old-school than our GM ran it, but I still wouldn't call it OSR.
I would probably say it's Dark Fantasy. At least, dark relative to 5e D&D. There's no resurrection spell, for example. If you die, you stay dead. And then you'll spend half a session generating a new character (at least, it took me that long when we were at nearly max level).
Would you recommend it?
Absolutely! If you want a game that is very tactical in combat, check it out. There's a lot more to the system than I got into here, but it's elegant. It works well at the table. We had a great time. I'd play it again! Not sure I'd run it, but I tend to run much lighter systems as a rule.
Endless thanks to the GM and other players at my table. I was worried about joining a group of randos. But they are all great people. A pleasure to play with them. We're friends now! Wild to have in-person friends again (haven't really had any since college). Oh, and thanks to tundalus for creating a great TTRPG and putting it out there for free.