Vaesen Starter Kit play review

 

This review is for the Vaesen Starter kit from Free League Publishing. Vaesen is a Nordic horror roleplaying game based off of the artwork of Swedish illustrator and author Johan Egerkrans. It uses the Year Zero Engine that powers many of the Free League products. 

You can pick up the physical starter kit at your friendly local game shop (like the one I work at) and if they participate in the Bits n Mortar program you get the pdf for free.

If not you can pick up the physical copy over on Amazon while the pdf is available for purchase over on DrivethruRPG in the regular version or optimized for Roll 20 VTT . 

This review is based on actual play where I ran the starter set for a game group at my local shop. I was not gifted the kit for review but was actually purchased by myself.

Straight out of the production quality is top of the line. The box is very durable and strong, all the material inside is printed on quality stock. You get a set of ten dice, initiative cards, maps (of the mythic norse, the city and castle) and everything else you really need. Including rules summary hand outs that come in very handy at the table for the players. You get a condensed version of the rules in one booklet that is easy to navigate and the adventure itself in another. To go through this episode you have five pregenerated characters. 

The adventure itself is pretty straightforward. You little group of 'Thursdays Children' (those who can see the Vaesen) are approached to investigate a castle formerly occupied by a group called the society. It has since fallen into massive disrepair and other Thursdays Children have been lured there and gone missing. Given the tools you need in the form of a booklet with information on many of the Vaesen types and a map they set off. 

I will say the pregenerated characters all seem to fit really well. None of them fall into the fifth wheel problem I've seen with other starter kits. Each one has a purpose and comes in very handy at various times. Now a couple of them reference a few things that aren't discussed in this kit but nothing major that would ruin any sense of the game. Just had us flipping pages for a bit. 

With the group I played with they figured out what the encounter was beforehand by using the booklet of Vaesen and grasping a few clues. But they also snagged onto a red herring that could have also been in there. So it's not one of those discover everything at the end kind of stories. The ended is open ended and can lead you straight into regular games using the full corebook.

The mechanics are easy as most Year Zero Engine games are. Roll a number of six sided dice, sixes count as successes. Most checks require only one or two successes. Various rules for pushing the rolls are there to help get you success at a cost. There are no hit points but a more narrative condition system which helps set the tone of the game even more.

Not to mention that the artwork is also immaculate. Every Vaesen product I have looked at has been beautiful and this one is no different. 

In the end I give this starter set two thumbs up and highly recommend it to others.