13th Age is a d20-rolling fantasy roleplaying game by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, lead designers of 4th and 3rd editions of the World’s Most Famous RPG. 13th Age is a game of adventure in a world full of monsters and magic, with groundbreaking new rules that make each character unique, connect them to the world, and focus on what’s cool about having adventures in a world full of monsters and magic.
Also, owlbears rip your arms off and feed them to their young. That’s a thing.
It’s a fantastic game for new players because it lets them play nearly any kind of character they want (“The only dwarf in the world with a clockwork heart built by a hidden race of dragon wizards? Done!”) and the rules for fighting, spellcasting and using skills are flexible enough that they rarely run into a “you can’t do that” situation.
It’s not a great game for a first-time GM, though. The book assumes some amount of experience with RPGs, and in particular d20-rolling RPGs. It also asks the GM to do some creative collaboration along with the players, rather than defining everything with a rule or a canonical fact about the game world. For example, wizards can make up creative names for their spells. In return for their putting more effort into the game, the GM improvises an additional cool or useful effect that’s not listed in the spell description.
As a player you can invent things for your character in a free-form way rather than picking everything from lists. For example, you define your character’s skills in a free-form, story-oriented way using backgrounds.
Every character has one unique thing that sets them apart: something that is real in the world, but doesn’t provide a mechanical benefit.
Characters’ relationships with the icons – the most powerful non-player characters in the world – connect them to the world and provide a resource they can use during play. PCs aren’t powerful at 1st level, but they are important.
As a GM you can quickly build encounters (and even monsters) on the fly, and use the story mechanics to share the job of worldbuilding with the players. Once you’re comfortable with the rules it’s fairly easy to improvise a session.
Combat doesn’t use a grid to determine where combatants are, how far they can move, or different effects such as flanking, pushing, pulling, etc. Using miniatures makes it easier to visualize the scene, but all you really need to know is who’s nearby, who’s far away, and who’s engaged in battle.
The “escalation die” mechanic keeps combat moving, turning what might otherwise be a two-hour fight into a 30-minute fight–one that’s exciting and suspenseful to run. On the first round, the monsters have the advantage. But starting on the second round, the GM places a big 6-sided die n the table with the 1 facing up. The PCs (and some very scary monsters) get a +1 bonus to hit. On the third round, that bonus increases to +2…and so on, to a maximum of +6. That way, the longer the PCs stay in combat and fight hard to win, the better their chances get because they’ve learned their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, and adapted.
The rules play off each other in interesting ways, so something fresh and different is happening all the time. For example, some classes and monsters have abilities that trigger when they roll an even number on an attack, or a 16 or higher. Some abilities activate when the escalation die is odd or even, or reaches a certain number. Flexibility, randomness and surprise are a big part of 13th Age.
What’s the game’s default setting?
The default setting is the Dragon Empire, a high-magic realm that is in its 13th historical age. It is ruled by 13 demigodlike “icons” who are recognizable fantasy characters: the Emperor, the Archmage, the High Druid, the Lich King, and others.
We want each group to come up with the version of the Dragon Empire that’s most fun for them, so it’s very loosely described in the book. GMs and players can use it as a starting point and fill in the rest with their own ideas.
