[RPG] Can we play 13th Age with just the online SRD? How much will we miss

13th-age

I want to take 13th Age for a spin among my friends, but I don't want to buy the books before trying it out for a few solid sessions. The 13th Age SRD is available freely online. Can we use that to get the full 13th Age experience, and if not, what exactly will we miss?

Best Answer

13th Age SRD is sufficient to enjoy benefits of Archmage Engine.

You will be missing out however. For example:

  • Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet's writing. In the introduction they promise to provide a product of their long dalliance with RPG games. Rules are provided in friendly informal and entertaining way: "We aren’t telling you exactly what..." to do, but you will get default option and hints/advice on variants.

  • Core setting and icons. They are presented in a way to give you room for interpretation and to grant you opportunities to do stuff. While a bit irksome to old school fans like me (I do love hard facts), the players are likely to enjoy being the center of attention, and the world just waiting to follow-up with crazy shenanigans.

  • Speaking of icons, without core book, they are unlikely to be useful. Consider skipping icon rules until you get the core book.

  • 13th True Ways provides very advanced classes and complicated monsters. Bestiary was probably the most awesome book of monsters until Bestiary 2 was released.

  • The list would not be complete without mentioning living dungeons and Eyes of the Stone Thief. Living dungeon is a malignant entity that thrives on obtaining new buildings (rooms), and treasures, and creatures. Stone Thief is a Moby-Dick of living dungeons. And Eyes of the Stone Thief is probably the most incredible campaign built around hunt for an elusive predator that ate your home town!

That said it is strongly advisable to review/obtain the following free stuff:

  • 13th Age SRD PDF (obtainable from DriveThruRPG) is the most up-to-date and complete version SRD. It also contains quite a few very important rule update and clarifications. I consider this a mandatory version of the rules.

  • Form fillable PDF of character sheet. Printer friendly.

  • Master list of online resources. Make sure that your players read one-pager summary of the system, while you, a GM, keep two-page system core at your fingertips.