As the guy that wrote the thing, let me just say that "This is one of the most remarkable games I've ever encountered" is a quote I'm definitely going to remember! Thanks for the review, Dave - really appreciate it, and I think you hit a lot of the stuff I love about it as well, without shying away from the potential drawbacks for some players.
Have a two "This is one of the most remarkable games i've ever encountered" then, Felix. Great game, Felix. Wildsea is one of my highest favorite in my TTRPG collections.
This looks so amazing, Felix. I'm moving in a couple of weeks to a new home. As soon as I'm ensconced in my new place, I'm ordering this game. It looks incredible. I'll also be checking out the Kickstarter. Dave, thanks for introducing it to us via your review. You make me aware of so many games I'd never otherwise encounter. 👍🏻 Video is saved to revisit, soon.
Been reading more of this book just over this last weekend and it just keeps getting better. This is one of the few RPGs I have been recommending lately just for anyone wanting to read something awesome. You hit on the worst part of the setting, is that player buy in you talked about. I don't think I could realistically bring it to a table unless all the players read the first couple chapters where they give the core meat of the lore. Explaining it would be really really hard. In most games you'd figure saying something like that would be because of the crunch, but in this game it's just the lore. But like I said, this game stands out because reading it just for the lore is definitely 100% worth it... and yet still leaves it open ended enough to build on top of it without binding your hands. It's a work of art.
@@paavohirn3728 it's a book in the style of a real life game. Usually video game based in VR or some kind of alien intrusion. Dungeon Crawler Carl is one of the few I really like. Caverns and Creatures is D&D-like (C&C get it? lol) and is great toilet humor style.
I cannot get over how high quality the book is. And a ton of newer ttrpg material has been high quality. But this one might be the nicest one I've ever seen in my life.
My group is about to diver back into our ongoing Wildsea campaign. Its our main detour from our long term D&D campaign wherein I am the GM. With Wildsea I get to be a player, so I am biased in that regard, but I can safely say we all absolutely love the setting. We haven't even taken our newly acquired ship out yet, but it didn't matter cause it was just such an evocative world. I can appreciate the high buy in for players used to more traditional systems and settings, but with a solid GM (which we very much have) its quite easy to find yourself swept away in the scale of everything. We play entirely theater of the mind which the system works really well for. Highly recommended. It truly gets the creative juices flowing.
for those wondering: wildsea does have something similar to a "magic system" in Arconautics. it's described more as an alt-science rather than magic, and its got a lot of cool ideas in it
Darn it man, every time you release a video I find myself with 20-30 bucks flying out of my wallet! Great stuff as always. Very interested in that follow up video (if you end up having time and energy to make it that is, no pressure).
This looks incredible! Im not sure if Ill ever play an official game with the full mechanics, but there are absolutely aspects Im sure my players will love to have imported into our game.
This is very much the kind of game I would love. I'm in a belt-tightening phase right now, so picking up a copy is unlikely. But as you mentioned, I've had a really hard time over the years getting folks to buy in to more interesting games. A lot of the sorts of games I'm most interested in are stuff like this, but apparently I'm rare. Heck, I didn't think Fading Suns was all that off the beaten path, but had a devil of a time getting player buy-in.
There's a free basic rules set with all of the core mechanics and about 60% of the content from the Core Game that you can find in a number of places, if you want to just get a taste of what it's like.
A 10/10 video about a 10/10 game. I will say: in addition to the acoustic/folk/instrumental soundtrack (Songs of the Lignin Tide), there is a second soundtrack volume, Songs of Ruined Shores by Nullcode, which has a more of a darker, electronic vibe to it - both are great though.
one word.. The Wildsea.. I've play-tested many games and none come close to the sincere communicative authorship and community of The Wildsea... (slow clap into a riotous applause for Felix).
When I saw the thumbnail I actually thought on Mieville's Bas lag and its incredibly original worldbuilding. Then I watch the video... And now I'm ordering the book. Even if I don't get to DM it's so interesting I want to read it
Wildsea's absolutely my favorite system at the moment, setting and mechanics in this book are just absolutely wonderful Edit: many of the entries in the bestiary also include what the subject tastes like
This does not strain my imagination at all. It merely adds small amount of kindling to a forest fire. Fuel for an already active mind. I especially love that the creators put narrative first, and that they didn't go for the generic fantasy tropes. Haven't played because I definitely won't have the money for this for at least a year, but I will get my hands on this some day. FINALLY!!! A system that lets me play a walking shipwreck without it being a big stupid brute!
I have the very generous quickstart and surely wish for a full hard copy. First, my accolades for such a heartfelt attempt at a novel world with a concurrent and supporting rule structure, and not yet another IP skin on established game set. Huge respect to the crew that pulled this off. That said, the soft "narrative" approach on wound handling is a trend I'd rather went away. It seems to lead to either a battle of wills between DM and player, or a flattening of the threat and dynamism that the authors have otherwise gone to great length creating. A Health track, Blades stress, or a cypher style draw down on attributes is an easy hack, but why avoid such a basic need in the rules as written?
Thank you for introducing me to a title with an interesting setting and interesting system mechanisms that seems to embrace the essential elements of what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game (contra to the proto-RPG that came from miniature war gaming). Will defiantly check it out for both the interesting setting and its system mechanisms when I have a chance.
Huh. It sounds interesting, but I don't think I could get into it, the lack of hard mechanics is just unappealing. Having death get delayed until it's cool makes me think that either someone constantly making bad choices or having bad luck in general turns into more of a "either this character is just barely lucky enough to live" or "why haven't they died yet?" It's like giving plot arm- oh that's why I don't like it. It's plot Armor written into a paragraph. I think I'll recommend this to my more free spirited friends.
I completely get if you don't like that aspect of the rules. But as someone that played 3.5 for many, MANY years back in the day, you're always free to houserule - and the mechanics lend well to it, too. MANIFEST DEATH: When a character's aspect tracks are fully marked, further damage of any kind to an aspect causes Burn. When a character's aspect tracks are fully burned, they die. Now there's a hard-coded mechanical death that runs off of two existing systems. Done! And with creator's approval too - it's not how I would play it, but everyone's table is different!
I can't really make it through this adventure. Among my friends, I'm almost exclusively the one that suggest playing new games and systems. I love new and innovative settings, but you nailed it when you said this one is way out there. I'm asking myself, "why are they sailing on the tops of trees?" I'm not asking the question in a way that makes me want to figure it out... but in a way that turns me off. I applaud designers and world builders for going for new ideas, but there has to be a touchstone to something familiar. It's almost like the movie Water World, but with funky races and overly elaborate ships. However, the themes don't really match up.
You travel on top of the trees as it’s the safest place to travel. If you are under all the dangerous creatures can easily see and reach you. If you fly above you stick out to any large flying creature and it’s probably more energy effective then flying.
@@user-mu8ok5xf8d I understand that if you accept the fantasy premise. However, from a game design and world builder stand point, I don't understand the first principals. If it connects with you, cool. For me it misses the mark really hard. I don't find many settings and ideas that miss the mark for me as bad as this one does. There seemed to be some cool aspects to it, the art being the main one. However, the idea and concept just don't kill any momentum the concept has. It's original, for sure, not fun, for me.
@@wardmatthew42 ok that’s fair, it’s entirely valid if you just don’t connect with the idea. Just wondering as I like to do world building can you explain what parts of it are putting you off as I think it would educational for me to understand. If you don’t want to that’s fine I just figure I’d ask
Interesting setting! Though then I'm gonna throw out the (cough) "game mechanics". Mechanics implies a game. They are just side garnish to what really is a story teller style of rpg. ¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯
Plants can be surprisingly fire proof, if it is humid enough in the setting it would likely be pretty hard to get them to catch fire. Also they could very easily say that when on fire for long enough the trees release water vapour from their roots to put themselves out and the vapour has a hormone in it that tells adjacent trees to do the same without releasing the hormone, they could also release a cloud of carbon dioxide from their roots to kill the fire. Cacti store carbon dioxide until night to use it in photosynthesis, as the natural water loss from photosynthesis is lower when it is cool out. Other plants will breath oxygen and release carbon dioxide at night. Plants can also use hormones when eaten to tell other plants to release a hormone to attract parasitic wasps. Considering these real life mechanisms I do not find it unreasonable to believe that these trees in the correct circumstance can release either a plume of carbon dioxide or mist to kill fires, as in real life plants have some control over their ability to expel mist and gas emissions. Also the smoke from forest fires in real life can bind atmospheric water, produce a cloud(Flammagenitus cloud) and create rain, if these trees burn slowly enough they could eventually put themselves out. While these clouds can under certain circumstances make fires worse, I think the fact that these are giant trees with magic sap and that have a canopy basically touching the clouds would allow suspension of disbelief negate that. But honestly I prefer the surge of mist or carbon dioxide answer.
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As the guy that wrote the thing, let me just say that "This is one of the most remarkable games I've ever encountered" is a quote I'm definitely going to remember!
Thanks for the review, Dave - really appreciate it, and I think you hit a lot of the stuff I love about it as well, without shying away from the potential drawbacks for some players.
Have a two "This is one of the most remarkable games i've ever encountered" then, Felix.
Great game, Felix. Wildsea is one of my highest favorite in my TTRPG collections.
@@himurogentoku7117 Aww, thank you! It still feels a little surreal to hear people say that, but it also makes me smile.
Thanks for putting your heart and soul into this game, Felix. I'm looking forward to Storm and Root!
This looks so amazing, Felix. I'm moving in a couple of weeks to a new home. As soon as I'm ensconced in my new place, I'm ordering this game. It looks incredible. I'll also be checking out the Kickstarter.
Dave, thanks for introducing it to us via your review. You make me aware of so many games I'd never otherwise encounter. 👍🏻
Video is saved to revisit, soon.
@@elementzero3379 That is a very kind thing to say, thank you. And I hope you enjoy Storm & Root, as well!
This is excellent. Something about these super weird original concepts really gets the creative juices flowing
It's Waterworld with plants!
Thanks for the shout out! This looks like an awesome game and one that will soon make it to my gaming circle!
Been reading more of this book just over this last weekend and it just keeps getting better. This is one of the few RPGs I have been recommending lately just for anyone wanting to read something awesome.
You hit on the worst part of the setting, is that player buy in you talked about. I don't think I could realistically bring it to a table unless all the players read the first couple chapters where they give the core meat of the lore. Explaining it would be really really hard. In most games you'd figure saying something like that would be because of the crunch, but in this game it's just the lore. But like I said, this game stands out because reading it just for the lore is definitely 100% worth it... and yet still leaves it open ended enough to build on top of it without binding your hands.
It's a work of art.
It seems like there needs to be an animated story in the setting to bring it to life for new players.
@@paavohirn3728 That would be amazing! I would love to just read a book in this setting, as long as it wasn't a LitRPG. (I'm so tired of LitRPGs)
@@_mawburn I have to admit I game no idea what when is a LitRPG..? 😅
@@paavohirn3728 it's a book in the style of a real life game. Usually video game based in VR or some kind of alien intrusion. Dungeon Crawler Carl is one of the few I really like. Caverns and Creatures is D&D-like (C&C get it? lol) and is great toilet humor style.
@@_mawburn Oh cool!
I cannot get over how high quality the book is. And a ton of newer ttrpg material has been high quality. But this one might be the nicest one I've ever seen in my life.
My group is about to diver back into our ongoing Wildsea campaign. Its our main detour from our long term D&D campaign wherein I am the GM. With Wildsea I get to be a player, so I am biased in that regard, but I can safely say we all absolutely love the setting. We haven't even taken our newly acquired ship out yet, but it didn't matter cause it was just such an evocative world. I can appreciate the high buy in for players used to more traditional systems and settings, but with a solid GM (which we very much have) its quite easy to find yourself swept away in the scale of everything. We play entirely theater of the mind which the system works really well for. Highly recommended. It truly gets the creative juices flowing.
for those wondering: wildsea does have something similar to a "magic system" in Arconautics. it's described more as an alt-science rather than magic, and its got a lot of cool ideas in it
Darn it man, every time you release a video I find myself with 20-30 bucks flying out of my wallet! Great stuff as always. Very interested in that follow up video (if you end up having time and energy to make it that is, no pressure).
When a game concept is good enough that you lie in bed and think about the stories you can tell. That's the litmus test of great RPG design.
This looks incredible! Im not sure if Ill ever play an official game with the full mechanics, but there are absolutely aspects Im sure my players will love to have imported into our game.
Well done. You've swayed me to take another look!
This is very much the kind of game I would love. I'm in a belt-tightening phase right now, so picking up a copy is unlikely. But as you mentioned, I've had a really hard time over the years getting folks to buy in to more interesting games. A lot of the sorts of games I'm most interested in are stuff like this, but apparently I'm rare.
Heck, I didn't think Fading Suns was all that off the beaten path, but had a devil of a time getting player buy-in.
There's a free basic rules set with all of the core mechanics and about 60% of the content from the Core Game that you can find in a number of places, if you want to just get a taste of what it's like.
Also there are hardship tiers on their addon kistart, where you can pledge 24$ for addon+core book
I forgot I had saved the kickstarter in my bookmarks, glad to see it met it's goal. Looks awesome, might have to dip into the coffers.
The idea of forest top oceans is great
A 10/10 video about a 10/10 game.
I will say: in addition to the acoustic/folk/instrumental soundtrack (Songs of the Lignin Tide), there is a second soundtrack volume, Songs of Ruined Shores by Nullcode, which has a more of a darker, electronic vibe to it - both are great though.
Oh cool, I need to check that out!
What cool world building!
I had similar feeling when reading Brandon Sanderson's recent Tress of the Emerald Sea. It was just so novel and creative.
A great idea to include in a Wildsea game!
one word.. The Wildsea.. I've play-tested many games and none come close to the sincere communicative authorship and community of The Wildsea... (slow clap into a riotous applause for Felix).
Another great video. Thanks for making it clear you were not sponsored..I was just wondering as you said it
i think you might have just sold me, I've got a dnd game that's wrapping up around july, this looks like an incredibly cool successor to that
Honestly waiting to back Storm and Root next week when I get paid. It honestly looks really good.
When I saw the thumbnail I actually thought on Mieville's Bas lag and its incredibly original worldbuilding. Then I watch the video... And now I'm ordering the book. Even if I don't get to DM it's so interesting I want to read it
I love Wildsea!
Finally! :D great video as always!
This is very intriguing! Thank you for this review!
02:51 | The physical product
05:04 | Setting
11:38 | Rules
Cogitating. Yes. Glad I found your channel. "Gritty remorseless misfortune." Great description.
This would be a great world for my spelljammer campaign I'm cooking up.
This settings vaguely reminiscent of an anime called "made in abyss"
Wildsea's absolutely my favorite system at the moment, setting and mechanics in this book are just absolutely wonderful
Edit: many of the entries in the bestiary also include what the subject tastes like
Taste is important! You never know what players are going to want to eat! :)
Will you be doing a review on the expansion of the wild sea, storm & root? I own the book and would love to see someone cover it.
This review is so good. 👏🎲
This does not strain my imagination at all. It merely adds small amount of kindling to a forest fire. Fuel for an already active mind. I especially love that the creators put narrative first, and that they didn't go for the generic fantasy tropes. Haven't played because I definitely won't have the money for this for at least a year, but I will get my hands on this some day. FINALLY!!! A system that lets me play a walking shipwreck without it being a big stupid brute!
" ... between weekly, milk-toast fantasy dungeon crawls ..." LOL! Nearly choked on my tea laughing.
Milquetoast**
You did a “bone apple teeth,” if you get that reference
This looks amazing!
Brilliant. Thank you
The album is very good. Worth a listen.
In a way it reminds me of something like heart/spire, or even runequest, where you kinda have to be totally bought in to play
I have the very generous quickstart and surely wish for a full hard copy. First, my accolades for such a heartfelt attempt at a novel world with a concurrent and supporting rule structure, and not yet another IP skin on established game set. Huge respect to the crew that pulled this off. That said, the soft "narrative" approach on wound handling is a trend I'd rather went away. It seems to lead to either a battle of wills between DM and player, or a flattening of the threat and dynamism that the authors have otherwise gone to great length creating. A Health track, Blades stress, or a cypher style draw down on attributes is an easy hack, but why avoid such a basic need in the rules as written?
Looks fantastic. I just backed it.
This looks like alot of fun.
Reading horizontally is great ! I'd like DTRPG to have more horizontal layout TTRPG as well, it's so much better on PC screens
Awesome!
The link for the interview doesn't seem to work for me. 😢
Did you ever release that followup video?
Looks awesome! I’d call it “arbor-punk” but I’m a word nerd. 😅
Thank you for introducing me to a title with an interesting setting and interesting system mechanisms that seems to embrace the essential elements of what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game (contra to the proto-RPG that came from miniature war gaming). Will defiantly check it out for both the interesting setting and its system mechanisms when I have a chance.
As someone who's super creative, i'm so mad that I didn't come up to the idea of sailing on top of trees 😒
I think a lot of people have had the same thought.
Huh. It sounds interesting, but I don't think I could get into it, the lack of hard mechanics is just unappealing.
Having death get delayed until it's cool makes me think that either someone constantly making bad choices or having bad luck in general turns into more of a "either this character is just barely lucky enough to live" or "why haven't they died yet?"
It's like giving plot arm- oh that's why I don't like it. It's plot Armor written into a paragraph.
I think I'll recommend this to my more free spirited friends.
Whatever floats your boat!
I completely get if you don't like that aspect of the rules. But as someone that played 3.5 for many, MANY years back in the day, you're always free to houserule - and the mechanics lend well to it, too.
MANIFEST DEATH: When a character's aspect tracks are fully marked, further damage of any kind to an aspect causes Burn. When a character's aspect tracks are fully burned, they die.
Now there's a hard-coded mechanical death that runs off of two existing systems. Done! And with creator's approval too - it's not how I would play it, but everyone's table is different!
@@felixisaacs Yeah I didn't mention any of the MANY alternate rules of this game.
The rules remind me a lot of FATE Core, just using normal numbers for results.
and Blades in the Dark, and Heart, but still a bit different from all of those
I can't really make it through this adventure. Among my friends, I'm almost exclusively the one that suggest playing new games and systems. I love new and innovative settings, but you nailed it when you said this one is way out there. I'm asking myself, "why are they sailing on the tops of trees?" I'm not asking the question in a way that makes me want to figure it out... but in a way that turns me off. I applaud designers and world builders for going for new ideas, but there has to be a touchstone to something familiar. It's almost like the movie Water World, but with funky races and overly elaborate ships. However, the themes don't really match up.
You travel on top of the trees as it’s the safest place to travel. If you are under all the dangerous creatures can easily see and reach you. If you fly above you stick out to any large flying creature and it’s probably more energy effective then flying.
@@user-mu8ok5xf8d I understand that if you accept the fantasy premise.
However, from a game design and world builder stand point, I don't understand the first principals. If it connects with you, cool. For me it misses the mark really hard. I don't find many settings and ideas that miss the mark for me as bad as this one does.
There seemed to be some cool aspects to it, the art being the main one. However, the idea and concept just don't kill any momentum the concept has. It's original, for sure, not fun, for me.
@@wardmatthew42 ok that’s fair, it’s entirely valid if you just don’t connect with the idea. Just wondering as I like to do world building can you explain what parts of it are putting you off as I think it would educational for me to understand. If you don’t want to that’s fine I just figure I’d ask
I think this would be really easy to hack into a Nausicaa campaign
Leafpunk is now official! Adopted!
Nice!
Very much like the stormhawks show.
Death to shorts anyway. I'm so not into tiktok-ish short attention span videos.
sick
i was actually hyped until i heard its based of Blades in the Dark system.....
Lost me at no death mechanic in sake of “a cool story” - different strokes for different folks.
Yeah this sounds horrible....
Interesting setting!
Though then I'm gonna throw out the (cough) "game mechanics". Mechanics implies a game. They are just side garnish to what really is a story teller style of rpg. ¯\_ಠ_ಠ_/¯
I like the universe.
Many of the rules sound _awful_
You joking right, that you never seen narrative rules like that? Otherwise you need to get some old classics on your collection.
I haven't read every RPG yet.
Jeez don't be crummy
This is such a dumb setting. A single fire would literally kill everyone.
I wonder if they explain how the plant-sea prevents this. If it’s some weird “bio-magic”, that’s fine.
Edit: Nope. Fire bad.
@@alderaancrumbs6260 yeah literally 0 sense one spark would end the world
Plants can be surprisingly fire proof, if it is humid enough in the setting it would likely be pretty hard to get them to catch fire.
Also they could very easily say that when on fire for long enough the trees release water vapour from their roots to put themselves out and the vapour has a hormone in it that tells adjacent trees to do the same without releasing the hormone, they could also release a cloud of carbon dioxide from their roots to kill the fire.
Cacti store carbon dioxide until night to use it in photosynthesis, as the natural water loss from photosynthesis is lower when it is cool out. Other plants will breath oxygen and release carbon dioxide at night. Plants can also use hormones when eaten to tell other plants to release a hormone to attract parasitic wasps. Considering these real life mechanisms I do not find it unreasonable to believe that these trees in the correct circumstance can release either a plume of carbon dioxide or mist to kill fires, as in real life plants have some control over their ability to expel mist and gas emissions.
Also the smoke from forest fires in real life can bind atmospheric water, produce a cloud(Flammagenitus cloud) and create rain, if these trees burn slowly enough they could eventually put themselves out. While these clouds can under certain circumstances make fires worse, I think the fact that these are giant trees with magic sap and that have a canopy basically touching the clouds would allow suspension of disbelief negate that. But honestly I prefer the surge of mist or carbon dioxide answer.
@@robertmacfergus9288 HAHAHAHAHAHA
@@user-dd9dh9kw5c clown