So, I said I would eventually get around to covering a game that I really don’t like, and today is the day! “Fireborn” sucks! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Seriously, though, I am not a fan of this game. I want to like it, I really do. I bought the Players Handbook and Gamemasters Book for this TTRPG years ago, at my wife’s request. We both agreed that the game art was beautiful, and it sounded really cool from the game’s description, so we gave it a chance.
That was, in fact, a mistake.
“Fireborn” is a cautionary tale, one that tells us that great artwork and a cool setting do not always make for a good game. “Rifts” is much the same way, but at least it is playable, if one is willing to suffer. I have tried to play “Fireborn”, and it is simply incomprehensible.
Look, that might seem a bit harsh, and I suspect that there are fans of “Fireborn” who feel I am simply not able to grasp its various nuances, but no, that’s not it. I’ve been playing, running, and designing TTRPGs for 45 years now, the vast majority of my life, and I am telling you: This. Game. Is. Unplayable.
So let me tell you about my last attempt to run “Fireborn”. Since we had had difficulties playing it previously in a group setting when we first bought it, I decided a couple of years ago to try to play the game solo, as a part of my now-defunct actual-play podcast, “The Worst Actual-Play Podcast Ever!”
I gave the rules a good skimming beforehand, then set about trying to make my first character. I spent the next four hours flipping through the two books, checking section after section, to no avail. I simply could not figure out how to create a character. Don’t get me wrong, I found the section covering character creation. It simply didn’t tell me how to go about creating said character!
As I recall, the problem was that there was a whole lot of text talking about characters and so forth, but nothing really helpful regarding, y’know, actually rolling up a character. The character sheet has places for stats and such, but I spent hours trying to find how to actually generate those stats, to no avail!
What the actual f*ck!
So I set the game aside in frustration, and have never picked it up again. No, that’s not entirely true… The next morning I talked with My Lovely Bride™ about my issues with “Fireborn”, and jokingly blamed her, since “It’s YOUR game, after all”. She then took a look herself, since she’s a fine roleplayer in her own right, and – you’ll never guess what happened. She was just as befuddled by their rules, or lack thereof, as I was!
See, I could forgive the game if it was just me. I’m in my mid-fifties now, and sometimes I might miss something here or there. But when neither I nor my wife can figure out how to play your game, with a combined 80 years of experience in the hobby?
Yeah, no. That’s not on us. The game simply sucks. Sure, as I said, it’s really pretty, and the setting ideas are solid. But as an actual tabletop roleplaying game? Nope. Complete waste of paper and ink.
