Solasta: Crown Of The Magister Lets Fans Shape Its Homebrew D&D World

The in-development Solasta: Crown of the Magister has faithful D&D gameplay, but is letting fans help shape its homebrew world.

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Solasta: Crown of the Magister is an upcoming tactical RPG that aims to recreate the Dungeons & Dragons experience, but as a single-player PC game. The developers, Tactical Adventures, hope to achieve this by faithfully recreating all three pillars of D&D – combat, exploration, and role play. They actually got the rights to use D&D 5e’s core rules, meaning players will see things like darkvision, dice-based ability checks, and alignments affect their quest. However, the world itself will be a Tactical Adventures original – and fans are invited to help decide what it will look like.

A D&D Core In Solasta’s Wrapping

Tactical Adventures are D&D players themselves; they have their own long-running campaign. One might think they’d get tired of looking at dice-based stats (and each other) after looking at them during work all day, but they’re just that passionate about the game. It’s no surprise, then, that they were so faithful in translating the familiar aspects of D&D into their game. A recent alpha demo starts with four adventurers in a tavern, swapping stories about how they got there.

Yes, turn-based combat in initiative order is a thing. But the D&D spirit is there in the alternative options players are given. Creative players can find ways to avoid an impossible combat encounter. In the demo, the fighter had their weapons taken away and was thrown in prison. They escaped by using dim lighting to their advantage and toppling boulders on their unsuspecting bandit kidnappers. Another encounter saw a dwarf surrounded by feral wolves on a stone bridge above a deep canyon. The player was able to use the shove action instead of attacking to take a wolf out in one turn.

Player agency, considered by many to be the most important thing about D&D, is there in spades. It comes into play right from the start, in character creation. The official rules for standard array and point buy are used to generate stats. But Solasta will also allow manual input for those who want to live their fantasies of having 18s in everything. A character’s “Personality” is decided by aspects of their alignment and background. Voice lines will reflect this, with the demo voices ranging from well-spoken intellectuals to tactless drunkards.

What makes Solasta a true Tactical Adventures production, however, is the unique things the devs are adding. Solasta may be using the D&D rules, after all, but it’s its own world. This gives the devs freedom to reshape what we think we know about lore. This is already taking form in new homebrew subraces, the Snow Dwarf and Island Halfling. Also up for change are backgrounds. While standards like the Acolyte and Noble are there, new Solasta-specific backgrounds will tailor the characters’ voices and attitudes to fit within the world. So while Solasta’s gameplay will feel comfortably familiar to D&D fans, the setting will be a whole new frontier. One that, in some small ways, is being mapped out by the players.

How Players Are Shaping Solasta

Of course, any good homebrew is going to have some brand new, custom-made magic items. Tactical Adventures is not disappointing on that front. They’re actively workshopping the gear of Solasta with input from the community. They do regular polls where fans can sign into the forums and vote on the next magic item to be added to the game.

These aren’t just Tactical Adventures’ designs, either. A recent contest asked fans to design their own magic armor. Tactical Adventures took five of the most intriguing (and balanced), and let the community vote on which one they wanted to see.

This community input also extends to the more everyday weapons. The most recent vote was for exotic swords that don’t have magical powers, but just look cool. D&D 3.5e players might recognize some of these blades as ones that were removed in 5e.

It’s a wonderful approach to fan feedback, and looks to be shaping Solasta: Crown of the Magister into one epic party of a homebrew. One that can be played alone, however, because it can be really hard to get a group together these days.

Solasta: Crown of the Magister is currently in development for PC.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/solasta-crown-of-magister-fans-vote-homebrew-dungeons-dragons-dnd/