Taking a look at Fours! 3d augmented printing by Ken St. Andre

Since I did my previous post about Fours!, the latest game from legend Ken St. Andre, the trollgod has released two more iterations building on his initial design.

As a reminder, Fours! was born from a conversation Ken had with John Wick about the minimum rules a game needs to be a functional RPG (the name question I asked myself before writing In Darkest Warrens). What he ended up with was a card-based generic system that totally works, but I did have trouble with some of the probabilities. Namely that it was fairly difficult to succeed.

The 3d edition has been slightly revamped and some extra bits bolted on by other writers. While three of the main stats have remained the same, Intangibles is now Resources (although the character sheet still reads Intangibles). The mysterious Avatar class has been replaced by Scientist, who now gets a +4 to smarts instead of Wizards, who now get a +4 to health. I'm not entirely sure on the reasoning here. With a super lite game, you have to rely on tropes to help build more information in the minds of players, so classes and stats should be familiar. I don't know why wizards should now get additional health. I'm not sure why scientist was the best replacement, but I suppose in a medieval setting you'd call it an alchemist or some variation.

I don't want to teach Ken to suck eggs - he's a far better designer than me, but I'd have perhaps had power, resources, smarts and spirit, with health being static, but each class getting its own bonus to health. Spirit would be force of will, resolve and magic, and useful for wizards.

I really appreciate Ken writing a short piece in the document about failing forward. He's obviously recognised that failure is more common than success and has made it a feature of the game. That's a very Ken thing to do. There are also some example spells and science examples (science is a lot like magic in Fours! very Arthur C Clarke), which are also a welcome addition. The edition also includes a random adventure ingredient generator, which I like.

I really like Fours! It's a breezy game that I think could be built out more and ironed out, but it really hits that lite sweet spot I like. I particularly love the advice that Ken gives about using the deck to determine the chances of anything being a reality in the game world. The example he gives is a player wanting to buy a drink and having to pull their suit to determine whether they actually have the money to pay for it. This really allows for some great emergent roleplaying opportunities.

Before I sign off, here's my Fours! character.

Red Tonya
Warrior (clubs)
Power 10
Smarts 3
Resources 1
Health 6

Stuff: Scimitar, rope, mail, dirk, map, torch.
The most important thing about this character is that she can both swash and buckle.

Pay what you want for Fours!