GET A SNEAK PEEK AT THE ICONIC ADVENTURING SYSTEM! COMING SOON TO KICKSTARTER! Welcome to a new addition to the tabletop role-playing genre. Although a role-playing game, the Iconic Adventuring System is vastly different than its predecessors. First, apart from being a role-playing game, it involves deck building, where players create a character deck as they adventure. The character deck serves as their potential to overcome hazards and monsters to advance the storyline forward. Secondly, unlike traditional role-playing games, the Iconic System does not use dice for resolution. Fundamentals is an abridged version of the forthcoming role-playing rules found in the Iconic Adventuring System. While the basic and core rules are comprehensive, this guide offers a general insight into the system and what to expect. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FUNDAMENTALS FOR FREE and CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT ON KICKSTARTER

In the Iconic Adventuring System, both physical and mental trauma, take the form of either wound or stress cards. When you gain a wound card, oftentimes you place the card face-up in the discard pile of your character deck (known as the fatigue pile). While it remains in your character deck, it acts as adrenaline, allowing you to lose more fatigue than normal and can prevent further stress or even additional wounds. However, once drawn into your hand, both stress and wound cards make tasks difficult to accomplish, reducing your hand size. While you forsake (remove from the game) stress cards at the end of your turn, wound cards remain until dealt with through medicine, natural healing, or miracles. Although, medicine in a medieval fantasy setting has limits, and often binding a wound will allow you to discard it back into your character deck, but not forsake it. This represents an old wound reopening, a festering infection, or some other ailment caused by the injury. Once your hand is full of wound cards, you collapse and begin dying, discarding a card from the top of your character deck each turn. If it is a willpower card, you regain consciousness and can discard one wound card into your fatigue pile. If the revealed card is a wound card, you breathed your last breath. Non-playing characters (NPCs) do not have a character deck. Not as hardy as stalwart adventurers, one wound is sufficient to vanquish a dreaded foe – called a dramatic end. It is up to the vanquisher (you the player) whether you subdue your opponent, run it through, or have them flee to recount their defeat by your hand. However, do not fool yourself that a dragon or some other vile beast is a simple conquest having just one wound. While you may survive an encounter with these horrid foes, even at the start of your adventuring career, vanquishing such creatures is an undertaking of epic proportions. However, with just one wound, Game Masters no longer need to keep track of hit points, or the like, and can instead focus on the titanic battle at hand, weaving a terrific tale for all to remember in years to come.

How does Armor Work in the Iconic Adventuring System? First, thank you for taking the time and interest in our upcoming Kickstarter project, the Iconic Adventuring System. It is a true deck building, tabletop role-playing game that makes use of cards instead of dice. Like its medieval counterpart, mundane armor in a fantastical setting offers protection against arrows, as well as a myriad of melee weapons, while providing a certain freedom of movement during a skirmish. While poorer soldiers and mercenaries suffice with gambeson, a quilted breast coat, knights in mail and plate armor prove almost invulnerable, intimidating lesser foes. As a medievalist and game designer, it was a challenge to bring realistic armor to the tabletop and still maintain game balance. In the role-playing genre, introducing a full suit of historical plate armor into a game would overpower most systems. Armor in the Iconic Adventuring System is simple, straightforward, and historically accurate. First, armor has layers to improve the quality of protection. Should you begin with gambeson, and later acquire mail, you can wear both to increase your Armor Rank (AR). Your Armor Rank + Stamina (for most living creatures) is your Health score. If damage exceeds your Health score, you gain a wound card, taking it from the general supply and placing it into the discard pile of your character deck. Otherwise, you lose fatigue mitigated by your Armor Rank (to a minimum of 0). If you lose enough fatigue to force you to reshuffle your character deck, then you gain a wound card. If you do not, nothing happens. Armor offers another form of protection. In history, certain armors were good at protecting against different types of weapons. While gambeson is good against bludgeoning and slashing weapons, it fell short against piercing weapons (generally speaking). Therefore, if you would gain a wound card from a bludgeoning or slashing weapon while wearing gambeson, you could discard a prepared feat card (if one is available) to instead gain a stress card. Layered armor also improves this protection. If combined with riveted mail, it would increase your Health score and protect against piercing weapons. Of course, as with historical armor, wearing plate armor will give a sense of invincibility, unless you face a great number of foes. Armor also offers resistance. Resistance is a mechanic that forces a foe to lose fatigue even if successful. Skirmishing with a foe wearing plate and strike a successful blow, you will lose fatigue. This loss represents the movement and effort needed to penetrate its defenses. Lastly, good armor is expensive, and like its historical counterpart, a suit of plate armor fits its owner, the person who ordered its creation. Otherwise, looted plate act as munition or scavenged armor; still solid protection, but not as good. Want to hear more about Iconic? Be on the lookout for our upcoming Kickstarter Campaign and The Fundamentals, a free guide to get acquainted with the system.