Using ICRPG to simplify Symbaroum


#1

Hey folks!

Been a long time. I fell off the edge of the map sometime during lockdown, but just about feeling juiced to DM again.

I have a group of awesome friends, who are up for playing Symbaroum. I’ve wanted to play this game for a looong time. My plan is to use ICRPG’s Room DC and Effort, because Symbaroum’s system looks like it would break my brain. I don’t have the patience for fiddly stuff anymore, I want something I can just slam on the table.

This post is partly just to rejoin the community and throw down a Howdy, but also to ask if people have any advice. I saw that someone else did a bit of a Symbaroum adaptation before, but their document is no longer available. Are there any obvious pitfalls you can see? I’m not sure how I’ll do loot yet. The only part of Symbaroum I won’t part with is the magic.

Hope things are good. Let me know how your lives and RPGs are going too!

Cassie


#2

Hey Cassie, the Council and I played a Symbaroum game run by the amazing Kelsey Dionne. However, we just kept the setting and concepts and tossed out all of the fiddly Symbaroum mechanics and just played ICRPG. But in Symbaroum.

I know that isn’t quite what you asked, but I’m mentioning it here only because we wanted to adventure in that world, but we didn’t want any of the headaches. And we had a blast. Sometimes, the setting is just enough.


#3

Thanks Alex, that makes sense! Did you use the base ICRPG loot tables? Or bespoke ones?


#4

I think you can take Symbaroum feats (how are they called? traits?) and easily convert them into ICRPG abilities. Loremaster gives you narrative advantages- like knowing elf tongue, Beastmaster gives knowledge of monsters (ask GM for abilities/resistences), there is some spear ability saying you can perform attack of opportunity when someone enters your personal space… Symbaroum has plenty of stuff designed for verbal description - so only minimum mechanical adaptation is required.

Spells you can take as they are, but unify all output as magic Effort. Give everyone 1 heart of Corruption pool and roll 1d6 for temporary Corruption gain after every spell.

As per loot tables, even though it’s taking bit of fun, roll them themselves before the session and reskin them. Default loot tables might be a bit silly for Symbaroum, but you can easily rewrite some Gar as healing potion, poison or alchemical gas grenade.

EDIT: Oh gosh, autocorrect was really messing with me. Fixed some words.


#5

Just use the ICRPG loot tables. That being said, @Drifter has some good advice here. I think we handled Corruption exactly as indicated.


#6

That’s an interesting idea asking them to reskin their own loot… I might even get them to do it on the fly during the session, if they think something doesn’t fit - they’re all creative people.

I like that condensed approach to corruption and magic effort too. I don’t believe a lot of mathematical granularity is worth it at the table - it’s fun to think about when making a character, but in the heat of the moment I don’t think it makes enough difference.


#7

As you say, I think that’s some sound advice!