Realis Review

Realis is a game by Austin Walker and is a diceless tabletop role playing game. Realis is the center of a thousand moons, each unique from each other, with different ecologies and technologies. The game can be played as a moon-hopping, swashbucking adventure, or a more intimate single setting affair. In this early edition, the Ashcan edition, you’ll find information about 4 moons you can use, but you’re also kind of expected to build your own using the frameworks presented. There are also 20 playable classes in this edition of the book, but the full version will have around 50.

Realis uses the concept of capital S Sentences as your may way of defining your character. Well, not at the start. At the start, every Berserker has the same 4 Class Sentences, 2 Bond Sentences, and a Dream. You also have a Token that you’ll spend and recharge through play to use special Sentences or boost the effectiveness of a Sentence for a challenge. While you may start similar, how you progress will diverge wildly. In addition to your character’s Sentences, you’ll also make a Band, which is the group of PCs and describes who they are as a group and what they do. An example here is “A group of rebels seeking to overthrow a tyrant” with the Band Sentence of “When we work together, we always find justice on the end of a blade”.

Realis Sentences are always definitive. You ALWAYS do a thing, you ALWAYS have an excuse. This is by design. See, the thing that makes Realis really interesting is that as you progress, your Sentences get stronger, but also more restrictive. Sentences start at +0, and can level up to +3, but each time it progresses, you add another qualifier to it. When the GM describes a situation, you try to use one of your Sentences, including your Class, Bonds, Ephemeral (items), or even the Moon Sentences (if you spend your Token). If you have a Sentence and the “defender” doesn’t have one to counter it, congrats, you win. If your Sentence has a higher number on it (+0 through +3), you win! If there is a tie, or if the defender is higher, your action fails, and your Sentence is Countered, and can’t be used again until a new scene. You also mark it. 3 marks and you can upgrade the Sentence.

We’re going to use the Berserker as my sample Class in this post because it’s the first one and because I feel like it’s something that we can all have a picture of in our mind. The Berserker’s Class Sentences are as follows

• I always kill my foe
• I always carry an unstoppable [weapon]
• I always learn through violence
• I always hurt those close to me.

From there, we got some useful questions, and then one that seems pretty damaging. Those are useful for recharging your Token, since you can have an action purposefully draw you into trouble to regain it. This has to be its own action, not as part of another action.

All of these sentences are at +0, but let’s say “I always learn through violence” fails 3 times, and I can Prime it for change. I can now make it stronger by stripping away some of it’s versatility. It can become “I always learn through excessive violence”. By adding “excessive” I have limited how I can use this. I can’t learn unless I am in a situation of extreme violence, which should cause problems for me and people around me. If I prime it again, now it’s +2 and “I always learn through excessive violence done to my allies”. It’s stronger because it’s been Realized twice. It’s now More Real. What we’re doing is taking the chunk of stone that is our character, and chiseling them down into more and more defined people. When you Realize a Sentence and level it up, you can just choose what it is. You can pick something in response to lessons learned, to double down on something, or even just as a lateral move that you think fits.

When a Sentence hits +3, and then fails thrice, it immediately retires, and becomes a past tense version of it’s base version, and resets to +0. It can still be used, as a sort of reflection of past experiences, and be temporarily boosted by a Token, but it cannot advance. “I always kill my enemies” becomes “I used to kill my enemies” or “I always killed my enemies”. The way you invert it also can have some weight. “Used to kill” implies that you don’t seek that violence as much, while “I always killed my enemies” seems more reminiscent, almost as if you would still do it if you had the capability.

I like this a lot. It took listening to Austin and Jack playing a demo game of it in audio for part of it to click, but I finally got some of my head around it. Shortly after, I was shooting the shit with someone in Discord making up Faction Sentences for the Guilds of Ravnica from Magic the Gathering. I like the thought of peeling the onion, of finding out who you really are. Yeah you always kill your enemy, but when you always kill your enemy in the rain, it asks the question of “why the rain?” It naturally prompts you and others to think about your character and why they chose specific things. Did they get good at fighting in the rain because you spent several sessions on a rainy planet? Did they lose in the rain and go “never again”? Did they start thinking about their home which had rain? Things like that.

This game feels like it’d be incredibly easy to develop third party material for. Whip up some classes with some Class Sentences, bonds, and dreams, and you’ll be good to go. Pair this with a specific Moon where these Classes are from and you got yourself something solid. I’ve already gone “what if I made some Science Fantasy bullshit for this?” but I probably won’t.

I do think this game might not be my favorite though, because there’s not enough Game in this for me. If I wanted to be reductive, it feels like a group creative writing project, moreso than most Tabletop games. It has some Game to it, but maybe too lightweight for me. I can see it catching on though. I can see this having a ton of third party content, and people making hacks of it, and it just having a place in the hierarchy of games. Part of that is because of it’s creator, but mostly on its own merits.

I want to play this game, but not run it. Not yet anyways. There’s a lot of promise here, and a lot of good flavor. I love the idea of doing some planet hopping space opera shit. I do like the give and take of the Tokens, reminding me a lot of Technoir and its push dice system. There’s a lot to like here but I think the lack of Game is something that I need to get over. I’ve played so many games like D&D, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, and LANCER, so I’m so used to sheets with a ton of stuff. Blades in the Dark is a step down in terms of how much Game it is, but it still registers for me, so I’m hoping that by playing more games this will click more.

I do think it’s very much like a writing prompt. It feels like it’s more for bouncing words off each other, and that just isn’t my strong suit yet. Maybe one day, but for now, I’ll just have to admire this from afar.