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submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

I love the setting of Brancalonia. I love the humor, I love the folklore, and I am currently learning Italian in evening classes to boot, so this is basically a perfect mix.

But I do not love that the authors picked D&D 5E as the rule system for this setting. Don't get me wrong, I find D&D 5E perfectly acceptable for heroic fantasy campaigns (and, in fact, I am running such a campaign right now). And I can understand this choice from a business perspective - it makes a lot of sense to tie your setting to the most popular RPG system out there.

However, Brancalonia PCs are not supposed to be great heroes, but fairly unimpressive never-do-wells. The rules deal with this by capping character level at 6, but I feel that this leaves the PCs with too little room to grow and removes much of the proper D&D experience. I'd rather use a rule system that was intended for weaker protagonists, rather than trying to distort D&D into something that is not.

So, what alternate system would you use for Brancalonia?

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[-] sbv@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago

I hear good stuff about Blades in the Dark, but I'm not too familiar with it. I wonder if that would work.

[-] phailhaus@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

BitD is extremely focused on thief/assassin gameplay. It's nicely setting-agnostic, but it isn't a system suited to rural gameplay.

[-] divineburke@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago

I haven't looked into it but there are two other games that exist in the system. I immediately thought of "Band of Blades" which is a low fantasy bandit setting. It's an assumption but might be an alternative

this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
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