Hari Ragat Playtest

Yesterday for International Tabletop Day, a total of seven players participated in the first U.S. playtest of Dariel Quiogue's Hari Ragat RPG. The game is set in an archipelago based on the ancient, pre-Hispanic Philippines, only it is a much larger island chain. Imagine tattooed, island-hopping Vikings in the tropics, raiding and trading on catamarans.  Monster and spirit-infested jungles. Wealthy trade cities on the northern islands, with a scribal caste experimenting with something new called "credit". That's Hari Ragat.

GM Marc Reyes shows off the vast archipelago of the Jangalan Isles

Legends of Anglerre co-author Marc Reyes was our GM, and ran the Hari Ragat setting using Dariel Quiogue's Vivid System. Hari Ragat is being published for both Vivid and Fate; I intend to buy both when they become available. One version of Vivid is already available as Dariel's Gods of Gondwane RPG. Anyone who is a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Mike Grell's The Warlord should check that game out!


The version of Vivid we played yesterday is really optimized for play in an ancient Philippines-inspired setting. You can see my PC's character sheet above. Liwanag was a Babaylan, or shamaness. Her primary skill is just that, Babaylan; her secondary skill is Orang Dakila which is the warrior/noble class who have proven themselves in battle (or through other mighty deeds) and therefore get to wear the red. So she has two Roles or skills: her profession, and her caste/social class. Any actions which are not shamanic in nature (i.e., diving for pearls, fighting, reciting poetry) need to be done with the caste skill. Your rating in a Role is the base for how many dice you get to use in roll.

GM Marc Reyes shows off a still featuring Orang Dakila type heroes from Amaya

Skills get boosted with additional dice through Aces and Traits. Aces are spendable attributes, and include things like Bala (physical prowess and endurance) and Dulohan ("posse" or followers), as well as Wealth (non-unique disposable forms of wealth), and Bahandi (wealth in the form of displayable heirlooms which boost one's status).

Using Aces requires a point expenditure, just like skills do in Gumshoe. Heroes who had a lot of Bala were spending that and taking part in the action directly; heroes who had a lot of followers were often making Dulohan spends, and had the option of either taking action through their followers, or taking action themselves, or both. So there is a nice range of choices with respect to resource management. These can get even more interesting in the social arena - should one spend Wealth on an action, or cash in an heirloom to really close a political or trade deal?

Traits usually work by providing boosts in the form of additional dice; these don't get spent down, but only add a die to an action when their use is appropriate to the scene. For example, my Babylan has a crysknife that detects witchcraft. I could conceivably invoke it in combat to add a die to a roll in a contest against a witch.

So, a rich setting, and an interesting wager/resource management system in Vivid. The game mechanics could easily be adaptable to social systems like those in Tekumel, in which social status, honor/renown, followers, and wealth - especially the displayable kind - really matter,and define the social terrain of the game environment.

I look forward to playing Hari Ragat again!