Hello!

First, thank you and the community for offering a community copy. Other than my financial situation, this was my first time playing RPG in my second language so I was unsure if I was ready. I'm planning to buy a direct copy when my funds are ready so I can offer one too.

I really enjoyed the expirience, more than my expectations. It reminded me that I liked writing using writing prompts, which I kind of forgot while being busy with life. 

  I am from Japan and was familiar with works of Ghibli from a young age so the settings came in naturally. I thought the balance was really good on the directions, or guide on what to do was clear while having freedom in play. 

Also thanks for providing a printer friendly version, most times shipping costs more than  physical copies of works and I like to show and tell people what I'm currently into atm so being able to print saving ink really helped. 

Hello! First of all, kudos for adding to the Palestine bundle! 

I had a read through and am setting up my first wizard, and I have a few observations...

1. The values and goals table on page 10 jumps from 36 to 41, so I'm thinking there's a mix up there (luckily it's not hard to just reroll)

2. The instructions for goals seem to imply that there's more than one location, but there's only the city of Athanasia. Is there supposed to be more, or are they only in the expansion (which I totally intend to get regardless)? This confused me for a while XD

Well done on the game though! I'm looking forward to getting right into it!

If I'm understanding bonds correctly, it's a huge game mechanic that should never be used.

You start the game with four bonds. I think that means one of each suit, though the book doesn't ever seem to say that. It looks like you can never have more than four bonds. The only ways to get new bonds is to replace existing bonds.

The starting bonds seem roughly balanced. Hearts remove a wound, Diamonds gain a coin. Spades gain a wound. Clubs gain a wound or remove two coin. Pretty much balanced. Near the beginning of the game, it's 50/50 whether I gain or lose.

Since the Heal action exchanges a coin to remove a wound, it's pretty much always a bad deal to take the club option to pay two coin to avoid taking a wound. The only reason I would want to do that is if the only other option is death, in which case I probably should have healed instead of consorting ... unless I have zero coins, in which case I should Perform because losing a few cards is better than a 1 (or 2) in 4 chance of death.

Once I resolve spades, I can gain three coin. But resolving spades means taking three wounds, which costs three coin to heal, so it's not really much of an incentive.

If I take three wounds at once, it's game over. So I never want to consort with two wounds, unless spades (and probably clubs as well) are resolved. 

If I'm fully healed, and I draw a heart, that's wasted. So I may want to consort fully healed for coin, but it's not worth as much as consorting with exactly one wound.

If I replace a bond, the Glinting Idol is the only replacement that is better than the original. (I think the Cordial Person is still subject to the normal clubs rules?) Two of other replacements make consorting (already close to 50/50) an even worse deal. And even the Glinting Idol isn't that good, because it heals two wounds, and I almost never want to consort if I have two wounds, because drawing a spade (or possibly a club) will kill me.

It just seems like I would almost never want to consort, except under very specific conditions:

1. I have exactly 1 wound (unless I have the People’s Militia) and I would rather risk inflicting a second wound than spend a coin. And the odds are not good, unless either spades or clubs is resolved.

2. I have zero wounds, and I'm willing to take a wound or two on the off chance that I might get a coin.

3. I have two wounds and spades and clubs are resolved. (And I do not have the Horned Wizard.)

4. I have two wounds, and the deck is so low that I'm pretty sure there's better than 1 (or 2) in 4 odds of ending the game.

So basically I don't want to consort unless bonds are resolved (which won't happen if I don't consort) or I'm really desperate.

It just feels like one of the core actions is something that I'll probably go many games without using.

Hello! This is my first solo rpg and I'm glad for a strong start to the hobby! I have a rules question. Do the face cards that start a spell set count as cards added to a spell for the purposes of the Perform action? For example: if I just have the initial face card from set up (a King of Clubs) and I take the Perform action and draw the Two of Clubs, must I then discard the King of Clubs?

Just wanted to stop by and say that I have acquired the physical hardcover of this game and it's fantastic!

This game is so interesting to me! I'd love to play it, but unfortunately I'm not in a great spot financially these days, haha...hopefully this isn't rude to ask, but is there a chance of any more community copies becoming available soon? If not, thanks anyway!

Hey there! I have been thoroughly enjoying the game so much, and I love the story telling mechanics used. I just have a couple of inquiries about different parts of the game:

First is the offering. I'm not exactly sure what the game means by deciding an offering for a spell. Is it similar to spell components in dnd?

And secondly, when questing, the rules for it state that "If you have responded to all prompts for a particular card, discard that card. If that card was the face card, discard the set after responding to the remaining prompts" but none of the prompts offered in the list have a face value. How would this work?

Thank you for reading and thank you for the hard work you put into making this game.

So I emailed this morning due to a slight issue I had- I meant to buy this game and the expansion to it but accidentally bought the base copy twice instead. I was emailing to see if I could get a refund on the base game so I could buy the expansion, or if you could just give me access to the expansion since it adds up to me essentially just paying an extra $2 instead. I only leave this message here since I don't know how your notifications are set up. That being said- I've enjoyed looking over my copy (or copies?) of Grimoire! It's been a great read and I can't wait to have the expansion so I can sit down and play- it has the best vibes for this spooky season! 

Had a great time playing this. Check out my review if you'd like to read a little more about the game and how it plays! I include writing from a few prompts also.
https://croakerrpgcorner.blogspot.com/2022/09/grimoire-solo-journaling-rpg-of-im...

Question - on p24, under the 'discover' action, it says "A player may have as many spells under research at a time which can help research be a less risky undertaking."

Is that meant to simply read, a player can have many spells etc. etc. (no as many), or is there meant to be a number/comparison (as many spells as something)?

Is there any chance this game might have Community Copies available?

I’m sorry if this was rude to ask. When turned into my country’s currency USD is terrifyingly expensive. Please ignore if I hurt your feelings.

Grimoire is a solo adventuring roleplaying game about being a wizard compiling a grimoire. The grimoire that you compile can also be adapted for use in other rpgs, making this one of the rare games that directly encourages content creation for other systems.

Grimoire's PDF is 60 pages, with a layout that feels like an old tome. There's a lot of visual variety and some nice illustrations, and it's really pleasant to look at. The text *is* ever so slightly difficult to read, but I'm not sure this is a bad thing. Taking your time and poring over the words is thematically appropriate, and there weren't any sections that I struggled with.

Mechanics-wise, Grimoire is played with cards, dice, a journal, and any other book of your choice. The other book serves as a word bank, and is used to select keywords for spells.

Character creation is quick, creative, and story-based instead of stat-based. You define traits about yourself, and you define a goal, but you don't allocate any points to anything.

That said, it is possible to lose Grimoire. Gameplay involves navigating a deck of cards---some of which heal you and build your resources, others of which damage and impoverish you. Taking more than three damage kills you. And while you *can* use spells to nullify the effects of negative cards, doing so causes you to gain Corruption, which can also kill you. Furthermore, drawing jokers at any time can set you on a path towards death.

Thankfully, you do have a lot of control over the gamestate. The structure of the game is divided into turns, and during each turn you can select an action from a detailed list. Actions include things like beginning research on spells, encountering cards from the deck, spending coins to heal yourself, or burning cards from the deck for small amounts of coin.

Grimoire's central mechanic of spell research is also handled through actions, although it feels more detailed and procedural than the rest of the game. You start researching a spell by playing a face card, and then complete it by playing other cards equal to the Spell Point value of the face card. Go over, and the research fails. Succeed, and each card adds context to the spell, giving you a unique and detailed magical ability.

Examples are provided (as is a very helpful condensed rules reference,) but there is a somewhat arcane feeling to the process, and the game seems to intend for you to have multiple spells in progress at any given time, allowing you to shunt new cards over to spells they won't scuttle.

Overall, if you want a meaty solo game that will make you feel like a wizard, has a decently long runtime, and will generate spells that you can adapt to other game systems, I'd strongly recommend checking this out.

Hey! I want to run a game of Grimoire since it looks pretty amazing.

I'm having a problem understanding the flow of the game. The rules says I can either RESEARCH or QUEST. Quest gives prompts so I'm pretty clear on what I should do. The RESEARCH part however, only says that you spend 2 coins and make a new spell. 

The question is: what use are the research location prompts then?

I have a theory but I don't know if I'm right. I thought that maybe when choosing RESEARCH you pick a card and react to the research location prompt. And then only when you have 7 cards can you spend 2 coins and get a new spell?

Thanks for your nice RPG!