A special combined Fantasy Friday with Boxing Day. Today I am diving into the Dragonbane boxed set. I picked this up my
local RPG auction, still in the shrink wrap. This is less a traditional review and more an overview, a brief dive into the history of the game, and my thoughts after spending some time with it.
Dragonbane
Dragonbane is Free League’s modern reworking of the Swedish Drakar och Demoner. I picked it up last fall, primarily out of curiosity about Drakar och Demoner and out of a long-standing appreciation for Free League’s production values. After reading and reflecting on it, my conclusion is fairly measured: this is not a D&D replacement for me, but it is a very credible alternative to games in the RuneQuest family and adjacent BRP-style designs.
That distinction matters. Well, at least to me.
A Brief History of Drakar och Demoner
To really understand Dragonbane, it helps to step back and look at its predecessor, Drakar och Demoner (often abbreviated DoD), one of the most influential tabletop roleplaying games in Scandinavia.
Drakar och Demoner first appeared in 1982, published by Äventyrsspel (known internationally as Target Games). Mechanically, it was based on Basic Role-Playing, the same rules engine that powered RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu. For many Swedish players, DoD was not just their first RPG, but the RPG, occupying the same cultural space that D&D held in the United States.
Over the 1980s and early 1990s, Drakar och Demoner went through multiple editions, gradually drifting away from strict BRP roots while retaining its skill-based core. These editions emphasized low fantasy, dangerous combat, and practical adventuring over heroic power escalation. Magic was present but restrained. Characters were competent but fragile. Survival mattered.
Importantly, DoD also helped shape a distinctly European approach to fantasy roleplaying. Its adventures often leaned toward folklore, exploration, and moral ambiguity rather than epic destiny. Humor existed, but it was dry and situational rather than cartoonish. The infamous duck-people, later echoed in Dragonbane’s mallards, originated here as a surprisingly durable example of the game’s tonal flexibility.
When Target Games ceased operations in the late 1990s, Drakar och Demoner passed through several publishers and revisions, including later editions that experimented with d20 mechanics and more modern design sensibilities. None of these fully displaced the affection players held for the earlier versions.
Dragonbane: Design Lineage and Intent
Dragonbane wears its DoD and BRP influences openly. It is a skill-based fantasy RPG with a roll-under d20 core mechanic, clear ancestry in early percentile systems, and a design philosophy that prioritizes table flow over mechanical density. Unlike modern D&D, it does not attempt to be a universal fantasy engine or a lifestyle game. Instead, it aims to be playable, approachable, and complete within a single boxed set.
From a game design perspective, this is one of Dragonbane’s strengths. It knows what it wants to be.
Rules Structure: Conservative but Clean
Mechanically, Dragonbane is restrained. Characters are defined by skills rather than classes and levels, advancement is incremental and use-based, and resolution is intentionally binary. Rolling under your skill succeeds; rolling a 1 or a 20 introduces structured extremes of success or failure. I am normally not a huge fan of d20 roll-under systems, but this one works surprisingly well.
This approach avoids both the escalating power curves of D&D and the granular complexity of RuneQuest. Combat is dangerous without being punishing, magic is flexible without being dominant, and the overall system encourages cautious decision-making. In play, the rules largely stay out of the way, which is not a small achievement.
If anything, the rules err on the side of being slightly under-explained in places. Veteran gamemasters will fill in the gaps easily, but newcomers may occasionally wish for more explicit guidance. This feels intentional. Dragonbane trusts the table.
Setting
The Misty Vale setting provides just enough context to anchor play without overwhelming it. It is functional rather than exhaustive, offering locations, factions, and adventure hooks rather than a dense metaplot. This makes Dragonbane especially suitable for referees who prefer to build outward from play rather than absorb a setting bible before starting.
Compared to D&D’s Forgotten Realms or RuneQuest’s Glorantha, this is a much lighter touch. That may disappoint lore-focused players, but from a usability standpoint it makes the game easier to adopt and adapt.
You could easily create your own setting for this game or drop it into an existing one. I think that flexibility is a key strength.
Tone and Aesthetics
Dragonbane’s art direction is worth noting, not because it is flashy, but because it is consistent. There is a slight fairy-tale quality to the visuals, softened by humor (yes, including the infamous mallards), but it never collapses into parody. The tone remains grounded enough to support serious play, even when the aesthetic leans whimsical.
From a design history perspective, this places Dragonbane closer to early European fantasy RPG traditions than to modern epic fantasy branding, which makes sense given its origins.
The result is a game that looks both new and old at the same time. It feels distinctly European in presentation and sensibility.
The result is a great-looking game that looks new and old at the same time. It looks European to me.
Where It Fits for Me
Dragonbane does not threaten D&D’s place in my gaming life. D&D occupies a different conceptual space: broader genre reach, stronger character archetypes, and decades of accumulated expectations. Dragonbane is not trying to compete there.
Where it does shine is as a cleaner, faster alternative to RuneQuest and similar systems. It delivers many of the same benefits—skills over classes, grounded combat, emergent narrative—without the overhead that sometimes makes those games harder to get to the table.
In that sense, Dragonbane succeeds not by innovation, but by refinement.
RuneQuest is wonderful. I love it. But Dragonbane does what I often want RuneQuest to do, with fewer rules and a lower bar for entry.
Dragonbane vs RuneQuest vs BRP
At a mechanical and philosophical level, Dragonbane, RuneQuest, and Basic Role-Playing all share a common DNA in skill-based resolution and grounded, consequence-driven play. Where they diverge is in density and expectation. BRP functions best as a toolkit, offering maximum flexibility at the cost of referee labor and system mastery. RuneQuest, particularly in its Glorantha-centric forms, layers that toolkit with extensive cultural, religious, and mythic structures, resulting in a rich but demanding play experience. Dragonbane deliberately strips this complexity back, favoring speed, clarity, and approachability while preserving the core logic of skill-based play.
Nearly Final Assessment
Dragonbane is a well-considered fantasy RPG with a clear design goal and the discipline to stick to it. It is accessible without being shallow, traditional without being dated, and complete without being bloated.
It may not become the center of my gaming ecosystem, but it has earned a permanent place on my shelf, and more importantly, at my table when I want something thoughtful, grounded, and efficient.
That alone makes it worth serious consideration.
As I mentioned when I first picked this up, I need to create a Mallard wizard. I just need to figure out who he is and what he is about. I like the idea of a wandering wizard; I have not done that since I was playing Phygor. For this character, I would probably borrow ideas from RuneQuest and maybe even port him over into my D&D games. And yes, he is a wizard, not a witch.
So yeah, I certainly want to play this some more.
