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The Chad Jihad
Feb 24, 2007


I'm torn, because on the one hand like, everything has stupid names and every plane is a heavy metal cover and even just the known (in this case known being a bunch of random names dribbled all over a random map) areas of the individual planes are already much more massive than the entirety of a lot of fantasy settings

On the other hand, heavy metal covers are cool to look at, and being such huge territories that no-one cares about that have no cachet, gives them a lot of conceptual space LORE-WISE to have back-and-forth campaigns and actual wins and losses. They're meaningless in a sense because of that, of course. But for example, regarding Mannfred in Age of Sigmar: "He personally led the Flyblown Legion of Nurgle into Rotsoul Mire and saw them all choked beneath its waters. He destroyed the Citadel of Blades by building a tower of corpses for his army to climb into it from. He spent several decades fighting and, ultimately, winning the War of the Nail, in which he pushed two duardin empires to war with each other by bloodily murdering key leaders, then wiping out the rulers of both in the chaos." None of those places, people, or events mean anything to anyone. They've never been mentioned before and they'll never be mentioned again. But because the setting is so massive, it still feels like something that totally happened, and gets across the intended message of "Mannfred is a skilled killer-guy.". If you're running a Mannfred based army you've got actual 'successes' in your lore pocket and could conceivably get more in the future when a new splatbook reveals Mannfred created the Ossugheist Rupturemauls to cleanse the Estuary of Brambletears during the Third Grumbleglaive Crisis.

Contrast with Archaon whose big moment made him look like an absolute chump since you can't just have him burn down Kislev and sack Altdorf without fundamentally changing the setting

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Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Though some of that was a problem with Chaos basically always going for the whole pie back in Fantasy. Because their goal was always 'the destruction of everything and everyone' and they had lords named poo poo like 'The Lord of the End Times' and all, they weren't really set up to take the smaller wins they needed to establish cred without ending the setting. If they sent out some dark crusade with an objective like 'burn down this place' or 'destroy this knightly order' or 'retrieve this thing' or 'kill this ruler', completed their objective, and returned to plot further attacks it would have done them some good.

But no, it was always 'this time, we are totally going to destroy the world entirely!' until it worked and everyone hated it for obvious reasons.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Night10194 posted:

But no, it was always 'this time, we are totally going to destroy the world entirely!' until it worked and everyone hated it for obvious reasons.

Yep. End Times really was just the most stupid level of "we burned down the village in order to save it" horseshit, and I don't think anything could convince me otherwise.

I also still prefer my older versions of dwarfs, but then again I am always going to.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Cythereal posted:


I think part of it is how every book is covered in superlatives over how this group is the BEST AND SMARTEST AND STRONGEST EVAR. The same thing in 40k was a factor in my disillusionment with that setting.

To be fair a book about a faction is going to talk that faction up. They don't want players to feel like their chosen faction are losers in their own book.

megane posted:

Similarly: WHF did a good job of laying out the terrain and giving you a sense of the various factions' territories and the key locations therein. But the Mortal Realms (and, indeed, the 40K universe) are a bajillion miles across and consist of endless lists of wacky fantasy terrain elements that are just floating around somewhere. Any time something happens it's in a crazy new place we never hear about before or after. Where the gently caress is everyone? Are the Airplane Dwarves anywhere near the Bone Mafia? Where are all these towns that are getting blown up by Mushroom Goblins all the time, and why does their destruction not actually impact anything?


We have been getting actual maps that overlay with each other. The Ossiarch book actually came with a map that showed how their territories overlapped with the areas of Shyish that had been shown off in the past.

Also while there are wacky stuff, the center of the realms are much more normal. And the expanding on locations is why I felt Soulbound was good with it's chapter on the great parch. Giving it a history, a nice map, and a bunch of plot hooks and set pieces to adventure through.
The blank locations on the realm maps also allow people to freely insert their own stuff which is nice as well.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

MonsterEnvy posted:

To be fair a book about a faction is going to talk that faction up. They don't want players to feel like their chosen faction are losers in their own book.

There's a difference between that and utterly pointless hype. Everything is written in such a superlative, over-dramatic style that wants everything to be a heavy metal cover that to me it all feels completely pointless. These guys are the best! No, these are! No, these guys over here! Aethergold powered weapons! Sigmarite weapons! Celestite weapons!

It's boring, repetitive, and every one of these books feels the same.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Bieeanshee posted:

I'm just amused by the thought of the Bad Moon getting in a fight with a Protoss-- er, Seraphon ship.

I wish I was good enough at MS paint to be able to create: "Old frog yells at moon".

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Cythereal posted:

There's a difference between that and utterly pointless hype. Everything is written in such a superlative, over-dramatic style that wants everything to be a heavy metal cover that to me it all feels completely pointless. These guys are the best! No, these are! No, these guys over here! Aethergold powered weapons! Sigmarite weapons! Celestite weapons!

It's boring, repetitive, and every one of these books feels the same.

Well agree to disagree.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Cythereal posted:

There's a difference between that and utterly pointless hype. Everything is written in such a superlative, over-dramatic style that wants everything to be a heavy metal cover that to me it all feels completely pointless. These guys are the best! No, these are! No, these guys over here! Aethergold powered weapons! Sigmarite weapons! Celestite weapons!

It's boring, repetitive, and every one of these books feels the same.
People may only buy one or two, since these are the rule books for the miniatures game, right?

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

I will say very honestly that I at least super agree on the special magical material weapons. Every one of them, aether gold, celestite, sigmarite, etc has been talked up as a big turning point for why this army is so superior to Other Armies and why their armed forces are The Best compared to idiots with their normal weapons.


But we don't like... have idiots with their normal weapons. I guess we have the orc equivalents? But they talk up how they have their own unique stuff that can handle sigmarite and etc too!


Why does every faction need a special super material?

Everyone
Sep 6, 2019

by sebmojo

KittyEmpress posted:

I feel like every time we discuss the forces of Death I just spend the entire reading of it rolling my eyes at them.

I feel like Sigmar just needs to conclude a strong alliance with the Space Lizards to just nuke the corpse-things from orbit.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Maybe people will like the Bonereapers more if the watch the teaser videos. Katakros is voiced by Winne the Pooh (And is probably the reason I like him, cause I can always imagine him with that voice.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF5CzVul7J8&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=Warhammer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5l1mnXtQGM&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=Warhammer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBAgUSMHPUw&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=Warhammer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvlZsfXh_5o&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=Warhammer

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Sep 14, 2020

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

MadDogMike posted:

Uh, point of order GW, cartouche has a very specific meaning when discussing hieroglyphics, and that symbol is not one. Hell, given it's supposed to be used with pharaohs, only Nagash should technically be using a cartouche probably.

GW cares not for your meaning of words, only that they flow.

PurpleXVI posted:

I think part of my issue with the AoS writing is that while I can get into some of the specific personalities and ideas, but with all of the locations I just do not give a gently caress about them. None of them have a personality. I feel about as much connection as if I was reading about a raid instance in an MMO.

In Warhammer Fantasy if Kislev is under siege by Chaos or Dark Elves or whatever it's like "dang, I know this place and care about these people and I can imagine how a Large Bear is going to dunk on a raptor being ridden by someone with a hat three feet tall and covered in spikes." I'm not sure if it's a matter of age or size, OG Warhammer just feels much more... concentrated. AoS has probably about the same amount of content but pasted over a much more vast world.

Hams Fantasy mostly takes place in Fantasy Europe and operates in scales we can understand, and so both the stakes and locations are graspable. AoS... doesn't. Sure, they may have moved past INFINITY REALITY BALLS to BALLS ARE TECHNICALLY FINITE, BUT PRACTICALLY ENDLESS, and 2E maps are a bit better than 1E's Throw Random Fantasy poo poo On A Map, but it's still hard to get any sort of intimacy with it - or to care about the ground covered/lost/etc.. I mean, look, that Ossiarch Empire already holds what, an Earth-equiv of territory?

It's even harder when all factions have to able to strike/have outposts everywhere at all times.

Also, the shattered are weird. If you're ripping souls apart and stitching them back together, what makes someone gently caress up so hard you don't want to break them down into parts?

And are they ghost nows? Or do the parts get new bodies?

Also, if the soul-bits of generals are mad about not being together, does this mean that it also applies to other souls in other dudes?

And what happens when you break the gem?

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
It really is why people talking about MMO fluff is just so much white noise, so many pointless names and meaningless flavour for what amounts to stock video game locations for which there can never be any real stakes, and which the devs clearly don't give a poo poo about, so why should we?

It's not unsalvageable, but they really need to actually make up for having completely destroyed their old setting and replaced it with *vague waving of hands*. Figures that GW at that point seems to have lost track of what people actually cared about in a setting and why.

It's like a variant on the Eight Deadly Words: "I don't care what happens to these people." You can come up with all those fancy trademarkable words you want, but unless you attach meaning to them, there's no point.

Winklebottom
Dec 19, 2007

Josef bugman posted:

I wish I was good enough at MS paint to be able to create: "Old frog yells at moon".

I was bored

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

:five:

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

I hate to say this but: please be bored more often. That's a quality post.


JcDent posted:

Hams Fantasy mostly takes place in Fantasy Europe and operates in scales we can understand, and so both the stakes and locations are graspable. AoS... doesn't. Sure, they may have moved past INFINITY REALITY BALLS to BALLS ARE TECHNICALLY FINITE, BUT PRACTICALLY ENDLESS, and 2E maps are a bit better than 1E's Throw Random Fantasy poo poo On A Map, but it's still hard to get any sort of intimacy with it - or to care about the ground covered/lost/etc.. I mean, look, that Ossiarch Empire already holds what, an Earth-equiv of territory?

It's even harder when all factions have to able to strike/have outposts everywhere at all times.

The factions also feel... I don't know. No one fighting here is just a goddamn farmer who wants to survive the next ten days of prodding at rat men with a pike and then go home to till the soil and pet their cow. They're all like EPIC INFINI-IMMORTALS STITCHED TOGETHER FROM A DOZEN SKELETONS AND ALSO A DOG or SOUL-FORGED HELLARMOR MEN. Like what do these people do when they're not fighting? What the hell does a Stormforged do as a hobby? The protagonists are also no longer people I'm really able to give much of a gently caress about in many cases. It's got a bit of the 40k problem where literally all there is, is war, so what are you even fighting for? Perpetuating the war? I can't even really think of any AoS adventures that aren't "go to place, hit man over head, go hit next man over head." I know it's meant to be a setting for a wargame but Warhammer Fantasy was generally better at giving an impression of a world beyond the fighting.

Not saying that everyone has to be a dirtfarmer, but when you're so far above dirtfarming that you can't even see the dirt, it just becomes a cumbersome pile of adjectives.

It's also probably a lazy writing shortcut when you get right down to it, but Warhammer Fantasy's human factions being to some extent pastiches, caricatures or melanges of existing human cultures also makes them easier to envision and empathize with. I can imagine what thursday in Altdorf is probably like for Karl the Brewer, because he's basically just a German except the rats in his basement are five feet long and have guns and he has to keep the liquor in fireproof casks because there's a pyromaniac wizard living next door.

IshmaelZarkov
Jun 20, 2013

PurpleXVI posted:

Not saying that everyone has to be a dirtfarmer, but when you're so far above dirtfarming that you can't even see the dirt, it just becomes a cumbersome pile of adjectives.

I do love the Age of Sigmar setting for a wargame, but was super disappointed in the RPG for this very issue. I was really hoping to get my Ratcatcher/Dirt Farmer/Merchant on in some Mortal Realms locales. Find out about these weird and exotic places and get guides for playing the general populace of the setting.

Instead, it's just stuff from the wargame. Such a waste of potential.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

PurpleXVI posted:

No one fighting here is just a goddamn farmer who wants to survive the next ten days of prodding at rat men with a pike and then go home to till the soil and pet their cow. They're all like EPIC INFINI-IMMORTALS STITCHED TOGETHER FROM A DOZEN SKELETONS AND ALSO A DOG or SOUL-FORGED HELLARMOR MEN. Like what do these people do when they're not fighting?

Well, to be fair, FREE PEOPLES/CITIES OF CIGMAR/whatever the gently caress they're called this week is the faction that encompasses the former empire + whatever elf and dorf hasn't been shitcanned yet.

As you may notice, the thread is soundly against reading their battletome.

As for 40K... well, it would be a lot nicer if the Guardsmen could return home instead of being thrown around campaigns until they die, but Hams has enough fluff (usually about inquisitors and stuff) to show the daily life on the 990,000 planets (out of 1,000,000) that aren't experiencing plot-sized war right now.

E: Good point on the Infini-Immortals. Both Stormcast and Ossiarch can return endlessly like Necrons (or Daemons), so even your characters can die without dying.

IshmaelZarkov posted:

I do love the Age of Sigmar setting for a wargame, but was super disappointed in the RPG for this very issue. I was really hoping to get my Ratcatcher/Dirt Farmer/Merchant on in some Mortal Realms locales. Find out about these weird and exotic places and get guides for playing the general populace of the setting.

Instead, it's just stuff from the wargame. Such a waste of potential.

Kinda hard to include regular joes when your default powerlevel has to match Sigmarines and commander-level lads from the Wargame.

Everyone
Sep 6, 2019

by sebmojo

IshmaelZarkov posted:

I do love the Age of Sigmar setting for a wargame, but was super disappointed in the RPG for this very issue. I was really hoping to get my Ratcatcher/Dirt Farmer/Merchant on in some Mortal Realms locales. Find out about these weird and exotic places and get guides for playing the general populace of the setting.

Instead, it's just stuff from the wargame. Such a waste of potential.

This for me. If every faction had, like one or two super-badasses, that'd be one thing. But it's like everyone in every faction is I AM STORMDUDE, THE FART-THUNDER OF SIGMAR. DESPAIR AS I BLART UPON THE BATTLEFIELD!

For all that the idea seems to be about protecting humans, there doesn't seem to be any room for them or their choices. I'd want a story like some kid finds a hurt skink and helps nurse it back to health. Then a few years later those bone-rapers show up to collect a tithe which the kid's city can't pay, so they're hosed. Except that some undead frogs in a bad-rear end temple-ship show up with dinosaurs sporting laser cannons because that skink was tight with a Slann and part of the Great Plan is that kindness must be repayed.

Everyone fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Sep 14, 2020

Jarvisi
Apr 17, 2001

Green is still best.
So in age of sigmar as soon as you die you're basically hosed and Nagash gets your soul? That takes a lot of the fun out of being a human peasant.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Jarvisi posted:

So in age of sigmar as soon as you die you're basically hosed and Nagash gets your soul? That takes a lot of the fun out of being a human peasant.

Depends on where your soul ends up going - not every underworld has been conquered yet. There’s free ones, like Hallost, which held out against Chaos for centuries and is now holding out against Nagash. But it’s a gamble, certainly.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Thank you so much, this is better than I could ever have dreamed.

Everyone posted:

For all that the idea seems to be about protecting humans, there doesn't seem to be any room for them or their choices. I'd want a story like some kid finds a hurt skink and helps nurse it back to health. Then a few years later those bone-rapers show up to collect a tithe which the kid's city can't pay, so they're hosed. Except that some undead frogs in a bad-rear end temple-ship show up with dinosaurs sporting laser cannons because that skink was tight with a Slann and part of the Great Plan is that kindness must be repayed.

I would also love this. But I think we are remembering Hams Fantasy in a bit of a different light than how it was most commonly presented. Too often it was just "hard man making hard choices" nonsense but the good aspects, the alchemist searching for a cure in the lands of the tomb kings for instance, stand out more because of it.

I would love to read that story though.

Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Sep 14, 2020

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Jarvisi posted:

So in age of sigmar as soon as you die you're basically hosed and Nagash gets your soul? That takes a lot of the fun out of being a human peasant.

What happens to people who believe in Sigmar, Alariele, etc? Orcs?

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

JcDent posted:

What happens to people who believe in Sigmar, Alariele, etc? Orcs?

Got their own afterlives, still in Shyish. I imagine that there is probably a push by the Order Alliance to get to and protect those underworlds. I’m...not totally clear on what the Orruk afterlife beliefs are.

Jarvisi
Apr 17, 2001

Green is still best.

Mors Rattus posted:

Got their own afterlives, still in Shyish. I imagine that there is probably a push by the Order Alliance to get to and protect those underworlds. I’m...not totally clear on what the Orruk afterlife beliefs are.

Tinking about da afterlife? That's grounds for a thumpin`

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Mors Rattus posted:

Got their own afterlives, still in Shyish. I imagine that there is probably a push by the Order Alliance to get to and protect those underworlds. I’m...not totally clear on what the Orruk afterlife beliefs are.

I assume it's loud.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Mors Rattus posted:

Got their own afterlives, still in Shyish. I imagine that there is probably a push by the Order Alliance to get to and protect those underworlds. I’m...not totally clear on what the Orruk afterlife beliefs are.
In most other GW material orcs believe in reincarnation. After you die you're just dropped in a new orc body.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Nagash doesn't have the balls to try and take orc souls from Gork and/or Mork.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

JcDent posted:

Well, to be fair, FREE PEOPLES/CITIES OF CIGMAR/whatever the gently caress they're called this week is the faction that encompasses the former empire + whatever elf and dorf hasn't been shitcanned yet.

As you may notice, the thread is soundly against reading their battletome.

Thing is, the WHF books put that kind of thing into almost every faction. Vampire Counts aren't just Dracula wannabes, there's a lot of stuff in there about how they still have recognizably human motivations, flaws, and virtues, and there's things they want beyond grandiose bleating about conquest and inevitable victory.

Looking into the life of the regular people in the setting, adding grounding and detail and meaningful stakes, was never something exclusive to just the Empire in Fantasy.

Gatto Grigio
Feb 9, 2020

FATAL & Friends 2020: grandiose bleating about conquest and inevitable victory

Gatto Grigio fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Sep 14, 2020

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Cythereal posted:

Thing is, the WHF books put that kind of thing into almost every faction. Vampire Counts aren't just Dracula wannabes, there's a lot of stuff in there about how they still have recognizably human motivations, flaws, and virtues, and there's things they want beyond grandiose bleating about conquest and inevitable victory.

Looking into the life of the regular people in the setting, adding grounding and detail and meaningful stakes, was never something exclusive to just the Empire in Fantasy.

...in the RPG materials.

That kind of grounding stuff isn’t in the Fantasy army books, either.

Dallbun
Apr 21, 2010
One of the portals in Castle Greyhawk led to

The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 68: The Deck of Castles and Candies

342: Barony Series #1: Lost Heir, Apparently
The PCs are being sought out by this dude Smirkson, who claims that one of them is the lost heir of Castle Ashohr. They just need to sign here on this document, and go to the castle in person to legally claim it… and if they wouldn’t mind paying the 2,500 gp in expenses that he’s accumulated while seeking out the heir…

This time it's not a con! Well, not exactly. When you hit the books Call of Cthulhu style, you find out that the castle has a sinister reputation. “The exact reason for this castle’s reputation cannot be learned from local sages or books, though Iegend lore or other powerful magic might indicate that the castle is haunted (though the DM should be careful not to give too much away). That’s all you get from legend lore? Harsh.

343: Barony Series #2: Wanna Be a Landlord?
So Castle Ashohr is sitting in an area surrounded by good farmland and abandoned farmhouses. Why? Because it’s haaaaaaaunted! By 24 skeletons, 14 zombies, four ghouls, and a banshee, because this is AD&D and we must be specific here. But it’s EXTRA haunted, because the castle is “under a powerful curse” and the undead can’t be permanently destroyed or banished. They come back with full HP each night.

Uh, so why was it so hard to find out about the hauntedness of this castle, when any schmuck can walk in and be attacked by hordes of undead? And when the locals have apparently abandoned the area? I don’ t think they abandoned their farms just because the castle has a vaguely sinister reputation. But whatever.

344: Barony Series #3: Good Riddance!
So if the PCs leave the castle, the Heir becomes gloomy and apathetic - actually some of the curse has rubbed off on him. His Constitution drains at 1/week until he hits 0, becomes a zombie, and returns to Castle Ashohr.

He’d be cured if his claim on the castle is given up, but nobody will buy it and it can’t be gambled away. (“The cards or dice always leave the ‘lucky’ heir with the castle, if nothing else.”) So you could keep gambling with the castle as the stakes and… always win? Live it up until you become a zombie, dude!

But there’s hope, because the situation in the castle is due to a curse from a cleric who was unjustly imprisoned within. The PCs can piece that together from papers in the castle. If the cleric is given a proper burial, the curse will lift.

The organization of this mini-adventure is very strange - I’m not sure why certain information is on one card as opposed to another. And the three-card structure makes it hard to use in play to begin with. And some of the premises are weak. Honestly, I might just keep card #2 in the deck by itself, because if the PCs wander upon a super-haunted castle that was just recently abandoned, that’s a cool event that could lead to other hooks (like the original lord returning to claim the place after the PCs purify it and set up shop there.)


345: Night of the Drakes
“Tamsion the Dragonlord has been captured at last! Taken unawares by the heroic PCs, he has been brought to Castle Ost for trial by the local baron.“

My first reaction is to sputter in incoherent anger, but let's put that on hold so we can finish the card content.

The dude is a 14th-level wizard who specializes in dragon summoning spells, but apparently he also “has friends,” because even though he’s bound and gagged and can’t cast spells, two young adult red dragons assault the castle, one head-on and the other trying to smash the back and free the prisoner.

Obviously, don’t tell me what the PCs did before the encounter card begins! That’s just dumb! Just have the PCs witness the dragons attacking the castle. Then they can intervene or whatever if they want. Keep with that modification.


346: Sweets for the Sweet
In a small town or large village (or extremely small city, presumably), the PCs are approached by a woman whose child has been acting angry, sullen, and spiteful. And he’s not even a teenager!

“The mother doesn’t know how it happened. He just went to buy candy at the shop that just opened in town. Since then, he’s been causing trouble and acting nasty.” :iiam:

The shop owner is Jadeite an annis wearing a brooch that hides her alignment. The candy she sells turns kids chaotic evil. She’ll try to give them free samples. She can also call on 2d4 kobold-statted kids to protect her.

I don’t think I like this, but it’s also a distinct, functional scenario, so I can’t find it in my heart to reject. Keep.

kommy5
Dec 6, 2016

Mors Rattus posted:

...in the RPG materials.

That kind of grounding stuff isn’t in the Fantasy army books, either.

This being the RPG review thread, I feel focusing on the RPG book line is fair and appropriate as a basis of comparison.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

kommy5 posted:

This being the RPG review thread, I feel focusing on the RPG book line is fair and appropriate as a basis of comparison.

I mean, if you want to compare army books to RPG material, I’m just gonna note that Soulbound literally had large sections on daily life and what farmers are doing. There’s just only one AoS rpg book right now.

E: like, that material is literally present, I covered it in my Soulbound review.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

IshmaelZarkov posted:

I do love the Age of Sigmar setting for a wargame, but was super disappointed in the RPG for this very issue. I was really hoping to get my Ratcatcher/Dirt Farmer/Merchant on in some Mortal Realms locales. Find out about these weird and exotic places and get guides for playing the general populace of the setting.

Instead, it's just stuff from the wargame. Such a waste of potential.

We do have details on that stuff in Soulbound, and you can play pretty much anything you want given that creating Archetypes and freeform character creations is super easy. One of my players in my current Soulbound game is a doctor who is good at punching people. (With a back up Blunderbuss)

Also one of the Actual Archetypes is the Trade Pioneer, someone who is a merchant interested in finding new trade routes and resources for the cities.

The Lone Badger
Sep 24, 2007

The thing I don't like about the AoS writing so for (apart from the concatenated names) is that everything is always the best and the strongest and the most. I get that they want to hype up each faction and each unit when its described to make people excited to play them, but it makes everything feel very samey.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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The Lone Badger posted:

The thing I don't like about the AoS writing so for (apart from the concatenated names) is that everything is always the best and the strongest and the most. I get that they want to hype up each faction and each unit when its described to make people excited to play them, but it makes everything feel very samey.
Yeah, there is always some of that, and I've only really ever bought Warmachine codexes, but they usually were like "Khador/Cryx is awesome because of IMPERIAL TOUGH RUSSIAN MIGHT/THE INSIDUOUS POWER OF DEATH AND A DRAGON" with substantially different narrative emphasis.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


My artistically painted Praetorian of DÜM(TM) miniature scoffs at you casual gamer.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Mors Rattus posted:

Got their own afterlives, still in Shyish. I imagine that there is probably a push by the Order Alliance to get to and protect those underworlds. I’m...not totally clear on what the Orruk afterlife beliefs are.

OK, what happens when you get killed - again - in Shyish? Also, can you die, go to Shyish, then go back home via a realmgate?

What's separating a human that died and went to a Shyishan afterlife from a dude who waltzed in there via a realmgate?

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Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



JcDent posted:

OK, what happens when you get killed - again - in Shyish? Also, can you die, go to Shyish, then go back home via a realmgate?

What's separating a human that died and went to a Shyishan afterlife from a dude who waltzed in there via a realmgate?

Surely what shows up in Shyish is a g-g-g-ghost?

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