Fireborn

Trevelyan wrote:I'm going to see if I can convince Pandy to turn up here and contribute.

You didn't though, did you? :-p

I hadn't been intending to bother. Ah well, sith happens.

Trevelyan wrote:

Igtenio wrote:...What, it's that obvious that I bought Dark Heresy?

Ditto

I, on the other hand, have had in my possession one of the (proper) Limited Edition copies. #192, not that it matters much.

Trevelyan wrote:I've heard mixed reviews. Some people say it's too gritty and others say it works well. I gather that most of the rules really are Warhammer Fantasy in space with all the good and bad things that entails.

That's pretty much exactly what they are.

The career paths are more closely defined, and are more miltaristic - once you reach a certain amount of xp, you reach the next rank. But they look pretty good.

Trevelyan wrote:
What are your thoughts?

So far, I'm liking it. It definitely seems like something I'd need to play to fully understand.

I haven't read WFRP, so I can't give any comparisons.

I'm not too keen on Weapon Skill and Ballistics Skill being attributes. I think they'd fit better as Skills, but frankly, this's a game based on a setting made for a Wargame; I'm not exactly shocked that your ability to shoot shit is considered so intrinsic as to be an attribute.

I don't particularly like the way that skills are handled. I'd rather skills gave you a bonus, rather then remove a detriment. But I'm also never too keen on systems that penalize you for not having a skill; it'd seem to me that the biggest penalty for lacking a skill should either be your inability to use the skill at all("Sorry, Bob, I'm afraid you can't build a particle beam using 17th Century technology unless you take the "22nd Century Physics and Construction" skill"), or just not having any ranks in it.

I think the attribute advancement is fairly keen, where you can buy up to 4 +5% for each. It'd make it so that there's no chance, for instance, that someone who started with a low score could beat the person with the highest, regardless of how much training they do.

I like Tech-Priests. Enough said. :P

My biggest problem is that I think the lack of additional games will be a key focus on being an Acolyte; it's quite literally not possible, going by the Dark Heresy book alone, to run a game that doesn't have you working for the Inquisitors. Obviously, this can be house-ruled, but I think that the other two books would've opened up many more options(Especially Rogue Trader). I just would've wanted a bit more openness, but I imagine that the books were intended to have an increasing power level(Acolytes -> Rogue Traders -> Imperial Marines), with Rogue Trader being the most open of the three.

I would've liked it if Dark Heresy had a been less wargame and throwback, and a bit more smoothness to it. From what I hear, the wargame attributes are almost transferable whole-sale to the game, which bothers me slightly. Makes me wish they would've been more worried about making a decent RPG(Which they did, no doubt about it) then making it as much like the Wargame as possible.

My only real complaint about the setting, which I didn't have a whole bunch of exposure to beforehand(Minus reading Wikipedia and playing Dawn of War), is that it can be way too dark sometimes. It honestly comes across as something you could play in a humorous light, ala Paranoia, without the joke failing once. Like a grittier Futurama.

Thankfully, the Dark Heresy book proper doesn't have a whole lot of that super-grimness. There's no mention, for instance, of Penal Colonies being the destination of people who return library books late, or Psykers monitoring entire cities at once for Thought-Crime, or entire Imperial Guard platoons being slaughtered for encountering Chaos. As presented in the book, I could suspend my belief long enough to play without wondering why the Imperium is worth saving.

jamat wrote:
There is up roar over the closing of Black Industries but hell I got into the hobby to stretch my imagination not to have it all handed to me on a plate.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting the other books. While you can certainly do a lot with Dark Heresy to replace the other two books, no fan material is ever gonna place the official books for some people.

In addition, while the three books will greatly fill out Dark Heresy, I'd hardly call them all that I need. I'd love, for one, to have a book on Xenos. Sure, Acolytes don't fuck with Xenos, but with the lack of the two books most likely to involve rules for them makes it seem like something they'd want to put out, especially for a game based on a setting which is, for lack of a better term, embroiled in eternal war between species. Are Acolytes expected to never run across Xeno-Cults? Or clues for an infestation of Orks? Or anything but Heresy and Chaos-Worship?

To me, it's a bit like putting out a Call of Cthulhu game and making it out to be primarily about the investigation of the Outer Gods' cults, but leaving out all information, except mentions, of the Great Old Ones and their cults and hybrids.

PhoenixAndy wrote:

Igtenio wrote:At least you spent a decent amount of time as a god.

Not as long as I did, mind. :-p

Bollocks. I was a FFG god before you on the old forums.

Now we just need to wait for Pandy.

You rang?

More or less, I guessed you'd appear sooner or later.

It looks like I'm in the clear both weekends towards the end of March, BTW.

An open question to the assembled masses - Should I buy FFGs Descent board game?

Answers with justifications appreciated. Bonus pointsfor anyone who can tell me about the extension packs (and yes, I know thee is a Descent forum, but I don't want to go there, and I know that at least some of you guys have the game).

Trevelyan wrote:An open question to the assembled masses - Should I buy FFGs Descent board game?

My answer would be yes, but you could probably have guessed that already.

I might pick up one of the expansions in the next few months.

I've never played it or know the rules for it, outside of a vague idea that it's essentially a dungeon crawl.

So...do whatever. :P

Trevelyan wrote:Answers with justifications appreciated. Bonus pointsfor anyone who can tell me about the extension packs (and yes, I know thee is a Descent forum, but I don't want to go there, and I know that at least some of you guys have the game).

Descent is IMO the best dungeon crawling board game.

It does this on focusing on the supporting the RPG elements through board game mechanics. many of these kinds of games are often confused about what they should be, and require certain RPG vagaries in order to work, normally the "GM" not playing as an opponent but to help the other players as a RPG GM would. This is a flaw. A board game should be clear in how it plays.

So if you want an RPG I can recommend many better than Descent. But if you want a board game of RPG style dungeon crawling then you can't do better IMO.

RtL is the most significant expansion to be released and applies this approach to RPG style campaign play. Again, the whole RPG campaign style is governed by board game mechanics, meaning that there is no prep required and both sides can play as hard as they want to win. Again, this is something very cool and unique in the market today.

will FFG release anything further on fireborn, or is that path closed for them? I am currently roaming for some new ideas beyond the fire within adventure. I have some plots seeds to follow, but I'm having trouble with filling in gaps and inventing stats for certain characters.

squirrel wrote:will FFG release anything further on fireborn, or is that path closed for them? I am currently roaming for some new ideas beyond the fire within adventure. I have some plots seeds to follow, but I'm having trouble with filling in gaps and inventing stats for certain characters.

The path is always open as its their IP. The chances of anything being produced are pretty close to zero though IMO

Hi there Trev

I agree with Skywalker, it is one of the best table top board gmes for dungeon crawling out there.

I've played it a number of times with my group as an evening's fill in game when we can't all get together and it's great fun.

We used to play Doom (another good game) which uses the same mechanics but now plum for Descent as it's more close combat get in and get dirty which my blood thirsty group tend to love (wonder why)

And as it's my birthday on Saturday I intend to treat myself to either one or both of the expansions (if I can smuggle them passed the wife)

Jamat

ok thx skywalker.

If anyone played through the entire "fire within"-adventure, how did you proceed afterwards?

First of all, thanks for the Descent recommendations, I am now the proud owner of the game and will be playing shortly. Yay!

squirrel wrote:ok thx skywalker.

If anyone played through the entire "fire within"-adventure, how did you proceed afterwards?

The advantage of starting with The Fire Within is that it gets the brood together and explains enough about the background that everyone develops a feel for the setting. There are also a few potential story hooks to build on (faeries, waterfall spirits, etc).

I find it's best to let obvious story points lie still for a session or two after they are introduced, so I went with a story where a friend of one PC, a student, had gone missing and he asked the brood to help find him. This led them to a Brotherhood of Cerenos (sp?) kidnap ring, and from there to an underground fighting tournament in London, which the brood infiltrated. There they encountered... (TBC)

Along the way the character who had dealt with the waterfall spirit kept seeing glimpses of her in bodies of water from rivers to puddles giving vague warnings...

Hey all! I just, on impulse really (okay... I did actually read some stuff before I buy it), got all the fireborn books off of amazon...

So anyways... hopefully I'll enjoy my purchase... of course I still have to figure out if I actually want to run the game, and if I do, then try to convince my group to do so... but anyways...

masterofweirdness wrote:Hey all! I just, on impulse really (okay... I did actually read some stuff before I buy it), got all the fireborn books off of amazon...

So anyways... hopefully I'll enjoy my purchase... of course I still have to figure out if I actually want to run the game, and if I do, then try to convince my group to do so... but anyways...

Be sure to give it a try! We've held 2 sessions (well, a starter 1 and then a 12-hour session (or close to)) and everyone nis absolutely over-enthusiastic about it

Just watch out for the system: it's really different from anything else, so it takes somes sessions to get used to (after that, it's really child's play).

Well the GM's Book just arrived in the mail... so far its great!

Its sorta funny, I ordered all three, the Player's Handbook has yet to arrive (hopefully it'll come tomorrow), I got the GM's book today, and a few days ago (before the weekend) I got the Adventure booklet.

So I seem to be getting them in a backwards order...

masterofweirdness wrote:Well the GM's Book just arrived in the mail... so far its great!

Its sorta funny, I ordered all three, the Player's Handbook has yet to arrive (hopefully it'll come tomorrow), I got the GM's book today, and a few days ago (before the weekend) I got the Adventure booklet.

So I seem to be getting them in a backwards order...

Heh. Well when I went into my FLGS to get my PHB, they had the DMG and tFW on the shelf, but no PHB. When I asked them to order it, they told me they didn't think it was out yet.

PhoenixAndy wrote:
Heh. Well when I went into my FLGS to get my PHB, they had the DMG and tFW on the shelf, but no PHB. When I asked them to order it, they told me they didn't think it was out yet. :roll:

Well, obviously they wanted to get the GMs trained in time for the PHB to come out. How else will they run the system in the PHB without thoroughly reading the GM Guide? And the adventure? Hell, don't you want something to run on the day that the PHB is released?

:P

I've read through about half of my GMs book... it is WAY to much information to get through my brain in one setting... SOOO much info... its great.

masterofweirdness wrote:So anyways... hopefully I'll enjoy my purchase... of course I still have to figure out if I actually want to run the game, and if I do, then try to convince my group to do so... but anyways...

I accomplished this by the format I ran the game in (and will be again - I'm finally planning the revival of that campaign) - I ran the game as a TV series in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, with the story split into 4-session episodes. As the game went on, I made every effort to draw them into the world, by using as many real-world locations as possible - investigating a break-in in a real occult shop, a fight with artefact-seeking Brothers of Cernunnos in the British Museum, recuperating from their wounds in a real hospital A&E department, regularly meeting at the Starbucks on Leicester Square, and so forth. When the group encountered Joseph Pennington, I drew on my players' experiences, as two of them had been to The World's End a few times, and had photos of the place from the last time they went...

For a GM, Fireborn is one of those settings with limitless and easily available resources - with the modern age, you can draw from the real world easily and seamlessly, adapting it when necessary to fit the quirks of the Strange Times. With the Mythic Age, its as easy as researching a bit of suitably mythology and rearranging it to make it distinct and different ("this is the myth you all know; but the story has changed over the centuries..."). The modern age also has the added advantage that everyone knows what modern life looks, sounds, feels, smells and tastes like, which removes some of the burden of description from the GM.

Why did this game lose its support? It seems very interesting. I was considering investing in it.. but now that I see they aren't supporting; (which makes me wonder why they aren't supporting it) I am having my doubts.,

Honestly?

I think shitty marketing led to an absolute lack of profits.

First, Fireborn had little to no marketing of any sort. I found out about it on an RPG.net topic, and I've been following it since. I can't recall ever hearing anything about it from an ad or third-party source that wasn't someone commenting on it on a board or whatnot.

Second, I heavily doubt they even broke even on it, cost-wise. I don't have any books or whatnot to verify that, but I've found, often, in the RPG industry, people and companies will continue a line for a little bit, if the initial releases at least break even. The idea being that they've already made their cost back, they can try to make a profit on supplements and such.

Fireborn got The Players' Handbook, a Gamemasters' Guide, and an adventure. After that, they kept touting a Book of Aspects, but eventually dropped it when they announced the hiatus of all games.

My best educated guess is that either they were committed to Fireborn and it didn't even break even, which is often considered a bad sign of a lines' viability, or they expected a blockbuster, and Fireborn fell short. It's similar to how I suspect that WoTC canceled the Alternity line once they acquired TSR due to the fact it didn't sell as well as D&D, even though it could've easily been the flagship product of a smaller company.

Frankly, I suspect the former. FFG is way, way too small to be able to turn down a potentially profitable gameline, even if they expected it to be a storm in the RPG industry.

The Bottom Line: Likely didn't break even due to lack of marketing.

Ouch. Well hopefully the same doesn't prove true with the products I came the this forum for, which is the Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy. While I suppose it might, the fact that it already has thousands of supporters around the world, and likely millions of people who are familiar with the Warhammer 40K name, it will likely fair a tad better, though it likely be a bit more expensive to produce.

I doubt either Warhammer game is gonna have that problem, unless FFG continually delays products.

WFRP has a built-in long-term fanbase already, and Dark Heresy sold out of its' initial print run very, very shortly.

I doubt either game would've been bought up by anyone unless they were profitable. Hell, Games Workshop might not have even bothered offering them if they felt they were dead lines.

All FFG is gonna have to do is actually put out products for it, and it should be alright. That's the biggest hurdle to it, really; if they can actually get stuff out the door in a timely manner, there probably won't be an issue.