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Author Topic: Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...  (Read 2289 times)

Snark Knight

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« on: July 07, 2020, 01:52:40 PM »
Well that was a pleasant surprise, especially when I was only very recently thinking about what a shame it is the setting hasn't seen more popular after PP went their own way. Just when I made an Eberron thread that started with me saying how much I preferred the setting, so clearly I should get credit for this being a thing.

BoxCrayonTales

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2020, 02:45:20 PM »
I vaguely remember reading their 3e bestiaries. I thought they were okay.

Shrieking Banshee

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2020, 02:52:36 PM »
It's a very neat setting.
It's going this way because all their projects are going in the toilet. And because they have an insular upper staff.
I prefer the 3e version of the setting, then whatever update they will reveal now.

Its a shame it was a fun minis game.

HappyDaze

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2020, 06:31:45 PM »
I bought the IK RPGs that came out a few years ago, but I sold them all back except Unleashed. I loved the setting, but the system was very much just a mini-game with a thin coat of RPG over it. I mean you had troops (er, characters...) that could spend an action to dig a foxhole for cover...yet nobody else could use the foxhole and it magically filled in as soon as you moved out of it. Oh, and you could create it on any surface...so foxholes in concrete floors were OK. Shit like that was just dumb as all hell.

Darrin Kelley

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2020, 06:58:23 PM »
I have all of the Iron Kingdoms stuff for 3.0/3.5, as well as all iterations of the Iron Kingdoms RPG. And I liked them each for different reasons. I love the setting.

To see a new Iron Kingdoms setting book for D&D 5e is a shock and a surprise. But you bet that I'm getting it!
 

Shrieking Banshee

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #5 on: July 07, 2020, 07:30:23 PM »
Quote from: HappyDaze;1138368
I bought the IK RPGs that came out a few years ago, but I sold them all back except Unleashed. I loved the setting, but the system was very much just a mini-game with a thin coat of RPG over it. I mean you had troops (er, characters...) that could spend an action to dig a foxhole for cover...yet nobody else could use the foxhole and it magically filled in as soon as you moved out of it. Oh, and you could create it on any surface...so foxholes in concrete floors were OK. Shit like that was just dumb as all hell.

Yup. Xray magic that could be used exclusively for target people.

Mistwell

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #6 on: July 07, 2020, 09:35:38 PM »
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1138377
Yup. Xray magic that could be used exclusively for target people.

Why you gotta go after the target people?


Shrieking Banshee

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2020, 09:49:58 PM »
Quote from: Mistwell;1138384
Why you gotta go after the target people?

Everybody knows that Target employees are robots.

Abraxus

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #8 on: July 08, 2020, 08:20:43 AM »
I just found it so strange that they went from the D20 system to as Happydaze points out a minis game with thin coating of rpg attached.

I would have gone more with a Pathfinder Edition or make their own version of D&D like PF as they have a great setting imo.

Are they stopping production of their minis game? Or is the 5E book just something they want to publish alongside the minis game?

Ghostmaker

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2020, 09:10:59 AM »
Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1138386
Everybody knows that Target employees are robots.

No, no, the IKEA employees are the robots. The Target employees are just lost souls working their way through purgatory.

Snark Knight

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2020, 09:28:15 AM »
Quote from: sureshot;1138437
I just found it so strange that they went from the D20 system to as Happydaze points out a minis game with thin coating of rpg attached.

I would have gone more with a Pathfinder Edition or make their own version of D&D like PF as they have a great setting imo.

Are they stopping production of their minis game? Or is the 5E book just something they want to publish alongside the minis game?

Something to publish alongside it. Warmahordes has definitely suffered in recent years. Their timing of blowing their own foot off at a time GW stopped overtly and gleefully trying to spite it's customers couldn't have been more poorly timed. It it looks like they're gambling on their new sci-fi spin-off (Warcaster) to drum some more blood back into the company and this shift to 5E probably has to do with them accepting D&D could get people looking at their other products, rather than wargamers trying their RPG. I doubt it will work on account of GW having a cult-like hold over it's fandom, especially these days.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2020, 09:34:23 AM by Snark Knight »

Azraele

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #11 on: July 08, 2020, 10:13:36 AM »
I've still got my copy of the Iron Kingdoms RPG. The complaint that it's a mini's game is a very valid one, but I actually bought it because I had a bunch of old IK minis I needed to put to use because the game was such a swingy mess and it's fandom so intolerable that I didn't have another use for the investment. I think the issue is that the designers solely and exclusively focused on the combat mechanics and had no concept of interacting with a world beyond that (digging vanishing foxholes, like upthread, are the least of your worries).

Another hiccup was the setting; there's reams of backstory with no apparent connection to steampunk wizards slamming their robot golems into each other. It's turgid and doesn't link to setting elements that show up anywhere in the book (there's like five afterlives? And the relationship of the gods to their followers is... Unintuitive, to say the least of it).

It hurt the game's career with me that I got it about the same time as I started getting into the Adventurer Conqueror King System, and ACKS blew it out of the water. Things I didn't feel as missing from systems got introduced to me, like domain management and clean game processes, and it really brought their absence in a mediocre wargame retrofit like IK to the fore and drove me away from the system.
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Ratman_tf

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2020, 10:33:05 AM »
Quote from: Snark Knight;1138455
Something to publish alongside it. Warmahordes has definitely suffered in recent years. Their timing of blowing their own foot off

I stopped playing Warmahordes shortly before 3rd ed came out, and am out of the loop. What did PP do to blow their own foot off?
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Shrieking Banshee

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #13 on: July 08, 2020, 11:40:04 AM »
Quote from: Azraele;1138465
Another hiccup was the setting; there's reams of backstory with no apparent connection to steampunk wizards slamming their robot golems into each other.

I found that stuff great. The reality of some guys eating apples in heaven from snakes had very little to do with the reality of using chemical weapons on your foes in WWII.
The fact that the metaphysics are so contested even within the setting and disconnected from the common day to day troubles is a real advantage to the setting and makes it feel real.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138469
I stopped playing Warmahordes shortly before 3rd ed came out, and am out of the loop. What did PP do to blow their own foot off?
It's complicated. I would say 3e did make rules better, but it did it too slowly and unevenly making the stuff unchanged stick out more. They also removed their own forums to stop criticism scattering the fanbase in the process. Also ending their press ganger thingy. However, the killer was breaking away from simultaneous releases for all factions at once and a focus at a time. All while continuously adding like a new action a year.
And for existing factions, they stopped simultaneously releases instead of releasing large sub-factions for existing factions at a time. Requiring and causing lots of bloat, while being not that interesting for game creation.

Spike

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Iron Kingdoms going back to D&D...
« Reply #14 on: July 08, 2020, 02:55:01 PM »
Quote from: Mistwell;1138384
Why you gotta go after the target people?


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