Iron Lore: Malhavoc's Surprise?

[Andor]

That would be in direct contradiction to one of mearls' more insightful design philosophies.

Well, okay, perhaps not deliberately designed to encompass more than one style. Nonetheless it is almost impossible to design something as complex as a game system that doesn't allow multiple styles. You are trying to portray a world after all and worlds are broad things. In ours for example we have astronauts, stone age barbarians, pacifist neo-pagans, firebrand fundamentalists, nomadic horsemen, and city dwellers who never learn to drive.

My point being that if you want to portray grim and gritty, it's not what Iron Lore is meant to do, but it will probably require much less finagleing to make it work than 3.5 does. Leiber, Howard, Burroughs: Any author whose heros rely on muscle and skill and brains is probably suited to Iron Lore, with perhaps some minor tweaking.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I encourage folks to go back to page 3 and 4 and read my comments on this thread. To recap:

1) I am very, very interested, as a designer, in what mearls has done

2) I acknowledge and defer to his greater experience and talent

3) I have said repeatedly that I expect Iron Lore will be great

4) I don't consider myself a competitor to Malhavoc or vice versa (I shouldn't even have to say it, it should be self-evident)

Having re-read my earlier enthusiastic comments and predictions, and having sat quiet for about 6 pages to review the releases along with the rest of you, I think most of my predictions were pretty close.

I will admit I'm currently a little disappointed for two reasons:

1) I am hoping to be taught something (though this thread has already provided a lot of cool insight to Mike's design philosophy)

2) I am a fan of low magic, low fantasy gaming. Iron Lore is shaping up to be low magic, high fantasy.

I don't think it's churlish to agree with a poster who put that sentiment into almost exactly the words necessary to express the sentiment.

There is no conflict here other than what folks feel necessary to read into it themselves.

Through the course of this thread, I have made design comments, and I have made personal comments. The personal comments run along the lines of "I am sure it will be great," and "I buy all of Malhavoc's crunch..." and the designer comments are very specific questions to Mike based on the exact same information that everyone else has: Mike's comments here and a look at the previews. It is not out of line to discuss what we can based on either of those sources (creating interest and discussion is the point of those previews).

I'm not sure where that leaves me, but I can tell you that I don't intend to surrender the right to comment on a thread that interests me because other folks seem determined to paint me in a competitive-- no, adversarial-- relationship with Mike.


Wulf

 

[JoeGKushner]

Leiber, Howard, Burroughs: Any author whose heros rely on muscle and skill and brains is probably suited to Iron Lore, with perhaps some minor tweaking.

I don't think so. From the previews so far, these characters are more on the line with like Exalted or other anime style characters no? Conan may be able to choke even the strongest man to death but doesn't look like he'd match up with the design ideas here.

 

[Andor]

I don't think so. From the previews so far, these characters are more on the line with like Exalted or other anime style characters no? Conan may be able to choke even the strongest man to death but doesn't look like he'd match up with the design ideas here.

How do you figure? The ladder of arrows is the only ability so far that look even vaugely anime-ish and that, as been pointed out, has been done in Conan too.

When I think anime fantasy I think of heros leaping hundreds of feet and mages vaporizing whole villages with a single spell. So far we haven't seen any of that in Iron Lore.

 

[JoeGKushner]

How do you figure? The ladder of arrows is the only ability so far that look even vaugely anime-ish and that, as been pointed out, has been done in Conan too.

When I think anime fantasy I think of heros leaping hundreds of feet and mages vaporizing whole villages with a single spell. So far we haven't seen any of that in Iron Lore.

Replacing magic items with innate abilities leads me to believe that ladder of arrows won't be hte last nod to the direction of the well selling and well supported Exalted line.

 

[buzz]

Replacing magic items with innate abilities leads me to believe that ladder of arrows won't be hte last nod to the direction of the well selling and well supported Exalted line.

I would think it less a nod to Exalted and more the expected outcome when trying to create classes that fit into the default D&D CR system wihtout relying on magic items. You can even see this in the 1e barbarian class. PCs get past 10th level and, magic or no, they're going to be capable of some hairy @#$!.

Exalted seems to me a whole 'nother animal.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Replacing magic items with innate abilities leads me to believe that ladder of arrows won't be hte last nod to the direction of the well selling and well supported Exalted line.

There is a guy I've seen thinking about translating Exalted into this and I personally have thought about using this to simulate heroic mortals in Exalted, who are just about as grim and gritty as you can get, but this strikes me as an extremely different beast than Exalted.

Plus Exalted don't ever need a ladder to do anything. You just run or leap up the wall.

At the most, from what we've seen, the very highest level of Iron Lore characters will be operating on the level of the very lowest level of Exalted. Now I don't know what sort of fantasy you read, but that strikes me as all too appropriate. Particularly given that the lowest levels of Exalted are meant to operate as heroic adventurers, albeit blessed ones.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

There is no conflict here other than what folks feel necessary to read into it themselves.

I'm not sure where that leaves me, but I can tell you that I don't intend to surrender the right to comment on a thread that interests me because other folks seem determined to paint me in a competitive-- no, adversarial-- relationship with Mike.


Wulf

I hope noone was asking you to surrender your right to comment. And I don't think anyone was painting, but hopefully your comments will clear up any further misinterpretation.

If you do find any of my words nearly representing what you mean to say, please simply provide your own phrasing in its entirety unless you mean to snark or hurrah. It's very hard for me to interpret otherwise.

I look forward to hearing more from you over the course of this and other threads.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, okay, perhaps not deliberately designed to encompass more than one style. Nonetheless it is almost impossible to design something as complex as a game system that doesn't allow multiple styles. You are trying to portray a world after all and worlds are broad things. In ours for example we have astronauts, stone age barbarians, pacifist neo-pagans, firebrand fundamentalists, nomadic horsemen, and city dwellers who never learn to drive.

I'd argue that what you're more likely to see is that one man's specific style probably encompasses bits of pieces of any number of someone else's discrete styles.

As such it's perfectly appropriate to say that IL is built to encompass a number of different playing styles without contradicting Mike's design goal of building to a specific ethos and not trying to be all things to all people.

 

[Mac Callum]

I encourage folks to go back to page 3 and 4 and read my comments on this thread.

I have read this thread "cover to cover", and agree that your recap "recaps" most of your posts; just not all of your comments.

I will admit I'm currently a little disappointed for two reasons:

1) I am hoping to be taught something (though this thread has already provided a lot of cool insight to Mike's design philosophy)

2) I am a fan of low magic, low fantasy gaming. Iron Lore is shaping up to be low magic, high fantasy.

I don't think it's churlish to agree with a poster who put that sentiment into almost exactly the words necessary to express the sentiment.

There is no conflict here other than what folks feel necessary to read into it themselves.

Through the course of this thread, I have made design comments, and I have made personal comments. The personal comments run along the lines of "I am sure it will be great," and "I buy all of Malhavoc's crunch..." and the designer comments are very specific questions to Mike based on the exact same information that everyone else has: Mike's comments here and a look at the previews. It is not out of line to discuss what we can based on either of those sources (creating interest and discussion is the point of those previews).

I'm not sure where that leaves me, but I can tell you that I don't intend to surrender the right to comment on a thread that interests me because other folks seem determined to paint me in a competitive-- no, adversarial-- relationship with Mike.


Wulf

Wulf,

I like (and have bought some of) your work. I like your story hour. I've appreciated your posts in other threads. I have no reason to be "determined" to read a competitive/ adversarial tone in your posts - but I saw it anyway.

It's entirely possible it's just me, but when I read your posts that perhaps were trying to express disappointment they came across as slightly adversarial, but mostly defensive about something. What that would be, I don't know. I could guess, but then I'd really be in deeper water than I feel comfortable, not knowing you personally.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get start any kind of fight here, but if I saw a tone in the comments that you didn't intend, chances are I'm not the only one who saw it. Just something to think about.