Song of Swords: The Rahoo Riders Never Die

Looking over character creation. What's the difference between Allies and Folks Back Home boons? Wanting to make a prince (2nd or 3rd son) and trying to decide on which 3 picks I should choose from the High Royalty social class. Would I need to take Folks Back Home to represent that my family still supports me?

Folks back home would probably work best. Allies represent separate institutions that support you, rather than personal connections.

IT'S HIGH NOOOOOOON

Folks back home seems more like parents and relations while allies is more "i'm friends with a Duke in the Kaselreich"

Got'cha. I feel like High Royalty should probably have Folks Back Home (8) instead of (6). I guess I'll house rule it.

You don't have to roll on that table. I made a program that automatically rolls on the table for you.

upload then faggot

BS in combat is how many more successes you have than the opposing roll. If you roll 5 successes and I roll 3, you have 2 BS.

If you roll 4 successes and I also roll 4 successes, there would be 0 BS. For example Parries have an optional rule for getting 0 BS.

If there's no roll to oppose you, then there are no successes to oppose you, so that would count as 0 successes for them. (Unless they're using Companion Dagger with a 1d Parry, which creates a success, but that's hopefully an obvious exception.)

mediafire.com/download/9wju9sc59l9tai4/Ballad_of_the_Laser_Whales_automatic_gun_generator_Export_version_v3_5-6-2016.rar

This was made in Excel 2010 and it uses VBA, so you need VBA.

I feel like there's a distinction with the "back home" part, and allies represents a more direct, easy to access form of aid, hence the higher cost.

Thanks

Take Allies if they can directly come to your aid, or you can call upon them like an ally, Take Folks Back Home if they're too distant to help directly, but if they're great their name might help.

67-Shotgun
79-Bolt Action
70-Mid Length
35-Tube
66-7 Rounds
65-Just Works

But I like rolling.

I've gotten nothing but silliness from this, like guns with higher rates of fire than magazine capacity and massive emplaced machine guns that fire tiny, tiny bullets very slowly.

>those calibers

7.5? Fukkin 7.5 Swede Nagant? WHY? Why not just use 32 acp aka 7.65mm if you want something in the 7mm range?

If you ever wondered what Borderlands would look like if it was written by fascists instead of Antony Burch, now you know.

I don't know about IRL, but with it's 5 damage and 3 AP it's better than a good amount of other pistol ammos.

/k/fag here. Not a whole lot negative to say about the calibers in the nazi space game. Gotta say I'm surprised this was made by Americans. Everything is metric and there's not nearly enough .45 ACP fetishism. If I had a complaint, it'd be that dual-wielding is way better than it is realistically. If you've ever tried to get a sight picture with two weapons at once you'll know what I mean. I would give it a penalty to Aim, since that more or less reinforces that it's only really useful in unleashing a lot of lead in close quarters. You can't point-shoot at something a hundred yards away and expect to hit anything.

Also, the lore is really bare in the book, there's basically nothing there. Here's a question, what do tanks and such run on? Petroleum? Whale sperm or some shit? That would completely screw with any allegory for WWII, oil reserves are a big deal, but in a world where you harvest fuel from animals, there are no oil fields, right?

>DualWielding
>A character may Dual Wield pistols (using two at once) with the following Benefits:
>+Can perform a Shoot Action of any variety available to the weapon (Regular, Burst, etc) with each weapon
>+Can reload both weapons simultaneously if stationary (no Move Action that phase)
>And the following Penalties:
>-4 to MP with all attacks
>Cannot use the Aim Action normally with either weapon.

Dual Wielding isn't much better than realistically.

UC Naval Pistol
Range 10m
MTN 6

>The weapon’s range, firing past a weapon’s range increment grants the target +1 Defense per multiple of the range increment.
>The RS to hit a stationary mansized target not in cover is 4.

To shoot a man-sized target at 100m and hit requires 4 + 9 = 13 RS.

Aim+Aim+Regular Fire (Aim+Shoot) takes 3 phases, and gives 6+PER additional dice to your MP.
Your total dice rolled is MP + 6 + PER.
To have exactly a 50% chance to hit the target at all, you need a total of 25 dice. But this includes 0 BS hits, which are virtually worthless. 25 dice gives you a 34.5% chance to get 14+ successes, a little over 1-in-3.
The chance of 14+ successes raises to 50% with 27 dice.

In other words: To land a telling hit against a target 100m away with a 10m range pistol with MTN 6 requires:
21 dice for a 9.46% chance | MP + Per = 15
25 dice for a 34.5% chance | MP + PER = 19
27 dice for a 50% chance | MP + PER = 21

The max attribute you can have at character creation is 8, so that means you'll need a respective MP of 7, 11, and 13 to hit those marks. That means it's extremely difficult to hit that target at this range with this weapon. You'll need to make use of talents and accessories to improve your chances.

By the way, at MTN 7 rather than MTN 6, your telling hit chances with 27 dice drop from 50% to 14.47%.

>I'm surprised a game that shows people know about guns was made by Americans
Oh you. That's like being surprised that Soviets made a really good game of political subversion.

>7.5mm
>Hitting anything at any distance
kek

Should it be easy to hit someone with a pistol at 100 meters?

If you have a Marksman's Scope and the That Was Left Handed! talent (which requires PER 6+), you raise your Aim dice from 6+PER to 12+PER, which helps a lot.

Glad to hear you like the game. If you have any questions or suggestions, I'm always happy to hear them. Feedback is important for improving the game.

And don't mind some of the ridiculous cartridges, some of them are just there for effect.

As for dual wielding, we encountered those very same problems, but we did remove the ability to benefit from Aim with dual wielding for exactly that reason. While characters can specialize in it, for most situations it's a desperate tactic for increasing your rate of fire when you only have pistols. With the Akimbo talent tree you can even put down some reasonable suppressive fire with a pair of revolvers, which could come in useful in some situations.

In our own games we've found that it's more effective 90% of the time to use one pistol more accurately than to blast away with two, so I think that's pretty realistic.

You wrote all this? Good work buddy. I think it's pretty good. My one big complaint right now is that melee requires me to download a whole new game. What's up with that? Can't bayoneting someone just be a simple roll?

Well, given that Ballad was made after Song of Swords as a drunken dream, you're more downloading the original game.

I mean you can have your GM arbitrate melee into simply Strike/Thrust vs Parry/Void, but you're missing out on 50% of the fun of something called the Song of Swords general.

That interpretation breaks down if the campaign is shifting location fairly often, doesn't it?

Actually, for Social Class Benefits, I feel like the cost of the different options are so widely different, that one could end up gimping himself through their choices. Why not simply do something like Dire Past, but the player and GM cooperate to decide what would be most fitting for their position. Each column has 2 more B&B points to spend (i.e. Slave has 2 B&B, High Royalty has 20). The table can remain there as an example of choices for that tier.

Sorta. You can't always call on your friends, especially when you sail half a world away though. Allies and FBH are both geographically tied

fecht allready, faggots!

>dragonborn vs draugr

>Why not simply do something like Dire Past, but the player and GM cooperate to decide what would be most fitting for their position
Because the player and GM can and should already be doing that. It's not like the player makes a character and the GM has to just deal with it.

Song of swords is the original game. After the progression of it hinged mostly on other people (editing and shit), Jimmy started working on ballad for some time.
At least that's how I heard it.

Why does nobody run fechts anymore?
Low hype?

I realize that, but my point was there's a big difference between taking Allies (10), Contacts (6), and Folks Back Home (6) over Literate (3), Languages (3), and Hale and Hearty (2), all of which you could still grab for relatively cheap via the regular B&B choices. It would seemingly be more balanced and efficient to just give a number of B&B points to each social class. It seems there's built in false choices here, but maybe I'm thinking about it wrong.

Well, if the Sharpefecht was any indication it's probably because hardly anyone is awake when their run or else people aren't participating in them.

That is pretty much how it happened, except for some time being a single night because he was banned. And then it was just polishing the nugget of good he shat out in his drunked stupor.
I would but timezones and there's also the fact that I am bad at it. Maybe one weekend, when I don't care about doing anything.

>Sharpefecht
Come back Sharpebro, I want to kill frenchmen

Anyone read Brian McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy? That'd be a pretty cool setting to fecht about in.

Free B&B points would just lead to Murdernobles. "I have tall 2 and NBK3 because i'm a noble as well as all the bonuses from noble school"
Allies, Contacts, and Folks back home all require you to roleplay to get their full benefit while literate is practically necessary to be a noble and Languages(3) is super good

That's why I mentioned the choices should be made alongside the GM, as "I'm tall 2 because I'm Noble" is retarded. And if that isn't clear, all that is needed is a note that mentions the choices should make sense as a benefit of the character's social class. The way it is right now, you could end easily end up with the same B&B benefits as someone in the social class below you.

obviously you took those because they made the most sense for your character so what is the issue. The purpose of the free B&B is so that you don't end up a noble who can't read/write and has no family. The PCP is balanced against the money side of thing

Wrapping my head around weapon schools. Do these looks correct? I'm not sure how the human bonus affects things.

Soldier School (Level 11; Primary: 2H Sword, Grappling, Polearm). Cost: 21 (Initial: 4; Level 9: 17), -5sp.

Self-Taught (Level 8; Primary: 1H Blunt; Secondary: Grappling). Cost: 13 (Initial: 2; Level 8: 11).

Whoops. First one should be Level 10 (rather than 11 or 9).

Building a character with the GM is always the best choice which is why I like to have character creation sessions, rather than everyone creating a character separately. But, I think the current B&B for social class system is probably the best option, since it's primarily a way to make sure your character fits into his or her role. It's weird to have a sickly, illiterate, unconnected nobleman, and this prevents that very simply and with a minimum of arguing. Social class is already an absurdly powerful thing. You can get a fucking massive amount of money and I'm not sure that noble social classes need to be any better or more flexible than they are now.

It's only 20 points for 3 weapon level 10 soldier school, as they get a 1 point discount on Tier 1, thus, you could sneak another weapon proficiency in.

The Self-taught is spot on.

Although like the Soldier school, you could add another secondary proficiency, or have two other weapons at level 1. Proficiency points that are not used at character creation are wasted.

Although if I was GMing, I'd let you shift unused prof points into skill points.

Aren't schools being removed in the next version? I think I read something along those lines here at some point.
Not quite sure though

> next version
when

That's the big question.

The usual answer is Soon(tm)

to add to what I just said:

I also don't quite know why shools are getting thrown out (if that is right at all, there's still the chance I'm remembering stuff wrong).
I quite like the idea of shools I think, but I get that they may want to throw it out, because it's probably one of the most confusing parts of chargen.

I don't think schools are being REMOVED, just reworked a lot.

Can you simultaneous x/attack when you declare red in SoS?

"Aggressive means that the character is actively engaging an enemy. When a character
throws Aggressive, they commit to offensive action in the first Round, and chooses a
Target before Defensive and Cautious characters do, and gain Initiative against any
Defensive or Cautious character they Target. Characters who throw Aggressive have
access to the Beat and Lance Charge Maneuvers in the first Round of combat."

You just can't flee or total block.

Thanks, that's what I thought.

So, a lot of people have mentioned that you should use the CotV initiative system over the clunkier SoS one. After a few basic rule style fechts we're feeling concerned regarding bouts and the like in actual play. It seems like bout resolution results in players watching bouts for the duration of the clash count.

So, after a cursory reading of CotV and some practice with SoS, how would you integrate the CotV initiative and missile rules into a lower tech (bows and a few matchlocks) SoS game?

We've been waiting for Jimmy to answer that question for months. But instead he's been getting his butt kicked in video games.

>no response to the oil thing
Is that an oversight that you don't have a solution to then?

has anyone attempted their own system for mixing the two? I can figure it out for myself I guess, but I'd be interested in hearing how other anons handle it. So far in fechting its been a lot of either dicking around for 2-3 short clash bouts or red/red instagib first round murders.

Fucking palmupuita.

Give him an hour of drinking.

>"Well I was thinking my character's had an extremely healthy diet due to his wealth, as well as plenty of time to hone his physical hardiness and skill, on top of, of course, being naturally selected for imposing charisma and strength what with being nobility, so I gave him Tall, Natural Born Killer (he's had so much training after all) and Tireless Lobster (he loved running around in his father's armor)"

With enough bullshitting and enough pretense of acting in good faith, it becomes hard for the GM to remove an ostensibly legal option without massive feelbads. There's really no reason to add those feelbads. Wealth is already plenty good.

I just... do it? I haven't encountered anything that is contradictory. Reloading is a bit fucky, though, and I need to do the math for crossbows and muskets.

Just double the range for SoS guns, and increase gun and crossbow reloads by, like, three.

>palmupuita
The who in the what now?

Petroleum does not exist (at least not in large quantities) in Ballad, but synthetic fuels have been made from bituminous coal--which is very plentiful.

This stuff is often used in lieu of whalebood oil, because it is less volatile and the supply is more regular--if more expensive. Chiron, Albion, and the Rahoo Islands are all centers of synthetic fuel production.

Planes, land vehicles and such are generally powered by this fuel, though whaleblood is a more powerful fuel, and can be used in more powerful engines. It is rarely used in mass-produced military vehicles, however, for logistical purposes.

Bookmarked the ballad of the laser whales pdf, and tried to upload it. Google wanted me to prove I'm not a robot trying to replace Jimmy and co.

To prove myself, I had to keep clicking on some fucking palm trees. Over and over again.

I hate those fucking ones. Mine have been storefronts like 80% of the time the last month.

And thanks for the bookmarked version.

Can you add proficiencies to a school later with arc points or do you have to level additional weapon skills separately?

Yes, you can, but you need to level the proficiency up to within a certain amount of the school you're adding too. I think it's two levels.

With Self Taught schools, you don't have to take Poor Form for Defaults, do you? It would sort'a make sense, but it'd be a lot of extra shit too.

No you already are penalized for defaulting

>not using ReCaptcha v1.0
¿por que?

Elite /g/ computer hackers need to shut up. Or instruct how they do their black arts.

Defaults are not part of your school, so no.

Remember to praise your lord and savior rms for the glory of free software and Veeky Forums X :^)

This is amazing. I always knew Veeky Forums x was a thing but never bothered with it. Thank you elite /g/ computer hacker.

That's a sexy css, where did you get it?

Stylechan 1.01's Vimyanized Dark, it's the first of the default themes. Requires Veeky Forums X though (and specific forks of it, too)

notsaging for noncontribution because this thread needs a bump

Anyone got links to the GOAT fechts? I need it for a quest I'm going to run.

Thanks man.

Only thing I don't like at first glance is that I can't resize the qr window. And editing it in the css moves the minimized qr tab around, sometimes even out of the screen. Weird.

Well, I'll try it for some time.

Sorry, don't have a link right now, but there was a Ballad tournament about two weeks ago

Nah, I need the GOAT one for the Kurts.

>bituminous coal
>compressed wood from before bacteria evolved to decompose lignin
How exactly was this formed?

For that matter, what the fuck is the geology of these rocks in space?

Maybe, even though we only know about floating islands, there's something under Underspace that would explain stuff that needs tectonic movement to form?

Are there plans to release a bestiary? Would be nice to see how SoS handles things like zombies, trolls, etc.

That's post-kickstarter content, once there's funding to illustrate the thing. Generally you want at bare minimum an illustration at least every four or five page (every other spread, with a few on a third instead of second spread), the more the better, so funding is important here. Ideally there should be one per page, and little doodles and diagrams like the ones in the Legend book would fit an SoS bestiary really well.

The That Which Sleeps kickstarter seems to have met it's end. Not confirmed, but they shut down the forums after more than a year of no substantial update.

>I wouldn't be too surprised if he'd slipped into a depression. Massive lifestyle change (Fenicks [Dev's buddy] has hinted that Josh [Dev] used to hold a pretty high-up position, that was presumably well-paid, and is now just barely slipping by at poverty-level) in order to accommodate a massive project that just keeps running into problems. Plus all the family stuff that helped cause some of the delays way back at the beginning. Trying to cope via avoidance explains why the small amount of work we've heard about has been polish and almost entirely unrelated to the core functionality, plus why he's cut himself off from all of his social outlets (removing himself from the forum, that he seemed to enjoy, is noteworthy-but-minor - dodging all contact with Fenicks is on a different level entirely).

>It's a sad story, really, if this is where it ends. A broken friendship, a developer who is probably extremely miserable, disappointed backers, etc. There is no victor in such a scenario. No one benefits. If there is one lesson to be learned - crowd sourcing is a dangerous thing, and I would advise any rookie game developer, to strongly consider other options for the first game. Almost all of the success stories are from teams of people, who have multiple game releases behind them, and even then, very experienced developers can and do fail, even with significant funding.

Luckily, tabletop stuff tends to do better, most are successful, but there's always the tale of that guy who went bankrupt and lost his house because he fucked the funding up so badly.

This is why you don't promise anything more than what you are absolutely certain you can provide with the human force you have available with or without the kickstarter being successful.

Look at Mighty No. 9 for something that promised the world and delivered... Well, better than nothing.

>google it because I haven't been following it
>first result
>"Mighty No. 9 melds the old with the new, ends up with the worst of both"
Top-tier PR.

I'm surprised people were surprised.

People have been saying it was shit for...well over a year.

It's just the culmination point.

It's been shit for a long time, with lying and alienating their audience. They basically turned their most hardcore fans against them, and now that they officially release the game, they get all the shit down their neck from the storm they've build for a long time.