/SoS/ Song of Swords General: Greentext edition

Last time on Song of Swords:
The grand finale of Polando's campaign
How to equip a horseman
Elf Princess, wat do?
More rules cockteasing from Jimmu

Song of Swords is a realistic fantasy tabletop RPG that draws inspiration from historical fechtbuchs, weapons and armor. Its combat system is fast and it can be used for both fantasy and historical/mundane settings.

Call of the Void is a pulpy sci-fi tabletop RPG about fighting space-nazis and hunting giant whales with harpoons made out of the moon. Its combat system is more modern, based in the early 20th century, but can probably handle combat up to the present day.

Here's a MEGA folder with the newest version of the rules as well as all related current working documents. At this time the latest version is v1.9.9:
mega.nz/#F!S89jTT7J!ozFi9GvzaFGHfBa59Ik2-Q

Here's a walkthrough on creating a character
paste2.org/aKfOBmWJ

Here's a walkthrough on weapon schools for SoS 1.9.9 with examples
paste2.org/6OyOsFM3

This PDF is the Ballad of the Laser Whales' latest version, bookmarked.
mediafire.com/download/2cin9ly01z2bp4c/CoTV1.4.pdf

Ballad weapons and calibers converted to their real world counterparts: paste2.org/Hp7eDsa7

Here's a wiki detailing SoS's fantasy setting, getting filled up bit by bit as Jimmy reveals more details:
tattered-realms.wikia.com/wiki/Tattered_Realms_Wiki

There's also a roll20 room where new players are encouraged to try the rules, test new rules, and find game breaking issues: app.roll20.net/join/346755/hRKd4w
The room might be empty, but the people who teach the game still browse the thread frequently. If you're looking to learn, post here in the thread. We also play Guy Windsor's card game Audatia in the room.

Let's hear about some of those campaigns you guys are all totally running and/or playing in.

Other urls found in this thread:

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146321/audatia-medieval-swordfighting-card-game
youtube.com/watch?v=W0fV1oB3j4c
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/46650087/#46717463
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/46650087/#46743625
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/46800104/#46837175
twitter.com/AnonBabble

I was thinking of running a game set in the King of Dragon Pass universe. The problems with this idea is that I'm not totally sure on the technology involved and my players are totally unfamiliar with KoDP. What arms and armours should I allow them to pick from and what's a good way to introduce the lore of the game without a thirty minute exposition or making them play the game themselves

My advice on running something in an existing universe that the players don't know much about is to throw your players in as outsiders so that they can learn about the setting as they play. Then use all the things that make you excited about the setting to get them excited about the setting. I used this method to successfully turn 3 people who didn't know Star Wars from Star Trek into 3 of the biggest Star Wars fans I know.

KoDP is mostly Viking tech level, right?

Yeah. Nasal helms, Chain and those tall square sided, round topped shields all spring to mind when I think of KoDP. I'm kinda alright with the armour side but the weapons are where I stumble. Which swords should I allow, which axes and what about the Pharoah's weaponry. Can I include Khopesh's without making it seem forced.

I had a funny thought.

>3: Eunuch. You were made a eunuch before puberty (male only). This is a different situation from the above, as this has a serious effect on the development of young men. In addition to all of the obvious effects of the process and the sterility associated with it, you must also pay 2 additional Arc to level up STR or HLT. However, as a side effect, you gain a +2 bonus against all manner of Social rolls made with the intent to deceive, and a +2 bonus against Intimidation and Taunt attempts.

This is in a roundabout way admitting that females are biologically weaker and wouldn't make the same gains in physical training as a guy. Actually, females would be even weaker than a eunuch. Maybe 3 additional arc and no social bonuses, as a five point bane.

I get the practical reasons for why the game doesn't do this for females, and that it's much more acceptable for a eunuch to be weaker, particularly since it's an optional bane. Still, food for thought.

All axes but the tabarzin, most spears, the earlier warnings swords, maybe bills and other early polearms.

It's Bronze Age celts. Scale and a sort of weird bronze mail (because Gloranthan bronze isn't exactly like real bronze), and large dendritic panoply-like bronze plates for the very wealthy. Iron exists but is essentially unheard of and is semi-dubious to use, religiously speaking. The standard Orlanthi weapons are spear and shield, with swords and axes as sidearms. Polearms aren't really a thing, as people rely on shieldwall tactics. Bows and javelins, as well as slings, are also used. Shields are round, rectangular, and scutum-like, depending on battlefield role.

>Can I include Khopesh's without making it seem forced.
Yes but you must be very careful in regulating access to such a powerful weapon.

I think that both genders develop increased ability to build muscle after puberty. That's why you'll never see a stacked 8 year old. While testosterone is probably better for muscle-building, I don't think a eunuch and a woman are really on the same level, physically. Nice b8 though.

We also don't know if Voscan humans are physiologically identical to IRL humans.

You realize trannies wreck the shit out of women in any kind of physical competition or sport? Women are still weaker than a guy with his balls chopped off and being pumped with estrogen since it's more than hormones. Even if the FtM transgender is the same weight and height as the woman.

Stop, it's trap excuse the pun.

Don't do it, don't even try it's the first stone on the winding path to crashing this thread with no survivors. No SoS thread has gone under like this so let's just not have this discussion because it's poison.

>No SoS thread has gone under like this

we've had worse

Well obviously but never though this specific method and I'd like to keep it that way.

Most trans women went through most/all of puberty with working male genitals. That affects long-term musculature in a way that eunuchs wouldn't have.

What exactly do balls have to do with puberty?

Testosterone and all puberty related hormones are produced in the brain. Pituitary gland specifically iirc.

You're confusing testosterone and HGH. The former is produced mostly in the testicles with a minor amount coming from the adrenal glands.

You'll kill us all you fool

Find a book called Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. It's dragon pass a couple hundred years after the events of KoDP, when the angry storm VikingCelts have to fight off angry PersianRomans. There's a fair bit of material on arms and armor, warfare, and culture.

What about that one transgender athlete whose balls never dropped? Still wrecks the competition

Y'all got me hankering to play some Dragon Pass now.

Here's a lore-friendly explanation that doesn't result in Jimmy's messy, stiletto-based death.

Eunuchs have low STR for the same reason they magically have better deception; they're weedy nerds.

Well they've still got the balls, they're just in stealth-mode.

Balls never dropping = didnt go through puberty, like the eunuch bane

I'm ok with O-din chicks being crazy gorilla muscle stronk, and humans are possibly Din as well, maybe there's less gender disphoria with Voscan Humanidin as with the other Din.

Ah, but then the question remains for Ballad where humans don't have dinnic blood.

There's not a difference because it's not worth it you know this, I know this, we all know this. Stop pretending this is a real discussion and not an excuse to tempt fate into having someone to take an opportunistic screenshot about SoS players.

>This is in a roundabout way admitting that females are biologically weaker and wouldn't make the same gains in physical training as a guy.
Does one have to "admit" something that's true? Do you admit that the Earth orbits the Sun? Do you admit that 2+2? It's not some secret.

For the love of God stop, this is worse than when you were trying to convince everyone that Jimmy was a Nazi.

He's a Catholic lolbert. That's pretty much the same thing.

>implying
Humans in Ballad are just people that have died in Vosca without receiving an afterlife from a deity like Genosus or Dessia. Humans who aren't saved by the Big G are said to be sent to an "endless void" where they are presumed to eventually cease existing. They're wrong.

D E E P E S T L O R E
E
E
P
E
S
T

L
O
R
E

...

Except ballad is part of the same universe as song of swords

No obviously ballad just takes place in the emptiness inside the planet, jeez

Based on just characters I've made in ballad, this is viable.

I like this.

So I'm new to Song of Swords, and I'm reading through the rulebook in its entirety for the first time. Bit confused on skills.

When the tables state that it's one attribute versus a certain RS, do you roll dice equal to your Attribute number and you Skill Level combined? Or just dice equal to the Attribute number?

Yes the first one.

ugh i wanna play so bad

Me too.

You roll Attribute + Skill, like the Storyteller system. So with Tactics 3 and INT 5, if I do an INT+Tactics roll, I'll roll 5+3 = 8 dice.

...

not bad

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Jimmy we are in dire need of a fecht

...

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Perhaps when the mass combat rules are ready, we'll do one of those.

nigga

Will that be before or after the Second Coming?

How fucking long goes it take to set a font? Is it being done on the fucking Gutenberg printing press, with each letter die being hand carved out of wood?

...

Nice, thanks you guys.

It's not just about setting it all, they're building some templates so that future iterations will take less time. There's supposed to be some major progress happening this week.

>There's supposed to be some major progress happening this week.
Said Jimmy every week for 60 weeks so far

LAST TIME ON THE GAMEFINDER LOTTERY WINNERS,
SURPRISINGLY, FETISHES STAY OUT OF THE GAME

Are they even actually working on it, or has it been thrown into the trash on their end?

Is any kickstarter money being earmarked to hiring an actual editor or typesetter rather than a scam artist?

get something that isn't a commodore 64 for your formatting and writing, you utter cretin

>that text box width
great green christmas trees
holy shit

I don't know what a small resolution feels like any more, so everything I do becomes ridiculous on anything other on 4k.

Also you didnt unspoil the spoiler
Otherwise, a good read.

...

what are these from?

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/146321/audatia-medieval-swordfighting-card-game

Audatia.

youtube.com/watch?v=W0fV1oB3j4c

i know talhoffer/lichtenauer/that italian guy everyone forgets, just didn't know the card game. shit looks fucking rad. is it balanced and actually worthy of play or is it just a gimmicky one/two off thing?

>that italian guy everyone forgets
>remembering weird-ass satanic names like licked-her-naur and tall-hoffer
>not remembering the simple name Fiore
lol
Audatia was explicitly made to teach some of terminology of Fiore longsword
>is it worthy of play
Yes. Audatia is a good game. People play it in the roll20 room occasionally.

i don't know how i missed fiore, that's an obvious one.
i'm thinking about the one everyone forgets.

Which one is that? I can't recall.

I think it was Fiore.

it was fiore, the douche who wrote the translation i got put his name on the front instead of fiore.

figures, it all felt so familiar when i looked at the decks.

What an ass.

He didn't unspoil it because he was commanded not to read it, so good on him I suppose.

Racist Ranger fired an arrow to alert the guards to Landy in an attempt to stop him from freeing their old captain

I'll drop the next set of greentexts (and make a version of that's readable and not littered with may-mays) later today after our session.

correction, game had to be canceled.

Don't let it die, user. Far too many storytimes have been ended prematurely by dying games. So many legends left untold.

heh, good one

RIP Japanese campaign

I actually just got internet again today, if you're talking about the one with the merchant and the ronin getting ambushed by ninjas.

Yep, that one. Merchant and ronin against demon and yakuza .

Where the fuck was I?
I think the Yakuza boss had just invited the party to his mansion?
Shit, I didn't save my earlier greentexts.

Bloody archives. Let's see if I can find recap material.

Let me rephrase, the session had to be canceled. We're not done, just off for a week (or two).

My gift.

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/46650087/#46717463
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/46650087/#46743625
archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/46800104/#46837175

Danke. Give me a bit.
I'm drinking some beer that tastes like good chapagne, and everything on my computer is trying to update at once.

>made them fight an Oni
my players pitched a fit over having to fight someone wearing plate armor.

We were somewhat upset, but we rolled with the punches (literally) and came out alive, so we kept on playing.

This guy knows what's up.

Typing.

Is that a non fruit lambic? I don't think I've seen that before.

LAST TIME, ON "DEATH OF A SALESMAN"
>ordinary beauracratic corruption
>lucrative trade deals
>actual plot development

Toshiki, a wandering merchant of some ill repute and varied investments, and Hideki, a wandering ronin who is the last scion of a now destroyed noble lineage, find themselves being led into the bowels of a luxurious manor in the black of night without explanation.

Considering everything else that has happened in the past week, this is not terribly surprising.

Groggy, without their katanas, and thoroughly ignorant of the identity and trade of this castle's owner beyond "filthy rich apparent crime boss," the duo are cautious. Caution helps little in tight stone corridors.
Eventually, the labrynthe of passageways end, and they enter through solid oak doors into an outdoor study of sorts. A solid desk sits across an expanse of ebony flooring, and the boss is seated behind it. The desk is dressed with naught but a variety of documents, an oil lamp, and a small ivory box inlaid with jet spiders. The night sky stretches out around and into infinity, twinkling stars- wait, we're underground. Hideki settles into a smug stride as he approaches the desk, while Hideki's eye picks at what he now sees to be a living mural: ogres and serpents and samurai stride across the painted landscape alive on the walls, wrought in exacting detail.

The boss sets down some papers, and addresses the wanted men. The small yellow lamplight gives the boss a slight golden sheen as he tells them that they have business to discuss.

What follows is a very professional debriefing.
The Koka are known to wait six months before striking again. This period of time allows those marked for death to find the ninja's village and appeal their warrant. The only way to locate the village is to find and answer a riddle. No, he won't tell the riddle or the answer. The men should go north, though. In the morning.

Of course, for his mercy and assistance, the boss has expectations of them.

It is, and I adored it.
Of course, one must hope and endeavor to acquire a bottle that is neither skunky nor gone to vinegar.

Money he has. Great heaping tons of it. What he doesn't have is what that money can buy. Such are the perils of living in an isolated settlement away from government men and government taxes. Hideki frowns. Toshiki grins. This is what he lives for.

An arrangement is hammered out, Toshiki is gifted a new more ornate seal, and a great many documents are drawn up: instructions, contracts, letters of credit, etc. The sum result is that a caravan route will be established to run through the nearby mountain pass and this town, bringing goods acquired from Toshiki's employees, associates, and "friends." Standing orders will be placed now for the boss' stocks, and orders will be adjusted each time the caravan passes through. Enough profit will be left to the men to make the caravan well worth the trouble.

The boss decides that it is now a good idea to clear the gangs out of his highlands. No sense leaving a screen of rabble if they're only in the way.

More gold is provided to the men to seal the deal out of a desk drawer. The boss waves them off, and blows out the lamp. It's apparent as the men turn away that the boss wasn't merely tinged by the lamplight; here in the dark of the night, he really is golden skinned.
They step quickly.

Well endowed with gold and directive, unladen of half of their trade goods, and invested with a sense of urgency,
the men stop for some dumplings on the way out of town.
Then they leave through the northern gate, putting the unmarked town full of dangerous men behind, and days of riding ahead of them. From here the path is mostly descent towards unworked highlands, then off to the sea the major port on the nearest stretch of coast. A city is the best place to resupply and gather leads, after all.

Forests and mists close back in around them.

After two dull and damp days of twilight wood, the duo emerges into cleared space. A few rice paddies terrace the nearby rises, and a single-tower manor house squats behind stone walls above a meager village and its attendant warehouses.
No peasants are in sight.

They trot towards the lord's home.
and I head off to cook dinner

Where are all of the faggots who used to post here?

Sounds neat as fuck, I'm jealous of all these cool sounding games.

I'm trying to take Noble School as a non-human.

Base Cost: 2
Proficiency Cost: x1 Primary (2), x2 Secondary (2)

Now I would pay what? 3 points for level one for each proficiency?

What would it be at level 2?

"Each Proficiency added to a School must be paid for normally, though Humans, because of their racial characteristic Willing to Learn, purchase Proficiencies for 1 point instead of 2."

That confuses me since level 1 in the prof chart table is 1 arc point.