Song of Swords:Is John Galt Still Alive? Edition

Repeating a question from last thread

Does anyone know if it's true that Riddle of Steel was derived from Harnmaster?

And, in addition, how does Harnmaster play? Who's had experience with it?

Judging by forum chatter, it looks like the primary change was in how skills and attributes interact. Instead of each being rated 1-5 and then adding them together, they are separate and unrelated things, but characters can "tap" into other abilities. This already existed in their previous rulebook as "associated skills," but got made more broadly applicable. They haven't said much about combat, but from what I gather it's only getting some minor tweaks. Edges & Flaws are also getting tweaked into a "Traits" system, but we don't know anything about that beyond that it can be tapped. No other changes have been announced.

So, /sos/, to teach my group Ballad/SoS, I've decided to run a game in the Wild West.

Standard Western plotline from everyone who wanted to make characters, actually. Ranch hand boy whom finds out his mother and brother by a man in a black hat, and is joined by his sister from the city, an injun and a grizzled old cowboy.

What era of the West would be best for this? Red Dead Redemption era, end of the Gilded Era or solidly during Reconstruction?

I'd say Red Dead Redemption era, mainly because black powder, paper cartridges, and muzzle loaders aren't really covered by the rules right now. You can use a lot more modern weapons which are much easier to homebrew or steal from the game.

I don't see how this helps their problem (Attributes are better than Skills) at all. Both can be tapped for dice, attributes are still much broader and versatile.

>No other changes have been announced.
They are a d6 system instead of a d10 now, don't forget.

If I understand the debate, the problem was that skills and attributes contribute identically to the pool.

If you're making an athletics roll, Agility 5, Athletics 1 is mechanically identical to Agility 1, Athletics 5.

Combined with the fact that every point in an attribute applies to a wide range of skills, but also attribute rolls and combat, there was a high incentive to always invest in attributes over everything else. Throw in their SA's (Drives, they are called now?) and you barely need skills at all when it matters. 4-5 dice from an attribute and a few dice from an SA and you beat anything a normal skill pool would have done.

If I read the new system correctly it seems to get around that. If you're supposed to make an athletics check but you don't have athletics, you have a shitty default to an attribute with it... and agility 1, Athletics 10 character has 10 dice on an athletics check.

An Agility 10, Athletics 1 character has only 1 die from athletics and at most +3 dice from agility of they can tap into it. So if the goal was "make skills more important to skill checks," it's definitely more so now.

Tapping seems like it might get out of hand, but I'm willing to wait and see what the full book says about it. The released part is apparently a "quick start" kind of thing.

That too. I haven't decided how I feel about that.

Yeah, use modern cartridges, not black powder.

If I read his post right, tapping for attributes and skills is capped at 3 dice

See with their less autistic range of weapons and tns, this doesn't hurt them as much.

You are saying it like autistic range of weapons is a bad thing

More like Still Not Published Edition

Hey. I have it on good confidence the kickstarter will be before 2020

Someday™

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Wait, I recognise this style....

This is porn isn't it!?

So whatever happened to that attempt from the summer to take ideas from Song of Swords and use them to make a D&D retroclone?

This. Also hate forums where you can only use the search when registered.

Jep, Alfie by InCase

>use them to make a D&D retroclone
Sounds like bad idea.

>Let's take semi-realistic medieval combat sim and port it into swordmemes: the abstractioning

Not meant at all, just that it allows them to use d6 without the issues that SoS would have.

How the fuck would that work? The goals of SoS are pretty much the exact opposite of the goals of D&D. The best I can see is taking very, very simplified elements of the combat system, like Codex Martialis.

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what's the occasion?

So these guys are Clachland right?

Yeah, the Clachs are supposed to be Scots. We've seen them a few times in fechts, they're supposed to be prolific mercenaries.

I've never even heard of it before.

The return of Coffee.

I'm not sure that racial separatism is such a bad idea

There's an actual conversion of TROS to 3.5/PF D&D, but if I remember right he wasn't looking to just convert all mechanics.

Just that something like Armor Piercing might give a +X to hit against someones Armor Class. Stuff like that.

We were going to go with making a retro D&D game before we decided to make Song of Swords.

Forgot to mention it in my last post, but I suck cock too. Gas the breeders, sexual orientation war now!

wew

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Hey, are there any small sentient small critters in Vosca or Ballad?

Decided to draw Tonttu, or housespirit for a possbile Ballad game, where these critters are part of everyday life for "magic" aligned people, like ship cooks and navigators, or housewives, maids, nannies and shepherds.

Small helpful sprites that, for example, keep rats out of food stores, play with children and keep them safe, pet the cat and keep it out of trouble, or go with it to find trouble, and keep sauna from burning down.

Second one, just for the hell of it.

Do you mean sentient or sapient? Sneks are sentient and humans are sapient.

2qt4me

Sapient, yeah.

>Hey, are there any small sentient small critters in Vosca or Ballad?
I sure hope not, because that shit's stupid. It reduces the value of humanoids.

May I ask why? Tonttu is pretty stable thing at least in old Finnish mythologies, and I think in other northern mythologies as well.

wew lad were you actually going to answer the question? I want to see it.

I don't think you are, or anyone else in this thread, are currently the real Jimmy. He doesn't seem to be online.

no. btw there are two jimmys in this thread not counting you

Well stop. The last time this happened I ended up getting banned. My internet just crapped out for a day and a half and I want to do some lore stuff.

There's at least one kind, and I see no reason why there couldn't be more (on an island to island basis)

The canonical sort is the Darkling. A sentient blob of babel-tar, Darklings are the product of powerful emotions in close proximity to a supply of tar--and result in a portion of it gaining a degree of sentience. Darklings bond to their hosts (generally those who felt the powerful emotions that created them) and stay by them, usually somewhere on their person, and act as companions. Most Darklings are about as intelligent as a a clever dog. A few can even speak--though never well.
Darklings only live as long as their hosts, unless there is another powerful emotion being felt when that person dies. Then they may transfer over to that person.
So there is a precedent for little companion creatures. A Darkling could, for example, become bonded to a particularly emotionally charged building or landmark, for example.

One thing that I've always avoided (check around and you'll see) in Tattered Realms and COTV is the concept of spirits, or ghosts. Now this has been very intentional--there are no ghost-hunters in Tattered Realms because nobody believes in ghosts. It's their version of UFO theories. Even Paladins scoff at the idea of non-corporeal spirits dwelling in the mortal realm.
But they're real. They're just poorly documented. And the fact that in a world with such a depth of paranormal knowledge, even the Paladins haven't realized this yet is part of why we did it.

So, an island where house-spirits are real would be a very cool setting for an adventure in Ballad, just as a genuine haunting would be a serious case of culture shock for anyone in Vosca. I can imagine Sulla now, throwing his helmet shouting "Oh come on!" after finding the chairs stacked on the table.

Radical. Are there any canonical descriptions for the darklings?

Or should I just pull up this video and point finger at it?

youtube.com/watch?v=GdSxFRq5BeQ

I was more thinking like a young Hexxus from Ferngully, but those are mad kawaii so I'm down.

So why don't people believe in ghosts when there is direct evidence to the contrary?

Ghosts try to stay hidden?

Ghosts and spirits are a very rare occurrence to begin with, and there are a host of more likely explanations. Pyromancy, Sorcery, powerful drugs, certain monsters, these can all influence the mind, cause hallucinations, etc.

But a spirit that persists in this world after death... Even the idea of such a thing is heretical and dangerous in Genosism, Dessianism, and even the Zellish religion all alike. Their doctrines state firmly that after death, all souls leave this world. The idea that it is possible to persist beyond death on Mundus is heretical, so reports of it happening would be "explained away" as delusion or suggestion by magic.

Who cares about Finnish mythology? Vosca isn't Scandinavian.

In the middle of the Star Wars Ballad game. Going well, but we're on a food break and then continuing. I only planned for a single session, but they're pushing me to continue. I'm down but looking for ideas. They're on Nar Shaddah, and are being offered a smuggling job. Where should they go?

Tattooine. It's tradition!

One thing that's come up. If a person's declared action is rendered impossible by the actions of someone who acts first, what happens? Does the action just fizzle, or do they have the opportunity to change it in some way?

>tfw he is getting better

What about paganism / Sartur worship?

blood for the dirtgod!

Hey Jimmy is there anything like a lich in Vosca?

Undead are all the products of dark pyromancy... I imagine that could result in something like a lich.

Does the LaTex SoS book include the melee weapon update?

yes

I think sometimes they get half the CP back.

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I believe it depends on whether or not the action was cancelled by an enemy attack specifically or if it was just rendered moot. In the former case you usually get half CP back, in the latter case you always get all CP back, but in order to declare a different maneuver you have to do a Quick Defense or something like that.

We're going to be seriously revisiting combat in general after the KS (possibly during the KS) to apply the many lessons we've learned from Laser Whales and from additional testing in the interrim. The core will of course stay the same, but I for one would like to greatly reduce unnecessary complexity across the board. A tighter set of maneuvers would definitely benefit the game.

so is the game out yet

Yes

Well we'd go to the print shop to produce our mail copies, but there seems to be this huge horde of disgusting criminal anarchist cumdrinkers rioting in the road between us and the Kinkos. You'll have to wait a few more days for my gun to arrive so I can go slaughter my way to the Staples like a game of vermintide before we can kickstart.

Fukken rioters. for them: death!

Santa Cruz Man Arrested for assaulting 20 members of Antifa with a "Napoleanic Cavalry Sword," news at 11

A 27 year old Santa Cruz resident, one "Jordan Rumsfeld," has been taken into custody for assaulting a group of protesters with a 200 year old cavalry saber.

"He definitely knew how to use that thing," said a local grocer, "he kept going red/red and nobody had high enough ADR to stop him."

"Strength caps are definitely broken" said the Chief of Police Johann Galtmann, "this alcoholic guy dressed like a Roman beheaded like ten people before we brought him down with non-lethal rounds. Stun rules are obviously broken too, how does a man absorb that much rock salt?"
The NAAPC had no comment, as they were being attacked by a horde of autistic neckbeards dressed like knights, but a spokesman managed to gasp "Jesus Christ melee shoot is garbage" as he was attempting to remove a dussack from his chest.

And now for Tucker Carlson on the future of Kosovo, Tuck?

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poll is still up
strawpoll.me/12216957/r

I had a laugh.

>tfw Jimmy called the public desire to see antifascist faggots machinegunned in the streets a year ago

Kane and Ivan are heroes.

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How did the 2nd War of Containment start, senpaitachi?

Richtofen returned to power. The Autarch had been marginalized as part of the treaty after CWI, and a Republic had formed in the wake of his absence that left many very displeased with the state of affairs--particularly combined with war endemnities.

Richtofen returned to the country in the face of political violence between YiKong sympathizers and nationalists, and because he represented stability and a return to "the good old days," he was able to assemble a large base, eventually enveloping the Nationalists by adopting their leaders as part of his cabinet. The New Chiron quickly annexed its neighbors, which was initially praised as peacemaking and progress. However, when it became apparent that Richtofen wasn't going to stop annexing neighbors, certain groups became concerned. Arlon, which was in the process of fighting off a Socialist revolution at the time, managed to find stability in opposition to the expanding Ximbri, and the Albish joined in once they started invading territories that weren't even theoretically historical Chironic territory.

The war was inevitable, but the Great Powers waited too long to act.

>no arms and legs
I don't really see how it could do anything but bounce around and get killed.

The goblins already do that.

Same reason as in real life, I suspect.

Neither is Finland.

>You'll have to wait a few more days for my gun to arrive
I guess California is still American enough for mail-order guns.

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Well, that's another screencap to go besides the one about Jimmy's anus.

Scandinavia is looking kind of iffy too.

Post your screencaps faggot.