Song of Swords: Hail Victory

I'm in for that hardcover too.

The reason I backed this when I swore off KS was that even in the worst case scenario the only thing I don't get is art and a physical copy.

The game as is was worth my money so they can't rob me no matter what

I didn't have money at the KS, I intend to just get the game when it comes out, so that's one.

So I found Call of the Void while browsing for the actual French term for the desire to kill oneself. It's all very confusing, I eventually found this place through Google+ searches.

Anyone want to explain to me what this is all about?

It's a game set in a fantasy world in which World War II happened and the Nazis won. The game is fundamentally about people fleeing from the civilized world to the wilderness, where they can avoid the consequences of that war and live in freedom.

It also happens to take place in a universe where countries are islands suspended by magic above a black abyss full of fire and brimstone. The players are supposed to play as pirates, refugees or adventure-seekers in a world of airships, flying boats and fighter planes. Some people are touched by "the void" and can teleport or shoot magic bolts of darkness out of their hands to kill people by warping their flesh into cancerous masses.

It's all pretty cool. Jimmy has said that the game is fundamentally a criticism of ideology, because all of the factions are evil. The Communists and Fascists are obvious, but Democracy and Capitalism are shown in an equally negative light, resulting in what are fundamentally brutal and pragmatic societies that only exist to slaughter and exploit human beings.

The "Call of the Void" is not actually death, but ideological radicalism. In Jimmy (the writer's) view, it's easier to become a radical than it is to kill yourself, so that is actually the great temptation over which people stand, like madmen looking over a cliff, and feel the urge to step off into it.

Call of the Void: Ballad of the Laser Whales is a pulpy dieselpunk roleplaying game. It's set in a world where it's not a typical planet but a series of islands and archipelagos floating in a vast nothingness.
There is air, though the higher you get the less there is, and below the islands lies a thick soupy mess of deadly dust populated by monsters and weird upside down elves.

Technologically, it's right around WWII, and a lot of the political factions correspond to real world powers-though usually taken to a slightly different level, and it's less clear cut who the good guys are.

Gameplay wise, it's an offshoot of its parent game, Song of Swords, and uses d10 dice pools to resolve actions. Its gunfire rules are pretty good, and it's a gritty system-meaning that smart tactical play is required to keep your character from being riddled with lead.

>it's less clear cut who the good guys are.
Should read "if there are any good guys"

tattered-realms.wikia.com/wiki/Ballad_of_the_Laser_Whales

It's a setting where Otto von Bismarck is immortal, Hitler, Franco, Mussolini and Pinochet are all friends, and the Japanese own California. Also it's in space.

It's better than that. Immortal Bismarck still runs Germany, Hitler and Genderswapped Himmler are his lieutenants, and keep trying to sabotage each other. One time, Space Hitler built a cannon so huge it could fire from the Alps to England, and Space-Girl-Himmler told the Allies where it was so that they could bomb it. Space Hitler then strangled a general to death in blind rage. The whole thing is full of stuff like this.

It's like Ace Combat meets Treasure Planet meets WWII. It's great. Also the system is actually pretty good despite Jimmy being a total hack.

Also the Americans are savage tribal warriors with P-47 Thunderbolts and .50 caliber machine guns as standard squad MGs.

>.50 caliber machine guns as standard squad MGs.
That isn't possible.

It is if you're 'Merrican.

It's totally impractical, and Jimmy's a /k/fag who knows damned well that it's impractical, but the Rahoos (space yanks) do it anyway because they're all insane. They lug around a disassembleable M2 at the squad level, and whenever they get into a firefight they put it together and then overpenetrate the living fuck out of whatever cover the enemy is using.

"The BZK-50 isn't quite an M2. It was designed for the purpose of being issued in infantry squadrons of under ten men.

The machinegun can be disassembled into five parts, each of which weighs between 20-30 pounds, including the tripod. These can be assembled quickly by a trained crew, but it does still require that five men each carry a ~25 pound load of hardware, plus ammunition.

The Rahoos do believe quite strongly that the machinegun is the primary weapon of any infantry formation, and see nothing wrong with the idea of half of a squadron being devoted entirely to carrying it. Many of them don't even carry rifles or sidearms, they just carry ammunition for the machinegun and rely on it, and the 3-4 riflemen and their squad leader to protect them.

What one must understand about such a system is that a .50 caliber machinegun overpenetrates like a son of a bitch. There is no hiding from a .50. It can cut down trees, it can tear through any amount of shrubbery, it will cleave through multiple buildings, it will saw houses in half, it will perforate brick walls, it will penetrate vehicles, it will shoot down aircraft, it will penetrate ranks of men 30 bodies deep. Perhaps most importantly, its effective range is enormous. Attaching a scope to a .50 caliber machinegun, one finds that the weapon can shoot with remarkable accuracy for many thousands of feet. On the open plains of Desotia, where most troops are mobilized by horse or in trucks to begin with, this is a serious advantage. A BZK-50 on a hill can kill people in the next county. A small group of such weapons could defeat a division-strength enemy caught on the open.

Where the loadout would falter would be in an ambush situation where they are caught off guard and cannot assemble their weapon in time. In such terrain or scenarios, the Rahoos generally just eschew the gun entirely and stick to SMGs like the Blish or the Viper. "

I honestly can't tell if /sos/ is a covert alt-right game or if it's all just coincidence. Back when this was starting none of this would've been funny, but it's hilarious now.

Zell Hitler isn't a good guy, unless your group really wants to kill all humans.

Also the ASGR (Assault Assault Rifle Rifle)
"It's a licensed copy of the Chironic Volksverteidiger but chambered in a different caliber. The name is "Assault Sturmgeweher Rifle" (Assault Assault Rifle Rifle) because the engineers who copied it didn't speak Ximbri. It's catching on pretty quick, presumably it will be a common sight in Desotia before too long.

They couldn't really wrap their heads around the idea of an intermediate cartridge (these are the same guys who think .50 BMG is a good size for a squad-level support weapon) so they figured the Chironites were trying to make an SMG but were too stupid to use a pistol cartridge. So they chambered it in what they felt was an appropriately sized round. Nothing wrong with .357, right? "

>SMG chambered in .357

It's an assault rifle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44

I mean the idea that someone could look at one and say "yeah, this is supposed to be an SMG, let's chamber it in an absurdly high-pressure round"

There's literally no reason to do this. This isn't even Italian levels of stupidity.

It's really big for an SMG, it must need a bigger round. Duh.

What one must understand about such a system is that Katana overpenetrates like a son of a bitch. There is no hiding from a Katana. It can cut down trees, it can tear through any amount of shrubbery, it will cleave through multiple buildings, it will saw houses in half, it will perforate brick walls, it will penetrate vehicles, it will strike down aircraft, it will penetrate ranks of men 30 bodies deep. Perhaps most importantly, its effective range is enormous. Attaching a scope to a Katana, one finds that the weapon can slash with remarkable accuracy for many thousands of feet. On the open plains of Desotia, where most troops are mobilized by horse or in trucks to begin with, this is a serious advantage. A Katana on a hill can kill people in the next county. A small group of such weapons could defeat a division-strength enemy caught on the open.
The Rahoos do believe quite strongly that the katana is the primary weapon of any infantry formation, and see nothing wrong with the idea of half of a squadron being devoted entirely to carrying it. Many of them don't even carry rifles or sidearms, they just carry ammunition for the katana and rely on it, and the 3-4 riflemen and their squad leader to protect them.

"These dumb Krauts wanted to make a big round. We already have one to use!"

The disparaging term for Chironites is "Cherries," because they aren't allowed to eat processed sugar because of their crazy religion, so they put cherry juice in everything to sweeten it.

Welp, that's better than beet juice.

...

Why are polearms so absurdly overpowered in this game?

Because they're absurdly overpowered in real life.

BEAT THE BLADE

Longer reach, more powerful on the swing, two handed thrusts.

Of course they suffer in the DTN/Defensive Maneuvers area.

At that point the pistol caliber you're putting through the gun basically doesn't matter, it'll be controllable no matter what.

Polearms are the killiest. They are not most survivable weapons though; spears can be used in duels or with shields, but not polearms.
With a polearm, you can kill. You can kill really well. But you're relying on your armor or the people around you to not die.

The big switch to give most things DTN 7 kind of spoiled this.

...

...

...

>Jimmy Plays Nier
>Tell me about their agricultural policies

It's all garbanzo beans.

I've been putting together a small Song of Swords game for my gaming group, and I'm wondering about some general rules for creating enemies which will provide an equal challenge for the players. It's a little harder for me to bullshit numbers for this game than it is other games, due to all the complicated bits.

Anyone else who runs Song of Swords have any advice?

People run Song of Swords? I thought people just argued about it.

There are a lot of games running at any given time, the game didn't get funded for 36k out of nowhere.

This cannot conitnue.

youtube.com/watch?v=3F77CBGVH1g&t=158

Best Jimmu video.

Don't build challenging enemies, build challenging encounters.
Unless the players will be engaging the opponent in a ritualized or structured setting, then the actual stats matter less than the circumstances and materials of the encounter.

What you'll end up needing to do is present encounters accurately, and trust the players to respond appropriately. Flee is the strongest move in the game, and there is always the option to avoid a fight entirely, or just come back later with a bomb.

To elaborate, SoS is intentionally built such that "equal challenge" is pretty difficult to parse out in an immediate sense.
CP is the best gauge for it going into a fight, but of course other things matter.

I would recommend building generic statblocks for the kinds of enemies the players might run into (ie. soldier of the red guard, street tough, man-at-arms), and only getting real indepth for specific, powerful named enemies.

This game doesn't play like D&D. Fighting is the main mechanical focus, but it's so risky that the players should be encouraged away from it in general.

Jup just ran a macedonian wars campaign. I will post a write up as soon as its finished. sadly on hold right now because life sucks

>macedonian wars campaign
I'm jelly.

>polearms
>absurdly overpowered in SoS
Defend your claim

>hitting braced hand-held devices
Almost worthless test. That's like jamming a spear into the dirt and hitting it with a sword to say "look how easy it is to break these things!"

Two metrics you want to look at:
1) CP
2) Damage inflicted on 1 BS with your primary attacks (e.g. if you have a spear, a thrust with that spear. If you have a Tight Grip sword, a Power Attack with that sword)

If you're willing to compare binomial distributions, you can get a lot of information from this. If not, know that:
1) More CP is better than less
2) The game changes if you're inflicting serious wounds on 1 BS compared to inflicting a level 1 wound on 1+ BS

...

thanks Rhade

Interesting.

That's good advice. I've been working on the setting and the areas where the players would have fights. Places like alleyways, streets, farms, trails, etc. Due to where the players want to go and explore, they're going to be in sort of a late medieval "wild west" area so they'll have plenty of opportunities to get in and out of trouble.

I guess what I need the most is help making sure my generic statblocks aren't going to outright fuck over the players. I'm thinking of building the generics like player characters and then dropping the unnecessary parts so that they feel relatively balanced.

I'll try running a few regressions and stuff to help figure it out.

>I guess what I need the most is help making sure my generic statblocks aren't going to outright fuck over the players.
Your best bet to achieve that is to give them low STR or low TOU. Most of the issue comes from the randomess of the dice. Just one bad defense is all it takes to get wounded, possibly severely. Numbers are extremely powerful. Even just a 2v1 is very difficult for the 1. If you intend to have enemies that the players are expected to triumph against, keep them weak. Maybe 3 STR, 3 TOU, 10 CP. If you ever need a stat value, assume it's a 3.
It's also going to rely on you playing the characters poorly on purpose. Use only the simple Maneuvers. Don't be deceptive. If PCs fight PC-tier opposition the game slows to a retarded snail's pace.

>Sundowner doesn't know what a fucking LLC is, someone had to tell him

Is there a word for humor that just tries to apply reality to something ridiculous in a naive fashion? Jimmy's blase incredulity is hilarious.

Post-Irony. For reference, see Sam Hyde.

Super Aryan Best Girl.

Isn't Nyashny a fucking Slav/Boatniggerelf hybrid? Isn't that like the literal opposite of an Aryan?

Nice.

Fundamentshally, it'sh a critique of ideologhy game.

Her race is not important. What's important is what she is going to do.