franco marlow

[Ashlian]

Hello,

Finally read the complete 4the book. Although plot-armour for named characters makes it impossible for the main storyline to really suprise me, I really enjoyed some of the new master introductions and vignettes and the entire book had this lovly "malifaux vibe". After finishing the book I suddenly noticed that there are 2 major characters that aren't represented as masters in the game: oyabun (TT) and the governor (guild). Let's assume the Oyabun will be murdered/replaced by Misaki in future stories so just like the old governor he's more of a plot devise to keep the story going but not really someone who will stay around or be important later on. 

The new governor, Franco Marlow, on the other hand seems to be a very interesting new addition and actually a very active new player that can not only have big influence in malifaux, but also tie "malifaux" and the "other side" together. He only got mentioned on the last few pages, but I instantly fell in love with the character. He's just so efficient and no BS (and finally someone shot down lucius  ).

I know it's very soon to start talking about this as the 5th book will probably be 1-2 years of, but wouldn't marlow make a fabulous 8th master for the guild? he could be accompanied by some enforcer elite guards from his personal staff to boot. Also he would complete the guild and its the hierarchy all the way to the top. (for as far as I know all other factions apart from TT get all their characters represented as masters).

[Myyrä]

It wouldn't surprise anyone if the fifth book was released at Gencon next summer. That would mean closer to 7 months than 1-2 years.

[Ashlian]

I would actually prefer if they waited 1-1,5 extra year. just focus on "the other side" and "through the breach" and let "ripples of fate" sink in some more (getting a bit scared of model bloath).

 

Also I just realised that there are 2 other relativly important characters that don't have models yet:

 

the abbyssian professor (zipp story) => henchmen/enforcer for guild or something?

and Albus von shtook (molly and sandeep background) => resser master/henchman?

 

 

[Ludvig]

The 5th book should be along this gencon like they usually are. Not sure we will be seing more masters in it, it seems like there are a lot of those already but who knows.

I'm also trying to think about what interesting style Marlow would bring to the table and story but not really seeing it. I guess a playable master actually loyal to the guild could hold some merit but it seems like the current masters have their own agendas to not come off as boring so maybe he would just get some other subversive twist.

We have all sorts of damagers and buffers and Lucius already has the elite guard posse + administration thing going so I'm not sure Marlow has design space there. What guild could use mechanically is a summoner but Marlow seems entirely wrong for that. I'd be impressed if anyone made that make sense

 

[Ashlian]

We actually don't know a whole lot about marlow => he could be a mage/summoner?

As for upgrades: give him 7 expensive limited upgrades that let him bring another guild master with him => kinda like the boss is going out and needs one of his generals there to protect him.

(just being silly here, not serious)

[Fetid Strumpet]

I personally think the character and story of such an influential character would be cheapened by being included as a playable character. Over explaining or rendering something commonplace cheapens any sense of mystery, awe, or importance a storied character. 

Personally I think the storied framework of the game works better the more mystery a character preserves. Case in point the Tyrants feel like insignificant threats to me, mostly because they have physical stats within the game. I personally felt more of a sense of threat and awe at these beings who almost ascended to godhood before physical manifestations of them showed up in the game.

Same for Titania. When I first started reading stories of her she really FELT impressive and terrifying. Once more about her came out and she actually showed up in the game I really don't feel any sense of awe about her. Irregardless of her power level in the game I just can't help but feel that even in this shadow of her former self that THIS is the creature so feared her own followers created an entire location to imprison her? She feels weak and petty and I have trouble picturing how weak the old natives of malifaux must have been to be menaced by her. She doesn't feel powerful, she makes them feel weak.

This is purely from the perspective of someone who thinks the narrative behind the game matters. Over explain something and whatever you do you have destroyed any sense of awe or majesty that character presents. Sauron would have been a vastly weaker narrative villain if he actually had lines, and interacted with the the other characters. It would have made him seem commonplace instead of being the malign and terrible force the books made him out to be.

For me the old governer general was a vastly more interesting and impressive character, right up to the moment they actually gave him lines and scenes in the books instead of just being hinted about and described as this impressive force. Much of Lucius' aura of impressiveness, at least to me, was that here was a character who actually interacted on a daily basis with such an awe inspiring figure. Lucius now just seems like a lessened figure, and pretty insignificant now that the force behind the scenes has basically been revealed to be the emperor without clothes.

For me the only real argument I can see for actually adding Marlow to the game is that the Guild is losing it's power and becoming less of the omnipresent force of tyrany and imposed order it was depicted to be. As the impression of the All Powerful Guild crumbles and is replaced by the one of hubris and ineptitude, humanizing and making its leader known, relatable, commonplace, and ordinary would be one of the better narrative ways to accomplish that.

[Bengt]

5 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

I personally think the character and story of such an influential character would be cheapened by being included as a playable character. Over explaining or rendering something commonplace cheapens any sense of mystery, awe, or importance a storied character. 

I agree with this. Having a story character be a mechanical character also constrains the stories, if the old Governor General had been a Master they couldn't have killed him like they did. Well they could've if they really wanted to, but they don't want to make people's models unplayable.

Another aspect is that the more powerful a character supposedly is in the setting the more it hammers at my suspension of disbelief that they have time to run around and fight little skirmishes in the back alleys of Malifaux. If they made changes here I think it should be in the other direction, e.g. have Ramos lose control of the M&SU to some shadowy background character.

[Cadaverousbirth]

10 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Same for Titania. When I first started reading stories of her she really FELT impressive and terrifying. Once more about her came out and she actually showed up in the game I really don't feel any sense of awe about her. Irregardless of her power level in the game I just can't help but feel that even in this shadow of her former self that THIS is the creature so feared her own followers created an entire location to imprison her? She feels weak and petty and I have trouble picturing how weak the old natives of malifaux must have been to be menaced by her. She doesn't feel powerful, she makes them feel weak.

This seems unfair. The fluff goes as far to explain that she is very much a shell of her former self, being imprisoned for hundreds (?) of years. Titania even comments, internally, that she isn't strong enough to take on Lilith directly and uses diplomacy (or, err, tries to?) to get some of the NVB on her side. Pre-Imprisoned Titania was a powerhouse as the fluff dictates, but was defeated through betrayal and locked away. Until now.

I give the benefit of the doubt that Wyrd knows enough that they can't create this SUPERULTRAMAX superstar master and then go and create balanced rules from that fluff - what is this, a game?! So they explain it through the story. Even the known Tyrants have been weakened through their host's bodies. Hamelin/Plague was destroyed by Kirai and reformed, "biding his time" until his plans come to fruition again, and The Dragon was crippled by The Event (or was it The Red Cage? Details.) but a sliver of each of their powers remain. The Gorgon remains elusive in the shadows, and Cherufe was locked away and contained - but talk to anyone that played against Sonnia regularly and you'd think he was out and about, strutting his stuff.

I do agree that the major players should remain in the fluff, like the Oyabun and the GG. They are the motor behind the engine, the driving force of the narrative. It wouldn't do to have Marlow killed in the back alley streets somewhere by a Crooligan, he has to be above and beyond that in the story, remaining in the background to give motivation to our chess piece of masters.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Cadaver, it doesn't matter what a story tells you is true. I absolutely agree with you, the story "says" Titania is a shell of what she was and at one point she was so powerful that figuratively and perhaps within the story literally that the skies trembled at her approach. However descriptions lose their import when you present too concrete an example. For instance the story "says" Seamus is The Avatar of Dread, and one of the absolute most terryfing beings in Malifaux. Do you get that sense? Does it ever feel a personal sense of dread and fear when he shows up in a story? The story says he is, but I remember the tests during the wave 3 open where so many people said, "I don't understand why Seamus is supposed to be so scary. He's a guy, a human, I'd be more scared of X than him".

And that's my point. In creating a narrative it doesn't matter what you tell a reader, you can tell someone this creature is the most powerful creature in the world and everyone trembles in awe at its majesty, but if you also then present the character in such a way that the reader believes they understand it, or can relate to it, then you actually strip that character of much if not all of the visceral emotions your reader will put into the character for you. Imagine if they never stated Seamus, and never fully explained what or who the Red Chapel Killer was. Just that it was some malign force or creature unknown that had been killing and mutilating people in that district of Malifaux, and the only living individuals who had encountered it were shattered beings whose sanity had been totally destroyed by absolute unrelenting terror. And then imagine that Wyrd writes a story about a Guild character or Master being assigned to go into that ward of the city and investigate, confront,  and eliminate The Red Chapel Killer. We the audience will actually begin to develop the emotions of fear and of dread that the author wants to instill because WE DON'T KNOW who or what The Red Chapel Killer is. We will begin to identify with the Guild officer and put ourselves in his place because we do understand him and we imagine ourselves, emotionally, in his place, confronting the unknown.

How much actual fear or terror will you feel for the character assigned the same thing knowing in advance that the Guild has sent their operative to go track down Seamus? Intellectually you might be able to understand the character should be afraid, narratively you might think the actions of the character are within the context of the story are believeable, but you personally won't develop any of the emotional connection or any sense of dread or fear because you already know.

And that's a prime example of why gamer fluff is almost always not very good narratively. It almost always over explains and is usually too short in both time to create, and  too short in length to really get into the specifics of creating even just good popular literature.

 

[Cadaverousbirth]

(Foreword: I don't want this to sound mean-spirited and I apologize if it came off that way. I love my fluff and talking about it )

Would you be more interested in Seamus as a character if he had no backstory written in the fluff? Would your complaint change to "I don't understand why he's just a man given the description here of the killer being 'animalistic,' obviously he should be a giant beast." Because the story didn't present his side of things and we, the reader, are left with only mystery and our own interpretations? Seamus is a man, an undead serial killer sure, but still largely human. That is probably the most terrifying thing, and I think the entire point of his character in the narrative, that a human can delve so deeply into his own dark desires that he mutilates and resurrects women for his own pleasure. How would you want him to be presented instead? A shadowy character with no motivations or explanations that we are just supposed to accept as scary because we don't really know?

Speaking as a normal human who in Malifaux would probably be a menial worker, I would definitely be terrified of Seamus if I met him. His reputation is terrifying, and everyone knows that. Do you remember when Seamus got shot in the head by Samael and then stood back up after the Gorgon did some meddling? That was definitely a scary moment.

Lady Justice, for example, doesn't give two hoots about Seamus' reputation, she wants his head on a pike. She can be that way because that's how she's presented in the narrative, not as some mewling commoner like me, but the righteous arm of justice that wants these cruel murders to end. She may have to pass a TN 12 Horror duel in the game, but that's game mechanics and not the story.

Malifaux is all about its characters, mostly masters, who are the equivalent of DC's meta-humans. You can't have a story here without the reader already knowing these characters. This is all game fluff after all, not a detective novel where the true bad guy is revealed in the second-to-last chapter. We mostly know everyone's history and what drives them to do what they do, and it's the struggle between them and the world at large that makes the story compelling. Titania *was* incredibly powerful before Malifaux's written history, as we know it. She isn't anymore, and sure the writer's could have shown us this instead of telling us, but I am under the assumption that everyone has limits to what they can write (word count, pages, etc) and they did the best with what they could. You have to have that suspension of disbelief with the fiction, accepting some things that just aren't fully fleshed out. Malifaux novels though, yes please.

[Fetid Strumpet]

Doing the best with the resources available is fine, it doesn't excuse poor writing or make gamer fluff anywhere actually good. Malifaux novels would be great, if they were actually written by professional authors, or people with the capacity to become professional writers.  

And again you are missing the point. The point isn't Seamus should have been handled differently, it's that as soon as you explain anything you rob it of much of its power and interest. Readers want to find out about things and that's part of the drive in storytelling. You are correct that as a character based game you need to have characters for the players. However in explaining anything to the level of character you are sacrificing narrative to do so. Absolutely understandable that if they wanted Titania in the game as a playable character they needed to flesh her out. But even just saying she used to be powerful and now isn't robs her of even any sense of that previous power. She feels weak and that weakness taints any image of the power she might have narratively possessed.

[Cadaverousbirth]

22 minutes ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

Doing the best with the resources available is fine, it doesn't excuse poor writing or make gamer fluff anywhere actually good. Malifaux novels would be great, if they were actually written by professional authors, or people with the capacity to become professional writers.  

***I agree. For instance, a lot of the early Warhammer novels were written by fiction authors outside of GW and they were amazing. Some of the later ones written on the cheap are trash. They would need to be done well, and I don't think the Wyrd customer base is vast enough to make a mass-produced novel(s) profitable, yet.***

And again you are missing the point. The point isn't Seamus should have been handled differently, it's that as soon as you explain anything you rob it of much of its power and interest. Readers want to find out about things and that's part of the drive in storytelling. You are correct that as a character based game you need to have characters for the players. However in explaining anything to the level of character you are sacrificing narrative to do so. Absolutely understandable that if they wanted Titania in the game as a playable character they needed to flesh her out. But even just saying she used to be powerful and now isn't robs her of even any sense of that previous power. She feels weak and that weakness taints any image of the power she might have narratively possessed.

I understand that you want to be shown and not told, that's a general rule of thumb in story telling and I agree. The problem is space. Each character has their own and vying for more in the narrative and there is only so much that can be put down within the space of the books as they are now. Look at the vignettes, which are great, and drive each character's story along in a few short sentences. Unfortunately we can't get a full beginning-middle-end structural arc for everyone so we are left with the minimum. It isn't perfect, but with more characters than Game of Thrones and a fraction of the space to read about them, it isn't terrible.

Still, it's better than most 40k novels. "I am good guy." "I am bad guy." "For the emperor!" "For the chaos gods!" *six chapters of punching*

[tmod]

But that's why it's important to have strong and important NPCs. We can't slowly develop masters, but we need superstronh characters in the universe that we don't know everything about. If Marlow and the Oyabun becomes playable we loose the NPCs that creates narrative interest...

[Fetid Strumpet]

Cadaver, Not really. Good fiction is good fiction regardless of length or constraints of space, money and time. Being non-professional literary writers with limited budgets, time, space, other commitments and excessive characters might make the quality of the stories told understandable, forgivable, and passable but it doesn't make them good or well told. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying Malifaux does a particularly bad job. Some of the stories are very well told, and the overall concept of the world and characters is very compelling. That doesn't change the fact of how the realities of telling a story work.

For example, while the rules system is pretty, not to say abysmally poor, and the sculpting material was subpar, for gamer fluff the game Relic Knights has come the closest to actually being almost passable enough to pass as popular genre literature. I'm pretty certain I could pick a random stranger off the street who is a fan of genre lit, and hand them just the fluff for relic knights and get a positive reaction for the read it was. I'm less certain I'd get that response for Malifaux. 

The fluff for Relic Knights is certainly not amazing, but aside from some role playing games it has the best narrative for games I've read and it suffers from all the same limitations of time, space and multitude of characters that other miniatures games do. So I really don't accept the argument, if that's what you are making, that it's not possible to follow the conventions of what makes good narrative fiction in the format Malifaux allows.

The point is that I feel there are just some characters in the game that from a narrative perspective, if that aspect of the story is important enough, that should never be fully explained or brought into the game because all it will do, regardless of how they are set up, is cheapen and demean any sense of narrative awe or emotive power they might have.

Figures like the Oyabun and Marlow should remain in the background as narrative forces rather than relatable characters because they better drive the story in that way. Titania is an interesting character, but that's all she is now.

Having stat'd the Tyrants and cheapened any feeling of real threat, or narrative power they once had, With Titania they had an opportunity to actually create an antagonistic narrative force to rival the Tyrants as a plot device to be struggled against. For example Merridian, the Nameless (if she actually exists) and the Gorgon are far more interesting narratively than December or Plague are, or will ever be, specifically because we know so little, but if they were never more powerful than either I'm not seeing how they caused a world ending struggle.

Imagine a narrative where Titania isn't a playable character and all we get to see of her is a screaming bloody eyed angel of rage and vengeance released from her prison, who then disappears into the wilds of malifaux. But shortly thereafter the world begins to change. Her agents appear, new forests rise, and her influence is felt, but she, herself is never seen. That creates a vastly more interesting narrative for the existing characters to interact with than what they have currently, which is basically just another character. They didn't choose to go that route and that's fine because that isn't the story they want to tell. She's narratively interesting because you want to see what happens to her and how she interacts with others. But she's been reduced to a person and not a narrative force. 

She will never "feel" like what the stories try to make her out to be. You kind of look at her with a squint eye and say "She challenged the Grave Spirit and was so powerful her followers regarded her as great as or more so a threat than that? Really? Ok sure whatever you say."

And that is why I personally feel that Marlow and other of his ilk should not be reduced to just additional characters, Malifaux has enough characters at the moment. It needs more narrative forces.

[Ashlian]

I think that the big problem with fluff is that many people don't make the distinction between "lore" and "story". for example: I really love the dragon age games. the individual stories told in the game are rather bad/mediocre but it's the lore and history of the world that makes me like the game so much. On the other hand we have something like 'the last of us" wich has relativly good storytelling and character development, but horrible lore (just zombies). If you want to see a combination of the 2 => bioshock 1. (I could do this with books as well, but don't know how widely known every book is).

In wargames I feel the fluff should mainly present interesting lore and background. Malifaux does this very well => earth + city history, every master has a clear reason/power/background, tyrants and prison are a nice backdrop that allows for a moving timeline,... etc.

 

In this regard I actually think they nailed introducing Titania:

1) she naturally came out of the overal narrative (little ex machina)

2) she has a clear background and place in the world/faction

3) she pushed the overal plot into a new arc

4) clear reason why the master was absent in previous events.

5) her model/rules might not be the scariest thing ever, but malifaux is still a balanced game first and story second.

 

Malifaux lore and fluff isn't a novel or grand literary work and I think that expecting it to be this amazing narrative is just not productive. Malifaux is a wargame, not a story. the story should only be there to enhance the game by provinding background, lore and ambiance. the real stories, dept, ...etc. should be in the mind of the reader/fan fiction or through the breach rpg play that focusses on non-main story line characters that try to survive in this weird world. If at some point great novels would be written that elevate the storytelling in malifaux to the next level i'd be more than happy, but for now I regard all the tales as lore that build into a big world (and not a true story that has good narrative).

 

[JDAntoine]

Id love him to be part of the game. Its also a bit of a now or make him untouchable in lore, both are cool options.