Brewmaster

1. Trixiebelle (seriously, best investment of 8-9 stones EVAR). 2. Bert Jebsen (a useful enforcer that also gives me an excuse for Kurt Russel jokes? DONE.) 3. Moon Shinobi (the mere mention of these models sold me on M2E 4. Lovely Assistant (my roommate has banned this model from our house because of the sculpt 5. Rami Lacroix (Rami was the character that sold me on Malifaux to begin with).

Possible suggestion: rather than "can't be affected by Wp", what about "Fated take - - when targeting Mobs with Wp"? It would take effort to affect them normally, but someone with Skill Mastery and Focus, or Calm and Collected would be able to handle Mobs.

This is one of the things you'll bump into with a "Storyteller" game. "Grapple rules" or more meta textually "specific events that fall outside basic rules" are often left up to GM adjudication since the power in this system and storyteller systems universally is in the hands of the person running the game. That being said, simple solution: General Talent "grappling stuff" Your Martial Arts attacks gain the following trigger: Tome "grappled: after damaging, opponent is slow". You tie the tricksy maneuvers with Martial Arts, it's a talent players can pick up first thing so they're not waiting, easy mechanics to cover the flavor. This is how I would solve the grappling request. For weapons, I've actually got a lil thing I'm gonna write up on Rapiers and Katanas, so that might help

Fair play. I do like the "non-dramatic/ dramatic" effects for the spell so it doesn't feel too "must be combatty!"

Mah is the Reconnoiter/Turf War(ish) master. She and Ophelia actually overlap on a lot of the scheme/Strats they can handle, they just have different styles to how they work.

Kadeton DOES have the most logical answer In all seriousness, if you can hang out a bit, Ophelia's the more complete Starter. S'omer gets better the more you have. Think of it like the Nico Box (S'omer) versus the McMourning box (Ophelia). S'omer can handle more Schemes and Strategies, but Ophelia can handle specific schemes and strats awesomer.

The big thing I wanted to do was demonstrate "This is not DnD". I didn't pull any punches, so if the players weren't thinking they'd get dead. I also wanted to set the mood for "December's coming", give the players an idea of the fighting style of the enemy. I've been a big fan of the "intuitive learning through gameplay, not tutorials", so this session is showing them what they'll need to consider when leveling up. So, I had the hook, then I looked through the books to see what models I thought would be interesting. Faction didn't matter because of my cardinal rule #3: The players only know what you tell them. Creative skinning of one NPC can give you the NPC you want with little to no effort in bookkeeping.

First legit session: We start the story in the winter of 1789 in the town of Pleasance. Basic info to know about the mining town is that it was founded by Mayor Carlyle Silverthorne with generous secondary donations from the Crockett family. In the year that the town's been around, Mr. Silverthorne has spent buco bucks to make the town "cosmopolitan" with varying degrees of success (the ghost train forever traveling the rails of the abandoned train station is quite the story amongst the townsfolk). As a nice counter to Mayor Silverthorne's money-spending ways, we have Natalie Maunder, member of the Council who has a permanent residence here in town "Because she lies the view" (ie: making sure Carlyle doesn't skim on the soulstone count). The group knows each other because during this construction year, there was a freak aether storm during the night, and they had a communal dream (ie: Began telling them their destinies). With the snow coming down hardcore, most of the players are spending time in the Lonely Bumblebee Casino. The two exceptions are players who were paid 40 Scrip a piece by Natalie to escourt a young kid named Warren who just came into town to her. Players all gathered in the Casino: Victor the Wastrel Amelia the Criminal (Graverobber parents) Winifred the Dabbler Boone the Pioneer Davis the Pioneer (Dabbler parents) Aaron the Graverobber Boone, Aaron, Amelia, and Jack Kaylock the town blacksmith are enjoying a game of Pharoah, the piano player is getting ready to leave for the evening while there's a break in the storm, and Edmnud Doyle the proprietor is off for the night, so Victor's interim in charge person. Kaylock heads out, then the piano player leaves. The piano player's at the front door when a harpoon pierces his chest, then yanks him out into the snow. Needless to say, the group reacts to this In their attempts to check what's going on, the group gets tagged by potshots from the enemies outside, they finally get smart and cover up windows. After letting things sit tense for a little, the bad guys throw in a cobblestone brick with "Warren" carved into it. Back and forth ensues, Warren insists that he's here because he had good grades in school and Natalie hired him straight from school. About this time, Boone gets the idea to try and parlay with the guys outside. He goes out to talk, the mook talking to Boone says "You give us the boy, we give you your lives". Boone doesn't QUITE talk things up the way he needed to, and gets severely shot up. Meanwhile two of the mooks break into the saloon from the second floor, there was some hardcore dodging and shooting back and forth, both got dropped. It was at this point that the group noticed Warren stopping being a scared little boy and more of a conduit for raw magical power who vaporised about 3 blast tokens in front of him. Little bit later, Natalie shows up, brings Doctor Reed with her, then taking Warren, Natalie offers the group a job for the next day. Mechanics discussion: There were two big things I wanted to do with this game; I wanted to teach the group that thinking outside the box was good, and I wanted to stress test the system. So, for the encounter I used a Freikorps Trapper, 3 Gunsmiths, and a December Acolyte at Enforcer level. Specific fiddling I did was dropped the burning stuff from the Gunsmiths, and replace it with "Brothers in Arms: This Gunsmith can use the last trigger from another Gunsmiths attack within Aura2 that has already activated this turn." I also set up this "Assault on Precinct 13" scenario because it helped play up the crazyness of "We're cut off from the rest of the world, we don't know how many are out there, and oh yeah, why dont those guys seem to be dressed for winter weather." I could also pace out how much of th encounter hit at one time, allowing me to adjust difficulty if necessary on the fly. The player who went out to parlay would probably have been okay, but he didn't quite think his way out of it, and nearly ended up dying (made it up to internal bleeding over on severe because of a harpoon through the arm). A lucky teleport saved him. The other mechanic I threw in was after Warren cast his fire foosh, the next spell cast near him gained the effects of using a soulstone. Waht IS this boy's deal? *music stinger* TL/DR: set up the hook, showed that this world was dangerous, handed out some loot from the dead bodies. Good-ish start I'd say.

There isnt anything that says Derived stats can't be negative, and I definitely think a FAQ on this discussion would be useful. Slightly more organized argument: Df and Wp would be target numbers in this discussion, not acting values, so I would argue the "Aspect only" doesn't apply.

If you want the most optimized bang for your buck, the Malifaux 2nd Edition rulebook will work just fine. Not only does it give you a solid overview of the 7 factions and great fluff for each, you also get 7 factions worth of stats that, with minor bookkeeping, can be turned into NPCs. If you want to supplement, 2nd Edition Crossroads is a good choice, and I believe the older books (with still legit fluff) can be found digitally over at Drivethru RPG at a reasonable price.

The big schtick that TtB has going for it is that character creation has some randomization elements to it (you generate ratings for physical attributes randomly, but once you have the numbers you can place them where you want for example), and during character creation you create a monster plot hook for the GM. Progression towards or away from this destiny earns you bonus stuffs.

Perfectly good questions all. Lemme see if I can help a bit. Mile high view: Malifaux Minis game with Non-combat Stuff fleshed out as well. 1) a typical TtB game varies based on player and GM preferences. The system (in my opinion) lends itself better to a "Storyteller" kind of game (ie: not combat focused like most DnDs), and as a result, a lot of the adjudicating power lies with the GM. The actions the players can take as a result are MUCH more game-changing. Beyond that, the only real limits are "where does your group want to be, what stories do they want to tell in Malifaux?" 2) the Players have a communal deck they flip from, and they each have a customized "Twist Deck" of 13 unique cards they cheat fate from. 3) the players book has world history, excellent fluff, character creation, classes (called pursuits), feats (called General and Pursuit Talents), equipment magic and basic rules. The GMs guide has BUCO GMing advice, NPC stats, adventure hooks, and advanced pursuits. Cliffnotes: if you play the skirmish game, you're 87% of the way to understanding TtB.

So, I've been looking through the miniatures books finding good things to use when combat pokes its head, and I got intrigued by making the Guild Lawyer "work" or "If I was a player and I wanted to head that direction, how do I sell my FM on being like this?". So, here's my thoughts on a Manifested Power inspired by the Guild Lawyer. (1)Tactical Action: Convince+Cunning (TN 10 Masks) Resisted by Willpower, Range 5 yards With either a flurry of legalise, or simply some well timed jargon, you distract the target from completing the tasks at hand. The target gains the following condition: "Red Tape: the AP cost of actions taken by the target is increased by 1". The target may spend 1 AP to remove this condition.

Acting Value I generally associate with skills, not Derived Aspects. Omen's got it though.

This one is another completely subtle reference, but it's useful from a standpoint of "Concept first makes for interesting characters". This lovely gentleman is at "7th level", so this is what a character would look like about a 1/3 of the way through an average campaign give or take. The Hammer is called in when someone must be removed, usually with a bit of subtlety. He's relentless once he's been given a mission, and once the mission's completed, he vanishes into the mists until he needs to be use again. He has a trademark pneumatic arm that contains a silver plated pistol, and is always seen carrying a Howles Pattern 1874. Fate: "When at last you look upon your beating heart, an exception will corrupt the rule as the witless man fears the child. The reflection in the water shows the truth and the mages knee bends before your river." Might 2 Charm -2 Grace 2 Cunning 1 Speed 0 Intellect 2 Resilience -2 Tenacity -1 Skills: Evade 2, Navigation 1, Scrutiny 1, Acrobatics 3, Centering 1, Stealth 1, Toughness 2 Pugilism, Melee, Pistols 2, Long Arms 4 Talents: Close the gap, Flurry, quick draw, Gunfighter, armor training, specialized Long Arms ®, Unequaled Accuracy Long Arms Full Limb Pneumatic Arm (Brace and Piston), Custom Action Howles, Rough Rider, and a Bowie Knife. Where to go from here: given that this character is 7 levels in, in theory there's an aspect/manifested power hanging around. Things that improve the Pneumatic Limb would be worth a look, as are things that help the sniper motif. Defensive General Talents would be worth a look (Hard to Kill TOTALLY makes sense).

McTavish or Mancha Roja can take a Wave 2 upgrade that removes a condition.

Other thing to toss in that occurred to me as I was looking through the book. The general talent "call shot" allows Fated to discard a card for that suit when causing a critical effect. Reverse engineering says that there have to be enemies that go below 0 wounds and are subject to Critical Effects.

Correct Eternalvoid. Lupercal hit an important point as well. If you played the skirmish game as a straight up fighty fight, there are certain crews that will demolish others. But when you add strategies and schemes, all of a sudden the game changes. Treat the RPG the same way. Don't make it about kill the things, make it about objectives.

There's a couple of things at play here (BIG NOTE: The following is my Personal Opinion, your mileage may vary based on how you game) to help with keeping Fated nervous, a decent chunk of which revolve around being descriptive. The starting points are "Does this fight 'matter'?" and "Are you killing your darlings?" The Fated have a severe benefit in the action ecomony of a fight. Combat fights will more often than not be quantity versus quantity to help balance out the out activation the Players have. Does this mean that you should be trying to monkey stomp the players constantly? Not necessarily. Stories often employ "Morale booster" fights; the Master sends out his peons to soften the group up a bit, a group of ruffians sees a quick score of monies, etc. The important thing is "what does this fight do for the story?" To use the above example: let's say the Fated are trying to track down this graverobber who's been piecing together Guild Guard for his army, and their travels have taken them to a cemetery. A fight with Canine Remains would come into play if the Fated failed to sneak in for example. That fight would escalate if the ruckus went on for too long. A fight would ALSO come into play if an emaciated gentleman calling himself Rafkin lauched out from behind a mauseleum, injecting a Fated with something brackish and green. Having static numbers is fine because it frees up space for more rolEplaying (Since the players know what the numbers are, the description changes from "12, hit for moderate damage" to "I draw a bead down the sights of my Collier and I blast a hole in the zombie's shin". The next important discussion is "Killing your darlings". At character creation, players are told "You're either accepting your fate, or denying it." This already sets the players up for "How do I change this situation?" Players will come up with a way to beat the scenario. It is likely that they'll come up with something completely surprising. And another thing to take into account is that the Red Joker and the Black Joker will change the game. When the players get their win, don't feel like you should change it because they 'got lucky'. Players are trying to change the story, so if they figure out how, let em have it. With that, here's some ways to totally freak out your players 1) Stagger the fight. Figure out what you want to throw at them, then break it up into pieces. If you look at Avengers, after the heroes defeated the first transport vehicle, then Loki's all "Right, send in wave 2", that provides a SOLID panic, especially if you throw a solid enforcer at them. 2) Look to the Masters. Ironsides and Avatar Seamus provide some REALLY good ideas on a "stages fight". Give the more important NPCs "Adrenaline" or "Rabid" or other conditions that increase based on how the fight changes. Also, this is spooky magic world. Characters bursting into giant monstrosities is a completely normal reaction. 3) Glass cannon it. In my experience, the more interesting fights are fullbore slugfests that wrap up quickly. You hit a player for half his wounds, all of a sudden things become SLIGHTLY more urgent. The last important thing to do is make sure you're descriptive of these events happening. The players need to know that "Each time you've hit this M&SU bouncer, she seems to shrug off some of the damage. She also seems to be winding up for something big." Hope this helps!

The "breaking the system" is one of the core things that rolEplaying games have versus rolLplaying games. The big way I handle it as a Fatemaster is by really getting people into characters over stats first, then taking the more useful discussions from the skirmish game, and translating them to the RPG system. If you only focus on this game as a "hack and slash", you're going to run into problems, but how often are you going to get a "High Noon/ OK Corral" type fight? How often are you going to get a fight that's in balmy 70 degree weather? You don't make combat about "Kill doods and loot their bodies". You bring other variables into it. The balancing factor for the magic is a similar problem with the Jedi class in the newer Star Wars d20. You have to balance it out with rolEplaying, and that's a difficult thing to do for some people. But if Batman has taught us anything, it's that escalation can happen. You bring a magic, they bring a magic with a gun. You put one of theirs in the hospital, they put one of yours in the morgue... might have gotten side-tracked, but I think the point still stands

Important Prep #2: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "20 questions" Ever since I read about the concept of collaborative world-building over in the Dresden RPG, I'm been enamored with the idea. This seemed like the perfect place to put it into action. This story's going to start in the Winter of 1789, with the town of Pleasance having a year to build up, get a little backstory behind it. The players have lived in this town, so presumably they have some stories about it. I'm going around to each player and having them each give me a place that's in the town, and an event that's happened over that first year. Stories that the players have a hand in making will arguably hold more meaning than me sititng there for 15 minutes waxing poetic on something I think is cool. So far, the player that's been tagged as the new Wendigo (who essentially wants to play Andre the Giant from the Princess Bride) established that there's an open air marketplace, and after a freakout where he thought he saw the Wendigo, he's not EXACTLY on the best of terms with the people there. The dabbler parents player established that there was a general goods store, and there had been a gremlin raid within the past year, and the dabbler player established that there's construction on a train stop for this town. More information is coming, but this already gives me condensed flavor for the town, and I can start adding little nuances that make the town seem more alive. The second thing I'm having players do is look at a list of 9 NPCs (Name and occupation<not pursuit>), picking 1 and telling me if this person is "Good", "Bad", or "Ugly"(neutral). Any NPCs that don't get picked I can thin from the list, NPCs that double up or more I can feature more heavily in the story. So far: Sheriff Gideon Hawke (No-nonsense Good Guy) Carlyle Silverthorne, OLD money (Soooooo bad) Natalie Maunder, representative of the Council that either stays in town, has a job there, or "something something magic stuff" ("Fey" neutral) Sadie Reed, Apothecary (Neutral) Terrence Bowen, Undertaker (Neutral) Since Carlyle got double-tagged, I'm thinking he becomes one of the founders of Pleasance (with generous second place donations from the Pioneer and maybe the possible host's families). The town is interesting to the Council, which means mining town. I see lots of manuevering between Carlyle and Natalie. Mining town needs law, and Gideon cracks down like the best of them. The doctor in town is Sadie Reed, picking up a penchant for patching people with her cure-all health syrups. The town has grown up enough to have a more respectable casino and by all accounts is a bustling mining town with seedy political machinations bubbling under the surface. By knowing where the 'edges' of the town are, I can create a MUCH more interesting story. Next up is connections, then we can get this game going!

soooo... the two choices: If you play Ten Thunders, the big thing you have is "What faction do I want to play today?" You get access to huge adaptability since you get 7 different styles you can play. If you play Gremlins, look at Ophelia and Trixiebelle, my two favorite Gremlin ladies. You're going first almost all the time, you're making multiple models go, and with the right upgrade on Trixie, when one of your guys kills something, you draw a card. Personal preference: Go with the Dirty Pair... and Yan Lo's beard was stupid to glue on anyways

Quote: "Be they wry or rye, I haven't found a spirit that's bested me yet!" Cardinal Rule 3 of GMing for your friends (Which is cooincidentally Cardinal Rule 2 of getting into the right mindset to play Gremlins) inpsired this particular pregen: "If it ain't nailed down to the floor steal it, file off the serial numbers, slap on a fresh coat of paint, and call it new." I present Sadie Ackermann Reed, the monster hunter equally at home in a penthouse suite as she is chasing graverobbers. Possible minis for this character are HERE(the Shorter one) and HERE. Sadie's themes: The glass is usually half-empty but that's nothing opening another bottle won't fix, this supernatural falderal simply won't do around people trying to be civilized, and precision... no point in being wasteful. Sadie comes from money, but has a rather pragmatic view on the world. Probably has Guild leanings, but really that's because the Guild can host the best parties. Sadies has no problems "engaging with chaff to get the best wheat." Card Stuff: Station: Dabbler Pursuit: Graverobber Modified stats Might -3 Intellect -1 Grace 1 Charm -1 Speed 1 Cunning 1 Resilience 1 Tenacity 3 Skills: Necromancy 3, Enchant 3, Scrutiny 1, Bewitch 1, Notice 3, Pistols 2, Evade 1, Centering 1 Carouse 1 Starting General Talent: Starting Spells: (Tradition Magic Personal Theory) Interrogate Mend Critical - Focus Object (Jefferson Doyle's Cure-All Health Syrup) -Spirit Genus -Reduced AP Mechanics: Sadie is the socialite of the group. She's able to smooth things over and garner information for the group. Heal and the Mind-affecting spells are where I see her grimoire leaning. Academic/Graverobber/Tinkerer/Performer is the wheelhouse Sadie would pull from, entirely dependent on the campaign she was playing in as she develops as the knowledge base/ social solver for the group. Dependent on how the FM is willing to build, Sadie also strikes me as classically trained with a melee weapon, so talking with the FM about a custom weapon, perhaps with either Reach or some sort of piercing effect. Next up for the Pregens: Michael Faraday ^__^

In meta game terms, Sammy Lacroix is the "Generic" Henchman the Gremlins have access to. Sammy's schtick is she's a copycat of Zoraida, and a copycat in general (represented by being able to take one of a leader's upgrades and treat it as a "Sammy" upgrade.) Sammy's got solid support potential, and can open up new avenues of "two limited upgrades from one master can be on the board". With S'omer, encouragement and pig feed are usually the go-tos to look at based on how your crew's built. Old Cranky is definitely a playstyle choice. I prefer the Skeeters, but it really is the style of game that I enjoy more. Old Cranky provides solid buffs, and with a Merris Lacroix floating around, you can mitigate the bunching up issues you get with Cranky's bubbles.

The biggest benefit about S'omer is he's been designed as the generalist of the Gremlins; he can handle a lot of stuff okay as opposed to the other masters handling a few things awesomely. Let's say you want raw damage. The first list I think of is: S'omer -dirty cheater -can o beans Sammy Lacroix -encouragement 2x Skeeters With Encouragement on someone else, and Dirty Cheater on S'omer, you now have a master that gains free flips on duels as long as you cheat fate. The Skeeters can copy any 0 action S'omer has, so now you have multiple copies of can o beans floating around. The list is probably asking for a Lenny because hey, nearly free Thinking Luck for S'omer seems like a thing. Beyond that... Tailor for what your likes are. I would have Lenny, a Slop Hauler, a Gremlin Taxidermist (with Dirty Cheater), a starter Stuffed Piglet, and 3 Bayou Gremlins. 2 stones floating could go to family tree if I need the people, Lenny's upgrade and 5 stones for Somer, or 6 stones for S'omer.