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I think this is really an issue of "burden of knowledge." For how great many of Malifaux's attributes are, in my opinion it scores rather horrendously when judged on burden of knowledge. It's similar to not knowing the mechanics of characters/units in Starcraft, League of Legends, or Overwatch. Unfortunately tabeltop mini games doesn't get the same resource of visual/auditory cues to help you learn, so instead each attribute can end up feeling like a "gotcha." I'll stand behind the argument that in true competitive play you should expect your opponents to read up on stuff, but for pickup games and the like you can't really expect everyone to be up to date on tricks discovered on the forums or even to have read and memorized every card. There's just too much! Thus in casual games I'd say words of warning are pretty much necessary (albeit not technically required).

You could always field them both. Make a buddy cop movie out of it.

I believe you can "possess" an unlimited number of subordinates, but may only deliver orders to a number limited by your AP and abilities. Subordinates who do not receive orders simply do not act. Thus you can build ten constructs, but can usually only activate two (unless you have special abilities which increase that number).

Yeah, the only ways to remove Waking without your opponent's help are to go through the Lord Chompy cycle (which can still heal your stuff as long as you activate LCB and pop the Dreamer back out) and to use the Scion of Black Blood's discard ability.

That's awesome! One bug I found is that de-selecting schemes does not remove their graphical element, so they pile up. But this is so sweet!

I believe they make the character nebulously capable of any task defined within the skill the kit was built/assembled for (and also give you a !) They also have no defined "spent" state and just kind of keep on going. My understanding is that they are effectively magic bags of skill to help you accomplish stuff (not guarantee). Similarly, if a task requires a tool and a character possesses the tool (but not the skill kit), then they can make the skill flip as per normal. If they have neither the tool nor the kit (which supposedly provides the tool), then the flip is impossible.

My group tends to be the 2-3 hour variety. I usually provide at least one point of experience at the end of every session, but only provide pursuit advancement/destiny steps every few sessions as it is plot relevant.

If this could get turned into an app with checkboxes to allow users to build their current set of circumstances, that would be amazingly useful.

It can also be the route of a constructed being wanting specialty parts beyond the basic "essentially human" design they came out of character creation with. Like if C3PO wanted a Super Battle Droid blaster/rocket arm.

I believe there are also notes somewhere about skills not being 100% tied to aspects, and you should feel free to use the most appropriate to the situation. I often couple Intellect with magic skills when my players are testing for knowledge about spells and junk.

Interesting... So does the FAQ for when NPCs are defeated override the Fatemaster Almanac ruling of "just make em dead at 0 wounds"?

As a fluff discussion aside, I feel like the labeling of Neverborn as evil is a gross oversimplification. The human settling of Malifaux isn't necessarily an act of goodness. They are destroying land and living things, and are especially "at risk" of going Resurrectionist. They even caused Gremlins to go bonkers and become a faction of their own!

To note: in this report Icemyn faced the same trick (or variation) in 3/5 of his rounds (specifically rounds 3, 4, and 5). While we need more complete roster data to know just how many of the top tables were running ratctivation, it's also unlikely one person would accidentally get stuck facing the only other people to utilize it.

I honestly have not been keeping 100% on top of this thread, so forgive me if this has already been posted, but I believe the XKCD comic on free speech does a great summary of why people and companies are allowed to call you out (and potentially even reprimand) speech:

Hi everyone. I recently found an article discussing anecdotal evidence in the frame of the recent events, and I think everyone should give it a read: http://www.theferrett.com/ferrettworks/2016/04/why-should-we-listen-to-anecdotal-evidence-of-harassment-in-gaming/ Similarly, I'm not a fan of seeing the "make your own" argument popping up again, which prompts me to share the following article as well: http://www.destructoid.com/why-make-your-own-game-is-a-bad-argument-against-criticism-285695.phtml Overall I think this discussion is being handled far better than the previous one, and that is wonderful. To add my hat into the LGBT representation in the game, I think there are a few suggestions that are being thrown out, but not being picked up on both sides. Yes, it's true that you can't really represent a sexual orientation on a single figure without being horrifically stereotypical. However, all of the instances of confirmed sexual orientation which others have brought up are in the fluff. That's not in the figures, it's in the books. That's where they want to see the representation occur. We want to see a homosexual character in the stories who also has a model in the game. The model doesn't have to scream, "I find the thing arousing!" but the story could cover that. It's similar with trans characters. As it turns out, you can't spot a trans person just by looking at them every time. Additionally for the case of visibility and representation. There are countless articles about, "I would have never become an astronaut if it weren't for [fictional character matching my race/gender/sexual orientation]." Children learn to limit their dreams to the perception of what is available to them. Representation also helps with normalization. Fewer people will feel like freaks if we give them more figures in media who are like them. Fewer people feeling likes freaks means fewer people suffering from depression and anxiety, and so on and so forth.

I ran into that article a couple of days ago, and am quite concerned. There was a big soapbox thread a good while ago which resulted in harassment, and I have a feeling the article is related.

The Malifaux crew boxes are also pretty great deals economically if you give the models exclusively available in them (masters and henchmen) expected monetary values. I've also found that you can usually find at least two crew boxes that "play nice" with each other. By that I mean one or both of the masters in them greatly benefit from the models in both of their boxes. While this can make for an initial purchase of about 80-100USD it does make for much more playable forces. Though as mentioned above, summoners kind of throw a wrench into the value of boxes. Though I believe at least a few of the summoners have non-summoning playstyles available.

I think a key point about "anyone" using grimoires is that the character does need a Magical Theory first. Only a few pursuits start with one, so other characters will have to discuss getting one with their Fatemaster.

I've actually taken on Myyra's policy for things like Notice and knowledge checks. I'll give a super low TN for the bare minimum information the party "needs" to see (something like TN6) and then use margins of success to give them extra bits of knowledge that will be helpful.

I just did some reading on poker rules to get some good context for a very serious card bluffing game, and the rules state that you aren't allowed to make explicit statements about your hand (truth or lie). However, the reason for this in poker is completely different from most Malifaux scenarios. In poker this is to prevent collusion with other players at the table, but in Malifaux there are primarily only ever two players in direct opposition. In this way you can't provide tips to another person at the table that might allow them to play a better game than they could otherwise, and thus the spirit of the poker law doesn't apply to Malifaux. This may seem like a tangent thought to bring up, but I believe this is an important consideration since poker is often viewed as the biggest bluffing game around. As such following poker rules would say lying about your scheme is cheating, but the game played here does not suffer the same problematic situation that created that rule, and as such I can see how it could be considered legal to lie about your scheme in a game of Malifaux. Whether or not it's sportsmanlike is a completely separate discussion.

I feel like the Axe Cop cartoon is a good followup. That or Turbo Kid:

The pursuits with 0-talents also start with a general talent, I believe.

Glad I could shake it up a bit! Another alternative: paint the all ghosty whisp-like and run em as Sorrows with your favorite standing in for Pandora.

I'm especially happy this one got pinned since the first posts are occasionally updated with fresh info, and it's more in-depth than the PMF. Huzzah!

Nothing says you *have* to use Cooper as a master proxy. If I had forked over the money for the box, I was going to use Thin Lizzy as a Beckoner. You could probably use the strong man (can't remember his name) as Mr. Graves without much argument. I was planning on using the flying monkeys as Terror Tots, but you could totally run Lola as Coppelius and make the monkeys Alps. For the main man Cooper? Either another Beckoner or maybe Tannen. If you go with the Cooper = Collodi, then you could use the monkeys as Marionettes (unless you want to stick with the actual puppets).