Probably going to start the game, what's the balance like?

[Astrella]

On 13/03/2017 at 9:01 PM, iamfanboy said:

@sirbrokenswordNow I've READ the 1e books so it made perfect sense, but as a total newb picking up the book it would be complete nonsense. It's reading the last chapter of a long, long story first without any time to get invested in the characters or stakes. In other words, poor editing, not necessarily poor writing.

 

I've read all the books and there's still bunches of stuffs I don't get. I'm not sure whether things are intentionally kept vague or I'm just not good at grasping them; but the fluff is still very engaging.

[solkan]

4 minutes ago, Astrella said:

Actually the old me1 boxes had that, had lore descriptions about the models and (what I personally found more important) painted up versions of them rather than renders.

I have three or four of the old metal starter boxes.  The first one at hand is the Viktorias box.

There are five models on the box, from left to right: Bishop, Johan, Viktoria, Taelor, and Taelor.  To the right of that is is a paragraph of text which has, frankly, zero useful information explaining who any of those people are or why I would buy the box if I was a new player.

Let me quick type it up:

Quote

Seeking excitement and money, many Malifaux arrivals have entered the mercenary profession to survive.  While they will fight for the highest bidder, Viktoria, Taelor, Bishop and Johan are companions who often join forces for common goals.  Their power together has given them all reputations amongst their foes, particularly the Guild, which represents the authority that they escaped Earthside.  Using powerful weapons, these soldiers of fortune do not seek the magic of Malifaux or to consort with its ancient gods, they merely want to live on their terms and be remembered for it.

There's nothing there to indicate that Taelor, Bishop and Johan are useful to pretty much anyone, and that Viktoria and Viktoria are the masters in the box, let alone explaining why Viktoria and Viktoria have the same name.  Frankly, looking at other boxes, I'd be left baffled why "Viktoria" is the name of a mercenary profession, like "Death Marshal" is the name of a Guild profession.  

The reason I bought the box was because I owned the books and I knew I wanted the models in it because I looked at the cards in the book.  I'd like to point out that this is the same strategy I used in making my M2E purchases, because the M2E boxes.

 

[iamfanboy]

38 minutes ago, Astrella said:

I've read all the books and there's still bunches of stuffs I don't get. I'm not sure whether things are intentionally kept vague or I'm just not good at grasping them; but the fluff is still very engaging.

Intentionally kept vague is my guess. What I meant by perfectly clear is that I knew who the people were (they were all Guild heroes), I knew what the stakes were (releasing Cherufe from his prison and devastating the world of Malifaux and beyond), and I was invested in seeing a positive resolution for the story.

But to someone picking up the book idly? The M2e books had some of the worst storytelling of all, because by itself most of the stories lacked any context even if they had good writing.

Context is everything when you're telling a story. If I started a story with, "One guy slammed his hand on the library table and said, 'If you don't give me back my ring I'm going to kill you in your sleep!'" then it's a story about violent people. If I preface it by saying, "One time, when me and my friends were playing D&D at the public library, we got the cops called on us after Charlie shouted..." then it's a funny gaming-and-real-life intersection story.

So much of M2e floats without context. The boxes don't tell you what or who is inside. The overarching story is only accessible with access to now-obsolete books (and has changed some, where's Leveticus' central position? Usurped by Perdita?) and is now looking to be spread between the three games of Malifaux, TTB, and TOS.

I mean, I certainly love it a lot more than many other games I've played in the past and future, and there's a reason I'm glad to hench for Wyrd, but it'd be easier if I didn't have to photocopy the 1e book and leave the story at the store for people to read.

[necroon]

Rather than reccomend old book hunting I point people towards the Breachside Broadcast - seems to do the trick and has all of the 1.0/1.5 stuff as far as I know. Most people don't have time to read my old books, anyways. I've had a few folks listen to it in the car or on the train into the city and come back more interested. For information on the models in crew boxes this does a pretty good job: click on the faction logo and then the master and you can get some basic information as to who is who. 

[Justin]

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

Intentionally kept vague is my guess. What I meant by perfectly clear is that I knew who the people were (they were all Guild heroes), I knew what the stakes were (releasing Cherufe from his prison and devastating the world of Malifaux and beyond), and I was invested in seeing a positive resolution for the story.

But to someone picking up the book idly? The M2e books had some of the worst storytelling of all, because by itself most of the stories lacked any context even if they had good writing.

Context is everything when you're telling a story. If I started a story with, "One guy slammed his hand on the library table and said, 'If you don't give me back my ring I'm going to kill you in your sleep!'" then it's a story about violent people. If I preface it by saying, "One time, when me and my friends were playing D&D at the public library, we got the cops called on us after Charlie shouted..." then it's a funny gaming-and-real-life intersection story.

So much of M2e floats without context. The boxes don't tell you what or who is inside. The overarching story is only accessible with access to now-obsolete books (and has changed some, where's Leveticus' central position? Usurped by Perdita?) and is now looking to be spread between the three games of Malifaux, TTB, and TOS.

I mean, I certainly love it a lot more than many other games I've played in the past and future, and there's a reason I'm glad to hench for Wyrd, but it'd be easier if I didn't have to photocopy the 1e book and leave the story at the store for people to read.

That's really only fair criticism of the M2E core book (which is, you know, an important book so not being dismissive). Everything after that focused on self-contained short stories that generally revolved around the new masters in the book. Granted, if you're completely unfamiliar with Malifaux there will be some context missing, but if every short story rebuilt the world they'd be a bit of a drag to read.

[iamfanboy]

I think that overall the best stories for introducing the factions are actually in Shifting Loyalties. Not only do they all involve multiple Masters and Henchmen, but they also evoke the personalities of each. Most of the M2e stories are really the end of the M1e/Rising Powers plotline, and for that they're GREAT. I loved the idea of Molly's growing independence, of rising tensions between Rasputina and Ramos, of imprisoning Cherufe in Sonnia's body - but they're hardly the best choices to lead into a faction for beginning players picking up the book.

I feel as though Wyrd was selling M2e to existing customers, rather than new customers, and I'm not sure what their entry point IS aside from "Henchman will help you." The Starter Box is pretty lean on details, though it does have some, and really feels more like a demo kit IMHO.

[Bengt]

2 hours ago, iamfanboy said:

I feel as though Wyrd was selling M2e to existing customers, rather than new customers, and I'm not sure what their entry point IS aside from "Henchman will help you." The Starter Box is pretty lean on details, though it does have some, and really feels more like a demo kit IMHO.

This is so true. The selection of stories in M2E seems to assume that the only people who will buy it are people who played 1st edition, which seems oddly pessimistic. And yeah, you can now catch up with Tales of Malifaux or bargain digital 1st ed books, but a new player (and there are a lot of those nowadays, yay) is going to read the M2E book first and scratch their head!

I certainly hope the M3E book starts with a "the story so far" kind of story, perhaps the draft of an article by a journalist with lots of notes back and forth with her editor (Nellie obviously) about what is fit to print and how some "facts" are obviously faked by the M&SU to slander The Guild.

[Astrella]

The main lore thing I find hard to grasp is exactly what and how the event was, how the gorgon features into it, etc... Me2 feels better about it to be honest, I found Crossroads and onwards easier to understand at least.

[iamfanboy]

6 hours ago, Astrella said:

The main lore thing I find hard to grasp is exactly what and how the event was, how the gorgon features into it, etc... Me2 feels better about it to be honest, I found Crossroads and onwards easier to understand at least.

The way I'm interpreting it, part of Cherufe's power was imprisoned by the Tyrants in the Red Star before the Grave Spirit was invited into Malifaux, because he was stronger than any of them individually and they were afraid or jealous. Plague brought the Red Star down to Malifaux because with the rest of the Tyrants locked away, he figured that he could take that power for himself and become in one stroke an unstoppable being. However, he was interrupted and broken during the process and Cherufe's power instead fragmented, attaching itself to people of strong Fate potential - basically, Masters.

That's why, in Shifting Loyalties, that power was drawn back to the Governor/Burning Man (aside from being a convenient excuse to finally remove the Avatar manifestation problem hanging over game balance). It was never really the Masters', just sort of... found by them, and when the real owner came calling it was taken from them.

The Gorgon is... interesting. I'm not sure what their plan is for her, but she seems closely allied with the Grave Spirit in some way. But I'd lay dollars to donuts they have a plan for her. Remember, they've had Titania in Malifaux art since 1e, and only released her last year!

I would be surprised if there WASN'T at least a rough outline of the events that led to Kythera's release, with notes on what the Tyrants and other significant characters were doing during that time, and it's probably become more detailed over the years. We only get hints and fragments of it because that's all that the people would know IN 1902-6.

[Astrella]

1 hour ago, iamfanboy said:

The way I'm interpreting it, part of Cherufe's power was imprisoned by the Tyrants in the Red Star before the Grave Spirit was invited into Malifaux, because he was stronger than any of them individually and they were afraid or jealous. Plague brought the Red Star down to Malifaux because with the rest of the Tyrants locked away, he figured that he could take that power for himself and become in one stroke an unstoppable being. However, he was interrupted and broken during the process and Cherufe's power instead fragmented, attaching itself to people of strong Fate potential - basically, Masters.

That's why, in Shifting Loyalties, that power was drawn back to the Governor/Burning Man (aside from being a convenient excuse to finally remove the Avatar manifestation problem hanging over game balance). It was never really the Masters', just sort of... found by them, and when the real owner came calling it was taken from them.

The Gorgon is... interesting. I'm not sure what their plan is for her, but she seems closely allied with the Grave Spirit in some way. But I'd lay dollars to donuts they have a plan for her. Remember, they've had Titania in Malifaux art since 1e, and only released her last year!

I would be surprised if there WASN'T at least a rough outline of the events that led to Kythera's release, with notes on what the Tyrants and other significant characters were doing during that time, and it's probably become more detailed over the years. We only get hints and fragments of it because that's all that the people would know IN 1902-6.

That still makes me wonder why he needed the Gorgon Ring for his (Plague's) Device; and why the Red Cage specifically honed for the Gorgon's Statue in the Bayou.

[iamfanboy]

If the other Tyrants cooperated to lock up Cherufe's power, they still wouldn't trust each other. Perhaps splitting the key to unlock that prison was a compromise between them - and gave the pieces to two rivals so they wouldn't cooperate and bring Cherufe's power down for themselves.

[Math Mathonwy]

On ‎9‎.‎3‎.‎2017 at 10:57 PM, jerhien said:

I realized no one answered your question about what's at the top of the curve.

 

The following are my opinions on masters alone.

<snip>

Just to note that the opinions presented aren't necessarily very widely shared. I mean, I'm not saying that they are objectively wrong or horrible or anything silly like that but just that they represent one individual's opinions and include some quite controversial choices. So take them as they are (as they were surely intended, mind).

[jerhien]

Absolutely! 

 

I just find that people too often wuss out on answering questions about power levels of models in Malifaux with the old "depends!" option, which, while true, is not very helpful. 

And of course these are my opinions! Don't take it as the gospel and I certainly know less about the non guild, non teaser factions. 

[iamfanboy]

Well, what makes it harder to judge balance is how the game is set up. Because you're not stuck with one Master throughout a tournament regardless of Strategy/Scheme, you're freer to pick the Master best suited to the particular game you're playing.

So overall, it's best for a new player to pick the master they like first, and then get advice on a second master based on what covers its bad Scheme/Strategy matchups. There are a few masters that apparently play well into almost any Strategy, it's true, but they're the exception.