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Do you consider Ten Thunders intrusive?


dope_danny

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Listening to a couple of podcasts about 3rd i noticed a recurring trend in terms of a sentiment that 'asian culture feels out of place and intrusive in the game' and i was surprised to hear it so much. Personally i've always been a fan of westerns and wierd westerns and the latter always seemed to shy away or outright ignore the whole chinese railroad situation. Maybe its because one of my main crews is Mei Fengs Rail Crew but a downtrodden workforce being fitted with steam powered mechanical limbs to replace grievous injuries from building the rail lines feels to me like a cool aspect of weird westerns thats not been explored much in other examples of the sub genre.

Granted i could see things like Toshiro or Terracotta Warriors feeling a bit 'out of place' but then isn't that strangeness the norm with necropunks or warpigs?

 

I heard some Wyrd employees lately state TT are the least popular faction for players and i wondered if there is a sentiment that they dont mix well. What do you think about them now they've been around a good while?

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I think malifaux combines so many different styles that it's hard to really say any single one would be 'intrusive' or out of place, and that multitude of different crews is one of the charms of the game. Really, it's an impressive feat of writing to keep the overall setting as coherent as it is while combining so many different elements. It's also nice that some of those elements comne from cultures outside of Europe of America.

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What was that western with Toshiro Mifune as a samurai in 19th century America? That was cool! I think they are a great addition to the game and really give it more depth. Hell if hillbilly Gremlins with pigs fits why would a cool Asian faction not fit too. Soulstones are prized by every culture in the world of Malifaux.

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16 hours ago, solkan said:

I don’t even know what a person would mean by “intrusive” when referring to Ten Thunders.

Would it be bad form to ask who the fools were that thought Ten Thunders was out of place?

Essentially it seems like some folks -not me personally Mei Feng main ftw- see the things like Terracotta Warriors or Zombie Samurai too 'out there' like a sci-fi robot showing up in a witcher game or something. Its not something i agree with but with TT being apparently the least popular faction i wondered if i was in the minority for having no problem with them.

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1 hour ago, dope_danny said:

Essentially it seems like some folks -not me personally Mei Feng main ftw- see the things like Terracotta Warriors or Zombie Samurai too 'out there' like a sci-fi robot showing up in a witcher game or something. Its not something i agree with but with TT being apparently the least popular faction i wondered if i was in the minority for having no problem with them.

I can’t help remembering a certain “Is Malifaux steampunk?” thread:

I’ll just link to that rather than attempt to speculate.  

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I might be a hardcore Neverborn fanatic now, but it was the first preview of Misaki's box set that got me into Malifaux. Anyone who thinks Ten Thunders is out of place in the genre probably has a very white washed view of history. Even if we exclude America and the rail road workers or all the immigrants on the west cost, we still have England and the Opium Wars or the British Raj in India, both very much in the correct time period for Malifaux to be inspired by

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^^^^ so much this!

I think people tend to look at Malifaux like a real life location. "there's cowboys so must be wild west, there's dark cobble streets so must be Victorian London"

In a place where Gremlins, Neverborn, Undead are all part and parcel of the setting, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Ten Thunders setting within it

 

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On 8/22/2018 at 12:55 PM, dope_danny said:

Listening to a couple of podcasts about 3rd i noticed a recurring trend in terms of a sentiment that 'asian culture feels out of place and intrusive in the game' and i was surprised to hear it so much.

I've been listening to all the Malifaux podcasts I can to learn more about M3E and I haven't heard anything like this, but this description makes it sound like this is a common and widespread sentiment. Can you please clarify where you heard this?

Saying that "asian culture feels out of place and intrusive in the game" sounds...odd at best and perhaps even prejudiced, given the panoply of things in this game, as other posters have already mentioned. I think you'll have a hard time finding anyone who will own up to a statement like that, which is why I ask where you are hearing this.

To lay all my cards on the table, it's steampunk that I find boring. Can't say it's out of place, but it just does nothing for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven't come across this sentiment myself, but I disagree wholeheartedly.  They've done a decent job writing the fluff for the faction, touching on how they infiltrated every part of Malifaux and how they got there without going thru the big breach.  It seems to me like those are the views of someone who got into the game in first edition before TT werre really a thing and feels wronged by an additional theme maybe?  That's the best case scenario I can come up with.

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No matter what crew you play, you'll likely have a different 'genre' to your opponent, even within faction. Playing Guild Lucius? You've got an Edwardian era crew full of lawyers and people in puffy shirts. Playing Perdita? You've got a Cowgirl and her posse. Both are the same faction and neither are the same genre. Playing against Seamus? Hi there Hammer Horror. Playing against The Dreamer? Oh, it's Gothic horror. Playing against, well, Gremlins in general? Hi there Confederate Redneck stereotypes the faction.

Tying some different Asian archetypes in (the Monk, the Black Magic sorcerer, the demon lady, etc) is hardly any more intrusive than anything else. Asian stuff was in the game already, with Asian Ghost Lady (Kirai).

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I don't agree at all with ten thunders being out of place. That said, I can understand the sentiment for the Asian ressurectionists being out of place before the thunders were added. Kirai was well explained in the fluff, but things like Datsue Bae and Jakuuna Ubume seemed a little odd before the Asian links with different breaches were explained...

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Is the Asian theme any more intrusive than zombies, or cowboy or constructs or performers or beasts or pigs or gremlins? Personally I don't think it is. There has been an Asian side in the fluff right from book 1. 

I think TT and gremlins are the least played factions, but they are the newest. And also probably the 2 most consistent in terms of theme. ( sure there are some strange ones in dual faction for the TT, but the single faction stuff is very consistent). 

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On 8/22/2018 at 2:55 PM, dope_danny said:

Listening to a couple of podcasts about 3rd i noticed a recurring trend in terms of a sentiment that 'asian culture feels out of place and intrusive in the game' and i was surprised to hear it so much.

That's crazy talk. If you look at themes in Malifaux as being linked to either American Westward Expansion or late 19th Century British  Imperialism, Asian people and cultures should be a large part of both. 

Manifest Destiny and Pax Britanica aren't things to be constrained by inter-dimensional boundaries. 

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