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Here is my opinion on the rules.


marshal8

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Ok, been playing malifaux ever since the book came out and love it. I have had many rules questions asked of me at my FLGS. And I have spent alot of time reading all the questions on here.

It has been my experience that if you use common sense and understand what the intent of an ability is, it is quite easy to understand the wording and what the abilities are meant to do. Anyone agree...

This is not meant to anger anyone by the way...

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Hmmm I really have to disagree. As clearly as some rule books even seem, there is always someone who can interpret them in a way that either opens holes or makes a model broken because of bad assumptions.

I have read through the rules a few times now and I still find myself finding things spread out in the book that really should be in an indexed area.

I also have issues with some cards not having an explanation of what something does even though there is a lot of white space to the right of the word.

For instance, I had to actually use the Reference sheet to find what Nicodems Paralyze did.

I know the company is new but there are plenty of areas for the rules to be tightened IMHO. It requires several read throughs to understand a lot of the concepts.

Don't get me wrong. I am not bashing anyone or arguing. I just am sympathetic to people who will have some issues with the rules because of their interpretation.

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It has been my experience that if you use common sense and understand what the intent of an ability is, it is quite easy to understand the wording and what the abilities are meant to do. Anyone agree...

I don't think I can agree completely there. Just to cite an example, recently I asked about Criid's Inferno spell and whether it hurt her in addition to everyone else. It was my belief that the intent of the rule was for it to hurt her too - I imagined it like a last-ditch dropping a fireball on top of herself kinda thing. Another person in my group believed the intent of the rule was an explosion of fire that she pushed out from herself. Both were valid images of what the spell was supposed to do, but the only thing we had to go on for what the creators of the game thought was what they wrote. Precident had been set to show that if they wanted her not to take damage, it should have been a Pulse ability since that's how other abilities don't do damage to the caster.

In the end, evidently the intent of the ability was for her not to take damage, so the rules are cleaned up to reflect that (always a good thing).

But when the question rises in a game, how do we, as players, know what the actual intent of the creators was?

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My only complaint about the book is the extremely lack luster index, so much time was wasted in our first game just trying to find keywords that weren't listed in the index or abilities section. Took us quite a while to figure out what the "Hardness" value on Rasputinas Ice Pillars meant for example.

I love the book over all, and once we've got the rules down pat it wont matter anymore, but the index could certainly be more verbose.

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It's not perfect, but for a first edition of a game, and a first game from a company, it's very well done.

agreed. growing pains are to be expected

i predict that going forward, we'll need less and less errata.

wyrd's response via faq and errata has been exceptional

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I have played the game only for a few hours, and I've been reading the rules all week.

The rules are rather...poorly written. If the game wasn't fun (which it is) then I would've given up after reading the 10th grammar, spelling, punctuation, or sentence construction error. I think that was by page 2.

Of course the story is wonderful and the illustrations gorgeous. I'm just talking about the actual writing.

I'm glad the game is getting popular so they can hire a professional writer and do a complete overhaul of the rules.

I understand the game is new -- but if they'd spent some time and found a writer, they could've avoided all these problems.

Edited by FaveDave
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's a bit harsh, FaveDave.

I think the rulebook is absolutely beautiful; lots and lots of fantastic painted minis and color pages.

Rules? Well .. I'll go out on a limb and say they could have been explained more smoothly; no need to type out every single bit of the duel sequence for all duel types, for instance. I really don't like the way damage is dealt; the hit levels don't make sense.

Not being an english native speaker, I can see some bad sentences, and i stumbled on a 9+6=16 (or something like that) example, but it doesn't bother me over much as I guess it would a native.

As for game balance, I'll admit to some disappointment. Neverborn seem to have all the best rules, And the most soulstones. More than an edge, really, and I'm fast approaching the state of being sick of all my models committing suicide.

But there are lots of really nice things too. The card mechanic is fantastic, the action system is great, number of minis is perfect. And such fantastic miniatures!

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I'm pretty thrilled with the quality of the rulebook.

The complexity of various card interactions is inevitable and the rules forum does exactly what I need to cover any holes - big thanks to Weird Sketch, if he is actually a real person and not just a side effect of my dried frog pills.

I've never had this much fun with a game, only Bloodbowl played in a closed tournament even hits the same ballpark, and that was literally two decades ago now :)

There haven't been problems we can't resolve in-game fairly.

The occasional glitch, like letting Lilith ignore Freeze Over because she ignores terrain (an incorrect interpretation) just made us want a re-match...and we still had brilliant fun - I Devoured Lilith with three Hoarcat Prides :D

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