Knights of The Golden Throne: IK/TK RPG

[Beren]

 

 

1. Are you aiming more towards a roleplay-heavier with characters that are essentially set in stone, or more of a character-progression oriented roleplaying experience?

 

This has just reminded me of something, the Horus Heresy rules for a knight hoouse army has rules for different 'ranks' within the knight house. This could be used as sme kind if progression framework for scions?

[Mazer Rackham]

 

Here are a couple of things that I haven't seen discussed all that much:

1. What's the scope of this project? A wide ranging system like the FFG RPGs / a simplified setting with a given story, but the players can still create their house(s) and characters / a single adventure with pre-generated characters
2. What's the scope of playable characters? Are they essentially all Knight pilots going about a mission, or are support characters to be playable as well (thinking about sacristans, chancellors, scouts, etc.)
3. Are you aiming more towards a roleplay-heavier with characters that are essentially set in stone, or more of a character-progression oriented roleplaying experience?
4. Would characters all come from the same House, would they come from different Houses on the same mission, or could they even be rivals battling it out between each other?
5. What kinds of adversity is to be expected? Other Knights (pre-Imperial/Imperial/Mechanicum...), Titans, Xenos... What kinds of adventuring can be had outside of their steeds? How to create incentives to switch from one context to the other, and not leave half the party behind?

 

I might be able to help with that since we have meandered around a little (and we can refer back to this post/update post #1 with it!):

1. A product similar in scope and nature to an FFG book, with all the depth of history and background to enable rich and engaging play.
2. A full suite of character profiles, from Knights to Envoys, to Peasants with sticks
3. See below!
4. Any of those options
5. Political, Military, External (The Alien Menace!)  The Mandragoran Abyssal is ripe with danger, plunder and terror and can't all be solved within a Knight Warsuit!  (Or at least we'll build the framework to enable GM's to run those games).

 

 

1. Are you aiming more towards a roleplay-heavier with characters that are essentially set in stone, or more of a character-progression oriented roleplaying experience?

This has just reminded me of something, the Horus Heresy rules for a knight hoouse army has rules for different 'ranks' within the knight house. This could be used as sme kind if progression framework for scions?

 

 

 

 

I didn't know that! Good - I did have an idea for it, certainly, Knights, Wardens etc but that will do.  Good catch.

 

What's the list?  We can rob that wholesale! :) Er...I mean, take inspiration from it..

[Beren]

HQ: Seneshal (Leader, +1 to WS, BS and any invulnerable save, re-roll warlord trait), Lord Scion (High ranking noble, +1 to BS and WS)

Elites: Precept (tech/armour affinity, advanced scanning, coordination and communication capability), Autceller (Forlorn hope champion, oathsworn to slay the enemy's greatest wrriors at the cost of their own life if necessary, Legendary Freeblade

Troops: Scion Marshal (Basic), Scion Aspirant (green, inexperieced members).

Fast Attack: Scion Dolorous (Beast killers, or warriors who have become addicted to combat, often fated to become freeblades), Scion Uhlan (Reckless close combat specialists used as advanced scouts, raiders and reavers)

Heavy Support: Scion Arbalester (Long range bombardment and anti-air), Scion Implacable (Siege and anti-infantry specialist)

[Mazer Rackham]

Nice!

 

We should maybe set Basic and Advanced Specialities?  What do people think of the following?

 

So, Starting Characters (Perhaps Rank 1-2 or 1-3?  With Advanced coming in at 4?):

• Scion Aspirant (Maybe Squires as well for a slightly different path at Rank 1?)
• Scion Preceptor (Alts?)
• Scion Uhlan (Also Huntsman, Ranger etc for a different path at Rank 1?)
• Scion Arbalester (Devastator, could there be alternative paths here?)

Or:

• Freeblade (Blackshield, get good stuff for hitting, but no so good elsewhere?)

Advanced Specialities (Rank 4+)

• Scion Dolorous (Must be House Knight, Minimum "X" WS, Uhlan Only, etc)
• Scion Marshal (Must be House Knight, Minimum "X" WS/BS, Commander, Minimum House Rank/Renown, etc)
• Scion Autceller
• Scion Implacable (Must be House Knight, Arbalester Only, Minimum "X" BS, etc)

and:

• Legendary Freeblade (Minimum "X" WS/BS etc)

Could we fit a few of these into our example Knight House?  (Except the Freeblade of course).

 

Would support staff come from the RT tree?  For those who don't want Stompy Robot Time? (For the Intrigue, Scandal and Politicking off the field?)

[Doctor Perils]

Sounds good, but very ambitious... Perhaps overly ambitious? I've seen different projects like this that petered out of steam, so would it perhaps be a good idea to aim for a playable adventure as a first milestone? Setting achievable goals helps keep motivation up :)

[Xin Ceithan]

It might be just too much coffee…

 

how does that idea sound: 

 

Build up a basic idea of the House that was … very close to how Houses work in the Codex

Run a sort of season / session zero adventures with characters based mostly from  Rogue Trader ( few extra skills / talents but keep the base archetype) and run that as RT DURING the March of Tears? It‘s literally based on the / an Mechanicus Ark while everything goes up in flames? 

 

sort of an in media res, already on the action, way in while developing the rest around / along with it so that things happen while other things (who are going to happen much later ) can be developed / fleshed out in the meantime?

 

It‘s not quite GoT yet, more like Battlestar  Galactica .. with Knight Engines? 

[A.T.]

We should maybe set Basic and Advanced Specialities?  What do people think of the following?

If you are looking at the 1st edition FFG rules as a base for the characters one choice would be between the 'class' based approach of games like RT and Deathwatch, and the allegiance based advancement of Black Crusade (which split characters into what could broadly be described as combat, survival, knowledge, social, and unfocused). Any character could buy any skill or talent but they were cheaper in-focus and more expensive off-focus.

 

There was also the rogue trader legacy chart which takes on an interesting twist if you end it with the BT 'focus' as the final box, though that kind of system also artificially restricts character backgrounds.

[Mazer Rackham]

It might be just too much coffee…

 

how does that idea sound: 

 

Build up a basic idea of the House that was … very close to how Houses work in the Codex

Run a sort of season / session zero adventures with characters based mostly from  Rogue Trader ( few extra skills / talents but keep the base archetype) and run that as RT DURING the March of Tears? It‘s literally based on the / an Mechanicus Ark while everything goes up in flames? 

 

sort of an in media res, already on the action, way in while developing the rest around / along with it so that things happen while other things (who are going to happen much later ) can be developed / fleshed out in the meantime?

 

It‘s not quite GoT yet, more like Battlestar  Galactica .. with Knight Engines? 

 

And Whom, pray tell, will be running this exquisitely flavoured game/campaign/etc?

 

If you are looking at the 1st edition FFG rules as a base for the characters one choice would be between the 'class' based approach of games like RT and Deathwatch, and the allegiance based advancement of Black Crusade (which split characters into what could broadly be described as combat, survival, knowledge, social, and unfocused). Any character could buy any skill or talent but they were cheaper in-focus and more expensive off-focus.

e should maybe set Basic and Advanced Specialities?  What do people think of the following?

 

There was also the rogue trader legacy chart which takes on an interesting twist if you end it with the BT 'focus' as the final box, though that kind of system also artificially restricts character backgrounds.

 

Good shout AT, will definitely have to bear this in mind going forward, so that we get no 'dead-end' jobs.

 

PS everyone, with Dr Perils interest, we now have some Liber Tanks massing at the border.  We may have to put our money where our mouths are..!  I know some of you already have seen it, but if not, please consult this thread for a flavour of what they're planning?

[Xin Ceithan]

Well, don’t look at me - I’m more the Steve Jobs of RPG - the Xin Jobs, so to speak. All vision and high concepts… I’ll leave the rest to you guys :p

 

And once I am back at work come Monday, I fear I’ll have my hands full, keeping the flood back at the gates of madness :(

[Mazer Rackham]

Unfortunately, I have no capacity to run it either - like your good self, my hands are full.  

 

As of today (this afternoon), unexpectedly VERY full.

 

Which means I think we're going to have to shelve this project until we can devote proper, committed time and effort to it.  We've got a lot of input from everyone, and have started to put stuff together, which is great, but we just don't have enough hands on deck with this I think.

 

This doesn't mean you guys/gals can't build out some fluff from the idea which we could recoup later, which I would encourage you to do in the Liber, and give those guys some ideas but until then, unless someone wants to take this project over....

[Xin Ceithan]

TBH, I was a bit surprised that you did pitch this. Very PLEASANTLY surprised, but the sheer amount of work required is daunting.

I was always expecting this to be rather slow burn anyway, or something to be pitched across the board.

 

There are some good ideas here and I have no doubt, we / someone will come back to this one way or the other.

 

And there is some development over at the Liber also. So let‘s take it slow and see how things develop.

[Xin Ceithan]

Recent stirrings like the release of the Cerastus in plastic, how the Cities of Sigmar free guild  would make some nice Blanchitsu groundwork and especially Legion / Epic has me eying this rabbit hole again 

 

Disclaimer: I still do not think that any of us has the time and energy  to develop and the GM something like this anytime soon as an actual RP / PBP game.

 

But I could see this a sort of Journal / Letter RP game though, where events are depicted by the in-universe journal / correspondence between the player characters, which would also allow for a leisurely paced game.

 

I am mostly gauging interest among you fine folks for doing something like a narrative campaign / framework to help focus developing / building a story and background on something like the initial setup, focusing on a conflict between various kighthouses.

This could use something like Mortal Empires or something more abstract like Inter House intrigues from the recent DUNE RPG as a system to resolve events or might be handled entirely by OOC discussion. The aim is most certainly not to run a tournament here but to tell afew stories and maybe build/ paint some models in the process. 
 

And since it’s mostly the same people hanging around here anyway and you are not that interested in the HH / giant robot department - I still have notes lying around for something like this to be set among the Legion Wars in the Eye of Terror - if mad max style kill team narratives among filthy traitors is more your thing, people….

 

[Trokair]

I had completely forgotten about this.

 

Still generally interested, but unsure about spare time and ability to partake, sorry.