Let's talk Iron Heroes

[Manxome]

If the goal of that manifesto was actually to forewarn readers of the issues in that particular system, then the writing (and particularly the title) is considerably worse even than it first appeared.

There may occasionally be a need to remind players that it doesn't make sense to complain about problems they willfully create (e.g. don't complain that the level 20 PC is better than the level 1 PC, don't complain that the rogue makes a better stealthy character than the fighter, etc.). I once had a conversation that went something like this:

Player: The scout really needs a better way to take down enemies quickly.
Me: The purpose of the scout is to provide information and soften targets, it is specifically supposed to be bad at taking down enemies quickly. That's its one distinctive weakness.
Player: But I want to be a stealthy character that can eliminate key enemies...
Me: That would be the assassin's job.
Player: Yeah, but there are usually other people playing assassins...
Me: So you want to diversify your team, but not so much that you're actually willing to fill a different tactical role?




But the entire point of having rules in the first place is to give the players a set of shared expectations and relieve the difficulty of making everything up yourself. If the game has rules for creating characters that are supposed to be roughly the same power level, and reasonable characters created with those rules are not roughly the same power level, that's a problem with the rules, not the players.

[Draco_Argentum]

1185696332[/unixtime]]The RPG manifesto is like a disclaimer before someone gives a bad speech. "This is going to suck, but please go easy on me"

I think that manifesto is more like walking up to a girl and saying "I'm fat, stupid, smelly, ugly, have no job, live in my parent's basement and am generally obnoxious. Would you like to go out with me?"

Unfortunately gamers don't tell RPGs like that to bugger off.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

If the rules don't say you can't do something, you can.

"I can make chickens into killer cyborgs!"
"When I cry, my teardrops are liquid gold!"
"I can hit you in the eye with my pee from 6 miles away!"

Yeah, that manifesto makes no sense.

[Judging__Eagle]

The manifesto is bogus.

I just like the system b/c I can have mecha killing dragons and I don't need a pile of different books to pull it off.

[tzor]

1185571503[/unixtime]]Frank, when you post about game systems, you seem to be quite passionate, especially regarding design flaws and game balance? I do not mean to pry, but why is this?

If you think he's passionate, you should see me write about good solid end of day generic stock market data base collection systems and those people who haven't a clue about what they are doing but are in charge of database design. ... One tends to be passionate when one knows how it should be done and people are getting paid to do CRAP ... and you have to suffer from the consequences.

[Confused_Jackal_Mage]

If you want to discuss IH any further, the official IH boards over here are the place to go. We'll answer any questions you have or critique stuff. You'll also find all the errata there (which would have quickly answered the Bonus Feats problem that was posed here before).

I've been a lurker here for a while, and registered to respond to this thread. I'm also an Iron Liege, one of the caretakers of the Iron League, so I can certainly answer anything about IH as well. I have extensive knowledge of the various IH tweaks and changes that we fans have made, since I've been an active gearhead on the boards since before the game was released. ^_^

FWIW, someone mentioned that the Arcanist, Armiger, and Weapon Master aren't mechanically well-designed. This is true. The Arcanist is teh suck in many, many ways. The Arm and WM are playable, but not nearly as fun as they should be. This is common opinion. Hong Ooi did some really good work on IH back in the day, including replacing the Arm and WM with his own variants which are quite good. His site is The Great Iron Heroes Hack.