DWars fluff is dead, long live Warcradle

[RuleBritannia]

What about chi drinking Alien Vampires secretly running all of Asia as immortal god emperors?

Where are they actually from? If true aliens, why is it not a proper invasion/occupation?

Are they equating the Chinese to aliens? At the very least, it sounds insulting to Chinese Imperial Culture.

And how does "chi-drinking" actually work? Emotional Vampires should only be used in metaphors and classic Star Trek episodes.

My apologies everyone, I've gone back to 1.05 rulebook, and the Vampires ruling Asia, unlike the illuminati running Europe and the upper echelons of the church, are not Aliens or alien controlled.  Instead they are described as variously 'revenants', and 'monsters who rule empires from twilight palaces in utter defiance of the mass of humanity', that Westerners can't understand due to 'so many difference between western cultures and countless civilisations of Asia'.

The truth, for those very few who have discovered it and escaped with their lives, is darker still than any speculation.  Whether they were once human or not is subject for eternal debate.  What is inconvertible, however, is that they are human no longer.

The Jade Emperors live upon two planes simultaneously; their physical bodies live with us, trapped within the usual three dimensions, observable, for the most part,
 with our five senses, and interacting with the waking world as any other creature native to the earth. However, they are also able to perceive  the spirit world that exists in tandem with our own, and interact with it on a terrible, predacious level.

The Jade Emperors sense the spirit energy that holds the Earth in its protective web, and further can feed off that energy, siphoning it from its original source into their dark, corrupted souls.

How they suck that delicious chi is charming too

It is believed that the Jade Emperors habitually draw the life force, or chi as they call it, directly from human victims, savouring its varied richness and infinite variety.  Each race upon the Earth brings chi with its own unique flavour and some of those flavours are more sought after than others.

There is a brief description that shows they can be murder happy and suck all that yummy chi straight from folks.

The Jade Emperors have ruled over extensive tracts of Asia for thousands of years, slowly spreading out from whatever dark and hellish pit spawned them.
  Their expansion into the mountains and coastal regions has been slow and methodical, avoiding unnecessary disruptions of civil rule that might draw attention to the Emperors before the defences of their new holdings were fully prepared.

The peoples of Asia are referred to as 'their herd'.

[Dakkar]

Okay, so the Jade Emperors <=> Lo Pan from BTILC

That's not so bad at all. I love that movie!

No more preposterous that a Lizardman Deep State running the Federated States ;-)

[RuleBritannia]

Okay, so the Jade Emperors <=> Lo Pan from BTILC

That's not so bad at all. I love that movie!

No more preposterous that a Lizardman Deep State running the Federated States ;-)

Big trouble in Steampunk China

[Covertwalrus]

There was an alien vampire movie in the 90s: Lifeforce? I thought it amusing.

With Patrick Stewart! A semi-classic, but also terrible. :-)

Maybe that's where the Chi-Vampire idea comes from.

 Yes, and yet the original novel by Colin Wilson, was a pretty nice melding of classic Gothic vampires and pulp SF. Completely messed about in the movie though.

[markymark1970]

There was an alien vampire movie in the 90s: Lifeforce? I thought it amusing.

With Patrick Stewart! A semi-classic, but also terrible. :-)

Maybe that's where the Chi-Vampire idea comes from.

 Yes, and yet the original novel by Colin Wilson, was a pretty nice melding of classic Gothic vampires and pulp SF. Completely messed about in the movie though.

Book was good, movie was highly disappointing, even to a sci-fi/monster loving teen like me back then.

I must admit that I'm unsure about having an alien vampire captaining my Khatanga, or a demon-prince cowboy with a plasma blaster cannon in place of one of his six arms driving my Ika under the waves, or wherever this is all going.  We really just need to wait and see what Warcradle's vision manifests as.  Sounds like it's sizing up to be a very different game, and that's just fine.  The fluff doesn't control the game play if you don't want it to.  If our gaming group likes the new rules, great.  If not, we'll play 2.whatever. 

I'm more concerned about good looking miniatures to spend my money on.  If those aren't in the cards, there are plenty of other alternatives. 

My two-cents...

[markymark1970]

After reading all of these comments, I have to ask why all the hating on existing DW fluff.  Many comments would make you believe that it was virtually non-existent.

I have all three DW campaign books and have read them all several times over.  I enjoyed reading about what motivations drove factions to to what they did and how they went about achieving/blowing their goals.  Sure, I wanted more and Spartan was slowly churning it out.  And it gave me hope that we'd see the same thing happen for FA (which honestly had almost zero fluff).

Games based on Star Trek/Wars universes have tons of built-in fluff.  40K has had time to mature and build a rich history for itself.  Are we making comparisons to these types of games (which would be quite unfair)?  What am I missing or am I simply misunderstanding people's thoughts?

I doubt more/better fluff would have saved Spartan.  Now it's in Warcradle's hands to create and build upon. 

And in the end, the subject of this thread makes much of this discussion moot.  But I am curious.


 

[Covertwalrus]

After reading all of these comments, I have to ask why all the hating on existing DW fluff.  Many comments would make you believe that it was virtually non-existent.

I have all three DW campaign books and have read them all several times over.

 Yes, that annoys me too as it also seems to be the official Warcradle line. The last rule book I got ( 2.5, PDF ) is pretty damn complete

Sure, I wanted more and Spartan was slowly churning it out.  And it gave me hope that we'd see the same thing happen for FA (which honestly had almost zero fluff).

 And suffered for it, although it was a good game in most other respects. Some games seem to work without a lot of background, but FA just felt a little Hollow with a lot of overview of tactics and strategy, rather than detailed faction stories.

[RuleBritannia]

There is a constant attitude from WC of deriding Spartan, it's fluff, it's moulds and models so as to justify their actions.  It is possible to discuss how you are going to improve things without telling us how bad your predecessor was, especially when taking over fan communities.  Similarly, there were some comments discussing how fans weren't doing enough or too few of us hence it's our fault things have to change rather than spending time telling us how things will improve. 

I get that change happens, and Spartan failed as a company, but a softer approach, and more concern to not deride the product you are updating would be nice.

*Sorry for the rant, just something that has bugged me for a while about the attitude WC has taken to the fans, fluff and models of Spartan.

[Fracas]

I still wish them success


Btw, Chinese girls do not come with green eyes

[Covertwalrus]

There is a constant attitude from WC of deriding Spartan, it's fluff, it's moulds and models so as to justify their actions.  It is possible to discuss how you are going to improve things without telling us how bad your predecessor was, especially when taking over fan communities.  Similarly, there were some comments discussing how fans weren't doing enough or too few of us hence it's our fault things have to change rather than spending time telling us how things will improve. 

I get that change happens, and Spartan failed as a company, but a softer approach, and more concern to not deride the product you are updating would be nice.

*Sorry for the rant, just something that has bugged me for a while about the attitude WC has taken to the fans, fluff and models of Spartan.

 No need to apologize especially as you have struck to the heart of my greatest argument; The way WC have been trying to make their mark on the IP not by showing us what they can do ( Well, to some extent ) but by saying what they won't do because Spartan did it and they did everything wrong.

 They have been flip-flopping on the miniatures form Spartan for some time, as an example: First, there was no product cast when they took over, which certainly has been verified. Then, they say  they have 10 000 master files and stacks of unsorted molds to catalogue. After that, it was that the molds were all useless for producing anything of the old lines. And after that, it was  hinting that some of the older designs will be retained, but followed by "Hey, look at the neat and MUCH BETTER stuff we are gonna do!"
 Inconsistent story and often contradicted - Though try and prove that on the fora and/or Facebook pages where the WC staff are moderators, and you'll find Orwell at work ( You know? "He who controls the past . . . " ) I suggest however, that its more a case of the French general's remark about "There is no need to invoke conspiracy when all can be explained by incompetence" sort of thing,because one event on the FB page made me wonder if WC are always a committee operation . . . An offhand remark by one person was suddenly erased, maybe as an afterthought, maybe by orders of a higher up or group decision, who knows? But it seems their 'transparency' is limited in some ways.
 Sure, I'm not able to see what is going on and for sure, there are things going on in the background we aren't privy to that are affecting the relaunch. It just seems that WC aren't helping their cause with all the ambiguity and what seems at times to be unstable plans.

 However, it's a waiting game and I do have a great deal of patience. ( I'd trade it for USD200 right now though, so I can complete my KoB force )

[RuleBritannia]

The basics of what is going on is fine.  WC seems to be willing to redesign some stuff on the Nian Jiang, rewriting fluff over time, taking at least some time to attempt to listen.  The problem is completely attitude of the response that leads to these responses.  I certainly think I have been bitterer than I should have been because I felt some comments and actions were insulting to me or otherwise felt malicious because an attitude of arrogance, we know best, has been put up, rather than conciliatory or thoughtful ones explaining things are still in flux.  They have managed to end up in the worst of all possible worlds by having statements that change, and having no definitive blog posts that explain the process, and having several different voices in the mix that claim definitive status. 

When we talk about fluff, 1.05 was written by Stuart, it makes sense that WWX would be his starting point for the conversation.  However, articulation of how to develop Dystopian Wars was therefore framed around that, and a bigger game with a more entrenched and vocal fangroup saw their background and fluff placed subservient to a smaller, weirder game, whilst the details of that were very badly explained, and we were told that WC doesn't work by committee to do games design, meaning that it was easy to read into that change was being imposed and there was nothing we could do.  This now doesn't seem the case, and there is now an attempt to involve stuff.  However, WC is unlikely to get the credit because of the way it handled stuff early on, or comments from Rich in another thread which involved mocking criticism. 

Now personally I can see how a larger creative process can add to a game, especially with something like DWars that requires a global scale.  If WC had come in and said we aren't sure immediately, and not clamped down on the facebook forums, and used them to discuss fluff instead of just floating rules ideas, and asked people what they liked about Spartan instead of just mocking how poor it was, I think things would have been different.  A real eye for positive points about they liked about Spartan and wanted to expand about the vision would have been so much better.  But I'm no PR expert, this is just my impression.

[Covertwalrus]

 I find it hard to disagree with anything you've said there, RuleBritannia

 What's really interesting is that I see from my Kickstarter news feed, another company called SkirmishGames.com has just started an expansion for their Weird West skirmish, Blackwater Gulch - sorry, their "Western Horror" game based on the "Gangfight" rules they have been doing for a couple of years now. I suppose if this is the Next Big Thing in gaming ( Not just the many games company's idea of what should be the Next Big Thing ), than having the DW/AC lines will be the "point of difference" so loved by marketing. Either way, it's interesting.

[Rich1231]

There is a constant attitude from WC of deriding Spartan, it's fluff, it's moulds and models so as to justify their actions.  It is possible to discuss how you are going to improve things without telling us how bad your predecessor was, especially when taking over fan communities.  Similarly, there were some comments discussing how fans weren't doing enough or too few of us hence it's our fault things have to change rather than spending time telling us how things will improve. 

I get that change happens, and Spartan failed as a company, but a softer approach, and more concern to not deride the product you are updating would be nice.

*Sorry for the rant, just something that has bugged me for a while about the attitude WC has taken to the fans, fluff and models of Spartan.

 No need to apologize especially as you have struck to the heart of my greatest argument; The way WC have been trying to make their mark on the IP not by showing us what they can do ( Well, to some extent ) but by saying what they won't do because Spartan did it and they did everything wrong.

 They have been flip-flopping on the miniatures form Spartan for some time, as an example: First, there was no product cast when they took over, which certainly has been verified. Then, they say  they have 10 000 master files and stacks of unsorted molds to catalogue. After that, it was that the molds were all useless for producing anything of the old lines. And after that, it was  hinting that some of the older designs will be retained, but followed by "Hey, look at the neat and MUCH BETTER stuff we are gonna do!"
 Inconsistent story and often contradicted - Though try and prove that on the fora and/or Facebook pages where the WC staff are moderators, and you'll find Orwell at work ( You know? "He who controls the past . . . " ) I suggest however, that its more a case of the French general's remark about "There is no need to invoke conspiracy when all can be explained by incompetence" sort of thing,because one event on the FB page made me wonder if WC are always a committee operation . . . An offhand remark by one person was suddenly erased, maybe as an afterthought, maybe by orders of a higher up or group decision, who knows? But it seems their 'transparency' is limited in some ways.
 Sure, I'm not able to see what is going on and for sure, there are things going on in the background we aren't privy to that are affecting the relaunch. It just seems that WC aren't helping their cause with all the ambiguity and what seems at times to be unstable plans.

 However, it's a waiting game and I do have a great deal of patience. ( I'd trade it for USD200 right now though, so I can complete my KoB force )

I have to post as you are posting some questionable inferences.   We have not gone back on forth regarding the miniatures.  There is a physical reality involved.  We picked up the "stuff" from Spartan for want of a better word. It wasn't neatly organised. As it had already been chucked into a lorry randomly and put in an old aircraft hanger.  We had to remove it from that location pretty quickly once the purchase had completed.   This then made its way to our warehouse and was stored and slowly each item is being assessed.   We don't have finished stock. We don't have all masters, we don't have all molds.  But that isn't something we could have said day one as there are tens of thousands of items to check and identify. None of the remarks you attribute to us are contradictory to each other, none.  Come and visit us and we will show you what we started with.   We did not say all the molds were useless, however, it appears we have molds from day 1 of Spartans existence and it is clear by comments in the community that a lot of product shipped with casting issues. We want to eliminate those and therefore we are not just going to pour resin in old molds without testing them. And if new masters and molds are needed for a product, it needs to have a business justification for going to the expense of remastering etc. There is no secret agenda at work just a desire to release a game that has the best chance of success. And our efforts are better spent getting the product released more than a few people will buy. We have told you a few times about the process, it isn't some magical thing that happens overnight. It takes a while as well as the multitude of other issues we need to resolve to get the miniatures back into production.  It takes lots of time, effort and money to achieve. 

And regarding the attitude towards Spartan there isn't any, we have made some factual statements about the state of things handed to us, none of which is a shock considering the company went into administration after a prolonged decline. 

And re the fluff, we decided quite early on that trying to maintain 2 very similar universes was a step too far and so we combined them. The narrative is still being worked on as it takes time.  I think that was the right thing to do for all sorts of reasons.

Regarding mocking criticism, please provide some evidence?

We have been open, but there is a small number of you that have been outright hostile to us, from personal attacks to constant criticisms and inferences. That's all up to you but we are reasonable people and we are far more likely to respond positively to civility rather than endless negativity by a small number groups.

[Ruckdog]

Thanks for stepping in, Rich.

Just a reminder to all of you to keep things civil, and to avoid baseless accusations/recriminations. For the most part, the tone of this thread has been respectful, even among those that disagree with each other, and I appreciate that. However, if things deteriorate too far, I will lock this thread. This is a place to have fun discussions about a game and a hobby we all love, not to create drama .

[RuleBritannia]

We definitely drifted off fluff.  I am hoping that all this Hex, order, Gaia earth spirit, dark council, alien watchers, and chi vampires either becomes unreliable narrator wildly exaggerating them wild west folks up to mischief or so far in the background it can be ignored for Dystopian wars.  It really detracts in feel from the Steampunk shenanigans whilst being more important to the skirmishes of WWX.  Whilst not crossing the streams would be lovely, we are where we are, so downplaying them makes more sense, especially as they seem as though should be secretly warring against each other.  Also early references to cataclysmic war could do with toning down, so we can at least get a few years of conflict, rebuild up the alliance systems so the power blocs justify moving in troops into different Warzones.  If you can manage at least one bloc member each in Asia, Europe and America, it makes it much easier to say that people have been brought over, as in the first world war.  Doesn't need to be static or stable, but helps flesh out the setting to have allies in that way in my opinion.  I think some time poring over the history books always helps to flesh out a setting, especially with people increasingly aware of global history and the need to be respectful to global cultures even in an alt history or fantasy setting, something which time and effort to sculpt.  I would love to see some timeline build ups, and the patience to provide some idea of command structures, something I loved in the 1.5 and 2.0 books.