Successor game to Riddle of Steel is out!

Hi,

anyone around here remember The Riddle of Steel rpg by Jake Norwood? Yeah, the one with the awesome combat mechanic, and those Spiritual Attributes that made play so extremely player driven! :slight_smile:

There is a successor game out now, called Blade of the Iron Throne. It can be downloaded free (!) from here: bladeoftheironthrone.com/
(15 MB pdf, full color)

It’s a fan production, but has real astonishing quality, both in terms of its artwork and of its rules.

Whereas the original TRoS came with a decidedly medieval/historical flavor, Blade is firmly rooted in the Sword & Sorcery genre, a heavily underused genre in RPGs these days… :wink:

While Blade firmly rests upon the same strengths as a system that made TRoS so popular and successful, many problems with the original have been fixed in this new rendition, streamlining the rules, fine-tuning the combat mechanic and Spiritual Attributes (now called Passion Attributes), and porting the game to its new genre. It’s really worth a look for everyone interested in, well, RPGs in general I’d have to say.

In terms of GNS theory,
It describes itself as a NAR-SIM hybrid (which is in itself an interesting category not often seen). Combat is largely SIM, here, so you get very detailed, very realistic combat maneuvers, wounds that cause Pain, Shock and Blood Loss, and armor that covers various locations but leaves others unprotected…
While the rest of the game is very NAR, i.e. player-driven, story-focussed gaming - predominantly powered by the Passion Attributes (PAs) each character has.

Go check it out, download the free pdf, visit the site’s forum if you’re interested in this awesome new game out there!

And yeah, I’m looking to get a player or two for this :wink: Kaylossus and me are planning to try our hands at it with a short run of maybe three to five or so sessions to see what’s what with this new system.
I helped playtest it in its early phases, so I’d run the whole thing. Kaylossus will play, and one or two more players would be just about right for a first venture into Hyboria (or Xoth?)

Anybody interested? :slight_smile:

Count me in. :slight_smile:

I picked up Riddle a while back but haven’t had a chance to play yet, so I’m curious. Plus, I just started making my way through Howard’s stories, so the Hyborian setting would hit the spot.

Incidentally, what does “Iron Throne” refer to? Seems like an odd choice for a swords & sorcery game, but maybe I’m just not getting the reference.

cool :slight_smile: seems to be a perfect fit for you then, indeed :slight_smile:

@ Iron Throne: If I may quote from one of the intro texts to the book -

“And on this throne of black iron, there shall be seated
the great king of bloodshed and murder,
and he shall be as a god unto slayers of men.
And all who do his work in the lands shall be called his blades,
and they shall strive to become alike him,
and be feared and revered amongst their lesser brethren…”

The Forlorn Tome of Du’Karrn

it is part of the mythology of the game, a legend amongst slayers, reavers, and cutthroats in the game world. This throne exists somewhere, appears in different places at times, and different people (or rather, mythical figures) have sat it across the ages. Every battlefield is the “great king”'s throne room, every murderer his vassal. It is practically a kind of quasi-religion amongst some people, and those who adhere to it call themselves its “blades”.
Interestingly, it’s not the king, but the throne on which the mythology (and what there is of worship and reverence) focusses.

Also, this is no way dominant (or neccessarily even present) in the game itself. If you will, it can be no more than a flashy title for the game, as well :wink:

Due to Kaylossus being away on a seminar during February, we are planning to start after that, so this might get going in March. Just saying, so there is no hurry to build characters and read rules yet :wink:

Discovered this again and wanted to ask if this will be incorporated in the monday group’s sessions? I’d be interested either way

Probably not, the monday group is a bit too large to be able to play this game the way it’s intended. And there’ll have to be a lot of planning and character creation beforehand. Not really suited to the idea of the monday get together :slight_smile:

Me and Auburney played our first session yesterday, however, it’s not too late to join up if you’re interested. :wink: The system’s really crunchy though, so be prepared to go though some reading.

and it was awesome! Visceral combat, gritty dialogue, believable player motivations… what more can you ask of a game? :smiley:

We were considering aiming for Saturday the 20th for a follow-up session, in case anyone would like to join up.

(If so, it would be good if you could get a look at the rules beforehand, as the combat system is a bit crunchy and detailed, but is remarkably different from, say, D&D-type games. No detailed knowledge is necessary, but if you can bring a general impression of what’s what, that’ll help :wink:
It also helps to know Riddle of Steel, of course, since the new system is not that different.
Character creation would be a short meeting with me beforehand, maybe for an hour or two to discuss backstory, motivations and rules/stats a bit)

oh, the setting we ended up choosing is Shem, in Conan’s Hyborian Age, a meadowy, hilly stretch of land situated right between the egyptian-themed Stygia in the south, and the more celtic/nordic mountainous regions to the north.
A fortified city at the eastern end of this mostly pastoral region seems to have become the focus point for regional refugees retreating from the bandit raiders that come out of the eastern Red Desert in increasing numbers, these last few months, raiding and pillaging every village in their way.
Our characters are interested in this very city for reasons of their own, and must cross these danger-riddled lands in order to get there…

AND for those who might be interested, I have a like-new 2002 edition hardcover The Riddle of Steel by Driftwood publishing for sale. Honestly, I have been trying to gauge interest in it and its been hard to do since I don’t see much online or eBay. It originally sold for $34.95 and I would be happy to get at least $70 for it.

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Pendrake777 still have that book around?

Now that’s a Necro Thread… :slight_smile:

But I missed the original one. Great to know. Huge TRoS fan, published a bunch of fan-additions back then, including a complete magic system replacement and a heroic extension. Blade is now sold online, I might pick it up. Anyone still running a group?

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No current blades games for me. My last was about 11 months ago and I lost the mature gamers. The younger group’s didn’t like dying due to combat mistakes

I liked the TROS flavor better then I liked Blades, but the system in blades was a bit smoother then TROS. Ultimately I went where I could get a paper book. I’d really like to get my hands on the TROS Character generator that was taken down. That thing was amazing.