What are the Top Things that Attract You to a Rules System?

[DivisMal]

From Graeme Davis (]http://realmofzhu.blogspot.com/2013/01/origin-of-species-fimir.html[/url][/color]):

The Fimir backstory may have counted against their inclusion in fourth-edition WFB (aimed more at kids?), but I don't remember anyone being bothered by it at the time. After all, GW was producing RuneQuest at the time, broos and all! And didn't GW/Forgeworld bring Fimir back fairly recently?

I’m delighted to learn this little piece, which also explains the two sizes of fimirs in my collection. And yeah, big bases suck with Warhammer. The last edition I played (6th?) gave all slightly elite infantry 2 attack, which meant that trolls and ogres had become totally worthless: 3 attacks on 40mm (giant monster) or 4 attacks on 40-50mm with significantly higher WS and cool special rules.

They even included Fimir in the original HeroQuest in 1989, even more aimed at kids!

I only had the German versions which toned down the violence in both Hero Quest and Space Crusade (sold as StarQuest), and afaik there was no reference to the sexual appetite of fimirs (and neither any reference to the genestealer reproduction.

Genestealer Cults were abandoned in 40k 3rd edition (right after the colorful fluffy ott 2nd) and I think fimirs a little earlier with Warhammer 4th (though the profiles might have still been somewhere).
When both games aimed for the mass market, it appeared to me that many of the crazier and slightly weird ideas were dropped. Beastmen, to name another prominent example, lost their weirdness with WH 4th and became simple goatmen/broo.

@hobgoblin: I never played RQ nor Glorantha, so what’s so terrible with broo? I thought they’d just be goatmen in a slightly more ancient fantasy world.

[Hobgoblin]

2. Do the rules get the hell out of the way and let you just play the game? I do not want to be consulting 8 rulebooks, 15 PDFs, and a website-based FAQ every 90 seconds.

That's a really good point. The best rulebooks are those you hardly need to open once you know how to play. SoBH (along with its kin) is the absolute winner here for me. It's been a while since I've played it, but I think Pulp Alley falls into that category too: once you know how it works, you need only refer to your roster sheet occasionally. And FUBAR wins out for having a 'rulebook' that's about the size of a roster sheet!

The Rampant family are pretty good here too, though the long stat lines mean that you tend to need to consult the roster sheets quite a bit (at least at first). Saga is another game where you don't need the rulebook that much: you do all your consulting with the battleboards.

[tikitang]

afaik there was no reference to the sexual appetite of fimirs

Not in HeroQuest itself, no, but it is slightly odd that, of all the available creatures in Warhammer, they chose fimirs to be included in a children's fantasy adventure game!

[DivisMal]

Not in HeroQuest itself, no, but it is slightly odd that, of all the available creatures in Warhammer, they chose fimirs to be included in a children's fantasy adventure game!

True, but if you, like me, had never heard about fimirs before, you consider them just lizardman cyclopses. After all they had the decency not to model any sexual organs on the HQ ones

However, now that I’ve read Hobgoblin’s account and the link to the Graeme Davis usenet quote, I finally understand why the HQ are on 25mm bases and so much smaller! These are actually the real fimirs!!

[Hobgoblin]

@hobgoblin: I never played RQ nor Glorantha, so what’s so terrible with broo? I thought they’d just be goatmen in a slightly more ancient fantasy world.

They mostly look like goats and other herd animals because those creature are the most vulnerable to them. They can and will mate with virtually anything, and their monstrous fecundity is such that they can impregnate virtually anything (male or female, and sometimes not even animate). The infants eat their way out. So the broos are essentially an overtly sexual version of the xenomorph from Alien - with a grim mythological origin.

Their true nature isn't really touched on in the classic RQ2 rulebook, but the (excellent) Borderlands supplement goes into more detail, as do other Gloranthan tomes.

Broos are probably the best original RPG monster out there: they're genuinely horrible, they're fully integrated into the Gloranthan mythos, and - on a more mundane level - they're a natural (or unnatural!) threat to the pastoral cultures that populate Prax and Sartar. One of the best ways to introduce new players to Glorantha is to have them charged with looking after the herds when there are rumours of monsters in the nearby marshes. And some of the animals have been behaving strangely - are they infected with something ...

I gather Graeme Davis & co were aiming for a sort of mythical resonance with the Fimir. To be honest, I think they achieved it, even if they've since expressed regret. I don't think there's anything wrong with making monsters monstrous - and especially ones based on the Fomorians, who at one level must represent the successive waves of raiders who plied their trade across and around the Irish sea. Yes, it's horrible - but so are Tolkien's orc-origin writings in Morgoth's Ring and the like.

[tikitang]

I don't think there's anything wrong with making monsters monstrous

I think that's a very good point.

In any case, I had been led to believe their particular breed of monstrousness was what had caused their axing from the Citadel market, but I can see why the basing situation you described earlier would make them a rather valueless unit to field.

[carlos marighela]

They mostly look like goats and other herd animals because those creature are the most vulnerable to them. They can and will mate with virtually anything, and their monstrous fecundity is such that they can impregnate virtually anything (male or female, and sometimes not even animate). The infants eat their way out. So the broos are essentially an overtly sexual version of the xenomorph from Alien - with a grim mythological origin.

Much as I support diversity, I think that once you have reached the realms of polyamorous, pansexual, cross-species, gender-agnostic, zoophilia, you have probably jumped the shark in terms of a game.  Best to work out those issues in some place other than an RPG. Therapy being the best option.

Not sure how the mechanics would work anyway. 'Oh look , I've rolled a six! Now I get to bugger a sheep'?

[carlos marighela]

Usual caveats about consenting adults if cosplay is your thing. 

[DivisMal]

They mostly look like goats and other herd animals because those creature are the most vulnerable to them. They can and will mate with virtually anything, and their monstrous fecundity is such that they can impregnate virtually anything (male or female, and sometimes not even animate). The infants eat their way out. So the broos are essentially an overtly sexual version of the xenomorph from Alien - with a grim mythological origin.

Their true nature isn't really touched on in the classic RQ2 rulebook, but the (excellent) Borderlands supplement goes into more detail, as do other Gloranthan tomes.

Broos are probably the best original RPG monster out there: they're genuinely horrible, they're fully integrated into the Gloranthan mythos, and - on a more mundane level - they're a natural (or unnatural!) threat to the pastoral cultures that populate Prax and Sartar. One of the best ways to introduce new players to Glorantha is to have them charged with looking after the herds when there are rumours of monsters in the nearby marshes. And some of the animals have been behaving strangely - are they infected with something ...

I gather Graeme Davis & co were aiming for a sort of mythical resonance with the Fimir. To be honest, I think they achieved it, even if they've since expressed regret. I don't think there's anything wrong with making monsters monstrous - and especially ones based on the Fomorians, who at one level must represent the successive waves of raiders who plied their trade across and around the Irish sea. Yes, it's horrible - but so are Tolkien's orc-origin writings in Morgoth's Ring and the like.

Damn! Now that is horrible!

And truth to be said: Mythology is full of such stuff. Glorantha is something that I missed, maybe I should try to hunt it down.

Much as I support diversity, I think that once you have reached the realms of polyamorous, pansexual, cross-species, gender-agnostic, zoophilia, you have probably jumped the shark in terms of a game.  Best to work out those issues in some place other than an RPG. Therapy being the best option.

Not sure how the mechanics would work anyway. 'Oh look , I've rolled a six! Now I get to bugger a sheep'?

It is gruesome, but if I understand it, it’s just a background for monsters (and only monsters impregnating animals), that’s okay for me.
I actually have a harder time with the unreflected violence in many backgrounds easily celebrating genocides.

[Hobgoblin]

Not sure how the mechanics would work anyway. 'Oh look , I've rolled a six! Now I get to bugger a sheep'?

Much as I support diversity, I think that once you have reached the realms of polyamorous, pansexual, cross-species, gender-agnostic, zoophilia, you have probably jumped the shark in terms of a game.  Best to work out those issues in some place other than an RPG. Therapy being the best option.

Not sure how the mechanics would work anyway. 'Oh look , I've rolled a six! Now I get to bugger a sheep'?

Well, RuneQuest is one of the most successful and enduring RPGs of all time, and the broos are its signature monster, so it must be doing something right in terms of broad appeal.

As I noted above the horror of the broos is quite understated in the original text (there's a reference to "atrocities and foul practices"), and there's no need to get more explicit than that. In the games I run with my kids and their friends, for example, they're aware that broos can hybridise with all kinds of things and that they "infect" herds, but it doesn't get more explicit than that.

And it does mean that you get effective horror scenes (a touch of The Thing; a hint of Alien) when an infected herd is discovered - as in this illustration from the King of Dragon Pass game:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/kingofdragonpass/images/d/da/BirthOfBroos.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130314175019

To tie this back to the original question, I'd say that settings only attract me to a rules system when they're really, really good. Glorantha is one example - were Chaosium to produce a wargame (say, a reissue of White Bear, Red Moon), I'd be all over it. The earlier incarnations of the Old World is another (as encapsulated, say, in WFRP - Fimir and all - or Mordheim). But in most other cases, fantasy and sci-fi games are better leaving the setting to the players (as many wisely do).

[Hobgoblin]

In any case, I had been led to believe their particular breed of monstrousness was what had caused their axing from the Citadel market, but I can see why the basing situation you described earlier would make them a rather valueless unit to field.

I'm sure the commercial imperative was the main thing. Because the Fimir figures were big, they were expensive to buy as well as being expensive in Warhammer points terms. A full army was out of reach for most players, and even an allied contingent was pricy. And that allied contingent just wasn't as good a deal as a band of mercenary ogres, who had better profiles for the same base size, were available to the same armies and were more affordable in sterling.

Given how successful the broos were for GW (I've heard them described as "the space marines of the early 80s") and the fact that they kept broo-alikes alive after they stopped producing RuneQuest, I don't think commercially successful Fimir would have been axed (sanitised, perhaps).

An irony is that the Fimir were designed specifically to be the broos of the Old World (as an iconic monster emblematic of the setting).

[tikitang]

I don't think commercially successful Fimir would have been axed (sanitised, perhaps).

Makes sense! I was going to say, it's not like Games Workshop haven't 'ret-conned' certain aspects of their lore before. If Fimir had become the driving force for sales, they could have sanitised them as you say (and, I think, quite rightly; broos might be gruesome in that The Thing / Alien sort of way, but a species which only reproduces by the rape of human women I feel is considerably more questionable, even though it might be mythologically on point and perfectly monstrous).

But, if you can change lore, you can also change rules. It makes me wonder why they didn't just make them more powerful (in combat terms) in response to low sales?

[ChrisBBB]

Well, RuneQuest is one of the most successful and enduring RPGs of all time, and the broos are its signature monster, so it must be doing something right in terms of broad appeal.
<snip>
 settings only attract me to a rules system when they're really, really good. Glorantha is one example

Absolutely - Glorantha is a superb RPG setting. The coherent mythology provides rationales for all the races and cultures and makes for a very rich and believable background for RPG adventures, especially if you are actually into the characterful role-playing side and not just killing, looting, and getting tougher and more laden with magic items.

Broos are suitably monstrous monsters, and by their nature they can be different every time PCs encounter them, presenting new and characterful challenges.

[ChrisBBB]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, things I want from a game system ... I could list lots, probably all mentioned by others already, but let's pick three as requested:

- Fast-moving enough to present significant tactical decisions every turn and to finish a game in a 3- to 4-hour club night

- Plausibly representing whatever combat it is supposed to represent

- The right mix of luck and skill so that chance can create surprises (unpleasant or otherwise), while still rewarding good plans and tactics

[jon_1066]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, things I want from a game system ... I could list lots, probably all mentioned by others already, but let's pick three as requested:

- Fast-moving enough to present significant tactical decisions every turn and to finish a game in a 3- to 4-hour club night

- Plausibly representing whatever combat it is supposed to represent

- The right mix of luck and skill so that chance can create surprises (unpleasant or otherwise), while still rewarding good plans and tactics

Now what game could possibly have those three present? 

I'm waiting on my order to arrive having been introduced to your rules at a club night last week.