As the Summer Release (Read: Gen Con) draws near, I find myself equal parts curious and exited to see what the developers have come up with. I'm sure many of you are aware that the Iron Kingdoms is the fictional world where the widely successful tabletop wargames Warmachines and Hordes are set. Before that though, it was also one of the flagship third party settings for Dungeon & Dragons 3rd Edition.
My group was involved in a highly memorable Iron Kingdoms campaign using the D&D 3.5 rules. For the most part it was a great time. The world always felt alive and we were always one step away from political intrigue, military conflicts, memorable NPCs, and glorious amounts of Warjacks and Monsters to fight.
Mechanically though, D&D 3.5 was never the most exciting for me and it showed some of its weakness through the Iron Kingdoms setting. Whether it was the overly-complicated mechanika crafting rules or just outlandish handling of prestige classes, each session left me liking the mechanics of the game less and less. It felt like core concepts to the fiction, like how badass Warcasters are, were simply forced into the rules using the guidelines of D&D. Something always felt "off."
As we all know, D&D 3.5 has gone the way of THAC0 and retired to the halls of forever where it will party hardy until it is called again for the countless Edition Wars that are bound to spring up. And with it, IKRPG was left without a marketable system to be its backbone.
Privateer Press could have gone the way of Pathfinder and kept on chugging along with the old rules but they decided to spend the last few years making their own system. The previews say that the mechanics were born from and heavily inspired by the system that is found in Warmachine and Hordes.
The full blurb reads as follows:
This essential full-color guide to the award-winning Iron Kingdoms setting equips you with:
- A robust, elegant rules system crafted especially for the world of the Iron Kingdoms. This system builds upon the rules foundation of the critically acclaimed WARMACHINE and HORDES miniatures games to meet the complex needs of a roleplaying game.
- Rules for character creation and advancement that let you take on the role of iconic Iron Kingdoms characters like fell callers, field mechaniks, gun mages, warcasters, and more.
- Details on diverse playable races: humans, gobbers, Iosans, Nyss, ogrun, Rhulfolk, and trollkin.
- Crafting systems that enable you to explore the mysteries of mechanika and alchemy.
- A comprehensive overview of life in the Iron Kingdoms and the history of western Immoren.
I think this is a really interesting choice. First, it gives a stepping stone to all the wargamers that are familiar with the other game lines a place to start. Second, it could easily be a fun and still very tactical system for combats and encounters. This is something that I can really enjoy when the system is deep enough to add lots of character choice but also resolves quickly so combats don't take 4-5 hours of a session.
What will truly be interesting is if there is any cross over between the two games. Can we stat up our characters and use them as Solo's for a friendly game of Warmachine? Can we "borrow" some of the mechanics to bodge together some kind of "campaign" system to use for Hordes? I could live without heavy cross over, at least at the outset. What I really hope is that we get a system that matches the power level and feel that has become the identity of the Iron Kingdoms.
