Chikout Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 @Jamie the Jasper the personal interruption of these things is kind of the point. Imagine having your tarot read and trying to establish how that relates to your actual life. If we take the eye example it could mean trying to take advantage of the distraction of chaos by death to expand order’s reach in the mortal realms or viceaversa It could mean that the situation allows destruction to have a good scrap. The setup is asking players to use their imagination rather than following the standard order, chaos, death, destruction choice. It is very much a standard choose your own adventure template. Do you choose to take the path along the river or over the hill? You don’t know the consequences till you turn to page 85. We will see what is on page 85 next week. Ultimately though it is just a good excuse to play some games and catch up on your painting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 58 minutes ago, Killax said: What it all means is that you choose, you don't know the pros and cons, it isn't a hard choice to make and not like any political vote. You pick one of the three portents to follow this month and next month you can choose for another one. If you can't choose and want to roll a D3 then that's an option too. I find that unsatisfying. That's not a dilemma (GW's term, not mine), that's a guess. They may as well just not bother writing the snippets and label them 1, 2 and 3 for all the meaning it has to me as a participant. If the choices are meaningless what's the point of even having a branching narrative? Also, I don't think it will escape people's attention that the choices are so vague that GW could very easily have only one outcome planned and retrospectively link it to the winning choice. I'm not saying that's the case, but if the choices are this vague and meaningless then sure as night follows day I can guarantee that people will become suspicious and start to feel disengaged. GW has a history of manipulating campaign outcomes to suit their objectives, so it will be very easy for people to assume that the vagueness is a cynical ploy. 57 minutes ago, Chikout said: It is very much a standard choose your own adventure template. Do you choose to take the path along the river or over the hill? You don’t know the consequences till you turn to page 85. We will see what is on page 85 next week. The difference is that I know what rivers and hills are. I don't know what 'manipulating the heavens to my will' is. It's also a decision with an outcome that I can be at least partially certain of beforehand. If I choose the river I know that the next thing that will happen is a walk along the river. Other unpredictable stuff will happen too, but I've been given a clear choice and I at least partially know what the result of that choice will be. With the Dread Solstice dilemmas I have nothing to go on. Beyond that, if I walk along the river I can take an informed guess about the sorts of things that might happen - I might fall in or encounter some kind of river monster or meet a mysterious ferryman. I still have no idea what will actually happen, but there are expectations and assumptions that can inform my choice and at least give me the satisfying illusion that my decision is a meaningful one. I can't do that with any of the options GW have presented here. So if you're looking for an apt comparison it's more like the boxes in Deal Or No Deal than a Choose Your Own Adventure story. It's a guess rather than a meaningful choice. Some people will be satisfied will a blind guess, but a lot of people won't. EDIT: I should point out that I think it is GW's intention to present us with a meaningful choice, I just don't think that choice has been communicated very effectively. Hopefully future dilemmas will be more engaging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirjava13 Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Gotta agree- the snippets that offer half an explanation on what the drake, the eye and the skull actually are have proved disappointing and unsatisfying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 45 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said: I find that unsatisfying. That's not a dilemma (GW's term, not mine), that's a guess. They may as well just not bother writing the snippets and label them 1, 2 and 3 for all the meaning it has to me as a participant. If the choices are meaningless what's the point of even having a branching narrative? Also, I don't think it will escape people's attention that the choices are so vague that GW could very easily have only one outcome planned and retrospectively link it to the winning choice. I'm not saying that's the case, but if the choices are this vague and meaningless then sure as night follows day I can guarantee that people will become suspicious and start to feel disengaged. GW has a history of manipulating campaign outcomes to suit their objectives, so it will be very easy for people to assume that the vagueness is a cynical ploy. Don't think the aim is for this campaign to satisfy everybody in particular. I love it, because we can only guess where this campaign is going. The added value of the symbols and signs is that they are again reflected in the Malign Portent scenario's and deck. So if you look into the narrative on the website and that of the actual product you see why adding details like that adds to immersion. What I see is that you don't have much interest for this narrative because it's unclear to you and you don't feel like adding your own twist on it. The choices arn't vague, they are yours to make if you look into the Malign Portents campaign and follow the story. You can thus go for a more magical route, character route and destruction/battle route. In many ways you could say it's a questionair on what you like, Wizards, fighting Leaders or mass Units clashing into each other. The point of every campaign isn't to have a giant meaningness to campaigns, the point is to add narrative so players can immerse themselves into the universe of Age of Sigmar. This is a story made so you know what could also go on besides the battles. What it does is create more interest in playing games where narrative matters, it's ideal for players who like this sort of immersion and like to see how battles on Shyish differ from that of other realms. We now see how this differs. The stories are yours to create. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuneBrush Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Going to make a suggestion here, if you'd like more narrative/explanation on the signs - send that feedback into GW. If they get enough comments in they'll add some more content to that section in future weeks. I'm fairly sure that things will become a little clearer as we progress through the campaign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 The thing of every campaign is really that if you arn't interested in the narrative behind it that you can skip it. Some don't like this aspect of gaming, some only want to roll dice and look into the tactical aspects. Many get Battletomes only to directly skip to the Pitched Battle Profiles. Some however want to know what a world is like, what characters are up to in Age of Sigmar's realms and want to know where the story progresses into. For those Malign Portents is an excellent product. What I hope to see is that Games Workshop will follow up campaigns set into every Realm, I think that would be very awesome. Immersion for a 'new game' like Age of Sigmar is very important because it means players will understand what Age of Sigmar is about. You can't "understand a fantasy setting turned up to 11" if you don't read into the narrative of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 57 minutes ago, Killax said: What I see is that you don't have much interest for this narrative because it's unclear to you and you don't feel like adding your own twist on it. The choices arn't vague, they are yours to make if you look into the Malign Portents campaign and follow the story. I have a lot of interest in this narrative! I love the majority of what GW has been doing with it. I've been going on about it so much that my wife bought me the Malign Portents combat guage as a Valentines Day present! I've enthusiastically shared all of the short stories on Twitter without faiI. I've changed my avatar to match the Malign Portents colours! I've read the book from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed it. That doesn't mean I won't critique something that I think falls short of the expectations that GW have set. It's precisely because I have such an enthusiastic interest in the narrative that these meaningless choices are disappointing to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turgol Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 I find the campaign design extremely satisfying. Way more than Seeds of Hope or older campaigns such as storm of chaos, were you would just check to see order steamrolling for a couple of months. The dilemma choices have a mix of known decision and partially blurred outcome that seems successfully designed to me. Do you choose to deny what is happening to maintain order (skull), use tribulations as an opportunity to deal with other goals (fighting chaos, political rivals, etc., the eye) or deal with the problem itself (“follow the signs”)? Seems a fairly accurate way to portrait the dilemmas that a lord in the Mortal Realm faces at the start of the time of tribulations. Chapeau so far to GW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riluo Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Thanks guy's it makes a bit more sense now and I will be watching it unfold. The three choices are very much up to interpretation it appears so I am keen to see if they expand it a bit more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 44 minutes ago, Riluo said: Thanks guy's it makes a bit more sense now and I will be watching it unfold. The three choices are very much up to interpretation it appears so I am keen to see if they expand it a bit more. Yeah they certainly should and will. I still have a gut feeling it might lead to a Slaanesh release amongst other things but I think that the writers will follow a path to that based on the outcome. Thus it isnt a meaningless choice at all! So far the eye has been in the lead so I think we can enjoy leader/character focused narrative exploration. Im eager to find out how DoK for example will clash with Nagash's forces. In addition I also think that as this story unfolds GW will focus releases on this outcome. So if we see the Eye as a prime thing Id expect more potent named characters for the game as opposed say; more Wizards/magic altering systems or more infantry/cavalry based systems. So far my votes have been made for skulls Blood for the Bloodgod! Khorne cares not! Based on your avatar I also think that the Shyish based event will add a lot of design inspiration for Legions of Nagash. In the eyes case maby killing characters even and bring them back as part of his Legion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDuff Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 I think about these 'choices' being more about the motives of your army. Order might want to seize the opportunity, or Destruction might decide to read the stars, if not at first, perhaps later in the campaign. This is an interesting way to role play your force with some user-defined motivations. Then we'll all see how these conflicting agendas play out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drofnum Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 I've been playing a lot of random mixed order lists lately so I'm just going to vote for whatever fits the theme of my current army. Lots of casters? Going with Drake. If i have some tricksy stuff go with the eye and if its mostly melee or shooting go with the skull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamR Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 New story is up - https://malignportents.com/story/reapers-revelation/ Oh those Knights Excelsior seem like such fun guys to be around! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chikout Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 2 minutes ago, AdamR said: New story is up - https://malignportents.com/story/reapers-revelation/ Oh those Knights Excelsior seem like such fun guys to be around! Good to see The Reaper make a comeback after city of secrets. Not many actual revelations for the reader though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killax Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 This is the type of Stormcast I can get into though. Quote Cerrus Sentanus, Lord-Veritant of Excelsis, strode through the shadowed dungeons. He ignored the screams and moans that echoed around him. Pale eyes stared out from between thick, black-iron bars as he passed, but swiftly shrank back when they saw the white lines of his armour, and the blazing lantern-stave he carried. They knew well the tools of the White Reaper. One deviant with a raw, burn-marked face was foolish or deranged enough to meet the Lord-Veritant’s gaze as he passed by, barking insults in some crude tongue. Sentanus’ hand shot out, lightning-fast. The human’s eyes bulged, bloodshot and terrified as he clawed pitifully at the metal gauntlet around his throat. Sentanus twisted hard, and there was a sickening crunch. He let the dead body fall, and walked on. As before I think that voting for the skull will make things very grim-dark in Age of Sigmar and I really like that type of content. I also feel that it stays really true to the idea of Shyish being such a dark place and the Age of Hope being dead. However offcourse I'd love it if narrative really depended on the realm focused of a certain campaign. All in all it has been said before but I really like how GW does Malign Portents. It's a lot of narrative, but it's free and does an amazing job in creating a setting full of stories players can immerse into without knowing the future outcome. That's just awesome. Edit: I really really really like this story It feels like a clash between the most potent WFB characters vs those that have brought saviour to AoS to begin with. Because of that I can only say that GW should stick to this type of content of "old unspeakable horrors vs new avenging heroes". What we also see is that Freeguilds are still (like WFB) very much capable of being under the influence of Shyish/Nagash and Chaos/Chaos Gods. Which is why I like that Stormcasts are still kept as a pure Order being that so far is immume to that and can destroy this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightbox Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Well now that the campaign is underway and can be done at home as opposed to games only being able to be played in GW I can totally get in on this Picked up my darkoath warqueen and built her yesterday so now I've the perfect excuse to go ahead and paint her up. Can paint my chaos lord conversion too! I presume the game at home slips work by the winning player picks which choice they want and then you just hand it into GW. Gonna stop by my store after work and ask about it. It's nice to feel like I can actually get in on a campaign and be included since I can't really game easily at my store (prefer playing vs friends at my local club rather than strangers) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AthlorianStoners Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Man the White Reaper tempting me to start Stormcast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuneBrush Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Spoiler Just love the way that despite it's demise, the Vampire in the story was able to play the Stormcast like puppets. What a better way to reinforce the Soulblight's influence within the city than to get their enemies to dispose of Lords and rulers who are not under the sway of Nagash Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorimant Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Spoiler Have we heard of the Sanguine Choir before? I wonder if this is a new tool in Nagash's toolbox, some Vampire Cult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirjava13 Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 @RuneBrush that was the first place my mind jumped too- "He's playing you like a fiddle, buddy." Rather fond of these more grimdark Stormcast, I must say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 1 minute ago, Kirjava13 said: @RuneBrush that was the first place my mind jumped too- "He's playing you like a fiddle, buddy." Rather fond of these more grimdark Stormcast, I must say. I hope they don't all go that way completely. I like that in general there's a strong streak of humanity, individuality and optimism running through them. It's one of the key things you can point to when people say they're just a copy of Space Marines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirjava13 Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 Eh, I'm over that. Functionally they are Spess Mehreens- they're big chunky armoured humans powered by faith and divided into military orders so you can paint them whichever way you like- and I'm ok with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuneBrush Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 6 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said: I hope they don't all go that way completely. I like that in general there's a strong streak of humanity, individuality and optimism running through them. It's one of the key things you can point to when people say they're just a copy of Space Marines. For me that's part of the point, the Knights Excelsior are the least humane and optimistic Stormcast about. They'll happily slaughter a village on the off-chance one villager spoke to a Chaos worshipper. It makes them really easy to play, they're already attacking shadows in case they're hiding something. Other chambers have retained their humanity, so they're less likely to take such extreme action without ensuring that it's necessary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Explorator Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 I really do not think there are "good" or "bad" choices in the dilemmas or that any one choice is a of particular interest for any GA or faction. Mostly, they represent very different reactions to the presence of all these spooky portents, with the omen that "wins" probably determining what reaction is most prevalent in the Realms. The Skull might look like the most "stupid" reaction and the star like "the thing to do" about the issue at hand, but ultimately they all represent brutal self interested action: -The star: Magical Catastrophe, as all kinds of grand rituals and spells from different sources and of different interest roll over the Realms, collude and ultimately clash against one another in unintended and unpredictable ways. -The Eye: A mix of open war and cloak and dagger intrigue between GAs as everyone maneuvers to get the greatest advantage from the current Chaos. -The Skull: A focus on internal strife, as everyone turns upon the prophets and dissenters in their own ranks in a futile attempt to deny the encroaching doom. Each offers to deliver utter havoc to the Realms, just the kind of havoc will be very different. 1 hour ago, RuneBrush said: Hide contents Just love the way that despite it's demise, the Vampire in the story was able to play the Stormcast like puppets. What a better way to reinforce the Soulblight's influence within the city than to get their enemies to dispose of Lords and rulers who are not under the sway of Nagash Spoiler That was my thought as well. Laughing all the way through its demise and still the Veritant believes he got the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sete Posted February 16, 2018 Share Posted February 16, 2018 If you kill them all, you will get the bad guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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