Song of Swords

>>50676374
>Is SoS anywhere near completion? How diferrent is it from TRoS or BotIT?
All of them and Band of Bastards are the same game overall. They're different in particular ways. BotIT (or Bovine) is made specifically for sword and sorcery settings, has a so-called Limelight system for multi-person combats, has wounds levels from one to six. The game's most standout feature is it uses d12s instead of d10s. Strength and Toughness are rolled into one stat. Bleeding is a gradual degredation of combat ability on a combat time scale. Overshock adds a bonus to the attacker's next refresh. It has varying maneuver activation costs depending on your proficiency. Many weapons have odd abilities to encourage you to do things you wouldn't normally try, like thrusting with a mace. (They have a Silver-esque hatred of the rapier as well.) Women are objectively better than men because they can't be hit in the groin as often. It has bare tits on every page and a ton of stolen artwork. Most of the game mechanics are ripped straight from Riddle - some maneuvers' description paragraphs are even almost direct copy & pastes of the text in Riddle's books.

BoB has no setting and is much lighter and smaller than the other Riddle successors. One of its main premises is that you build your weapons from applying various modifiers to a base weapon statline, instead of all of its competitor games where you have lists of dozens and dozens of weapon statlines. However they have yet to release that feature, and at this time they have lists of dozens of weapon statlines. Its most standout feature is everyone uses a TN of 6, and wounds you suffer increase your TN for almost all actions; all other Riddle games have your TNs come from your choice of equipment and utilize a Pain system that reduces your CP as you suffer wounds. They have a lighter version of Bovine's Limelight system for multi-person combats. BoB takes more direct inspiration from the Riddle cousin game, Burning Wheel, even cribbing from it the "Ob" terminology for Obstacle, the number of successes you need to pass a check. Strength and Toughness can be bought up individually like in Riddle. Bleeding is a strategic post-combat concern. Overshock subtracts from the victim's next refresh. Proficiencies are similar to Riddle in that you use a proficiency based on how you use your weapon, necessarily what weapon you're using. BoB also stands out by removing the beloved Reach system, giving a +2 or +4 dice bonus at refresh to whoever currently has reach advantage instead of anything else. Grappling in BoB is extremely lethal. Metal armor caps wound levels at 3, necessitating either grappling or hitting somewhere unarmored to kill someone in full plate. Women are objectively better than men because they can't be hit in the groin at all. BoB is currently going through an overhaul that may change how some of these things work.

Song of Swords has a setting but is designed to work with or without it. SoS has various fantasy races, a large number of elf varieties, and magical people directly empowered by the gods; Bovine refluffs the degeneracy approach that Riddle had toward races to favor barbarians over freemen but otherwise includes only humans, as fits their genre; BoB only has humans. The game's most standout feature is its community manager, noted slavophile, leopard seal enthusiast, and sepsis fetishist Jimmy Rome. Strength is a purchasable stat but Toughness is the average of 3 purchasable stats, making it expensive to raise. (Stats are rated 1 to 10 in SoS; in Bovine they're 1 to 8, in BoB they're 1 to 5. All three games have special conditions that let you rise above these limits.) An important distinction between SoS and the other games is its inclusion of a third die color, making orientation more tactically engaging while keeping it very smooth, fast, and easy. Bleeding is gradual countdown to death on a combat time scale, and death by bloodloss comes extremely quickly. It's worth noting both SoS and BoB have involved rules for medical care and wound infections. Overshock manifests as a knockdown check. It has fixed maneuver costs and proficiencies are used based on what you're holding, not how you're using it. It claims to have over 150 weapons. Its grappling and bind ("hilt push") systems are inspired by Riddle but somewhat different from it. Armor, weapons, and wounds are overall very similar to Riddle. It originally purported to have rules for fighting large monsters in a Dragon's Dogma style but that never happened. Women are equal to men and can be hit in the groin in an identical fashion to them. Instead of Spiritual Attributes, SoS uses so-called Arcs. While similar, these do not give you any in-game benefit like SAs did but instead are your only avenue for acquiring experience points.

Song of Swords and BotIT have both since released sci-fi games. Bovine released a Swords & Planet supplement, for games in that genre. (You know, fighting the bug-men in the gladiatorial arenas on red Mars for the hand of the green-skinned princess. That sort of thing.) SoS released a new game named Call of the Void: Ballad of the Laser Whales (Ballad or CotV for short) which bears passing resemblance to the Riddle games but is mostly its own thing. It's set in a WW1/WW2 level technology world of floating islands and ships that plow the void, running on the biofuel of the space whales that travel freely between the islands. SoS is currently in the process of adapting some mechanics from Ballad to itself, in particular its multi-person combat system.

Ultimately, all the Riddle successors are slightly different but undoubtedly distinct, comprised of different combinations of familiar and new mechanics. BotIT has emphasis on its genre setting, BoB has emphasis on its mechanics, and SoS has split emphasis on its setting and mechanics.

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Bump with armor-fu

>>50679073
It's been a while - something like ten months now.

Is Jimmy still dragging his feet on introducing magic to the game? I see the monster fighting system hasn't been put out yet.

>>50683026
He gave up on SoS magic to do CotV magic instead

File: #[SoS] Star Vampires and Dark Pyromancers (update for SoS 1.9.9).pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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>>50683026
I think you have missed this then

>>50683460
Neat, thanks, i'll look that over.

Another big difference between the Riddle successors are how they handle multiple wounds.

In SoS, you add Pain and Bleed from all wounds into a combined total. This includes multiple wounds on the same area. (Explosions in SoS are debilitating because they make a dozen level 1 wounds whose Pain stacks up.)

In BotIT, you only combine Pain and Bleed from wounds from different areas. Once you hit someone in the arm, further hits to the arm won't create more pain or bleed. You need to hit another location.

In BoB, you only consider your highest Bleed level and your highest TN adjustment. Wounds below what you're currently suffering do nothing to further hinder you. Your Bleed is worsened if you suffer multiple Bleeds of the same level, and you'll still suffer special effects such as knockdown or loss of limb, but that's all.