A FINAL NOTE | Iron Kingdoms: Requiem - Daily Dive

Here's my very take on Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, as well as some brief thoughts on what I think makes a solid RPG.

[@chrisj5505]

This is my absolute favourite setting. I love the classes, i love the lore, love the crafting. It is fantastic stuff

[@ppwar]

To be fair, Requiem was always advertised as a 5e setting and, as such, it was stated that you needed the 5e core books (or SRD) to play. It's not different from any other third-party setting going around (Kobold Press' Midgard, or Critical Role's Tal'Dorei, for example) so maybe your disappointment in the books not including full rules for the game is a consequence of previous misconceptions you had about what the books were about. Edit: I'm not saying that the Iron Kingdoms as a self contained 5e OGL game wouldn't have worked better. It probably would have because, as you stated, some of the core 5e's parts (some classes and spells) don't mesh that well with the setting. But it is clear that hopping on 5e's success brought attention to the Iron KIngdoms setting, so I can't argue with that decision.

[@HowToRollDice]

Hey there! I would say my disappointment is not so much from the fact that the game relies on owning several 5e books, though I certainly prefer that it didn't, it's the amount that it does. How much of the 5e srd rules they relied on was up to them, and they chose to rely on far more than I'd hoped. So much so that the game doesn't feel like IK at all. It feels like, well, as you put it, any other D&D setting. Also, without having the total revenue numbers from standalone IK vs requiem, I don't think it's fair to assume that this has been a success. Factoring the number of replacement copies they had to send out at their own cost, the number of delays they had to overcome, extending their producing runway and likely adding cost, and the number of upset fans who are likely going to look at this as a final death knell and move away from the company, I'd say that those, at the very least, wash out any gains from tapping into a small portion of the D&D community, and may have actually netted them a loss compared to releasing the game as a standalone rules set that they controlled.

[@HowToRollDice]

Oh also... Thanks for watching 😁

[@MarshallMiller157]

​@@HowToRollDice I can definitely see how it'd be disappointing if you're expecting a divergence from 5e to a more unique system like they did before. It definitely plants itself right on top of 5e as its foundation. After playing Requiem for a while, I think it best fits with those who have played 5e for a bit, and now want 5e with some extra crunch on top. It's definitely not a starter 5e setting. I have no idea about the margins they're making on it, but they seem to be going full steam ahead with several expansions and stand-alone content. They may be eating loss right now to promote it, although I somewhat doubt they're not turning a little bit of profit. They at least haven't had all the issues like the Requiem launch in their expansion that just came out, so they're cleaning that up already. I will say if you haven't given it a try, it does play a fair bit differently than a classic fantasy 5e game (in a good way) when you get down to running a campaign. However, I can definitely see where you'll lose a lot of the IK uniqueness if you just sit down and run it like a standard 5e hack-and-slash adventure.

[@chrisj5505]

I say run it with Tales of the Valiant and Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power and rework some monster stats. I would never run 5e as is for any setting. 5e is a good skeleton to build on but as a 3.5 dm and pathfinder 1e dm, I like to add more crunch. I want things to feel deadly but at the same time characters to also feel heroic.

[@Razehell42]

I exclusively dm Iron kingdoms. I stuck to mkii 2d6. New books are just updated lore resources to me. The GM kits pdf’s from the last three release were the the greatest gain from all of this.

[@HowToRollDice]

Solid plan.

[@nrais76]

Confirmed my inpression of Requiem, accidentally sold me Alien. Subscribed.

[@Dad-bodgaming]

I really hope that you give warmachine mk4 a little bit of a go in the hopes the game can reignite your love for PP and the setting of immoren.

[@ReadingDave]

You would probably enjoy the FMF rule set of Iron Kingdoms. $55, base rules, tons of charectors, background, basic GM aids, tons of free material through minature statistics.

[@HowToRollDice]

Aoh trust me, I played fmf and unleashed to death. It's one of my favorite, if not my favorite, settings and Rule systems of all time. I literally played it to the point where the books are falling apart, not from quality, but from years and years of consistent use.

[@beast0290]

@@HowToRollDice my d6 ik books finally bit the dust from just years of use... i wish they just stayed with d6 and gave it the proper chance. they barely advertised it. it barely existed for them

[@MarshallMiller157]

I saw videos like this, some comments from other IK fans, but it didn't seem to be that bad when I received my books and leafed through them. However, I reserved my judgement until actually playing a few one-shots and a campaign. After some months here's what I think: The good: It seems intended to be 5e + some 3.5-style crunch on top. I'd say it succeeds in that. The players who were into that kind of thing enjoyed that aspect of it, while the others who just wanted a base 5e experience just played the simpler classes that the game offered. It's a different combat experience than base 5e, which I did enjoy, since it shakes it up enough that you don't feel like you're just playing a skin on top of 5e classic fantasy. There are some things that on a spreadsheet aren't entirely balanced, but everything's flavorful enough that if Bob is doing 3 less damage on average than Betty, no one really cares. It's got a lot of material to draw upon from previous games and they're using it for sure. Compared to other 5e Kickstarters I've backed, I'd say it's not the best, but it's up there. The $2 supplements they've been releasing are a nice change of pace too and give you some bang for your buck. The bad: The editing and book material quality could just a facelift, which they have acknowledged. You'll need to read some paragraphs a few times and jump around the book before you get what was intended for some things. There isn't as much guidance on starting a campaign as I'd like in the base book. However, they fixed a lot of those issues in their follow-up expansion (it was on-time, editing is much better, and they fixed the material quality issues), so I'm pleased that they made changes so quickly. Overall, I'm having a lot of fun and the other players are having a lot of fun. I think it's honestly a great way to bring IK into the forefront and transition it into 5e. However, it ain't the 2d6 system at all, nor do I think it intends to try to be that. It's built on top of 5e through-and-through, just going outside of the bounds a bit to do their own take on things that you wouldn't see WotC do. If you like 2d6 more than 5e, just stick with the older one. But, if you're after a more crunchier 5e experience, I'd recommend it. I've had both vets of IK and players seeing the setting for the first time enjoy it.

[@Krashwire]

It seems like you did not understand what this product is. Its supplemental for DND 5e, not its own standalone game. It was very clear from the KS what this was. This is kinda like complaining about a phone case and it not containing the phone...

[@HowToRollDice]

It's sort of seems like you haven't watched all of my videos on the subject, where I mention numerous times that I am aware that it is a 5E suplliment, and that though I am not a fan of that design method, I want to give it a chance. There are plenty of supplemental RPG materials that feel like they stand on their own while simply using the base rules as a skeleton or framework. This suplliment failed to do that, and simply feels like a thin veil. What they could have created was a suplliment that is 75% iron kingdoms and 25% 5e, and instead they reversed that ration. So in short, I disagree with your premise.

[@davidbowman2501]

Your almost making me second guess my decision to get Iron Kingdoms: Requiem and the other books associated with it. I love this world and wish they would have just tweaked the previous version and actually supported it. My group I play with didn't really like the previous IK version, but that's because they are die hard d20 players. I like d20 as well, but I don't get why they had such disdain for the previous IK version. I'll most likely still buy IKR and the other books with it, but this really has me not rushing out to get it.

[@HowToRollDice]

Sorry to be the debby downer haha. I would say take a look at the Core Rules and try to get an understanding (or lack there of) for how the game is intended to meld with 5E. That's what really tanked it for me. Reading through the first 50-ish pages of lore, most of which was a rehash of stuff I'd already read dozens of times but told in a new light and with new details peppered in here and there, I was really getting excited. It's well written, as always, adds new intrigue, expands upon seldom mentioned groups and figures, and brings all of the lore up to present, well beyond the infernal invasion. It even tosses in a pretty noticeable nod to Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika, which was Marvel easter eggs level of cool. But then you get past the fluff to the actual mechanics of how the game is intended to flow together with 5E, and it all fell apart. Literally felt like the smile was slapped off my face. The best way I can explain it is it seems like trying to get a 'way too big' sofa up a 'way too narrow and winding' set of stairs. Sure we can make it happen, but it's going to be a struggle the whole way, no one is really going to enjoy the process, and at the end of the day the new couch isn't really all that much better than the old couch, so why did we put in all the work to make it happen?

[@chrisj5505]

I have bought everything they have published for 5e so far. I owned everything they did for 3.5 also. Some minor flaws but I enjoy system Mastery and tweaking things. The setting is delicious

[@xxtommicusxxtk7237]

I feel like I've done what you did bought it for my love of the IK world setting. I was excited because my group plays dnd now and was hoping to get them to play this. I backed it, and received it awhile ago, but never really looked at it because we were currently running a game. We're close to the end of our campaign so I started looking at the books. But character creation seems lackluster and kinda limited vs the d6 version. Plus I can't be a skinwalker so that's a downer.

[@stevenpaul1476]

If it's not too late take a look at Worlds Without Number. I've been retrofitting it for IK and it's shockingly easy. Also, skinwalkers.

[@JoseAngelC]

The foundation of game mechanically was in the previous edition, the unleashed one and the one with 2d6 systems coming from Warmachine. Anyone who buys a 5e product is used to knowing adventures, monsters and etc need to be learned from D&D and that's the point of buying a 5e adventure or setting. Otherwise Wizards wouldn't have allowed these guys to release a 5e version. No 5e setting or adventure book is going to give you a rules review. I don't see the point of buying something without knowing what you were getting, they weren't doing any false advertisement with this. Crap binding and otherwise bad printing and distribution issues though.

[@HowToRollDice]

What couldn't be deduced from the examples that were made available at the time of the initial kickstarter was how successful they would be with melding the 5E ruleset and playstyle with the existing IK lore and playstyle. So I put my faith in a company I had loved for over a decade and wanted to believe that they would come up with a way to make building IK characters within a D&D system still feel like IK. In my opinion, after having read through the finished books, they did not.

[@leatherguru8904]

This was one of many kickstarters that I backed. And in conclusion, as much as I ooh and awe over the cool ideas, I have stopped backing them. My players and I get sold on an idea today not two years down the road. This will be another one that will look good on the bookshelf. Content creators should have the content fleshed out first before going to kickstarter that way they could pull the trigger on the book binder when it ends. Two years is BS.

[@trolleymouse]

This was a book aimed at 5e players. 5e players are a different breed. To sell to 5e players, you sell conversion kits. 5e players already know how to play 5e (and that's about it) so they don't want to have to read through another copy of the PHB just to reverse-engineer what's new. They know that shit off the top of their head. In addition, this isn't going to be bringing anybody into 5e that isn't already into 5e. The river only flows downhill. There's 0 reason to include the PHB content. It would just waste paper and production time.

[@dayminkaynin]

The og iron kingdoms was 3.0 D&D and it was ok.

[@dayminkaynin]

It was all rules in one 2” book. Another 2” book with lore and towns.

[@nrais76]

Well, to be fair, the 5e DMG doesn't teach you how to run the game, either.

[@jackeldridge4225]

DUDE! That was the Open Gaming License at it's core right there. Make this shit. But they still have to buy OUR shit to make it work. And it damn near destroyed the RPG industry when it went south. '\

[@HowToRollDice]

It's just such a bizarre concept to me. The gaming universe is one built on creativity and originality. Then here comes this concept of open licensing, which is the creative equivalent of buying someone else's completed and beloved painting, painting over the sky and adding a cabin on that hill in the background, and calling it your brand new original peice. Non-sense. And I get it, it's hard to create a whole game from scratch, I've done it about a dozen times myself, and still don't have the nerve to even attempt to release any of them. But that's just how it is. You don't get to copy someone else's work and try to collect an A+. You either can or you can't.

[@beast0290]

@@HowToRollDice the worse part is. they had their own system that they barely did anything with. no adverts or anything really. but tis life right