Games Derpshop – Digital Editions

Well, like I said a little while ago, it didn’t take too long for Games Workshop to do something as equally stupid as Codex: Iyanden. But this time, they’re dragging sister company Black Library into the mess as well! Tremendous.

So, what’s their latest marketing scheme?

BEHOLD!

Yes, for the low, low price of £3.49, you can read a few pages of fluff about Space Marine Dreadnoughts on your iPad! Dreadnoughts not your thing? How about £2.99 for less than 15 pages of rehashed fiction about Azrael, the Dark Angels Chapter Master? Or if you think that’s still not to your taste, how about spending 99p for 7 pages of fluff on shuriken catapults AND ARE YOU ACTUALLY FUCKING SERIOUS.

I’m just going to be blunt here; if you buy one of these, you are a moron. An actual goddamn fucking moron who probably shouldn’t be allowed to be responsible for the money you have. I don’t care what your argument or defence; I think you’re a fucking moron, and that is just how it is.

I’ve no doubt there are people out there who want to know a bit about certain aspects of the 40k universe. It’s a huge setting, and there’s a lot to take in. But for the love of all that is holy, if you want people to learn about some stuff, just have a proper fucking background fluff section on the main GW website. Don’t charge people money for a few pages of half-arsed, rehashed fiction and art. The limited range confuses me too. You could knock together one of these “products” (and I am being teeth-bleedingly generous to use that term) in five minutes; why not have ten Index Astartes articles, right off the bat? There’s loads of special characters, why not fifteen or twenty Warlords of the Dark Millenium, rather than Azrael, all by himself? As for guns and wargear, 40k is packed full of awesome iconic stuff shit like vortex grenades, chainswords, and Terminator armour, and the two premier Munitorum titles are for the fucking shuriken catapult and Eldar long rifle?

You know what? I’m going to be nice. I’m going to save you readers a whopping total of £11.95. Below is a list of links to Lexicanium  for…

Codex Astartes

Dreadnoughts  (including variants such as the Contemptor, Furioso, Mortis, and Ironclad)

Azrael

Shuriken catapults

Eldar long rifle

You want art? There’s this thing called Google Image search. Enjoy.

You know the thing that makes me really angry about this whole thing? This just utterly reeks of half-arsed bullshit. Yeah, the advert says “Every Monday”. I’ll give that a few months before they realise that people aren’t buying shoddy products and scrap the whole thing.

You know what would be amazing? A proper dedicated background book for each race. Then the Codex doesn’t need to be padded out, and can be made smaller and cheaper. If hardcore gamers only care about their army’s gimmick (“Marines are power-armoured elites, Eldar are psychic space-elves, Daemons will make you regret getting into this hobby in the first place”, etc) then that can be a few pages in the Codex. For people who care more about the fluff, they’ll gladly hand over money for a nice hardback 100+ page book that details the Fall of the Eldar, or the Horus Heresy, or the awakening of the Necron Dynasties, accompanied by the glorious artwork that GW present. And I think that’s ultimately the problem I have with these new digital products; GW have created a sci-fi setting that I love, but the way they handle it in terms of the accompanying game and products borders on lunacy. And people put up with it, and I have no idea why.

Urgh.

- Gareth 

Review – Mark of Calth, Part 1

Man, I have been putting this off. I was intending to do a quick snappy review of Mark of Calth when I got back from holiday… that was nearly three weeks ago! But I felt the need to gush about the latest Horus Heresy offering from Black Library, and gushing is what I shall do.

Mark of Calth is one of the Horus Heresy anthologies, similar to Tales of Heresy and The Primarchs. Mark of Calth is different from these other anthologies though, as it is awesome rather than mediocre. Each short story in the anthology is set after the events of Dan Abnett’s Know No Fear, a book so good it gives me an inappropriate nerd-stiffy. What does that mean? Well, Calth, the once-glorious jewel in the Ultramarine’s private little kingdom, is now a blasted, post-apocalyptic landscape thanks to Chief Dickface Kor Phaeron blasting the sun.

“SORRY, CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER ALL THIS GENOCIDE.”

All that’s left on Calth are the Ultramarines, some unlucky civilians and mortal soldiers, and the Word Bearers who were left behind. A long and bitter war of survival begins, with deeds both heroic and atrocious committed. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The Shards of Erebus    (Guy Hayley)

Erebus, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers, forges new anathame blades from the original athame sword he used (indirectly) to wound and ultimately corrupt Warmaster Horus, and presents them to the Word Bearer commanders who will be leading the assault on Calth. Erebus also learns more sorcery from the tribes of Davin, learning how to do the “Subtle Knife” trick of slicing a hole in the universe for a bit of sneaky teleporting. Aaaand… not much else happens. Oh, there’s a nice bit of character building between various Word Bearer characters, and it’s good to know exactly how Erebus learned these new powers. The story’s well written but ultimately a bit dull. Not a great start to the anthology, but I’ve read much, much worse.

 

Calth That Was   (Graham McNeil)

The title of this story always makes me think of Firefly. I was initially wary of this story, as it’s written by Graham McNeil, who… isn’t exactly to my tastes. The last book of his I read was Thousand Sons, which was… okay? I wasn’t impressed with his stories in the other Horus Heresy anthologies, and I skipped The Outcast Dead entirely on the advice of a friend. I’m not hating on McNeil, not at all, it’s just that there’s something about his style of writing that I’m not fond of.

Calth That Was has forced me to reconsider my opinions.

It’s the longest story in the book, and it’s great. It mostly follows Remus Ventanus and the Ultramarine equivalent of the Inglorious Basterds, going around and kicking in the teeth of Word Bearers. On the other side, you have Maloq Kartho and Hol Beloth of the Word Bearers trying to wipe out the Ultramarine resistance, though Kartho has plans of his own… An awesome bit of fiction; this is the anthology’s bolter-porn, chock-full of classic Warhammer 40,000 stuff; daemons, crunchy, visceral action, kickass Space Marines, the works. Excellent stuff. McNeil, you’re back on my list.

 

Dark Heart  (Anthony Reynolds)

So we go from an awesome story to… urgh. I’ll be blunt; I can’t stand Anthony Reynold’s “Dark X” books. I read Dark Apostle back in the day, because I’ve always loved the Word Bearers and Dark Apostle was pretty much the only fiction for them. It was… fine. Then I tried to read Dark Disciple and gave up about a third of the way through. I just had an issue with Marduk, aka Mr Massive Fucking Mary Sue. So, guess who the main character of Dark Heart is? Because, you know, god forbid you write about a different character with some actual personality.

So, what happens? Nothing of any real consequence. Marduk is inducted into a veteran assault squad because he’s so super-special-awesome, and then he effortlessly kills a bunch of Ultramarines, then he team-kills his mentor using some secret daemonic sorcery that only he knows because he’s so super-special-awesome. Then he talks smack to Kor Phaeron because he’s such a badass and OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

 

The Traveller (David Annandale)

I haven’t read Annandale’s stuff before, but this was pretty damn good. The focus is on the civilians of Calth who are surviving in the arcologies, and how very much it sucks to be them. This is more of a horror story than any other in the book, with all the ingredients to make a tasty terror pudding; paranoia, madness, and sudden spurts of senseless and horrific violence. Admittedly, you can see the twist coming from a mile off, but it’s always refreshing to have a story set during the Horus Heresy that isn’t focused on the Astartes or the Mechanicum, but instead the people who have to deal with the consequences.

 

In Part 2, I’ll ramble on about the other four stories in the anthology; A Deeper Darkness, The Underground War, Athame, and Unmarled.

 

- Gareth

 

Art of Magic – Spread ‘Em

I was flicking through the cards I got the other night from drafting Modern Masters, and I noticed that Wayne Reynolds has done art for quite a lot of the cards in Modern Masters. This is in no way a problem, because I love Wayne’s style of art; it’s bold and dynamic and vivid and exaggerated and other first-year-art-college-studenty words.

But I’ve only just noticed a certain trend of Mr Reynolds; the characters he depicts on MtG just simply don’t care. How do I know? BECAUSE THEY GOT THEIR HANDS IN THE AIR. Or failing that, they’re trying to attain flight through sheer determination and flapping of their arms.

Let’s look, shall we?

Okay, no problem here. You’d strike a pose too if you were an awesome steampunk wizard covered in lightning and rocking a laser-monocle. I have to wonder though if there isn’t a more efficient way for him to store all those scrolls and… ummm… tent poles?

Again, no problems here, just an elf chick having a flex and showing off her new magical clothes made of armadillos. Because that’s normal, right? Also introduced here is a sub-trend of Wayne’s; sexy fantasy lady + aggressive, leaning-forward pose = bang! Cleavage, and also here, a cheeky curvy booty.

It’s like Ms Hooker here saw Armadillo Elf Lady and was like “bitch please, you call that a pose?” and proceeded to dislocate her shoulders, ready to throw two grappling hooks in the most inefficient and awkward way possible. Again, notice the tried and true formula of lady + lean = lady bits. And another cheeky booty! Mr Reynolds, I do declare you’re giving me the vapours!

I wasn’t fond of the design of the kithkin in Llorwyn/Morningtide, though they got a bit cooler when they became glowy-eyed xenophobes in Shadowmoor/Eventide. That giant may look like he’s angry that Mr Frodo here is having the time of his life pretending to be an airplane, but he’s actually desperately concerned that the little hobbit will trip and fall on the absurdly shiny sword he’s carrying for no reason.

Look how goddamn evil that demon is! He’s all like “MWAHAHAHA, YOUR SOUL WILL SOON BE MIIIINE!”, and then he gives a brief jazz-hands flourish and sets fire to a hospital. What a dick. In all seriousness, Wayne Reynolds needs to draw more demons. Not even for Magic, just in general.

“WHEEEEEEEEEEE.”

“Dude, seriously, you need to hold on to the reins, because I cannot even begin to describe how incredibly dangerous riding on this giant seagull is.”

“CAN’T HEAR YOU GONNA KILL MYSELF SO GODZILLA CAN ACHIEVE FLIGHT.”

“How does that even make any-”

*Splat*

Okay, I get it. You’re ambidextrous. You want to show off by swinging two swords and once, and be all dual-wielding Mary Sue Badass. I get it. But clearly this kithkin went to same riding school as the Exuberant, above. Reins? Harnesses? Bitch, fuck that noise, I’m a murderous hobbit riding a rabbit-goat.

Okay, so let’s go through the checklist. Arms spread to the point of shoulder dislocation? Check. Boobs? Che-. WAIT. Furry tiger lady boobs? Oh, Wayne. Oh. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. At least Ms Tiger Lady here will soon meet with an undignified face planting after succumbing to gravity’s cruel and inevitable embrace.

Arms ligament-punishingly wide and an aggressive lean forward towards the viewer WITH NO BOOBS!? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. Ah well, at least this guy actually has wings, which admittedly makes his arm-flapping a bit redundant. Still, full marks for enthusiasm, even if he’s a soldier who doesn’t appear to be carrying any weapons.

Technically the Vulshok Postal Service doesn’t qualify as her arms are tucked fairly close to her body, but I couldn’t let this one go. I can think of two immediate reasons why Koth might employ her, and it’s not her glowy metal power fists. Oh Wayne, you’re not even being subtle anymore, are you? But that’s okay, because I still love ya, and I hope you’ll continue to produce awesome fantasy art for a long time.

- Gareth

Modern, Mastered

Last night I was down at the Chichester Gaming Society’s Friday Night Magic to draft a set I’ve been looking forward to for a while now; Modern Masters! (aka “Wizards of the Coasts Prints Money”). The set is intentionally designed as a “greatest hits” of the Mirrodin – Alara period of Magic, and the rares and mythics don’t disappoint; Tarmogoyf, Cryptic Command, Vedalken Shackles, Doubling Season, Sword of Fire and Ice… all great stuff that I was obviously destined not to open.

The thing about Modern Masters is that there’s no bad cards in the set. There’s certainly some cards which are resoundingly “meh”, but there’s no stinkers. There’s also some refreshing downgrades in rarity; Feudkiller’s Verdict, Take Possession, Mad Auntie, and Worm Harvest are all rocking silver symbols now. A few cards have had their rarity upgraded; the Kamigawa dragons, the Swords, and ‘goyf. I have to admit, I was surprised to see that Doubling Season didn’t go from gold to orange, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. After all, with these reprints, there’s always the slight chance that the ridiculous price of some of these cards will go down a fraction.

Also, new art. Not a lot of it, but enough to be appreciated. Countryside Crusher and Reach of Branches now look awesome, rather than… whatever they did before. I’m also happy to see Future Sight cards in the normal cardface instead of the arse-ugly “futureshifted” frame.

MM on the left, FS on the right. I know which one I prefer,

Drafting MM was fairly easy; each colour pair has a suggested archetype – green-white tokens, red-blue Arcane, white-blue artifacts, etc, and with only three packs, you had to commit pretty early. My mind was made up for me after my first two picks; Knight of the Reliquary, then a Lightning Helix. “Yep,” I thought, “I’m going Naya.”  From then on, it was an easy case of ignoring black and blue and taking a good mix of Thallids, Rebels, and control options.

This is the deck I ended up building…

WHITE

1 Amrou Scout, 1 Amrou Seekers, 1 Cloudgoat Ranger, 1 Saltfield Recluse, 1 Veteran Armourer, 2 Bound in Silence

RED

1 Hammerheim Deadeye, 2 Stingscourger

GREEN

1 Eternal Witness, 2 Penumbra Spider, 2 Sporoloth Ancient, 2 Thallid, 1 Thallid Shell-Dweller, 1 Echoing Courage, 1 Kodama’s Reach, 2 Moldervine Cloak

MULTI

1 Knight of the Reliquary, 2 Lightning Helix

LAND

9 Forest, 3 Mountain, 5 Plains

I was pretty damn happy with how this deck ran, if only because the majority of it is from Time Spiral block, which is one of my absolute favourite Magic sets, and I got a pleasant sense of nostalgia playing with Thallids again. The only regret in my drafting is taking a Moldervine Cloak over Imperiosaur, who is a goddamn house in this format.

I was lucky to get two Bound in Silence, and luckier still to draw at least one in every game. Without a doubt, they were the stars of the evening as they locked down enemy fatties. Plus, I could use Amrou Scout to tutor them out when needed! Cloudgoat Ranger was my other star performer; the board presence she(?) has when she comes down is completely game-changing.

So how did the deck perform? Well, three matches later, I had three wins. I played against Esper artifacts, red-green aggro, and a red-blue-green mishmash, and my Naya weenies managed to trounce them all. Did I get a tasty mythic in my prize boosters? A Sword? Shackles? I would’ve been happy with a Cryptic Command or Doubling Season even. Well, I didn’t open anything like that, but, hey, foil Reveillark ain’t bad. Some spiteful hate-drafting also left me with a Keiga and Academy Ruins.

Overall, a fun set to draft, if a little on the expensive side. I had a few reservations about some of the archetypes that the colour pairs led themselves to; blue-green doesn’t really have an identity beyond “durr, ramp, fatties”, and blue-red Arcane just can’t compare to tribal powerhouses like blue-black Faeries or red-black Goblins. I would’ve loved to have seen Slivers in the red-green slot (replacing Storm, because, seriously, fuck Storm), and then suspend could’ve been firmly in blue-red where it belongs and where it has good support. I suppose with Slivers thrown into the fray, the set would’ve been mostly Time Spiral block. And what a terrible shame that would’ve been…

It’s fairly obvious Wizards might repeat this trick again in a few years, and I dread to think what depravity we may see in Modern Masters 2…

NNNNNOOOOOOO

- Gareth

No Triceratopping, You Are The Derps

I made a boo-boo yesterday when ranting about the Iyanden Codex; blame the red mist that descended on me and clouded my senses.

I was under the impression that the hardback paper copies were all limited edition. This is not the case; the hardback Codex will be stocked normally, and there will be 500 limited edition Codexes, so even if a player misses their chance to get the limited edition Codex and doesn’t have an iPad, they can still throw away their money make a wise purchase.

So that’s something, I guess?

You win this time, space elf necromancer.

Doesn’t stop the whole thing because GODDAMN STU- no. No, no, no. Deep breaths, deeeeep breaths…

Mmmm, Forgeworld Horus Heresy miniatures make the hurting stop.

- Gareth

Games Derpshop – Codex Iyanden

Games Workshop never cease to amaze me. I admit, they managed to drag me back in to their sweaty clutches with the Dark Vengeance boxset last year, but the brief madness passed, and I’ve sworn off Warhammer 40,000 for good, preferring to turn to companies like Privateer Press and Mantic to satisfy my tabletop wargame hunger. I’m a slave to the Warhammer 40,000 lore, that’s a given, but the models and gaming side of it… sheesh.

If there’s one thing I will never understand about GW, it’s their game design philosophy. Aside from their extortionate prices, it’s the absolute biggest gripe I have with them, because it makes them look like goddamn morons compared to other companies. Warhammer 40,000 is an utter mess of army books and FAQs from different editions.

Their announcement today takes the cake though, because of how utterly pants-on-head retarded it is. Behold.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING FUCK.

Okay, things that immediately spring to mind.

1) WHY.

2) Nice business strategy, dipshits. One of your oh-so-treasured customers can hope and pray that they’ll get one of the limited 500 hardback copies (which are probably all gone within 5 minutes of being made available and will be on eBay for double the price within a week), or, if the customer has an iPad, they can get it off the iBookstore… FOR THE EXACT SAME FUCKING PRICE AAAAARGH WHY IS THE DIGITAL COPY THE SAME PRICE AS A HARDBACK PAPER COPY YOU MOUTHBREATHING BACKBIRTHS THAT IS DEFEATING THE ENTIRE POINT OF DIGITAL PUBLISHING.

3) Also, wow, great way to isolate players late to the party. “Oh wow, Iyanden, my favourite Craftworld! Oh, and they have their own Codex! Awesome!”  LOL NO SORRY LIMITED EDITION ALL GONE. “Oh. Okay.”   BUT DON’T WORRY YOU CAN GET IT FOR YOUR IPAD.   “But I don’t have an iPad, because I don’t want one/can’t afford one.”  OH WELL TOUGH SHIT LOLOLOLOLOL.

4) “What Codex shall we dedicate time and effort to writing? Orks? Sisters of Battle? Something exciting and new like Adeptus Mechanicus? Naaah, let’s make a supplement to that Codex WE LITERALLY ONLY JUST RELEASED.” I get why you chose Iyanden GW, but Eldar players have already creamed their pants because you’ve finally pulled your thumb out of your backside and plastic Wraithguard are now a thing; you didn’t need to offer any more incentive for people to buy them.

5) On that subject; Iyanden? You can honestly fill a whole £30 Codex with content on the Craftworld whose gimmick is “army of spooky ghoooosts!”. And don’t try and claim rehashed fiction as “content”. Players can go to Lexicanium for fluff, Codexes should be for the crunch first and foremost, though that said, have fun paying a grand-spanking total of £60 (because as mentioned, this is a supplement, so you need the main Eldar Codex as well) just so you can make a Wraithknight your Warlord, and have a few new bits of wargear. Oooo. So worth it.

6) To go back to a previous point, WHY IS A FUCKING SUPPLEMENTAL CODEX THE SAME PRICE AS ITS PARENT CODEX. “Hey guys, do you want to pay the same price for a third of the content?”  ”Yes we do!” replied the idiot fanboys.

7) There is no way on Earth that GW will continue to regularly release other supplemental Codexes like this for other armies that are no longer in the spotlight (for example, Thousand Sons or Lost and the Damned for Chaos). They didn’t update Dark Eldar for 10 years, what fucking hope have Iron Warriors got? Hell, Iyanden might even be the only Eldar sub-Codex they do. Tough shit, Biel-Tan players!

GW, seriously, this isn’t rocket science. Stop acting like dicks. Stop pretending that it’s exciting because it’s Limited Edition; it isn’t. It just widens the divide between casual gamers and demented fanboys with more money than sense. Make these “Limited Edition” Codexes cheaper (£15 doesn’t seem too unreasonable), and make them print-on-demand. Or release it as a PDF so players who don’t own iPads can buy it too. Oh my goodness, look at that, you’ve widened your target market. I hear that’s a good thing in business. Admittedly, you don’t get the “gold rush effect” and you don’t make obscene amounts of money within a small space of time, but you can be certain that you’d  make a lot more over the long run.

Phew. Rant over. At least until GW do something else equally stupid. Shouldn’t take too long.

- Gareth

Achievement Unlocked… Bonus Feat?

One of my major pet peeves with RPGs is feats, and their equivalent. Call them what you will; talents, merits, perks… they’re all the same, a big list of abilities that grant a passive advantage to an RPG character. I hate feats. In my experience, I’ve seen feats run the range of overpowered, underpowered, necessary, and ultimately, dull.

Here’s my main problem with feats; let’s say you’re playing Pathfinder and you have a player who’s playing a fairly unexceptional Ranger. He’s got skill points in Hide, Climb, Knowledge (nature), Listen… all the normal, archetypal Ranger-y stuff. Over the course of the campaign, the group decides they need someone to patch them up should the Cleric die, run out of spells, or decide that she doesn’t want to be used as a walking first aid kit any more. “No problem!” says the Ranger player, “I get to take a feat next level!”

So, he levels up, and gets to choose his feat. Now, he doesn’t have any skill points in Heal, but with his fellow adventurers in mind, he selects the feat Skill Focus (Heal), giving him a decent bonus to any Heal skill checks he makes in future. His untrained Heal skill checks. The fluff of Skill Focus is “Select a skill. You are particularly adept at that skill.”

How is a guy with no training “particularly adept”? Now, you could handwave it by saying that he has a natural aptitude for putting band-aids on people’s boo-boos. You could. I wouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense, story wise. The fluff doesn’t go with the crunch, to use gamer parlance.

Another gripe I have with feats is when taking said feat is a glaringly obvious choice, or when a feat is a boring, mathematical way to cover a weakness. D&D 4^th edition was notorious for this, introducing the concept of “feat tax”; if you didn’t take Implement Expertise or Weapon Expertise (and there was absolutely no reason not to take these feats; they were low tier and had no prerequisites), you were statistically less likely to hit enemies, due to the disproportionate way that enemy defences scaled with level, compared to the attack accuracy of player characters.

I will admit, sometimes feats can sometimes be cool. Years ago, I played a 10^th level character in a d20 Modern Urban Arcana one-night game, and I had great fun building up the unarmed combat feat chains so that I ended up with a martial artist whose bare fists did about as much damage as a shot from a  .44 Magnum. But I digress. The thing about feats is that they should be awesome, and cool, and character defining. If you were telling a fellow gamer about your RPG character, you probably wouldn’t even mention they have a boring-but-functional feat like Weapon Focus, unless your character is utterly reliant on a degenerate feat combination, like the infamous spiked-chain Fighters of D&D 3^rd edition (lololol tripping up all the dudes within 20 feet of me in one action, lolololol).

Also, lists. Endless, endless lists of feats in core rulebooks and splatbooks, which take forever for players and GMs alike to trawl through. The “Whatever Power” splatbooks of D&D 4th edition usually have about 60-80 new feats each. Urgh.

So what to do about it?

Well, inspiration comes from D&D spiritual successor, Pathfinder.

I think it’s safe to say that there’s a pretty good overlap between people who like to play tabletop RPGs, and people who like to play video games. And why not? Gaming is awesome, no matter what form it takes. Perhaps one of the biggest phenomena in modern gaming is the addition of Achievements (or Trophies, for PS3′ers).

There’s something just so satisfying about that little notification popping up to let you know that you now have extra bragging rights. Gamers love getting achievements, whether it’s just for completing  a level, or doing something truly impressive (Hellish Honour on the Devil May Cry HD collection, for example). Achievements are cool. They make you feel like you accomplished something, like you’ve been rewarded for becoming better as a player.

So what did Paizo do? They put Achievement feats in Pathfinder.

 

Here’s an example from this lovely site;

 

Devil’s Foe

Prerequisite; Face ten different devils in combat and take damage or suffer some other sort of injury from five or more attacks made by each one without falling unconscious, fleeing, or otherwise becoming unable to strike back at them.

Benefit; Bypass the damage reduction of devils with your weapons.

 

Is that a difficult prerequisite? Well, yeah. A pain in the arse to keep track of as well. But is that a good benefit? Yes. Is that a feat you would want to bring up in conversation with other gamers when talking about your character? Yes. Does it help define your character, and epitomise the struggles they’ve faced and the challenges they’ve overcome? YES. Is it a good design for a feat? WHAT DO YOU THINK.

I’m currently tweaking around with Gamma World, and slowly morphing it into an RPG of my own creation. I’ll be including feats, and they will be in this kind of “achievement” format, because it’s a fucking awesome idea. It gives players something to work towards, and they’ll appreciate the end result so much more than if they just picked a bland, mathematical bonus from a list of bland, mathematical bonuses. With the “achievement” format, the feat can be much more powerful too, as a reward for all the player’s hard work. Here’s an example, off the top of my head;

 

BOOM, Headshot!

Prerequisite; Inflict 15 critical hits with ranged attacks made with guns.

Benefit; Your ranged attacks with guns inflict critical hits on an attack roll of 19-20, and do triple damage.

 

My idea is that players would pick their Achievements as part of character creation, and then work towards them over the course of the campaign. It’s an idea I’m really looking forward to playing around with.

 

- Gareth