[RPG]: Lock & Load: Iron Kingdoms Character Primer, reviewed by Jeb Boyt (5/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9127.phtml

Jeb Boyt's Summary:

All the information on races, cultures, classes, and religions needed to generate a character for the Iron Kingdoms at a bargain price.

Go to the full review for more information.

Post originally by Ye Cranky Aulde Geezer at 2003-03-13 10:58:02
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After reading this review I went to my FLGS and checked it out.

Wow.

It good. It really good.

Post originally by Fnord at 2003-03-13 12:19:39
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I'm actually running my first IK game tonight!

I was disappointed to discover that the Primer does not include the new skills for the setting, specifically Firearms and Mechanika. That information was included in the first adventure of their Witchfire Trilogy, and should have been reprinted here. It is vital information for creating IK characters!

Post originally by al-Ashrad at 2003-03-13 13:32:50
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Echo that. I'm eagerly awaiting the full campaign setting book.

- C.

Post originally by Ye Cranky Aulde Geezer at 2003-03-13 14:02:31
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Yeah! Whats the deal? We have tons of Forgotten Realms books and their various OGL clones! Yet all we have for IK is the Monsternomicon and Lock-n-Load and Witchfire?

DAMNIT I WANT A WORLD BOOK NOW!

Post originally by johnnype at 2003-03-13 15:59:09
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At least that's waht I think. I may be wrong about that but it seems like they are more concerned with the miniatures than the RPG.

The miniatures were shipped this week (wooptedo). Maybe they will have time to give us RPG fans the time of day now.

As you can probably tell I'm not a happy camper.

Post originally by Jim DelRosso at 2003-03-13 21:22:09
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Actually, I really think there's a method to their madness, here.

Rather than having the first book out to market be a big, relatively expensive hardback campaign setting, they put out a series of adventures. Folks might be more willing to pick up and adventure, because, well, it's cheaper AND it's a lot less effort to get an adventure up and running than it is a campaign setting.

Then they put out stuff like monsternomicon and the character primer -- again, not as expensive, more immediate utility.

It really seems like PP has been sowing the seeds of a solid market for their big book. And it seems to be working, judging by all of us folks who can't wait to get the IK campaign setting.

I wouldn't be surprised if they'll sell more copies this way.

JD

P.S. I think what I just wrote was coherent, but I can't be sure right now. I'll try to doublecheck tomorrow. :-)

Post originally by J. H. Frank at 2003-03-13 21:34:31
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Minis make more money than RPG books. I'm glad they're doing Warmachine for that reason alone.

Post originally by Ben Ferguson at 2003-03-14 02:50:39
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I have really enjoyed reading (and soon to be running) the witchfire trilogy (WFT) books and the Monsternomicon. I held back on starting my campaign using the WFT, awaiting the lock and load character primer book.... but in reality needn't have bothered! I was hoping that they would have though a little more about new classes who would have evolved in this unique setting - developments from the 'Swashbuckling Adventures' by AEG. The new class book from Mongoose 'The Artificer' = a mechanomage, a mage who casts spells through devices, who can create constructs faster than the average mage and also graft on robotic arms., eyes, etc - sort of Frankenstein magic, is where I saw magic evolving in an age like this - bio thaumaturgy. China Mieville's 'Perdido Street Station' was a great inspiration I thought for where magic and science would blend together.

PLUS

Politics? In such an advanced setting, one would hope for this to be reflected in political life - by the early industrial period of the UK in the 1600-1700s, we see the emergence of mercantile capitalism, which in popular culture is seen as the age of high adventure, swashbuckling heroes of the high seas, discovering new lands, evil pirates - but in reality was far darker than that. It was a time of slavery, colonial expansion, the extermination of peoples and their cultures - not necessarily a time of the formalised colonialism of the 19th and early 20th centuries (for the UK - though for Spain and Portugal it already was) - but rather a period of colonialism done via mercenary navies and armies on the behalf of the crown... explorers were tomb raiders, thugs, cultural imperialists, etc... eventually whole peoples were wiped out, some quite recently in history (1860-1890 in the USA)..... but all this messiness from politics is absent - which is a shame.

I was hoping for a bit more of a focus on how humans mess things up. The bad guys are the Skorne not humans. Again making the bad guys into an 'other', something other than human, making it easier for us to kill them - just as today, in modern times, we name our enemies with monstrous titles in order to justify killing them by the truckload.

So - all of this has led me to borrow some of their ideas but create my own setting - darker and more political... which I was hoping to avoid!

Post originally by cnath at 2003-03-14 04:42:03
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On their Yahoo group devoted to the world and game in general the staff from Privateer Press show up and answer questions quite a bit, so while I too wish that the world book had come out awhile ago, (PP is a second job for the developers) I would say that they have been more then willing all through this to give the time of day to the RPG fans.

If you want to check out the group the listing is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Iron_Kingdoms/