Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game Funded
Kickstarter Updates
After just a few days, Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game was already funded. Today, the Iron Sky team announced more extras as it gets ready to try to reach for those much-coveted stretch goals.
The Iron Sky RPG team has announced Backerkit support as well as several add-ons and pledge options, including the inclusion of the original Iron Sky comic.
‘We’ll have a new comic made as well,’ RPG creator Dirk says, ‘but we needed to wait with announcing the inclusion of the first comic until the publisher gave us a go-ahead. We’ve tried to make it as accessible as possible, at lower prices than you would normally pay, and we’ve also included full character writeups for comic characters—they’re even coded to the exact pages so you can find your favorite characters right away.’
The Iron Sky team has also announced it will launch a Living Campaign at Gen Con 2018 — a shared Iron Sky: The RPG universe players can be part of. Their Characters’ actions will have an impact on future Adventures and Character advancement, making sure the players get immersed into the Iron Sky setting even more than usual. Details will be made available upon the RPG launch in February 2018.
Backer Feedback
‘The backer feedback has been tremendously helpful,’ Dirk Vandereyken, the RPG creator, comments. ‘We knew we were on the right track when we found out a lot of questions were about stuff we’ve already planned to be in the book, such as how the themes introduced in the first, pulpy, Iron Sky SF satire, will fit into the game.’
The RPG will allow players to take on the role of either characters from the original film, pregenerated characters provided in the rulebook, or completely new characters generated with the Synthesis rules system. All of the major movie characters will be included as (N)PC’s, while the rules will cover everything from social interaction to hand to hand and space combat.
Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game uses Genre Tropes, specific, but easy rules that allows Gamemasters and players to tweak their campaigns to any genre. ‘It’s a lot more specific than just saying “in gritty campaigns, multiply damage by factor X”. We’ve listed many different genres and each of them comes with just a few rules that’ll allow you to capture the right atmosphere.
The standard genre for Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game? That would be Pulpy SF Genre!’
One backer asked about how themes like standing up against bigotry, hatred and ignorance will get translated into the game. ‘We thought long and hard about that,’ Dirk says. ‘Obviously, the film setting—and its sequel—already gave us a solid background, as did the comic and other Iron Sky-related products. Adding a fun timeline and cool descriptions — nothing boring — and having several new characters comment on the fluff text as well as the mechanics went a long way to establish the feel. We also have the Personality Trait, which is divided in 5 Focuses if you’re playing the Advanced game. Negative scores — which can reflect jealousy, racism and similar characteristics — hold you back, while positive ones—like openness—can actually substitute a weaker Trait for a while. It’s a neat way to reflect how positive thinking allow you to not only reach your own goals, but also be sensitive to others’ aspirations.'
Rules System
‘Because the rules system is a universal one, we needed a lot of flexibility,’ Dirk adds, ‘but we’ve also made character generation itself more fun than ever, by introducing the option of creating your character by moving a pawn on a board game with life events. You can play the game together with other players and the GM can even create an arch enemy or major supporting characters at the same time as you’re building your Character. It’s also possible to spend points from a point pool or go through life paths — as each method generates exactly the same Point Value, each also is completely interchangeable.'
'We’re the first game to not only have color-coded silhouettes of the humans and creatures found in the setting,’ Dirk says, ‘but also of the vehicles and spacecraft, including the iconic Götterdämmerung. You don’t need them to play the game, but it lends a strong visual, cinematic aspect to the gameplay and it eliminates the need of difficult game mechanics about what angles you’re firing from, distance or targeting, as we’re using different-sized silhouettes and crosshairs to reflect range and magnification. Since some players won’t like having to juggle multiple silhouettes at once, the Basic game includes just a few generic silhouettes that should be enough to reflect just about any possible target.’
Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game uses a d1000-mechanic. ‘Nazis on the Moon: that’s over the top. A reptilian race hiding underneath the surface of the earth, able to change shapes and choosing to look like dictators past and present: that’s also over the top. We thought a d1000 would be over the top as well, but we’ve also made it into a simple, elegant mechanic. You only ever need one single die roll to determine anything: the time it takes to accomplish an action, whether and how well you succeed, where you hit someone, how much damage you do… No need to add up dice, look for combos, do subtractions or—worse—divisions, you just read them as hundreds, tens and digits. It’ll be easy to wrap your mind around.’
Visual Flair
Both Iron Sky and the upcoming Iron Sky the Coming Race use strong visuals. ‘We wanted to reflect that in the RPG as well,’ says Dirk, ‘which is why we’re including hundreds of pictures, several pages out of the comic — the signed limited edition book even includes the entire comic — and cool designs,’ says Dirk. ‘We’ve also created great-looking accessories. Again, you don’t need them to play the game, but they don’t only make it easier and more fun to play, they add a touch of visual flair to your gaming table’.
Writers
We’ve released the names of our writer and designer team from the get go,’ Dirk says, ‘but we didn’t advertise the fact that several of our authors were nominated for ENnie Awards In the past — Eloy Lasanta even won an ENnie this year. We wanted to wait until the awards ceremony, which went great for us. Winning an ENnie as a game designer or writer is much the same as winning an Academy Award for a movie actor — you can’t get better than that.’
Next 20 Days
‘We have less than 20 days to go,’ adds Dirk, ‘and we’d like to make good use of those 3 weeks. We’ve got some great stretch goals lined up, so we hope people will continue to support and us and get us there. It’d be great if we include some of the extra stuff we have in mind, as it’ll make sure we can develop the setting and the visuals even further, so here’s hoping people will continue to support us!’
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