Fully funded Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game still has one more week left on Kickstarter. Today, the Iron Sky team has added new details to share.
A few years ago, Iron Sky surprised movie-going audiences with its unique mixture of pulp, science fiction and satire. The film managed to haul in several prestigious awards at film festivals and quickly developed into a franchise. With the sequel, Iron Sky The Coming Race, on its way in February, the time was right to start a crowdfunding campaign for a tabletop roleplaying game based on both the first film and a lot of what will happen in the second one. With still 7 days to go, Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game is already 148% funded. Creator Dirk Vandereyken, former Regional Director for the Roleplaying Game Association Network and author of Baour, Strands of Death and Fates Worse than Death: Hunter, has assembled a team of veteran RPG writers to make sure the roleplaying book and its accessories will not only live up to the films’ high visual standards, but also contain the same kind of tongue-in-cheek humor that has marked the property from its humble beginnings.
“We’ve had a lot of great news to share lately,’ Dirk, the RPG’s creator, comments, ‘but none of this would have been possible without the film makers’ continued support. Our primary goal is to make sure we cover every aspect seen in their movie in detail: the characters, the spacecraft, the background information, the timeline… the fans want us to make sure everything’s in there – and it will be. Of course, having the script, the comic and the novel as references has helped tremendously.”
Universal Rules System
That’s not all, though: ‘We realise some people may not have seen the films yet, so we wanted to make the game appealing to audiences who aren’t familiar with the setting as well. We’re using a new universal rules system we’ve dubbed Synthesis, which is unique in many different ways. You can definitely use it to tweak the genre or even create entirely new worlds and settings. The rulebook also contains more than enough background material on Iron Sky make sure you can play the game without having seen the films – although we highly recommend doing so! The first film was a lot of fun and we’re pretty sure the sequel will surpass its predecessor once it’s released in February, 2018.’
Basic & Advanced Rules
‘We’re making sure the (tabletop) gameplay has a highly visual aspect to it, with ‘Action Dials’, ‘Tick Tracks’, silhouettes and crosshairs. The Basic Rules are very easy to wrap your head around and are sure to cater to a narratavist crowd, while the Advanced rules expand on the Basic ones and introduce more crunch while still retaining enough simplicity. They have a single-roll d1000-mechanic and common and they’re fully compatible: Basic Characters can be used in Advanced games and Advanced characters can be used in Basic games without any need of conversion.’
Dyscalculia
Dirk, who’s also a PR consultant, therapist and coach, adds:
‘Our ultimate play test was trying out the game with a few players who suffer from dyscalculia. They often have trouble calculating even simple sums during their roleplay sessions, but because we’re using a table with Target Numbers and simple ‘Shifts’ to Target Numbers in another row or column instead of straight modifiers, they manage to grasp the Basic rules a lot faster, which leaves them a lot more time to enjoy all other aspects of the game: the improvisational acting, the socialising, the strategy, the excitement… The list goes on and on!’
An example of the Corebook layout (work in progress), with random hyphens added to avoid illegal distribution
Visual
‘Most reviews of Iron Sky touched on how great the entire film – and, more specifically, the space battle scenes – looked,’ Dirk says, ‘so it was very important to us to reflect that visual element in everything we’re doing: the cover (which really came into its own after the film team tweaked the design we already had), the layout and the gameplay itself. We’re using Action Dials and Tick Tracks to keep track of what the Player Characters are doing and in combat, hits locations are determined through the use of silhouettes and transparent crosshairs. We’re even offering a unique way to create a Character: although you can simply distribute points from a pool or go through life paths (in the Advanced game), you can also play a board game which follows different events, career choices and other experiences in your Character’s life. It allows for fun Character generation and there’s more: an entire gaming group can make their Characters together… and the Game Master can even create enemies or an arch enemy at the same time, on the same board!’
Introductory Adventure
Dirk continues:
‘Because Iron Sky: The Roleplaying Game can be played at any time between the Iron Sky and Iron Sky The Coming Race, the free introductory adventure included in our core rulebook (but available as a separate PDF for lower-tier backers) can be set during any Iron Sky era. Of course, our default starting point is just before the events depicted in the first film. Because players and Game Masters need to have a big enough sandbox to play around in, we’re inviting all our higher-tier backers to come up with city suggestions to include in our world overview, while the adventure is taking place in the tri-states of St. Pete’s, Clearwater and Dunedin. The Clearwater bureau of tourism and the Dunedin chamber of commerce have been a great boon to us, as they’ve allowed us to really get to know their cities, so we can offer an unrivaled take on their history and local culture.’
Tone
‘Iron Sky is, most and foremost, fun entertainment. It features exaggerated, four-colour enemies, in the same pulpy tradition as, for example Indiana Jones and Hellboy, with Moon Nazis, reptilian shape-changers, a Hollow Earth and even dinosaurs! Make no mistake: the villains are really evil. We’ve just focused on their ignorance, stupidity and way of life to show how we should always speak out against the beliefs of bigots, racists and manipulative dictators. I truly believe that satire is firmly rooted in the tradition of freedom of speech – not many other genres make it this clear that we should never let the kind of events that led to past horrors of war come to pass again.’
Exclusive Iron Sky Action Dial
You can go help support Iron Sky: The RPG on Kickstarter right now, with seven more days to go.
I'm a published author and proud US Army veteran who happens to be a gamer, so I decided to combine the two and love every minute of it! Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments and I'll be sure to get back to you.
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