Terrinoth...Why The Resistance?

Outside of Red Scorpion, would anybody care to list the defining characteristics/features/themes of Terrinoth?


/What is the political/power structure of Terrinoth? What is the central conflict?
//I mean without those things isn't it just a map and some generic NPC's.
///Happy Friday slashies

boothwah wrote: Outside of Red Scorpion, would anybody care to list the defining characteristics/features/themes of Terrinoth?

Its got Runes.

I don't know that there's anything "defining" about it. I just know that I've enjoyed every, single game that's been produced in that universe. From Runebound to Descent to Rune Age to Runewars to Battlelore, 2nd Ed. to Descent, 2nd Ed. to Heroes of Terrinoth. Every one has been enjoyable. Battlelore, 2nd Ed. is one of my favorite light wargames of all time. I will never turn down a game. Rune Age is the best deckbuilder I've ever played. I, likewise, will never turn down a game. I'm thrilled that I can play Runebound on 5 completely different maps and play it 8 or 9 different ways on the main map. I traded my entire Descent 1st Ed collection the other day and, unlike my usual trading demeanor, was kind of wistful about sending it off because of the dozens (hundreds?) of hours we spent having a raucous time with it.

All of that has an impact. Those are all good-to-great games. Do I care that Terrinoth is "generic" fantasy? Not really. Would it be more interesting if it was something like Rising Sun or WHFB? Probably. But anyone rejecting a game like Runewars because of Terrinoth is being mildly ridiculous, IMO. Plus, if you've played enough of those games, you do get to the point where some of the lore becomes a little interesting. I'm kinda interested in why the Uthuk are the way they are and what made Waigar the Undying into what he is. It isn't part and parcel of my playing the game the way 40K was, but I'm interested. OTOH, the Daqan and the Latari are still kinda bog-standard Gondorians and Mirkwood Elves, but whatevs. There is decent storytelling in some of the Runebound stuff. Go and play a game on Sands of Al-Kalim or Mists of Zanaga and there's a fair amount to dig into there. Descent 2nd Ed. is the same way. Is it GW stuff that's been building for almost 40 years? No. But that's a pretty high bar to set.

i'm betting the reason they originally created Terrinoth was that they knew they had a good game in Wallace's Runebound and a good design in Wilson's forthcoming Descent and didn't want to pay for an IP, so they just made it "generic" fantasy. But it's grown into something that's at least passable and doesn't detract from the games at all.

Michael Barnes wrote: TFW your iconic character is...Red Scorpion.

Everybody is right. Terrinoth is entirely bland and forgettable, except for the ludicrous Red Scorpion.

Terrinoth seems to be pretty much about cramming different monsters into the setting so that you'll have something to fight. But as you play the games - and like Jackwraith I like quite a lot of them - cool concepts pop up. The idea of runes for instance - that magic is somehow tied to or come from these runes or shards. What is The Cataclysm from Rune Age precisely? And those plains demons seem pretty cool and somewhat different from the rather generic elves/humans/undead.

But I think it never took off because it doesn't feel like a real place. Or rather, in Runebound you encounter specifik places like the jungle I don't remember the name of or the desert al-Kalim (I think). But where is al-Kalim exactly? And why did Runewars have to take place hundreds if not even thousands of years before Runebound? And why did you include fucking dwarves and orcs, for chrissakes? It's just too bland even if some of the monsters and settings/areas are quite cool.

I think I heard once that Terrinoth was Christian Petersen’s baby along with whatever they call the Twilight Imperium setting. It may be telling that neither setting received any fiction since Fantasy Flight rededicated itself to that. Even KeyForge has short stories. We’ll see what happens to Terrinoth with Petersen entirely out now.

$10 on “taken out behind the FFG center and unceremoniously disposed of in the dumpster”

ubarose wrote: There may be things that seem "cool" and you'll wonder about them, but you will never get any answers. Every game you are dumped into the middle of the story with no point of reference. It makes me feel like I should know something that I don't know. So when I see that something is set in Terrinoth, I immediately think, "Oh, that confusing place that makes me feel stupid."

Ha! That's fair. They could have done a lot more to build the background, especially when you look at the TI galaxy and how much story is packed into the overall game and each race, so that you know exactly why the Hacan do what they do and why the Embers of Muaat start with a War Sun, and why each of them would be interested in ruling the galaxy. So, yeah, the definitely missed the boat on explaining the history behind the seven cities and the Uthuk tribes and so on.

It's bland and generic, and I'm actually okay with that.

The lack of consistency, however, is bothering me to no end. The setting ended up like an FFG fantasy garbage dump.

From the board games it isn't much more than a mechanic to reuse art assets. Not much narrative connecting all the disparate pieces.

ubarose wrote: It's a generic fantasy world populated by forgettable characters. I don't dislike it, but I also don't have any affection for it either.

I dislike it specifically because it's so generic and forgettable. FFG seems to have put zero effort into making it engaging or interesting.

To be honest, I would make the same argument about the Age of Sigmar setting. The Old World was very derivative, but its great strength was that it successfully blended aspects of a very wide variety of popular source material into a coherent whole. That in itself made it stand out. AoS simply doesn't have that. It's succeeded essentially because it retains some aspects of AoS, because of the popularity of GW product, not the other way round, and because all the kids love a bit of grimdark.

My Heroes of Terrinoth is in the post and I'm looking forward to it.

Southernman wrote: My Heroes of Terrinoth is in the post and I'm looking forward to it.

Got mine the other day. It's basically WHQCG but with more of everything (heroes, quests, enemies, etc.) Plus, it has classes for the heroes, so you take a particular upgrade path, so that when you upgrade an ability (Attack, Aid, Rest, Explore) it not only gives you more dice, but also a tweak based on the class you choose (Warrior options are Knight and Berzerker, for example.) If you decide to upgrade again, you have to stick with the class you chose. But each hero also has their own minor ability, so you have options there, too.