Runebounding, Part I: Base Fantasy

Well, in that case why have art at all? I'd rather have twice the colorful characters of all genders than duplicated minis. Plenty of games have androgynous and anonymous meeples as player proxies, but RB, and FFG in general, is about THEME and CHARACTER. Those aren't faceless pendulous breasts and mighty thews, they are PEOPLE with their own desires, should you care to read enough flavor text to decode it. Granted, gender has little role to play, but it does go a long way to setting each characters persona and identity. I suspect RB, Arkham Horror, and similar games wouldn't be nearly as popular if they had male/female clone versions of each character (and thus half as many).

Imagine playing LOTR with female Frodo, female Aragorn, female Gandalf, male...errr, uh, Eowyn yeah sure. Anyway, nothing stops me from just tossing half of each duo at random back into the box, but I'd rather have 10 full characters than 5 duplicated ones. It seems trivial and whiny (even to me as I write this) but something about a consistent set character goes a long way in these types of games, for me.

One of the best things I've found with games by companies like Portal is that they've decided that, in order to encourage people of a variety of sexes/identities to feel comfortable participating, they're representing their characters/factions in multiple genders. 51st State, for example, has dual-sided faction boards so that you can play as male or female Mutants/Merchants/Texans/New Yorkers/whathaveyou. I think that's a really useful tool to demonstrate, especially to younger players, that being a "hero" doesn't mean being a burly male all the time. It can definitely include being female. Having a male Red Scorpion or a female Carthos (Carthosia?) the Mad seems like a relatively small effort to widen the audience of games like Runebound.

jason10mm wrote: Well, in that case why have art at all? I'd rather have twice the colorful characters of all genders than duplicated minis. Plenty of games have androgynous and anonymous meeples as player proxies, but RB, and FFG in general, is about THEME and CHARACTER. Those aren't faceless pendulous breasts and mighty thews, they are PEOPLE with their own desires, should you care to read enough flavor text to decode it. Granted, gender has little role to play, but it does go a long way to setting each characters persona and identity. I suspect RB, Arkham Horror, and similar games wouldn't be nearly as popular if they had male/female clone versions of each character (and thus half as many).

Imagine playing LOTR with female Frodo, female Aragorn, female Gandalf, male...errr, uh, Eowyn yeah sure. Anyway, nothing stops me from just tossing half of each duo at random back into the box, but I'd rather have 10 full characters than 5 duplicated ones. It seems trivial and whiny (even to me as I write this) but something about a consistent set character goes a long way in these types of games, for me.

I agree. Having strongly defined characters is a huge part of the thematic experience for me. The whole being there, escapism, etc. I don't especially want a bunch of interchangeable generic adventurer characters, or ones who are so loosely sketched that changing their gender (or race, or any other important aspect) doesn't matter.

I don't want Red Scorpion either -- and what personality does she have, anyway? -- but Arkham Horror is a great example. Iconic pulpy characters. Some missteps, sure, but mostly a great mix that feels different in play.

I only played Runebound once, and we didn't finish it. I think I don't really care for adventure games in general. Just kinda feels like, "flip a card and see what happens to you."

I am curious as to why you feel that playing Arkham Horror as a female jazz musician vs the male jazz musician would genericize that character. You could still play as male character and it opens up a world where a female jazz musician can also save the world from the big bad.

In a game based on an established IP, like LOTR, I can see the argument for not having the gender swapped characters. In something like that, a player likely wants to play as Frodo, Aragorn, etc.

I don’t think Arkham is a great comparison because every game in the line all the way back to Launius’ original has you playing as that specific character. You are Joe Diamond. You are Carolyn Fern. You are Jim Culver. When the new game comes out, people are hyped to play their favorite.

I haven’t played any Terrinoth games (to reply briefly to the original topic), but it’s my understanding it’s never had this same focus on character. Sometimes you’re commanding an army, sometimes a culture. How many Runebound the second characters appear in the miniatures game or Battlelore or even Runebound the third?

Furthermore, with Fantasy Flight getting back into the publishing game and with Asmodee’s backing, I could definitely see them making a play for media expansion in film and television. Having a stable of fan-favorite characters can definitely help with that.

My personal preference is for specificity and a character with a name and backstory over ‘warrior’, but at least I can choose my preferred art with a sex-swapped character.

I think what we're reaching at here is the separation of the mechanical and artistic representation of a character. If I have bundle of stats in front of me with some flavour text then there is nothing stopping me from picking up whatever playing piece I want to use as my avatar in the game. The picture to the side really is irrelevant beyond any superficial notion - oh, if i'm supposed to be a Jazz musician then I guess my avatar should be holding a Saxophone right? Because that's what musicians do, they wander round town carrying their musical instrument at all times ready to Jazz-bomb the unsuspecting general public at a moment's notice . That's so thematic amirite?

Facilitating that separation would give player's true choice. Pick the bundle of stats that you want to play (the fighter, the problem-solver, the survivalist, etc) and pick the art plate/colour/mini that you want to go with those stats as your avatar.

the_jake_1973 wrote: I am curious as to why you feel that playing Arkham Horror as a female jazz musician vs the male jazz musician would genericize that character. You could still play as male character and it opens up a world where a female jazz musician can also save the world from the big bad.

For me, it comes down to the vision, presentation, and style of the character. A strongly-defined, strongly-characterized fictional female jazz musician from the pulp era -- portrayed through art, flavor text, backstory, etc. -- is going to have a different thematic resonance with me than a fictional male jazz musician.

If they are both equally well-realized, then that is fine. But if it's boiled down to "flip the card over and now you're Jim Clark instead of Jane Clark, but they both like small dogs, cheap bourbon, and are otherwise the same in every way" then that is very unlikely to feel satisfying or otherwise draw me in to the experience of playing the character.

Runebound uses many, if not all, of the same characters for Descent, which is why a lot of folks may feel a stonger attachment to a specific "image" of a character. Plus there is a mini, so the aesthetics are more tangible.

But in these games "you" are not in play, you are role playing a specific character, or at least that is the illusion the creator is trying to convey. The gender is really irrelevant aside from the amount of cleavage and side thigh the art will depict but it helps establish CHARACTER and these games are dripping with theme. This isn't some euro with anonymous meeple hordes, each token is supposed to represent a person going out to do heroic deeds. Duplicating them eliminates their individuality. Why would a male version have the exact same stats? Why would they dress/act the same to be interchangable? If someone wants a male red scorpion just make a lithe assassin male character, don't appropriate a woman and rob her of her identity.

Where would this end? Multiple genders and ethnicities for every playable character?

Too much work and it devalues the charm and uniqueness of a concrete set of characteristics. Might as well have "blue player token" at that point. Good luck selling a thematic adventure game with that aesthetic (even Fireball Island gives each color a unique mold!).

I give Tiny Epic games a pass since they got a pretty strict budget.

Wonderful game. I bought the entire set of expansions including Midnight from someone here many years ago and never regretted it. Possibly Rliyen it was a while ago. Definitely my goto fantasy game.

ThirstyMan wrote: Wonderful game. I bought the entire set of expansions including Midnight from someone here many years ago and never regretted it. Possibly Rliyen it was a while ago. Definitely my goto fantasy game.

I got it very belatedly a couple of years ago, with three big expansions and a good few small ones, and it always provides good fun for us. We use a lot of the variants to keep time down a bit (our games are still probably around 3 hours), same reason we dropped PvP combat.