Through the Breach Preview Part Two

This is the second part of my two part preview of the Through the Breach RPG from Wyrd Miniatures, LLC. Part one may be found here and covers the rules themselves. Part two is my opinions as a reader. Please keep in mind this is a collection of opinions from someone that has poured through the books a couple of times but has yet to play outside of mock scenarios with myself.

The game looks like fun. The duel mechanic is simple, but is added onto as the campaign advances so there is complexity introduced as the players become more familiar with it. I initially did not like how NPCs have static values by default. This works similar to D&D where you might have an NPC take ten, but it happens by default in Through the Breach. The more I playtest scenarios on my own the more I like it however. NPC rank alters the static value. If I need a harder encounter then I can simply increase the static value in increments of one across all values on the NPC. The reverse is true if I need to lower the difficulty. By default most lower tier enemies count as always flipping a five or six, where higher tier enemies are always flipping a nine. This also plays into the idea that the player characters are the masters of their own fates as the Fatemaster never flips for the NPCs except in rare occassions.

I like the concept of how character advancement works in theory. I particularly like that skill selection is based on both what a character did during play along with what direction the player wants the character to focus on. I realize character advancement limits what stories are available to tell and how long a campaign can go if you care about character growth in a mechanical sense. Unless Wyrd releases supplements down the line to change character advancement I doubt we will be hearing about groups playing the same campaign with the same characters once a week that last for a whole year let alone the decades possible with other games without some heavy handed house ruling or creating a lot of advanced pursuits.

I am concerned about store campaigns. There are many sessions where new players are coming in and out and it is not uncommon to discover someone will not be playing a session until after the game is underway. Through the Breach is designed to give each player character its moment in the spotlight. It does so in such a way however to where each sessions is a feature episode for that character. The game may not appeal to a new player that hops in last minute if the focus of that session is built around one of the other player's character. You also run the risk of planning to feature a player character in the next session only to find out fifteen minutes into the game that they are not late as they are not coming that session.

Art from the limited Edition Hannah that came with the Kickstarter

Through the Breach has another hurdle, and to me it is a big one. That hurdle is Deadlands. Deadlands uses the Savage Worlds rules which bills itself as Fast, Furious Fun which it most assuredly is. Deadlands uses a similar setting to Malifaux. It is also capable of a wider range of story styles and campaign length due to not having its character advancement directly tied to and capped by game sessions that focus on individual characters. Players also have a little bit more control over character creation. Finally, while Through the Breach is not a difficult game to play, I feel Deadlands will prove to be simpler to teach to people that have never roleplayed and has fewer rules that feel bolted on.

I do have another negative, but it will probably be a minor one for most people. When reading Through the Breach it feels like they developed the second edition of Malifaux first, then bent that into the shape of an RPG to resell the same set of rules with extras bolted on. Both books for Through the Breach could have been combined into one and require the Malifaus 2e book. NPC stat blocks in the Fatemaster's Almanac almost exactly match the stats from Malifaux 2e with Aspects, Initiative, skills, and static flip based on rank added on. This feeds into the frustration built up behind the game since about a month after the kickstarter ended.

We are family!

The Through the Breach kickstarter finished a few weeks before the announcement of Malifaux 2e. One of the promises with the kickstarter was the inclusion of rules to incorporate the player characters in games of Malifaux. At the time readers supposed this meant 1.5 as there was no mention of 2e before then. That is fine, but the pace 2e went from announced to release and the fact Through the Breach was released a year after the projected release date (okay, eleven months), made many suspect that Through the Breach was not a priority. The ways in which Wyrd communicated what was going on caused them to lose quite a few customers.

I am fine with that part of it. The reason for the history lesson on development of the game is that they do not include rules for running player created characters in Malifaux 2e. This was one of their big selling points. There is one page in the Fatemaster's Almanac dedicated to using the Malifaux 2e rules in Through the Breach for combat. That one page is a mess that feels shoehorned in and states openly not to expect any sort of balance.

Again, I like most of what I read. I think it might take a session or two for the game to get rolling as people learn the rules, but nothing major. Once people are comfortable with it I expect mechanically the game will run quickly. If a gaming group likes to start over with new characters a couple times a year then this will be a great game as written. If not, then the Fatemaster and/or players will need to put in some extra work or accept continued play with limited advancement after twenty or so sessions for a four player party. Shorter campaigns are unlikely to be satisfying either as the player characters will only be part way along to either accepting or denying their destinies.

As far as we know, we're family too!

My favourite feature of Through the Breach is how skill selection and advancement works. One of the negative aspects of many games for me is when a player creates a character (with or without GM assistance) only to discover that they are called on to perform a specific action on a regular basis, but they will never be good or even mediocre at that action because they are limited in advancing that skill even though they are called on to use it in almost every session. With this game the player can switch pursuits for a session or two before switching back to their original pursuit or a new one. If the skill does get used by the character that much there is also the chance it will be one of the skills the Fatemaster offers for advancement regardless of pursuit.

Another thing I love is there exists a wide variety of ways for players to manipulate the fate of their characters. This is primarily handled through manipulating fate flips for duels in various ways. Since the Fatemaster is rarely going to flip a card if ever then the only people that can regularly mess with the duel mechanic are the players themselves. There is no need for a bennie or fate pool of points for dice manipulation which the Fatemaster would have to figure out how to either keep the points flowing or how to convince the players to spend. Players will draw both good and bad cards into their hands. They will want to play the good cards so they can cycle back around to their good cards faster. I like Fate points in FATE itself because of the conditions they are normally awarded under and can be used for more than dice manipulation. Bennies are practically needed at times in Savage Worlds. There are other systems where a similar mechanic is merely a free reroll the GM hands out at a whim. Fate manipulation covers many of the same mechanics as a fate pool, but encourages the players to cheat fate and cycle through their cards through regular play. Twist deck and other means of manipulating fate are much more integral to this system than if a pool of points were used instead.

No discussion of Malifaux would be complete without undead hookers

Anybody that is familiar with D&D, Iron Kingdoms, or Malifaux should be able to pick this up and run with it no problem. It basically replaces the d20 or 2d6 with a d13/deck of cards. Those unfamiliar with Malifaux might take a little more time to become accustomed to concepts like positive or negative flips, replacing a flip with a card from their hand, triggers, and soulstone manipulation if they pick up the appropriate skills or aspects, but it is something players can grow into as some of those may not be available to their characters at the start of the game.

I do not own any of the images used in this post and they have been used without permission. All images are the sole property of Wyrd Miniatures, LLC. I have reviewed Wyrd's guidelines concerning fan sites and believe I am in compliance with their wishes.