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 Manchu wrote:
I don't think "winning" and "losing" are even things in Frostgrave.

Each game in a campaign is an episode of a larger story. Things happen, to the greater or lesser benefit of each player depending on her choices and the luck of the roll.

Indeed!

This may be even more evident/prevalent in the next book!

Thaw of the Lich Lord is a complete campaign for Frostgrave that will challenge both new and veteran players. Through a series of linked scenarios, players discover the existence of a new power in the Frozen City, one who was old when the great city was still young, and who saw both its rise and its disastrous fall. Warbands will confront the Lich Lord's minions, race against his agents to seize possession of mysterious artefacts, and brave the perils of Frostgrave in search of his lair. Eventually, they will need to muster all their courage to venture into the depths of the city and face the Lich Lord himself.

Not all wizards will seek to stop the Lich Lord, however, and full rules for giving into his corruption and following the dark road to becoming an undead lich are presented for those who crave power and immortality above all else. While the campaign presents many new threats against which wizards and their warbands must test themselves, including an expanded bestiary, it also offers additional resources, such as new henchmen that can be recruited and unique magical treasures that can spell the difference between survival and oblivion.

Now if only the others in my store weren't such cheapskates and so reluctant to try out new systems.

Also, when can we expect a Frostgrave subforum?

Just been and picked up the book, two boxes of the plastic soldiers, and the "Undead Encounter" set (they may be just Mantic undead by any other name but I'm sure I can find a use for them). I've also been thinking of getting some Stormcast Eternals, painting them to look like stone statues, and using them as Constructs. Need to get some wolves, rats, etc...

The soldier box is probably my favourite part of the release. Even if I hadn't been interested in the game, I'd still have bought some of them - so much potential for use in any number of games.

Does anyone know if Brigade will be the only US distributor for official Frostgrave figures?

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
I don't see any balancing mechanism either. This has the potential to go exactly like Mordheim. Win 2 games in a row and the power level is just too different.

Having played in multiple Mordheim and Necromunda campaigns, I can understand your concern. However, Frostgrave is a different animal. Only your Wizard (and Apprentice) "level up". The stat increases are pretty minor and there's limits as to how many items you can have. Even if you lose a few games, as long as you were "doing stuff" during the game, you will still not really be far behind. I think this game is awesome. I bought from Amazon and got it in 2 days. The book is gorgeous, as one would expect from Osprey.

So, there are definitely wins and losses in Frostgrave, even in campaign games. It is generally defined by scenario, or the "standard" scenario is just whomever gets the most treasure.
That said, winning doesn't get you anything extra, save for the extra treasure, or some little nugget based on the scenario.

For winning the campaign, general rule is winner has the most loot at the end of all the games you want to play (get rich or die trying) or the optional "Transcendence" rule, where once your caster learns every spell in his main school, he can attempt to find a grimoire of "Transcendence" and after every game once he learns it can try to cast it, needing a 20. If he does, he goes to heaven or whatever and wins sorta. Retires to the wonder spot in the sky. You can then advance your apprentice if you want to play, or say that ends the campaign.

The "has the most treasure" thing feels like a band-aid, like McCullough just knew some people always need a way to "win" (I have seen this issue many times when playing RPGs) and to make one-off games seem meaningful somehow even though Frostgate is clearly designed for campaign play. The published scenarios do not have specific win conditions. As far I can tell, "winning" a game (via collecting the most treasure) does not get you anything more than the XP you would normally get for the treasure you collected. Transcendence is explicitly an optional rule for players who want a specific campaign win condition, implying that campaigns do not generally need win conditions. Seems like you can mod Frostgate into something where "winning" is meaningful but that is not standard. Standard play seems more like a RPG, where the campaign goes on for as long as the players are interested/there is a story unfolding.

Well, even RPGs have win conditions, just that they are collectively achieved and not individually (generally). Unless you are playing the Sims, there are enemies you fight, schemes you thwart, etc. the whole point being some sort of accomplishment and feed back on success to make the risk of failure sting.
In a competitive game like Frostgrave there has to be something to define who won the competition, even if it is relatively meaningless like crossing the finish line first in a race. That definition of winning is why it is a race, not a jog.

Sims? I am talking about table top RPGs.

Honestly, there does not need to be any win condition in Frostgrave. You can play competitively (i.e., trying to grab the most treasure) without needing to "win" the game. You want the most treasure because it lets you do more going forward, not only or even necessarily at all because it means you "beat" someone else.

Anyone seen any North America sources of the Tehnolog Castle Craft stuff? Looks an amazing foundation for a frost grave board.

 Manchu wrote:
Sims? I am talking about table top RPGs.

Honestly, there does not need to be any win condition in Frostgrave. You can play competitively (i.e., trying to grab the most treasure) without needing to "win" the game. You want the most treasure because it lets you do more going forward, not only or even necessarily at all because it means you "beat" someone else.

So am I; the difference between different types of RPG (computer or table top) played with others are vanishingly small when it comes to this sort of deal.

If you are playing without a scenario, and outside a campaign, treasure is just the method of keeping score to see who won. If there is a scenario, sometimes there are other win conditions. Is more treasure its own reward in campaigns? Yea, pretty much. But even then, unless you intend to just play forever, which you can do, many people want some sort of finish line to denote "Ok, campaign is over" as well as produce some sort of scarcity in the game. Otherwise you just purchase everything there is and run out of things to do. Having a set number of matches, and then defining the winner as having the most gold at the end, or the most wins, or most tricked out base works, or going by who has the most wins out of those matches works, or any number of other things. You pretty much need something, however, otherwise your out of game decisions become less interesting because the choices are less meaningful.

As a side note, "competitive" is meaningless without "winning". Even if the win condition is relatively arbitrary like "most points after 30 minutes" when you could play for an hour, or "first to get X" when people are going to get X, then Y, then Z, it doesn't mean there is not a win condition, just that it is nested within the larger game (and perhaps other conditions.) There is no competitive without winning and losing however. A race is competitive because there is a goal you are competing to achieve, first across the line in this case. Going for a jog with your friends is not competitive, just a fun activity, because you don't "win" the jog.

I think you are being unnecessarily literal as to the concept of competitive play; in effect, simply explaining away how D&D, other table top games, and seemingly Frostgrave actually play. In any given Frostgrave scenario, there is a finite amount of resources to be collected and there are risks in collecting it. If you end up with more resources than your opponent you have indeed "won" but only in the exact sense of collecting X amount more than he did. There is nothing at all over and above whatever the difference between how much you collected and how much he collected to give the concept of winning any meaning or value. (Indeed, in a game that leans on luck as much as Frostgrave you have not even necessarily demonstrated that you are better at Frostgrave than your opponent by this kind of "win.") I suppose you could say that any resource you collect is a resource denied to the opponent but that is also meaningless without the additional consideration of what you lost doing it. If your warband ends up in the red after such a "victory" while the "loser" has a net positive result, what does your triumph actually profit you? Nothing whatsoever unless your group makes up a houserule that this otherwise empty notion of winning has some kind of significance to the game. Because that rule is certainly not found in the rulebook. And yet even so, players will nonetheless do their best to collect the most treasure and XP without taking such terrible risks to end up at a loss, which by definition means competing against opposing players ... although it could also mean, in certain circumstances, cooperating with them.

The important thing about Frostgrave is to learn to let it go:

http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=7556

 TheWaspinator wrote:
The important thing about Frostgrave is to learn to let it go:

http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=7556

And Tumblr did squirt in joy.

LOL guess we should have seen that coming a mile away!

Now, the real question is where you can get a small snow elemental miniature.

I know someone in my household who will be both happy to have those in our house, and quite upset at the type of magic being used.

I will be expected to paint them no less, and probably to a decent quality. Ugh.

Waspinator: can you not just rough up a little clay figure and then roll it in a bit of snow effet of your choice?

highlord tamburlaine: let me get a tissue for my crocodile tears.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
I know someone in my household who will be both happy to have those in our house, and quite upset at the type of magic being used.

I will be expected to paint them no less, and probably to a decent quality. Ugh.

Replace every instance of "fire" with "ice" and paint to taste. Done.

Yeah, they even suggest making them Ice Elementalists on the store page. I think they're just trying to obscure it a little to try to avoid the attention of Disney's lawyers.

Reaper made some ice golems or something in Bones II, didn't they? They'd go great with not-Anna and not-Elsa.

Yep, looks like it's not at retail yet but I can find some preorders for a Reaper Bones Crystal Golem.

There's also an Ice Golem in one of the Malifaux crew boxes.

Found a small ice elemental:
http://www.miniaturemarket.com/catalog/product/view/id/40814/s/pbrow-007/

And a larger one:
http://www.miniaturemarket.com/catalog/product/view/id/7027/s/dduh29/

And an even larger one:

http://mierce-miniatures.com/index.php?act=pro&pre=mrm_dkl_fmr_blr_mbs_901_000

Ok, see, not having any kids, it took me a few more comments from you guys to get it.

Got my book and tokens yesterday. Very nice book! Can't wait to play it

Call it my need to know, but what tokens are necessary for this game? I haven't seen anything, aside from possible curses, or the optional rules for wounded.

I think tokens representing treasure are pretty much it.

Treasure tokens.

Pre-orders got 6 resin ones with the book.

There's also Explosive Rune to keep track of, (a Sigilist spell that lets you lay up to three proximity mines), a 3" diameter template would be handy for Grenade... Wizard Eye... Planar Rift? Mud? Several spells benefit from tokens or templates. Though equally it's entirely possible to pick a build that doesn't need any