Iron Kingdoms RPG

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The Iron Kingdoms RPG is a roleplaying game for playing in the Iron Kingdoms Universe (duh). It has seen two different edition at this point, the first being the Dungeons and Dragons mod called Iron Kingdoms, set in what was called the "Witchfire" universe, based on the books of the same name. This quickly grew to produce numerous great stuff, most notably the wargames WARMACHINE and HORDES, who both are in their third edition as of this article. As those two games got a more substantial following, the IKRPG followed suit and adopted the basics of the two wargames for its system, which created the game you're reading about now.

IKRPG is, of course, set in the Iron Kingdoms, and allows the player to take on a wide variety of different adventurers doing a wide amount of different shit in the Kingdoms; Cortex trafficking, mercenary work, elite troops, you name it. The players also sorta a create their own class on creation, due to a cool two-"Career" system where you choose what amount to two classes and then combine all their feats, skills and whatever into one. This can create all manners of cool shit, like a Trencher/Investigator, or a Stormblade/Arcanist.

IKRPG is slightly infamous for being based on a system meant for a wargames, and it shows in the system. It is a very combat-heavy system, with some light investigative and social system here and there for good measure. Battles play out almost like the way the wargames do, while most play outside combat is more up to the players and their GM to figure out.

The player characters also get fucking lethal at the drop of a hat; semi-competent Veteran level characters can readily skull-fuck characters like the Butcher without breaking a sweat. That said, it's generally easy to take damage but hard to die, so combat is hard but not overly punishing.

Rules

The IK RPG system is based around test made with 2D6 like in the wargames with small changes to the overall formula - When you test for, say, Agility, you roll a 2D6, add your Agility score to the mix and that's it. In some cases you will add more modifiers from skills, but this is what you do, both in and outside combat.

Stats are compromised of your Main stats, which are the physical (Physical, Speed, Strength), skillbased (Agility, Prowess, Poise) and mental (Intelligence, Perception, Arcane) traits of your average being, Skills, who are divided into Occupational, Military and General skills, and Abilities, which is, well, abilities of the characters.

The game tends to make it easy to become a dodge-tank if one wants to, as DEF is gained from three Stats that are readily available and nice to have (Speed, Agility and Perception), while armor-tanks are rare but powerful when they do show up. A well-geared Paladin of the Wall using Stone Stance can readily hit 24+ ARM values, which is fucking insane in this game. This author had a campaign where the GM had to break the rules of the game just to try to break the Armor of the resident Man-O-War/PotW. We're talking Ogruns in Ironhead Armor.

Expansions

The game is essentially fully fleshed out by now.

• Iron Kingdoms: Unleashed: A main book like the regular IKRPG book, though focused on the HORDES part of the setting, as opposed to the WARMACHINE focus of the original game. Fully compatible with the other one, to the point where having both books just means having double the options for characters. If you wanna play cannibalistic pigmen, this is where you go.
• All of the No Quarters: Almost every single of Privateer Press' magazines has had a section with additional stuff for players; much of it inspired by things in the wargame.
• Kings, Gods and Nations: An expansion to the main game, featuring ALL of the lore, plus a little more. In addition, it's got a lot of nation-and-religion-specific new classes, items and Warjacks. It's got explosive pens. Explosive. Pens.