YMMV / Ironclaw

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Are the Bisclavret a progressive-minded faction and the only sane noble house who left behind outdated traditions for the sake of progress, or greedy, oppressive conquerers who threw away their heritage and betrayed their kin? The in-game lore supports both interpretations.
  • Actually, practically everybody has some degree of moral ambiguity. Take Lady Amalsand, is she a power-hungry necrophiliac? Or merely an eccentric trying to protect herself and her children from misunderstanding Torches and Pitchforks. I mean she did murder her ex-husband for kicking her out, though her reason for marrying him in the first place was his fortified castle.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Few tabletop RPG fans who have actually read its sourcebooks would dispute that Ironclaw is a very well-made game in terms of both mechanics and setting. But its reputation as "the furry RPG" has unfortunately limited its success, at least in the States.
• Fan Disservice: Lady Amalsand Jakoba seems to prefer rather revealing dresses, but she looks emaciated and at least ten years past her prime.
• Fanservice: A number of the illustrations, particularly of the Phelan, portray scantily clad females. Along with a few similarly attired males as well.
• Popular with Furries: Both its blessing and its curse really.
• Schedule Slip: Several books for the game have been released infamously late; the Book of Jade, promised to be released several months after being funded through Kickstarter, ended up being released almost a year later. This could be excused as Sanguine Games being a small company, but there are other small companies that do not have the same problem to nearly this degree.
  • Book of Adventure was scheduled for July, it was published in late October. But they did reach a stretch goal adding a whole new adventure to the book.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Item weights are listed in stones. Not too bad, except that items lighter than a stone (14 lbs.) are listed as fractions of stones, rather than in pounds as you'd expect. This can result in a lot of time spent adding up fractions (or decimals, if you convert them to decimals) in order to work out exactly how much a character is carrying, which can be problematic for a player who isn't good at maths.
  • The first edition of the game has a Hit Point system. The problem: you fall unconscious and have to start making death saving throws if you lose half of your total HP. And depending on character build and equipment, this can happen very easily.

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