Fantasy: Mass Combat (Part I)

(Don't let the presence of the word "fantasy" up there fool you. These rules can be used for mass combat in any genre -- I think.)

My original goal was to see if I could use FATE to come up with a miniatures wargame that didn't require miniatures or terrain. So be warned: The following is likely to be way too crunchy for some people. Even though the bulk of these rules are months old, I have yet to playtest them (although I expect to in a few days), so give them a look-see, if you would, and tell me where I've gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Guiding Rules and Concepts

• Chase rules: I like the way an independent pool of points is used to measure just how important the chase is, and the way those points can be spent to change things up during the chase.
• Leadership: Specifically, the use of Leadership to help minions.
• Units as characters: Treating units as characters with consequences, skills, and aspects.
• Minion/Companion rules: If units are characters, they're most easily differentiated using these rules as a base.
• Zones: I dig the abstraction of distance.

Player characters are commanders in these scenarios, not mere footsoldiers. If the PCs aren't in charge, don't use these rules.

Building An Army

Armies are built of individual units.

Skills for units are limited to the following:

• Alertness
• Intimidation
• Melee
• Missile
• Maneuvering
• Spirit
• Stealth

Maneuvering is basically Athletics, but I don't like that word for a combat unit. Just doesn't sound right.

Spirit is a combination of Endurance and Resolve. Whether a unit is slaughtered or routed, the result is pretty much the same: It's taken out. The details of how that goes down are left to the consequences it suffers.

Alertness and Stealth are basically there to counter each other.

Battle Points pay for units. The number of Battle Points each commander receives depends on how important the battle is. Use the Chase rules as a guide for this: 5 Battle Points for a skirmish that's just adding flavor, 10 for a battle that's the focus of the session, and 20 for a truly epic clash of armies. If the commanders are allies instead of enemies, and playing in a GM-run scenario, the GM gets Battle Points equal to the aggregate total of the players' Battle Points (or more, if, y'know, he feels like it).

• For Your Consideration: Fate Points can be converted into Battle Points on a 1:1 basis. I'm not sure what I think of this, but... sure, why not?
  

Base Unit Cost is equal to the value of its apex skill. Units max out at Good (+3) quality.

• Average units: One Average skill
• Fair units: One Fair skill, two Average skills
  
• Good units: One Good skill, two Fair skills, three Average skills

As for consequences, there's no consideration of degrees of severity here. The assumption is that these units won't really exist, in game terms, for any longer than the length of the battle, so there's no point dealing with any of that. However, we do track the nature of the consequence, whether physical or mental. A unit can withstand a number of consequences equal to one less than its quality. That is, Average units are taken out if they take even a single consequence, while Good units can take two without going down.

• When a unit is defeated by a physical consequence, it's either wiped out or scattered beyond reformation.
• When defeated by a mental consequence, the unit is demoralized, breaks ranks, and/or routs.

Every unit starts with one Aspect for free that reflects the racial make-up and nature of the unit. Examples: Dwarven Infantry, Elven Archers, Human Dragoons, Troll Shocktroops. You can't invoke your unit's Dwarven Infantry aspect to help with their Missile skill, for example -- but you can certainly invoke the Human Dragoons aspect to help move faster with Maneuvering (since dragoons are mounted troops).

Armoring a unit costs 1 Battle Point. This adds an appropriate aspect (e.g., "Human Infantry" and "Kite Shields," "Elven Archers" and "Mail Shirts").

By default, every unit has the tools it needs to get the job done. For 1 Battle Point, a unit can be equipped with superior or heavy weaponry. This gives it a +1 to either Melee or Missile rolls.

For 2 Battle Points, you get one Great (+4) Lieutenant that has access to the full gamut of skills, including Leadership (though not in excess of his or her commander). Build the Lieutenant as a Great character with one aspect and one stunt. Attaching a Lieutenant to a unit is the equivalent of the Independent advance for a Companion. Lieutenants can engage other Lieutenants, PCs, or important NPCs in one-to-one combat. Lieutenants are important NPCs in their own right, and should be treated as such.

Next Up in Part II: More!

Extra! Extra!

So this really great idea came into existence on RPG.net over the past couple days, and even though it's not mine and I had nothing to do with its development, I want to post about it just to spread the word -- because God knows I'll be using it.

The idea originated with Paka as a result of thinking about what people often cite as SotC's one failing: the lack of an advancement system. He soon came to the realization that when it comes to pulp characters, they don't change themselves -- they change the world. This is essentially the same as having game-wide aspects, with the additional detail that the players are called upon to cough up one aspect apiece as the game begins, with another couple from the GM. Specifically, each of these aspects is a newspaper headline that describes the world, like so:

DINOSAURS DISCOVERED IN SOUTH AMERICA
SCIENTIFIC ADVANCE PROMISES TO REVOLUTIONIZE AIR TRAVEL
WALKING DEAD CAUSE PANIC ON EASTERN SEABOARD
PRESIDENT OPENS DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH INTELLIGENT APES
MYSTERIOUS TRANSMISSION FROM ANTARCTICA BAFFLES SCIENTISTS
BULVERIAN TROOPS MASS ON RUSSIAN BORDER

And so on.

Each player (including the GM) then picks one aspect to be relevant for the story arc, so if we have three players, they all decide that, somehow or other, this story will involve South American dinosaurs (or dinosaurs that live in South America, at any rate), some uppity monkeys, a mysterious radio transmission, and the Bulverian military (and/or Russia). Consider it another way to help the GM set things up.

"But," I hear you shout in your short-sightedness, "I thought this was about advancement!" It is! Just let me finish! Man, you always do this! Why can't you --

Sorry. Anyway.

Now, at the end of the story arc, whoever spent the most Fate Points adds a new headline or changes an existing one. Maybe those intelligent apes aren't so diplomatic anymore. Maybe the Russo-Bulverian war has finally broken out. Or maybe Mole-Men burrowed up from right under the White House lawn.

So over time, you accumulate headlines, effectively -- yes -- changing the world. And the more Fate Points you spend, the more influence you have on the world. It's a sort of long-term narrative control mechanism.

I think it's pretty rad, and Paka, or whoever he is when he isn't on RPG.net (Judd? I don't know the guy), is pretty rad for having thought of it.

Now, some other ideas were floated in that RPG.net thread to which I linked above, such as limiting the power of adding headlines to the GM and and the power of altering them to the players, but personally I like it as-is. I do have a couple other twists for it, though.

The whole thing reminds me a bit of John Wick's Houses of the Blooded, in which descriptive and editorial control for scenes and facets of the world can be shared by the players. That's... a whole other thing that I'm not going to get into here, but the point is that players can add new details ("Lady Windermere collects fans") or add new information to a detail ("But someone's stolen her favorite one"), but can't contradict or delete existing details. However, players can spend Style Points to veto a detail, or the GM can declare a detail "Bad Form" and axe it that way. (As far as I can recall, anyway.) I'd allow the same kind of thing here, but treat it like an escalating compel. That is, if you and I are both players and I'm so opposed to your headline for whatever reason (it's wildly out of tone, obviates a headline I want to do on my turn, etc.), I can spend a Fate Point to veto it -- but you can spend one to keep it -- but I can see your one Fate Point and raise you one -- and so on. I can't see people throwing away a ton of Fate Points on this sort of thing, but it seems fair to me.

Or maybe you can just use your turn during the pre-game headline process to cross out a headline instead of adding your own. I mean, don't be a dick about it, but this too seems fair to me.

Admittedly, this sort of thing works better in genres that actually have, y'know, newspaper headlines -- as I believe someone mentioned in the thread, you could present these as what paperboys on street corners are shouting out -- but there's certainly nothing stopping this from being applied to any game, really. It's just that it won't integrate itself so completely in every time period. I mean, yes, in a medieval-ish setting, you can have heralds for this sort of thing, but they don't really serve the same purpose as paperboys, nor would they technically deliver news in such a classic fashion, but man, that's a pretty minute quibble.

And Back Again

Whew! I've been gone for the past two weeks in New Zealand, enjoying my honeymoon. It was awesome. I could go back there tomorrow. If it weren't so impractical on many levels, I'd even move there. If you aren't there already, go -- and if you are there, isn't it awesome?

Anyway, this isn't a "personal" blog, so I'll get to the point: Going to New Zealand has really had an effect on how I think about "the setting", a.k.a. The Unnamed Lands, as it's called when Andy isn't around (when he is, it's Aarde, because that's what he wants to call it). Maori culture is fascinating and criminally underused, if you ask me, in RPGs, and the landscape is... well, you saw it in "The Lord of the Rings," and yeah, it looks like that. Untamed temperate rainforest, imposing mountains, geothermal craters, glaciers... we took literally a thousand pictures. So out the window are all my narrow-minded ideas about European-style kingdoms in a European-style landscape, because New Zealand's is way cooler.

Before I left, though, I had this idea for swashbuckling FATE games that put a lot of emphasis on duels and fencing and that sort of thing, so I'll review that, run it by a friend or two, and post it later this week. I think it's pretty nifty, which leads me to suspect there's something dire and obvious about it that I'm missing.

Fantasy: Demonbound Items

Kuron's hulking blade sliced through his enemies as a scythe cuts wheat. The rank and file of the mountain dwarves fell back in chaos in the face of the enraged barbarian. Power coursed through the greatsword's hilt into his mighty thews, energizing him, changing him, and he drank it in like the dry earth drinking rain. His blows rained down ever faster on the fear-stricken dwarves. In horror, they looked over their shoulder as they fled at his eyes -- once coal-black, now they glowed an inhuman red.

"Nurzkalak hungers!" he roared, in a voice not entirely his own. "Nurzkalak thirsts!" He paused a moment for a blood-curdling, throaty laugh, then resumed his lusty butchery anew.

. . .

The most powerful magic items achieve their potency not through the skill of artificers -- not solely so, at any rate -- but through altogether more dangerous means: the binding of demons.

Centuries ago, demons freely walked the lands of Aarde, leaving evil and sorrow in their wake. Their physical forms could be destroyed, albeit at great cost, but their ancient spirits would live on, find a new host, and return undiminished to wreak yet more havoc. Banishment from the corporeal world was possible but difficult and taxing, and always there existed the very real chance that a power-hungry summoner, tampering with forces beyond his imagining, would pull it back into reality and inadvertantly unleash the beast on the world again.

After years of toil, a group of highly skilled artificers developed a means of trapping demonic spirits into physical objects, binding the two together inextricably. The process was one of both guile and force, first tricking the spirit into entering an object, then using powerful magic to keep it there. The weaker ones, the ones who still possessed some semblance of vanity and greed, could be lured into finely wrought trinkets such as rings or pendants, but the strongest and most violent specimens, owing to their natural tendencies, only had eyes for implements of war and destruction: swords, axes, cruel knives, spiked shields, and the like. As long as the item survived intact, the demon was helpless to escape, so the artificers forged these demonbound artifacts out of the strongest of substances to ensure their resilience.

And then they buried them in the deep places of the world, guarded by monstrosities and deadly traps, hoping to conceal them from prying eyes and mischievous intent. For the spirits held within these demonbound items made them powerful beyond reckoning. A warrior armed with a demonbound sword might lay waste to armies, just as one protected by demonbound armor might withstand them. Moreover, the process was not perfect: The demons within the artifacts could achieve some measure of empathic communication with their possessors, and could even, through prolonged use, come to dominate them. The artificers worked in secrecy, hoping to keep the knowledge of the demonbound items from the public at large, lest the demons turn the weak-willed or foolish into their unwitting pawns.

Of course, their plans were far from perfect. One or two greedy artificers kept the occasional ring or sword for themselves. Ignorant adventurers eventually stumbled upon the artifacts, claiming them as trophies of their heroism. Over the years, the true nature of the demonbound artifacts has been forgotten by all but a handful of artificers -- the remnants of the old order, all but faded away.

In Atwell, the capitol city of Brightmar, legend says that the king's line shall rule so long as the gleaming brightsteel sword suspended above the throne remains in place... but not even the king knows the true reason why, or the origins of the tradition.

All right, enough fluff. Gimme the crunch.

Demonbound items have, appropriately enough, a demonbound aspect of some kind. It could be something as vague and straightforward as "Demonbound Blade" or something as specific and flavorful as "Nurzkalak's Prison." (The most powerful demonbound items might even have two or three such aspects.) This can be invoked in all the usual ways (+2, reroll, effect), but without spending a Fate Point. Instead, when you invoke the demonbound aspect, the GM gives you a token: a Doom Point. Use something that won't be mistaken for a Fate Point.

Immediately after invoking the demonbound aspect, make a Resolve roll against a target equal to the number of Doom Points the character's accumulated.

For example, Kuron's player up there has invoked "Nurzkalak's Prison" three times so far, including this time, so he now has a pile of three Doom Points. His Resolve effort has to be at least Good (+3) to get through this scot-free.

If you make the roll, nothing happens. Congrats! I knew you were strong. If you fail, however, you take a mental consequence (Minor for 1-3 stress, etc.) reflecting the demon's hold on your mind, however temporary. The demon will always want to destroy, twist, or pervert the world around you in as cruel a manner as possible.

Treat these consequences normally. That is, Minor ones go away at the end of the scene, Moderate ones go away with a skill roll (in this case, your Resolve, or someone else's Resolve if they're trying to exorcise you), and Severe go away through the narrative. If you've sustained a Severe consequence from a demonbound item, forever will it, as they say, dominate your destiny. At the end of the story arc, alter one of your personal aspects to reflect this. "Incorruptible Knight of Brightmar" might become, say, "The Lingering Madness of a Demon."

You can probably guess that Kuron failed his Resolve roll, but not by much: Let's say he took the Minor consequence of "Bloodthirsty." The GM can compel that consequence to force Kuron to keep fighting when he'd rather not (the mountain dwarves are already fleeing in the example), kill helpless opponents, and so on. However, since it's just a Minor consequence, he'll regain control of himself at the end of the scene... but he'll still have those three accumulated Doom Points.

That's right: Doom Points don't go away. Not without effort, anyway. There are two ways to go about this:

• At any time, you can lose Doom Points by spending Refresh on a 1:1 basis. Ridding yourself of demonic influence takes a lot out of you.
• When the GM compels your demonbound consequence or the demonbound aspect, either one of you may choose to conduct the transaction in Doom Points instead of Fate Points. For example, if the GM compels you, Kuron's player, to chase down those fleeing mountain dwarves, instead of offering you a Fate Point, he might offer instead to take away one of your Doom Points -- or you might decide to accept the compel by paying him a Doom Point instead of receiving a Fate Point. Think of Doom Points as the anti-Fate Points: You pay them when compelled, and receive them when you invoke. If you do what the demon wants, you gradually reduce its influence. The downside to that, of course, is that you're taking orders from a demon.

So then.

What if a PC becomes the last recipient of the secrets of the ancient order of artificers?

What if a demonbound artifact falls into the hands of the party?

What if the PCs find out the true nature of the king's sword in Atwell?

What if the spells of imprisonment laid upon that sword fail -- or are countered somehow?

What if some crazy villain has dedicated himself to freeing a number of demons in a futile bid to to harness their power?

What if that villain succeeds (probably sacrificing himself in the process), and the PCs are a sort of medieval fantasy version of the Ghostbusters?

Spirit of the Vineyard

I've been reading Dogs in the Vineyard lately in preparation for running a one-shot for some friends, and I'm really digging the die mechanic. I think it's better suited for, say, a swashbuckling game myself -- all that See-and-Raise business seems perfect for simulating fencing -- but one thing that's really stood out for me is the concept of Fallout Dice. And naturally, I had the urge to see if I could port it over to SotC.

For those unfamiliar with Dogs, Fallout Dice accumulate from being on the losing end of a conflict. That's not totally accurate -- you could theoretically win and still end up with Fallout Dice -- but close enough. You roll at least three Fallout Dice, and the deadlier the conflict (from talking to gunfire), the higher the die type you roll (from d4 to d8). Total the two highest dice; the higher the sum, the worse the Fallout. You might lose a friend; you might lose your life.

We won't be using multiple die types for this; it just doesn't feel FATEy. Instead, we'll use d6s. In fact, to keep things consistent, you could use d6-d6, a la Starblazer Adventures, instead of 4dF. Here's how it works.

First, cut out the stress tracks.

When a character takes stress in an exchange, the amount of stress equates to Consequence Dice, to a maximum of 6d6. F'rinstance, if the villainous Doctor Fistinyourface punches you (in the face) for 3 stress, set aside 3d6.

If Endurance (for physical conflict) or Resolve (for mental/social conflict) is higher than number of Consequence Dice rolled, remove one die from the pool. You may also pay a Fate Point to remove a die from the pool.

The way the Consequence Dice are treated is dependent on the importance of the conflict or scene in which they're obtained. Scenes that are more integral to the plot mean a higher probability of serious consequences.

• If a minor conflict (e.g., fighting a lone group of minions, debating an unimportant NPC), take the sum of the two highest dice.
• If a moderately important conflict (i.e., fighting a lieutenant and his minions, wooing an important secondary PC), reroll any ones, then take the sum of the two highest dice.
• If a major conflict (i.e., fighting a main villain, pleading for your life on the chopping block), reroll ones and twos, then take the sum of the two highest dice.

That roll determines what consequence the attack has, like so:

• If the sum of the Consequence Dice is 2, or less than or equal to the defender's Endurance or Resolve, as appropriate, the attack has no effect.
• If the total is 6 or less, it's a Minor consequence.
• If the total is 7 to 10, it's a Moderate consequence.
• If the total is 11 or 12, it's a Severe consequence.

So let's say Doctor Fistinyourface deals 3 stress to you. That's 3d6 Consequence Dice. Fortunately, your Endurance is Great (+4), so you'll only roll 2d6 Consequence Dice. The result totals 4, but since that's equal to or less than your Endurance, the blow glances off your iron jaw. And now it's your turn: You give the good doctor a little chin music to the tune of 4 stress. His Endurance is merely Good (+3), so he'll roll a full 4d6 Consequence Dice, for 2, 4, 5, and 5. That's a Moderate consequence (5 + 5 = 10 = Moderate) -- call it "Broken Jaw." Physician, heal thyself.

Dogs' mechanic is a bit more complex, with the possibility of going from minor fallout to major fallout to, in theory, death. That's possible here, too, but it makes things maybe a little too die-rolly for my tastes. Instead of just assigning a consequence based on the total of the two highest dice, roll your Endurance/Resolve against the total.

• If the total is 6 or less and you fail, take a Minor consequence.
• If you fail by 4 or more, increase the total of the Consequence Dice to 10 and roll again.
• If the total is 7 to 10 and you fail, take a Moderate consequence.
• If you fail by 6 or more, increase the total of the Consequence Dice to 12 and roll again.
• If the total is 11 or 12 and you fail, take a Severe consequence.
• If you fail by 8 or more, you are Taken Out.

But like I said, that means a lot of die rolling every time some punk minion gets in a lucky shot. It does, however, give you a fightin' chance to not take any consequences at all, assuming you roll well and have a good stock of Fate Points on hand.

Why do any of this? Excellent question. My answer: I dunno. It certainly makes combat less predictable and far grittier. Two lucky rolls, regardless of the importance of the scene, is enough to be Taken Out. For some genres, that works; for others, not so much. Still, there you go. I prefer going by scene importance instead of the lethality of the attack; SotC's great at letting every skill matter, and it's perfectly within bounds to get "socially" Taken Out in a climactic scene. Because of the rerolls, in a major scene you're taking at least a Minor consequence every time you're hit. My advice: Don't get hit.

(As GM, I normally give myself Fate Points per scene based on the same criteria, usually from a few to 10. A minor skirmish or encounter might only give me 3 Fate Points, whereas for the all-out Battle of the Long Plains I'd give myself 10. So a minor conflict/scene would mean less than 5, a moderate would mean more than 5 but less than 10, and a major would be 10 and up.)

And if nothing else, it's another excellent illustration of FATE's flexibility and resilience.

Fantasy: Rethinking "Simplifying Weapons"

Seemed like such a good idea when I thought of it, but while speaking with a friend about RPGs last night (and "SotS" in particular), I hit upon a reason not to simply reduce weapons to category/aspect: Armor.

Right now, Medium armor is strong against slashing and Heavy is strong against slashing and bashing. And I like it that way. It offers a broad but elegant representation of different armor types. But if I take away aspects like "Slashing" and "Bashing" from weapons, it won't be as readily apparent which weapons slash/bash and which don't. In other words, I'd be relying even more on pre-existing player knowledge of various weapons to make the system work as intended, and I'm not entirely comfortable with that.

Yes, in the description of the weapon I can just say which ones slash and bash, but it isn't as mechanically transparent as giving assigning "Slashing" and "Bashing" aspects. The last thing I want to do here is muddy the waters.

Instead of saying that, for example, mail armor is strong against slashing weapons, I could list every weapon by name against which the armor is strong, but that feels lame in the extreme.

If I want to leave that weapon/armor interaction intact, I think my only real option is to go back to the previous method of separated name and aspects.

Don't get me wrong: To me, it feels perfectly natural to say "I tag your weapon's 'Scimitar' aspect to give my Armor roll a +2." In fact, that sort of thing even goes some way toward answering the question of why anyone with a high Melee would defend using Armor. You can't tag "Scimitar" to help with your Melee defense, but, since slashing weapons perform poorly against Medium armor, now it's an aspect that's actually useful to you. I just don't think it's necessarily fair to assume that all players will know how various weapons are used.

Maybe codified keywords within their descriptions, like "Scimitars have curved blades primarily designed for slashing attacks." I dunno.

I have some other rambling ideas to try to address this (like giving every weapon two aspects: one a primary aspect that grants a +2 bonus, and a secondary that grants a +1 bonus), but nothing coherent, so I'll stop typing before I embarrass myself too much.

PDQ#, Etc.

Apologies for the long period of silence, but I'm getting married in three weeks (!) and you wouldn't believe how much time that's been consuming lately. Basically, anytime I'm at rest, I should probably be doing something wedding-related. However, this isn't that kind of blog, so on to something FATE-related.

I've been reading Chad Underkoffler's new swashbuckler-specific implementation of PDQ, PDQ Sharp, and I'm really digging it. Lots of good ideas in there. The full version will be in Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies (with which I unfortunately have no connection), but in the meantime you really ought to check out the free 28-page PDF of the PDQ# core rules, if you haven't already. The mechanics are elegant and support the genre, and the writing style is both straightforward and pretty entertaining. Not many games so strongly encourage the use of the word "Certes"; for that, my white-plumed hat's off to you, Chad. Really looking forward to the finished product -- among my weaknesses are all things swashbucklery.