Artorius - our take

[koz]

Here would be the basic ideas behind it. This whole post is one chain of thought so could go anywhere.

The RPG is set in Britain around 400AD. Roman rule is breaking down, but in a heroic way. The barbarbarian invaders are destroying villages, eating babies and destroying hope in their belief that their teutonic blood is better and should be worshipped. Yes, the invaders are actually Nazis, and as such it is entirely acceptable that they should be killed on sight.
(Diplomacy is impossible because they don't believe you are worthy of talking to them. Hell, you don't even know each others language, and keeping one of them alive long enough to learn is impossible)

There is one last, bright hope for humanity. The Dux Artorius and his last Legion is fighting to save the non-Aryans, and is doing heroic acts of battle to save the day.

The PCs are cohorts of the Dux. Combat is quite lethal. It is quite likely for a PC to die within a battle. The Charge of the Light Brigade is an acceptable and even encouraged military tactic. After all, if heroism needs possible risk, then definite death is more heroic. Suicide bombers are indeed the most heroic people in the world.

This means that the players will be changing characters a lot of the time. Hmmm... we could have a pool of characters and swap them around, and the main focus of the game will be the campaign, not the party. That could possibly work, but one PC could be played by many players over different sessions. The nearest thing I can think of would be Fire Emblem, but with a different player for each PC. If there is a TPK then the focus of the story goes to a different squad. If the Dux dies then another Dux is put forward and the PCs continue to be cohorts.

All characters should take 3-5 hits to die, so a Wound system might be best. Wounds should also give penalties, since a wounded character who continues fighting when they could retreat and go to the medics is more heroic because it is more dangerous.

No idea of normal combats, but chance of death within one encounter should be about 10-15%. As in, whether a normal combat should be between your company and 1,000 screaming Nazi barbarbarians, or with the PCs and a couple of red-shirts against 5-10 Nazi baby-eaters.

Any other ideas? Could this game work? What do you guys think? How often should the PCs see the Dux? Should the Dux get into combat? Is there a way to stop the invasion?

Let us see if this can be taken further. Note that this is in no way to do with the other Artorius/Arturius project currently being run on TGD, aside from broad fluff similarities.

Essentially, the kind of combats we're looking at require a CR system for different scales of Nazis. If we want thousands of screaming Nazi barbarians, they should receive some kind of horde bonuses, but if we want a few baby-eaters, they should have some kind of area attacks or something designed to make them credible threats in smaller numbers, but also harder individually.

I would propose that the role of Dux be more like a template, which is cycled around by nomination at the start of each quest.

A Wound system is fine, but it could also be done similarly to WoD, with checkboxes and damage typology. In fact, an adaptation of WoD without the supernatural stuff might work very well for this as a whole, in my opinion.

As for the 'PC pool', giving everyone 3 PCs at the start, and giving them 1 more per completed quest might work.

More thoughts? In particular, would it be possible to adapt some kind of WoD-type system to this?

Edit: Something which has just occured to me - if this is designed to represent Roman legionaries, the equipment each one has will be rather limited in terms of its variation. While this is obviously a strength and a weakness both, there needs to be some variation that is normally provided by equipment in the system.

Additionally, will this be classed or classless? I propose the latter, simply because it makes more sense for this setting, especially considering my proposal of WoD-like mechanics for this purpose.

[Bigode]

Since this is so clearly a retro-er, stupider Warp Cult, I wonder how adaptable the mechanics are. The standard combat's the PCs against 10-20 Nazis, and the PCs clearly are the red shirts - I suggest lethality 20% on average, so that most battles indeed show why those shirts are red after all.

[koz]

Since this is so clearly a retro-er, stupider Warp Cult, I wonder how adaptable the mechanics are. The standard combat's the PCs against 10-20 Nazis, and the PCs clearly are the red shirts - I suggest lethality 20% on average, so that most battles indeed show why those shirts are red after all.

That could work, but 20% lethality runs the risk of being far too stupid. I would prefer it if the PCs were above the average legionary, but still rather killable - a DnD level 3ish, effectively, with expected lethality at no more than 10% per combat, with possibly a form of padding (the Willpower mechanic from oWoD, except expanded to include 'not dying from injuries and continuing to act' with a continuous cost, along with fewer opportunities to recover it) to ensure that this isn't randomly messed up by lucky dice (or unlucky dice...).

In terms of how many Nazis you fight, it could very well be above the values you suggest - the case is keeping the overall power consistent and within manageable resource levels, both in terms of time and braincycles. For instance, something akin to the Adept and Warrior classes from the Tomes could work well for massed hordes, and could allow us to run 30 weedy Nazis quite easily. However, once you get into hundreds, you probably want doods of your own, and then we get into the mass combat minigame.

Speaking of which, if we're going to HAVE this kind of stuff happening, which I sure as hell do want in this system, we're gonna need to think of a mass combat system for this that works. Ideally, it needs to be transpositional rather than reinterpretive as much as possible, but I'm not entirely sure if WoD has the potential to be adapted this way.

[the_taken]

Why not go all the way to making this a wargame first, then giving the special characters special rules after wards?

As an example, we'll use the d6 pools with TN 5+. Reaching TN is a point. Every hit on attack is countered by hits on defence.
All the mooks roll 2d6 for most of their rolls (they have at most two per turn, to-hit, to-soak) or 3d6 if doing their focus (spearmen ready for a charge). 1d6 if the ability is teh sux. Mooks gather in mobs and add all their dice together in a pool and do stuff as one character.
But PCs get nice big pools of d6s and can distribute them around like confetti. This is what lets them take on ten mooks at once before dying a horrible Swiss Cheesy death. Was cheese invented back then?

Barbarian Warrior - Infantry
Movement 6"
Attack: 2d6 Melee
Special Attack: 3d6 Melee vs Infantry
Soak: 2d6

Barbarian Javelin Thrower - Infantry
Movement 6"
Attack: 2d6 Melee
Special Attack: 2d6 18"
Soak: 2d6

Legionnaire - Infantry
Movement 4"
Attack: 2d6 Melee
Soak: 3d6

Legion Archer - Infantry
Movement 4"
Attack: 2d6 Melee
Special Attack: 1d6 32"
Special Special Attack: 1d6 FIRE 32" once
Soak: 1d6

[koz]

The d6 pools can be represented by the Willpower stat. This is awesome, the_taken! Thanks - let's use this wholesale.

We should also add war machines (ballistae?) and likely find some way to handle cavalry. It would likely be an 'add-on' to make something into cavalry, giving them a speed bonus and a boost to their attacks (say, +1 or +2), and maybe even a like boost to defences?

Also, one thing about fluff we seem to be forgetting here - the Celts! I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have wanted crazy Nazis in their land, and we should likely have a think about what sort of role they'll play under this system. My best guess would be 'somewhat grudging allies', and it would also give us some PC variety as well.

For those who are more familiar with Roman history than I am - how was archery back then, in terms of the legions and the Celts?

[JonSetanta]

Why not think up your own thing rather than distort Elennsar's idea?

[the_taken]

Why not think up your own thing rather than distort Elennsar's idea?

We're not sure. Can you tell us?

-------

This is awesome, the_taken! Thanks - let's use this wholesale.

No plobrem.

Hmmm...
Basing this system on a war game... Divide the game into rounds of three phases: Move, Smack, Ranged, Refocus.

Move Phase
Each side takes a turn moving a mob. We probably want to have rules on mob (sorry) formation sizes to prevent silly things like masses of 2k barbarians, while the other player has 100 groups of 20 Legionnaires.

Smack Phase
Mobs (not individuals) in melee range attack each other (piles of dice FTW!) None of the initiative bee-ess from Warhammer, just throw all the dice out, in separate piles and count up the hits. Melees are messy and confusing, so if you have multiple mobs per side, distribute the hits evenly.
Then roll to soak. Every hit negates a hit from the attacks. Mobs may forgo soaking to use Ranged attacks in the Shoot Phase.

Shoot Phase
Like the Smack Phase, but with flying pointy things raining down from the sky. Friendly-fire is ALWAYS on, so if your archers fire into melee with friendlies, distribute hits evenly among all the participating mobs. Since being in a melee is distracting, firing into one gets you some number of free hits on the attack.
After all the arrows are fired, roll to Soak.

Refocus Phase
I'm not why there's this phase yet, but we may need it.

The d6 pools can be represented by the Willpower stat.

Ooooh, I like.

So heroes get some awesome base stats, something like 4d6 melee attack and soak, minimum. Which means they can potentially kill 4 guys in one round, and fend off about 2 guys on average. And they can have 4 wounds at least before dying. So yeah, a lord is worth 4 guys minimum.

The Willpower pool means a hero can allocate dice around to actions in phases. Hell, lets make this the leadership skill outright. A hero may take dice out of his will power pool and add it his mob's actions. One dice adds 1" to speed, or add 1d6 to an attack, or 1d6 to soak. So a hero swordsman still makes his mob of archers better.
If a hero has any dice left over, he can roll them to shrug off wounds in the Refocus Phase. He can't do this if he's dead.

Hero Types:
Heirloom Weapon - +3d6 Melee, +1d6 Soak, 2d6 Willpower
Shield Guardian - +1d6 Melee, +3d6 Soak, 2d6 Willpower
Gladiator Champion - +2d6 Melee, +2d6 Soak, 2d6 Willpower
Gelnwood Archer - 4d6 18", 3d6 24", 2d6 Willpower
Shinning Knight - +1d6 Melee, +1d6 Soak, 3d6 Willpower
Ancient King - 4d6 Willpower

We should also add war machines (ballistae?) and likely find some way to handle cavalry. It would likely be an 'add-on' to make something into cavalry, giving them a speed bonus and a boost to their attacks (say, +1 or +2), and maybe even a like boost to defences?

War machines can count as either special units, or are just a special attack of a certain unit. The former method:

Catapult - War Machine
Immobile
Load: can attack next turn
Does not contribute to melee (engineers)
Special Attack: 3d6 24" (+2 hits vs Walls)
Soak: 2d6
Special Ability - Guarded: Melee mobs may opt to take all the hits from melee attacks against the Catapult as their own instead.

As for cavalry, just make them a faster unit (10"?) that becomes a regular (or whatever) dude after taking a wound (first hit counts as a dismount). Anyway, give the mob a free hit for every three dudes they have in melee if the mob moved 5" in a strait line this round.

Lol, mounted heroes can spend Willpower to have their mob of foot soldiers keep up, or have themselves keep up with a mob of horsemen.

[Avoraciopoctules]

For those who are more familiar with Roman history than I am - how was archery back then, in terms of the legions and the Celts?

I think archers started as auxiliaries in the legions. They used composite bows with different types of arrows depending on the target and also had darts to use against approaching enemies. Slingers were also used, but often had less training and armor. The slingers were primarily effective at short range.

Celts had archers at this point as well. I'm not sure what type of bow they used, but I don't think they had as great a variety of arrows. Celts had lots of spear-throwers, though.

Disclaimer: I didn't check this in a history book, so I might have misunderstood something.

[TavishArtair]

Why not think up your own thing rather than distort Elennsar's idea?

Because there is certainly a demand for this kind of setting and these kinds of rules, I think, even without him asking for it. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay shows that. As to why do it without Elennsar instead of with Elennsar, that's a question you'll have to ask Elennsar.

As for the battle line and ranged weapons, archers existed but prominent use of them was not common. They were auxiliaries, you are correct. All legionnaires, however, would open up with a volley of the standard-issue Roman javelin (probably the pilum, at this era, though it has varied), possibly more than one as they were closing. These were notoriously annoying, as they would go through any armour, and tended to bend after lodging in a shield, thus you would have some difficulty wrenching the javelin out and if you were forced to you would be fighting with another 2 or so kilograms on your shield-arm, as well as a generally unwieldy defense.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Terrain could be pretty easy to model just by adding or subtracting a die or two from attack and/or soak pools add adding or subtracting inches from ranges and move speeds. The speed mods would work by changing the cost of moving inside the special terrain.

High Ground

+1 die to attacks
+1'' to speed

Shallow Water

-1 die to attacks
-3'' to speed for walking units.

Light Cover

+1 die to Soak (+2 against ranged)
-1'' to speed.

Heavy Cover

+2 die to Soak (+4 against ranged)
-2'' to speed

[koz]

All this is really good stuff, guys. Do you guys believe Celts should be playable units/characters in this game of ours, or would it be better if they were potential NPC allies only? I would think using Celts would be very good, and I am all for making them PC characters.

Additionally, the idea of turncoat Saxons came up in the other Artorius thread - would this work? I'm not entirely against this idea, but it might be worth considering as another interesting option to give to players.

[TavishArtair]

All this is really good stuff, guys. Do you guys believe Celts should be playable units/characters in this game of ours, or would it be better if they were potential NPC allies only? I would think using Celts would be very good, and I am all for making them PC characters.

Additionally, the idea of turncoat Saxons came up in the other Artorius thread - would this work? I'm not entirely against this idea, but it might be worth considering as another interesting option to give to players.

Given that the Romans recruited Celts regularly (after stepping on their collective necks) and in fact many Roman legions consisted significantly of Celtic warriors, I would see no reason not to include Celts. In many ways saying otherwise would be tantamount to saying you couldn't play half the Legion. Now how much rules attention you want to give to Celts is up to you.

[koz]

Given that the Romans recruited Celts regularly (after stepping on their collective necks) and in fact many Roman legions consisted significantly of Celtic warriors, I would see no reason not to include Celts. In many ways saying otherwise would be tantamount to saying you couldn't play half the Legion. Now how much rules attention you want to give to Celts is up to you.

Well, in that case, all the more awesome. I would personally call that Celts and Romans should be equally likely, given what you've just told me, which is good, because it gives additional PC variation, which is never a bad thing, IMHO.

How exactly should we differentiate Celts from Romans, at least on the large-scale side of things? Not being too informed on such things, it's a bit hard for me to call.

[shau]

A few thoughts:

So far, it looks like fighting Mongol style is the win. A bunch of Barbarian throwers can run circles around legionnaires while filling them with pointy things. Not allowing people to shoot and move in the same turn would help, but the exploit is still there.

Archers probably shouldn't outrange catapults (waits for someone to find articles on maximum range of catapults and archers to prove me wrong). A lot of catapults are mobile and those would probably work better for this game.

Shoot Phase
Like the Smack Phase, but with flying pointy things raining down from the sky. Friendly-fire is ALWAYS on, so if your archers fire into melee with friendlies, distribute hits evenly among all the participating mobs. Since being in a melee is distracting, firing into one gets you some number of free hits on the attack.

I really hate equal damage friendly fire. I can accept risking hitting allies on a miss, but skilled archers should be at least somewhat more likely to hit enemies rather than allies. It also mean that archers just stand there if all enemies are in melee. I would suggest some sort of critical fail or something instead.

[koz]

A few thoughts:

So far, it looks like fighting Mongol style is the win. A bunch of Barbarian throwers can run circles around legionnaires while filling them with pointy things. Not allowing people to shoot and move in the same turn would help, but the exploit is still there.

Archers probably shouldn't outrange catapults (waits for someone to find articles on maximum range of catapults and archers to prove me wrong). A lot of catapults are mobile and those would probably work better for this game.

Shoot Phase
Like the Smack Phase, but with flying pointy things raining down from the sky. Friendly-fire is ALWAYS on, so if your archers fire into melee with friendlies, distribute hits evenly among all the participating mobs. Since being in a melee is distracting, firing into one gets you some number of free hits on the attack.

I really hate equal damage friendly fire. I can accept risking hitting allies on a miss, but skilled archers should be at least somewhat more likely to hit enemies rather than allies. It also mean that archers just stand there if all enemies are in melee. I would suggest some sort of critical fail or something instead.

The first of these critiques is a very valid one. I would actually say that move and shoot should be a valid tactic, but has to be compensated with the fact that legionaries (and, by extension, the Companions) are somewhat 'hardened' against missile fire to make this strategy less lethal in the long-term. Something like a bonus on rolls to soak missile fire that isn't artillery would do it, I think.

Whether catapults are mobile or immobile WILL affect their range as a metagame consideration. I would prefer immobile catapults with more range, but if we do decide on mobile catapults, it would be better to give them less range, in my view. As far as which fired further... don't look at me.

Equal damage friendly fire is a bit much, I agree. It would be better if friendly fire only occured on really crappy rolls - death by own side's arrows is stupid, unheroic and not particularly good for anyone.

Edit: While this is still embryonic, it would be nice if someone (or several someones - this can get to be quite a big task!) would keep track of everything, likely in a separate thread, for the purposes of building up a summary of this thread in terms of mechanics for easy reference. Any takers would be greatly appreciated, and the reward is my anal virginity.

[Avoraciopoctules]

A few thoughts:

So far, it looks like fighting Mongol style is the win. A bunch of Barbarian throwers can run circles around legionnaires while filling them with pointy things. Not allowing people to shoot and move in the same turn would help, but the exploit is still there.

The first of these critiques is a very valid one. I would actually say that move and shoot should be a valid tactic, but has to be compensated with the fact that legionaries (and, by extension, the Companions) are somewhat 'hardened' against missile fire to make this strategy less lethal in the long-term. Something like a bonus on rolls to soak missile fire that isn't artillery would do it, I think.

What if we give ranged units limited ammunition and/or allow for an "entrench" action to boost ranged soak?

[koz]

What if we give ranged units limited ammunition and/or allow for an "entrench" action to boost ranged soak?

The former is a bit of a pain to track, particularly in larger mass combats. If we were to do this, though, something like Necromunda's 'ammo roll' might work - essentially, every time you roll poorly enough, roll again, and if that comes up low enough, the unit can no longer fire.

The latter is much more feasible, and, in my view, a better choice.

[ckafrica]

The basic premise of this sounds like that fucking terrible Brukheimer King Arthur movie.

No offence but I hope to see this fail; anything resembling that movie should not see the light of day. I'm glad that you guys boiled down what S/h/it really wants out of an RPG though; it explains a lot.

So uhhh, Bad Luck ?

[zeruslord]

The basic premise of that movie is that Arthur's knights are a bunch of sarmatian barbarians. Also, it makes a lot of things really dumb, like the knights not being reinforced ever and not being transferred out, the knights fighting with all kinds of crazy crap, and the armor being all hunnic and crap. Basically, if you strip out the stupid visual stuff and suspend disbelief on the weapons, it becomes a workable game setting.

[koz]

The basic premise of this sounds like that fucking terrible Brukheimer King Arthur movie.

No offence but I hope to see this fail; anything resembling that movie should not see the light of day. I'm glad that you guys boiled down what S/h/it really wants out of an RPG though; it explains a lot.

So uhhh, Bad Luck ?

None taken. For the record, you misunderstand - I'm pretty confident that this will not resemble said movie in any way, nor do I desire it to be such.

[ckafrica]

I'm sure it will be something more interesting than the movie, you have a soul right (as compared to Bruckheimer and anything he's made).
It was Parthenon's first post that reminded me of the movie. A game where characters die every encounter of note (like the movie) which leads to having very cookiecutter characters (like the movie) which in turn leads to not really caring about the story (like the movie).
As long as combat is swift and character generation is swifter; I'm sure it could turn out to be an enjoyable "'role' play light" game. Kind of like Twilight 2000 was.

One thought might be to use the brute squad mechanics in 7th Sea for small unit combat. Have hero's and villains/unit commanders joined by lower level units which add to his dice rather than fight wholly independently. The brutes go down in a single blow (possibly more than one at a time) and so it'll make sense to kill the back up before the to equal opponents go at it toe to toe.

[JonSetanta]

We're not sure. Can you tell us?

You have the 'technical' creativity but lack fluff-mind. Elennsar is decent with fluff but allergic to the concept of chance or simple cold math.
Seriously, all you need to do is change the names and locations and you have an original idea, your concepts are so divergent from his.
It would be great if you could collaborate but I'd be an idiot to think such a thing was even remotely possible.

I'd tell you more but some of TGD is incredibly easily offended.

[koz]

I think the fluff-mind isn't as big a problem as sigma makes it sound. In general, I see no needs to strip out the fluff we have as-current, but merely to shift it around a bit and make it our own.

[JonSetanta]

I think the fluff-mind isn't as big a problem as sigma makes it sound. In general, I see no needs to strip out the fluff we have as-current, but merely to shift it around a bit and make it our own.

All I ask is rename setting, figures, regions, and otherwise differentiate from Artorius. Please.

[the_taken]

Ancient Egypt?