The Gaming Den

I haven't seen this version of Rapid Shot, but Frank & K(ieth) both specifically said that any sort of "Rapid Shot" feat is "bad" for D&D, and that's why they didn't include it in Races of War's [Combat] feats. Now, historically (& internationally) holding multiple ar...

The James Franco "(Piz)Za" sketch on SNL last night was pretty ridiculous to watch; it almost convinces the viewer that "Za" is short of lasana instead of pizza. That the sketches punchline is delivered as a casual afterthought, after such an emphatic delivery of the set-up; is w...

MGuy, Chamomile hasn't even once outlined anything remotely close to a DnD "wargame". Most of what they've outlined thus far has been... closer to a 3e skill check mechanic than anything approaching a "wargame". Which has been the point of this thread, to not make a game where yo...

Short answer: No. Long answer: This is the "Lawful is a virtue, Chaos is a handicap" thing all over again. Either Law's nice latrine planning means they get to put more boots on the battlefield and win more, or Chaos brings more orcs in the first place so by the time they're done dying of...

Getting back towards constraints on a wargame: Illness-related casualties: historically, disease has been the greatest cause of death in the sort of non-structured militaries (i.e. not ancient China or ancient Rome, which had camp fatigues) that would like make up a fantasy kitchensink armed force S...

its a good question too since it lets us figure out hit thresholds in After Sundown's system and what they mean. a visual display of "threshold" vs "chance of succeeding" for various dicepool sizes: https://i.imgur.com/mLSZ4UJ.png (ideally there would be more tickmarks on the % ...

Some restrictions that come to mind, borrowing a bit from Dominions, a bit from Kriegesspiele/Battle for Armaggedon, a bit from Sonshi Elemnents of an Army[/i] Spirit/Thumos/ Morale The resiliance to enemy action, and its combat ability, of an army is represented by it's component Formations Morale....

No. I'm not off by orders of magnitude, I literally just checked it right now. Check again . Apparently the Orr Group Industry Report data isn't considered all that informative . Specifically from that link: Player Data is Nonsense Though we’re slowly getting emerging trends, I’m still pretty unimp...

Here's one desirable element that I can think of: being able to resolve multiple mass combats in a single session of gameplay; and have non-wargame gameplay also be part of the game session where a wargame was resolved. Right now.... having multiple turns for the Wargame be variations of "fight...

Not Skynet per se, but AI building more efficient/effective AI is the surest harbinger of the Technological Singularity.

This is all spitballing, but attempting to focus on the ideas that "short" mass combat sub-games should try to be as abstracted as possible, offer meaningful strategic choices, and take up as little time as possible to resolve. Morale/Discipline/Formation Durability & Formation size &a...

I had to GIS that "The Swamp" image to find one that's legible, and it's a clusterfuck. It overly presumes that any sort of 'global' conspiracy is: -Ideologically disparate groups are colluding without competitive leaking to 'out' the opposing faction in order to increase their own power (...

I think this is the easiest way to tell if a GM is someone you want to play with or not. Have a situation that the GM has spent a lot of time/effort setting up, then bypass/solve/win it with some unforeseen coolness. If the GM laughs with the rest of you, they're a keeper. If they get upset at you,...

The Den is probably the only place where you could have "Best of the Industry" (e.g. Cognitive Concordance, Functional Out-of-Box, Player Agency Advocacy, Mechanical Cohesion) & "Worst of the Industry" (e.g. Cognitive Dissonance, Barrel-of-Cocks Suckage, Referee antagonism en...

Wiseman wrote:For a Shadowrun hack, hell, I was considering just running a 3.tome + some other house rules and then just mindcaulking the bits that don't add up.

Frank's Warp Cult might be a better fit for this tham hacked-Tome, as it's designed for supernatural and technological themes in a dystopian setting.

Not how I read that, but then I'm only reading a translation, so fair enough. Specifically b/c Chapter 2 begins with the statement: [02.01] Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand four-horse chariots, one thousand leather chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transp...

You're actually agreeing with Sonshi, not disagreeing. The Art of War is one of the earliest books describing the effectiveness of guerilla war in the face of a larger enemy force. Then there's the fact that Sonshi also literally spells out that besieging cities is the worst strategic choice, and th...

Well, kind of. Aragorn actually wanders around for most of the trip to Rivendell without a functional sword. So there are in fact things he could buy, but Tolkien was more interested than allegory than good writing or believable characters. If he didn't have a sword before the scene on Mt.Weatherto...

I'm somehow of the suspicion that the most succinct treatise on warfare, especially "total warfare" (i.e. how it impacts economy/ecology of nations engaging in it), might have some good ideas to mine. https://www.sonshi.com/original-the-art-of-war-translation-not-giles.html However parsing...

To be fair about LoTR & looting items vs buying them, Aragorn literally tells the Hobbits to take the Barrow-Wights [edit: barrow- blades ], as they will be better than being unarmed; as well as better than any contemporary-made weapons they may carry. However, Frodo has Sting , and doesn't get ...

The Parthians & their horse-archers kept the Romans out of Asia. It took about an other ~1500 years (the Polish army @ the battle of Vienna) before horse archers become obsolete.

These figures are from 1261 onward; by that time Europe had long since gotten back on its feet after the Roman collapse. Urbanization and long-distance trade, which were and are the best indicators of economic health, got back into swing by around 1000 AD. The Dark Ages, which people prefer to call...

I hate Betrayal so very, very much. Why if i may ask? The game's claim to fame is supposedly its newbie friendliness yet everything hinges on sending a random person off by themselves with a booklet to learn new rules to potentially fuck up. Not just new rules, mind you, but secret rules. I've play...

I like Betrayal once in a while, but I get tired of it fairly quickly and I can understand why someone else might not like it at all. I've had a copy of Betrayal since it's first release (and got an errata'd version when it came out), and the whole "swingy" haunts problem has always been ...

1 koku (rice to feed a guy for a year, about 330lbs) was worth 1,000 mon 1,000 mon is worth 1 ryo (a gold coin on Meowth's forehead) A high quality tachi is worth 800 to 1000 mon/1 ryo 1 hiki of silk is worth 1 ryo/1000 mon I like the analogous price ranges that are reminiscent of the Hexcrawl idea...