FKR Fantasy Wargaming ... in Action!

Today I ran a game at work. It was a bit messy, in part because it was done in a busy teen tech lab. At different times I had anywhere from two to five active players, plus a staff member taking photos!

The other reason was complaints about and hasty changes to the rules, but I'll come to that.

The rules were given me by Shawn Medero in a comment on my previous post. They're by Paul le Long, from Lone Warrior, the solo wargaming zine, and have much in common with FATE/FUDGE, to the extent that you roll four three-siders for each task. I only had three FATE dice handy, so stuck to regular dice rolling 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 to represent -, blank or + on the resolution chart.

The field of battle.

A halfling village and its defenders...

... are menaced by goblin skirmishers ...

... and a regiment of goblin warriors coming out of the forests.

The gobbos advance.

As the gobbos moved into range to shoot at the
buildings, one of the players asked if it had rained
recently. Good question! I tossed for it and declared
the crops and thatch were damp, thus harder to burn.

Approaching the village.

The badly-outnumbered halflings hide in their cropfield,
though some stay near the edge to shoot out.

Luckily, better armed and -armoured halfling militia
have mobilized and are heading for the hill. Horns
have been heard from potential allies...

Who appear on the edge of the battlespace.

The goblins split up; some to await the Men, the rest
to take the village.

After this, I failed to take photos for a while. Basically, the goblin archers and spearmen advanced to attempt burning the buildings; due to poor rolls they initially failed and had to get to close range before managing to burn a cabin. This enabled the defenders to fight them to a standstill, as some "No, and" and "Yes, but" results caused the gobbos to run out of ammo and have to resort to knives and teeth. The halflings also took a lot of casualties, though.

In the meantime, the Rangers, led by a Strider expy, approached and joined up with the rest of the halfling militia on the hill. The goblin warriors charged, scored a lot of pluses, and were busily winning when the last "good" player decided to give up.

He'd been rolling poorly, and was also frustrated and confused by the chart, which he felt should be more even. Our last roll of the Ranger/Goblin fight resorted to a twentysider:

... which rolled a 2.

So the Men and Halflings fled the smouldering village.

On the up side:

• The players were enthusiastic and engaged, asking pertinent questions and coming up with offbeat solutions.
• One at least was familiar with Warhammer Fantasy and understood the conventions of the genre.
• Two asked if they could play again tomorrow!

On the down side:

• One felt the chart was unfair; he thought it should be more even, or at least the results should be clearer. Not as interested in free-kriegspiel, I guess.
• He also felt the entire scenario was unbalanced, with the halflings badly outnumbered and having to wait a long while for their reinforcements. More even sides tomorrow, then.
• Finally, the terrain effects were unclear - for example, the forests are not obviously delineated. He was also unused to having to ask questions about the situation or to suggest effects on his own - so the use of the hill was not obvious. He did like that, when he asked if he could move faster, I offered him the option to force-march by taking a double move in exchange for not moving next turn while his militia rested.

So basically, more structure appears preferable. I will bring Dragon Rampant and see if it works better. FKR may not work as well as I hoped, at least not without more experienced players!

I'm also considering the Perrys' Travel Battle, a small gridded game that might seem more familiar and "gamist" to the teens.

So tomorrow, with luck, another round?