Playtesting XD20

After weeks of coaxing and beating around the bush with the teens at work (who would generally prefer to be doing techy things in the library's tech lab) I finally got one of them to build a fantasy roleplaying character and playtest XD20 with me.

XD20 is Dragonlance author Tracy Hickman's pared-to-the-bone version of Dungeons and Dragons. This one has an interesting character sheet that focuses more on imagining the character than on determining his stats. In particular, there are three questions to answer that not only help create the character but provide ready motivations for play, and would be useful in any game. 

Once my player realized he could make anything he wanted ... he wanted to make a Yugi-Oh character. 

Now Yugi-Oh is not a game or story I know anything about. I don't go in for collectible card games. But there is something in allowing players to start with their favorite universes when devising characters. I've done it myself when creating NPCs and entire armies for Warhammer - my go-to Imperial Guard regiment was basically Bill Slim's 14th Army in 40K, complete with bush-hats and kukris custom-made by Eureka Miniatures. Stereotypes and popular culture are good for one thing - they engage the mind, providing shortcuts to the nature of personality and even images in the mind's eye.

Our hero for tonight's session is a 1st-level mage with a curious ability. He owns a magical pack of cards that summons monsters to fight for him.

I decided that the game mechanism for this would be: whenever he draws a card, a monster will be selected at random from the DnD Monster Manual, and he may use its abilities, at the cost of his magical Stat, which will fall with repeated uses. He may dismiss the monster at will, and it will disappear into a veil of magical sparkles.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a Monster Manual handy. I had Monsters and Creatures: A Young Adventurer's Guide by Jim Zub.

Now, I'm not saying this isn't an awesome book (and series!) But it does tend to focus on the larger and more dangerous critters of the DnD-verse. Read on to see.

Our hero stands outside a dark cave, which he is told contains monsters and treasure. What will he do?

He draws a card. I opened the book at random:

Before marching into the clearly dangerous cave, he had the banshee howl into it. There was nothing within, though the howl was reflected back out the cave into his ears, and a door at the back of the cave was shattered, revealing a tunnel.

Hoping to have something else investigate the tunnel, our hero summoned an:

This turned out to be a very large owlbear (did I mention I watched Grizzly the other night?), which could not get into the tunnel at all and was rather disgruntled. Our hero marched down the tunnel. He triggered an alarm trap and goblins at the other end started shooting at him. He used his backpack to shield himself, advanced to the end of the tunnel, and summoned a:

Which barely fit in the smallish cave, and automatically squashed the five or so goblins within, their nest, and their treasure. Our hero got the spoils - a bloody, messy cave and some coins which, having been mashed against the walls, were no longer legal tender.

XD20 does not do XP; the players level up when the GM says so. But I think our hero has learned some valuable lessons about using his newfound powers...!

One year anniversary - reflections and plans

 Man of Tin likes to call this a "blogaversary." Guess it's my first one, and I'm a little surprised I managed to keep it up this long. Honestly, blogging has kept my interest in gaming going - though it has also slowed it down quite a bit simply because I'm trying to document it!

What I achieved this year:

Sixty (!) blogposts. Not quite one a week, as early on I was doing two a week and then things settled down. Work has kept me busy - and too exhausted when I get home to do more than read a lot.

Read a lot, both games and history. In particular, I discovered Pen and Sword, and that the Hoopla app has nearly all their books. Lots of good stuff there. Picked up and experimented with several of the Osprey "blue book" games, too.

Eighteen battle reports, and a little RPGing with Glory: 1861 and Over the Hills and Far Away.

Twenty-nine followers. Not something I'd have considered before getting into this, but the support makes a difference. Really.

Two remote games! Very interesting, both of them, and something I would never have considered before work forced me to use Zoom all the time. I hope to get more in.

What I didn't achieve:

Library gaming. Not much at all, though we have two healthy boardgame programs at my work - traditional board-gaming for the kids and chess for the adults. I don't have much of a hand in these, and though I've experimented with wargaming in the past during both I wasn't able to this year.

Significant progress on my campaign games - a '45 campaign that kept switching rules, Glory:1861 which hasn't gotten past the construction of one side, Over the Hills and Far Away which has had two "sessions," no work on The Sword in Africa at all...

American Civil War gaming, particularly my Picacho Pass scenario I was hoping to run on its 160th anniversary last month - I misplaced the figures! Will try it another time.

What I hope to achieve this year:

Library gaming - starting in two weeks I have programs planned for miniature painting and Dungeons and Dragons. 3D-printing has been up and down but I have plenty of old Warhammer Fantasy minis to give away, and picked up some Citadel paints tonight. Playtested the new XD20 simple RPG rules today with some success and some weirdness; I have high hopes. I'd also like to get some naval games in during summer, as this year's theme is Oceans of Possibilities. Heck, our kickoff is on the eightieth anniversary of Midway, though I doubt I can get away with running that.

Finish my solo '45 campaign.

Start a solo colonial campaign using The Sword in Africa.

Run some more of Over the Hills and Far Away.

Run some more of Glory:1861.

Play some more Portable Wargames, if only for the support of the incredibly enthusiastic and active Facebook community.

Go to a convention! Have never been to a wargaming convention, though there are two in Orlando every year and most of the local group go. (This is the other reason I was unable to run Picacho Pass.) I will try to make time in September for it this year. I also hope to go to Supercon, a local comic/fantasy/etc convention that my work might have a booth at.

Well, that's enough to go on, I should think. Thanks to my readers and commenters for the support; I'll have more for you soon.

De Bellis Antiquitatis

 Today's South Florida Miniatures Gamers (SMG) meeting was to learn the classic DBA (3rd editon). Member Jim, eager to introduce us to his favorite game, provided six boards and a dozen armies for about ten of us to try. The club generally does 18th century and up, so this was new to most of us. I got in two games.

The first was between Hundred Years War English and ancient Egyptians. (For whatever reason, the French weren't available.) I ended up playing Jim, which meant this actually resembled my home solo games quite a bit because he was moving about answering questions from the other players. This made the game fairly relaxing, and I had plenty of time to contemplate my moves.

Bottom: two units of knights, seven of archers, and two of 
men-at-arms on foot. Top: Four chariots, four archers, four spearmen.

My opponents:

We rolled for weather, and on a 1, the fields were wet and boggy. So much for the chariots! In the knowledge they couldn't reach me, I aimed to do an end-around of the Egyptian right with my knights (below).

What I hadn't considered was that this put them in range of the Egyptian archers. They spread out and concentrated on my commander unit, on the grounds that if the commander is destroyed and his side has lost more units, his side loses. So if your general is the first casualty... luckily the dice were with me. Not only did I win most of the roll-offs (higher scores force your opponent back, while doubling their score kills them), Jim kept rolling ones for activation, meaning he could only move one of his units.

The mobility of cavalry makes a difference however, and finally two of the chariots raced over to cut me off. By that time, I'd shot away some of his archers and had also got my knights into position to charge. I won by destroying four of his twelve units before he'd killed more than one of mine.

The second game was Indians vs. Alexandrian Greeks. My Indian army had three (!) elephants, two chariots, two light cavalry, one skirmish unit, and four archers.

I made the mistake, however, of just charging straight ahead. In hindsight, I should have chosen the option to move two of my (defending) army's units and stuck the elephants all the way on my right flank, which you can see above was facing normal infantry.

It turns out pike phalanxes can hold pretty darn well
against rampaging pachyderms.

Flanking makes a difference, too.

My own archers never got a look in, though my chariots managed to overrun the Greek war machine and then take their camp - a backline objective in every game that is worth two units. That made the game surprisingly close, three casualties to my four, which ended the round.

Several of the games were quick, enabling players to start again and try several different periods and armies during the day. And with small (2x2foot) boards and quick terrain layout, army creation and deployment, DBA and its variants are appealing for clubs like ours.

When I told him of my summer plans to run games at work, Jim generously donated one of his boards, a handful of terrain and a couple measuring sticks. (I'll make the armies with Paperboys.) Given my small tables for home solo games, and my hope of running small demos at work, these will come in handy even if I don't play DBA - though I certainly will try it again.

A 2x2 carpet square, fields, hills (that can double as forests),
a handful of lichen, and two measuring sticks.

Falkirk in FKR mode

 My '45 campaign has fallen by the wayside. I've done an awful lot of reading since, and experimented with a lot of rules, which is half the reason the campaign has been problematic. If I ever settle on a single ruleset, I might re-run it. Next year maybe.

Today, I'll try using the solo Free Kriegspiel rules I tried at work a couple weeks ago:

Despite the bloody nose they had at the border, the government are on the move, with twelve infantry units, three cavalry and four guns.

Against this, the rebel Scots have eight infantry (half elite), one French cavalry regiment, and three guns.

Using the Black Powder campaign, I have the choice of two scenarios:

• The Spey: An abortive river-crossing action during the real war, but one that could have happened. Requires good timing on the part of the rebel player, who must decide the right time to move out of cover (against enemy guns) and attack the crossing government army.
• Falkirk proper: Initially a cavalry advance against high ground, with fire reduced by the weather. This would at least even things for the rebels, which I might need as they are outnumbered three-to-two.

There are scenarios for both in CS Grant's Programmed Wargames Scenarios; in fact what I would use for Falkirk, Hill Line Defence, is the first and simplest in the book. Okay, I'll do Falkirk.

The table and layout are based on a map from Wikipedia that I can't add to the blogpost for some reason.

A patch of carpet represents swampy ground, black cards an impassable ravine. Moves and ranges will be based on Simpson's rules as well:

• Infantry line, guns: 5cm.
• Cavalry line, infantry column: 10cm.
• Cavalry column: 15cm.
• Musketry: 10cm.

A few certainties for the result table:

Owing to bad weather, all units have three turns of fire.

Victory conditions: If one side has lost or retreated with half its units, the game ends.

After first removing an uncooperative cat (left) the table is set (right):

Rebels:

Government:

Turn One: The government advance. The Highlanders roll to see whether they hold their ground, and score "Yes, But." They don't charge, but do fire off one of their volleys to zero effect, as the enemy are out of range.

The British horse canter forward, not quite in range to charge next turn.
I have got to get better lighting in here...

Turn Two: The French cavalry countercharge one of the British regiments, on the Likely row for downhill impetus: "Yes, but." They drive back the British, but are themselves forced to retreat. The rightmost Highlanders roll to not charge the cav in their front, at even odds because it's obviously not good for infantry to charge cavalry: +2. They hold their ground and fire instead, with a result of -2 for "No." No effect on the British.

Turn Three: Further advance. As the French and one British horse regiment rally, the rest of the horse charge up the slope into the Highlanders. Even odds this time for the Brits going uphill and the Highlanders fighting cavalry. I roll "no, but" and interpret this to mean the Highlanders don't break, but are forced back.

There is a firefight, with a +1 for the chaps on the far right of the British line who outflank the Scots. "Yes buts" all around; the Scots take casualties and are out of ammo, but are enraged enough to charge! 

As a clan slams into the Hessians, the Irish behind stand their ground.

On "Likely to win assault," the clans score (left to right): even, +1, +1, -2, -2, +1, +4. The English are forced back on the left, hold their ground in the center, and the right hand unit breaks and is eliminated.

Push of Pike (or bayonet!)

Turn Three: The British right flank pivots into the Scots; they are Grenadiers, so I would say they're Very Likely to Win. Nonetheless, they roll -2, meaning No, But. I interpret this to mean the fight degenerates into a free-for-all and the English are winning.

The other infantry melees roll No, But twice and Yes, But twice. On the No's, the battle does not end but the Scots are pushed back, on Yes but, the Scots retreat but the Government do not pursue.

Do the resting cavalry recover? French No, British Yes, But - so both retain their positions but the Brits are not ready to charge again.

How goes the cav vs. clan battle? The cav roll Yes, But. The Scots retreat, but the cavalry is exhausted and cannot pursue. Too bad, as in that case they could chase the Scots from the table.

Too bad, as in that case they could chase the Scots from the table.

Turn Four:

Do the British horse charge? Yes, but they'll be exhausted afterwards. This will be an even fight then, and the British win it, driving the French Horse from the field.

Melees again, rolling for the British. Do they win? No, Yes But, No, No, Yes And. Five British units retreat in disorganization; two force their Scottish enemies to retreat but are exhausted, and the leftmost Highlanders, flanked by British grenadiers, are overwhelmed and removed.

Kinda a repeat of my previous fight here; The rebels are flanked at both ends but the Government center (see next pic) is disintegrating.

Turn Five: 

Do the Scottish infantry facing the horse rally? Seems Unlikely. They have a No, But. They haven't recovered, but at least they're still on the board.

Do the retreating masses of British infantry rally? Unlikely under the circumstances; all score No and continue to fall back. (One is a militia regiment and thus has been dropping a line on the chart.)

How about the column that won its battle? Yes, But it won't advance. It fires instead (final volley) and is Likely to win the firefight. It does, so the Scots opposite retreat.

Will the Scots follow up their victories? 50/50 after all that fighting: Yes, But. Okay, they rally but are too tired to move far. They shore up their line ready to fight all the grenadiers to their left.

Do the victorious Brits and Hessians on the right flank rally? I would say Likely, and Yes; they dress their lines and swerve towards the rebel left flank. The Irish, the only reserve, move to face them.

I think we're getting on toward twilight here.

Turn Six (and last, given it's getting late): 

Do the tired British cavalry retreat? I'd say Likely. Yes they do, And they retreat off the board into the evening mist. The tired rebel right has held on by its fingernails.

Do the rest of the British infantry also retreat off the board? Likely. Yes, But they do so in good order.

Will the grenadiers make a fight of it? Unlikely, given they are now unsupported. No, But again they retreat in good order.

The Scottish rebels have won the day!

One British foot regiment is eliminated, and one clan regiment. I roll on the campaign recovery table - the Scots recover their lost unit, while the British don't, plus their militia unit deserts. Then the Scots roll on their victory table - 5. They raise a second cavalry regiment.

Will the British regroup and advance again into the Highlands, or will the Scots push south into England again? Time will tell...

I think these "narrative" rules worked fairly well. Some granularity to track casualties and morale might come in handy, but given that casualties in the period were relatively low, I think the total destruction of just one regiment apiece makes sense; we can assume that time and typical recruiting will bring the others back up to strength for the next battle.

Lord of the Rings Clicky Game

 I was cleaning my desk at work this week, and turned up this game a coworker gave me a few years back:

Since the teens at work have expressed increasing interest in fantasy miniatures games, I thought I'd give it a shot. I still hope to try Dragon Rampant in the next week or two with the Paperboys minis, but as they've also been 3d-printing physical minis with an eye to painting, they might like this - and as a starter set, it might be a better intro to formal miniatures games. The catch being that this is probably a two-player game. I'll try it solo first.

The box contains a double-sided hex map (which may come in handy in other games, including DnD), eight "clicky" miniatures plus an empty base that represents an invisible Frodo, 4 dice, and a rulebook that's shorter than it looks, as it's in seven languages.

I'm a bit concerned that half the miniatures are "named" characters - Strider, Lurtz, a freakin' Ringwraith - but hey, alt-universes, right? Who knows, maybe I can get the kids to watch the movies or read the books and get the original story. Ever since my first encounter with Warhammer and 40K, I've never enjoyed playing with "special characters," preferring the generic types that would actually appear in a battle the size of your average table. Besides, that way you can create your own heroes - which dovetails with the fantasy roleplaying I'm hoping to segue into.

Lex not only likes my Cigar Box mat, she seems to like
hex paper and clicky minis too. Luckily the minis are a soft  
plastic, so when she knocks them off-table there's no damage.

This is my first clicky game - they were popular a decade or two ago when I first moved to this area, but I never got into them. I'm hoping the statistics and point-tracking sliders right on the base will be easier for my more reluctant players, as this is more "gamist" than I have tried before.

"Armies" are rated by point-total and named heroes, who can control as many minions as they have action points. That means the armies in the box are 400 points each:

• Nazgul
• Lurtz
• Uruk-Hai
• Orc Spearman

Vs.

• Aragorn
• Frodo
• Lothlorien Archer
• High Elf Spearman

The good guys, with 8 action points, could field a further six minions, and the bad guys seven. 1,000 points would make a 30-45 minute game, so let's see how fast I can kill these characters off!

The full rules are four pages long, but there is a two-page "Combat Hex Play Card" (read Quick Rule Sheet) that will be useful if I can figure out how to copy and print it properly. No scenarios are provided, but there are two victory conditions:

One side loses 50% of its figures before the other.

Frodo either dies (auto-loss for good) or walks off the far side of the board (auto-win for good).

I randomly choose Good as the attackers; they get first turn. As this is a solo game, I'm going to actively play the Good side, while the separated Evil guys will simply head straight for the Good guys to either kill them or prevent Frodo from escaping past them.

In Turn One, everyone moved up the board. In Turn Two:

The elven archer took four shots at the Uruk-Hai minion, needing fives to hit - and got all twos. (I belatedly realized this cost four of his five action points.) The Elf spearman stupidly isolated himself. In the Evil turn, both Lurtz and the Nazgul got into combat with him. Oops!

Combat is a "chain;" the baddies get seven dice to the goody's one. The Nazgul also gets a free attack during movement in exchange for an action point, rolls a 6 to hit and a 3 to wound against the elf's 3 Toughness. The elf attacks the Nazgul, as it has a lower Toughness to target than the orc, but misses. The baddies get three hits (of 4+); they could convert their two 1s to hits with action points, but no need at present and action points are one-use only - they'll need them to kill Frodo and Aragorn. Needing only threes to wound, they pass on two dice and the elf breathes his last. One more dead good guy and evil wins...

Turn Three: The surviving elf moves back up the hill (giving him an extra shot) and fires into the orc minion again. This time he gets two hits, converts both to wounds, and kills the orc. Then Aragorn circles the black hex (impassable) and pays two points to attack Lurtz as he goes by to outflank him (thus gaining +1 attack, while Lurtz gets none at all). Aragorn gets four hits on 4+, but needing 5+ to wound only causes one.

In Evil's turn, Lurtz turns to face Aragorn, the spear-orc moves behind Lurtz to give him an extra attack (spears can fight in two ranks in these rules), and the Nazgul races to cut off the Ringbearer. Yes, he could outflank Aragorn instead, (and the next kill will win the game) but that doesn't seem very characterful for a Nazgul...

Aragorn gets four attacks to Lurtz's five. Aragorn gets three hits, Lurtz two. Aragorn wounds once, Lurtz twice, in exchange for two action points (he rolled a 6 and a 1).

Turn Four: Frodo's in trouble now! With his short legs, he only moves three hexes; even if he moves a fourth in exchange for an action point, moving forward or sideways will still allow the Nazgul to reach him. He'll have to run directly back.

Frodo has up to four movement points. If he
crosses an orange hex-side, he pays two; if a
blue side he pays three. This means he can't
cross the river on his turn (he'd need five points),
and the Nazgul is still within its own five-hex range.

Oh! Except...!

I just noticed that Frodo has the Sneak ability (denoted by, of all things, a lizard) that allows him to ignore terrain.

Fast little bugger, ain't he?

That's better:

Now the Nazgul needs ten movement points to reach
an adjacent hex; he only has six, so he'll need two turns.
Three if Frodo keeps moving, and I just had an idea...

Meanwhile, the elf moves off the hill and launches two arrows at the Nazgul. Both roll ones. He spends his last action point to convert one to a hit and... rolls a one to wound.

That is one unlucky elf!

The Nazgul, temporarily thwarted, turns towards Aragorn. Time enough to take the ring after the Man is dead.

It is now the Nazgul's turn, and I just had an eeeeevil idea. If Frodo puts the ring on, the Nazgul must chase him; and it will take him out of the game for a couple turns - hopefully long enough for Aragorn to take down one of those pesky orcs. Sadly, he only gets one ability activation per turn and it must be at the start of his turn anyway. (The Sneak and Ring abilities are "always activated," costing no points, but I assume they must still be spent?) Problem...! Aragorn will have to survive this turn first!

Aragorn is flanked by the Nazgul, who also activates
his Dread power, costing our hero extra activation points
for his own abilities.

Aragorn could pay his last two points for two extra attacks (one for each adjacent enemy), but against Lurtz he might need to be able to convert a 1 to a 6 at some point. Nah, what the heck. Two extra attacks. He swings six times for four hits, whilst Lurtz makes five for himself and the spear-orc, scoring two hits. The Nazgul makes four more attacks and three hits - as he is behind Aragorn, Lurtz is Aragorn's only target.

Aragorn converts two hits to wounds, taking down Lurtz. If he can survive this turn, Good wins - otherwise it's a draw!

Down to the dice now. Evil has five to-wound rolls on 5+; two passes and Aragorn is dead.

One wound! And thank Eru, no 1s, which could be converted to sixes. The Ranger is bloody, battered but unbowed. The forces of Good have triumphed this day.

Of course, he's still pretty much f*****, since the Nazgul is still behind him. Frodo could draw off the Nazgul, but that would be bad for HIM.

Heck with it, let's test the rules and see what happens. 

Nominal Turn Five: Frodo steps back a hex and dons the Ring.

... and fails his "struggle" roll to master the evil artifact,
losing a wound.

Aragorn spins and charges the orc, taking what DnD would call an Attack of Opportunity for breaking away from combat with the Nazgul, but surviving by the skin of his teeth (the Nazgul rolled a six to hit and a four to wound!). He circles round to outflank the Nazgul - thus able to fight him without fear of being hit in return. He wounds the Nazgul once.

On Evil's turn, the Nazgul breaks away and heads for Frodo, while the spear-orc flanks Aragorn and stabs him in the back - but fails to wound.

The elf moves between Frodo and the Nazgul, as Frodo tries again to fight the Ring and fails. Aragorn breaks from combat again and hits the Nazgul from behind. He scores three wounds - the Nazgul is down to one!

On its turn, the Nazgul must break away from Aragorn, who gets another AoO ... and makes it! On a five to hit and six to wound, the Nazgul fades away into the air.

The spear-orc can't reach Aragorn on his own turn, so no further combat.

On Turn Six, Frodo successfully wrenches the Ring off his finger. Crisis averted. I'll stop there. I mean, the orc could continue to go after Aragorn with a fair chance of killing him, but is that realistic?

Like any wargame is all that realistic, right?

It was fun, and I think the teens will understand it better than they did the previous game.

This game shares similarities with Games Workshop's - particularly the Action Points, which correspond to Might, Will and Fate. Since I intend to use Fate Points in my summer RPGs, that'll provide a further tie-in. Relying on dice alone also is problematic in a skirmish game this small. It's relatively simple, though, and even after one playthrough I think I can successfully GM it. Next week?