Pre-DnD With Rookie Teens

Work, as you can probably tell from the gap between posts, has been very busy. I have a special event to plan (at least one I know about, since it's skygazing), interviews to prepare for (I'm one of the interviewers), and a whole bunch of calls and arrangements to make. I did consider painting miniature 3d printed astronauts for the program, but the first ones were too small and I dunno how many larger ones we can print in time.

I am looking forward to Recon 2023, my first wargaming convention, the last weekend of April. Provided I take enough photos and notes, I should get half a dozen posts out of it.

That said, last Wednesday was my first session of the library's new teen tabletop gaming program, which I hope I can keep going for once. It will be a mix of simple RPGs and wargames, depending on interest. Two of my coworkers will be able to back me up on the roleplaying, but I'm the only one with any interest in miniatures. I had three takers from the YouMedia teen tech lab for the first try.

The session was 90 minutes long, cutting off right at that point. (I had to be on desk, and one kid had to go home. As usual when there's a limit on these things, we had to stop midgame, but you'll see how I handled that shortly.

It was encouraging to see one of the teens bring his own dice bag.

We spent more time than I hoped in character creation. Even the cut-to-the-bone style of Play the World (describe a character, pick five to seven skills at +1 or +2) isn't intuitive to anyone who hasn't played before. Here you can see them paging through volumes of the D&D Young Adventurers' Guides for guidance. I can confirm that they help, but it still took more than a few minutes

It would have been quicker to have them select some ready-made sample characters, but there is something about the character-building process - the army-building process in wargames, too - that still feels like play. It's creation, and since these games are all about creativity, I think the time spent was worth it. I will have some prebuilt characters in future, though, for anyone who just wants to play out of the gate.

One player - the one who used Yugi-oh cards - was still a bit disgruntled that the monsters he'd randomly picked had been beyond his ability to control, so I broke out a list-by-challenge-rating from the back of my 3rd Edition D&D Monster Manual and suggested that we only pick randomly from the ones of CR1 and under. (For non-RPGers, this means ordinary humanoids and small-to-medium beasts.)

He had started out building Thor and Iron Man, before the rest of us convinced him that this game was fantasy, not supers. It still gave me ideas.

As an example of my adventure encounter design:

The "temple quarter" of our City of Adventure.

I tossed three dice onto a small sheet of paper. They just happened to land in a triangle. So I drew three temples - Thor, god of dwarves, Yavanna, goddess of halflings, and Fharlangn, god of travellers. In the crossroads is a plinth (a word I had to define for my high-school-age players) containing a stone statue that looks like Iron Man.

See? Free association for the win.

Our characters:

• Rylie Asgard, female Tiefling Bard. charisma +2, Swindle +1, Underground Connections +1, Cane Sword +2, Keen Hearing +1, Manipulation +1. Mysterious and larcenous type who we agreed had been arrested and "agreed" to join the Guard for the remission of her sentence.
• Twilight Glowstone, half-elf female sorceror. Socializing +1, Creativity +2, Distraction +1, Chaos +1, Spells +2. Cheerful, flashy magician type.
• Albertie, human sorceror/fighter with magical pack of monster-summoning cards. Archer +2, Fighter +2, Basketball +1, Music +1, Dance +1, and Actor +1. (We compromised on a popular fantasy sport to be named later, though allowing him to change these is another option.)

Twilight's pic, on back of character
sheet. I gave her player extra XP.

Once they built their characters, they all met up in the break room of what I call The Queen's Own Troubleshooters and described to them as the Royal Guard SWAT team. Their first NPC encounter was with the commander of the team:

"Imagine a Marine DI in medieval armour, shouting in your face."

I've used him before, and while he's long been nameless, I have been reading Tanya Huff's Confederation military sci-fi series this week. When I discovered Torin can also be a male name (it means "Chieftain" in Irish Gaelic) I decided to name him after the heroine, Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr.

When the Yugi-oh player wandered off to talk with a friend, I decided not to wait for him. Time was pressing, and we'd already spent too much time character-building. In came the sergeant. "ON YOUR FEET, soldiers! There's an animated statue running around the Religious Quarter, HANDLE IT!"

I was gratified that one of the players stiffened to attention. Off they went, and I described their entry into the encounter area. The Temple of Thor I described as of classic church style, heavy stone and a steeple. The Temple of Yavanna was a food hall bustling with halflings, or would be if everyone wasn't hiding. And the Temple of Fharlangn was basically a coaching inn.

With a little prodding, Twilight approached the Yavannans, who looked the most welcoming and had a worried halfling out front beckoning to them. She explained that the statue on the central plinth had suddenly, inexplicably animated, and had wandered down the southeast road towards the Thorian cemetery. Rylie wandered towards the cemetery and heard shuffling and thumping noises. They investigated, and found that, on the northwest-facing side of the triangle, there was no gate. Rylie immediately squirmed under the fence (I did not allow her to use an "Underground Connections" bonus, but it was a nice try), while Twilight found the locked, iron, barred, spiked gate on the side facing the Temple of Thor. I loosely sketched it and their positions, as well as the shuffling noise of the animated statue in the far corner. They could not see it, as there were lots of headstones, sarcophagi, etc in the way.

The encounter area - the cemetery
attached to the temple of Thor.

At this point, Albertie's player returned. He was a little stunned when I announced he had been in the latrine, missed the mission briefing, and the Sergeant was now hollering at him to get down to the Religious Quarter, "ON THE DOUBLE, MISTER!"

He talked to the priest of Thor, learning more about the situation and directions to the cemetery gate. He and Twilight used magic to melt the lock. Unfortunately by the time they had it open, Rylie had crept far enough into cemetery to find the monster, and when it roared and advanced, she panicked a bit. When her spells failed to affect it, she tried using her Tiefling ability to gather darkness about her and hide, but a bad roll caused it to fizzle. So instead, she ran for the gate, just as her companions were coming through.

There was a tangled tussle, characters grappled and threw each other, and the monster kept on coming towards them. At this point, a coworker called to warn me it was time to be on desk, and the fighter's player said he had to leave.

The session ended without a conclusion as I abruptly announced that the mobile statue had suddenly spouted its own darkness spell and escaped. I then informed the players that their characters would return to base to report what had happened to their sergeant - but told them to add either a new skill at +1 or +1 to any skill, as XP. Twilight's player got two, partly for great roleplaying and partly because she'd drawn her character on the back of her mini-character sheet.

Whether they all come back next week, it was a fine test of the concept of quick-build, quick-play. It wasn't a good idea to break off mid-encounter, but we spent only about half our time on the actual adventure. I only hope the XP was enough to make them want to come back and see what happens next.

If not, I've just discovered that Florida commemorates Confederate History Month in April (!?!) and I have half a mind to run the Battery Wagner game I've been planning, with a little, ahem, pre-lecture on how black troops fought like mad for freedom and democracy...

Somewhere in Turkestan

Recalling that it's possible to play The Sword and the Flame on a small scale, I divided up the smallish units from the Wofun Great Game collection. I just finished Peter Hopkirk's classic history of the period, and like I hoped it has provided some inspiration. For one thing, I learned that the Turcomans provided were enemies of the Russians well into the 1880s, which means they can be enemies on the tabletop.

The Western side is two half-units of Russian infantry, plus a mounted commander, and half a unit of Cossacks. These count as Egyptians. They must march through Book Valley, wondering all the while if Turcoman locals (counting as Pathans) will pop up on the hills to attack.

For solo-game purposes, I'm using Mr. Babbage's rules from The Men Who Would Be Kings. This means that the enemy (four Turcoman half-units) will not appear right away, but the Russkies will roll for their appearance every turn.

Given the relatively high movement rates of TSATF and my small table. I used cm instead of inches. This proved a mistake.

Turn 1: The Russian, under Lt. Rosskov, enter the Valley of Books. All is silent.

Turn 2: The Russians head towards the center of the valley. A squad of Turcoman rifles appears in front of the Cossacks, who fire a volley of carbines to kill one of the enemy. The Turcomans (-men?) slink back into the rocks.

I finally added some Agrax Earthshade to figure edges.

Turn 3: As the Cossacks ride on, twenty more Turcoman rifles appear on the hill to their right, barely in carbine range. The Cossacks pick off another. One of the local units charges (but rolls a 4 for stragglers, leaving five men to reach six Cossacks). The other fires over their heads as they close, killing one Cossack. In CC the Cossacks handily defeat all their opponents (it helps that they win ties). The stragglers fade back into the rocks. Another Turcoman unit appears ahead of the slowly marching infantry, advances to short range and exchanges fire. One native and three Russians fall. The Russian infantry fail their morale check and stop short.

Turn 4: The Cossacks turn about and charge. So does the Russian officer, whilst the infantry move up and spread into line. More Turcoman rifles appear behind them, though they kill two with a hasty volley as the Cossacks (again) wipe the board with their opponents. In return, Turcoman fire kills three more Russian infantry - the survivors retreat and form up with the other half-unit.

I ended the game here, on the grounds that the Russian expedition had been decimated without getting far at all. The Cossacks skirmish to hold off the Turcomans on the hills while their infantry beat a hasty retreat.

It may be obvious at this point that I haven't played TSATF in a while. I elided over the more complex rules, out of laziness. I didn't have a ruler so used one of the measuring DBA measuring sticks (4cm per section). I mostly used the Quick Play rules charts inside the covers, so retreat and morale, for example, were mostly based on what Featherstone calls "military possibilities." The game was quite loose, and I gave up with the Russians barely onto the table because it was obvious that the Turcomans weren't going away! The Cossacks were twice victorious, but they surely couldn't hold off all the locals...

A mix of TSATF and Babbage, loosely played, still made for a fun game. This is one of the useful things about solo play - you can do what feels right in the moment.

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.

Roleplaying Methods for Beginners, and Thoughts on Programming

So, my attempt at using RPG methods to run a wargame for beginners didn't work out too well. This appears to have been because of confused expectations on the part of new players. I still intend to try the rules solo, as I won't have complaints or arguments. (This is not to say that the complaints or arguments were a bad thing! I made sure to tell the teens that afterward - that it was a playtest, and that I genuinely appreciated their feedback.)

I intended it as a testbed and taster for the weekly RPG I intend to run in summer. Several years ago, using free kriegspiel was successful, but these aren't the same kids or quite the same environment. I'm undecided whether to run FKR at this point (easier for me and any substitute GMs) or something with greater structure and granularity to excite the teens and get them to come to the next session to use their levelled-up stats.

Friday, the American Library Association Gamer Round Table had a short webinar on quick-and-simple RPGs for library programmers. I missed it, but excellent timing anyway, as just this week, I received the PDF version of a new edition of the book that got me started on that first campaign, Xtreme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy Hickman. 

I initially used the ruleset in the first book, eventually converting it to a set inspired by XDM and written by Andrei Baltakmens of the RPG Tinkerage blog. The Hickman rules have changed a bit and are slightly more granular - thus possibly more appealing to teens who, like my players last week, wanted greater specificity in their rules.

The book itself, while retaining the humor, is less wacky and better arranged, partly by putting the tables and over-the-top bits in the appendix. The sections on designing and running a game have been significantly expanded, technical aspects are updated, and there is an extremely useful added portion on making the game accessible, comfortable and safe for "nontraditional" players.

The rules are also better arranged - particularly the character sheet, which was barebones in the first book but now has sections for things like equipment, skills and background. It's also a more traditional "roll-over a target number and add your stat" thing (the three stats range from 1-8) and has more guidance and examples for the XDM. I will try it. My hope is to playtest some roleplaying rulesets and settle on one before the official weekly program starts in June, and I'm lucky to have a tolerant YouMedia staff and two potential backup gamemasters for emergencies.

What I do have to be careful about is making time for the playtesting. I was unable to run Dragon Rampant on Thursday because the day's schedule was already set in stone and I was on desk at the best time to play with the teens (4:30 to 6, it seems). I'll have to make sure that I'm free more often at that time for such impromptu games, and I have selected it for the registered programs. It was encouraging to know they wanted to play again, but discouraging to disappoint them - though when I poked my nose in the door of the teen space I found them making their own card standups of Warhammer Fantasy Skaven! So on Friday I brought in a few old Warhammer army books to whet their appetites. I have a couple Fantasy starter boxes that would be good for giveaways, game experiments and possibly painting-program test subjects.

This post was supposed to just be about the rules I was thinking of using, but at least that dovetails with other aspects of programming. I've two sets in mind at the moment - Gateway and my own "hack" of  Baltakmens' work.

Gateway is a free cut-down version of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - it really retains only the skills, and uses the Advantage/Disadvantage system for adjudication. For those unfamiliar with DnD, this is a simplification of earlier rules which provided specific bonuses and detriments for specific circumstances: -2 for dim light, +2 for having masterwork tools, and the like. Instead, you roll your normal check with a D20, but include an extra D20 and choose either the highest or lowest score, depending on whether you are at an advantage or disadvantage. So character creation is fairly simple - you enter pluses and minuses on the character sheet to, for example, note that your Wizard has Advantage on Magic and Lore checks, but Disadvantage on Melee and Survival checks. Play involves no math - no addition and subtraction of skills, stats and equipment bonuses.

In the past, I've found that new players still struggle to build their first character, even though it's just selecting skills or abilities to give pluses or minuses, and devising starter characters beforehand is better. The reason I'm considering it is that my teens prefer games where they can level up, and it is easy to improve a character quickly by selecting new skills to have Advantage on, or Disadvantages to erase. It's relatively simplistic and openly designed not as a long-term campaign game, but as a "gateway" to more complex games. This is why it deliberately uses the simplest DnD mechanic, but there remains room for tinkering.

My other tentative set is the one mentioned above, a one-page, 500-word "hack" of Andrei Baltakmens' work. I haven't actually run it, but I've been writing and rewriting it off and on for several years, and it would be a good idea to actually playtest it before it becomes a mess, as things you rewrite over and over tend to do. I also condensed it into 200- and 100-word versions; you'll find the 100-word version here.

Jennifer's version of XD20

Like XD20, there are three stats, which I've named more clearly as Physical, Mental and Spiritual. I've also added two elements from the Fantasy Flight Warhammer 40,000 RPGs I was reading at the time: Corruption and Sanity mechanics, and a drastically simplified crit chart:

Roll a D10:

• 1-3: minor injury - bruising, scratches, etc.
• 4-6: major injury - bleeding, lost extremities etc.
• 7-9: critical injury - bleeding out, lost limbs, etc. At DM's discretion, roll to stay conscious or alive.
• 10: dead.

The corruption and sanity can be left out (except perhaps for Halloween sessions?), while for gritty games the crit chart can change to 7-8 crit injury, 9 dead, 10 messily dead, as in the 40K games. So basically a combination of Baltakmen's own very useful Rough Chances chart, Dark Heresy, Tristat, and DnD, suitable for quick creation and beginner play in any genre (though I'll stick to generic fantasy for now).

Which will I use? No idea at this point. Still hoping to get a wargame in next week, and after that I'll try to playtest simple RPGs and poll the players on what they think works. Wish me luck!

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?

Free Kriegspiel Fantasy Wargaming

 I'm now actively planning some fantasy roleplay and figure-painting at work, with the help of the teen tech lab. While the programs won't be until summer, and I can't even advertise them until graphics sends me back some posters, I still intend to tease the game with some lite, impromptu gaming. Happily, Peter Dennis has published a small selection of fantasy figures to go with his Russian-fantasy mutants. I received a copy of Daniel Mersey's Dragon Rampant this week, which I will try with these figures. But for promotion with the teens, I'll make it simple and use some of the same rules as I'll be using in my Dungeons-and-Dragons pastiche.

A phalanx of goblins supported by skirmishers with spear and bow:

Will invade the Moot to face off against hobbits halflings:

Backed by Men of the Forest:

I haven't run fantasy battles with free-kriegspiel before, but I intend to do it as I did an 18th-century game last year, possibly with FUDGE dice. Another post will discuss the simple RPG rules I intend for my summer campaign.

My cat keeps stepping on the keyboard as I try to finish, so will stop here for now. Hopefully I will have a battle report next week!

Solo Over the Hills and Far Away

I was browsing the Solo Wargaming Facebook group recently and spotted a post by Ian D. Denyer. He is experimenting with using elements from a Jim Wallman ruleset solo here. That reminded me of Wallman's Over the Hills and Far Away, which I've always wanted to try.

A few generations removed. There are many versions
of the classic song; my favorite is by Connie Dover.

Since I won't have a chance to run it with my own group anytime soon, maybe ever, I'm going to try to run it solo. It's more role-playing game than wargame, so this is tricky, but the "character-building" aspect is one of the things I've always loved about RPGs. There will probably be more focus on the regiment and combat than on the social stuff ... unless commenters want to chime in and make suggestions for the other non-player-character colonels! I feel as though the social element of the game might even work best over play-by-post or play-by-email; only the battles need to be at the table.

There are similarities to Glory:1861 here, though that is less social and delves deeper into the specifics of the regiment's size and training, in ways that Over the Hills glosses over. Over the Hills leans more towards the RPG side of things, while Glory:1861 leans towards the wargame side. Of course this means I should be doing Glory:1861 too (which I intend) and that it would probably be a better solo subject. But we've already seen how much of a hobby butterfly I am. I've effectively promised to try For Whom the Dice Rolls (Spanish Civil War) and Test of Resolve (War of the Roses). Next week then... Toy soldiers, being lead, pewter or bright plastic, are perhaps best suited to the "Ooh, shiny!" meme.

So to start:

• Colonels are already "persons of note;" in this era, they couldn't otherwise have the influence to be colonels in the first place. So my Colonel is Sir John Stanley, of Bordeaux Hall in the County of Cornwall.
• Roll for age - 20+D20: 30. Middling.
• Roll for married status, 5+ on D6: 4. He's a bachelor.
• Roll for political status, 5+ on D6: 3. He's no MP, yet!
• Political party - I could choose, but I'll toss for it - 1-3 Whig, 4-6 Tory. 1, so he's a Whig.

• He starts with a fortune of 1000+(d6x100) pounds. I rolled a 4, so £1,400 in the bank. I can spend up to 1,000 on "Political Influence Points" at 10 pounds a PIP. The catch being that these are mostly used against your fellow players, and I haven't any. I'd choose an average amount, but I don't know what that would be; I'll roll D100 for it. I rolled 52, so I spend £520, leaving me with 880 to spend on ... stuff, and I have 52 PIP. That seems an awful lot, given that there is little to spend PIP on other than screwing over your fellow Colonels, trying to become an MP and getting married. Since I am neither of the latter two, those will probably be my goals for the campaign beyond just going to exotic places and killing people. It costs a surprising lot to build and train a regiment, though, and my fortune has been reduced by more than a third to get this far. Of course, I don't have to be one of those conscientious colonels...

• Not being able to bid on my regiment number against other players, I'll just dice for it at D20+2: 8. I command the 8th Regiment of Foot, the Wessex Regiment. Just to give myself other regiments to compete against (and use in battle), I'll roll for three more: 16th, 12th, and 4th. Well, the commander of the 4th is senior to me.

My men are paid at the rate of 10 pounds per company per month. My colonel gets 20 pounds a month for his own expenses.

Unless I spend PIP or gain lots of glory overseas, I can't have a Royal regiment, so blue is out for a facing. I'll take white. A full ten companies is represented in-game by four bases:

Took a couple tries; at 18mm scale it's really easy to miss if figures
are facing the wrong way! But they really are beautiful up close.

My brand new regiment begins with the following statistics:

• Drill - 1
• Musketry - 1
• Effectiveness - 1

It is difficult to improve these, but easy for them to get worse, so training (especially drill) is essential. Players must spend turns (months) training a unit in order for it to not deteriorate, and may roll a 6 on a d6 to improve by one point. If the Colonel focuses on one aspect, that aspect may roll a 5+ to improve. Of course, this also costs money (for powder, etc), and at some point Sir John will have to spend turns transacting business in London.

I'll start with six months to test the training mechanism. This will give me £1000 to work with. As for other "social" activities... I'll randomize, like so:

D6 roll: 4. The fourth month will feature a social event. Choosing between generic socializing, ball, racing, or wedding, I toss a D4: 2. Second option, there's a ball. D3: 1, it is given by the Colonel of the 4th Regiment. I shall have to attend.

• January, 174-: Train in Drill and Musketry (Effectiveness ie Maneuvres costs a lot!), with Colonel Stanley focusing on Drill. Cost: £30. Both rolls failed.
• February, 174-: Train Drill and Musketry, with Colonel Stanley focusing on Musketry. Cost: £30. Both rolls failed.
• March, 174-: Train all three attributes, with Colonel Stanley focusing on Effectiveness. Cost: £80. All three rolls failed! That's me out £140, but at least Sir John is keeping his lads in shape. He will, however, visit the nearest gaming den to obtain new dice.
• April, 174-: I shall attend, of course, as I must ingratiate myself with my potential brigade commander (let's call him Sir Quartus Smith-Masterson). The other two will attend on rolls of 4+. The colonel of the 16th attends, that of the 12th is on his own affairs. At least I rolled higher than a three this time! Smith-Masterson, of course, spends £10 on his ball - the next must cost more, to upstage him. Because the colonel of the 12th is the only one not attending, he loses 10 PIP. I have no idea how many he has to start with, but we'll factor that in later.
• Remember, I am looking to find a wife. The lady most obviously available would be Sir Quartus' daughter, Quartina, and I'd like to be "in" with my senior in the service. Let's roll her stats:
• Influence: 1. He must have lots of children.
• Dowry: 6x100 - £600. Tempting. Given the other stats, her parents must be desperate to marry her off.
• Housekeeping: 1. This is how many pounds per month she saves through good management. She must not have learned her sums.
• Star Quality: 2. A multiplier to the PIP earned from any ball she hosts. Speaking of which, I imagine her mother is hosting tonight: 6! A stunning, vivacious lady (surprising, given how many kids she's had) who gains Sir Quartus 30 PIP! I only get five for attending... plus six for Lady Smith-Masterson.
• Given her daughter's low influence, I can give up four PIP to roll on the rightmost column of the chart. With a 2, she is Mildly Interested. We'll see what happens at the next ball...

I entered "18th century rich young lady"
into an art algorithm, and this is what I got.
It's fun to play with, but not always accurate.

• May, 174-: Supervising my regiment in Drill and Musketry once more (very enthusiastic soldier, I am), and focusing on Drill: 4 and 4. <sigh>
• June, 174-: One more go, this time looking over the shoulders of the musketeers and rolling yet another die: 6! And 4. Up to 2 in Drill.

Oh, but I spent one month NOT drilling, so must roll to not have my troops forget what they've learned. And... a one!

After the first six months, my regiment has not improved beyond the start and I have spent two hundred pounds on them. This soldiering lark is expensive! I am at least up to 63 PIP.

Next time, maybe I'll try a small expedition against rebels or rioters.